Lord of the Desert

Chapter 355 Military Discussion
There was silence in the big tent for a moment.

Xu Yuntao also thought of what Duan Hong and the others were thinking, and in an instant he had many thoughts.

"With this information, our army can relax its strategy."

"Duanli City won't receive any reinforcements, so there's no need to rush and attack..."

he concluded.

Since the core layer had reached a consensus, the personal soldiers soon sent orders in all directions to hold a military meeting.

Duan Tiannan, Gu Yixin and Hong Fan took the initiative to move to the outside.

Another quarter of an hour later, the flame became an inch shorter.

Led by the sound of footsteps, more than 20 officers and soldiers came one after another, entered the tent and saluted in unison, causing the sound of iron rustling.

The left army general Yi Hong and the right army general Jiao An were among them, exhausted and without rest.

Although their armor had been simply wiped, Hong Fan still smelled the smell of blood, either rotten or fresh.

Xu Yuntao sat silently, took a few more pieces of tobacco leaves to chew, and indicated that there was no need to be polite.

Latecomers were seated according to their level.

When the military meeting began, the first person to report was Longxu Shi, the supervisor of the Carpenters' Camp.

This man was sitting below Qiu Yuankui. He was about fifty years old, had a long goat beard, and was a little fat.

"From the afternoon of the sixth day to now, a total of five days, under my supervision, the craftsman camp has produced 110 single-pin cannons, 30 three-pin cannons, 5 six-pin cannons, 6 ladders, and 4 temporary carriages."

He did not greet anyone and just sat there and talked, but no one in the tent took it as an offense.

The heavy artillery vehicles of the Baisheng Army used to require one or two hundred people to pull the ropes. In comparison, the counterweight artillery vehicles that Longxushi brought from the northern border not only greatly saved manpower, but also had greater power.

"Excuse me, Supervisor, how quickly can the consumed equipment be replenished?"

Xu Yuntao asked a question.

"I just checked. After one day's assault, the cannons are about 60% ready. We can recover to 85% by tomorrow morning. As for the ladders and temporary vehicles, they were burned down under the city, so we have to make new ones."

Longxu Shi returned immediately.

"In the future, we will be able to add about 30 light guns, five heavy guns, one ladder and one temporary vehicle every day."

"Why is it slower than the previous few days?"

The front army general Pan Rui asked with a frown.

Longxushi looked at him sideways.

"As long as you can conjure up enough wood and iron, you can do it even if your speed is 50% faster than yesterday."

He reached up and scratched the wart on the side of his nose.

Seeing Qiu Yuankui's look, Pan Rui didn't dare to say anything else.

"Duanli City has long been built with fortified walls and cleared of fields. Larger logs have to be transported from the rear or cut 20 to 30 miles away, which has occupied a large amount of transportation capacity."

Longxushi exhaled heavily through his nostrils and returned to his normal tone.

"And the raw materials also drag down the quality of the weapons."

"When I was making weapons in the northern border, I had to use Jianmu that had been dried in the shade for several years and painted three times. Now I have only newly felled wood on hand, and I don't even have time to air it out. It's normal for the artillery carriage to bend and crack after just a few hours of firing."

After the Carpenters' Camp, the left and right armies reported their casualties.

Among them, the left army suffered more than 700 casualties, and the right army suffered more than 500 casualties.

When the two military marquises were mentioned to have been killed, Gu Yixin heard Hong Fan's breathing become heavier.

"Everyone knows the battle situation."

Xu Yuntao stood up.

"It took three days from the establishment of the camp to the filling of the moat, and there were 587 auxiliary soldiers and 27 combat soldiers killed or wounded.

Today we attacked for four hours, with 1,270 casualties, but the defenders never wavered from beginning to end."

"The Duanli garrison is well prepared. Although their strength is less than one-third of ours, their mid-level combat power is similar to ours. Perhaps it is because of the abundant food and grass after the autumn harvest that their morale is even stronger than last time."

He paced back and forth with his hands behind his back, and then changed the subject.

"I am determined to start a war."

The generals were surprised. To them, crossbows and catapults were common, but not everyone had heard of what Xu Yuntao had just mentioned.

There was a whisper in the tent.

The so-called "Jiuyan" refers to an artificial earth platform built near a city, which is used to create a high point to observe the strength of the defense in the city or to provide fire suppression. The advantage is fewer casualties, and the disadvantage is that it is time-consuming and labor-intensive.

If the war lasted for a long time, there were even cases where the soil was filled all the way from the top of the earthen platform to the city wall.

In the era of cold weapons, this was considered the ultimate solution to siege a city, demonstrating the attacker's determination to win.

Just as Hong Fan expected, the generals had no objection to this, and many even secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

For several powerful people whose businesses were located north of Tingshan Pass, this battle was a bit of a forced one.

“In addition, tunnels need to be dug.”

Xu Yuntao continued.

"Sending people into the city for a surprise attack?"

Someone sitting in the back asked.

This was actually what Hong Fan was thinking, but it caused ridicule from the professional officers of the former Tianfeng Army.

"No, sneak attacks using tunnels are just a fantasy of siege in the storybooks."

Military commander Chen Yan explained with a smile.

"The tunnel is narrow and difficult for people to enter and exit, which is naturally a geographical advantage for the defenders. The warriors in the city must have been on high alert these days. It would be better to go directly to the city instead of having them come out of the cave one by one to refuel."

Hong Fan suddenly understood.

"What if it's a warrior?"

The man still refused to accept.

"Even if you are at the level of penetration, it would only take a few breaths to get to the city barehanded. Entering the city through the underground tunnel is like taking off your pants and farting, right?"

Yi Hong sneered.

"The tunnels were dug for the city walls."

Seeing that Hong Fan and Gu Yixin were also listening attentively, he patiently explained in more detail.

"The rammed earth walls of Duanli City, which are three or four feet thick, will not collapse even if they are hit by artillery for several months. If we don't want to rely on human lives, the only way is to hollow out the city and reinforce it with wooden pillars, and then burn it with wind when the time is right, so that it will collapse completely..."

······
The military meeting lasted for an hour, and it was already late at night when it ended.

Except for the fire on the tops of the four watchtowers and the patrol teams, everything else in the camp was crawling in darkness.

Hong Fan returned to his tent alone. Without lighting the candle on the table, he took off his outer robe and lay down on the bed.

Fatigue came over me like a tide—not just physical fatigue, but mental fatigue as well.

In addition to his duties on the battlefield, he had been learning military knowledge like a sponge in the past few days - formations, command, camps, terrain, fortifications, supplies, logistics, strategy - building the logic of war games at all levels from macro to micro.

After lying down for a quarter of an hour, Hong Fan sat up again.

It’s not that I think the wooden bed is too hard.

Having a bed to sleep on in the military camp was a privilege only afforded to mid-level officers and above. For the privates, having an extra piece of leather under their beds was considered a luxury.

He just couldn't sleep.

Once people think too much, their thoughts are like a wild horse that has broken free from its reins. The more they try, the more they cannot control themselves.

Hong Fan simply meditated and entered a state of trance.

As soon as he thought about it, the flame qi and the sand world qi circulated from his upper and lower dantians respectively.

After his true qi had gone through several cycles, he naturally entered a state of inner vision.

Five months have passed since the beginning of the communication between heaven and man, and the innate spiritual energy that was pried open by the true qi and stored in the dantian has become slightly stronger.

This is certainly progress, but compared to the speed of breakthroughs before, it is like a turtle crawling.

It was the first time I experienced the "obstacle of knowledge and views" and couldn't find the way forward, so it was inevitable that I felt depressed.

In a state of irritation, Hong Fan couldn't help but practice the Xiantian Yihe stage of Yanliu Gong.

(End of this chapter)