Chapter 169: Reward for the First to Scale the City

Li Xinyue came to the table and sat down, saying huffily: "I was kindly comforting you, why are you teasing me?"

"Hahaha! Little Yue, I was wrong!" Jiang Jinshi raised his hands in surrender, very sensibly.

"Are you confident?" Li Xinyue stopped joking and became somewhat worried.

Jiang Jinshi spread his hands without any pressure: "If a few famous generals leading two thousand new recruits can't take a small city, I think we should just retire and enjoy our old age early!"

Thinking of Jiang Jinshi's system ability, Li Xinyue finally felt relieved: "That's good!"

"By the way, we haven't been together for several days!" Jiang Jinshi leaned toward Li Xinyue with a cheeky look.

Li Xinyue knew what kind of mischief he was up to with one look, but she didn't call him out!

"It's late, let's sleep!"

……

The autumn noon sun hung high in the sky, but it offered no warmth. The two thousand bandits of Yangguangzhai were silently advancing.

The bandits made no noise. Although many of the new recruits looked nervous, their discipline was quite good after Ye Chang's training.

The front row of bandits wore black armor, stuffed with paper—this was the debut of the paper armor. Due to time constraints, there were only 150 sets for now, with the rest still being rushed.

Therefore, Jiang Jinshi distributed them to three squads, also using these three squads as the vanguard.

Through the gaps, a cold metallic luster was visible; the bandits held their large knives with serious expressions.

Further back, dozens of crude but sturdy scaling ladders were carried by burly men. Further away, two catapults were being adjusted inch by inch on the designated flat ground.

Jiang Jinshi led the way at the very front of the formation, with Luo Feng and other squad leaders behind him.

"Look, I never noticed so many flaws before. If we didn't bring them out, who would know that Yangguangzhai doesn't even have enough knives to go around!" Jiang Jinshi said with a hint of mockery.

Luo Feng looked around. At the very back of the crowd, nearly five hundred people held crudely made weapons, among which one could even see wood-chopping knives.

The fact that such weapons, which should have been phased out, could appear here said a lot.

Jiang Jinshi continued: "After this battle, gather the blacksmiths from the three cities and focus all efforts on crafting spears, bows, arrows, shields, and other equipment. I will find a way for the materials!"

"Yes!" Luo Feng firmly etched Jiang Jinshi's words into his heart.

At this moment, Yangguangzhai looked quite awkward. They had numbers and discipline, but their armor was incomplete and their weapons were uneven, giving the impression of a ragtag army.

On the city wall, the Squad Leader pressed his hand against the mottled wall bricks, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"Where on earth did this group come from?"

"They came from the official road. Judging by the direction, it should be from Lichee City!" The soldier's voice was dry. He was the first to discover the situation and had immediately reported it to the Squad Leader.

"So it must be the bandits from Yangguangzhai!" The Squad Leader spat and cursed, "What on earth is the Prefect doing? It's been so long, and this group of bandits is still roaming around unscrupulously!"

Taking a deep breath, the Squad Leader closed his eyes and shouted: "Everyone, nock your arrows, prepare for battle!"

The bandits stopped at a distance of one arrow-shot from the city wall, their formation gradually stabilizing. Jiang Jinshi raised his hand and rode his horse to the side, leaving only one sentence behind.

"Luo Feng, the rest is up to you!"

"Yes!"

Luo Feng was very nervous, but he had long anticipated today's scene. He just needed to give orders according to his previous thoughts!

"Catapults, prepare!"

The bandits at the very back picked up the stones prepared in advance, unfolding their coordination somewhat clumsily.

Hum—!

A teeth-gritting sound of ropes being twisted rang out. The giant arms of the catapults suddenly swung up, and several millstone-sized rocks traced arcs, whistling as they smashed toward the city wall.

"Crouch! Stick to the wall!" the Squad Leader roared, his pupils trembling. He hadn't expected these bandits to even have catapults.

Are these bandits? They are no different from a regular army!

Boom! Boom!

The giant rocks smashed into the top of the wall, sending bricks and stones flying. Fortunately, the aim was off, and there were no casualties for the moment.

"Continue the bombardment! Fourth Squad, move up and set the scaling ladders!" Luo Feng issued orders, preparing to use the catapults as cover to set the ladders first.

"Don't panic!" The Squad Leader stood up cautiously, "The thieves don't have many stones! Aim and shoot those pushing the ladders!"

The catapults only performed one round of throwing, clearly intended for deterrence and damaging the city defenses. The second round of loading would take time, and Luo Feng hadn't counted on two catapults to achieve massive results anyway.

The front-row bandits, wearing armor, lowered their heads and sprinted, their synchronized footsteps creating quite a momentum. Behind them were the assault teams carrying the scaling ladders, surrounding those deadly wooden ladders.

"Archers!" The Squad Leader raised his hand, "Shoot upward! Fire!"

Dozens of sparse arrows flew from the city wall, most of them clanging against the armored bandits in the front row. Although the arrowheads pierced the armor, they didn't penetrate directly.

A few managed to pass through the gaps, causing brief chaos and a few muffled groans. The bandits' formation became difficult to maintain for a moment, and they began to panic, but their speed actually increased.

"Don't break formation!" Luo Feng roared, but everyone was pushing forward, and they even started shoving each other.

Jiang Jinshi observed carefully from the side, saying nothing in the face of such a scene.

"Prepare for close combat!" The Squad Leader stared fixedly at the wall of people getting closer; this distance was already within the range of heavy bows.

"Not many arrows left, aim carefully! Fire!" The Squad Leader shouted suddenly, spotting an opportunity. He drew his bow and fired an arrow, which flew over the wall of people and accurately struck a bandit holding a scaling ladder, eliciting a scream.

The other archers woke up as if from a dream and followed suit, no longer focusing on the bandits in front but prioritizing those holding the ladders.

This time they achieved some results; several screams rang out, and the scaling ladders slid to the ground, but the bandits behind immediately filled the gaps, their speed barely affected.

Fifty paces, thirty paces...

"Rolling logs!" Seeing the distance getting closer, the Squad Leader ordered sternly.

Heavy rolling logs and stones were pushed off the city wall. The logs smashed into the scaling ladders and shields, the sound of breaking bones clearly audible.

For a moment, the shrill screams drowned out all other sounds on the battlefield, and the momentum of the first wave of attacks stalled.

But the bandits behind stepped over their comrades' corpses and continued to charge without hesitation. The tops of the scaling ladders, equipped with iron hooks, hooked heavily onto the top of the wall.

Seeing this, Luo Feng was overjoyed. Holding his spear in one hand, he quickly followed, "Charge! A reward of one hundred taels of silver to the first person to stand on the city wall!"

Theoretically, the reward for the first to scale the city should be more than this, but it depended on the opponent. For such a small city, the reward was naturally not much.

"Hold them off! Push the ladders down!"

The Squad Leader drew his sword and rushed to a section of the wall, using long forks with several soldiers to push hard against a scaling ladder. ===== CHAPTER 170 =====