C12 (1/2)
He did not try out or feign an attack. There were no flying stones or arrows. The hand-to-hand combat seemed to have started in an instant.
The heavy infantry opened up their giant shield and jumped out of the trench. As they ran, they took out the work racks made of fine steel. Just as the heavy infantry were about to place the siege escalades on the wall, the light infantry soldiers threw the handheld crossbow s who had already launched three rounds to the side, pulled out their machetes and climbed up the stairs.
The soldiers on the wall were already prepared. The soldiers on the front row used their shields to block the walls tightly, while the soldiers in the back row jumped high into the air, fiercely thrusting their spears through the gaps between the two shields towards Moqiu Soldier who was on the other side of the wall. With a single hit, he was immediately snatched back. The soldiers behind him immediately jumped up and stabbed him with their spears.
Some soldiers simply used the iron rakes of farmers to modify their spears. In order to prevent the spears from being lost again, they tied a piece of leather rope at the end of the spears. This way, when they stabbed a little bit, the spears would be able to return to their hands. However, it was this seemingly frugal design that caused many soldiers to lose their lives.
Some of the Moqiu Soldier s were not killed by the spear or their spear tips were stuck in their bones, so the valiant soldiers simply released the blades and shields in their hands and held on to the spear with their two hands, pulling the Fire Phoenix Border Army Soldier s and their spears off the city walls. The two of them continued to struggle in the air, fighting until both of them fell to the ground. Moqiu Soldier caught up to them and sliced them into mincemeat.
Zhao Handong brought his own soldiers and the local army to take care of the eastern part of the city wall. Although he had a lot of soldiers under his command, the majority of them were the local army from the five northern provinces. These so-called soldiers were probably collecting food on the field at home half a month ago. Who would have thought that after receiving the order, they would directly be pulled to the walls of Phoenix City Pass, facing hundreds of thousands of Devil Kingdom soldiers?
Instead of personally leading troops up to the city walls, the prefectures of the five northern provinces would have preferred to devote their limited energies to the task of unlimited logistics. It was no longer rare for the dignified White Feather Battalion Commander to carry wood and stone. Even Red Feather Battalion Commander rolled up her sleeves and personally cooked a pot of hot porridge for everyone.
Since the local army commanders were behaving in such a way, it was naturally to the extent that they did not have any objections towards assigning the local army officers under their command to the various Phoenix City Pass officers to lead the battle. Therefore, Kong Sheng waved his hand and allocated 30,000 of the local army soldiers, who were supporting them during this period of time, to everyone.
When Zhao Handong had asked for ten thousand local troops in one go, Kong Sheng was still a little worried that there would be too many new recruits, causing him to have too much pressure in his battle. Zhao Handong expressed smilingly. He was also a farmer and had some experience controlling farmers to battle, so Kong Sheng could be at ease.
When they really started fighting, Kong Sheng ran towards Zhao Handong quite a few times. To his surprise, he found that the problem of him worrying about the locals being incompetent in battle had been perfectly solved by Zhao Handong. He fully displayed the superiority of being a farmer, conveniently commanding ten thousand local army soldiers, and also allowing his own Border Army to get sufficient rest. Kong Sheng repeatedly praised him when he saw this.
Zhao Handong's method was very simple. He first asked the local army officer in charge of mining stone to bring a large pile of stone over here, and then had his local army reduce the stone originally used for stone thrower to half its original size. When the Moqiu Army attacks him, Zhao Handong is still neither fast nor slow. He first let the Border Army guards the city walls with shields, then let the soldiers of the local army carry a stone from underneath each of the walls up. Then, he stepped onto the steps that were built in advance beforehand and threw the stone down.
Just moving these large stone heads up from beneath the city walls was already enough of a feat, and it was already difficult for them to throw them down. Moreover, it was still Devil Kingdom that were smashed, so why would they care about whether there was blood and gore below? Basically, he just threw it down and left. Then, without looking back, he walked down the wall to carry the second piece. The Border Army Soldier under Zhao Handong's command only needed to supervise the local army leaders and not be lazy. On the way, they just needed to kick the Moqiu Soldier off the city wall before he was smashed by a rock.
Under Zhao Handong's command, the soldiers of the local army had already completed such a serious task as a simple and efficient assembly line operation. There was no need to fight to the death, no need to see blood, all they needed to do was to put in some effort to move the rocks and throw them at the rocks.
However, at the same time, Kong Sheng noticed the weakness of this method, the replenishment of the stone could not keep up with the consumption of the energy. Although there were twenty thousand soldiers of the local army that were constantly supplying the city walls with all kinds of backup, the stone materials needed time to be excavated and transported. However, it wouldn't take long for them to be carried over the city walls and throw them down, so as time went by, the number of stone materials would only become fewer and fewer.
What Zhao Handong was worried about was not that, he felt that this was in itself a training for the local army. After the stone was thrown away, this group of farmers were almost standard soldiers, he was worried about the giant stone thrower s that had yet to be used in the Black Hill Army camp.
Kong Sheng and Zhao Handong had once carefully observed the stone thrower s created by the Moqiu State, and had also sent scouts to the camp in Mo Qiu at the risk of their lives. They discovered a problem, and that was that the general leading Moqiu State was a very calm person. Even though he had a large amount of resources, he did not blindly seek them out, but instead created a large number of simple stone thrower s, all of which were made from wood. Their range of attack was not even half of that of the steel stone thrower s from Phoenix City Pass, and the quality was not even a tenth of the original. Even if only ten of them were to break through the seal set up by the Phoenix City Pass stone thrower and throw huge rocks or wooden piles onto the city walls, it would cause a fatal blow to the Phoenix City Pass. After all, Kong Sheng and the rest had no way of dealing with the trenches on the ground. Once the walls were broken through, they could only watch as countless soldiers raised their scimitars and rushed into the city.
However, the situation on the city wall had already changed before they could even worry about what was happening.
After a whole morning of fighting, both sides simultaneously chose to take a break at noon. After noon, under the warm sun, the two armies once again engaged in a close combat. But this time, Moqiu Army had clearly changed its strategy, and the light infantry that had rushed out of the trenches were no longer standing there foolishly as they waited for the ladders to climb and the stones to smash them. They put down the handheld crossbow that they were good at, picked up the bow decked with horn of an animal that they despised, and started to shoot towards the city walls.
To Moqiu State people who had been nomadic for generations, using the principle of a parabola to shoot arrows at the city walls was no harder than grabbing a rock with your hands. Moreover, as long as these arrows shot up, it was possible to trade for his life. Who wouldn't like to do such a thing?
With the change in Moqiu Army, the pressure on Kong Sheng and the others increased, and the number of troops on the city wall almost doubled. Other than blocking the crater with their shields, they also had to protect their heads well, and they did not have to know when they would fall to the ground.
Kong Sheng did not even have time to think about these, as he shuttled back and forth on the city walls that had already become crowded, and kept roaring. He was not afraid of the arrows in the sky, but of losing sight of them.
Under the rain of arrows, Kong Sheng was no longer able to stay on top of the city wall and observe the other party's movements. Relying on the group city to provide information was also not that timely, at least it was not enough to satisfy Kong Sheng. He needed the most timely information, and he also needed to remind every single Border Army band on the city wall to respond in the most timely manner. This caused Kong Sheng to feel an uncontrollable fear. He did not know what the enemy wanted to do, or what he wanted to do, and was very afraid that if the enemy made a move, it would result in an irreparable consequence if he did not respond in time.
After going back and forth across the city walls twice, Kong Sheng finally came back to the top of the city walls and let out a long sigh of relief. Luckily the other party did not use stone thrower s, which allowed him to heave a sigh of relief.
But immediately after, another question surfaced in his mind: why did the other party still not use stone thrower s? The city wall had been under attack for a long time, and the losses of the soldiers were not small. The key point was that since the other party had such conditions, why didn't they use them?