Wei School's Three Good Students

Chapter 6 Defending the Camp
On October 6th of the 23rd year of the Tianli calendar, the war in the southern border was like a smoldering fire lit by a cigarette butt. After burning long enough, it suddenly burst into bright flames.

On the beacon tower of the military granary, crimson flames leaped, and blue smoke drifted into the sky, entering the clouds like ink. The white clouds instantly turned into dark clouds, and then lightning flashed within them.

Xuan Chong looked up at the strange phenomenon. As the clouds darkened, the lightning and drumming sounds in the sky corresponded, much like the jumping characters between keyboard commands and a screen.

Wu Fei recited the formulas for calculating the aura of war in military strategy.

Wu Fei stared blankly at the beacon tower, as if he had thought of some wonderful combination. It seemed that he was just one step closer and he would catch it. Hmm, just a little closer. He thought a little more.

The bugle call in the camp interrupted Wu Fei's reverie. As the garrison commander of the large warehouse, Wu Fei began to focus his attention on what he needed to do.

Seven days after Zhao Tu's arrival, the atmosphere around the granary changed. Scouts sent out could no longer easily probe beyond five miles, as they encountered more crossbow bolts and spears. If Wu Fei hadn't provided more food and drink and increased the scouts' bounties by more than three times, no brave men would have ventured out at all.

According to military classics, "courage" is key to siege warfare. When soldiers with remaining "remaining courage" venture out of the city and return, the boasting of these returning warriors is far more effective than a hundred impassioned speeches from the general. Once the "remaining courage" is gone, the garrison, unable to leave the city, faces the unknown outside world, leading to extremely unstable morale.

Wu Fei's soldiers were not seasoned veterans; they were recruited from rural farmers. They were in a Schrödinger's cat-like state of "daring to fight and not daring to fight." When the enemy was weak, they were as fierce as tigers, believing the enemy to be sheep and their own side to be divinely ordained. But when the enemy was strong, without the support of courageous and tragic heroes, they would immediately become sheep to be slaughtered.

The negative example of passively defending a city is certain foolish and meddlesome individuals who consider themselves strategists.

These scholars closed their doors, passing the time with drinking and merrymaking, thinking they could climb the city walls to oversee the battle when the enemy attacked! However, when the enemy was at the gates, morale had collapsed beyond repair, and they dared not come to the city walls. There were no soldiers on the walls to shield them from the cannon fire, as they had imagined.

Wu Fei's military treatise also records that a general's courage and spirit are crucial; if the general is weary, the soldiers will follow suit. Even the most fortified city will be full of weaknesses in the hands of a tired general.

Historical records describe generals who remained calm and composed even when facing formidable enemies, maintaining morale. This was all predicated on one crucial condition: the camp was meticulously organized and without any loopholes, allowing for normal eating and drinking.

Xuan Chong doesn't believe he can remain calm and collected; he can't help but feel nervous when faced with important matters. However, he can still do a good job of routine and orderly tasks!

…two hours after the beacon tower was lit…

More and more snake-men began to emerge from the bushes. The snake-men leader was certain that the granary they were about to attack was already on guard, so he stopped hiding.

A large patch of bushes collapsed, twisted and crooked, and the snake-man, whose colors matched the environment, suddenly appeared outside this once quiet camp.

These snake-men began to approach the camp. The closest they came was less than 500 paces away. Even from the city walls, one could hear a rustling sound, like the chirping of insects in a summer field. Although not very loud, it could be heard everywhere in the surrounding wilderness.

Wu Fei has issued a curfew. No noise is allowed in the camp, and soldiers not on duty are to go to their tents to sleep and conserve their energy.

The army's cooks were the busiest, working in shifts for twelve hours a day, tending fires and steaming baskets of rice and flour. After the rice and flour softened, they were wrapped with pickled vegetables and minced meat, dried in the oven, and then sent to the well to cool, where they would keep for three or four days without spoiling. Now, they had to ensure that food was readily available.

The taste of this rice ball was destined to be terrible. But Wu Fei saw in the military book that: after swallowing a mouthful of rice ball, the soldier's blood and qi could be sustained for a longer period of time.

…As a good student, when taking an exam, you don't give up on any point…

Before the final assault, the snake-men came to the outside of the granary once or twice to throw spears, but this did not cause Wu Fei's army to wave their flags. The soldiers guarding the high platform knew from the scouts who returned every day that it was impossible for more than thirty snake-men to be hiding in the bushes within a thousand feet.

According to the rigid rules of military strategy, all the surrounding trees should be cut down. It's not that Wu Fei didn't want to do it, but it's very difficult to clear all the trees in this southern border region. After a little rain at night, the shrubs would grow wildly.

As the snake people continued to send small groups to provoke them, Wu Fei ordered: No whistles should be blown to disturb the brothers in the camp if there are no more than two hundred snake people.

Wu Fei couldn't soothe people's hearts by simply holding a banquet in the camp without causing a commotion. But he could ensure that while he was on duty, everyone else could sleep peacefully.

…After the Jade Rabbit and the Golden Crow took turns serving twice more…

Finally, the local snake-people leaders could no longer contain themselves and had completed their final assembly, displaying totem leather in the due south direction.

The totem is made of leather, with bright colors and symmetrical arrangement, similar to a Thangka. At its center is an image of a male and female snake mating. This snake-people tribe is called "Ye Chao Clan".

The shaman of the Ye Chao clan appeared outside Wu Fei's camp riding a giant beast resembling a Spinosaurus from a Jurassic movie. Meanwhile, on the high platform built within the granary, Wu Fei also gazed upon the Ye Chao clan's army.

The two sides are now only five hundred paces apart!
From the small holes left under the camp walls, some short soldiers emerged, carrying packs, and quickly ran to within fifty paces of the camp gate. Before the snake-men spearmen could charge, these soldiers scattered strings of iron caltrops tied together with straw ropes. Then, just as the snake-men spearmen approached, the camp gate opened, and rows of crossbowmen ran out in formation. Following the flag commands, they stopped at the fixed lines drawn outside the camp. Then, in pairs, one person sat down, braced his foot against the crossbow arm, pulled back the string, and pushed off with his legs, while the other loaded a heavy arrow. With a collective pull of the trigger, a click was followed by a series of whooshing sounds as arrows pierced the air.

Visually, the shadows of rows of arrows raining down in the air cast a somber filter over the sky and earth.

The snake-men, who had just run 120 steps, numbered about 30, were immediately killed when 50 arrows rained down from the sky.

Meanwhile, the crossbowmen, relying on the barbed wire in front of them as a barrier, continued to draw their bows and fire at each other.

Twenty breaths later, the snake-men who had come to probe the enemy collapsed. There were thirty of them, but only twenty returned, and most of them were riddled with arrows. These arrows had just been soaked in golden juice last night.

……

On the high platform, Wu Fei heard a hissing sound beside him. Turning his head, he saw it was the snake woman "Xiao Qing" speaking. At this moment, the snake woman was staring hatefully at the banner of the "Ye Chao Clan." Wu Fei now understood why this snake woman had come to serve the Wu family army.

Last night, the snake woman opened her heart, revealing her tragic past: her tribe, the "Cuixi Clan," was a powerful clan in the southern borderlands ten years ago, but was subsequently wiped out by the "Yechao Clan," and her entire clan was slaughtered. Therefore, she served as a slave to a Wu family, waiting for an opportunity for revenge.

At this moment, on the high platform, A Qing, who was accompanying General Wu Fei, was looking at the enemy clan in the distance with hatred, but her eyes still fell on Wu Fei out of the corner of her eye.

Just last night, from her perspective, after she recounted her tragic experience, the only unexpected thing was that Wu Fei didn't show any concern or pity; it was as if he were just listening to ordinary military intelligence. This disappointed her greatly.

She's thinking about revenge now, after all, a great grudge is right in front of her, and what will happen after she succeeds in her revenge?

…Wu Fei's mind was entirely on the war; after all, a single misstep could be fatal…

On the high platform, Wu Fei sat in a chair watching the five hundred snake-people tribe march towards his large warehouse.

Behind the barricades, the laborers, clad in "alligator skin armor," gripped their spears tightly, bracing themselves against the earthen wall in front of them, ready for battle. These old farmers were terrified of venturing out of their village to fight these snake-men, who were like mountain monsters. But now, with the wooden fence as a barrier, their orderly ranks met the snake-men, who were blocked by the fence, and they still possessed a certain courage.

Xuan Chong began reviewing history and summarizing: The Snake People cannot yet be considered a "unified ethnic group." To form "ethnic nationalism," they need to maintain a "greater good" internally to ensure rules. Under this system of rules, the basic rights of the weak will be protected, and a mechanism will be maintained whereby the strong can obtain benefits by obeying order.
Currently, the snake-people tribes are fighting amongst themselves, with the victors carrying out "massacres" and "sacrifices" against the losers. In other words, the tribes are in a state of internal chaos.

In response, Wu Fei glanced at the alluring snake-woman who had stood before him the previous night. Since snake-people were not a "ethnic group," she was able to abandon her original form without any burden and accept the Qi-enhancing pill to join the Wu family.

...The gongs and drums sounded like thunder, and the snake-men began their fierce attack.

Wu Fei looked at the surging snake-men and smiled coldly. He threw down the command flag in his hand, and on the camp's training ground, a series of counterweight catapults started up behind the earthen wall.

A counterweight weighing about 500 kilograms was stuffed into the basket directly in front of the catapult, and the counterweight was slowly raised by a pulley system that saves effort.

As the rope suspending the counterweight was cut, the counterweight fell, causing the long lever behind it to swing violently. A ten-kilogram incendiary block, emitting sulfurous smoke, was attached to the lever and flew in a graceful arc towards the snake-men's charging area outside the camp.

The burning block hit the ground and shattered, scattering countless tiny burning fragments more than ten feet away. Four or five snake-men, stimulated by the flames, were reduced to a twisted mess. The charging formation was thrown into chaos.

The archers at the rear of the camp used their feet to activate the three-stone crossbows, adjusting their direction according to the flag commands and the sound trajectory of the whistling arrows in the sky, and then fired in volleys.

Clusters of bamboo arrows began to be hurled at the snake-men. Although the arrows of the Da Yao people could not match the muscular javelins of the snake-men, the sharp arrowheads, if not protected by armor, could still penetrate even if the muscles were as developed as those of a silverback gorilla.

Outside the camp, at the forefront of the snake-men ranks were those three-meter-tall snake-men with python patterns, who kept pausing as they faced the arrows coming down in unison.

The accuracy of the projectiles was not high, only one in twenty hits, but as the snake-men entered the area with barbed wire and bamboo spikes, their speed slowed down, and the efficiency of the arrow rain suddenly increased.

The three python-men were severely wounded, their white internal organs spilling out of their snake bodies. Zhao Tu, standing on the high platform, finished them off with several arrows, and they collapsed with a thud.

Three incense sticks later, the snake-man troops reluctantly huddled in front of the camp's palisade, hacking at the wooden fence with their stone axes while enduring the spear thrusts from the peasant soldiers behind it. Snake blood stained the faces of the spearmen at the front of the palisade bright red.

……

After a fierce battle lasting three incense sticks' time, Wu Fei picked up the "Qiankun Banner" because he sensed that the divination of the four flags in the army was unstable, meaning that the snake people's sorcerers had begun to activate it.

As the soldiers, their battle robes stained with blood, helped each other back down, they suddenly felt the soil beneath their feet move. Looking down, they were immediately terrified to see snakes the size of bowls crawling out like earthworms after a rain.

Before the peasant soldiers could react, the snakes began to chase and bite them. The bitten people immediately felt their vision go black, followed by numbness in their limbs.

On the high platform, Wu Fei's expression tightened. Although he was mentally prepared to encounter "witchcraft, magic, and Taoist arts" in battle, he was still terrified when he actually encountered it. The "spell" his troops were currently facing was called "Feast of Snakes," which covered an area of ​​more than two hundred meters. While the venom of these snakes wasn't necessarily fatal, it could immediately weaken the soldiers.

The peasants, who had been fighting fiercely at the first line of defense, had lost all morale. Some began to scramble and crawl back towards the second line of defense, while the snake-men on the other side of the wooden fence, without any peasant soldiers to stop them, also carved out a path and prepared to surge forward.

Wu Fei's location, a large warehouse, is a military outpost. Such a single outpost doesn't have any "mage" units. Otherwise, they could send their accompanying mages to fight the snake-people wizards. They might even be able to turn the tables and kill them.

However, now, Wu Fei threw out the command flag, and a thunderclap flashed in the sky where the dark clouds had been swirling.

The snake-man priest coughed up blood after hearing the thunder.

Meanwhile, Wu Fei breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the thunder cause the snakes that had emerged from the ground to slither back into their hiding places. He then continued to command his army in battle.

The malevolent energy of military strategists can counter magic. The malevolent energy accumulated in Wu Fei's camp over the past few days could summon several bolts of malevolent lightning. This lightning wouldn't directly kill, but it could shatter the spirits of the spellcasters.

At the sound of gongs and drums, the reserve troops in the camp began to move. The soldiers who had been waiting in line in front of each tent waited for their unit's flag to be moved, and then marched in unison to the front of the camp. This marching was a spontaneous act, because stomping their feet would prevent snakes and insects from climbing up and would shake them off.

As the soldiers approached with menacing footsteps, they also brought with them an additional magical dissipation effect. The colorful venomous snakes summoned from the depths of the earth by the "Snake Feast" spell now fled into the grass, their vibrant venomous patterns fading away like dyed clothes after being washed, turning into wisps of poisonous smoke and disappearing. And the snakes that lost their color were, well, just ordinary, non-venomous grass snakes.

Meanwhile, the soldiers at the front lines, who had been bitten and stamping their feet repeatedly, finally regained their footing. Their morale recovered somewhat, and they began to face the snake-men who were advancing on the second line of defense.

The front line began to push back, and Wu Fei nodded, confirming that he was safe.

Because there are only these five hundred snake-men. There are no other snake-men in the surrounding mountains and forests. And such a small number of snake-men could never possibly accomplish the task of sabotaging the warehouse. Now, the goal is to get the snake-men to leave behind as many snake heads as possible as war merits.

…After Wu Fei issued the order, the flags on all four sides of the military camp changed accordingly…

Zhao Tu led his men to meet the retreating troops, while the troops in front abandoned part of the second line in a timely manner. Upon receiving the order to retreat, the peasant soldiers in front immediately fled in a hurry.

If a person is not restrained while fleeing, they will inevitably shout, spreading panic and causing a rout. This is similar to middle school students excitedly rushing out of the school gates after school.

But now Zhao Tu and his troops are coming to meet us, just like a homeroom teacher suddenly appearing at the door.

All the retreating troops suddenly fell silent and quickly ducked to the sides.

Zhao Tu fought for half an incense stick's time, giving the retreating troops time to regroup. Under Wu Fei's orders, Zhao Tu also retreated while fighting, and the breach was completely opened.

…The perspective shifts a hundred feet away, to the place where the incessant hissing scales huddle together…

On the snake-man commander's side, Bai Lin, coughing up blood, regained his senses and looked at the large gap. He felt delighted by this change, but he was unaware that his pupils had turned completely blue.

"Charge in!" Bai Lin hissed, and all the snake-men stood tall and swam into the breach in the Yaoren camp. However, they overlooked the fact that the retreating Yaoren camp seemed too quiet.

…after three incense sticks burned…

After the snake-men rushed into the pre-existing breach in the camp, the larger snake-men who had burst in used their bodies to block the spear assault, while the smaller snake-men hurriedly lit fire pots and threw out burning fireballs. However, these fireballs hit the pointed roof of the granary, but the flames stopped at the sacks outside the granary, as if the granary itself were unburnt.

Yes, after preparing for the enemy's raid on their camp, Wu Fei ordered his soldiers to fill the remaining sacks with soil and pile them up outside the granary.

Yes, historically, it is said that some corrupt officials used soil to disguise grain in bags, which actually saved some of the grain during the fire that burned the granary.

If the snake-men had enough numbers to break in—about two or three hundred—they could have entered the warehouse, dug up the sandbags, and continued burning it successfully. But now, they've entered a meat grinder.

As the gong sounded, more and more peasant soldiers formed a "square formation," which, like a mobile fortress, began to divide and squeeze the snake people, becoming more and more courageous in battle.

The former squad leaders, who had always felt they couldn't gain any merit under Wu Fei's command and were filled with resentment, were now able to catch the snake people like turtles in a jar and obtain these fine heads. They grinned and licked the blood from their mouths as they bullied the snake people who were surrounded.

The camp turned into a giant trap, with rows of spears biting down like teeth chewing meat until the last snake-man fell.

(End of this chapter)