The Federation's voluntary retreat allowed the Unity Army to expand rapidly. In a short time, the Unity Army, with the Galaxy Diva and Frontier as its absolute main force, had brought everything except Australia and most of Asia under its sphere of influence.
After thoroughly trapping the Federation in Asia and Australia, the Unity Army did not rush to continue its offensive against the Federal Army. Instead, it temporarily halted and began consolidating its own forces and territory. It focused on resolving the problems exposed by the Unity Army's excessively rapid growth since its founding: reorganizing unit designations, fully integrating the former Federation and New Zeon forces, assigning War Zone commanders, extracting and surveying resources, carrying out relief work following the Federation's bloody suppression, eliminating the divisions between former Federation and New Zeon factions... Every one of these was a top priority the Unity Army had to face.
The Federation's upper ranks had now retreated into their shell. Even if the last two regions on Earth were taken by force, there would still be civilian resistance. So Xiao Ran simply slowed operations against those two regions, intending to take them in one stroke after the internal issues had been resolved.
Thus, during this period, they only slowly infiltrated and encircled the border regions. More importantly, they deployed the weapon of public opinion, using every possible means to smear the Earth Force within the two regions, diminish the Federation's standing in the minds of the civilians, and gradually leak all the dirt they possessed in different ways day after day. That material was far more thrilling than any spectacle.
During this time, the Galaxy Diva and Frontier also headed into the Tahl Desert. Perhaps having learned their lesson, the Federation did not deploy a single MS in the desert, even when