Chapter 1 Qiu Hao Hui’s Plan

Qiu Hao Hui thought for a moment and did not decline. The real battlefield had quickly transformed this merchant's son into a qualified soldier. "I will go and consult with General Ye Tao. However, none of us in the entire army have formal military positions. Please grant battlefield appointments to the assigned non-commissioned officers and officers, General Yu."

Battlefield appointments were unique to Dongping's military regulations. On the battlefield, superior officers could appoint officers two ranks or more below them as needed. These appointments would be reviewed by higher-ranking officers after the battle to determine whether to retain or dismiss them. Yu Kang nodded; for him, this was a trivial matter.

At this moment, a Xueqi Army soldier ran over and reported, "Commander Qiu, the workshops have completed a batch of ballistae. General Ye asked me to ask you whether to transport them to the city walls now or what."

Qiu Hao Hui looked at Yu Kang, who signaled him to decide. He said, "All of them to the city walls. First, equip them all on the west side, facing the enemy's command tent. Have the brothers of the heavy weaponry squad quickly learn how to use them and then teach the Baishi city defenders."

The soldier asked again, "Do you want to practice firing? If they are all deployed, they will smash into our own troops under the enemy city. Should we fire?"

"Fire!" Qiu Hao Hui said with a sneer, "So what if it provokes the enemy into launching a siege? We're here, and we've had a good rest. What are we afraid of? After the ballistae are installed, light bonfires all along the western city wall. The heavy infantry will rest and await orders below the city wall, and free firing is permitted."

"Too much! This is too much!" When the first batch of six ballistae was deployed on the western city wall and openly began training, the first stone shot, because everyone was still unfamiliar with this special weapon, did not adjust the range and landed just short of the wooden fence outside the frontmost camp of the Xiling army. What angered Zang Ke Ming was not the provocation but the sound of laughter from the city walls. "Beat the drums, light the bonfires, prepare for a night battle," Zang Ke Ming immediately ordered.

"Load fire oil projectiles," Ye Tao, who was on the city wall helping to adjust the ballistae, immediately ordered when he saw the enemy's movements below the city. "Prioritize taking out the catapults, then those officers that can be identified. Don't worry about the fire oil projectile reserves. This battle must hurt the enemy."

"Yes!" The soldiers went to relay the order excitedly.

The Xiling engineering squads suddenly found that it was becoming difficult even to form ranks as usual, let alone attack the city. The Shenbi bows (divine arm crossbows) brought by the Xueqi Army had suddenly expanded the Baishi City's range of ranged attacks by nearly one hundred and fifty paces. Under the circumstances that forming a formation would bring attacks by giant arrows loaded with fire oil projectiles, Zang Ke Ming painfully ordered a retreat of two hundred paces to regroup.

Huge bonfires were lit under the city, echoing the bonfires lit on the city walls, illuminating the entire city wall. Amidst the sound of war drums, the Xiling army launched another assault on the city walls. But they immediately discovered that Baishi City's defenses were suddenly different. Apart from the large stone projectiles fired by the catapults still being unreliable, the ranged attacks from the city walls were much more accurate and farther-reaching. Just as the catapults were pushed to the front line, before they even had time to fire a few rounds, fire oil projectiles fired by ballistae and Shenbi bows from the city walls turned the catapults into giant torches. The arrogant Xueqi Army Shenbi bowmen even used giant arrows with reduced weight to ignite the main gate of the Xiling army's central army.

The siege towers laboriously pushed by large numbers of soldiers were more like mobile targets. The outer layer, made of dense spruce wood, could indeed resist arrows, but it could not withstand the gradual penetration of fire oil. When the flames and smoke caused the soldiers hiding in the siege towers to scream and jump out, howling and rolling on the ground, whether because they had broken their limbs or because of the flames that had not been extinguished on their bodies, or because of burns and scalds, everyone felt a trace of fear in their hearts. Everyone couldn't help but think that this spruce was also excellent material for coffins.

Closer to the city walls, the Shenbi bows and ballistae had higher accuracy. Perhaps the ballistae were not accurate enough to snipe officers riding horses, but using fire oil projectiles could still frequently cover areas where officers might be in small patches. After a few rounds of firing, the air began to be filled with a scorching, putrid odor, which stimulated the minds of the Xiling soldiers, making them mad and fearful.

With the Shenbi bows and fire oil projectiles, the catapults no longer needed to compete with the enemy's catapults for the farthest range, competing in performance and luck. Most of the catapults on the city walls, especially the old-fashioned catapults originally equipped in Baishi City, set the range at a relatively close distance, shooting stone projectiles and objects of roughly the same volume towards the dense crowds. The most vicious projectiles were the unevenly sized walls chiseled from abandoned buildings in the city. Especially those brick walls, some of which seemed to have automatic air-burst fuses, disintegrated in mid-air, showering a large area with bricks, causing astonishing damage. The rammed earth walls carefully built by wealthy families presented bizarre damage, jumping up in strange postures after landing and whistling towards unbelievable directions, or breaking into pieces of different sizes, mixed with a large amount of dust flying everywhere. The most admirable was the way they slapped the ground almost parallel to the ground, like a giant palm slapping insignificant mosquitoes to death, directly smashing people into meat pies, except for a small cloud of dust, without any other magnificent visual effects. But this indifferent lethality was even more unsettling.

When the Xiling soldiers rushed to the closest range of the catapults in panic and began to approach the city walls, they had to face the bloody slaughter of the Xueqi Army's archers. Ye Tao never thought of creating an archer team similar to the English longbowmen with a range of four hundred meters. In his opinion, he could use many ways to strike enemies at that distance without the regret of training an archer team with a very low success rate. But the Xueqi Army's archers still had their own characteristics. Borrowing from modern sports bows, the archers' longbows were very well-balanced, and there were veteran soldiers and craftsmen in the army to carefully adjust the grips according to the different hand shapes of each soldier. From the time the Xiling soldiers entered the range, until they rushed to the city, the archers slowly and steadily carried out four rounds of volleys: parabolic shooting... parabolic shooting... direct shooting... close-range aimed shooting... Today, the archers were even more excited to receive permission to use special arrows. The Xueqi Army's special arrows were equipped with strangely shaped arrowheads, which were made by stamping and hand-grinding. There were two flat conical holes on the arrowheads. After being shot into the human body, they would accelerate the speed of bloodletting. Heroes who were covered in arrows and could insist on fighting would never appear in front of the Xueqi Army's archers. Being hit by two such arrows would cause one to lose enough blood to faint in a few minutes. The only downside was that these arrows were extremely expensive, and after being shot out, the two conical holes would drive the air through them to make a whimpering, child-like whistling sound... When the Xiling soldiers rushed to the city, the archers with superb archery skills could continue to use longbows, while those who were not so confident replaced their longbows with crossbows, shooting targets with extremely high accuracy.

Shenbi bows, ballistae, plus archers, the average cost of a volley of all the Xueqi Army's ranged arms combined was about three hundred taels of silver. But the Xueqi Army, which spared no expense, was undoubtedly the most efficient army in this era to kill people. Zang Ke Ming's face was pale. He saw that under the successive waves of three-dimensional strikes from far to near at the Baishi City head, when the first batch of five thousand soldiers rushed to the city, there were less than four thousand left. Moreover, apart from the ladders carried by the soldiers when they charged, there was no large equipment... Not to mention siege towers, even the battering rams covered with thick iron plates for attacking the city gates had become teppanyaki. The soldiers recklessly set up ladders, climbing towards the city with unparalleled courage, but one by one they fell amidst the whistling of seemingly omnipresent arrows.

On the walls of Baishi City, apart from the soldiers who were squatting behind the battlements to aim the Shenbi bows, ballistae, and catapults, peering through the small shooting holes, even the original defenders of Baishi City did not even go up to the city. Only eight hundred heavy infantrymen were holding their ground on the city. Due to the effective suppression of ranged weapons, the Xiling archers could not organize volleys of any scale. Those sparse arrows were no different from tickling to the heavy infantry. But once Xiling soldiers rushed to the city, their bright long sabers would slash in unison. When the enemies in front of them were cut open, knocked off the city walls, they did not even have time to change their expressions. The enemies came like a tide, wave after wave.

"General Zang, Xue Fu Lin, the deputy commander of the Danxi Camp, fell from the city and died," a junior officer ran to Zang Ke Ming nervously and reported in a trembling voice.

"What!" Xue Fu Lin was Xue Jing Ze's cousin and Zang Ke Ming's brother-in-law, and also his most trusted fierce general. Xue Fu Lin's death caused Zang Ke Ming's head to rush with blood.

"The Danxi Camp retreats to reorganize. The Dandong Camp replaces them… No, the Changsheng Camp goes up. The Dandong Camp and the Baishui Camp attack from the north and south walls. Let my main Mosui Camp rest for an hour and have an extra meal. There are so few people in the city. Give me alternating attacks. I don't believe they can also take turns resting." Zang Ke Ming roared. He had always believed that he could take Baishi City, but Tong Bing Wen asked him not to suffer too many losses, so he had been restraining himself. However, he could no longer restrain himself now. After all, he was a general, and he understood very well that only after achieving results could he consider the magnitude of the losses.