The Red Chamber: Starting from Saving Xue Baochai

Chapter 82 A Spectacular Scene

When the boss Jiang Shan heard this, his heart skipped a beat. The shoe had finally dropped, but the news that came was indeed bad news.

"That bunch of crooked officials! Why didn't anyone come to report the news?" Jiang Shan cursed angrily. He was so angry that he felt a fishy and sweet taste in his throat and almost vomited blood.

No one here could answer his doubts. The other leaders were also terrified and cursed the corrupt officials who had accepted their benefits for their betrayal.

The Third Chief calmed his thoughts and said anxiously, "Stop cursing, First Chief, quickly gather the brothers to meet the enemy! We have the advantage of terrain now, and the government troops will not be able to attack for a while."

"Yes! Yes!" Jiang Shan woke up as if from a dream and shouted loudly: "Go and notify everyone to gather and defend the gate. If the government troops attack, none of us will be able to escape."

"yes, Sir!"

Several heads and some leaders went out to gather the villagers to deploy defenses.

If we can get the news in advance, we can make a prediction whether to defend or retreat. If we can't defeat the enemy, we can just retreat early. In the vast mountains, it is easy for three or five people to break up into small groups and find a secret place to hide.

But this was no longer possible. The army had arrived and the stronghold was surrounded. Their only choice was to abandon their illusions and fight the government troops with all their might in order to gain a chance of survival.

Obviously, Shen Yuan did not intend to give these bandits any chance.

At this time, the new army guards had arrived outside the village gate and deployed in stages.

In addition, troops were deployed to guard all possible entrances to and from the stronghold.

After estimating the time, Shen Yuan gave the order to attack to Feng Ziying and other generals.

Feng Ziying, Jiang Fan, Liu Xianglian, and Zhao Huan quickly took orders and led their respective soldiers into battle positions.

"Bows and arrows ready!"

"put!"

As the orders were given, wave after wave of arrows poured into the mountain stronghold.

The bandits in the village hurriedly raised their bamboo shields, crouched down and dared not show their heads.

Occasionally, dozens of people would launch sporadic counterattacks by shooting arrows from the high tower fortress.

Several leaders of Jiangshan put on bamboo armor and stood on the high tower fortress in the middle, keeping a close eye on the movements outside the village gate.

"Brother, the number of government troops here is probably no less than three thousand."

Jiang Shan was silent for a moment, then said in a heavy tone, "I'm afraid there are more than that, there are others hiding."

After the previous shock, they have now calmed down and are dealing with the situation in the same way as before.

"They only have bows and arrows, they can't hurt us at all."

There are shields and shelters in the village, so even the most dense arrows are unlikely to have any effect.

"The stronghold is backed by a steep cliff, and on both sides are cliffs and deep ravines. We only need to guard the direction of the stronghold gate and prevent the government troops from getting close to the foot of the stronghold gate, and there will be no accidents."

After several years of construction and improvement, the village gate and walls have become very solid.

But we need to be on guard against a large force coming up and climbing over the wall.

Just as they were on guard against the enemy outside the village, something strange happened.
"boom!"

At this moment, something fell from the sky at an extremely terrifying speed and landed on the slope ten feet away from the village gate, stirring up a thick cloud of dust.

Everyone was attracted by the loud noise and looked over.

When the dust settled, the thieves could see clearly that it was a large rock lying quietly in a deep pit, which was obviously made by the smash just now.

"hiss!"

The bandits gasped and were so shocked that they were speechless.

"Where did this come from?" Jiang Shan's face was full of disbelief and fear.

At this moment, a bandit suddenly shouted: "Look up to the sky! Look up to the sky!"

All the thieves were awakened and looked up at the sky at the same time. A strange scene came into their eyes.

"what is that?"

They saw round balls floating in the sky with a small basket hanging below the balls.

Because the hot air balloon soared nearly a hundred feet into the air, the house-sized airbag looked like a medium-sized ball to people on the ground, and the large bamboo basket, more than half a person's height, looked like a small hanging basket from below.

“Looks like a sky lantern?”

It does look a bit like sky lanterns, with hundreds of them floating in the sky.

"Have you ever seen such a big sky lantern in the world?"

The bandits also had common sense. They could see clearly from such a distance that the thing was obviously a huge monster.

"Did that big rock just now fall from those sky lanterns above?" Jiang Shan was a little confused.

"It seems so." The third in command was stuck in the middle of his sentence.

Not only him, but all the bandits who looked up at the sky opened their mouths wide, stunned and unable to speak.

Something fell from the 'sky lantern' and flashed before everyone's eyes at an extremely fast speed in just a few breaths of time.

"boom!"

Another huge crash was heard, stirring up dust and smoke just like the big rock before.

Soon, the bandits saw clearly that the stone had hit the gate of the village.

Although the gate of the village, which was built with yellow mud and rocks, had not been smashed through, a piece was missing from the upper right corner.

At the foot of the slope outside the village gate, Shen Yuan held a monocular telescope and took in every detail of the hot air balloon throwing stones.

In this anti-bandit campaign, in addition to training through attacking, this also increased the soldiers' practical experience.

There is also a more important purpose, which is to test the offensive effect of hot air balloons on the battlefield.

From the current perspective, it is still effective. It can fly hundreds of feet in the air and attack over walls, and it can play a lot of roles at critical moments.

Feng Ziying and his companions were also quite surprised when they saw this. A single stone could have such an effect. There were hundreds of stones waiting in the sky. If they were dropped together, what would be the destructive power? This would be much more effective than the thousands of arrows they had just fired.

Of course, the effect of a hot air balloon is limited to specific conditions, and it is impossible to really think that this thing can defeat thousands of soldiers.

Inside the mountain stronghold, Jiang Shan and the other bandits finally realized that the purpose of the "sky lanterns" above was to smash through their stronghold gate and clear the way for the army outside.
"Not good! Hurry." Jiang Shan didn't know what order to give for a moment.

Figuring it out is one thing, but having a way to deal with it is another.

Obviously, there was nothing they could do.

You can't just use human flesh to stop the rock from falling at high speed, it's impossible to stop it.
Sure enough, what happened next was a scene that made the bandits despair, and it was also an extremely spectacular scene.

After nearly a hundred hot air balloons adjusted their positions, the soldiers on them threw down large rocks at the same time.

All people could do was watch as hundreds of huge rocks came whizzing down, faster and faster, arriving in the blink of an eye.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!."

A deafening crash sounded, like a devil's sound, shaking the hearts of Jiang Shan and others.

What followed was a huge smoke screen that was visible everywhere, as if it covered the entire sky and earth around the village gate.

"It's over."

Almost every bandit had a feeling of despair in his heart.

With such a dense gravity bombardment, there was no way the village gate could be saved.
Those huge rocks destroyed not only the village gate that they thought was impregnable, but also the resistance that they had barely mustered.

The bandits' fighting spirit was instantly shattered.
(End of this chapter)