"Begin the siege!"
The moment those four words rang out, Lu Xiangsheng instinctively looked toward the shield soldiers at the very front of Cao Wenzhao's formation.
But something strange happened.
They did not move at all.
Not a single step.
Was the siege not starting?
Why were they still standing there?
Lu Xiangsheng was confused for a moment.
Then suddenly a thunderous boom erupted from the rear of the army.
BOOM!
Then another.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Continuous explosions echoed across the battlefield.
The Shanxi Army, under the command of Hu Dawei, had fired first.
This time the Shanxi Army had brought an enormous number of artillery units.
Four full artillery battalions.
To maintain speed during the rapid march, they had not brought the heavy cannons.
Instead they carried only small launch tubes.
Hundreds of them were arranged in dense rows.
The moment they fired, the shells flew toward Jinzhou's city walls like rain.
Jinzhou actually had cannons on its walls as well.
Smoothbore cannons.
But the distance was still too far for them to fire effectively.
Zu Dashou had never expected the enemy to open fire from such a distance.
Lu Xiangsheng turned around in shock.
"Huh?"
"The Shanxi garrison troops are using artillery?"
"What kind of strange cannons are those? They are so small."
Earlier he had seen the Shanxi soldiers placing small iron tubes on the ground, but he never imagined those were cannons.
Only now did he suddenly realize what they were.
A storm of shells screamed toward the city walls.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Explosions erupted everywhere.
The outer wall.
The moat.
The top of the wall.
Even inside the city a short distance from the wall.
Shells exploded continuously, sending deadly fragments in every direction.
The scene was terrifying.
Zu Dashou's soldiers had been caught completely unprepared.
Many of them had not even finished putting on their armor.
The enemy was still far away, and they had not even entered combat rhythm yet.
Then suddenly the bombardment began.
Screams filled the city walls.
Some soldiers were blown into the air.
Their bodies flew off the wall and landed on the narrow strip of land between the wall and the moat.
After rolling a few times, they tumbled into the moat and slowly sank beneath the water.
Lu Xiangsheng stared in disbelief.
"Such small cannons... yet such power?"
At the same time the artillery opened fire, Shen Shikui, the commander of the Pi Island forces, shouted at his troops.
"What are you standing there for?"
"Prepare soil and stones."
"Get ready to fill the moat!"
The Pi Island soldiers immediately responded.
Every one of them carried a sack.
While the artillery battalions continued firing, the soldiers took out shovels and began filling the sacks with dirt.
Mud.
Stones.
Anything they could grab went into the sacks.
This time the Pi Island forces had brought the largest number of troops.
Cao Wenzhao's Guanning Cavalry numbered only about two thousand.
The Tianxiong Army had three thousand.
The Shanxi Army had three thousand.
The Guyuan Frontier Army had only six hundred.
But the Pi Island forces had brought six thousand soldiers.
Six thousand men.
Each carrying one sack.
In an instant they prepared six thousand sacks of dirt and stones.
Lu Xiangsheng suddenly realized something strange.
He was the commander in chief.
But he seemed to be completely useless.
These armies came from different regions and different command structures.
Yet without his coordination they were already perfectly synchronized.
Everyone clearly knew their role.
Who would do what.
When to do it.
When had they planned all of this?
Why did he not know anything about it?
What exactly was his Tianxiong Army supposed to do?
A long line of question marks seemed to spin above his head.
Meanwhile the artillery continued roaring.
Soon the defensive structures on top of Jinzhou's walls were almost completely destroyed.
Artillery platforms were blown apart.
Giant crossbow machines caught fire.
The arquebusiers and archers hid behind the battlements, trembling.
But those battlements were only designed to block arrows and bullets from outside the wall.
They could not protect against shells falling from above.
The soldiers could only pray that the shrapnel would not hit them.
Meanwhile Zu Dashou had already been dragged away by his bodyguards.
He was hiding inside a stone shelter built into the wall.
There was no way for him to command the battle from the wall anymore.
When Cao Wenzhao saw that the city's defensive systems were almost paralyzed, he raised his command sword.
"Artillery cease fire."
"Guanning Cavalry."
"Pi Island forces."
"Advance."
The Shanxi artillerymen gradually stopped firing.
Especially the crews whose firing angles were shorter.
Their shells often landed in the moat area, so they were the first to stop.
Only the units firing at longer range continued shooting briefly.
The Guanning Cavalry began advancing.
Rows of aluminum alloy shields formed a long moving wall.
They slowly pushed forward.
The Pi Island soldiers followed closely behind them.
They crouched behind the shields while dragging their heavy sacks.
A few defenders appeared on the wall and fired arrows outward.
But the arrows could not penetrate the aluminum alloy shields.
To break such shields they would need cannons.
Unfortunately the cannons on the wall had already been destroyed during the earlier bombardment.
Zu Dashou's troops could only watch helplessly as the enemy approached the moat.
Then the shield formation opened slightly.
A group of arquebusiers stepped forward and fired wildly toward the wall.
BANG BANG BANG!
The defenders were forced to keep their heads down.
The Pi Island soldiers seized the opportunity.
They dragged their sacks forward and dumped them into one small section of the moat.
Six thousand sacks.
All poured into the same section.
Mud and stones sank rapidly into the water.
That section of the moat was instantly filled halfway.
"Retreat!"
Cao Wenzhao shouted.
"Pull back."
"We will do it again."
The Pi Island soldiers retreated first.
The shield formation withdrew with them.
Once they moved far enough away from the wall, the Shanxi Army shouted again.
"Fire!"
The second round of bombardment began.
Lu Xiangsheng watched the entire process with wide eyes.
For him as the commander in chief, this battle felt absurdly easy.
He had not issued a single command.
He was just watching the generals perform their roles perfectly.
Then he noticed something else.
Nearby stood a woman holding a strange machine, calmly pointing it toward the battlefield.
Even as explosions thundered ahead, she spoke leisurely into the device.
"Everyone can see that our army is currently attacking Jinzhou City."
"Because this is a surprise attack, our troops did not bring large siege equipment."
"All weapons used are portable individual weapons."
"So this battle will be somewhat difficult."
Lu Xiangsheng nearly choked.
Difficult?
She called this difficult?
This was the easiest siege he had ever witnessed.
And she said it was difficult?
Zhou Daya continued calmly.
"We cannot destroy the enemy within the time of a single meal like we usually do."
"So we must adopt repeated assaults to fill the moat."
Lu Xiangsheng's thoughts exploded.
Sieges always require repeated assaults.
Sometimes they last days.
Sometimes months.
Just how confident were these people that they expected to end a siege within the time of a single meal?
Meanwhile the Pi Island soldiers who had retreated began pulling out another set of sacks.
They started filling them with dirt and stones again.
Lu Xiangsheng cleared his throat.
Then he walked toward Shen Shikui.
"General Shen."
"Do you have any extra sacks?"
"Give some to my Tianxiong Army."
"My men can help fill the moat as well."