Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 641 Who Rules the Vast Land?
Three shells, intended for positioning, were fired across the river with a deafening roar. As the soldiers on the other side peered out to see what was happening, one of the shells exploded in the very center of their camp, creating a dazzling display of petals.

The massive shockwave tore people to shreds in an instant, even those seven or eight zhang away were blown away. The entire camp was thrown into panic. The general guarding the river was killed on the spot, and his body was nowhere to be seen.

With no leader, Li Mi's garrison immediately became like headless flies, and fleeing naturally became their main theme. But how could human speed compare to that of cannons? After the locating cannons, a salvo followed.

Under such intense firepower, the entire area was shrouded in smoke and dust almost simultaneously.

"Dragon's Breath! Load!"

Emperor Jingtai obediently covered his ears and opened his mouth, gazing at the distant military camp. In just a few breaths, after a thunderous roar, the once impregnable position was shattered into pieces.

And then, what new term did they come up with? What is... Dragon Breath Bullet?

Dragon's Breath? Isn't that his breathing? It's a good name; the person who came up with it should be rewarded handsomely.

However, after firing a round of dragon breath bombs, Emperor Jingtai still felt that the name was too sinful and not suitable for use as an imperial name, as it was somewhat tainted with bad luck.

The cannon, loaded with dragon breath shells, roared once again. This time, the shells were completely different from the previous ones. Upon landing, they immediately turned into fireballs. It was unknown what was inside, but it was known that the flames from the explosion spread extremely widely and burned for an extremely long time. Even from more than two hundred feet away, one could see the flames soaring into the sky.

The flames ignited the tents, the dry grass by the river, and the soldiers' rations. In an instant, the enemy's position became a huge fireball. In the shadows, one could see people with flames dancing and rushing out of the fire, but they soon fell to the ground.

Emperor Jingtai turned his back, unable to bear to look any longer. The smell of burning gradually filled the air. He sniffed and sighed, then looked up and saw Shan Xiongxin standing not far behind him.

"Your Majesty, when two armies clash, it is either you die or I die. There is no mercy on the battlefield, nor can mercy be tolerated. Mercy is a gift from the victor to the vanquished."

Emperor Jingtai glanced back. Although he could no longer hear any sound, the wailing sound, like something out of hell, seemed to linger in his ears. Coupled with the smell of burnt protein of unknown origin in the air, he covered his mouth and quickly walked to a secluded place, where he vomited everything up with a loud "whoosh."

Many people around saw it, but no one said anything. It wasn't that they were afraid, but rather that they were used to it. Many of them, after seeing the mangled corpses on the battlefield for the first time, were not as timid as Emperor Jingtai was at the time.

Someone offered him a handkerchief, but Emperor Jingtai, squatting on the ground, waved it off, indicating that he didn't need it. He stepped forward, scooped a ladle of water from the water vat, and, ignoring how cold it was, tilted his head back and gulped down a large mouthful, which greatly relieved the churning in his stomach.

He was still squatting on the ground, his face expressionless, his gaze fixed on the flames that were still spreading across the river. It seemed that the upstream had also misunderstood the signal, and the river had risen a lot in a short time. This must be their ambush.

Unfortunately, Li Mi's ambush troops upstream probably never expected that their enemy would be routed by their well-positioned garrison just a few hundred feet away.

With a force of several thousand, only a few remained after several rounds of artillery fire. Those who could escape had already fled, and even the garrison commander died a gruesome death, like pigs and dogs.

As evening approached, after the scouts returned with a report, the new army began constructing the bridge. Emperor Jingtai had seen them build bridges when he was in Lingnan Province, but this time it was different. With the water level receding and the current gradually stabilizing, their pontoon bridge was extremely useful. Once the ropes on the pontoon bridge were secured to the other side, it could even support large livestock like cattle and horses, and was even more stable than ordinary bridges.

The group quickly crossed the river, and at this moment they were less than thirty feet away from the camp they had bombed. At this distance, they could clearly see the horrific scene. When the evening wind blew, the stench of blood and flesh mixed with the burning stench, making one feel as if they were in purgatory.

But the soldiers of the new army did not show any emotional change. They set up camp and began to take inventory of the battlefield. Some enemy soldiers who were still alive were rescued by them.

"Eh..." Emperor Jingtai raised his hand and called out, "Well... if there's no resistance, then... never mind."

At this moment, the adjutant next to him stepped forward and said with a smile, "Your Majesty, the new army has always had a policy of treating prisoners of war well, so you can rest assured."

"That's good. Doing more killings will ruin the country's fortunes."

Of the several thousand defenders, it is unknown how many fled, but after counting, the death toll was around 3,200, the number of seriously wounded was nearly 500, and some lightly wounded were also brought back, bringing the total to around 5,000.

However, judging from their camp on the other side of the river, it was probably only a little over a thousand strong. In other words, if the new army had rashly crossed the river, not to mention the possibility of losing most of their troops to a sudden attack from upstream, the deliberately hidden ambush would have been enough to cause them serious trouble.

"Your Majesty, you see, without cannons, we would be at a great disadvantage." After reporting the results of the battle, Shan Xiongxin bowed to Emperor Jingtai and said, "It is thanks to Your Majesty's wisdom and skillful command that our army was able to advance smoothly."

Emperor Jingtai glanced at Shan Xiongxin, smiled slightly, but said nothing more.

All the credit belongs to him, but only he knows in his heart that he has no merit whatsoever. He feels like an ignorant child who was scared out of his wits from hundreds of feet away, making him an unparalleled joke.

He didn't dare go to the charred camp ahead, and it wasn't until the next morning that he took a look from afar. He saw piles of corpses, emitting a burnt smell and the greasy smell of cooked food.

Emperor Jingtai vomited again, but this time he was smarter and did not have breakfast before coming over, otherwise his embarrassing behavior yesterday would have been shown to everyone again.

No one said anything. Even a seasoned veteran would be terrified by the scene before them, let alone the emperor who lived a life of luxury and ease. He was already doing very well. Many green recruits might be possessed by ghosts and would desert even if they won the battle.

Corpses cannot be piled up here like this; it is stipulated in their marching regulations. Whether the corpses are from the enemy or our side, they must be properly disposed of. In addition to blowing up enemy city walls, digging trenches, and building pontoon bridges, the engineering battalion also has a very important task: burying people.

As Emperor Jingtai watched the corpses fall into the deep pit one by one, without even noting down their names, he felt endless emotions.

At first, he thought that the battlefield was a place of heroic passion, where elite troops were deployed and horses charged into battle, just like the heroes of the past. However, the battlefield he saw today had smoke but no heroism, death but no fighting. There was killing but no excitement. It could not even be called a war but a one-sided massacre.

This...this goes against the rites of Zhou. But what could he say? Was he supposed to do what was done during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, waiting for everyone to deploy their troops for several days before giving an order to start a sniping duel at the center? War has long since evolved to the point where anything goes as long as you can win. A naive person would have their skull cut off and used as a wine cup. There can be no mercy shown to the enemy.

The new army has now occupied the enemy's advantageous terrain and has begun to extend the defensive line to both sides. The scorched earth tactic—Emperor Jingtai saw it clearly. He initially thought there would be some kind of arson tactic, but it was precise, ingenious, and full of the beauty of war.

However, this so-called scorched earth tactic can be summed up in two words: fire the cannons.

The cannons were once again disassembled into parts and began to slowly move forward behind the main force, following the Shenji Battalion. The Shenji Battalion members remained expressionless as always. It seemed that no one else existed in their eyes, only the iron lumps in their hands, which they held in their hands every day as if they were newly married wives.

But Emperor Jingtai learned that the Shenji Battalion, with its five thousand men, was their absolute fighting force, and that the Shenji Battalion alone could sweep across the Central Plains.

This time, however, he felt no joy at all. He did not want the mountains and rivers he had traversed to turn into scorched earth, nor the towns he had visited to become ruins. These were his beautiful lands, and he wanted them to return intact, not in fragments.

War is no fun, not fun at all, and the Divine Machine Battalion is even less fun. It is like a sharp blade in the emperor's hand, ready to draw blood once unsheathed.

It is worth mentioning, however, that they found the enemy's granary twelve miles in front of the enemy's main camp. They had made ample preparations to guard against the new army's fire attack.

They probably never imagined the fire would be so fierce.

"Grand Commander~~~"

Inside Handan, Li Mi, who had just arrived to oversee the army, trembled at the sound of a shout. His first thought was that something bad was about to happen. When the messenger arrived, the first thing he heard was, "Grand Commander, the river has collapsed, and the enemy army has safely crossed the river."

Li Mi knew they could cross the river, but he hadn't expected it to be so fast. His eyes widened, and he slammed his fist on the table: "You bastard! Where is Zhang Ning?! Why didn't he send me a battle report? Did he defect to the enemy?"

After delivering the report, he suddenly burst into tears. He lay on the ground and wailed for a while, then cried out, "The brothers of the Zhuolu Trapped Camp are dead... all dead. General Zhang is dead too, his body is nowhere to be found..."

Li Mi's mind went blank for a moment. He took a few steps back. Zhang Ning was a descendant of Zhang Liao, a general from the Three Kingdoms period. He was incredibly brave in battle and had almost no defeats in hundreds of battles, large and small.

However, he had the advantage of terrain and the support of allies upstream and downstream, and was defeated and his body was completely destroyed.
Those were the elite troops of Zhuolu Trapped Camp! His most elite warriors! While it's not quite an exaggeration to say they could take on a hundred men single-handedly, they were still the best of the best. Even if five thousand were no match for thirty or forty thousand, they couldn't possibly have been routed so quickly.

"But seriously?"

"Is it true, Grand Commander...is it true!"

Before he could verify the information, scouts came with intelligence: battle reports may lie, but the front lines do not. The enemy bypassed the ambush sites at the foot of the mountain and crossed the river by water, rushing towards Handan City.

Upon comparing the intelligence from both sides, Li Mi immediately knew that his strongest interceptor battalion was gone, but he didn't know how it was gone. The battle report from the front hadn't arrived yet, or rather, the scattered deserters hadn't arrived.

He knew the new army was strong, but he didn't know it was this strong. If the Trapped Camp couldn't hold them off for even a day, then he would be plunged into an endless bitter battle. Unless he could use the towering walls of Handan, this ancient city with a thousand-year history, to cut off their advance and wait for reinforcements, he didn't have any particularly good way to deal with them.

"Gao Jin, Gao Wu".

"My subordinate is here."

"You two will immediately lead two thousand light cavalry in two separate routes to cut off the enemy's rear supply lines. You must throw the enemy into chaos."

"The last general takes command!"

The two men took the military tally and turned to leave. They quickly led two thousand light cavalrymen out of Handan, making a large detour and heading straight for the supply train at the rear of the new army.

At this moment, the new army was marching normally, but unlike regular armies, they did not leave manpower to protect the supply train. Instead, they allowed the supply train to slowly follow behind the main force, maintaining a distance difference of three to five days. If the distance became too great, the vanguard would take a short rest.

This marching plan gave the Gao brothers an opportunity. Two thousand light cavalrymen circled around and quickly located the new army's supply train.

The Gao brothers were also very curious at this moment. Why would such a strong team make such a basic mistake? Why didn't they send troops to protect the convoy? Instead, they left some people who didn't even seem to have any weapons to slowly move forward.

"This afternoon, while they are having their meal, we will hear the sound of arrows and move! You and I will enter from both sides and fight our way in and out seven times!"

After discussing it, the two brothers each took a break.

Meanwhile, their scouts discovered something strange: several soldiers clad in black lamellar armor had set up a blacksmith's forge in the wild jujube grove beside the official road. When the bearded leader pulled out the copper pipes, he almost mistook them for the sheng and xiao from a music academy, but the pipes were all twisted together with iron hoops into a honeycomb pattern, making it look more like a panpipe from a Kucha musician stuffed into an alchemy furnace.

Does this supply convoy need music to entertain them while they eat?

After they finished, the bearded man suddenly ordered his soldiers to lift the cast-iron frame, which stood upright like a magic array. The honeycomb-shaped array of iron pipes was inlaid with six gleaming black tubes, and the copper tongues behind each tube trembled as if they were alive. They also stuffed copper chains into the spine of the iron beast, and when the hinges next to it turned, the clanging sound carried the distinct sulfurous and salty smell of shops run by foreign merchants.

What is this? A new musical instrument?
(End of this chapter)