Daqin arrests alchemists, what does it matter to me as a qi refiner?

Yang Jiuwa patted his chest vigorously and assured: "Don't worry, brother, I will personally lead the team to guard the north gate tomorrow."

Yang Ling smiled with satisfaction, patted Yang Jiuwa's shoulder and said, "Work hard, I won't treat you unfairly."

Next, Yang Ling asked Yang Jiuwa about the details of tomorrow's attack and defense and then let him leave. After all, tomorrow is crucial and Yang Ling will not allow any mistakes to happen.

After Yang Jiuwa walked away, Yang Ling suddenly felt a little hungry and quickly asked someone to bring him some food.

After eating, Yang Ling lay on the bed again, thinking about tomorrow's battle, and did not fall into a daze until midnight.

The next morning, Yang Ling was awakened by the noise outside. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked at the bronze mirror beside the table. He saw a bruise on his left cheek, which was particularly glaring. There was no doubt that it must have been left from the battle with the enemy last night.

Yang Ling sighed and said self-deprecatingly: "I never thought I would end up in such a miserable state!"

After washing up, Yang Ling put on his new military uniform, put his sword on his waist, and pushed open the door. He saw soldiers standing outside, and they all saluted: "Report to the commander-in-chief, we are ready!"

Yang Ling nodded slightly and walked to the open space in the center, and the soldiers lined up.

Yang Ling glanced at everyone for a moment and then said loudly: "The enemy will arrive tomorrow. I believe everyone already knows this, but everyone is still training as usual. What does this mean? I, Yang Ling, have not supported you in vain."

Everyone shouted in unison: "The Marshal is mighty, the Marshal is mighty!"

"The handsome man is mighty!"

"The handsome man is mighty!"

Seeing everyone's high interest, Yang Ling continued, "The number of this enemy army is more than ten times that of our army, so I hope everyone will fight desperately and make sure to deal a heavy blow to the enemy when they attack."

Suddenly, all the soldiers in the camp burst into deafening roars, and morale reached an unprecedented high.

Seeing the high morale of the crowd, Yang Ling secretly praised: "These brothers usually look careless, but they are good at the critical moment."

Yang Ling continued, "Tomorrow the enemy will mainly consist of cavalry, so we have to set traps in the wild."

Everyone nodded, and Yang Ling continued, "We must seize favorable terrain before the enemy enters the ambush circle, otherwise the enemy can easily evade us, so I hope everyone will think carefully and come up with specific suggestions."

Everyone looked at each other, and no one expressed their opinion immediately. It was obvious that they did not have a deep understanding of setting traps.

Yang Ling looked around at everyone and said loudly: "These traps include tripwires, horse pits, etc. These are all preparations to prevent the enemy from successfully breaking through the city wall and entering the city. If the enemy successfully captures the city wall tomorrow, we only need to guard the north gate to ensure that the overall situation remains unchanged, and vice versa. If the enemy fails to capture the city wall, we can take the opportunity to attack and eliminate the enemy."

After listening to Yang Ling's words, the soldiers finally understood the principle of the trap. Many of them nodded secretly, thinking seriously about how to set the trap.

"Okay! Now everyone should return to their duties. I will repeat what I said just now - a real man in the world should do what he should do and not do what he should not do. Now that we are in enemy territory, we should move forward bravely and not slack off in the slightest. Anyone who shrinks back will be severely punished!"

Upon hearing this, all the soldiers solemnly replied in unison: "As ordered!"

After giving a few more instructions, Yang Ling returned to his room to rest.

The next day, Yang Ling got up early, washed up, and rushed to the north of the city with his troops.

The troops led by Yang Ling numbered about 5,000, including 3,000 elite infantry, 2,000 elite infantry, and the remaining 4,000 were archers. Since the enemy's number was more than eight times his own, Yang Ling decided to take a defensive stance and use the advantage of the city wall to block the enemy.

After Yang Ling's troops arrived at the North Gate, they surrounded the North Gate and then sent out a large number of scouts to investigate the enemy situation.

Yang Ling's troops were stationed on the southeast side of the city, less than two miles away from the north gate, so that if the enemy launched an attack from the north gate, he could rush to support them in the second.

Just as Yang Ling expected, the enemy did not attack from the north gate, and seemed not to care much about the city gate. Soon after, Yang Ling collected a lot of information about the enemy outside the city.

According to the information sent back by the scouts, the enemy army totaled about 60,000 people, excluding the regular army, there were about 70,000 people, including nearly 5,000 cavalry and about 20,000 infantry.

As for the name of the cavalry commander, the scouts did not find out. Perhaps the enemy had special means to block the scouts' tracking.

Yang Ling estimated the enemy's strength and immediately gave the order: "Pass the order down, all troops should be on alert and be ready to fight."

Soon Yang Ling's order was passed on to each camp, and a tense atmosphere began to spread. Everyone was on edge and ready to fight.

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, the sky is bright and the enemy finally takes action.

Outside the city, flags were waving and a large number of cavalry were galloping towards the north gate, with dust covering the sky.

"The enemy is charging!"

The sentry on lookout on the city gate tower shouted at the top of his lungs, his screams of panic resounding through the sky.

Seeing this, the soldiers on the city wall fell down one after another, raised their spears and shot at the people below, and a rain of arrows whistled down.

Below, many enemy cavalrymen were shot down by arrows while running. However, their charge speed was not affected, and they continued to charge towards the north gate regardless of anything, trying to conquer this difficult fortress.

The enemy was getting closer and closer to the north gate, and the archers of the defenders on the city gradually adapted to the situation. They aimed at the enemy and kept shooting at them, and the two sides fell into a stalemate.

Yang Ling frowned upon seeing this. Although the enemy's rain of arrows was dense, the effect was not very ideal, and the enemy was still approaching rapidly.

Seeing that the enemy was less than a hundred meters away from the city gate, Yang Ling hurriedly ordered: "Shoot!"

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, arrows rained down like a forest, covering the sky and the earth. There were continuous howlings. Many enemy soldiers were shot and fell off their horses, but the enemy did not stop and continued to charge forward.

The enemy was less than a hundred meters away from the city gate. Yang Ling shouted, "Catapults, get ready!"

The artillery battalion guarding the city wall immediately lifted the artillery to the battlement, pulled the fuse, and fired after the shells were loaded.

Boom! Boom!

As the huge explosion sounded, a bloody storm suddenly broke out in the enemy's formation, and countless enemy soldiers were shot and fell to the ground wailing.

This round of volleys from the defenders on the city caught the enemy off guard, and many enemy cavalry were injured or even fell off their horses.

"Dart Throw!"

The soldiers on the city wall were already accustomed to using parabolic throwing targets. After hearing the order, they immediately followed it.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, dozens of round iron balls hit the enemy's team along a parabolic trajectory.

Boom!

Accompanied by violent explosions, many cavalrymen were killed or crashed to death, and the scene was in chaos. Seeing this, the morale of the defenders on the top of the city was boosted, and the soldiers rushed to the city gate tower.

Yang Ling also drew his sword and roared, "Follow me and kill me!" Then he rode his horse down the city wall.

Other generals followed closely on horseback and charged towards the city.

At the foot of the north gate, two cavalry units were fighting fiercely.

Two of them belonged to the enemy's main infantry and cavalry respectively. The enemy's cavalry totaled 5,000 people, but 2,000 of them had been lost in last night's siege.

The main force of this attack was the enemy's cavalry, which was well-equipped and had very good horses.

Yang Ling's troops were mostly infantry, but among them there were two hundred elite Tiger Guards and eight hundred newly trained light-armored soldiers because they were good at riding and shooting.

The two cavalry units were fighting fiercely, back and forth, and the battle was extremely stalemate. However, because the Tiger Guards were good at riding and shooting, they had a slight advantage in the battle.

The enemy cavalry general was extremely anxious when he saw that his infantry was unable to take the north gate, so he had no choice but to order the infantry to force a breakthrough at the north gate.

Bang~bang~
The enemy infantry rushed to the foot of the city holding wooden sticks and shields. As the sticks were swung down suddenly, the defenders on the city wall were immediately in trouble and fell to the ground one after another.

However, Yang Ling did not let his guard down because of the defeat of the defenders on the city wall. The enemy cavalry had already begun to show their power.

"shooting!"

Following Yang Ling's instructions, the archers on the city walls pulled the triggers one after another, and arrows flew out, knocking down many enemies.

Then the soldiers on the top of the city wall placed their shields on the edge of the parapet and shot down. However, the enemy was not stupid either. When they saw the archers on the top of the city wall show up, they immediately dropped their weapons to avoid the shooting.

The enemy infantry took advantage of this gap and rushed forward desperately, trying to capture the city gate, despite the threat of archers on the city wall.

Seeing that the enemy was about to break through the city gate, the rumbling sound of war drums suddenly sounded outside the city. Before the enemy infantry could understand what was happening, they felt a strong wind passing by them, and then heard a shrill scream.

It turned out that the bandit cavalry outside the city took advantage of their own infantry's attack on the city to launch a sneak attack on the enemy infantry under the city, resulting in heavy casualties among the enemy infantry.

The enemy infantry did not dare to attack the city rashly and hid themselves. However, the enemy cavalry took advantage of the victory and attacked the city head fiercely.

Seeing that the enemy cavalry had already approached the city gate, Yang Ling quickly ordered, "Beat the drums to cheer!"

After hearing Yang Ling's order, the soldiers on the city wall immediately rang the gong at the city gate.

As soon as the gong sounded, the alarm bells in the city were blown.

When the rebel soldiers outside the north gate heard the retreat horn sounded at the city gate, they were stunned and obviously didn't understand what was happening.

The enemy commander heard the alarm bell and knew that he could not break through the north gate today, so he immediately shouted: "Everyone, retreat immediately!"

Although the rebel soldiers were confused, they did not stop and immediately turned around and ran back.

However, they had only taken two steps when hundreds of men suddenly emerged from the surrounding woods and blocked their way.

"Brothers, copy and rob!"

"Brothers, come on, grab the money!"

Hundreds of refugees rushed forward and surrounded the enemy. Seeing that there were thousands of troops outside the city attacking the city, these refugees were worried that they would be driven into the ravine to feed the wolves like the group of people a few days ago, so they sneaked in and waited nearby at night. Now that they saw that the group of people were about to withdraw, they immediately jumped out to rob without hesitation.

These bandits had no idea what was going on, and were dispersed and surrounded by hundreds of refugees. Then they were robbed and killed, and eventually all of them became corpses.

Yang Ling was delighted to see the refugees snatching the spoils of war, and immediately ordered people to round up the captives and count the obtained property.

The captured armor, helmets, horse gear and other miscellaneous items totaled more than 300 pieces, which could be said to be a full load of spoils. Except for the armor and helmets, the rest were given to the defenders on the city wall as rewards.

Yang Ling also arranged for soldiers to check the enemy's food supplies and found that the food and fodder they brought had been almost completely consumed, and was only enough for three meals.

Yang Ling immediately ordered the city defense team to repair the north gate as soon as possible and sent people to transport the seized items to the foot of the city wall.

The defense work at the north gate was finally completed. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and immediately continued to cook.

Yang Ling looked at the bodies lying outside the city, a look of deep worry on his face. He hesitated for a moment and asked, "Where is Li Dequan?"

Li Dequan was a soldier under Yang Ling who was responsible for recording military merits and pensions. He was specifically responsible for recording the names of enemy soldiers who died in battle, transporting their bodies out of the city, and then distributing pensions according to their merits.

Yang Ling has many civilian officials under his command. If we don't take into account those who died in battle, on average each soldier can get about 20 silver dollars, which is a considerable amount of pension.

However, Yang Ling knew that the pension was definitely not enough, so he wanted to find Li Dequan to discuss a solution. After all, he was Yang Ling's chief of staff.

Li Dequan hurried in from outside and said, "I greet you, my lord."

"General Li, please excuse me. Tell me what should be given to the fallen soldiers?"

When Li Dequan heard Yang Ling's words, he frowned and said, "My lord, I think we must ensure the replenishment of soldiers when attacking the enemy this time, otherwise it will be difficult for us to maintain the entire city, not to mention that there are many civilians in the city."

Yang Ling sighed inwardly when he heard this. It was indeed as Li Dequan said. If the soldiers' supplies and provision were not guaranteed, the people in the city would most likely mutiniate.

Yang Ling pondered for a moment, then instructed Li Dequan: "Pass on my order. All widows of fallen soldiers can be exempted from taxes for half a year!"

When Li Dequan heard this condition, his eyes immediately lit up. This was equivalent to exempting taxes for half a year!

He had previously reminded Yang Ling to ensure the replenishment and military pay of the soldiers, but Yang Ling did not accept his suggestion because such matters were too sensitive and could easily lead to criticism and even bring disaster upon himself.

However, the situation is critical now. In order to ensure the supplies and pay of the soldiers, we can't care about so many taboos. Anyway, these soldiers are following Yang Ling to conquer the world.

As long as the soldiers' families are protected and not allowed to get killed, Yang Ling is not afraid even if he makes mistakes.

Yang Ling had a very keen political sense and had long noticed that various forces were ready to make moves. Because since ancient times, when the princes fought for hegemony, each prince would first destroy his own country and then slowly annex other territories.

If we cannot expand quickly, we will not only be persecuted by external pressure, but also be attacked from all sides and fall into a desperate situation.

Yang Ling glanced at the soldiers present and shouted: "My fellow soldiers, I know this decision may anger some people and may even lead to impeachment, but I hope you all understand my difficulties." (End of this chapter)