[FGO]: 126

The cleanup was completed quickly.

In the end, a few unfortunate soldiers were killed in battle. A dozen or so Kabane were trapped inside a warehouse, and one soldier was knocked down as soon as he opened the door. Although these Kabane were quickly killed by the soldiers who rushed in, the injured soldier's throat had already been bitten through, and it was clear he wouldn't survive.

A similar situation occurred twice more, resulting in a total of four soldier deaths. Despite this, the morale of the troops did not falter. Even before joining the army, they had already come to terms with such outcomes.

Moreover, Ryou's troops not only had strong faith but also a series of guarantees in place to ensure that soldiers could fight without worry. If injured, the church would take care of them; if killed in battle, their families would be given a corresponding area of land based on the soldier's rank and achievements. With no worries and the belief that fallen soldiers would go to heaven, why wouldn't they fight with all their might?

However, simply cleaning up wasn't enough. Soon, transport ships that had been following the fleet docked and began unloading large amounts of construction equipment and building materials, such as cement. A week later, the entire dock was surrounded by a layer of simple walls. Using the dock area as a stronghold, Ryou's soldiers began advancing step by step along the coastline. They quickly advanced to capital.

To their surprise, the capital was surrounded by a tall wall. However, while this wall could stop the Kabane, it couldn't withstand the heavy guns of the warships.

To the northwest of the city, a river flows directly into the sea. Ryou immediately ordered the fleet to detour and enter through the river mouth, approaching the capital. The narrowest part of this river, connecting to the sea, is nearly 500 meters wide. Although it couldn't accommodate a super battleship like the Yamato, a heavy cruiser weighing over ten thousand tons would have no problem. Thus, with mischievous intent, Ryou had the heavy cruiser lead the way into the river, heading straight for Capital City.

Diplomacy first, then force. He ordered several priests accompanying the army to take turns shouting, demanding that the city open its gates and surrender. These priests were proficient in Mandarin and could speak fluently. This was entirely due to his strict orders. To improve the overall competence of his subordinates, multiple foreign languages were included in job evaluations. According to his orders, in the future, any clerical personnel advancing to the rank of priest or above must be proficient in five languages: Japanese, Mandarin, English, Russian, and German.

Faced with the call to surrender, the defenders naturally refused. Not only did they refuse to surrender, but they also fired cannons from the city walls at the Takao. However, most of the shells fell into the water, despite the Takao being less than ten kilometers from the wall. Such poor artillery skills were truly unheard of.

Seeing this, Ryou shook his head.

With a command from him, the Takao opened fire, and 203mm high-explosive shells rained down on the city walls. Although the Takao was manually operated and not as precise as the Yamato, hitting a stationary target within ten kilometers was an easy task. Soon, the gun emplacements on the city walls were blown into the sky one by one. The city soldiers huddled in the corners like quails, too scared to come forward.

Then Ryou flew into the sky and slashed open the sluice gate with a single sword. The soldiers on the fleet raised their hands high and cheered fanatically. In contrast, the morale of the city soldiers plummeted to rock bottom. This seemingly solid city was easily breached two hours later, with 30,000 city soldiers surrendering to Ryou's 5,000 Crusaders.

It's worth mentioning that the lord of the city turned out to be a prince. He tried to atone by apologizing and offering money and women, which made Ryou chuckle wryly. It seemed that in their eyes, he had become a pirate. When I unify the world, will I end up becoming a Pirate King? Ryou couldn't help but be amused in his heart.

Looking at the so-called prince in front of him, with his greasy, obviously overindulgent, and chubby face, Ryou felt a wave of disgust. Such a cowardly and incompetent person didn't even pique his interest in killing him. Just as he waved his hand to have the soldiers take him away, the man suddenly revealed some information that piqued his interest.

"You're saying that your Emperor is also on the Island?"

Ryou narrowed his eyes, and a terrifying aura pressed down on the chubby prince like a mountain. Even battle-hardened elites couldn't withstand his aura, let alone a prince who was just waiting to die. The man was so scared that he wet his pants on the spot and stammered.

"E-e-every word I say is true!"

"Back then, those zombies were brought by the foreign from the sea. In less than half a year, half of our territory had fallen. The emperor, um, fled in panic, escaping from the capital by sea and eventually arriving here."

Ryou was speechless. According to this man, the Emperor had fled the country in panic, abandoning it when the Kabane was still ravaging the Eurasia River.

The Crusaders who entered the city immediately occupied key positions, such as the armory and granaries. Then, the priests accompanying the army began to calm the populace and issue new laws.

At first, the citizens of the city were somewhat fearful of this group of Crusaders. But over time, they found that the Crusaders' discipline was far stricter than the city soldiers'. Coupled with the priests' widespread promotion of Christianity, the people gradually began to accept Ryou and Christianity.

The Capital City had a total population of 500,000, while Yokosuka had barely grown to over 300,000 by now. This large population was a valuable asset that needed careful management.

Due to language barriers, it would take Ryou much longer to assimilate the entire city than it did with Japan. However, that wasn't an issue. Conquest wars are like rolling a snowball; it's hard at first, but the bigger it gets, the easier it is to roll. So the early stages are crucial. He would rather take his time to ensure a steady advance. After all, he had plenty of time, and a cautious approach would be more secure.

Meanwhile, those forces in Japan that he was wary of were also temporarily quiet, as they were busy devouring each other's territories.

...

Six months later, thanks to his persistent efforts, the entire region was completely under his control.

Now, there was only one religion left in the city: the Christian Religion.

In this post-apocalyptic world, only those with tangible power can survive in the long term. It was evident that other religions without extraordinary power had no resistance against the Christian Religion led by him.

Ryou didn't even need to issue orders to persecute heretics. As soon as followers of other religions saw the strength of the Christian Religion, they quickly converted and joined it.

In Yokosuka, after relocating about 100,000 people to taiwan, the pressure on land in Yokosuka was greatly reduced.

Although the population decreased, the increase in population under his rule led Ryou to expand his army once again.

With fervent faith and generous enlistment conditions, the number of people signing up for the military far exceeded expectations within just a week.

Currently, his forces included 10,000 naval personnel, 20,000 reservists, and an army of 20,000 after selectively absorbing troops, with another 10,000 in reserve.

Meanwhile, military operations continued.

During these six months, Yamato and Shimakaze-chan were assigned by Ryou to patrol the entire Island. Occasionally, they would approach the shore, use decoy shells to lure out a large number of Kabane, and then send them off to heaven with the 520mm Equalizer Cannon.

Thanks to their relentless efforts over these six months, the number of Kabane in the wild on Islands decreased by 60%, with over a million Kabane being dispatched by the 520mm triple-mounted cannon.

As a result, Yamato achieved a hidden accomplishment, gloriously upgrading her skill, Equalizer Under One Cannon, into a growth-type skill. After exterminating another one or two hundred million Kabane, this skill could grow to an A-level.

The sole function of this skill is to increase damage against humanoid creatures.

Perhaps when Yamato upgrades to the level of a space battleship, blasting Gatia to death in one shot might not be just a dream.

The reason only two battleships were deployed is that Ryou currently had an abundance of energy points. Even in battles where he didn't personally take action, he still received a share of the energy when Kabane was killed. Although the two ship girls were frequently deployed, the more they fought, the more energy was accumulated.

On the contrary, high-quality fuel was scarce. Reluctantly, such a strategy was decided upon, deploying only the two ship girls powered by magic crystals.

Keep in mind that after conquering the entire nearby Island, the entire Southeast Asia would need to be attacked, which would involve massive fuel consumption.

Since Ryou occupied Taiwan, the other city had frequently sent troops to harass the area.

But when Yamato was deployed, she didn't do anything else—just outside the city, she first used decoy shells to attract tens of thousands of Kabane.

Then, she fired the main cannon, blowing the Kabane to pieces.

After leaving behind dozens of craters resembling the surface of the moon, the Yamato left in triumph.

After repeating this several times, most of the Kabane between the capital city and the other city was wiped out and they no longer sent anyone to attack them.

But they also sent a large pile of jewels and grain as a gift of greeting to him.

Ryou accepted the gifts with a smile and then continued to prepare for the attack, just as he had planned.

...

Meanwhile, far away in Japan, the father and son of the Amatori family were locked in a fierce battle, fighting each other as if they wouldn't stop until one was victorious.

What was absurd was that their mode of warfare involved using Hayajiro, turning the railway into a battleground for guerrilla warfare.

This wasn't entirely their fault, though. The father was a coward who didn't deploy large numbers of troops, while the son was brave and bold but lacked sufficient forces and equipment.

Located in Hokkaido, the Emperor having tasted success, ordered his Army to advance southwards.

In the early stages, with the help of vast military forces and poison bombs, progress was swift, and one city after another was captured.

However, after the Emperor began showing his brutal and bloodthirsty nature without restraint, several feudal lords formed a large alliance, united under the banner of opposing the tyrant, to resist the Emperor's Army's advance.

The Emperor's Army's offensive was soon halted.

With such a massive hindrance, even the shrewd Princess Sakura couldn't save the situation.

After six months of preparation, Ryou tightly connected two enclaves thousands of miles apart through faith.

With the timing ripe, he immediately launched an attack by land and sea.

Caught completely off guard, Taiwan fell within half a day.

The Emperor was brought before him by one of his generals.

Looking at the unlucky, miserable emperor in front of him, Ryou ordered him to publicly announce his conversion to Catholicism, and declare it the state religion of the country.

Whether it was due to the ups and downs of his life, the emperor surprisingly agreed to all of his demands after only asking to live out the rest of his life in peace.

Ryou could see that the emperor was genuinely disheartened and, since he still needed his name to peacefully unify the country, he agreed to all of his requests.

With an edict from the emperor sent to the capital, the prince guarding the city, as expected, rebelled.

He directly accused the emperor of violating ancestral traditions, claiming that the fall of the country was entirely the emperor's fault.

This reaction didn't surprise Ryou at all.

From the emperor's demeanor, he could tell that he had very little authority or desire for power, practically a puppet emperor.

Such an ambitious and disloyal person was not someone he would keep around, so he found an excuse to have him executed.

The prince occupying a city did have some skill.

Somehow, he had acquired a large number of naval mines and laid them outside the Harbor, blocking the waterways completely.

Then, in a sinister move, he used hundreds of people as bait to attract nearly 100,000 Kabane.

If Ryoy chose to bypass the area, the marching distance would be greatly extended, and without the support of naval artillery, navigating the complex mountainous terrain would put his soldiers at risk of being wiped out by the Kabane, no matter how many troops he led.

So, he could only choose to break through the road and launch a direct attack on the city.

This was exactly what he wanted.

Schemes and plots are desperate measures taken in times of weakness.

The true path is to crush the enemy with overwhelming force.

Although the enemy had some cunning, it was no match for his supernatural assets, like the ship girls.