Poor Taoist Qiu Chuji

Chapter 223: The Battle for Food
Whoosh!Whoosh!Whoosh!
Three arrows flew in succession and accurately hit the three Jin soldiers who were laughing the brightest.

In fact, it is not easy to shoot someone from a low place to a high place. It is not just a matter of distance.

Arrows are not bullets, archers are not snipers, and they are not holding guns. Even if this world has the blessing of martial arts and internal strength, the power of bows and arrows will never reach the power of sniper rifles, unless it is used by an extraordinary existence like Qiu Chuji.

Moreover, after the first Jin soldier general was shot off the city wall, the others naturally began to duck, with most of their bodies hidden behind the wall, and only a small part of their bodies leaning out to stab people with spears. But even so, three people were still shot dead in a row, which was enough to show that the sharpshooter this time was extraordinary.

Seeing that the morale of the army, which had just been boosted, was showing signs of collapse again, Wanyan Kang suddenly stood up and jumped onto the top of the wall, not minding exposing himself to the sharpshooter's aim.

The archer would certainly not let down such a provocation. Three arrows pierced the air almost at the same time, heading towards Wanyan Kang's right eye, left eye, and throat.

Wanyan Kang was wearing a suit of gilded iron eagle-head armor with three layers inside and outside. It had extremely strong protection. It was taken out by Wanyan Honglie from the palace storehouse and given to him. Even a sharpshooter was not sure he could shoot through such armor, so the positions he aimed at were all exposed outside the protection of the armor, or the positions where the armor was designed to be weak.

Facing the three arrows flying towards him, Wanyan Kang reached out and grabbed all three arrows. Then he turned his hand and threw them. The three arrows shot back along the same trajectory.

In the Mongolian army, a general wearing black armor and riding on a black horse was hit by three arrows and fell off his horse.

"General Jebe!" There was panic in the Mongolian army.

Wanyan Kang jumped off the city wall and said to Wanyan Chenghui, "One of their main generals is dead, so they should be quiet for a while. At most, they will launch a few waves of retaliatory attacks tomorrow. Tell the soldiers to prepare for defense and eat meat porridge tonight!"

Wanyan Chenghui whispered, "Young Prince, there are only three jars of pickled meat left in the storehouse."

"Eat it all, and then select a hundred people to accompany me and my father out of the city tomorrow, and we will get food." Wanyan Kang said.

He said he would wait until the next day, but in fact he gathered his men that night and left the city along the tunnel.

The tunnel led all the way to Wengshan outside the city, where there were also small groups of Mongolian soldiers roaming around.

Although the Mongols did not know that Wanyan Kang and others would dig tunnels, they planned to find all the water sources supplying Zhongdu City and either cut off the water flow or directly poison the water, in short, leaving the people in the city without water.

Wanyan Kang took the lead and used the Great Zhoutian sword technique to quickly kill the small group of Mongolian soldiers and also stole their horses.

A dozen horses were not enough to go around, so Wanyan Kang and his son went ahead, carrying seals and military tokens, to summon the remaining soldiers from various tribes. These people followed the marks they left behind and joined up with them later.

After about ten days, Wanyan Kang and his son gathered nearly 10,000 scattered Jin soldiers, and barely had the confidence to fight against the Mongolian soldiers besieging the city. However, with more people, more food and fodder were needed.

People eat and horses chew, and the daily consumption is not small.

The Mongols were invaders. They had no food or fodder, so they just robbed.

But the Jin soldiers had been settled in the Central Plains for many years and were already considered "locals". If they started to rob the rich and landlords, they would be cutting off their own roots.

Wanyan Kang was not stumped by this hurdle. He was a demon incarnate, so of course he would not take the usual path.

The Mongols robbed food and money, so they also robbed... If the Jin soldiers couldn't do it, they would disguise themselves as Mongols and rob.

Anyway, the Jin soldiers have been defeated now. Where can we find large-scale and well-organized Jin soldiers in the Central Plains?
The Jin soldiers were local tyrants. They had channels to know where there were landlords hiding in the mountains and valleys, and where the big families might have stored grain. They could find their targets more accurately than the Mongols.

After several rounds of robbery, the team of 10,000 people expanded to about 15,000 people, and there was enough food and fodder in the team for these 15,000 people to eat for more than half a month.

"We can't keep snatching like this!"

"This is not a long-term solution!" Wanyan Kang said while eating the pancake in his hand.

Wanyan Honglie also nodded: "If the people of the Central Plains are seriously injured, it will not be easy to restore the country and its vitality. We can't do too much or too much, otherwise it will be revealed sooner or later."

"Have you contacted the grain transport team coming to Beijing?" Wanyan Kang asked.

Wanyan Honglie nodded and said, "Li Ying's troops are escorting a large amount of food and grass, and are now trapped in Bazhou. If we want food, we must rescue them and fight the Mongols fiercely." Wanyan Kang said in a tough voice, "Then fight!"

"This... Kang'er! There might be a trap!" Wanyan Honglie hesitated.

They knew that there was grain in Bazhou, and the Mongols knew it even better.

Moreover, their team had expanded to 15,000 people, which was no longer the hundreds or thousands of people that had originally gathered. It was hard not to attract the attention of the Mongols.

"If there are traps, we have to fight them. It's hard to say who is the hunter and who is the prey."

"Father! You continue to lead the team towards Bazhou. Don't move too fast. When the momentum is strong enough, you can further gather the remaining soldiers and generals. I will go to Bazhou first to check out the situation and find out the details there." Wanyan Kang said.

Although a general should not go through dangerous situations personally, this is not an emergency, and he is the only one who has the ability to safely go to Bazhou to investigate the situation.

Wanyan Honglie hesitated for a moment, then could only nod: "Okay! Kang'er! Be careful, don't be careless, it's impossible... just retreat."

"We now have some soldiers and horses, so we are not without foundation."

Wanyan Honglie's idea was very simple. With more than 10,000 troops at hand, it was not enough to defeat the Mongols, but it was barely enough to threaten the court and intimidate Shangjing.

At worst, we can abandon the Central Plains, retreat back to our homeland, and plan for the future.

Wanyan Kang knew that Wanyan Honglie had actually experienced many setbacks and no longer had the same spirit as before, but as long as he thought of retreating, he would have no choice but to retreat step by step.

The Mongols were not Han people. They originally lived in the north and could withstand the severe cold. Once they had completely established their foothold in the Central Plains, it would be natural for them to continue advancing towards Liaodong and Liaoxi and uproot the Jin people.

Just like what the Jin people did to the Liao people back then.

Wanyan Kang rode two horses and traveled day and night to Bazhou.

When they arrived in Bazhou, they saw some defeated Jin soldiers fighting with Mongolian soldiers. It was almost a one-sided situation. These defeated Jin soldiers were often slaughtered after just a few encounters.

A section of the small Bazhou city wall had been breached, and flames were burning in the city, and there seemed to be sounds of fighting.

Logically speaking, under such circumstances, Bazhou would not be able to hold out for long. Judging from the battle situation around it, this place should have been taken long ago.

Wanyan Kang quietly mixed in with the Mongolian soldiers and rushed into the city. Seeing more than a dozen carts of food and grass that had been burned to charcoal, he understood why the Mongols could have taken this place in one fell swoop, but ended up fighting so fiercely.

They were afraid that if they pushed too hard, the Jin soldiers escorting the grain would burn the remaining grain.

Anyway, it was meat in the pot, so they slowly tightened their defenses, bit by bit depleting the Jin soldiers' manpower, and then completely annihilated the Jin soldiers and seized their food and grass.

This was to deliberately give the Jin soldiers a glimmer of hope so that they would not dare to fight to the death.

It is said that the Mongols learned their tactics from wolves, and this approach is indeed somewhat similar to that of wolves.

When wolves encounter more difficult prey, they will bite its legs or waist, and then chase it instead of immediately attacking and killing it, giving the prey a chance to escape until its energy is exhausted. In this way, the wolves can get food without paying much price.

Wanyan Kang ran towards the place where the fire was the dimmest in the city. Soon he saw a group of Jin soldiers, about one or two hundred in number, guarding the door of the warehouse. Each of them was wearing thick cloth and was covered in grease in the cold weather. They all held torches in their hands.

The warehouse was filled with dry firewood, which was probably sprinkled with vegetable oil. If a spark splashed onto it, it would immediately cause a raging fire.

Surrounding these Jin soldiers were many Mongolian soldiers, who were also pushing a lot of water carts nearby. Once a fire broke out, they would immediately put out the fire.

Wanyan Kang keenly noticed that there was a group of uninvited guests hiding on the roofs on both sides.

(End of this chapter)