Late Ming Dynasty: Summoning players from Liaodong to support the Ming Dynasty

The earth-shattering roar, even through the thick stone walls and earth, struck his eardrums like a heavy hammer. Immediately following was the violent, undeniable tremor of the ground beneath his feet.

At that moment, the last shred of hope in his heart was completely shattered.

"Squeak—"

The heavy prison door was slowly pushed open, and a beam of light pierced the darkness deep within the cell, also stinging his eyes that had long since become accustomed to the dim light.

He instinctively raised his arm to shield his eyes.

Two tall soldiers, dressed in standard Ming army armor, entered and, one on each side, lifted him from the cold haystack. The movements were rough, but there was no unnecessary beating or insult.

He was supported and staggered through a series of dark passageways, finally stepping out of the prison gate and seeing the outside world again.

A young figure wearing a black cloak stood quietly in the moonlight, his back to him.

It is Chu Ze.

The old Taoist's heart clenched, his legs went weak, and he was almost dragged along. He thought he was finally about to face his final judgment and torment.

However, Chu Ze did not turn around. Instead, he spoke to Su Qingying and Qin Jue beside him in a calm, almost indifferent tone, "Take the gentleman around and show him the sights."

have a look?

What are you looking at?

The old Taoist priest was being held up, his mind a complete mess. He couldn't understand Chu Ze's intentions, and this uncertainty deepened his fear.

Instead of heading to the torture chamber, they went to the brightest area in the city.

The first place is the granary.

At the entrance of the massive warehouse, torches crackled and burned, illuminating the surroundings as bright as day. The old Taoist priest was shoved and pushed as he stepped through the warehouse door.

Then, he froze.

He saw the mountain.

Two small hills made up of two kinds of crops he had never seen before!

One type is brown and bumpy, while the other is reddish and comes in various shapes. The air is filled with the fragrance of earth, mixed with a unique and rustic aroma.

A group of laborers were singing work songs as they unloaded baskets of crops from a cart and poured them into the two "small mountains." Their faces beamed with the heartfelt joy of a bountiful harvest.

This is not a disguise.

Having spent many years lying low in Liaodong, the old Taoist priest could distinguish between genuine joy and forced smiles.

A thin, elderly man in a blue scholar's robe, leaning on a cane, walked out of the warehouse. It was Li Xunyi.

When Li Xunyi saw the old Taoist priest being supported, his cloudy old eyes lit up. He ignored the old priest's identity and, like an old farmer eager to show off his treasures, pointed to the two small hills and said in an almost lamenting tone, "Please look, sir!"

"These two items, one a potato and the other a sweet potato, are divine offerings presented by the 'heavenly soldiers' summoned by the general!"

"No need for intensive farming, unaffected by barren soil or frost! Yield per mu... per mu can reach several thousand jin!" Li Xunyi said, his beard trembling with excitement. "With this miraculous product, there will be no more starving people in Liaodong! No more starving people in the world!"

A yield of several thousand jin per mu?

The old Taoist's mind went blank with a "buzz".

He thought he had misheard. In the best paddy fields of the Ming Dynasty, in a year with favorable weather, an acre of millet could yield three or four hundred catties, which was considered a tremendous harvest.

Thousands of kilograms? What does that even mean? That's a myth! A myth powerful enough to overthrow the foundations of a dynasty!

Looking at the pure smiles on the faces of the laborers, and then at the mountains of miraculous crops piled up before him, almost overflowing the warehouse, his system of understanding about "besieging the city and cutting off food" and "the army's morale will inevitably collapse" crumbled at that moment.

Before he could recover from the immense shock, he was helped away to another place.

The workshop district in the south of the city.

Even from a distance, a scorching heat wave rushed towards you, accompanied by a heavy rumbling sound, like the breathing of a giant beast.

He saw the strangely shaped, gray-white "blast furnace" that rose from the ground.

The furnace spewed orange-red flames, turning half the night sky an eerie color. Beside it, a huge waterwheel, driven by a connecting rod, propelled four leather bellows, tirelessly rising and falling, pouring violent airflow into the furnace.

A burly man, shirtless and with bulging muscles all over his body and half of his eyebrows singed off, was directing a group of equally shirtless workers to use long iron spades to pry open the taphole of the blast furnace.

In an instant, a dazzling, golden-red torrent surged forth!

The light was so bright that the old Taoist priest couldn't open his eyes.

The intense heat, enough to melt anything, caused a burning sensation on his face.

molten iron!

It's molten iron!

The molten iron, flowing ceaselessly like an angry fire dragon, poured into pre-prepared sand molds. After cooling, it yielded standard iron ingots and crudely made but heavy spear blanks.

When Gongshu Ban saw Chu Ze approaching, he excitedly ran over carrying a freshly cooled iron hammer and shouted boastfully, "General! This new batch of molten iron has just the right carbon content! It'll be hard enough to make armor plates! We can produce three batches a day! In three days! At most three days, I can equip all the brothers in the vanguard battalion with plate armor!"

The old Taoist priest stared blankly at all of this.

He looked at the tireless, self-blowing "monster" waterwheel.

He looked at the "monster" blast furnace that kept spewing out molten iron.

He looked at the mountains of iron ingots and weapons, which reflected a chilling light in the moonlight.

He finally understood where the brand-new iron armor worn by the soldiers on the city wall came from.

He finally understood how ridiculous and primitive the iron-smelting technology that the Great Jin Dynasty was so proud of had become in this small city of Guangning.

If potatoes and sweet potatoes destroyed his understanding of people's livelihood and logistics.

This blast furnace completely shattered his understanding of war and national power.

This is no longer a contest on the same level.

This is simply a case of dimensional reduction attack!

He was carried, like a soulless puppet, to his final destination.

South city wall.

When he stepped onto the flat, hard, cold, grayish-white ground, his legs went weak once again.

He leaned against the wall and looked down.

What... what kind of wall is this?

This is neither brick nor rammed earth! It is a material he has never seen before and cannot understand, as hard as a solid piece of mountain rock.

He looked up and saw those menacing pentagonal bastions, protruding like fangs.

Zhou Keke was inspecting her "works" when she saw Chu Ze bring people up. She habitually began to explain, her tone like a mother introducing her most prized child.

"This is Crossfire Point 1. The effective coverage area extends from 300 paces below the city walls to 50 paces from the corner. Any enemy attempting to approach from the east will be targeted on the flank by the crossbowmen on Bastion 2. We've calculated that, under ideal conditions, an enemy entering this area will, on average, be targeted by at least seven arrows within three breaths."

Her voice was clear and stern, each word like a cold chisel, chiseling into the old man's heart.

He looked in the direction Zhou Keke was pointing, and a three-dimensional, inescapable killing network composed of countless arrows and crossbow bolts instantly formed in his mind.

This is not war.

This is a massacre.

It was a cold, mechanical massacre where every variable was calculated and the final outcome was predetermined.

Just then, a burst of laughter came from the city wall.

The old Taoist priest looked in the direction of the sound and saw a scene he would never forget.

On a bastion platform not far away, a dozen or so "heavenly soldiers" dressed in brand-new iron armor were sitting around a campfire. They weren't patrolling or on guard; instead, they were... playing cards.

One person lost, and his companion drew a turtle on his face with charcoal, which made everyone burst into laughter.

Their laughter was so unrestrained, so fearless.

They didn't seem to be in a lonely city besieged by tens of thousands of troops at all; it was more like they were having a bonfire party in their own backyard.

His seasoned mind completely crashed.

He looked at the soldiers, so full of energy and with such high morale, at their excellent armor, and then thought about the mountains of grain and steel...

A terrible, absurd, yet uniquely reasonable thought emerged from the depths of his soul.

These people...

them……

Are they really the ones being besieged?

The tour has ended.

The old Taoist priest was brought back to that cold and damp secret room.

But this time, he didn't feel cold. He only felt that his soul had been emptied out, leaving only a numb shell.

Chu Ze sat in front of him, an oil lamp lit on the table, its tiny flame illuminating his calm, expressionless face.

There was no interrogation, no torture.

Chu Ze simply pushed a letter gently in front of the old Taoist priest.

"Take a look."

The old Taoist priest picked up the letter with trembling hands.

The envelope was unsigned, but he recognized his wife's handwriting at a glance.

He unfolded the letter.

The letter contained mostly everyday family matters.

"...Everything is fine at home, don't worry. Your son's studies at the private school have been praised by his teacher again, but he's still naughty. The other day, he fell and scraped his knee while trying to steal a bird's nest, and cried all night... Your daughter's embroidery skills have improved again. The new winter clothes I made for you the other day are almost finished..."

A sense of peace and tranquility permeates the words.

But to the old Taoist priest, each of those words was like a cold, sharp knife, stabbing him until he bled profusely.

He got it.

His family was already under Chu Ze's control!

"Now, you have two choices," Chu Ze's voice rang out, calm yet carrying an undeniable air of authority.

"First, write one last letter for me, for the master you serve. Write the letter he most wants to see. After it's done, I will give you some money so you can take your family to Jiangnan, or anywhere you want to go, to live out your remaining days in anonymity."

"Second," Chu Ze paused, his tone still calm, "you can die now. As for your family... who knows?"

The old Taoist priest suddenly raised his head and looked at Chu Ze.

He could see no murderous intent, nor any mockery, in those unfathomable eyes.

There was only a cold, icy rationality, like ancient ice.

He knew that what Chu Ze said was true.

He lost.

A crushing defeat.

From the moment he stepped into this city, he had already lost.

He slowly, very slowly closed his eyes, and two streams of turbid old tears slid down his dirty cheeks.

When she opened her eyes again, there was no longer any hatred or struggle in them.

All that remained was a deathly silence of awe, and a trace of supplication.

"I... I'll write," he said hoarsely.

Chu Ze nodded and pushed the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone in front of him.

The old Taoist priest picked up the pen, but his hand trembled so badly that he couldn't put pen to paper.

"Don't be afraid." Chu Zhuang's voice rang in his ear, like a devil's whisper, "Think carefully, what does your master, Prince Amin, need most right now?"

The old Taoist priest was taken aback.

"He suffered a defeat and a great humiliation. What he needs most now is an explanation, an explanation that he can accept, and that the Khan can accept as well."

"He needs a way out, a way to save face."

Finally, he needed a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of hope that would allow him to avenge his defeat and turn the tide.

Chu Ze's voice seemed to possess a kind of magic, dissecting Amin's most vulnerable heart little by little.

The old Taoist priest's hand, which was holding the pen, gradually stopped trembling.

He raised his head and looked at Chu Ze with the same gaze he would give a god.

"Write down whatever your master believes most right now. The more truthful your writing is, the greater your and your family's chances of survival will be," Chu Ze added as a final remark.

The old Taoist priest took a deep breath, dipped his brush in ink, and finally put pen to paper.

His pen moved swiftly across the paper, and lines of text appeared rapidly.

"...The city is rife with sorcery, not a fault of the battle! That Chu Ze somehow summoned sorcerers to build a ghost city, and even has demonic cannons with terrifying power, capable of exploding three hundred paces away. The Prince's defeat was truly due to the inevitability of fate..."

He first attributed Amin's defeat to an irresistible "sorcery," perfectly catering to the fear and suspicion of the Later Jin camp at that moment, and also finding the best excuse for Amin's crushing defeat.

Then, he changed the subject.

"However, even sorcery has its limits. After days of investigation, I have discovered that while the city's defenses appear impregnable, they are in reality weak on the inside! The city's garrison is mostly made up of sorcerer puppets. Though they are unaware of death, they lack strategy and only know how to hold their ground!"

"More importantly! This servant has unexpectedly discovered a drainage tunnel beneath the abandoned warehouse area in the west of the city, dating back to the Xuande era of the previous dynasty! This tunnel has been abandoned for a century and is not even marked on any map; not a single person in the city knows about it!"

"The defenses there are extremely lax! Only a few old, weak, and disabled soldiers are on guard! According to my risky investigation, this secret passage could potentially accommodate hundreds of elite troops, allowing them to sneak in and directly attack the high platform in the city center! That high platform is precisely the foundation upon which the sorcerer casts his spells!"

"Once the platform is destroyed, the sorcery will break! The city's defenders will fall into chaos without a fight!"

"This is a golden opportunity to avenge our previous humiliation! Now is the time to act! We urge Your Highness to make a decision soon!"

After writing the last word, the old Taoist priest threw down his pen, as if all his energy had been drained away. He slumped into his chair, panting heavily.

This intelligence report is flawless.

There are explanations, observations, details, and hope.

In particular, that "secret passage from the previous dynasty" scratched the deepest itch in the heart of a rough man like Amin.

Surprise attack, sneak attack, and a direct hit from the center!

This perfectly aligns with the psychology of a gambler eager to turn the tables.

Chu Ze picked up the letter, read it from beginning to end, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

He carefully folded the letter, put it into a slender bamboo tube, and sealed it with wax.

Then, he looked at the old Taoist priest who was already lying like a dead dog and calmly said:

"Your family will be heading south tomorrow. As for you, rest well here for now."

"You can go find them after the war is over."

After saying this, he took the bamboo tube containing the deadly poison bait, turned around and walked out of the secret room, leaving the boundless darkness back to the last "loyal subject".