Above all. there was the danger in the countryside. where heavy taxes and pressgang conscription had caused the peoples former propagandized consent to be widely replaced by sullen acquiescence. This danger was also being demonstrated by the tens of thousands who were refusing to acquiesce. And these people. fleeing from "liberated areas" to government areas. have now become a pitiful refugee army of nearly a million men. women and children. Their flight has even begun to leave the V.C. areas seriously short of hands V till the crops. For these reasons. it was much too risky to pull back. and the second government made its defiant choice to continue the war In the mainforce phase.