Chapter 286
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Chapter 286: The Will of the People?
With Zhou Dongnan’s conscription order issued, coupled with the news of the front-line siege army’s defeat spreading, for a time, people in various cities within the Great Zhou territory were all in a state of alarm.
Soldiers in the army were everywhere rounding up people for military service.
Not to mention young and strong youths, even men in their 40s and 50s, as long as they were physically sound, were uniformly taken away.
This clearly showed that Zhou Dongnan was truly desperate this time.
In contrast, the people in the three cities that fell into Luo Ji’s hands, East Frontier City, Songshan City, and Songhe City lived more peacefully.
Because for the people of these three cities, the only thing Luo Ji did after capturing them was to blockade the city gates on both sides.
This naturally had an impact on them, but compared to the Great Zhou soldiers who would burn, kill, and loot upon capturing a city, and who normally behaved like tyrants even on their own land, the two groups were clearly poles apart.
Thus, after the initial few days of apprehension, the people, realizing this, simply settled down and went about their lives.
However, despite their calmness, there were still some troubles.
For example, due to the closed city gates, many people were unable to go out to farm, and their families had no surplus food.
Regarding this, Luo Ji acted decisively.
With a wave of his hand, he ordered people to set up several large pots in the city center to distribute porridge.
It wasn’t because he was overly benevolent, but because if famine broke out in the city, even more troublesome things would certainly happen.
Take the history of their Celestial Dynasty, for example, how did the Yellow Turban Rebellion arise at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty?
It was precisely because of famine.
Farmers had no land to cultivate and no food to eat.
At such a time, if a leader who wanted to stir up trouble emerged, wouldn’t it naturally lead to a peasant uprising?
It was from that moment that the Han Dynasty began its decline.
Of course, the situation here wasn’t that exaggerated, but if a group of unruly commoners became desperate and caused trouble, it would be extremely annoying.
Luo Ji had no intention of dealing with such vexing matters.
The grain Ye Qingxuan had traded to him earlier had completely filled all his city granaries and military barracks.
With no shortage of grain at the moment, why would he be stingy with a little rice?
At the same time, Luo Ji’s action unexpectedly earned him a good reputation in these three cities. Although he was occupying someone else’s cities, he inexplicably gained a sense of being supported by the people.
Even Zhou Yi, who had just recently surrendered, and his subordinate surrendered soldiers, all enthusiastically praised, “Leader is benevolent!” Their loyalty began to surge.
One wonders if Zhou Dongnan would spit out another mouthful of blood if he saw this scene.
Back to the main topic, after 4 days of rest following that battle, all severely wounded soldiers had been sent back to Songhe City to recover.
The units that replaced them were the sword-shield soldiers led by Liu Meng!
Before the war began, Luo Ji had ordered 60% of the blacksmiths in the Military Equipment Forging Department to fully concentrate on forging bronze battle swords.
Now, over half a month later, with the bronze battle swords forged at full speed plus existing stock, Liu Meng had managed to quickly assemble a sword-shield unit of over 700 men!
Liu Meng, having recovered from his injuries, was clearly eager to go to the front lines this time, fully intending to lead his new unit to avenge their past shame and achieve great merits.
However, Luo Ji was currently facing a somewhat troublesome issue, the triple-bow bed crossbows were out of bolts.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate.
The heavy crossbow bolts that were fired earlier would undoubtedly all be retrieved during battlefield cleanup after the battle.
After all, each heavy crossbow bolt was quite expensive, and they couldn’t truly be treated as single-use items.
Not just heavy crossbow bolts, but even arrows shot by archers and stones thrown by slingers were recovered as much as possible.
However, military equipment like this couldn’t be reused indefinitely just by retrieving it, because the bronze arrowheads would wear down.
Heavy crossbow bolts for the triple-bow bed crossbow usually needed to be sent back to the Military Equipment Forging Department for remelting and reforging after three to five uses.
And in the previous battle, these heavy crossbow bolts were all fired at the siege tower, which was fully covered in bronze armor plating!
It’s easy to imagine what would happen to a bronze arrowhead striking such thick bronze armor plating.
The arrowhead part was severely damaged.
Although it could still be used, its destructive power against city walls and gates had significantly decreased.
Li Kuo, the defending general of Shangyuan City, noticing this, decisively chose to hold fast and not sally out.
The enemy’s defending forces were numerous, and with the city walls as their reliance, Shangyuan City truly couldn’t be captured for a while.
This angered Luo Yong, Liu Meng, and Guo Zhen, these three big men, who took turns challenging the city every day.
Luo Ji, on the other hand, was relatively calm.
Primarily, there was no point in rushing.
After two rounds of siege, Li Kuo was clearly a general skilled in defensive warfare.
He defended the entire city wall impenetrable.
Without the triple-bow bed crossbows to damage the city walls and gates, relying solely on scaling ladders to capture Shangyuan City would be too difficult.
However, Luo Ji had already ordered the Military Equipment Forging Department in the rear to fully concentrate on producing a batch of heavy crossbow bolts specifically for the triple-bow bed crossbows.
Calculating the time, they should arrive in a few more days.
He was waiting for heavy crossbow bolts to attack the city, while Li Kuo on the other side was clearly waiting for Zhou Dongnan’s reinforcements.
Luo Ji was well aware of this, but he wasn’t panicking at all.
Including the 5,000 troops he had annihilated during the previous invasion battle, after this series of battles, Zhou Dongnan’s forces lost to him were estimated to have reached over 8,000.
And considering the over 2,000 defending troops currently in Shangyuan City, how many more troops could Zhou Dongnan muster?
Luo Ji could almost certainly say that Zhou Dongnan’s total regular army strength now was at most no more than 4,000!
Perhaps even only around 3,000.
After Shangyuan City’s siege army retreated, Zhou Dongnan, realizing the dire situation, was probably forcibly conscripting soldiers everywhere, right?
However, these untrained, forcibly conscripted miscellaneous soldiers who were directly thrown onto the battlefield, what use were they besides being cannon fodder?
But Luo Ji was different.
His biggest advantage now was that he had previously swallowed Wang Luzong’s civilization, which provided him with a large number of surrendered soldiers!
To facilitate management, Luo Ji had disbanded these surrendered soldiers and distributed them among his various cities.
Now, he only needed to re-conscript these surrendered soldiers.
Luo Ji wasn’t sure what level of military training these surrendered soldiers had received, but they were definitely stronger than farmers who were still plowing fields and herding cattle!
