Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 119 Flying Fox Mouth

A cavalryman rode forward on a white horse in front of the Weizhou garrison.

"Listen up, people on the city walls! The Mountain Farmers have committed treason and deserve to die! You all surrendered to the Mountain Farmers and should have been executed, but His Majesty is magnanimous and has spared your lives. He will forgive and forget the past. Now, open the city gates immediately and kneel down to surrender!!"

"If you're too late, I'll behead you all!!"

No sooner had the cavalryman finished speaking than a man's voice came from the city wall.

"Fire arrows!"

call out!
Hundreds of arrows shot down at the man on horseback below, turning him into a bleeding hedgehog in an instant.

Upon seeing this, Duke Cheng Shenzhi of Zhao, who was two hundred meters away in the valley, roared in fury, "Insolent fools! Men, attack the city!"

Nearby soldiers erected war drums and sounded the horns of attack.

The defenders on the city wall immediately nocked arrows and continued firing at the people below.

Here, there are cliffs more than 200 meters high on both sides, so steep that they are impossible to climb.

The passage is narrow, less than ten meters wide, winding and twisting, and situated high on a sloping hillside, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack.

The area was blocked, and it was situated at a high altitude. At the same time, a large amount of melted snow from the mountainside formed water stains that rushed down.

One man can hold the pass against ten thousand!

The siege ladders were so unstable that they were hit by logs and stones thrown down from the city walls as soon as they got there. The more people died, the narrower the road became.

The siege engines and shield carts also couldn't be pushed forward.

Cavalry was completely useless here, and archers couldn't exchange fire with the archers above. The rolling logs and caltrops thrown down from the city walls brought a painful lesson to the infantry below along the sloping mountain path.

Lin Changmao, the commander of Feihu Pass, and Yan Boyan, the civil affairs officer, are now guarding this place at the risk of their entire families' lives.

Yan Boyan shouted loudly, "Don't worry! We can definitely hold this place! We'll slaughter the sheep from the thousand households today to give you an extra meal!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Changmao laughed and said, "Kill them! We'll share two sheep today! Go and cook, kill as many as they come!"

The soldiers were initially terrified, but they soon discovered that the fortress was indeed formidable!
"Lord Commander, is Feihu Pass the most difficult fortress to attack?"

One soldier voiced his doubts, feeling that the 50,000-strong army outside was utterly incompetent, having lost hundreds of men without even reaching the city walls.

Lin Changmao replied, "Yes! That's right!"

The two sides fought for five hours, from noon until sunset.

The canyon was filled with corpses, and blood flowed down the mountain, reaching the horses' hooves.

Looking at the blood on the ground, the soldiers knew that the city ahead could not be taken by infantry.

Cheng Shenzhi did not expect to encounter such a tough nut to crack in the first hurdle. He became even more furious after seeing the blood on the ground and the corpses that had been carried down.

"Send someone to persuade them to surrender! This time, the Emperor is personally leading the expedition; the Mountain Farmers are bound to be defeated. Do not remain stubborn!"

Soldiers in iron armor went over with shields and shouted.

"Listen up, people on the city walls! This time, the Emperor is personally leading the expedition, and the Mountain Farmers are doomed to defeat. Do not remain stubborn and refuse to surrender! Do you want to die with the Mountain Farmers?! Open the gates and surrender now, and we will grant you wealth, honor, and high rank!"

The soldier was met with arrows once again.

Upon seeing this, Cheng Shenzhi cursed, "You beasts, you ungrateful bastards! Since you want to die with the Shan Nong tribe, I'll grant your wish!"

"Rest and cook! We'll launch a surprise attack at midnight! Take this city! We'll leave no one alive!!"

The Crown Prince of Zhao asked, "The guards on the city wall will be lax at midnight, but the city wall is steep, so it may not be easy then."

Cheng Shenzhi said directly, "After fighting for so long during the day, and with our troops at the city gates, the bandits must be terrified. They are just holding on for the moment. Once they get some sleep tonight, that last bit of energy will dissipate."

The Crown Prince of Zhao nodded admiringly, “No wonder the Northern Martial Arts always launch surprise attacks at night. The people here relax their defenses at night.”

"The old general's military strategy is brilliant; I admire him greatly!"

Cheng Shenzhi smiled and said modestly, "Having fought many battles, one naturally learns a bit. Prince Zhao, please go back and rest. After you wake up, we should enter the heart of Weizhou and go to the homeland of the Shan Nong tribe to kill all the traitors!" Prince Zhao was indeed tired. It was cold and dark here, which made him very uncomfortable.

"it is good."

As night fell, the temperature began to drop below zero.

The roads began to freeze, and the cold wind in the valley made many soldiers shiver.

On the city wall hundreds of meters away, people were warming themselves by charcoal fires, drinking hot soup, and taking turns keeping watch at night.

The two commanders of a thousand households who were enfeoffed in Weizhou sent troops to assist, and the number of soldiers guarding the city increased from one thousand to three thousand.

Even if the city gates are breached, the three thousand men will still be able to fight.

Men were responsible for fighting, while women were responsible for transporting food and cooking.

Three villages with a thousand households defended the city together, with the wives and children of three thousand people behind them. Anyone who surrendered would be killed!
At one o'clock in the morning, more than two thousand infantrymen carried ladders and, under the cover of dark clouds, quickly moved forward.

It was dark and the road was slippery. It was a steep mountain road in the dead of winter, and the ground was either covered with ice, barbed wire, or dead people and rolling logs from the daytime.

On a sloping mountain path that was frozen over and covered with sharp objects, a group of people climbed dozens of meters up in the dark.

puff~
puff~
"Ouch!"

"what……"

The Wen Dynasty's military discipline was clearly not strong enough to keep everyone completely silent. In the darkness and chaos, before they even reached the city walls, they were already stumbling and staggering in the pitch-black canyon slopes.

It was still pitch black, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Only the firelight on the city wall ahead guided them forward.

"Shoot an arrow!!"

A man's shouts came from the city wall.

The crowd below immediately descended into chaos.

No one ran towards the city wall; everyone frantically ran backwards.

"Run!"

"go back!"

Going forward is a dead end; the only way to survive is to go back.

In the pitch black, the cowardly veterans quickly shouted, "Protect the general!"

Instantly, everyone found their leader. Those who didn't want to die completely lost their courage in the darkness and frantically ran towards their personal guards behind them.

Arrows rained down from the city wall, driving a large number of cannon fodder toward the general's personal guards like death knells.

As the guards brandished their swords to suppress the deserters, the scene became increasingly chaotic.

The pitch-black darkness appeared intermittently, and each appearance was an extreme test of both sides' psychology.

The chaos of the night resulted in heavy losses for the Duke of Zhao's army; many soldiers and cannon fodder were killed or fled, and more than 10,000 of the 50,000 troops were lost.

Since it was impossible to send personal guards to attack a city, the Duke of Zhao, looking at the fortified city, ultimately chose a common method for dealing with such fortresses.

Siege!

The Eastern Route Army, with 50,000 men, could not capture a fortress with only 3,000 men. The Western Route Army, because Beijiwu had not occupied Jinzhong and had voluntarily abandoned Xinzhou and Daizhou, arrived in Jincheng first.

The Duke of Qin, who had inherited the title a little over a year earlier, arrived in Jincheng and quickly recovered Shiling Pass and several passes in Xinzhou and Daizhou.

There was no one in these places. After leaving a hundred men to defend each place, the Duke of Qin settled in Jincheng and waited for the emperor's army to arrive.

Li Laiyong, the father of the Duke of Qin, was killed by Beiji Wu because he personally led a large army on the front lines, so naturally he dared not be greedy for merit and advance rashly.

As the weather warmed up, the battle intensified, and the people of the grasslands emerged from the icy wilderness.

(End of this chapter)