Mikuni convenience store

When Liu Biao came to Wolong Village, he just wanted to have a meal and a drink.

It's a pity that Zhuge Tian and Zhang Xian had a big quarrel.

I thought the meal was over, but unexpectedly, when it was time for dinner, Zhuge Tian directly invited Liu Biao and the officials from Xiangyang to the Mixue Bingsi at the entrance of the village.

But he didn't invite Zhang Xian and the others.

"Your Excellency must be busy preparing for the siege, so I won't invite you to dinner! It would be terrible if you say you got sick eating here and it affected your performance!"

"You... hum!"

Zhang Xian glared at Zhuge Tian, ​​but no one had ever dared to treat him like this.

Even though Liu Biao and the officials of Xiangyang disliked him, everyone still treated him with respect.

For someone like Zhuge Tian who didn't even pretend, he didn't know what to say for a moment.

With a cold snort, he left with his men.

"Huan Jie, borrow twenty-five catapults from Xiangyang City!" Zhang Xian said to his adviser Huan Jie.

"That wall is just a bunch of bricks, but it's flashy. How can it possibly stop a trebuchet? The contract doesn't specify how long the attack will take. I can just set up a catapult and have a team of twenty people continuously bombard the wall with stones. We'll eventually break it down!"

"My lord, it's fine to borrow the trebuchets, but we may not need them," Huan Jie said. "I don't see that the contract says we can't start the attack until three days later."

"The art of war is to employ false and real tactics. We're going to Xiangyang to borrow catapults now, but how about sending troops to attack tonight?"

Zhang Xian's eyes lit up when he heard this.

He didn't want to tolerate Zhuge Tian's attitude for a moment, and just wanted to pin him to the ground and rub him.

It would be best if we could take down the enemy's city wall tonight.

Huan Jie's plan was exactly what he wanted.

"Bo Xu's plan is brilliant, he's truly worthy of being my son!"

Zhang Xian ordered his men to move the catapults from Xiangyang City with great fanfare, while at the same time allowing his elite troops to recuperate.

He brought five hundred personal guards this time, but he also planned to bring a thousand laborers to transport grain.

He only said that 500 people would be used to attack the city, but he didn't say that civilians would not be allowed to help before that!

He simply asked the civilians to wear the uniforms of his personal guards and carry the catapults from Xiangyang City to the outside of Wolong Village until sunset.

It’s just for Zhuge Tian and the others to see.

By then, Zhuge Tian would have thought that his five hundred elite soldiers had been moving things for most of the day and were all exhausted, so they certainly wouldn't have expected him to launch a night attack.

When it was completely dark, Zhang Xian let his personal guards eat and drink enough, and then rested for a while.

Around midnight, Zhang Xian led his personal soldiers to quietly move towards Wolong Village.

"This section of the city wall!" Zhang Xian pointed his whip at the section where the bet was made and said, "Capture this section of the wall. The first one to climb it will be rewarded with a hundred gold coins! Remember, the most important thing is to plant our flag!"

According to the agreement, as long as their flag is raised on that section of the city wall, they will be considered to have occupied it and won.

These soldiers are veterans of many battles and are no strangers to sieges and night raids.

Dressed in black, they didn't even need torches, but climbed up using a ladder in the moonlight.

Until the ladder was placed on the wall of Wolong Village, there was no response from inside.

Zhang Xian said proudly, "That little Zhuge fell for his trick! Seeing my entire army busy transporting catapults during the day, he certainly didn't expect us to attack at night."

Then the first group of soldiers could be seen vaguely climbing up the city wall.

"Huh..." Zhang Xian let out a light exclamation. After the first batch of soldiers went up, they should light torches, then hold the city wall and wait for the subsequent soldiers to come up and complete the occupation.

How come there is no movement at all after such a long time?

At this time, the second group of soldiers also climbed up, and there was finally movement on the city wall.

"There is an ambush..."

“Be careful… ah!”

"Go, charge!"

There are about thirty ladders, and only about thirty people can go up at a time.

Zhang Xian watched as his men continued to surge up the city wall, but they never raised their flags.

More than 500 people quickly climbed to the top of the city wall. There were some shouts and cries of killing, but they soon quieted down.

Then Zhang Xian's eyes blurred and he was illuminated by a strong light from an unknown object above.

I could only lift my sleeves to cover my face.

"Is Zhang Xian here?" Liao Hua poked his head out from the city wall and asked knowingly.

Zhang Xian wanted to avoid the strong light, but wherever he went, the strong light followed him.

He could not raise his head and could only cover his eyes with his sleeves.

"Someone down there, go call Zhang Xian over and ask him if he still wants these five hundred men."

Zhuge Tian was holding a big loudspeaker, and the sound could be heard farther at night.

"I am Zhang Xian!" Zhang Xian had no loudspeaker, so he could only shout at the top of his lungs.

His five hundred men were taken down by Zhuge Tian’s one hundred men?

Could it be that the other side was also cheating? In fact, there were more than a hundred people on the city wall?

But it would be difficult to cheat in this matter, because his five hundred elite soldiers are not without mouths.

If there are really more than a hundred people, those people will naturally know what to say.

"Envoy Zhang, your five hundred elite soldiers have been defeated here. What are you going to do next?"

"I..." Zhang Xian wanted to admit defeat, but he was unwilling to do so.

"How about this, Envoy Zhang, I can sell you all these people so you can attack again."

"Sell...sell it to me?" Zhang Xian was a little dumbfounded. Aren't these his elite soldiers? Why would they sell them to him?

"What else? Could it be that Envoy Zhang intends to use his little fists to smash my city wall?" Zhuge Tian asked with a smile.

"How...how do you want to sell it?"

"One elite soldier is worth one guan of cash, weapons are worth ten guan, and armor is worth twenty guan."

"If you want to buy a set meal, it's 25 kan each!"

Zhang Xian almost vomited blood after hearing this.

Is this... still sold separately?

If I only buy 500 soldiers but have no weapons or armor, what's the point of fighting?

Zhang Xian wanted to surrender immediately.

He came here just to ask for money and food, but now he hasn't gotten it and is going to lose more than 12,000 strings of cash. He might as well just lose the jade pendant.

But when he thought of Zhuge Tian's expression, he really couldn't swallow this.

At this time, Zhuge Tian started talking again: "Of course, if Envoy Zhang is not available right now, we can wait."

"If you win in the end, I'll only give you half of the ten thousand kilograms of grain I lost to you. How about that?"

Zhang Xian began to doubt his ears. More than ten thousand strings of cash could buy more than ten thousand kilograms of grain.

When did Zhuge Tian become so easy to talk to?

"If Envoy Zhang is willing, we can add a supplementary agreement to our contract!"

"Okay!" Zhang Xian agreed.

He was really unwilling to admit defeat now.

Thinking about it carefully, Zhuge Tian probably guessed that he might attack at night, so he ambushed troops on the city wall in advance.

They climbed up the city wall using ladders, more than thirty people at a time.

Even though there were only a hundred people on the opposite side, we were still able to outnumber them and had already set up an ambush, catching them off guard.

But if there were only 500 of them attacking from outside the city with catapults.

Do those hundred people dare to rush out?

If my five hundred elite soldiers really can't defeat even one hundred people, then there's no point in competing anymore.

Zhuge Tian asked Liao Hua to show Zhang Xian the new supplementary agreement, which was in duplicate, one of which had fingerprints on it.

After Zhang Xian looked at it and found no problem, he also planned to put his fingerprint on it.

"My lord!" Huan Jie advised, "Something is out of the ordinary. Be careful of a scam!"

"Hmph!" Zhang Xian glared at Huan Jie. If he hadn't proposed a night attack, would the current situation have occurred?

After fingerprints were pressed on both supplementary agreements, Liao Hua took one back.

Then, within a few minutes, the five hundred elite soldiers under his command were released in disgrace.

Zhang Xian called a few people to ask, and it was just as he thought. Their night attack was discovered by Wolong Village, and they had ambushed people in advance.

"This Wolong Village is really extraordinary!" Zhang Xian couldn't help but sigh at this time.

Little did he know that Zhuge Tian's men were watching his every move.

He thought that no one would notice his soldiers leaving the camp at night, but in fact, in the eyes of the people in Wolong Village, it was no different from attacking in broad daylight.

So when his men left the camp to prepare for a night attack, the village had already received the news.

Then a hundred men lay in ambush behind the city wall.

The first batch of soldiers who went up were captured by the soldiers from Wolong Village hiding behind the parapet before they even had time to say a word.

However, Liao Hua was still a little puzzled: "Han Xing, why did you let these 500 people go so easily?"

Although the money was asked for, wasn’t it received?

Just letting the person go like that was really different from Zhuge Tian's usual behavior.

"Haha." Zhuge Tian smiled and pointed at the contract he and Zhang Xian had signed at the beginning: "Look at what this is?"

Liao Hua took a look and saw that the paragraph Zhuge Tian was pointing to was about what would happen if the Wolong Village represented by Zhuge Tian won.

Then Zhang Xian not only had to lose the jade pendant, but also had to pay all the expenses incurred during this period.

"Seconds!" Liao Hua punched his own palm.

"We're out this late at night, so this should be considered a night shift, right?"

"Charging three times the usual fee is also reasonable!"

Now, Liao Hua finally understood where Zhuge Tian planned to trick Zhang Xian.

Not to mention that the more than 12,000 strings of cash were not recovered this time.

But it is written in black and white in the supplementary agreement that as long as Zhuge Tian wins, he will not be able to escape with the more than ten thousand strings of cash.

Zhang Xian returned to the camp and told the soldiers to go and rest.

After such a night of tossing and turning, the main blow was the psychological one.

To put it simply, I feel tired.

The morale of Zhang Xian's men was immediately cut in half.

But who knew that not long after I fell asleep, people from Wolong Village actually came to attack at night.

There were only a hundred of them, but they rushed in fully armed.

Zhang Xian's men had just suffered a defeat and their morale was low, so they fell asleep.

Hearing the sentry shouting that there was a night attack, he hurriedly got up, picked up his weapons and prepared to resist.

However, they discovered that the one hundred soldiers who had come to attack Wolong Village at night had retreated.

But before they left, they dismantled the catapults outside Zhang Xian's camp.

Well, not much was dismantled, just some of the main parts were taken away.

But you have to know that there was no such thing as modular production at that time.

These catapults look similar and are about the same size.

If you take a part from one machine and use it on another, you will find that it will not work at all.

These twenty-five catapults had some parts taken away from them, and were completely scrapped.

He didn't bring any craftsmen with him, and if he asked the craftsmen from Xiangyang to help with the repairs, Liu Biao would probably not agree.

After all, the contract only stated that Xiangyang needed to borrow siege equipment, but it didn't mention that it also needed to borrow craftsmen to help repair it!

"My Lord, this was found beneath those slingshots."

The subordinate handed over a piece of paper.

Zhang Xian saw the words written on it, in crooked handwriting that looked like a dog's paddle: "Specializing in selling various trebuchet parts. If interested, please contact us at the foot of Wolong Village!"

"How dare you, a brat, bully me like this? You even hired a child to write this note, insulting me!"

Zhang Xian tore up the note written by Zhuge Tian "personally" into pieces, but in the end he could only sigh helplessly, and then sent Huan Jie to trade with Zhuge Tian.

Without the catapult, he would have been completely defeated.

When Huan Jie returned, he brought back not only the parts of the catapults, but also a new supplementary agreement. Zhang Xian owed Wolong Village more than 6,000 strings of cash.

The next day, when Liu Biao brought all the officials from Xiangyang City to watch the fun, he found out that Zhang Xian owed Wolong Village nearly 20,000 strings of cash in just one night. He almost laughed his mouth off.

Liu Biao even said jokingly, "You wouldn't want to owe someone a child, would you?"

After hearing what Liu Biao said, Zhang Xian really wanted to catch Zhuge Tian and slap him a few times in front of Liu Biao, to let him see that this was the "child" he was talking about!

Unfortunately, these are just thoughts.

Zhang Xian shouted angrily at Huan Jie, "What are you still doing? Attack the city with your catapults!"

The catapults in Xiangyang City required about twenty people to operate one unit, each pulling the pole at one end, then letting go, allowing the counterweight to fall and throw the stone bullet out.

This place is more than 200 steps away from the city wall of Wolong Village, and only stone bullets weighing 20 to 30 kilograms can be thrown to the city wall.

Then Zhang Xian and the officials of Xiangyang City saw the stone bullets hitting the city wall of Wolong Village, and stone chips flew everywhere.

But when the dust settled and they could see clearly, they found that there were only a few more marks on the city wall, and these stone bullets had not caused any substantial damage at all.

In fact, the catapults of this era could cause limited damage to the earthen walls of the time.

They just relied on continuous attacks to peel off the soil layer of the city wall and finally achieved the goal of destroying the city wall.

But the damage is limited and you can always see the damage.

What now?

Now, after several rounds of stone bullets were thrown at them, it looked very powerful, but there was no damage at all.

Little did they know that these city walls were built using Tang and Song dynasty technology.

Especially during the Song Dynasty, siege equipment developed greatly.

Even in the late Southern Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty had a firearm called the Thunder Bomb that used gunpowder explosions to attack city walls.

In addition, the Song Dynasty's long-standing national policy of leaning towards defense led to great development in the city wall technology of the Song Dynasty.

To put it bluntly, the imaginary enemy of the Wolong Village wall is firearms that did not exist during the Three Kingdoms period.

Instead of those twenty or thirty kilograms of stone bullets.

Such a stone bullet attack on the cement-paved stone brick exterior wall is like a tickle.

The ordinary soldiers on the city wall had already evacuated. Since Zhang Xian had to fire these stone bullets, no one would be able to rush up to attack the city.

Only Zhuge Tian and Liao Hua were watching the situation outside with telescopes in the watchtower on the city wall.

Zhuge Tian put down the telescope and asked:

"What do you think...if all these catapults break down, how much will Zhang Xian have to pay Liu Biao?"