Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1754 Investigation
Actively annihilating the enemy but recklessly advancing and losing contact with the rear—only combat heroes will be rewarded, while the commander will be criticized.

Even if the tactics are unfavorable, if crucial tactical reconnaissance is conducted, then the entire unit will not be blamed.

Not all units in the royal army are "special forces." The fundamental premise for exercising initiative on the battlefield is to ensure the completion of one's own mission.

Armored infantry sometimes have to defend the front line, and in these situations, the most important thing is, of course, to hold the line and not move. This is crucial.

Because if all the units at the front line move around randomly like jelly, then the front line can be easily breached.

Armored infantry do have flexibility in defense, but generally they won't retreat too far.

Of course, the imperial army also suffered defeats. But as mentioned before, no amount of enemy casualties can atone for such a defeat. Unless, during the defeat, reconnaissance was conducted and crucial intelligence was discovered, such a defeat cannot be judged as "cowardice" or "lack of competence," but simply a problem with tactical arrangements. In that case, it's not a problem at the front lines, but a problem with superiors.

The royal army may suffer tactical setbacks, but it must ultimately win the war.

In short, the king's army's "acknowledgment of the existence of the fog of war" means that it acknowledges the possibility of defeat. It is precisely because the king's army acknowledges the possibility of defeat that it was able to ultimately win.

"If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be 'courage'," Shangluo concluded. "I don't think that should be a problem for you."

"We are unstoppable! Those fallen immortals will surely be annihilated!"

“Very good, you have enough courage, and that is exactly the task I have assigned to you. Do you know why I am introducing you to the tactics of the royal army? It is because I trust you very much, so I think you can understand the next level of elements. The deeper level of courage is wisdom and benevolence. Both of these are very important.”

"Please show me."

“We acknowledge that we may fail, and this requires not only tactical initiative but also a broader perspective – for example, that you are important.”

He looked at everyone and said, “You are all born of fathers and mothers, and you have more important things to do. So don’t sacrifice your lives casually. Assess the situation and prioritize intelligence gathering. Defeating the enemy can be left to long-range firepower. Don’t be greedy for battle merits; obtaining information is merit in itself.”

Shangluo said those things because he saw that these people were overly excited.

Mere bravery is meaningless when fighting the Romans. As seen in the previous video, the Romans were truly invincible.

Even courage forged under the true banner of righteousness cannot compare to a bunch of puppets that can be resurrected on a timer. Because true courage is simply fearlessness. Ordinary people need mental preparation to be unafraid of death, but the Romans were naturally immortal, so of course they weren't afraid. This doesn't even qualify as courage; it's more like "grouping up for a team battle in a sand city"—it's not like they're actually dying.

In this situation, using the soldiers' courage to fight against this kind of "undying army in a sand city" is truly wasting the soldiers' courage like mud and sand.

After all, they were warriors selected from the best of the best in the lower realms. Shangluo hoped that they could be used for a wider range of purposes in the future, rather than being wiped out as a suicide squad in a single military operation.

Therefore, Shangluo would not arrange for them to carry out a decapitation operation. It was unnecessary; the Roman army could not be defeated by decapitation alone. The Romans had countless methods of resurrection, and even decapitation would not break their command chain, because even if they were sent to a resurrection loop, they could still remotely control the operation during the resurrection intervals. In this situation, the battle line became crucial—the most important tactic to suppress these undead armies was to compress their battle lines.

Just like how they squeezed themselves to death in the basement before, being able to refresh and revive doesn't mean that being revived is useful.

Modern armies cannot win by simply punching and kicking; firepower needs to be deployed and mobilized to be effective.

In other words, as long as the Romans are forced into a continuous retreat, unable to deploy or unleash their firepower, then even if they were immortal, they would be of no use.

While team fights in the Sand City don't require courage—you can just go in after respawning—the situation changes if you get killed and your equipment drops.

As long as the Romans' battle lines continue to retreat, preventing them from gathering their equipment, they will eventually have no choice but to fight the royal army with their bare teeth.

That's more like a zombie crisis—Shangluo is quite looking forward to seeing how these zombie-like Romans will fare against directional mines and machine guns.

Let me start by saying that even the Roman immortal army couldn't repeatedly resurrect in a short period of time. If they had, you've seen the consequences.

"I suddenly remembered something. Was there a condition for building that respawn point?"

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. The fundamental principle behind warrior resurrection is the use of Mithra's divine power—because the invincible sun Mithra's temple is always located underground. This is why the resurrection points you saw earlier were built in basements; it's a basic element. All the resurrection points you see in open-world combat, even mobile ones, must be located underground; they must be buried in a pit.

This also means that the space is limited and the soil layer is very pressure resistant.

If they were inside a truck, reviving too many people might crush the truck. But if they were underground, reviving too many people in a short period of time would likely lead to a repeat of the previous scene of people piled on top of each other.

On the other hand, the repeated deaths in a short period of time can be psychologically traumatic. Because being able to be resurrected means there will be no pain.

Being killed by an aerial bomb is instantaneous, but being killed by incendiary bombs or similar weapons, and dying repeatedly, would cause serious injury to anyone. The royal army particularly favored using incendiary bombs, possessing a full range of them, from individual soldier bombs to aerial bombs.

So, were you prepared in advance to make the Romans suffer a painful death, so painful that they would go mad and be unable to continue fighting?

"How would I know?" Shang Luo really couldn't say whether this was a premeditated move, but the royal army had indeed always liked to use incendiary weapons, which was indeed a tradition that had existed since ancient times.

"I hope these Romans will back down when things get tough. If it turns into a zombie apocalypse, I reckon their mental state won't be much better than the zombies'. Such a serious illness will probably be hard to cure then."

(End of this chapter)