Horse on the World

Chapter 317 Patrol
The offensive and defensive battle of Bayan Hara has been going on for more than a month. The deep defense line stretching several miles outside the city has been peeled off layer by layer by the Dingzhou Army like peeling green onions. It has advanced to a place more than one mile away from Bayan Har, and if it moves forward, the long-range attack weapons of the Dingzhou Army will directly threaten the city wall of Bayan Har.

Although the barbarians had fought against Li Qing for several years, Bayar had never confronted the Dingzhou army in person. This time he finally learned that the Dingzhou army was well equipped and their weapons were sharp. On the city wall, watching the Dingzhou army attacking the outer defense line of Bayan Har in the distance, seeing the crossbow arrows like flying locusts, the stone bullets like a rainstorm, and the frenzy of black soldiers fully equipped with iron armor, Bayar felt sad. Lost color, although I knew that failure was a foregone conclusion, but I saw the opponent's strength with my own eyes, but I was still frustrated in my heart.

Compared with the relentless attacks by the enemies outside, the situation in Bayan Har is also deteriorating day by day, mainly because of the shortage of food. Er did not expect the situation to deteriorate to such an extent in a short period of time that tens of thousands of people were trapped in Bayan Har City. Although a batch of supplies were rushed into the city later, compared to the huge population The base is still a drop in the bucket.Since being trapped, Bayan Hara began to adopt a centralized distribution system, only providing enough food for soldiers every day, not for combatants, and their family members could barely survive. As for the slaves in the city, after they completed the Bayan After Yan Kela's city defense, it would be nice to have a little life-threatening food every day.

Many barbarian nobles directly suggested killing these tens of thousands of slaves, which could save a lot of rations every day, but Bayar, as the supreme ruler, had to consider the consequences of doing so. Killing people is very simple, but once the These tens of thousands of slaves were killed, and after the city was broken, the barbarians had to bear the revenge and anger of the Dingzhou army. Judging from Li Qing's early actions, he still cared about the lives of these slaves.Moreover, Li Qing has no intention of exterminating the barbarians. Judging from his acceptance of the surrender of Fusen and some small tribes, what he wants is the surrender of the grassland rather than destruction. Obviously, Li Qing intends to bring the grassland under his rule. , but if he raised the butcher's knife, even if Li Qing didn't want to retaliate afterwards, he still had to consider the reaction of the Dingzhou army. This would obviously be a disaster for the entire barbarian people.

But these tens of thousands of slaves are indeed a huge burden on the city of Bayan Har, and they must find a way to solve this problem.Now Bayar's only hope is that the Central Plains will be in chaos as soon as possible, and he can hold on for longer. As long as Li Qing has to turn around and face the situation in the Central Plains, he will have more capital to start negotiations with him. For the warlords like Dachu, the grassland is more like a chicken threat, tasteless to eat, and a pity to throw away, as long as he is like a hedgehog, it hurts Li Qing, and makes him feel hopeless to capture Bayan Har , and turned back to participate in the battle of the Central Plains, the grassland won a glimmer of life, and with this glimmer of life, Bayar believed that with the perseverance of the grassland people, after decades, another powerful grassland would emerge .

Bayar guessed Li Qing's thoughts wrongly. Today's Li Qing has a very clear understanding of himself. The chaos in the Central Plains has just started, and the accumulation of decades or even hundreds of years by various powerhouses is now their strongest time. , Dingzhou, which has just risen, is far inferior to these tycoons in all aspects. At this time, he will never get involved rashly. The grassland is an important chess piece for Li Qing to fight for hegemony in the Central Plains. Li Qing will never give up. What's more, Li Qing wouldn't feel comfortable if he didn't get rid of the grassland and let such a nail in his back.

Li Qing will only choose a time that is most suitable for Dingzhou to participate in this game of resetting the Great Chu. Before that, all he has to do is to make himself stronger step by step.

The intelligence that came from Dingzhou a few days ago made Li Qing anxious. Sufficient food at the moment is the basic guarantee for the victory of the Dingzhou army. If there is a problem with the food order, it means that the Dingzhou army must fight quickly. If Bayan Hara cannot be taken down quickly, he can only withdraw his troops. It is a terrible thing to maintain the consumption of hundreds of thousands of troops. Once the food is cut off, it will be a disaster for the army.

Li Qing prepared to issue orders to launch a general offensive several times. No one knew Dingzhou's family background better than him. If the food in Dingzhou's four major warehouses was not replenished in time, the current army would bottom out after a month.However, the difficulty of defeating Bayan Hara in one month is not ordinary. Li Qing will never underestimate the ability and wisdom of the enemy in the city opposite him.

Whenever he had to make up his mind, Li Qing always vetoed himself at the last moment. Since Shang Haibo, Qingfeng and Lu Yiming didn't give him a final warning, it meant that things still had a chance to turn around. He believed that The ability of three people.

Every day was spent in anxiety and restlessness. In the entire Dingzhou Army, except for Guo Shanfeng, Lu Dalin, Wang Qinian and Tang Hu who knew about this matter, the rest of the people were kept in the dark. They are still pulling out the strongholds outside one by one in an orderly manner according to the prior arrangement, trying to overwhelm the opponent with the advantage of weapons as much as possible, so as to reduce the losses of soldiers. The days are long.

Under Tang Hu's guard, Li Qing inspected the barracks, focusing on the supply camp. Thousands of catapults and tens of thousands of crossbows in the army lost a lot every day, all depended on the maintenance of the supply camp. Bayan Har, they have one more task. The stones on the grassland are hard to find. In the early stage of the attack, all the stones that could be found were transported and polished into stone bullets. Now it is basically difficult to find a large number of them within dozens of miles nearby In order to ensure the attack of trebuchets, the supply battalion found another way, built several fire cellars in the camp, borrowed soil and fired pottery bombs, and the solid pottery bombs were tried for the first time by the skeptical army. Afterwards, they were greatly appreciated by the generals of the battalions. These pottery bombs were quite hard and could not only be attacked as stone bombs, but also exploded due to the huge impact after landing, causing damage to the enemy caused by the flying pottery fragments. The damage is quite large.Although it doesn't have the power of stone bombs to destroy cities and collapse fortresses, it poses a greater threat to enemy soldiers, because after the ceramic bomb explodes, the scattered shrapnel can be found in no way.

Ren Ruqing, the commander of the supply battalion, accompanied Li Qing to inspect the supply camp. Li Qing picked up a fired pottery bomb, stretched out his finger and flicked it. With one move, he really pays attention to everything and has knowledge.Seeing that Ren Ruqing was still so slovenly, with a slovenly look, wearing a fifth-rank official uniform, which was also crumpled, he couldn't help laughing and said: "My lord, although you are honest and sincere, you are very popular with me, but this You still need to pay attention to your appearance. You are a fifth-rank official in Dingzhou. In Dingzhou, there are only a handful of officials who can reach the fifth rank. If you look like this, if you don’t wear this official uniform, others I'll think you're just an ordinary craftsman."

Ren Ruqing smiled and said: "Commander, Ruqing is a master craftsman himself, and if he becomes a big official, it is also the commander's compliment. In fact, in Ruqing's heart, he will always be a craftsman. As a craftsman, if I do my best To pay attention to the official prestige and formality, if you don't go to the front line to see, listen, experiment, and do it yourself, then Ruqing will lose her nature and will not be able to work for the commander. But since the commander has said it, Ruqing will Be careful."

Li Qing laughed loudly, reached out and patted Ren Ruqing on the shoulder, and said: "Okay, that's very good, but I'm a little lost, you're right, I can easily find a fifth-rank official, but it's extremely difficult to find one." You are such a great craftsman, Mr. Ren, you don’t have to change, just follow your own heart. To be honest, it’s really easy for a person to change his own character after being an official for a long time. You can maintain a pure heart, I am very relieved."

Ren Ruqing cupped his fists and raised his hands, "Thank you for your praise, Commander. Ruqing will definitely make more powerful weapons for him, and do his part for him to bring peace to the world."

Li Qing smiled and said nothing, now everyone in Dingzhou is very high-spirited, not to mention the generals in command, even Master Ren Ruqing, who has always been ignorant of world affairs and devoted himself to research, has his eyes on the world.

While walking casually in the camp, he asked Ren Ruqing, "Is there any difficulty for me to solve?"

Ren Ruqing hesitated for a moment, and said: "Commander, there is nothing else but the shortage of manpower. If possible, I need to increase a large number of manpower to make pottery bombs and do some chores. Right now, the supply battalion treats one person as two people." However, it is still not enough. The craftsmen are exhausted. As time goes on, I am worried that they will not be able to carry it. The commander does not know. The generals of each battalion send people to collect weapons every day. If it’s too late, or if it’s not enough, those generals will point at me and scold me, and the generals have taken a few photos of my big case.”

Li Qing laughed loudly, "The generals are eager to make contributions. Lord Ren, don't blame them. You will reprimand them later. How could you be so rude to our Lord Ren? Don't worry, they will definitely come to you to apologize."

"I don't need to apologize, the generals Ruqing understands. The generals are bleeding and sweating on the front line. If they can't guarantee their weapons supply, it is reasonable to vent their anger on me, but Ruqing feels very guilty! "

Li Qing nodded. Ren Ruqing was able to think this way because of his broad-mindedness, but I am afraid that in his heart, he still has an inferiority complex. That's all, other positions in Dachu, the status of craftsmen is still very low, and many generals whose official ranks are not as high as Ren Ruqing, actually slapped him on the table, which shows that the generals did not let Ren Ruqing, a craftsman official, from the bottom of their hearts. In my heart, this trend must be stopped.After pacifying the grassland, Li Qing has decided to restore the two prefectures not only by martial arts, but also by martial arts. In addition to the traditional method of selecting scholars, Li Qing has decided to set up a separate discipline to recruit all kinds of talents, and like Ren Ruqing There will be more and more such technical officials in Dingzhou in the future. If this matter is not considered early, it will cause opposition among the officials in the future, and it will be too late to regret!
Just as he was thinking about something, a personal guard rushed over, "Marshal, Dingzhou has sent an emergency military situation."

Li Qinghuo raised his head, it must be that matter, before he had time to think about it, he walked away.

(End of this chapter)