Although it was still an era dominated by cold weapons, the Yun Province armies' operations already had a hint of modern warfare, at least in terms of artillery preparation. The soldiers sat far away on the ground, watching large, round objects fly over their heads like shooting stars, landing on the city walls and exploding into balls of fire. Even though the enemy knew this was the Yun Province armies' habit, they could only deploy a portion of their soldiers on the city walls. Otherwise, if they all hid behind, and Yun Province noticed the city wall's defenses were weak, they could engage in close combat, and that would be the end.

The screams from the city walls made the Yun Province soldiers feel a little creeped out, but also excited. The more miserable the enemy, the easier it would be to earn merit later. There were veterans in the Yun Province armies, but in the already loyal and fanatical Yun Province, these veterans did not spread the terror of war, but regarded warfare and death as a grand feast.

Not long after the two heavy artillery battalions opened fire, Cheng Chi noticed something was wrong. There was a section of the city wall that was taking especially heavy fire, and judging from the explosions, they were constantly changing the type of ammunition they were using.

"What are Ding Shi and Li Yang doing? Tell them to come see me," Cheng Chi ordered, turning his head.

Soon, the two arrived at Cheng Chi's side, and surprisingly, Ye Tao was with them. Ye Tao, who had also noticed the anomaly, wanted to ask what was going on with using several types of ammunition in combination. Ye Tao had no intention of questioning or blaming; he was merely curious. It was the responsibility of the frontline commander to use a limited variety of weapons to achieve the most diverse tactics and the best results.

"Marshal Ye, General Cheng, here's the thing..." Seeing that he couldn't hide it, Ding Shi simply revealed all his thoughts. After hearing Ding Shi's explanation, everyone rolled their eyes in unison.

"Really?" Cheng Chi knew about the Yun Province tradition of burying jars containing things when building houses, but he doubted that Qing Tian had the same problem.

"Sir, you're going to send in the infantry on schedule anyway. Even if it's not true, it won't be a loss, right?" Ding Shi said cautiously.

"...Well...but if that's really the case, didn't you used to train demolition soldiers? Wouldn't that be more reliable?" Cheng Chi asked again.

"We did train them...but later, they said we were taking the infantry's jobs, and besides, things like Bangalore torpedoes aren't that reliable. We don't have the manpower or the equipment right now. Also, I remember you once said in a military council meeting that it was too difficult for heavy artillery soldiers to learn to fire cannons accurately and quickly. You said everyone should stick to their own jobs, that we weren't allowed to get within a hundred paces of something we could do from five hundred paces away, and we weren't allowed to rush in front of something we could do from a hundred paces away...and besides..." Ding Shi shrugged.

"Besides what?" Cheng Chi and Ye Tao laughed and quickly pressed him.

"I'm afraid of dying..." Ding Shi scratched his head and said irritably, "I'm afraid of dying...okay?"

In fact, the first reason alone was enough; the last two were clearly added by Ding Shi to lighten the mood. Cheng Chi had indeed said those words, but that was a long time ago, when several branches of the military were arguing over who would get priority for equipment. Ding Shi was definitely not present at the time; who knows how he heard that sentence. And Ding Shi's lively, cunning tone, although he might not be the kind of reckless man who would always be prepared to fight to the death, could not possibly be afraid of dying.

"Reduce the firepower density on the other sections of the city wall a bit, lower the frequency. I won't allow you to increase the total ammunition consumption, but I'll give you a quarter of an hour more for artillery preparation," Cheng Chi said decisively after thinking for a moment. "How's that?"

"General Cheng, if you give us more time, give us an hour more, and suspend the fire on the other sections, that would be even more efficient. If we can burn it down, there's no need to waste ammunition. If we can't burn it down... reducing the frequency means that the sparse firepower won't be of much use," Li Yang suggested with a frown.

After looking at Ye Tao, Cheng Chi turned back and said, "Okay, let's do it that way. You guys go back and continue."

"Pass the order to distribute the snacks, everyone continues to sit and watch the show," Cheng Chi then instructed. Anyway, with an extra hour, the soldiers would have time to digest the snacks...

Now, both sides could see that Yun Province was preparing to directly destroy the city wall with heavy artillery. But the Qing Tian commander was also confused, not knowing why it was this section of the city wall, what was wrong with this section of the city wall. But he knew that he couldn't let the enemy achieve their goal, so he kept ordering his soldiers to pile up earth and stones, seal the breaches that had appeared, and put out the fires...

As time went on, the Qing Tian commander was naturally upset that Yun Province's inexplicable tactics had caused him to lose so many men just to extinguish fires and repair the city walls, but Ding Shi and Li Yang were even more nervous. Although there was no longer such a thing as a military pledge, if they didn't achieve any results, they would lose all face.

The scheduled hour of artillery preparation passed... The city wall, although mottled and peeling off several layers of plaster that had been applied later, remained strong.

The extra hour was also coming to an end. The entire section of the city wall seemed to be heated up, but it didn't seem to be causing any problems. "Brother Ding... let's order the other sections to load ammunition... this..." Li Yang said dejectedly.

"Don't worry... there's still time..." Ding Shi was still putting on a brave face, but as time ticked by, he wasn't so sure either.

At that moment, a Type-3 incendiary round exploded on the city wall, directly blowing off a large chunk of the wall and landing on the ground with a crash, exposing the giant wood inside that had not seen the light of day for who knows how many years... It didn't ignite, but... it seemed to be melting.

"Quick, increase the firepower, adjust the coordinates of the city wall sections on both sides, and open fire!" After a moment of stunned silence, Li Yang immediately reacted and decisively gave the order.

This was not just a problem with one section of the city wall. As the firepower increased, the already terrifying breach grew larger and larger, and the giant wood encased inside was ignited, eroded, and then quickly blasted apart. All of this terrified the Qing Tian defenders... They never imagined that the tall, heavy Qing Tian city wall would be breached in this way. The constantly falling earth and stones were like the Qing Tian defenders' collapsing confidence.

"Let Li Yang and Ding Shi launch a full-scale rapid barrage for two rounds, order the entire army to prepare to attack!" Cheng Chi laughed and immediately issued the military order. With the dense drumming, bugle calls, and signal flags, Cheng Chi's orders were transformed into a very consistent and active action by the entire army in just a few minutes. The soldiers rushed towards Qing Tian like surging waves. Especially the breached section of the city wall, where the defenders were terrified by the breach. Xiao Xu personally led his men to enter the city without much effort, and then quickly headed towards the city gate, opening the city gate from the inside in less than half an hour. Although the defenders勉强 retreated into the streets to put up a fight, Yun Province's fighting style was too violent. They searched and killed while shouting for surrender, and when they encountered pockets of resistance holed up in strongholds, they simply threw kerosene bombs to burn them out. It had some of the flavor of the US military bullying Iraq in modern warfare. At least, in this era, the equipment and tactical thinking that surpassed the opponent by so much, and the practice of prioritizing the safety of the soldiers' lives, were very similar.

Without any suspense, Qing Tian fell into the hands of Yun Province like a ripe fruit. And the casualties suffered by Yun Province were only a little over a thousand, with only two hundred and ninety-seven killed in action. For a city like Qing Tian to be conquered, this kind of casualty rate was unbelievably small. Especially the old soldiers of Yun Province who had experienced the back-and-forth tug-of-war with Xi Ling, which had wiped out countless lives, were so excited that they jumped up and down.

In this battle, as many as eleven thousand Qing Tian defenders surrendered. Fortunately, this had not exceeded the food quota for twenty thousand prisoners in the first phase of material preparation. Although this was good news, Suo Zheng's reaction was obviously not very good. He soon wrote back, telling everyone not to capture prisoners if they could avoid it; or to wait until the second phase of supplies arrived, when they would have more余裕 to feed the prisoners; or, to simply further reduce the prisoners' food ration... Suo Zheng was just grumbling, but he didn't expect that everyone now trusted this logistics general so much, and soon understood Suo Zheng's suggestion according to their own personalities and preferences... And Suo Zheng's reputation grew even greater as a result. Others had to move their hands to kill people, but he could do it with just a few words. Naturally, Suo Zheng didn't care much about this kind of infamy. However, fortunately, Yun Province's military discipline had always been good, and most people thought that reducing food rations was a good idea. Because prisoners of war were important statistical data of war booty... which was linked to performance evaluation.

And in this battle, Ding Shi, Li Yang, and the two heavy artillery battalions they led, who had made great contributions, could be regarded as enjoying unlimited glory. Ding Shi's prior analysis and research, and his extensive knowledge of related matters, became a new model in everyone's minds. Ding Shi was not an honest person to begin with, and he was not embarrassed at all in the face of everyone's enthusiastic praise. What made him happier was that now the Yun Province officers were saying, "You guys are so smart, are all people from the inland like this?" Or, "Brother, you've got a way, I used to look down on you," and the relationship between the former Dongping officers and the local Yun Province officers had greatly improved...

Ding Shi couldn't always hold his head high and be arrogant in the face of all kinds of praise and rewards. He was also humble, but his modesty seemed more like arrogance to others. He said, "No, no... I'll be embarrassed if you praise me so much. There's a sequence to learning, and each profession has its own specialty, right?... You guys are professional at killing people; we're professional at setting fires. That's all I know how to do."