Zhutian: Starting from the Space-Time Merchant

Chapter 424 Fire Attack
"Rice and wheat flour!"

"Are these barrels filled with oil?"

"So many arrows!"

"And salt!"

What is this sticky stuff?

The Yelu people never expected that kind-hearted people would send them supplies.

"This letter says," Yelü Xiezhen shook the letter in his hand, which was left in the pile of supplies, "that they are from the Xi tribe. They sent us supplies because they were dissatisfied with the Xi king's betrayal."

Yelü Xiuge, who was holding an arrow and stroking the metal arrowhead, laughed upon hearing this, "Do you believe it?"

"I do not believe."

Yelü Xiezhen immediately shook his head, "This technique is too crude."

"I don't quite understand, what are they doing?"

Yelü Xiuge put down the arrow in his hand and sighed softly, "What are we doing? We're being made to kill people."

"The longer you persist, the more you kill."

"You mean—" Yelü Xiezhen was suddenly startled, "The Xi people also have Jurchens?"

“It should be more than that.” Yelü Xiuge looked up at the sky. “Whoever attacks the city these days is the target he wants to wear down.”

"Why go through all this trouble?" Yelü Xiezhen asked, puzzled. "Just kill them directly. He has so many battle-hardened elites under his command. He can kill whomever he wants. Why go through us?"

Yelü Xiuge, hailed as one of the two pillars of the Liao Dynasty, was indeed exceptionally capable.

After a moment's thought, he quickly understood what the man meant.

"He probably only wanted to eliminate a specific group of tribes, while keeping the others around for other purposes."

"If we take action ourselves, the other tribes will be too terrified to use us."

Although not quite in the exact center, it is not far off.

Lin Dao needs to eliminate the remnants of the Xianbei and also obtain the Tungus wild boar skin.

The rest of the tribesmen, however, were used for other purposes, mainly to provide human resources for mining.

After all, his operations were too large, with multiple timelines being built simultaneously. The money he worked so hard to earn was spent like water, exchanged for various industrial products.

Every time he returned to the modern world and saw so many bills, he felt a little panicked.

I'm so short of money I'm panicking.

Although several banks expressed their willingness to provide loans, Lin Dao was unwilling to lend them.

Because he knew very well that what he was borrowing was not just money.

Therefore, bringing in more labor to mine has become a top priority.

In fact, if Lin Dao had made up his mind to conscript people from the Central Plains to perform corvée labor and mine in various worlds, the so-called predicament would have been solved immediately.

The reason why the Lin Dao was built in various time periods was to make life better for the people of the Central Plains.

If we're going to use them as slaves to fill mines, then why bother with large-scale construction?

If Lin Daoruo wanted to be a transmigrator who indulged in eating, drinking, and merrymaking, living a life of luxury and pleasure, transporting literature and chasing beauties, he wouldn't need to go to such lengths.

He himself braved ice and snow, rushing thousands of miles to fight.

Why bother?
The next morning, after breakfast, the Xi tribes launched another fierce attack.

Based on yesterday's battle, King Zhao Gou of Xi believed that the Khitans were running out of arrows.

There are still some timber and stones left; after all, this is a royal palace, and dismantling it would provide raw materials.

The kerosene, ash bottle, and liquid varnish, except for the liquid varnish, should all be used up.

The defensive strength has been greatly reduced.

The warriors from various Xi tribes launched an attack on a section they had previously broken through, which was clearly severely damaged.

Hundreds and thousands of Xi warriors crowded under this section of the city wall.

They raised their shields covered with cowhide and wore masks made from torn pieces of cloth.

As expected, a pot of boiling broth was poured down from the city wall.

It fell with a whoosh, like a shower of flowers from a fairy.

It landed on the numerous raised cowhide shields, making a hissing sound.

What's even more unbearable is the pervasive smell.

The broth was already smelly, but after boiling it became even more unbearably foul.

Even with masks on, some people were still nearly fainting from the fumes.

Moreover, the most terrifying thing about this stuff isn't the smell, but the infection caused by burns when it gets on your skin.

If there was a pre-existing wound, it would be even worse; without antibiotics, death would be almost certain.

Knowing how terrible it was, almost every Xi soldier attacking the city wore a sheepskin coat, even in this sweltering heat.

I'd rather get heat rash all over my body than get burned by the scalding liquid.

Lin Dao, who was watching the battle from a distance, saw a large group of Xi people dressed in sheepskin coats crowding under the city wall and burst into laughter.

“These herders have never experienced the hardships of siege warfare.”

"If this were a siege in the Central Plains, I guarantee that no matter how many of them came, they would all die."

The generals all echoed this sentiment, showing disdain for such a trivial matter.

Yang Ye went even further, saying, "The city's already limited oil reserves have been exhausted."

"Otherwise, they'd be doused with kerosene at that moment~"

No sooner had he finished speaking than dozens of soldiers carrying buckets appeared on the city wall in the distance.

They poured the kerosene from the barrel down, as if a torrential rain had suddenly fallen.

The Xi warriors, who were densely packed below the city and struggling to climb, instantly sensed that something was wrong.

Many people sniffed and cried out in horror, "It's not molten gold, it's kerosene!"

'Run!'

Previously, everyone had been vying to be the first to reach the summit, trying to seize the immense credit for being the first to do so.

Hundreds and thousands of warriors gathered here.

In a short time, it wasn't so easy to escape.

As more than a dozen torches were thrown down from the city wall under the watchful eyes of despairing people, the area below the city wall instantly transformed into a living hell.

The raging flames engulfed hundreds and thousands of Xi warriors.

The sheepskin coats they wore to resist the molten gold now became their death warrants. Once ignited, the coats became the perfect source of fuel.

Enveloped in raging flames, they danced a life-or-death dance amidst the inferno.

The heart-wrenching roar carried from afar, causing tens of thousands of soldiers from various units who were watching to tens of thousands of people to feel a chill run down their spines.

Death itself is not scary, but such a horrific way of dying is truly terrifying.

A heart-wrenching scream came from not far away.

Everyone looked in the direction of the sound and saw King Zhao Gou of Xi stagger out, fall to the ground, and reach out his hand towards the direction of the burning flames.

Zhao Gou cried his heart out.
He was truly heartbroken.

Although there were only a few hundred or a thousand Xi warriors engulfed in flames.

Compared to the total number of Xi tribes, which claimed to number in the hundreds of thousands, it was not particularly remarkable.

The problem is, those were all warriors among the Xi people.

In order to seize credit and secure the position of Grand Commander, Zhao Gou risked everything he had.

After all, if they fail to capture the city today, the Jurchens will have to take over the attack tomorrow.

If a Jurchen were to become the Grand Commander of the Raole Prefecture, King Zhao Gou of Xi would be disgusted to death.

Unexpectedly, the warriors of the various Xi tribes who had gathered to attack the city were engulfed in flames!
The King of Xi, weeping bitterly, was also greatly puzzled.

'Where did the garrison get so much oil?'

There wasn't much kerosene to begin with, and the Khitans had retreated hastily into the palace, so they hadn't brought much with them.

As for the palace, who would store a large amount of kerosene in their own palace, fearing that the palace wouldn't burn brightly enough?

He couldn't figure it out, and there was no time to think about it now.

Amidst the raging flames, only a few dozen Xi warriors returned, utterly dejected.

In this battle, the strongest and bravest elite warriors of the Xi people were all wiped out.

Its impact was so great that the Xi people did not launch another attack for the rest of the day.

"gone."

Lin Dao set off to return, and before leaving, he looked at the leaders of the various Jurchen tribes.

"Tomorrow it will be your turn to attack the city, and my word still stands."

"Whoever can conquer this place will become the Grand Commander of the Raole Prefecture!"

All the Jurchen leaders were breathing heavily, their eyes red.

The opportunity for the tribe to rise to prominence is right in front of us; it's just a matter of whether we can seize it.

But when the leaders, caught up in their passion, turned to look at the battlefield, it was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over their heads.

The flames on the battlefield had been extinguished, but the horrific scene remained vivid in memory.

The fire was so terrifying that it seemed even the blood flowing from the Xi warriors was burned away by the flames.

The sight of the piled-up, charred corpses made the leaders swallow hard, their mouths watering.

"I think we shouldn't attack the city directly tomorrow."

Someone suggested, "We need to think of another way."

Lin Dao doesn't manufacture siege equipment for them, and they don't know how to make it themselves.

The only thing usable was a long ladder.

This thing is extremely slow to climb, which will inevitably cause a large number of people to crowd around the city.

If we were to encounter another oil attack like this~
Just thinking about it makes my teeth ache.

"Then what do you think we should do?"

Someone immediately chimed in, "How can we attack the city if we don't charge in? We can't just fly in, can we?"

"Of course, you can't fly in," the proposer smiled slightly. "But you can crawl in underground!"

The Jurchens' tactics were very simple: they dug several tunnels overnight and sneaked into the city through them.

Under normal circumstances, cities are equipped with facilities such as listening urns for tunnels.

The same was also found in the imperial palace, dating back to the Han Dynasty.

However, the Khitans had only recently been Sinicized and did not understand many things. Although the Shangjing Imperial Palace in their ancestral homeland was large and sturdy, it lacked many facilities.

If nothing unexpected happens, the Jurchens' plan will indeed succeed.

But then, something unexpected happened.

That evening, some Xi people, dissatisfied with the Xi king's betrayal, sent supplies and letters to the Khitans defending the city.

The letters even mention that the Jurchens dug several tunnels, and the direction of their digging was varied.

The defending troops also responded quickly.

The imperial palace in the capital city was not built alone on the grassland.

There are many buildings around it.

It has Buddhist temples, government offices, warehouses, and so on, and is also very close to the palace.

The Jurchens used these buildings as cover to dig overnight from a very close distance.

By daybreak, several tunnels had been dug into the palace.

The Jurchen leaders had all come here to offer sacrifices.

They roughly remembered the layout inside, and after some whispering, they even managed to draw a sketch from memory.

The tunnels continued to extend, leading to several palaces.

To cover their tracks, many female soldiers were also putting on a show of attacking the city walls.

After confirming the location was roughly right, the Jurchens who were digging the tunnel turned to digging upwards and pushed open the stone slab above them.

After waiting for a while, until the air started to circulate, there was still no movement outside.

The Jurchens in the front row began to climb up.

'puff! '

The sounds of sharp objects entering the body continued to be heard.

The garrison, which had been waiting there, killed the Jurchen who had shown themselves.

Then someone started pouring kerosene into the tunnel.

The tunnels echoed with screams of terror and despair.

As the torch was thrown in, hell on earth was reenacted!
(End of this chapter)