The Empress’s Gigolo

Following a few rounds of artillery bombardment, the enemies outside the blast radius remained in their positions.

Ren Baqian hoped that the other party would move. After the enemies made their movements, he would create confusion to make it easier for his soldiers to break in.

If he could, he would continue bombarding them till the enemy had no strength left to retaliate. However, the number of artillery shells left were limited.

If Ren Baqian had around 1,000 artillery shells, he would bombard them to the extent that they would doubt their own lives, guaranteeing that when they returned to Great Xia, they would spend every single day pondering, “Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?”

But the problem was that he didn’t have that many.

The enemies didn’t move, and many of them squatted down in an attempt to lessen the damage dealt by the explosives.

Ren Baqian reckoned that the enemies would lay flat on the ground after continuing with the bombardment. He reasoned that the enemies would realize that the damage of the explosives would be reduced if they were to lie down.

“Where are their rations?” Ren Baqian turned over to ask Li Qianqiu. Soon enough, dozens of winged cavalry warriors encircled the Great Xia barracks and investigated..

They received the news that Great Xia’s rations were well secured.

“From where can you see it? Go take a look!” Ren Baqian exclaimed.

“Skip that hassle.” Li Qianqiu waved his hand. With one hand holding onto Ren Baqian, he exerted some force on his legs and the both of them leapt about 25 meters into the air. Ren Baqian removed his night vision device, and caught sight of the rations that were protected in the middle of the barracks.

Lit torches were attached to the entire outer fence and there wasn’t much light inside. But, everyone had a torch in their hands. Once the Dayao soldiers attack, they would light up the torches and the camp would immediately be illuminated.

However, there were still a few lit torches in the middle section, which allowed Ren Baqian to catch a clear glimpse

Surrounding the rations that were piled up like a mountain in the middle of the camp, the Great Xia soldiers got into their battle formation and stood to the front.

Even though they encircled the rations, due to the land structure and arrangement, most of the soldiers stood facing where the two gates were and lesser people stood facing the north barrack.

The south and north barracks were pitched near together so that they could assist each other in a quick manner. In addition, both barracks had their separate line of commands. The current north barrack was one of the first barrack to infiltrate Dayao as most of the sect practitioners in the society came from there. After they lost the war yesterday, there was no telling how many of them managed to return back to the barracks.

About half of the 20,000 soldiers in hiding yesterday were killed. Very few of them managed to escape. At present, there was at most 40,000 soldiers remaining in their camp.

And those who launched the night attack from the south barrack were the 100,000 reinforcement soldiers who joined in later. At present, there were around 80,000 of them left.

At the peak, Ren Baqian saw everything beneath clearly.

He heard something tearing apart…

“Eh?” In just a split second, Ren Baqian could no longer feel the arm that was grabbing on to his shirt collar. Unexpectedly, his shirt couldn’t take the weight and tore, which scared the sh*t out of him.

Given his current strength, even though he wouldn’t fall to death from a height of around 25 meters, he would probably break his legs. Most importantly, he was unable to control his body!

Thankfully, Li Qianqiu reacted almost instantly and grabbed hold of his arm, and held onto him as they descended from the sky. Like a meteorite crashing into the ground, the entire ground shook when they landed.

“Your uncle!” Ren Baqian cursed as soon as he landed.

¹

Wouldn’t it be fine if Li Qianqiu held on to his arm when he leapt up? His heart rate almost shot up to 180 beats per minute just now.

Li Qianqiu pulled out his legs from the ground, turned his head and looked at Ren Baqian, before asking, “You know my uncle?”

Ren Baqian had nothing to say.

He told himself not to get angry with this bunch of bastards as he continued to sulk. He only managed to calm down after some time before proceeding to find out the location of Great Xia’s rations.

His clothes became a piece of torn rag. Dangling on his body, he looked no better than a beggar.

As compared to the aboriginals, a huge portion of his exposed skin was soft and tender. There were countless mosquitoes aiming for him as if he was Tang Sanzhang, but he didn’t seem to notice at all.

²

“Extinguish all of the lit torches!” Ren Baqian commanded.

Dozens of winged cavalry warriors drew out their bows, prepared their arrows and fired one round. The lit torches on Great Xia’s outer fence were shot down from their positions and landed on the ground. At the same time, the brightness dimmed down. Following which, those winged cavalry warriors rode around the vicinity of the camp, as the camp grew dimmer.

“This is how it is on the inside,” Ren Baqian drew an oval on the ground. Making a mark on an area somewhere near the middle he indicated that was the position of the rations.

In front of it was a beefy battle formation. The enemy troops were situated nearer to the river and the north barrack had less troops.

The soldiers deployed to face the north barrack were the least in numbers, but attacking that area would make the aboriginals vulnerable to a pincer attack. With that consideration, the area facing the river would be most suitable to launch an attack at.

“In a while, I will drop an artillery barrage and ignite their rations. They will be caught in a chaotic situation. You guys will then strike before making a turn here to get to that spot and be on standby.”

“With this round of attack, their firefighting activities will be affected. With each delay, the fire will grow stronger, and they will be forced to fetch water in order to put out the fires.”

“The rest of our people will wait in ambush near the water source, and they will kill anyone who comes their way.”

“Your next step will then depend on their reaction. They are unlikely to abandon their rations, as the rations in the north barrack are insufficient to sustain 20,000 soldiers until they return to Great Xia. What they will be likely to do is to deploy a part of their troops to fetch water from the river as they fire their arrows in tandem with their soldiers moving forward. Hence, those that are deployed near the river must be wary. There is no need to kill too many of them during the first attack, as the others are out of the firing range on both sides.”

“As for how should we handle the situation at that time, we would have to see how they deploy their soldiers. If everything goes according to plan, out of those two groups of enemy soldiers, we will take down one of them.” Ren Baqian explained the battle plan in detail as he drew the map on the ground.

Regardless of whether it was the art of war, or the 36 stratagems, he had never learnt any of it.

As for the feasibility of this plan, Ren Baqian felt that having a strategy was better than having none. Besides, the worst case scenario would just be facing their enemies head-on. Given the aboriginals’ current military strength, in addition to firing the mortar to disrupt Great Xia’s battle formation, they wouldn’t lose even if they had to fight them head on. It was just a matter of reducing the number the casualties as much as possible.

At present, they were relying on the fact that their enemies didn’t dare to act blindly without thinking as well as the fact that Ren Baqian knew every single move of the other party like the back of his hand. In addition, they still had the walkie-talkie which enabled them to communicate and pass down orders immediately, and also the mortar which could launch attacks from far away.

Not forgetting the fact that the brutal strength of the aboriginals would best be put to use in such chaotic situations.

Could 1,000 soldiers batter an army of 10,000 back on Earth? One could do that in this world.

An ordinary soldier could exert a force of about 1500 newtons whereas the winged cavalry could exert up to 15,000 newtons of force and even split apart a bullet with a blade.

With such quick reactions, speed and also great strength, an aboriginal elite like a winged cavalry warrior was equivalent to 100 ordinary soldiers. No one could hold a candle to them.

All of these factors became the aboriginals’ advantage.

Out of those key factors, items like the walkie-talkie and the night vision device were brought over from Earth. Even though they didn’t inflict direct damage, they were of tremendous value .

The night vision device allowed them to understand all of their enemies’ movements in the dark. The walkie-talkies allowed them to directly communicate with the soldiers without having to deploy a messenger. Regardless of whether it was to muster the troops or to give out orders, all of that could be achieved almost instantaneously.

“What happens if the north barrack comes to assist them?” Li Qianqiu asked.

“Then we will preoccupy them with something,” Ren Baqian answered.

Everyone then made their way to the vicinity of the north barrack. Once again, Ren Baqian took off high into the sky, and he saw that the arrangement of their rations was almost identical to that of the south barrack.

“Send 500 men to the river bank of the north barrack and prepare for interception.” Li Qianqiu passed down his orders through the walkie-talkie.

Ren Baqian fired the mortar after adjusting the angle.

Ten artillery shells were fired in succession, and the angle was adjusted with slight corrections as the shots fired. This round of artillery barrage was just sufficient enough to destroy half of the north barrack’s rations.

When the artillery shells hit the ground and exploded, the flammable substances splashed all over the rations, setting them alight.

The north barrack, which had always been taking careful precautions, suddenly sank into disorder. Almost immediately, voices could be heard, “Fetch water, put out the fire!”

The Great Xia army first overthrew the ration carts to reduce their losses before rushing to the tents nearby to grab some bedding to try and put out the fire. At the same time, another group of soldiers were deployed to fetch water from the river. Soon after, battle cries resounded near the river bank, and those 1,000 soldiers who went sent to fetch water were beaten up into a stuffed bun.

This all happened within a very short time frame.

Ren Baqian and his men then moved to another position, adjusted the firing angle of the mortar, aimed it towards the rations in the south barracks and fired.