"Report, sir! The City of Kayanza has been taken. Our men are now clearing the battlefield," the officer in charge reported to Yalman.
"Excellent. You have all worked hard. Having won such a great victory, everyone gets extra rations tonight," Yalman said.
The Battle of Kayanza was the first major battle in the War of the Northwest's annexation campaign. Though the enemy's performance had left much to be desired and left some warhawks unsatisfied, encountering a somewhat decent fight after so many days still counted as a small taste of meat.
Yalman walked through the streets of Kayanza. The city was in complete chaos; what remained on the streets lay scattered and toppled over. Even the door panels of some houses had been ripped away, while several corpses had been laid along the roadside.
A closer look revealed that none had died from gunfire. Their dark skin still bore muddy footprints from people who had stepped over them. They had clearly been trampled by fleeing crowds.
Before the East African Army entered Kayanza, these natives who had died in the stampede had already been left sprawled throughout the city streets. Only after the East African soldiers entered the city did they carry the dead to the roadside and arrange them neatly.
By European standards, Kayanza was not large at all—merely the size of a town district. Its residents could therefore flee in a short time, but with so many people crammed into such a small city, especially when it had only four gates and three of them were blocked by East Africa, leaving only the north gate open for escape, a stampede was unavoidable. The entire City of Kayanza was a scene of utter devastation.
After tallying the battlefield, the East African Army's results were as follows: the collapsed southern