The wicked female is extremely fierce, but she's pampered by her seven beast husbands.

Chapter 282 Prisoner of War Resettlement
When Ling Chengen woke up again, the sun was already setting.

After getting out of bed barefoot, she went straight to the window and looked at the setting sun. For a moment, she couldn't tell whether she was in her previous life or in the world of beasts.

It's so quiet outside.

She leaned over the windowsill, resting her chin on her hand as she watched the sunset over the grassland, feeling the warm sunlight on her face and arms, and lazily yawned.

"woke up?"

Ling Chengen looked up at the courtyard gate. Chongzhen, dressed in a crimson robe and with a fiery red fox fur draped over his shoulders, blinked slowly twice, looked him up and down, and asked, "How did you manage to make your clothes red?"

"Stained with the enemy's blood." Chongzhen carried two food boxes, watching her, dressed in thin plain clothes, walk along the stone path in the courtyard into the house, place the food boxes on the rattan table, and glance at the empty room. "Did you sleep well?"

"I'm okay, my head doesn't hurt anymore."

Ling Chengen walked barefoot to the table, looked at it, and asked, "Is all this furniture newly made?"

"Yuheng made this temporarily, so just make do with it for now. It took quite a while to set up the furniture in this room, and we don't have time right now. We'll replace it slowly when we have more free time." Chongzhen brought out the kettle and poured her a cup of soy milk. "It's sweet, have some to tide you over."

Ling Chengen took a sip from the bamboo cup, looked at it with some surprise, and asked, "How long have I been asleep?"

“Four days,” Chongzhen replied calmly.

Ling Chengen was stunned for a long time, then put down his cup, looking somewhat bewildered: "How long?"

"Four days and four nights." Chongzhen said with a smile after setting out the dishes. "So, aren't you hungry? Let's eat first."

"What is the situation like after the war?"

Ling Chengen never expected that she would sleep for so long. She only felt mentally tired and physically exhausted, but she didn't think she would sleep for so long.

Chongzhen handed her the chopsticks, smiling as he said, "You really can't stay still for a moment..."

"You can eat while I talk."

Chongzhen told him about all the arrangements and schedules of the past few days, and then added, "We have received news that the hunting team will arrive in Beast City no later than the day after tomorrow."

Ling Chengen asked in confusion, "Shouldn't we go back to the Stone Forest first?"

Chongzhen shook his head and said, "Beast City needs soldiers to be stationed here. Our defenses are already weak, and it will take a day to get back to Stone Forest. We might as well come directly to Beast City."

"While the Uga tribe was besieging the city with its several thousand troops, two groups of wandering orcs launched night raids on the Stone Forest territory..."

Ling Chengen frowned and asked, "What about the casualties? How was the aftermath handled?"

Chongzhen: "Dozens of people were injured, but no one died."

Ling Chengen paused, his hand holding the cup still, and pondered, "Nearly 80% of the soldiers that Hanshan can mobilize have come to Beast City, so there shouldn't be any extra troops to support them..."

“They are warriors from Snake Mountain.” Chongzhen actually admired Chang Tianchen’s foresight. If it weren’t for his arrangements, Shilin’s rear would have suffered heavy losses this time. “The men that Chang Tianchen arranged that night happened to run into the infiltrated wandering orcs when they arrived.”

Ling Chengen reached out and rubbed his forehead: "I understand."

"What is the casualty situation in Beast City?"

Chongzhen sighed: "There are no casualties among the orcs staying in the city. However, less than 30% of the warriors who went out to fight that night died. Most of them died from inhaling too much smoke when the fire started and they couldn't escape in time."

"The rat tribe accounted for 70% of the casualties, and the rest were the orcs from the Stone Forest and the Herbalist tribe."

Ling Chengen asked in confusion, "Didn't we tell you beforehand to find a chance to leave immediately after setting the fire?"

Chongzhen shook his head and said, "Many died inside the tunnels because the high-level warriors damaged the terrain during their battle, causing many passages to collapse. Thick smoke poured into the tunnels along with the collapsed terrain, and the tunnels were too narrow, so the situation was very bad..."

After the fire was extinguished, Chongzhen led his men to clean up the battlefield and discovered the orcs who had suffocated in the tunnels. It was truly a shocking sight.

"Has the rat tribe been appeased?"

At the time, they only paid attention to the situation on the ground and thought that they could survive by hiding in the tunnel. They overlooked the fact that thick smoke was pouring in from the collapsed passage, which caused so many soldiers to choke to death.

Chongzhen nodded and said, "When we were cleaning up the battlefield, we separated all the bodies of our own people. Considering that a large number of bodies would breed disease if left for a long time, I ordered that all bodies must be cremated and buried after they are claimed."

"Because this requirement had been made before, it was not difficult to implement. The rat people initially had some objections, but when they saw that the people of Shilin also accepted cremation, they stopped making trouble."

"As for those corpses that were burned beyond recognition and whose identities could not be identified, they were all burned together and then placed in one place."

Ling Chengen asked, "We can't just bury ashes anywhere. Is there a plan for a burial site?" Chongzhen nodded and said, "I'll temporarily use that sunny hillside in the north of the city as a burial site for ashes."

"Didn't you mention before that plains are very suitable for growing crops?"

"After this fire, the problem of weeding has been solved. The remaining task is to plan the farmland and divide the land for each orc household to cultivate."

The original plan was to make specific plans during the cold season and then clear the land for planting after the snow melted.

Unexpectedly, plans changed and everything was brought forward.

"Have those large tribes on the south bank sent anyone to seize the city again?"

Chongzhen shook his head and said, "No, we made a name for ourselves in this battle."

"The Ujah tribe, a large tribe of tens of thousands of people, lost all its elite troops in this battle and suffered a severe blow. It will be difficult for them to recover for at least three to five years."

"And this battle was completely over in just one day."

"Even if other large tribes want to seize the city, they will have to reconsider."

"How many prisoners of war are there?" Ling Chengen asked.

Chongzhen sighed: "The number is not large, but it is not small either. There are about two thousand soldiers who surrendered voluntarily. More than a thousand of them were scattered and are currently fleeing westward. Searching for their whereabouts is very troublesome. In addition, we are short-handed, so we have not sent anyone to continue tracking them."

"There are a total of 2,467 prisoners of war. With so many people, feeding them every day is a big problem."

"So, I'd like to ask you how you plan to deal with these prisoners of war?"

Putting it back directly is definitely not an option.

If they were to release the prisoners of war they had painstakingly captured, it would be tantamount to giving the enemy the opportunity to rise again and continue harassing them.

However, with more than two thousand prisoners of war, the daily food consumption was considerable.

Ling Chengen tapped his fingertips lightly on the table a few times and said, "We can't just leave the prisoners of war hanging like this. We must not let them unite and be wary of them suddenly banding together to rebel."

“That would require more manpower to guard the city, and there might not be enough people to defend it,” Chongzhen said hesitantly.

"Should we kill them all?"

Chongzhen really doesn't want to use their own food to feed these useless idiots.

Ling Chengen shook his head and said, "We can't kill them all."

Because they certainly won't be fighting just this one battle. If they kill every enemy they encounter without giving them a chance to survive, their reputation will be completely ruined. When they encounter other enemies in the future, they will feel that surrendering is also a dead end, so they will definitely prefer to fight to the death and have a chance to survive.

"Don't feed them too much. Give them one meal a day, and only prepare enough food for 1,500 people. Then send them to train and clear land. Only those with the best training results and the largest cleared area are qualified to eat."

“Keep them so tired every day that they can’t do anything else. As for what to do next, I’ll give you a plan as soon as possible.”

Ling Chengen thought quickly and carefully, but because he had just woken up and had not yet personally inspected the prisoners of war, he could not make a specific judgment and could only make this arrangement for the time being.

Upon hearing this, Chongzhen's eyes lit up immediately: "Are we clearing the land now? We can't plant anything even if we clear it now..."

Ling Chengen said, "It's true that we can't plant it, but the spring planting season is too short. If the land is completely uncultivated, we won't be able to cultivate a large area in such a short time after the snow melts next year, which will delay the spring planting plan."

"If we clear the land first, it will save us a lot of trouble next spring. At least the land won't be as difficult to cultivate as it is now."

Ling Chengen drank a cup of soy milk and chatted with him until all the food on the table got cold, and she didn't touch a single bite.

After realizing this, Chongzhen planned to reheat the cold food, but Ling Chengen shook his head and said, "Never mind, I'll eat with you guys later. I drank two cups of soy milk, so I'm not that hungry anymore. Besides, I smell terrible, so I really can't eat."

Chongzhen was both amused and exasperated upon hearing this, and said, "Yuheng temporarily set up one of those hot water rooms at home, right behind your room. If you feel uncomfortable, go take a shower."

Ling Chengen told him to pick up the food, and without saying a word, he left the room and went to the back of the house.

Actually, she should have been cleaned while she was asleep, but perhaps to avoid waking her, the cleaning was rather hasty, and she could even faintly smell the stench on her body.

Just as she was taking a bath, a giant moon-feathered blue crane flew over the Xue Mu River. In the afterglow of the evening, it looked at the vast plain that had been burned to ashes and the Sen Sen Beast City sitting on it. It felt very unfamiliar and a little lost, but it still gracefully landed in front of the gate of the Beast City. It looked up at the warriors guarding the city above, but did not see any familiar faces.

(End of this chapter)