As all parties begin to exert their efforts, the day of the war is getting closer.
The border between Dayue Kingdom and Qiuchi is only about two hundred miles away from where Yun Zheng and his team built the city.
The enemy will be here soon.
Yun Zheng has already received the news brought back by the Eighteen Ghost Riders.
The troops of Dayue Kingdom and Qiuchi have joined forces and are marching towards them.
According to their marching speed, they will be here in about seven days.
This result was somewhat beyond Yun Zheng's expectations.
Yun Zheng originally thought that since he had sent people to secretly attack and kill some soldiers from the Dayue Kingdom, there would be some rift between the Dayue Kingdom and Qiuchi.
Unexpectedly, this incident seemed to have no impact on either party.
This incident also indirectly proves the determination of Dayue Kingdom and Qiuchi to defeat the Northern Palace Army.
...
...
Yun Zheng hesitated for a moment, and then ordered You Qi who came back to report the news, "Order the more than one hundred people to withdraw immediately! Order You Jiu to lead the 18 ghost riders into the rear of the enemy army, and use all means to harass the rear of the enemy army, so that everyone in the rear of the enemy army will be in turmoil..."
"yes!"
You Qi immediately took the order and left.
Just as You Qi left, Tong Gang came to report: "Your Highness, General Yu and his men sent news. According to a rough estimate, there should be about 100,000 soldiers capable of fighting in the frontal army of the Guifang army..."
"How many?"
Yun Zheng's eyelids jumped, "One hundred thousand?"
Are you crazy!
There are still 40,000 Guifang people heading towards Beihuan!
There are still 100,000 people in front?
In this battle, the Guifang army dispatched 140,000 troops?
Didn’t Guifang suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of Beihuan six years ago?
Did you recover so quickly?
"Yes!"
Tong Gang replied: "General Yu sent people to set up an ambush and captured two enemy spies. We learned from the enemy spies that the Guifang army sent a total of 200,000 troops this time! Among them, there were 60,000 civilians and 10,000 servants of the Quanrong army..."
"Only 60,000 civilians?" Yun Zheng was slightly surprised.
"Yes." Tong Gang nodded. "The Guifang army previously transported food and grass to the Quanrong, and then sent troops from the Quanrong, advancing steadily. Just like us, they had soldiers escorting food and grass, so they had relatively few civilians..."
Is that so?
Yun Zheng pondered secretly.
Yu Shizhong and his men only have 20,000 men, but they have to face an army of 100,000!
The pressure is even greater than what they have here!
Yun Zheng thought for a moment, and immediately ordered: "Send a message to Qu Zhi to move fifty miles closer to Yu Shizhong's troops! Be prepared to support Yu Shizhong's troops at any time! Tell Yu Shizhong that he can mobilize Qu Zhi's troops on his own without asking for permission!"
After giving the order, Yun Zheng continued to supervise the construction of the catapult.
He did not specifically study the structure of the Huihui Cannon, but he understood the basic principles.
However, they currently had too few carpenters, so he recruited all the people in the army who knew some carpentry work.
In the case that carpenters' tools are not complete, many tools are improved or re-hammered and forged by spare military equipment.
Fortunately, they have a lot of people and no shortage of people to transport the wood.
After four days of hard work, the first catapult was finally completed.
However, the workmanship is quite rough.
Even if he didn't try, Yun Zheng knew that the power of his catapult was far inferior to that of the Huihui cannon.
"Your Highness is so talented that he actually made this catapult!"
"Your Highness, let's quickly test the power of this trebuchet!"
"Yes, yes. I can't wait to see the power of this new catapult..."
A group of people were milling around the trebuchet that had just been assembled, touching here and knocking there, each of them like a curious baby.
If I don’t know this, I might think they are seeing a trebuchet for the first time!
"Okay, let's try it!"
Yun Zheng also wanted to know how powerful this catapult was, so he immediately ordered people to start loading stones into the counterweight box.
To be honest, Yun Zheng was not very confident.
The catapult he made definitely looked like a Huihui cannon, but it probably still had some structural flaws.
The power is a question, and the stability of the structure is also a question.
If this thing falls apart after just a few uses, it would be a waste of their time and effort.
After all preparations were completed, Yun Zheng immediately ordered everyone around to disperse, leaving only one person to pull the latch.
After everyone had dispersed to a safe distance, Yun Zheng immediately gave the order: "Pull!"
Following Yun Zheng's order, the people who stayed behind immediately pulled the latch with all their strength.
As the pin was pulled open, the other end of the catapult immediately fell rapidly, throwing out the 50-pound stone in the leather bag.
The stone flew out in a parabola, passed over the stone wall in front, and hit the ground heavily.
“Throw it out!”
“Haha, it really got thrown out!”
"Quick, go get someone to measure how far away..."
Seeing the stone in the leather bag being successfully thrown out, everyone cheered.
Although they don't know how far the stone is thrown, it doesn't look close just by looking at it.
Tong Gang ran to measure the distance himself.
Not long after, Tong Gang came back and said excitedly, "Your Highness, the preliminary measurement shows it's about ninety feet!"
Ninety feet?
Everyone was stunned for a moment, then cheered again.
"It really is farther than a man-pulled trebuchet!"
"If this is a smaller stone, wouldn't it be able to fly more than a hundred feet?"
"This catapult will definitely become my powerful weapon for defending the city!"
“…”
Everyone cheered and there was excitement on everyone's face.
This distance is actually a little worse than Yun Zheng expected.
Theoretically, if more stones are loaded into the counterweight box, the 50-pound stone should be able to be thrown farther.
But Yun Zheng was not confident about the structure of this makeshift catapult and did not dare to add any more weight.
Although this distance is a bit off, it is enough for now.
"Okay, don't be too happy yet!"
Yun Zheng raised his hand to stop the cheering crowd, and immediately ordered Tong Gang, "Immediately send someone to push the catapult behind the stone wall, and send some people to familiarize themselves with the catapult. Try it a few more times so that you can get a good grasp of the target..."
Although the production of this catapult was considered a success, Yun Zheng did not appear too excited.
He knew clearly that the killing effect of this catapult on the enemy was actually very limited, and to stop the enemy's attack, more reliance would still be placed on people.
The defenders used catapults mostly to destroy the enemy's large siege weapons.
I really want to use a trebuchet to kill so many people, but it's not realistic!
If the enemy does not carry large siege weapons, the deterrent effect of this thing may be slightly greater than its actual combat effect.
Tong Gang took the order and immediately led his men towards the catapult.
"Hurry up and keep manufacturing!"
Following Yun Zheng's order, everyone got busy again...
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