If I made you cannon fodder, how did you manage to achieve your goal of conquering the wolf's l

With that deafening roar, Xu Qingshan strode down the city wall and headed straight for the blacksmith's shop.

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, a wave of scorching heat, mixed with the aroma of rust and pine, hits you.

In the center of the spacious workshop, three massive, cold-looking military machines stand out prominently.

Those were three heavy ballistae that had just been assembled.

Bai Zhi stood beside one of the crossbows, her fair cheeks smeared with black ash, but her bright eyes were filled with barely suppressed joy.

"Centurion, I have fulfilled my mission." Bai Zhi patted the sturdy wooden base beside her, showing Xu Qingshan the fruits of her labor over the past few days.

Xu Qingshan stepped forward and ran his hand over the body of the ballista.

The base is made of the hardest century-old elm wood from the Blackstone Castle warehouse, and the surface is covered with newly made cast iron plates to increase weight and stability.

The bow arm is as thick as a normal person's waist, and both ends are secured with thick iron hoops. The bowstring is made of high-quality cow tendon brought back by Su Jinniang. It has been repeatedly soaked, kneaded, and woven. It is as thick as a child's arm and exudes a strong sense of resilience.

"Have you tested its power?" Xu Qingshan asked.

"Not yet, we're just about to take it out to test the mechanism." Bai Zhi turned to several burly blacksmith apprentices and called out, "Move this machine to the training ground!"

With everyone's combined efforts, they pushed this enormous machine, weighing several hundred kilograms, to the edge of the spacious training ground inside the fortress.

When Tie Niu and Zhou Laoqi arrived after hearing the news, they both gasped in shock upon seeing the enormous ballista.

"Goodness, how much strength would it take to pull this thing apart?" Tie Niu stepped forward and touched the taut ox sinew bowstring, finding it as hard as refined steel, impossible to budge even an inch by human power.

Bai Zhi pulled a specially made crossbow bolt from a wooden box beside her.

But this was no arrow; it was clearly a sharpened short spear.

The shaft was made of hardwood, with feathers at the end, and the arrowhead was made of solid, armor-piercing triangular steel, gleaming with a cold, sharp luster.

"It's impossible to pull it open by hand." Bai Zhi pointed to the two iron winches at the tail of the ballista. "Tie Niu, you and Lao Qi each take one side and crank the winches."

Upon hearing this, Tie Niu and Zhou Laoqi immediately stood on the left and right, gripped the winch handles with both hands, and began to exert force.

Click... Click...

With a crisp sound of the pawl engaging the gear, the thick ox-tendon bowstring was stretched backward little by little.

Both men were fierce soldiers with strength far exceeding that of ordinary people, but when they drew the bowstring to its fullest extent, they were still sweating profusely and the veins on their arms bulged.

"Load the arrow." Bai Zhi steadily placed the short, spear-like steel crossbow bolt into the long arrow slot.

"Where is the target?" Xu Qingshan looked around.

"Seventh Brother, go to the other end of the training ground, about five hundred paces away, and tie those tattered cold-forged armors we captured to the wooden stakes," Xu Qingshan ordered.

Zhou Laoqi immediately ran to the storeroom, brought out three thick sets of barbarian heavy armor, and stacked them on a target stake as thick as a water bucket.

At a distance of five hundred paces, the wooden stake would appear as a blurry black dot to the average person.

Everything is ready.

Bai Zhi took a half step back, holding a wooden mallet in her hand, aiming it at the firing pin on the side of the ballista.

"put!"

At Xu Qingshan's command, Bai Zhi swung her wooden mallet and struck the suspended blade.

The mechanism has come loose.

With a sound like muffled thunder, the heavy ballista slid backward half a foot due to the reaction force.

The thick, high-strength steel crossbow bolt transformed into a black lightning bolt, almost invisible to the naked eye, tearing through the air with a sharp whistling sound.

In the blink of an eye.

A shattering sound that made your teeth ache came from the other end of the training ground.

The group hurried towards the target, which was 500 paces away. When they saw what was before them, they all held their breath.

The elm stake, as thick as a water bucket, was pierced through the middle by a crossbow bolt. The three layers of cold-forged heavy armor in front of it were forcibly torn apart by the enormous kinetic energy, and iron pieces shattered and scattered all over the ground.

The steel arrowhead, its momentum undiminished, had even driven deep into the brick wall behind the wooden stake, its tail feathers still buzzing.

"This... if this hits a person..." Tie Niu swallowed hard, feeling a chill run down his spine. Even if there was a troop of heavily armored cavalry in front of him, this arrow could pierce through several people like a string of candied hawthorns.

"Within five hundred paces, it can pierce through armor and shatter shields; it is indestructible." Bai Zhi wiped the sweat from her face, her tone firm.

Xu Qingshan looked at the crossbow bolts on the wall and nodded in satisfaction.

With these three ballistae, Blackrock Fortress would have a true defensive weapon. Ordinary cavalry charges would be devastated at a distance of 500 paces, which would greatly reduce the pressure on the city wall defenses.

"Xiao Hongluan." Xu Qingshan turned to look at the female general accompanying him.

"exist."

"These three heavy machines are yours to manage. Select twenty strong infantrymen to be in charge of winding the winches. I want Blackstone Fortress to have no blind spots on any of its four sides."

Xiao Hongluan walked to the crossbow and examined it carefully, already having a plan in mind.

"South of Blackstone Fortress lies wasteland and trade routes, an open area. If the enemy were to launch a major assault, they would most likely choose the plains to the north and east." Xiao Hongluan pointed to several high points within the fortress. "One tower is placed in the central tower of the inner fortress, providing a commanding view and covering both the east and west sides. One tower is also placed in each of the repaired corner towers on the north and south walls."

Xu Qingshan agreed to her plan: "You have full authority to make the decision regarding the defense line."

With the commander's approval, Xiao Hongluan immediately took action.

She knew that while three ballistae could deter the enemy, the reloading speed of the crossbows would be a major weakness if faced with a charge of thousands of cavalrymen who disregarded casualties.

There must be an auxiliary defensive line to keep the enemy at bay.

The next morning, Xiao Hongluan gathered more than a hundred soldiers from the infantry battalion and began a large-scale earthwork operation around the outer walls of Black Stone Fortress.

Although the soil had thawed in early spring, it was still somewhat hard. The soldiers wielded shovels and dug crisscrossing trenches in the open area between 300 and 100 paces from the city wall.

This wasn't a trench for hiding, but a pit for breaking a horse's leg.

The pit wasn't wide, just big enough for a horse's hoof to step into, but it was knee-deep. Sharpened hardwood splinters were stuck upside down at the bottom, and the surface had been covered and smoothed out with fine dry grass and loose soil.

If cavalrymen unfamiliar with the battle formations were to charge into this area at high speed, they would be met with the fate of losing their horses, breaking bones, and suffering injuries.

Moreover, Bai Zhi's blacksmith shop did not rest after finishing the ballista.

Large quantities of pig iron were melted down and cast into fist-sized, four-cornered iron caltrops. No matter how these hidden weapons were thrown to the ground, one of the spikes would always point upwards.

Under the cover of night, the soldiers carelessly scattered thousands of caltrops around the perimeter of the pit defense line.

"The first line of defense is caltrops, mainly used to injure the hooves of enemy warhorses and force them to slow down," Xiao Hongluan reported to Xu Qingshan from the city wall.

"Once the enemy slows down and detours, they will fall into the second series of traps. When their formation is thrown into chaos, that will be the best time for our ballistae to strike." She pointed to the hidden trap zone in the distance. "Once they cross these two lines of defense and get within a hundred paces of the city wall, they will be within the range of our repeating crossbows."

Traps, hidden weapons, heavy crossbows, and repeating crossbows.

The layered, three-dimensional defensive lines transformed the plains surrounding Blackrock Fortress, spanning three hundred paces, into a deadly trap capable of annihilating any invading enemy.

This border post, which used to be drafty, has now been armed like a hedgehog covered in sharp thorns.

Half a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

The wheat seedlings planted in spring have already sprouted a delightful green on the barren land to the south.

With wounded soldiers returning to their posts and new formations being practiced to perfection, a tense and imposing atmosphere of intense preparation for war permeated Blackstone Fortress.

That evening, Su Jinniang's caravan returned from Bailangji as usual.

As soon as the carriage entered the city gate, a slender figure broke away from the caravan's guards and headed straight for the inner fortress hall.

The person who arrived was none other than Liu Ruyan.

In recent months, she has been acting on Xu Qingshan's orders.

She secretly followed Su Jinniang's caravan to and from Bailangji. With her excellent ability to read people and her smooth social skills, she established a rudimentary intelligence network among the merchants and bandits of all walks of life in Bailangji.

"Centurion!"

Liu Ruyan entered the hall, her forehead covered in fine beads of sweat, and solemnly took out a roll of parchment.

Xu Qingshan put down the defense map in his hand and looked up at her: "Is there any unusual activity at White Wolf Village?"

"It's not White Wolf Market, it's deep in the grasslands further north." Liu Ruyan placed the parchment on the table. "A few days ago, several merchants from small tribes who had fled from near the Northern Barbarian Royal Court came to White Wolf Market. According to what they revealed after drinking, a major change has recently occurred in the main camp of the Black Wolf tribe."

Xu Qingshan raised an eyebrow slightly: "Explain in detail."

Liu Ruyan gathered her thoughts and reported quickly, "Ever since that Ashina chieftain suffered a defeat at our hands and retreated to the grasslands in disgrace, the Black Wolf tribe has lost all face. News of the burning of the front-line supply camp and the annihilation of the search party has spread to several surrounding tribes."

"To maintain his authority within the tribe, Ashina ordered a massive conscription of able-bodied men. They blocked all the paths from the grasslands to the south, prohibiting any merchants from selling horses to the Great Qian. At the same time, large quantities of pig iron and arrows were being transported to the Black Wolf tribe's encampment."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Hongluan and Zhou Laoqi in the hall exchanged slightly different glances.

This is clearly a sign of a large-scale military buildup.

Liu Ruyan's finger touched the outline of the grassland drawn on the parchment: "We spent a lot of money to bribe a barbarian guide in Bailangji. The intelligence is accurate. Ashina has gathered two thousand regular elite cavalrymen this time, and they are all armored warriors."

"Two thousand elite cavalry." Xu Qingshan tapped his fingers lightly on the table, making a rhythmic sound.

Last time, Ashina led three thousand men south, but due to lack of food and water and unfamiliarity with the terrain of Canglang Plain, they were worn down by the enemy's guerrilla tactics.

But this time was different. The enemy was on guard and had assembled elite armored soldiers. Their purpose was no longer a simple pursuit, but rather to uproot Blackrock Castle with the fury of revenge.

"They brought enough rations for half a month and avoided the low-lying areas of Canglang Plain, heading straight for Black Stone Fortress along the official road." Liu Ruyan added the last crucial piece of information. "Judging by their pace, the enemy vanguard will arrive at the walls of Black Stone Fortress in at most five days."

A brief silence fell over the lobby.

Five hundred infantrymen and Zhenbei cavalry faced two thousand elite barbarian cavalry; it was still a bloody battle with a huge disparity in troop strength.

"Centurion, we can't abandon the city this time." Xiao Hongluan stepped forward and said in a deep voice, "The wheat in the south has been planted. It will be the food supply for the entire fortress in the future. If we retreat now, we will be handing over the hard work of the past few months to others."

"Of course we won't withdraw."

Xu Qingshan stood up, walked to the door, and looked at the northern horizon dyed red by the sunset.

The city walls have been reinforced, ballistae are in place, and traps are scattered all around the city. Blackstone Fortress is no longer the dilapidated garrison it once was, vulnerable to attack.

If Ashina wants to raze this place to the ground with two thousand elite cavalry, then we'll have to see if his cavalry can fill all these pits.

"Send the order to the entire camp."

Xu Qingshan's voice sounded particularly cold and hard in the twilight.

"Cancel all rest days and holidays, prepare for battle, oil the winches of the ballistae, and move the arrows to the city walls."

"I want the Black Wolf Tribe to know that the border of the Great Qian Dynasty is not a place they can come and go as they please."