After disposing of the villagers' bodies, handling the corpses of the Xiongnu soldiers was a much simpler, albeit brutal, affair. The bodies of all the Xiongnu were tossed haphazardly into a low-lying hollow outside the village. Once the Iron Stone Guards had finished scavenging all the supplies from the Xiongnu, they gathered firewood and grain stalks from every household in the village, piled them onto the heap of corpses, doused them in lamp oil, and set them ablaze. The fire burned for an entire day before finally extinguishing. By then, the remains of the Xiongnu troops had been reduced to ashes, scattered across the land of the Zhao State to atone for the sins they had visited upon its people.
Given the current temperature, the bodies would not have decomposed rapidly, and they would have soon attracted wild dogs and other scavengers that might have disposed of them. However, the primary reason Hua Tianxiong chose this method was to minimize the risk of plagues spreading from subsequent decay. After all, once the Zhao State eventually secured victory, dealing with the aftermath of various epidemics and diseases would be far more difficult than eliminating these hazards now.
By the time this was finished, dusk had already fallen. Hua Tianxiong ordered the troops to depart the village immediately and, taking the eighteen surviving female villagers with them, set up camp about ten miles away. He dared not risk sending them off yet; with darkness having closed in, it was …
Chapter 108