Chapter 437: Again and Again

"The beacon tower must be strictly guarded!" He thought and thought, and found a spellcaster to install a barrier. Longhou Ridge itself had a talisman array for protection, which was not activated at ordinary times. There were a few spellcasters stationed in the army, wasn't it easy to do this job?

But the garrison commander didn't have time to report the money for the barrier for the beacon tower—it wouldn't be approved so quickly even if reported, at least it would take ten days or half a month—so he could only pay out of his own pocket first.

The second night, all was peaceful.

Every minute the barrier was activated consumed energy. No matter how economical the defensive barrier created by the spellcaster was, it would consume at least half a piece of profound crystal every ten hours a day.

Two days was a whole piece!

He was sent to Longhou Ridge in the big mountains to guard the pass, originally because he had no money and no connections. Who didn't know that the pass-guarding mission was heavy and the salary was low? After two days of this, he couldn't hold on anymore.

He also asked his superiors for help, but was scolded by his immediate superior. Profound crystals were such precious strategic materials, and you wanted to use them to deal with invisible threats?

The most critical thing was that there was no end to this defense. Did you want to defend for one or two days, ten days or half a month, or one or two years?

Thousands of taels of silver were spent without hearing a sound. If his superior dared to approve it, his superior's superior might think he was lining his own pockets.

So the barrier couldn't last long.

On the third night, the beacon tower was lit again, this time three beacon stoves were lit.

But there was no war on the western line, and the mountains and forests were very quiet.

Looking up, the beacons of Longji Pass also rose quickly. The garrison commander's eyes went dark, and he couldn't help but want to roar to the sky:

Brother on that high platform, couldn't you wait a moment? But this time, the soldiers guarding the beacon tower finally caught the real culprit:

Wild monkeys on the mountain.

These monkeys would steal torches from the camp, or use branches to ignite fire in the camp, and then throw them into the beacon tower.

The garrison commander was furious: "How unreasonable, how can monkeys light beacons for no reason?"

The soldiers were naturally speechless, and no one dared to make a sound.

It wasn't until the second half of the night that a confidant quietly told the garrison commander that there were many wild monkeys in the mountains. A few days ago, they came to steal the soldiers' dry rations, and the latter burned several of them to death and shared the meat. Maybe the monkey troop was holding a grudge, hence this move.

This was outrageous? The garrison commander immediately sent people up the mountain to catch monkeys.

But the big mountain was the monkeys' home field. How could the soldiers be as agile as them? They tried their best but only caught three or four. As a result, the monkey troop was even more angry, throwing stones directly into the pass and camp. The soldiers were hit with blood all over their faces if they weren't careful.

The worst thing was that the capital was once again in a false alarm for a night, and the crown prince was furious, changing the garrison commander without a word.

The same night, Panlongcheng.

The thin man was just about to leave home when gongs suddenly sounded outside, and someone shouted "Street—Corner—Preaching!"

Panlongcheng's large-scale pre-war mobilization preaching finally began.

Crowds gathered one after another, all listening to the person at the street corner interpreting the content of the announcement with a broken gong voice.

First, the heroic and great Emperor of Western Luo had issued a relocation order, requiring the citizens of the Panlong Wasteland to return to their homeland immediately.

Second, the Jin Xi Corridor was controlled by the Baling people, with rugged terrain that was difficult to travel, which was not conducive to the passage of the people. Panlongcheng decided to open a new route: Nantung Pass - Hebi - Changhe to return to Western Luo.

Third, Panlongcheng declared total war on Xi Ji Nation:

Xi Ji disturbed our border defense, killed our people, and intercepted our commercial goods, which could not be tolerated.

Now, those who block our way back home, die! When the preacher read the announcement for the first time, it stirred up a commotion.

Through the door, the thin man could hear the running, exclamations, and the sound of doors opening from the neighbors.

"We're going to attack Xi Ji! We're going to attack Xi Ji!" Countless people were cheering.

The sound waves were noisy, one wave higher than the other.

In his impression, no street corner preaching had ever caused such a big response.

When the preacher read it for the sixth time, the crowd outside was already surging, more and more residents followed him in chanting, finally turning into a heroic slogan that rushed into the sky:

"Those who block our way back home, die!"

Thus, the crowd was excited.

The thin man stood at the door looking at the surging crowd, his little nephew clenching his fists beside him, also shouting in a milky voice: "Those who block our way back home, die!"

The thin man laughed, knocking on his head: "Life and death, what do you know?"

The little nephew tilted his head to look at him, his eyes shining: "How can I not know, we are going to war, and then we can go home!"

The thin man took a deep breath:

"Yeah! We are going to beat Xi Ji down and step out a road home from it!"

Like all the cheering people, his heart was full of longing and heroism.

Just as the Broken Blade Squad expected, there was no need for further war mobilization, nor was there a need to boost morale. As long as a notice was issued, the militant excitement of the soldiers and civilians in the city reached its peak at this moment.

If someone were looking at Panlongcheng from afar at this moment, they would find a huge dragon-shaped phantom faintly appearing above the city, looking like light and shadow, also like flowing clouds, but actually the embodiment of both luck and meta-power reaching their peak.

The name "Panlong" was only then worthy of its name.

The newly appointed Longhou Pass garrison commander, whose predecessor's life or death was unknown, was trembling with fear. He first went to check the beacon tower, then looked at the monkeys hiding on the mountain peak and making faces at him, and decided to poison them.

They hid poison in food and threw it to the monkeys, and sure enough, they poisoned more than a dozen.

However, the remaining monkeys were even more angry, and even monkeys from other mountain peaks came over, looking down and peeing and throwing stones at them, and choosing to make noise in the dead of night to disturb the soldiers' sleep, and even repeating old tricks, repeatedly trying to throw burning branches into the beacon tower.

Fortunately, the sentries were strictly guarded, so the monkeys didn't succeed again.

But because of this, everyone was tense, couldn't sleep well at night, and had no energy during the day. If this human-monkey war didn't count casualties, the monkeys still had the upper hand. After all, there was only the principle of being a thief for a thousand days, not the principle of guarding against a thief for a thousand days.

And the crown prince also said that if the beacons were lit by mistake again, all the soldiers in the pass would lose their heads.

Leaders only cared about giving orders, saying this won't do, that must be done, and the people below had to do it even if they couldn't, the superiors only wanted results.

So how to do it?

This garrison commander was also forced into a corner and made a decision that would harm his descendants—

Cover the beacon tower!

The specific method was to find merchants passing through the pass to get large pieces of tarpaulin to sew together, cover them on the beacon stoves of the beacon tower, then brush a layer of mud ash, and then sprinkle a layer of thick sand.

Of course, they had tested it on flat ground, and the garrison commander personally threw a few torches on it.

Very good, it didn't ignite.

There was plenty of time for them to calmly extinguish the torches.

The most important thing was that it saved money, a hundred times more economical than activating the barrier.

According to the rules, this was of course not allowed, but with the threat of beheading in front, who cared about the usual rules? This was called having a threat above, having a countermeasure below.

Anyway, they had to pass the level above first.

So the canvas big cover was covered on the beacon tower.

The palace envoy sent by the palace to supervise suddenly visited, and was furious when he saw them doing this: "How can this be, remove it, remove it!"

The garrison commander begged him to stay and watch for half a night.

Sure enough, in the middle of the night, the monkeys came in groups to set fire.

The burning branches were thrown onto the sand cover, extinguished, and couldn't be lit.

The monkeys were so angry that they squeaked, and the soldiers below laughed loudly, finally venting their anger and taking revenge.

"If there is an enemy outside the pass, we can still remove the cover in time." The garrison commander begged the palace envoy, "Otherwise, if we remove this cover now and the beacons rise again, our lives will not be guaranteed."

The palace envoy nodded repeatedly: "What you said makes a lot of sense. Remove the cover."

"Eunuch!"

"The King ordered this servant to come and supervise the beacon tower, so this servant must ensure that everything here is normal!" The palace envoy snorted, "You covered this cover on the beacon stove, dare you say it's normal? This servant is letting you pass now, but if the King blames me later, this servant won't be able to escape responsibility. Alright, don't talk nonsense, remove it quickly."

The garrison commander couldn't persuade him no matter what, so he had to order people to remove the sand cover, cursing the dead eunuch a hundred times in his heart.

No one noticed that someone was hiding in the night on the mountain peak, taking all these into his eyes, and then handed a large handful of dates to the monkey troop that came flying.

The dates were big and sweet, and the monkeys ate them with joy.

This person was Old Yu, a temporary new member of He Lingchuan's squad. He gestured, and made "wu wu" sounds in his mouth, actually able to communicate with the monkey troop.

Even if the guards below heard it, they only thought it was the monkeys calling.

Two more days passed.

Longhou Ridge was peaceful, the monkeys seemed to have suffered a setback and didn't come anymore. So the palace envoy's supervision ended, and he hurriedly returned to the palace to report.

As soon as he left, the Longhou Pass garrison commander breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly said to his subordinates: "Cover the beacon stove!"

"My lord?" Didn't the palace envoy forbid it?

"His mission is over and he can return to the palace, but we still have to guard here. If something happens again, it has nothing to do with him, but we will lose our heads." The garrison commander sneered, "If it were you, how would you choose?"

So everyone worked together to cover the beacon stove. Everyone knew that the day after tomorrow was the new King's coronation ceremony, and nothing could go wrong at such a critical moment.

Panlongcheng South Gate.

A large number of troops were gathering, and countless torches illuminated the place like daylight.

Zhong Shengguang stood out, drew his sword to the sky with a clang, and began a passionate speech.

Undoubtedly, Zhong Shengguang had much more appeal and infectious power than General Nanke.

His mobilization was interrupted several times by the cheers from the audience.

The whole scene was fanatical. Everyone listening below felt their blood boiling, wishing they could charge out and kill eight hundred enemies.

"Spirit Rain, come quickly!"

A light rain began to fall from the sky.

Sun Fuping had also shown this move when mobilizing the Black Water City soldiers to go to the desert, but the range of the rain wasn't this wide.

This time, the more than 30,000 Panlongcheng troops setting off were all baptized by the Spirit Rain, feeling lighter, stronger, breathing more smoothly, and their morale was even higher.

This was General Hong using the meta-power of Panlongcheng to ensure that the soldiers all shared the rain and dew.

"In half a month, you will eat a whole sheep feast and drink rich spring wine in the capital of Xi Ji Nation to celebrate our great victory!" Zhong Shengguang's voice resounded through the audience, "Now, set off!"

Rich spring wine was a specialty of Xi Ji, and the price sold to Panlongcheng was not low, and not everyone could afford it.

The soldiers shouted, turned collectively, and headed outside the city gate.

The onlookers cheered, throwing flowers to the soldiers.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 438 =====