Chapter 619: Fighting Spirit

Latest URL: Guangning City.

One hundred thousand Wangfu Army soldiers were ready to set out.

For this attack on Pingyuan City, Chang Wei had gathered eighty thousand infantry and twenty thousand cavalry.

Among them were seventy thousand musketeers, eight thousand heavy infantry, over two thousand artillerymen, and three hundred and six field artillery pieces of various types, essentially bringing out seventy percent of the Prince's Personal Army's strength.

This time, he intended to take the three cities of Qi in Hebei in one go and expand the territory of Yanzhou to the north bank of the Jin River.

"General, the Hot Air Balloon Troop has arrived." Just as the main army was about to set out, a cavalryman came before Chang Wei.

Chang Wei nodded.

Two quarters of an hour ago, the army had been prepared to depart; the reason they remained in place was to wait for this batch of Hot Air Balloon Troop.

Several wars had proven that although these Hot Air Balloon Troop could not decide the victory or defeat of a war, their reconnaissance and harassment on the battlefield were like adding wings to a tiger for the Prince's Personal Guard.

For this war, he had specifically deployed ten hot air balloons, thirty hot air balloon soldiers, and ten hot air balloons.

Besides this, moving along with the main army were fifty thousand laborers conscripted by the Government Office, who would be responsible for the transport of provisions.

After this period of reconnaissance, they discovered that Pingyuan City was heavily fortified, and taking Pingyuan City would likely not be something that could be accomplished in a day or two.

After all, this time was different from any war they had fought before.

First, they no longer had the advantage of defending a city, which would make the war difficult.

Although they were also the attacking side during the Jinzhuzhizhan.

And they had taken many cities.

But at that time, the Xiliang soldiers had never seen muskets or artillery, and their weapons were merely bows, arrows, and curved blades, which allowed them to take quite a bit of advantage.

But now, a large number of artillery pieces were installed on the walls of Pingyuan City, and most of the Qi soldiers inside the city used matchlocks and were already quite familiar with firearms, which weakened this advantage significantly.

Secondly, just as Yan Wang had said.

Dongying was colluding with Qi,

and might provide Qi with some ideas on how to deal with them.

However, although the difficulty of the war had increased due to the popularization of firearms, this did not affect the generals' confidence in victory.

The Prince's Personal Army never believed that weapons were the only factor; while their repeated victories were certainly due to firearms, strict training and a spirit of courageous sacrifice were the fundamentals.

When engaging in hand-to-hand combat with Beidi soldiers, the soldiers of the Prince's Personal Army never felt fear.

Thinking of this, Chang Wei looked toward the direction of Pingyuan City and shouted loudly:

"Set out."

Yanzhou was narrow from east to west and long from north to south; the distance from Guangning City to Pingyang City was over one hundred and eighty li.

After more than two days of marching, the main army arrived at the foot of Pingyuan City, and Chang Wei ordered them to set up camp one thousand meters from Pingyuan City.

At the same time, the Hot Air Balloon Troop began to heat the hot air balloons to ascend for reconnaissance.

"Can you Dongying people manufacture that thing?"

On the north wall of Pingyuan City, Han Qi pointed at the hot air balloons in the sky and asked Shicun Dahe.

Shicun Dahe shook his head, his face showing astonishment.

Although he had learned from information provided by Qi that Yan Wang had used these things that flew in the sky several times during the war with Beidi, seeing it with his own eyes still made him feel a trace of nervousness.

"This thing is called a hot air balloon; merchants in Yancheng even pay silver to hang their signs on the hot air balloons to attract attention," Han Qi added.

"Lord Sato once said that the Xitu Dalu also has this thing," Shicun Dahe muttered.

"Is that so? Then why didn't you bring this technique from the Western Lands to Dongying?" Han Qi was puzzled.

Shicun Dahe's expression dimmed slightly as he said: "I asked Lord Sato this question as well."

"He said the Westerners are very arrogant, and their countries are currently popularizing the ideology of white supremacy, so they look down on us Dongying people at all."

"They come here only to earn our silver and enslave us; they are not willing to teach us too many things at all."

Han Qi frowned. To curry favor with Shicun Dahe, he intentionally stood up for Dongying and cursed: "These Westerners are truly blind; once we eliminate Yan Wang in the future, our Qi must teach them a lesson."

"General Han!" Upon hearing this, Shicun Dahe was not happy; instead, his face became serious and he grew angry. "You cannot insult the Westerners like this, because that is equivalent to insulting Dongying."

"How do you figure that?" Han Qi looked bewildered.

Shicun Dahe said angrily: "Compared to the civilization of the Western Lands, you Dasong are the barbaric and uncivilized land, while we Dongying are determined to be loyal students of the Westerners. You insulted our Dongying teachers, so naturally, you are insulting Dongying..."

Having said this, he stopped speaking.

In fact, he also wanted to say that Dongying had benefited from the techniques of the Western Lands and was now much more prosperous than Dasong.

The Westerners looked down on them, the Dongying people, but they, the Dongying people, looked down on Dasong, Gaoli, and everyone else in Dongtu.

Han Qi opened his mouth, looking as if he were stunned.

He truly could not understand how Dongying could be looked down upon and yet still maintain such a humble, reverent attitude toward the Westerners.

But since Qi currently needed to cooperate with the Dongying people, he did not want to cause unpleasantness between the two sides over this small matter.

So he gave a few dry laughs and stopped mentioning the matter.

Then, he looked at the endless Yan Prince Army to the north and said: "General Shicun, this time Yan Wang's troops have basically come out in full force. I fear there will be a fierce battle for Pingyuan City. General, please do not hold back and be sure to help me with all your might."

Shicun Dahe only nodded slightly.

Although he did not like Qi, for the sake of Dongying and for Dongying's future unification of Dongtu, he had to stand with Qi to stop Yan Wang's expansion.

Just then, a hot air balloon drew closer and closer, about to fly over the city wall.

Han Qi hurriedly pulled Shicun Dahe to hide.

He was now very grateful to Beidi, because it was precisely the war between Beidi and Yan Wang that allowed them to absorb quite a bit of experience.

Facing this kind of thing that flew in the sky, they knew they had to hide immediately.

A quarter of an hour later, the hot air balloon slowly drifted away, and only then did they come out to continue deploying soldiers to prepare for the attack.

The gradually receding hot air balloon slowly landed in the camp of the Prince's Personal Army.

The Hot Air Balloon Troop reported their reconnaissance intelligence back to Chang Wei.

"General, all of their Artillery have been mounted on wheeled carriages? And they are positioned on the south side of the city wall walkway?"

"Oh?" Chang Wei frowned; this discovery was no small matter, and Yan Wang had guessed correctly again.

The Eastern Japanese had evidently imparted some techniques for using firearms to Qi.

If this were the case, Qi's Artillery would be able to move flexibly atop the city walls.

Furthermore, the width atop the city walls of Pingyuan City was a full twelve meters.

It was no wonder that when he looked from bottom to top through the Telescope, he had not discovered Qi's Artillery; they were all on the south side.

After a moment of slight reflection, he understood Qi's tactics.

"Interesting, it seems this battle won't be so boring after all." Chang Wei suddenly chuckled aloud, feeling his entire body filled with fighting spirit.