Chapter 145 Repeating an Old Scheme
Nearly a thousand soldiers gathered at the front of the dock, a little confused as they looked at the rows of horizontal trenches in front of them, unable to see a single enemy.
How should they fight this?
They hadn’t encountered this particular positional warfare before.
John Senior was on horseback on a small hill in the rear, surrounded by a group of his own guards.
John Junior was with him.
“These rats are hiding in the trenches, our archers can’t attack. Boy, what ideas do you have?”
Little John wore a suit of one-piece heavy armor. The faceplate on his helmet was opened to reveal his rather handsome face.
“Father, I personally suggest the army directly advance. They are all hiding in the trenches, and we can easily kill them with our lances and bows when we get over there and take the high ground.”
Little John spoke after contemplating the issue. He was well aware that this was his father testing him, testing his ability to cope on the battlefield.
John Senior nodded. “A very normal idea, but too normal and maybe it won’t work.”
John Junior was a bit confused as to why.
John Senior signaled to the officer next to him, and this officer immediately went to the army and gathered a small group of shield soldiers, lancers, and archers, and charged straight ahead.
As a result, just halfway there, the first archers suddenly appeared out of the first trench, and then there were arrows raining down.
Because there were large shield soldiers in front of them, most of the arrows were blocked and only a few of them hit people.
And even if the arrows hit, they didn’t seem to have much power. Many of the soldiers had arrows stuck in their bodies and continued forward, while some others just plucked out the arrows and barreled ahead.
When they reached the trenches, these soldiers were surprised to find that the archers in the trenches had suddenly disappeared, and upon further inspection, they found that between two trenches, each several meters apart, had a small passageway that connected them to each other. Those archers used these small passages to retreat to the next trench.
Then, these soldiers didn’t know what to do.
The trench was more than two meters wide, and if they were lightly equipped like they were normally, they would be able to jump over it in a light sprint, but they were now wearing light armor and carrying weapons, so it wouldn’t be that easy to jump over.
Jumping down into the trenches in pursuit of the enemy?
This was an even stupider idea.
While these soldiers were lost in thought, a bunch of heads suddenly popped up in the second trench, and these men were swinging something with their hands raised.
A closer look revealed that the enemy was swinging rocks.
Stones of varying size were tied to the ends of tough twine, and these men swung faster and faster, and when they finally let go, about a hundred stones dragged the twine and landed heavily on the soldiers.
The soldiers were so shocked that they planted their large shields in front of them, their whole bodies cowering behind the shields.
This was the correct response, but the problem was that there were too many rocks thrown by the other side, and they were also too large.
Coupled with the added centrifugal force effect when swinging, the rocks that came crashing down were no less than the heavy blows of a low-level warrior professional with a hammer.
The repeated sounds of thuds rang out, and after some time of this, the shield-wielding soldier’s hands started to go numb. They backed up rapidly, hitting the soldiers behind them, and the formation was suddenly in disarray.
Then, there were more rocks being swung over.
It wasn’t long before the space between their thumbs and forefingers began to crack and they couldn’t hold their shields any longer.
Then the rocks came down from all over the sky, and in less than a minute, there weren’t many of the hundred or so soldiers who could still stand.
The few remaining soldiers who could still run fled in a panic and were soon caught by the barrier troops and dragged in front of John Senior.
Hearing the faint cheers from across the trenches, John Senior snorted.
Then he looked to a kneeling deserter, jumped off from his horse, walked up to the cowering deserter, and reached behind him to dislodge an arrow.
The deserter groaned, not daring to speak.
The arrow was a purely wooden arrow, the arrowheads were just sharpened.
It would be difficult to pierce through even soft leather armor, not to mention iron armor, and to be wounded by such an arrow meant that the soldier was not very lucky.
“Holding this kind of weapon and daring to fight us, the incentive power of the Golden Sons is not ordinary.” John Senior snorted. “But this kind of stone-throwing attack is a bit innovative.”
Beside him, John Junior said, “Father, it seems that my plan is not working, so what should we do?”
Old John was his father and the mayor of the city, and it was up to him to decide who the heir would be, so the proud John Junior felt that it was not a bad thing to admit to his inability in front of his father.
“A forceful assault can definitely take them down, but the terrain of these trenches is quite complex and we will suffer great losses,” John Senior said coldly. “The Golden Sons are somewhat clever, but unfortunately I’ve been at war for decades, and I’ve seen every kind of scheme. This entrenchment is just a disguised multi-wall formation. The difference being one is built toward the sky and one is dug toward the ground. The best way to deal with this situation is a fire attack. Richard, go back and bring out the supply lines, and have them bring in plenty of hay, fuel, and at the same time bring out the catapults.
“I don’t believe that these trenches can defend against fire stones.”
One of the officers immediately took a small party and turned back to the city.
John Senior got back on his horse and looked at his son. “That’s what war is all about: testing each other, looking for opportunities, breaking the opponent’s move down. The outcome is never quick. If you’re feeling impatient, you can rest in the back for a while.”
John Junior certainly wasn’t that stupid. “Father, I’m not tired. This is a good opportunity to gain experience in war, I don’t want to miss it.”
John Senior nodded with satisfaction.
Little John was relieved to see that. Although he was ostensibly the sole heir now, who knew if his father had raised illegitimate children somewhere else.
If he was mayor of the city, he would definitely have two or three sons in the open, but he would also have two or three more in private, just in case the descendants in the open were killed by enemies. The secret descendants could survive and possibly turn the tables.
The army waited here for a long time, and nothing seemed to happen in the trenches opposite of them.
Only somehow, John Senior began to feel that something was wrong.
An intuition cultivated from being on the battlefield for a long time told him that the atmosphere wasn’t right.
At this time, a soldier ran over and said breathlessly, “Mayor, the battleships responsible for tracking the mage Roland and the priest Jett hit an ice floe. Both ships were completely destroyed, and Roland and Jett are nowhere to be found.”
John Senior’s expressions immediately changed, becoming a bit upset and scary.
John Junior felt this a little strange. “How big must the ice floe be for it to destroy the ships? It’s currently the end of summer, how could it be!”
“Dam* it!” John Senior suddenly cursed. “We’ve been fooled, quickly bring the troops back to the city.”
Just as he said this, a sudden burst of white light shone behind him, almost blocking the sun’s rays.
Then deafening explosions were heard from the direction of the city walls.
The sound of it was like thunder.
Almost all the horses were so frightened and restless that the soldiers could hardly manage them.
The soldiers, however, all looked in the direction of the city gate, their faces pale.
From afar, they could see that the city gates were gone!
Morale immediately dropped to an extreme low.
