Chapter 34: The City Repels The Black Tide
On the 23rd of the 10th month of the 27th year of the Shu Tian Calendar, for Da Yao in this autumn of troubles, the greatest challenges under heaven today were all in the North. Emperor Shu mobilized the troops of all under heaven to jointly attack the evil dragon in the North, preventing it from acting rashly.
And this battle at Yongji Pass was not worth a laugh. The person involved, Wu Fei, also did not want the outside world to chatter on about it. Speaking of warfare, only those standing on the dry shore watch the excitement without minding the trouble.
The reason the grain price at Yongji Pass was still at forty cash per dou up to now was not because the local merchants forgot to speculate. It was the civilian braves recruited from the escort agencies who blocked the warehouses of these merchants. Was it that the households inside the checkpoint did not want to hoard rice? It was Wu Fei inside the checkpoint who took turns distributing bamboo tallies to the military and civilians, stipulating a purchase limit per household.
“This is a small war, where in the midst of laughter and chatter the enemy’s ships and oars turn to ashes and smoke!” This was Wu Fei’s standard official declaration to the government office, merchants, and common people inside the pass, expressing confidence, and it had never changed.
…However, under Yongji Pass, the black tide came surging…
Ten shichen before the siege battle began, atop the checkpoint, Wu Fei could already see the fireworks rising from the distant tribal gatherings. These bonfires were scattered very chaotically, like wildflowers in the fields. If it were a normal military strategist arrangement, the bonfires in the camp would be laid out neatly like a garden nursery.
Now most of his blocking troops had already withdrawn inside the checkpoint. But he still kept a scout troop of two hundred men on the periphery, and he could also send out scouting troops to assemble eight hundred warriors like Zhang Liao’s.
Wu Fei, gazing far at the enemy camp, was very hesitant now. With the enemy like this, not raiding the camp would really be a waste, wouldn’t it?
Of course, in the end Wu Fei gave it up. There was no need to raid for the sake of “surprise.” Ma Su lost precisely because he thought the military treatise allowed “surprise attacks,” and unwittingly put all his emphasis on surprise, directly flipping the cart.
The reason the divine Liao could raid the camp was that the enemy commander was Sun Quan, the second-generation heir. Sun Quan lacked his father Sun Jian and brother Sun Ce’s charge formation ability. He imitated his father and brother by leading the vanguard forward carelessly, which was putting his most unreliable self in the place that needed reliability the most. In the same march, if swapped with Liu Bei, Guan Yu, or Zhang Liao charging in, they couldn’t take down the commander in one clash, they would be drowned by the battle formation.
Sun Quan should correctly recognize himself: he had no aptitude to inherit his “father and elder brother’s” military strategy system. The marching process should learn from Zhuge Liang or Zhou Yu’s kind of military strategy that trains the army formation like an iron barrel. It could even be said that Cao Cao understood Sun Quan better than Sun Quan himself. The so-called “bearing sons like Sun Zhongmou,” Cao Laoban’s meaning was, knowing a son is better than the father. I damn well understand you, just like I understand my own son.
So after reviewing the current situation, Wu Fei argued from three points why he had no need to raid the camp.
First, Wu Fei was uncertain of his own charge formation ability, and also unclear about the enemy commander’s personal martial strength value. If he handed most of his elite soldiers to someone else to charge, not to mention the risk of failure, how would he handle rewards and punishments afterward? His position in Da Yao was just a border general guarding the pass, not the Han prime minister or Wei king. And if great merits went unrewarded, the army corps would have no morale.
Second, Yongji Pass’s troop strength could win just by defending. A successful charge would just hand the merits of the city wall battle to the camp-raiding officers and soldiers, and if the charge failed, the proportion of veterans among the garrison on the city wall would be insufficient, and the new soldiers’ morale would also drop.
In the previous series of blocking battles outside the pass, Wu Fei always used small numbers of troops to clash with small numbers of enemy troops, and there was always a rear guard to support at any time. Once the block failed, Zhao Tu would fly down directly to cover the retreat, and the troops could withdraw along the planned routes, with risks and losses controllable.
Carefully accumulating various advantages up to now, according to the pre-war assessment, he was already “slightly in the advantage.” There was no need to play Russian roulette between “total defeat” and “epic victory.”
The third point made Wu Fei completely abandon the camp raid: the enemy had only been knocking at the pass for a few days. A few days later when they were defeated, he could tail and pursue these remnants with low health for an even steadier harvest of heads. Why rush under their tower now to cast skills?
…Put down speculation, be modest and down-to-earth…
Atop Yongji Pass, Wu Fei came to inspect the garrison of each city wall section, and after confirming their thousand mile mirrors, whistles, flags and other signaling systems were complete, Wu Fei laid out a ground mat in the recessed area in the middle of the city wall, covered himself with a quilt, and went to sleep first.
…In the black tide…
A group of agate crow people quietly landed in the jungle at the foot of the mountain on the side of Yongji Pass. In the military tent, Ang Ri held a crystal ball looking at the city defense map in front of him. After confirming the situation of this mighty pass, he drew in a sharp breath.
Within a thousand paces outside Yongji Pass, the line of sight was clear, with not a single tree left. If the surrounding mountain range was verdant green, then the valley area in front of Yongji Pass was like having suffered “punishment by castration.”
Inside this checkpoint, from the clouds on the mountaintop to the broken stone on the slopes, everything was filled with killing intent. This killing intent could be easily triggered to form damaging magic!
Ang Ri couldn’t help recalling the records in his classics about super passes like the Haotian Realm’s Turtle Gate Pass and Viper Gate Pass. The current Yongji Pass, built relying on the mountain range, fully matched the checkpoint definition recorded in the classics. In the Haotian Realm classics, to breach such a checkpoint, either gather enough military strength to surround the city, then mobilize earth vein power for tunnel traversal, or prepare more than five times the elite troop strength under a senior general to take turns impacting the city wall.
And now, did this Southern Border alliance army corps have this troop strength? Currently, only those “big fellows” arriving under Yongji Pass could maintain combat effectiveness.
As for those “little fellows,” along the way, they had been constantly surprise attacked by Da Yao’s excellent blocking troops, and robbed of resources by those large monster species, already exhausted.
A siege battle precisely needed these groups roughly human-sized for ant climb attack on the city, and best if heavy armor, carrying war hammers and great axes that could be wielded on the city wall, rather than spears, halberds and other long-handled weapons.
Ang Ri couldn’t help looking at his own side’s messed-up formation. Did they really have such troops? Then he stared toward the bronze coffin.
This night, the evening was very restless. Near the black tide camp, either horned people’s ballads came, or clawed people’s mountain-crossing yells.
Wu Fei lacked the guts to raid the camp, but he had the guts to send locals to this barbarian tribe group to “besiege with songs on four sides.” Since the Southern Border black tide was a big mishmash, so “loving” to each other during the northward march, upon hearing the wailing and howling of other “allied races,” they would surely shed tears in sorrow, unwilling to sleep peacefully.
…The Wu Fei lacking quality was snoring…
After waking up from a good sleep the next day, the refreshed Wu Fei felt the killing intent on his body clearly covering the entire city pass, and couldn’t help sighing: “Too much killing, harming heavenly harmony.” He nagged to the officers and soldiers beside him, “Once upon a time, I cultivated the Dao in the mountains, detached from the world, upholding the supreme good like water. Alas, it is the times, it is fate.”
The generals all worried for the commander: “These blind Southern Border barbarians disturbed the young general; they really deserve to be killed.”
Wu Fei nodded in satisfaction. In a situation where he himself felt he deserved a beating, everyone expressing no concern showed that the generals currently had no dissatisfaction with his deployments. If he had any oversight, there would definitely be a displeased look on their faces just now; this was Wu Fei’s final self-check before the big exam.
Thus Wu Fei began to have the assembled generals listen to orders.
And below the city, the Southern Border allied army’s first wave of attack, lacking sleep and order, began to come up. After confirming this first wave was cannon fodder of the Southern Border’s weak races, Wu Fei on the city tower drew out a flag order. The four-directional flags on the city battlement immediately moved, multiple city walls issued sentry commands, and at the same time, one straw man after another was set up on the city battlement.
On the city tower, San Gu was holding a vermilion brush. As her brush tip lightly tapped in the air, the vermilion seeped into the air, but on the three hundred meter long city wall, the runes on the backs of all straw men moved. Her dao power spread with the magic, extending across the entire city wall.
And at this time below the city, a horned person looked up at the city wall where armor suddenly gleamed brightly. Though separated by three hundred paces, he abruptly felt a great terror staring at him. So he looked up, and immediately his steps trembled and he couldn’t move forward. After stopping, he was shoved from behind, and the horned person rear-ending from behind cursed, “What are you stopping for!” But as his companion ahead blankly stared forward, his own steps also slowed.
The Da Yao soldiers on the city battlement laughed merrily, thinking the horned people below were utter fools; mere straw men had the horned people below scared with legs gone soft. They clogged up into a big mass within the range of the city’s turret strikes.
But the Da Yao soldiers did not know that if they were below the city and ran fifty paces out, the straw men they originally thought harmless would suddenly turn into densely packed armored soldiers on the city wall, gazing at them with lifeless eyes.
…Intimidation magic detailed explanation…
Xuan Chong: Just like a previous life full-body celebrity advertisement standee; no matter the distance, no matter the angle, you can see it posing at you.
Xuan Chong queried this magic of San Gu’s like “researching magic tricks” to the bottom. First, seeing that gaze staring from four hundred meters away! This was not staring; at four hundred meters, a human head is just a small dot, where does staring come from? It was the “false eyes” formed by patterns on the straw men. The symmetrical spots on butterfly wings, and certain symmetrical spots on snake tails, are all “false eyes.”
And with San Gu’s dao magic guiding these straw men to sway a bit, it formed this grass and trees all soldiers intimidation.
…On the city wall, one flag after another flashed signals to the rear of the city wall…
On this flat rammed earth ground in front of Yongji Pass, at this moment it was like an old man who succeeded in hair transplant, with densely packed dots appearing. These were not grass or trees, but the Southern Border foreign races attacking the city.
These attacking groups had their speed reduced by the intimidation, producing about ten breaths of blockage, then the commands from the city tower conveyed again. Behind the city tower, catapults began loading counterweights with stones, pulling pulleys to slowly raise the counterweights. These catapults had all been test-fired before the battle, and their ranges corresponded to the outer ring areas outside the city.
As waves of catapult stones fell from the sky, densely covering the hesitant horned people group ahead, these horned people ultimately wanted to scatter in panic. But as burning pottery jars fell, each jar covering four or five zhang range. Within the covered area, three out of ten horned people suffered severe burns and broken bones disabling them, and the rest were also terrified by the blast waves and flames, disregarding the fire still burning on themselves, turning tail and running.
Just like that, under one round of catapult strikes, over a thousand charged up, but seventy percent had already routed before touching the city wall. The remaining thirty percent reached within a hundred paces, singly facing the cold arrow rain poking at their faces. Those without shields were directly nailed to the ground; those with broken wood as shields were also pierced through the shields into arms and chests. Ultimately they also lost the courage to climb this towering city wall.
The subsequent rout was like this.
These Southern Border little foreign races used shields as turtle shells to start fleeing.
Of course, what if no shield? No shield meant no burden, so they ran faster than those with shields, right? “As long as the ones carrying shields are behind me, their shields are my shields.”
Soon those carrying shields also reacted: why the hell am I carrying this non-pierce-proof wooden plank? “As long as I run ahead, you are my shield.”
And immediately the battlefield fleeing studies evolved to the third step: damn it, why are you ahead and me behind taking the shots for you? So they drew knives to create some wounds on the opponent: “As long as you can’t outrun me, you attract hatred for me.”
The rout quickly became ugly; after mutually stabbing, it was like spilling a bowl of beans all over the ground.
The generals on the city tower watched this Southern Border black tide turn into a hot pot ant swarm spectacle, all bursting into laughter. This included the Wu Family’s old uncle. This old uncle began boasting to the young ones: “These Southern Border vermin are even more of a motley crew than back in the day.”
At odds with the victorious atmosphere, Wu Fei remained vigilant, staring at the enemy: did the enemy’s military system not even have supervisory troops or such mechanisms to boost command? Then on what basis did they dare invade Da Yao’s territory?
…Yongji Pass withstood merely the first wave…
For Wu Fei, first battle defeat, morale plummet, then poor scheduling, excessive casualties, damaged prestige, was a chain of problems. But Wu Fei did not consider these negative buffs when assessing the enemy.
This was not Wu Fei’s virtue; according to military classics, know yourself and know your enemy to seize these enemy weaknesses and boldly create battle records. Wu Fei determined his level was not yet sufficient, so he did not show off, completely assessing the enemy leniently.
Several shichen later, Xiao Qing, who infiltrated the city area through tunnels outside the city, came to present important intelligence.
After Wu Fei read this intelligence recorded on snake skin, he touched the snake skin’s texture. Snake people often used their own shed skins as tokens to write content.
The current one belonged to python people, and among snake people, python people held the status of powerful warriors. The shed skin quality of python people leaders and ordinary individuals also differed; Wu Fei now confirmed this should be skin shed by a leader.
After judging credibility, Wu Fei said to Xiao Qing: “Several snake people on the other side want to defect; what do they want?”
Xiao Qing: “They hope the general can show mercy.”
Wu Fei nodded: “Send them a reply: if their intelligence is correct, I will show mercy, but if they have any bad intentions, after this battle I will specifically keep their tribe behind.”
Xiao Qing: “General, rest assured; they wouldn’t dare. If they dare deceive you, I know the location of their nest.”
Wu Fei glanced at Xiao Qing, nodded, then reminded: “Hopefully so. You are also of the snake people lineage; the snake people should leave a bit of bloodline.”
Xiao Qing: “My lord, I am your person.”
Wu Fei: “No need to pledge loyalty; I trust you. What I want is not just your loyalty, but the loyalty of the entire snake people tribe.” Xiao Qing immediately understood: “My lord, I will definitely help you recover the snake people tribe.”
Wu Fei nodded: Her loyalty, he did not need to believe or rely on. Because he was painting a pie for her; if she acted on the pie, he profited, and if she didn’t, he didn’t lose. As a boss, if he couldn’t bear to paint the pie, then don’t do business.
…Crow flapping wings divider…
Wu Fei called over Zhao Tu to verify the intelligence. After confirming from Zhao Tu that there was indeed a “gloomy” place in the black tide, where at night something like phosphorus fire drifted, Wu Fei determined Xiao Qing’s intelligence was probably correct.
Wu Fei opened the telescope and found the fleeing Southern Border little ones all rounded up, some lifted up, seeming to be subjected to some kind of processing by the mastermind behind this black tide wave.
