gnovel Chapter 21 Drawing Lots
Chapter 21 Drawing Lots
Wang Er's central command tent was set up at Yunyang Post Station outside Yijun City.
The main hall of the post station had been converted into a temporary command tent.
When Li Chengye arrived with Yang Chongwang and the others, there were more than a dozen veteran soldiers standing outside the house. They were all carrying swords and guns and looked very capable, but they were not in formation and were chatting and laughing in hushed tones, which made them look somewhat undisciplined.
Besides Li Chengye, two other people were also waiting outside the door.
They are Black Scorpion and Huo Tu, who were newly promoted team leaders along with Li Chengye.
The three exchanged a glance, but none of them spoke.
Black Scorpion has a scar on his left cheek that runs from his brow bone to the corner of his mouth. When he speaks, the entire scar twitches up and down, making him look like a centipede.
Black Scorpion was originally a bandit who occupied the mountains south of Yijun Liang, with about a hundred men under his command.
Their daily activities mainly consisted of robbing small caravans and passing travelers, and occasionally they would lead people to villages to extort grain from wealthy households.
Because large merchant caravans are never involved, the government has not bothered with them in recent years.
Despite the severe drought, they lived a relatively comfortable life.
Unfortunately, his village happened to be blocking Wang Er's marching route.
He was pragmatic enough that upon seeing the endless army below the village, he surrendered without a word.
Huo Tu was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a slightly worn linen outfit, and with a slightly hunched back.
He was the village head of Huojia Village near Kuquanpu.
Originally, only a small portion of Huojia Village was land owned by the Yang family in the city. However, after three years of drought, Huojia Village was renamed Yangjia Village, and all the villagers became tenants of Master Yang Shenzhi, the owner of Yijun Village.
Although losing one's own land is heartbreaking, at least it allows people to survive.
However, this year's summer harvest failed due to drought, and Mr. Yang declared that he would not farm the land for the rest of the year.
Indeed, the harvested grain is less than the seeds sown; this kind of land is a losing proposition.
But since they didn't farm, Master Yang didn't lend grain to these tenant farmers either.
I can't live like this anymore.
At this time, Wang Er arrived. Huo Tu thought about it all night, and the next day he led more than 300 men and women from the whole village to surrender to Wang Er.
After waiting for about fifteen minutes, a guard shouted loudly:
"The chief summons the three captains into the tent!"
The three entered the house one by one.
Inside the main room, Wang Er sat in the main seat, with Luo Dai, Zhong Huaidao, and five or six other leaders standing on either side.
"They're all here?"
The three bowed and greeted the leader.
Wang Er stood up from his chair and pointed in the direction of Yijun City.
"The city is right there. It has food, weapons, and everything we need. We must take it."
He paused, his gaze falling on Li Chengye, Black Scorpion, and Hu Si.
"Li Chengye, Black Scorpion, and Huo Tu, you three are newly promoted captains, and you have the most men under your command."
"You'll lead the charge today."
As he spoke, Wang Er walked to the octagonal table in the center of the hall, picked up a rough pottery bowl, and slammed it upside down on the table with a "clatter." He then took out three pebbles of roughly the same size from his pocket.
One piece is black, one piece is gray, and one piece is white.
"As for who goes first, that's up to fate." He placed three pebbles at the bottom of the bowl. "The black pebbles go first, the gray pebbles second, and the white pebbles last. Which one gets caught is up to fate."
Zhong Huaidao, standing nearby, grinned and said, "Second Brother, this method is fair!"
Huo Tu's face turned pale, his lips moved, but he didn't dare to speak.
Li Chengye watched in silence.
Wang Er covered the pebbles with the bowl, flicked his wrist, shook it a few times with a "clattering" sound, and slammed it on the table: "Go ahead and grab them."
Black Scorpion was the first to reach out and pull a gray pebble from the bottom of the bowl.
Hotu's hand trembled slightly. He hesitated and touched the second piece; it was black.
Li Chengye took the last piece, the white one.
"The order is set." Wang Er put the bowl away. "Huo Tu, you go first, Black Scorpion second, and Li Chengye last."
Then Wang Er continued, "I know that if even 50% of the 2,000 people assigned to you yesterday can stand up, that would be pretty good."
I don't expect you to actually break through the city, but you'll have to force the defenders to throw down all those things like arrows, logs, thunderstones, and molten gold.
Those people are not allowed to come back before they are all dead. Do you understand?
The three men's faces darkened, and they did not respond.
Perhaps noticing the three men's pale faces, Wang Er added, "Brothers, don't be afraid. There are few people in Yijun City, far fewer than us. Besides, I will have Huai Dao lead the team behind you to cover your retreat."
Hearing this, Huo Tu's expression clearly improved a lot.
But Black Scorpion's face darkened even more. The government troops were all in the city, pressing behind us. This must be the supervisory team.
However, some things are better left unsaid.
Li Chengye wasn't particularly affected. He knew this would happen when he was promoted yesterday; he had already anticipated it.
He just didn't expect that Wang Er would use a lottery to determine the order of attack, and that he was lucky enough to get third place.
It's a good opportunity to see how the government troops defend the city.
The three then accepted the order and returned to their respective camps to prepare.
Wang Er demanded that Huo Tu lead his team to the city wall no later than one hour later.
Back at the camp, Qin was inspecting the siege engines and the empty trucks brought from the rear camp, which had been converted into trench-filling vehicles.
A "ditch-filling cart" is a cart loaded with bags of mud. When it gets close to a ditch, the animals on the cart are pulled sharply to make them rush into the ditch.
One after another, until the trench was filled.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Li Siqi, who had once competed with Wang Baobao for control of the north, used this tactic to capture Fengxiang Prefecture.
However, unlike Li Siqi's luxurious equipment, Li Chengye only borrowed an empty cart; the animals to pull the cart had long been taken away by the old camp.
They could only reach the moat by pushing carts by hand.
Fortunately, Yijun was not a formidable city like Fengxiang Prefecture back then. Its moat, or rather, its ditch, was only two zhang wide, not much longer than a carriage.
"Mr. Qin, have you found the right person?"
Upon hearing Li Chengye's question, Master Qin's face turned serious.
"Chengye, as you said, among those whose fathers and sons were in the team, the father left and the son stayed; among those whose brothers were in the team, the elder brother left and the younger brother stayed. After removing those who were truly weak, we found eighty-seven people."
"I told them that as long as they were the first to scale the city walls, each person would receive a bushel of grain if the city fell."
Eighty-seven people is enough.
Besides hoping that the siege engine would crash down the new wall, Li Chengye also led his men to tie up more than a dozen long ladders.
During a siege, climbing ladders to seize the top of the city wall and using battering rams to smash the new wall will occur simultaneously.
"However," Master Qin hesitated for a moment, but finally spoke, "there are still many people begging me, all wanting to be the first to reach the summit and earn that one bushel of grain."
Li Chengye was taken aback.
The reason he sent Master Qin to find those fathers and sons, brothers who were together, was that those who wanted to go would fight desperately for the lives of their loved ones, while those who stayed behind would be less likely to cause trouble in the rear due to their attachments, and would be easier to control.
This was originally intended to balance cruelty with a touch of shrewdness and human compassion, in order to stabilize the team.
But he didn't expect that there were so many people without such ties who were also willing to do this dangerous job.
Master Qin smiled wryly at him and said, "Chengye, when we were in the village, we could at least get grass seeds to eat. And on the way out of the village, we brought more than enough food."
"But many people in the camp... they crawled here on shaky clay, their bellies bulging. These past two days, they've had porridge, and especially yesterday's bowl of beef soup brought them back to their senses. They're all saying in private that even if they die, they want to die well-fed, not starving."
"The temptation of one shi of grain is too great; they are really willing to risk their lives for one shi of grain."
Li Chengye remained silent.
He looked around the camp, at the newly arrived refugees who were either squatting or sitting, their eyes blank yet occasionally flashing with a hint of hunger.
These people were even more desperate than when they had decided to kill Zhao Shouren. They were probably only a bowl of porridge away from starvation; if they got it, they would live, if they didn't, they would die.
Wang Er's use of these lives to deplete the city's defense resources was undoubtedly cruel, but weren't they also risking their lives for a last-ditch effort, gambling on a slim chance of survival?
His previous calculations based on kinship seemed somewhat... "meticulous" in the face of this overwhelming desire for survival.
"Tell them," Li Chengye's voice was a little hoarse, but he quickly regained his composure, "that those who are willing to go should have their names written down. If the city falls, they will receive rations according to their names. But the rules remain the same: fathers, sons, and brothers who are together will be given priority and treated the same as before."
Also, Master Qin told Brother Yang to select twenty of our brothers to join this vanguard team.
"It's not about climbing ladders to seize the city walls, but about keeping a close watch on them, making sure they don't collapse as soon as they get up there, or panic and forget to push their siege engines and ladders. Our siege engines and ladders need to be used effectively."
"Um!"
Master Qin nodded emphatically.
"Also," Li Chengye added at the end, "tell everyone to grab a bite to eat and a drink while they can. I'm going to check on how Huotu and Black Scorpion are fighting."
He wanted to see for himself just how determined the government troops on the city walls were in their resistance, the density of their arrows and the tactics they employed in defending the city.
His third wave of attacks could be an opportunity to gain an advantage, or it could be a head-on blow against the defending troops who are already familiar with the bandits' siege tactics.
Just then, the sound of drums thundered from Wang Er's own team. It was Wang Er beating the drums to cheer on Huo Tu as he went into battle.
Amidst the drumbeats, Li Chengye could see a long procession heading towards the south gate of Yijun City.