27 Unexpected Outcome (1/2)
Ban Chao was on edge. During these four months of fighting, he hadn't heard any news of Han Xin. This was a troubling matter, especiallybecause to know where the enemy was is considered a telltale sign of what their next actions would be. However, he hadn't heard anything for four months and was beginning to get a bit antsy. The past four months, his men had steadily made progress up towards the mountain that the Moro people were defending. Yet, Han Xin hadn't lead any of his men to counterattack this assault. Easy he planning on waiting it out? Or something a bit more unexpected?
By this point Ban Chao's men had captured close to the halfway point if the mountain. With each outpost and Moro people killed their side had gained more and more momentum. In war momentum could be said to be a huge deciding factor for victory.
Some messengers arrived and told him that a few soldiers fell into a pit fall trap that was quite large and the soldiers that fell though were impaled by spears stuck into the ground. It was at this point that Ban Chao had glimpsed at a fraction of what Han Xin had planned out for him. With this incident he knew it was likely that Han Xin had prepared many traps for Ban Chao's men. This was just one type of trap, Ban Chao dodgers not doubt for a second that Han Xin had more dangerous and more horrific surprises for him. This was just the beginning.
Ban Chao halted his entire army and sent for all of them to regroup at a rendezvous point. He had decided to form a group of men that would scout the area for traps before the bulk of his army moved forward. Keeping your advantage in numbers spread out thinly was just asking for trouble, so he decided that everyone should stick together.
The army moved around like this for the next few weeks until finally Ban Chao decided to go with the previous strategy of the army splitting up and being more independent. He decided now was the time to disband because they had not lost many people due to traps set up by Han Xin, and also because the area that each platoon had to cover was considerably lower now that they were three quarters up the mountain.
During the first four months of battle, Ban Chao was concerned with hitting every outpost, but now he decided that they should leave a few outposts so as to confuse the enemy. Also, the point of having so many outposts was to make it time consuming for the enemy to break through.
If a campaign was too time consuming there would be many disadvantages for the attacking army. First of all, morale was a big issue, if a campaign dragged on too long many would lose morale and some may even desert. Second of all,this extra time could be used by the defending army to make even more preparations. Lastly, Ban Chao only had so much food he could give to his soldiers. He started rationing them early, but even so, they ate through nearly half of their food storages. If they didn't conclude the battle soon, then Ban Chao would have no way of beating Han Xin despite the massive advantages that were given to him.
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On the defending side.
Han Xin had not been idle these past 4 months. He had constructed a multitude of different traps and prepared many different ways of conducting guerilla warfare. The outposts he had constructed during the month of preparation had worked wonderfully to his plans. He needed the US troops to be occupied enough so that he could build something he thought would be a surefire win. After 4 months he had finally completed his secret blueprint.
It was multiple rocketed gunpowder missiles. If the repeated crossbow could be likened to an ancient machine gun, then rocketed gunpowder could be considered an ancient rocket launcher. The way it worked was that a small circular box filled with gunpowder and a fuse attached to Hewas strapped to a long stick. The fuse would be lit then off it flew into the pointed destination and explode on impact. Just like a rocket launcher.
(It's what Mulan used to cause the avalanche that buried the hun army in Disney's film Mulan)
He had his men secretly steal the required amount of gunpowder he needed to make this many rocketed gunpowder guns. He had the perfect way of dealing with all of the attacking soldiers. He would lure all of them into one single outpost then retreat as many men as he could. After that he would launch all of the prepared into the outpost and all hell would let loose.
Han Xin picked the best suited outpost that would maximize his chances of success. He chose to go with an outpost that was named Key.There were a few reasons that Han Xin chose outpost Key, Key was big enough that it would be able to hold all of Ban Chao's forces. Plus it was built to be difficult to break into, and even more difficult to break out of. Han Xin had a few more outposts like this, but he thought Key was the best choice given that it would seem like any other outpost.
Another issue Han Xin needed to address was that Ban Chao had started to skip a few outposts. So there was something he needed to do to make sure Ban Chao definitely atttacked outpost Key. He just needed something valuable enough to make sure that it happened.