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Five days flew by in the blink of an eye, and Chen Xi had already received an intelligence report from Jingzhou. He sighed, Yuan Shu was sometimes overly confident to the point of absurdity. With his rear under attack and in disarray, he could still remain so calm and continue to press southward. Such mental fortitude was not something the average person possessed.
However, from the perspective of a pure observer, Yuan Shu’s choice was without any issues. That’s because neither the Pingyu besieged by Chen Xi, nor Qiaoo County by Liu Bei, or Chen State by Guan Yu could be taken in a short period of time. Instead, once Jiangling City was taken and with the momentum of a major victory, Liu Xuande and his men could all be crushed into pancakes.
Of course, Chen Xi was well aware that Yuan Shu’s way of thinking was definitely not what he imagined. It was purely because the temptation of Jiangling City was too great, leading him to selectively forget the trouble caused by Liu Bei and Cao Cao. It must be said, however, that sometimes certain animalistic instincts can indeed make one helpless against the sabotaging of schemes.
"Senior military advisor, what should we do now?" Hua Xiong bowed and asked. In truth, Hua Xiong was still carrying the title of Chen Xi’s guard, although Chen Xi had hardly ever commanded him.
"Fight," Chen Xi said helplessly. "Since Yuan Gonglu doesn’t know better, let’s show him some color. Tell Yu Jin to build an earth mountain first to assess the situation, and also bring in the several dozen craftsmen with the army. Let Ziyang get the Stone Throwers ready to give them some pressure."
Yu Jin went with Xu Yi and Wu Dun to work on the earth-moving project. But as it turned out, Chen Xi’s arrival was swift, and Qiaoi Rui had not yet had time to cut down and remove all the trees within several miles around Pingyu City. So brainlessly piling up an earth mountain 150 meters away from Pingyu City was really too easy.
In just two days, seven thousand men mindlessly used huge logs, clods of earth, rocks, and all sorts of junk to pile up an earth rampart over a hundred meters high—indeed, with many hands, such physical work was entirely doable.
What was more important was that Qiaoi Rui just watched with wide eyes as Chen Xi built the rampart and did nothing to stop it. Seeing this, Chen Xi could only comment on the intelligence factor. Isn’t war about preventing the enemy from doing what they intend to do? And yet, now, seeing the enemy happily at play and not stepping in to put them in their place, they were instead watching the excitement. Wasn’t this courting death?
In two days, the few dozen craftsmen under him had constructed six catapults, although they were really just for show. Dreaming of using something like this to attack a city—especially one with roughly six-zhang-thick walls pure built of stone blocks—was laughable, even if they had been better made. Not to mention these crudely constructed devices; even cannonades would be a joke.
By the way, historically speaking, the occurrence of catapults smashing city walls and causing them to collapse is rare, and those that did took years to achieve. The catapults capable of such feats generally came about hundreds of years later. To be precise, don’t even think about it before the year 1417 of the Medieval Era.
"Can these be used?" Chen Xi eyed the machinery—here a wedge, there a fitting, and as for the legendary wheels that were supposed to make them mobile, they were completely absent.
"Rest assured, senior military advisor, we’ve tested this mechanism before, and it works. It can hurl a five-hundred-pound boulder up to a hundred and fifty meters," Wu Dun said, thumping his chest loudly.
Chen Xi regarded the six contraptions with skepticism. Every single part is a different size; are you trying to force me to establish standards and set up assembly lines to exploit you?
"Forget it, I won’t complain about you all. Launch one to try it out. If you disappoint these century-old timbers," Chen Xi waved his hand to dismiss Wu Dun from explaining further, "hmm hmm hmm."
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"Brothers, prepare to load the rocks!" Wu Dun turned his head and bellowed.
A group struggled to set the large arm of the Stone Thrower in place, then Wu Dun, holding a small grindstone, tossed it into the bucket on one side of the arm.
"Strategist, please step back a little," Wu Dun did a few chest expansion exercises, "this thing is quite dangerous!"
Suddenly, dozens of soldiers imbued with Inner Qi let go simultaneously, and with a "biu" sound, the arm of the Catapult flung the stone pellet and it smashed viciously onto the earthen slope. The Earth Mountain that had been piled up over the last two days was trampled and turned into dust by these men under the scorching sun. As the whole arm smashed down, Chen Xi, with a very quick reaction, fanned himself with a hand fan, stirring up a cloud of dust, and everything on the other side turned to Terracotta Warriors.
However, at that moment, everyone’s attention was on the stone pellet, so they didn’t mind being coated in dust. The stone pellet shot out at an extremely high speed, flew over the wall, landed inside the city, and collapsed an entire house; the stone fragments that sprang forth also knocked down the back wall.
"Cough cough cough, there’s a bit of an error with that one, let’s do it again," Wu Dun said somewhat awkwardly; it was truly embarrassing that it flew over the city walls, seemingly because the earthen ramp was a bit too high.
After launching five stones, Wu Dun finally hit someone. The scene was truly unbearable to witness; an entire person was directly minced by a stone pellet weighing hundreds of pounds hitting them head-on, and then the stone carried the flesh mush and also crushed the upper bodies of two people behind...
Chen Xi turned and walked away, unable to bear such a horrific scene, especially since the body’s keen sense of hearing and sight, coupled with strong dynamic vision, almost allowed him to see exactly how a person was ground into a mash bit by bit...
"Strategist, strategist, the hit rate of this thing really has some issues..." Wu Dun saw Chen Xi turning to leave and thought that his performance was truly unsatisfactory, and quickly explained, hoping to avoid any entanglement from Chen Xi.
"Build a few more, we don’t need accuracy, just smash randomly. I never thought of relying on this to besiege the city, it’s only meant to disgust the enemy. You and Meng Kang (Xuu Ding) deploy troops to guard under the Earth Mountain. In a couple of days, pile up another mound in front for archers to suppress Pingyu’s bowmen on the city walls," Chen Xi waved his hand to indicate there was no need to worry and, to reassure Wu Dun, even asked for a few more to be built.
"Understood!" Wu Dun responded with a salute. As long as Chen Xi continued to order more to be made, there was no issue. If Chen Xi had turned and left without a word, Wu Dun felt that he would have needed to reflect on the situation.
After descending the earth ramp, Chen Xi immediately went to look for Hua Xiong. Attacking Pingyu City head-on was unthinkable; even if all 20,000 men were used, it wouldn’t be enough. Despite the Stone Thrower and the dominating position of the archers lowering the enemy’s morale, if Qiaoi Rui refused to leave the city, you’d be utterly helpless.
"Zijian, how many Tomb Robbers did you find?" Chen Xi asked upon locating Hua Xiong. Other methods were too slow, and now the most reliable option was to dig tunnels. After all, based on the timeline, it was still three years until the first underground siege in history would kick off during the battle between Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan at Yijing!
Currently, no one anticipated subterranean passageways. Chen Xi estimated that with now several professional Earth Workers, digging a tunnel less than two hundred meters in length would be a one-month endeavor. Better to utilize it now when no one expected it; once he used the tunnel tactic, Yuan Shao could forget about using it to trap Gongsun Zan, and Gongsun might last a bit longer.
(To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to vote and provide monthly support at Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com.)
