Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 141: Building Fortifications Under the Enemy's Nose

Yuan Ye stood on the wall, staring at the Imagawa family who were setting up camp in the distance, confused. The situation was very critical before, and he was ready for a bloody battle, but two days later, it was not quite what he expected...

Of course, it's not to say that there was no fighting. The Wanjin Army and the Imagawa family had been expelling each other's scouts. Twenty to thirty small-scale battles broke out in the wilderness in the past two days. Moreover, the Imagawa family took advantage of their numerical advantage and after successfully driving away the scattered reconnaissance soldiers on their side, they also tried to launch several attacks, but they were all small-scale and would retreat after a few casualties. Today, they simply built a camp and did not even launch a tentative attack.

The intensity of this battle was much lower than he had expected. It was like tickling him and his performance was not normal.

He thought about it for a while but couldn't figure it out, so he turned to the students in the "camp school" and asked, "What do you think is going on?"

These middle and lower-level officers and non-commissioned officers looked at each other for a few times. One of them, a flag captain named Du Ji (a middle-level officer in charge of five small flags), said cautiously: "Is the enemy paralyzing us? The enemy's attacks in the past two days have been concentrated on the front. Perhaps they want us to underestimate the enemy and then suddenly launch a flank attack? For example, suddenly crossing the river in the middle of the night to attack our rear..."

Yuan Ye had been encouraging these middle and lower-level officers and non-commissioned officers in the "camp school" to think positively. He would take them to map work and conduct primitive war games on a daily basis in order to get more military helpers. Even though he did not think that the enemy had the ability to organize a large number of people to cross the river silently in the middle of the night, he still encouraged them, "It is possible. The two wings do need to be more vigilant."

After he finished speaking, he looked at the others, "What about you? What do you think?"

Someone said, "The enemy may be waiting for reinforcements..."

Another person disagreed: "But the enemy's numbers are enough to launch an attack. They should at least launch a few real attacks. If they find that they can't defeat us, they will ask for help, right?"

"Indeed, it seems that the enemy has no need to wait."

With Yuanye's connivance, these middle and lower-level officers and non-commissioned officers dared to speak loudly and express their opinions. They began to discuss why the Imagawa family was so slow. However, their ideas were not new for the time being. Until Shi Pusa, a non-commissioned officer who had just joined the "camp school" for a few months, scratched his head and said naively: "The enemy is afraid of us!"

The scene was quiet, Yuanye turned his gaze to him, and asked curiously: "Why do you say that? According to previous information, the enemy's armored troops are at least 1,500 or more, plus the armored troops of the Chido clan, the number will be even greater, and the advantage is very obvious. What are they afraid of?"

The Stone Bodhisattva then scratched his head. He was not nervous when facing the top BOSS in Wanjin. He said directly: "But we have several thousand people. We seem to have more people than them. They must be afraid!"

"We only have 670 armored soldiers, less than half of the enemy." A flagman reminded, "The people behind us can't fight."

"But the enemy doesn't know." The stone Bodhisattva was not very good at speaking, and gestured with his hands. "Before I stole something, I always felt that everyone was looking at me. I always felt that someone would rush over and hit me at any time. I hesitated and felt insecure. I didn't dare to really do it for a while... Well, I can't explain it clearly, but I think the people on the other side are like me in the past. They are insecure, afraid of being beaten, and afraid of us."

There were a few laughs from the officers and non-commissioned officers around him, who thought his idea was a little funny, but Yuan Ye didn't laugh. Instead, he patted Stone Bodhisattva on the shoulder and encouraged him, "It's good to have your own ideas. It's indeed possible."

He had a deep impression of this sergeant, who had performed very bravely in the last battle. He rushed forward with blood all over his face and was the first to break through the enemy line. But later when he entered the "camp school", he failed the literacy class. He had not learned a hundred words in several months. He was ready to dismiss the enemy and return to being a private. However, this guy seemed to have a strange way of thinking, so maybe he could take another look.

As for whether the other party is really afraid of them...

He couldn't see that his officer corps was also rubbish and he couldn't be sure of the enemy's intentions, but he could see clearly that the other side was not eager to take the initiative to fight.

After collecting opinions, he pondered for a moment and gave the order directly: "Disband, everyone return to your positions. Send back a few more construction teams, and we will continue to repair the fortifications!"

He had no military talent. Since he could not determine the enemy's intentions, he decided to stick to the original plan and rely on the advantage of the defense to fight with the opponent in a consumption contest. If the enemy did not want to attack him, he would continue to strengthen his defenses until he could build a turtle shell. If the enemy saw him building fortifications and wanted to rush over to attack him, that would be fine too, as it would be better than not knowing what the enemy was going to do!

His order was quickly conveyed, and under the coordination of internal affairs officials such as Endo Chiyo, several construction teams soon rushed over from the port in neat queues with construction tools. These were the best construction workers, most of whom were former workers in the workshops and were considered reserve soldiers. They cooperated relatively well and basically obeyed orders. In the event of an attack, they would not easily get confused.

Behind them was a group of new immigrants with poor discipline. These were the real coolies, pulling large quantities of building materials with human-powered carts, following in a chaotic manner, acting as a temporary transport team. Yuan Ye lay on the top of the city wall and watched for a while. After being reminded by the stone Bodhisattva, he suddenly had an idea.

Did the other side mistake these construction teams for Langdang? These workers who were promoted from the coolie team to the workshop also developed the habit of marching in a line early on. From a distance, they looked similar to the Langdang who trained while farming in this era, except that they did not have equipment such as the Domaru Jinsha.

However, he looked at it for a few more times and didn't think about it anymore. The enemy couldn't always misjudge. He actually only had so many soldiers, and he couldn't produce more now. In the end, it all depended on hard power.

Since the enemy won’t attack him, he can just continue to build fortifications. Let’s do this for now!
…………

Yuanye began to build fortifications under the enemy's nose again.

He has no shortage of manpower now. In fact, because too many people were kidnapped back before, there was a situation of idle manpower. He needed to drive the soldiers out of the barracks to eat and drink to relieve his resettlement pressure. There is no shortage of volcanic ash, cement and the like. Digging soil is free, lime is free, and the wood for burning lime can be cut at will. These cements are basically picked up for free. He just needs to provide meals for the coolie team - those new immigrants do not go to dig volcanic ash and burn lime, and he also needs to provide them with meals. He can't just watch them starve to death, so overall, there is basically no cost.

Since it was a cost-free material, he naturally collected a large amount of it and stored hundreds of ships in one winter. Now, as long as Oda Nobunaga did not raid his lair, he could transport cement here continuously and waste it at will.

There was no shortage of manpower or materials, and he was not going to build an elevated aqueduct stretching for dozens of kilometers or a huge Roman Colosseum. He just wanted to build a city the size of half a football field (national conditions are different, in Japan, a city of this size is considered a city, after all, Araki City is only more than 700 square meters), and a sheep wall connecting the north and south (the connecting wall between castles, which is shorter than the city wall and also very narrow). It did not require much technical content, and the progress was extremely fast for a while.

Asahina Taicho was naturally unhappy with his arrogance, but at the same time he became more cautious, confirming that he was really strong, otherwise he would not be so confident.

He was not in a hurry to harass them for the time being, as he wanted to see what Yuanye was trying to do first. He did not believe in crazy talk like "the city wall can grow one or two feet higher in a day", but the next day he had to believe it. The opposite side only worked for most of the day and lit a fire all night, but on both wings of the strange city, there were indeed dozens of long, two-foot-high low walls, but they looked to be made of wood and were wet, as if someone had been watering them all the time, not even stopping at night.

At the same time, there were some scattered low walls on the sides and rear of the enemy city. Judging from their shapes, the enemy seemed to want to build two small rock fortresses there.

Asahina Yasunaga didn't dare to watch any further, as he would become an epic idiot if he continued, so he quickly ordered the samurai party to eat and prepare to launch a harassment attack. While he was arranging the troops to prepare for the attack, the enemy still did not stop working. Some of them had already begun to dismantle the outer wooden boards of the low walls adjacent to the city, revealing the dark blue walls with a very smooth surface. At the same time, they moved the dismantled wooden boards upwards, preparing to further raise the low walls.

This is the layered construction method. Just water it lightly to keep it moist for about 18 hours. Once the surface of the first layer of concrete has been hydrated and solidified, removing the formwork will not cause surface cracks. It has become "bricks" and you can continue to pour a new layer upwards. The adhesive in the middle and the supporting ribs are made directly of cement and fine bamboo. Yuanye didn't require this thing to be durable. He had stored seven months of food rations. If the Imagawa family didn't leave after seven months, he would leave automatically. So as long as these walls don't collapse for seven months, they will be considered qualified!
Asahina Yasunaga was completely stunned. He didn't expect that there was such a magical method of building a city in the world. The city wall could really grow one or two feet higher in a day. It seemed that if Yuanye was allowed to work so unscrupulously, it would take at most three to five days for him to block the road in front. If he was given another seven or eight days, even if he broke the sheep wall, there would probably be a pile of rock fortresses behind it to continue the defense.

He didn't dare to wait any longer, and urged repeatedly, personally supervising the battle, and was forced to launch an attack. He ordered his party to urge the miscellaneous soldiers and foot soldiers provided by the Chita clans such as the Takeda family and the Miya family, to push the wooden and bamboo fences that had been built in the past two days, and began to advance with "oh oh hey" sounds - wooden and bamboo fences are a kind of large Japanese shield, which come in many styles such as four-eye fence, grouper fence, and zouga fence. They can be used to block arrows when defending the city and to block cavalry charges in field battles. Now it is to reduce the damage of the Wanzu army's iron cannons.

Asahina Yasunaga did not expect to capture the enemy's city in this way. He just wanted to disperse the enemy's construction team. However, he did not expect that the enemy's construction team was in chaos for a moment in the face of the massive attack and then quickly restored order. They continued to do what they were supposed to do, and even became more dexterous. The construction speed was actually increased a lot.

At the same time, a huge, golden "gourd horse seal" was erected on the enemy's city. The harsh sounds of bamboo whistles and iron whistles began to sound continuously, and hundreds of black gun barrels instantly extended from the battlements of the city wall.

The enemies on the northern mountain seemed to have received instructions as well. A small group of them left the rock fortress and began to head towards the middle of the mountain. Asahina Yasunaga had to transfer some of his men to suppress them in order to avoid being bombarded from the side.

The enemies on the river bank to the south also moved, and also forced Asahina Yasunaga to send some men to suppress the enemy and send them back. At this time, the Imagawa army in the front finally advanced to the maximum range of the bow and arrow, and immediately threw arrows to forcibly disperse the enemy's "Lang Party" who were working. However, the distance was too far, and the enemy hid quickly under the order, so the driving effect was not very good, and few people were shot at all.

At this time, the cannons on the city wall of the Wanjin Army finally opened fire, and more than a hundred puffs of gray-white smoke spewed out in an instant. The Wanjin Army was in a dominant position, with a great advantage in range and firing range, and immediately the wooden and bamboo fences were smashed into pieces. More than a dozen people from the Imagawa Army immediately rolled to the ground screaming.

Then another wave of arrows flew high into the air from the city wall, then turned around and slammed down, knocking down more than a dozen people again.

The Imagawa family had to dispatch a large number of archers to start shooting at the enemies on the city walls in an attempt to suppress the enemy's long-range projection power. However, the enemy had battlements, arrow shelters, and was in a dominant position. Their iron cannons were extremely sophisticated and powerful. Even though both sides were at the maximum range and their accuracy was poor, the Imagawa family still suffered a great loss, with more than a dozen people falling in each wave.

Yuanye was also holding a cannon and firing steadily, and he didn't feel anything about the construction team being beaten - this was a battlefield, and if the Imagawa family was willing to exchange a large number of samurai for some of his construction workers, then he was willing to accompany them!
For the sake of the new territory, he has been mentally prepared for the death of half of his people, so the Imagawa family had better be aware of it as well!
If not, the land should belong to him!
(End of this chapter)