Chapter 387 Siege Part 2

"Stop!" Thousands of aboriginals were starving to the extent that their eyes had turned red. After the order was passed down, they stopped 1.5 kilometers outside of Jinyu City and stared at the city. They subconsciously licked their lips as their eyes glowed.
According to the plan, they should have already been attacking another city 7 days ago.
Unfortunately, the tragedy was that they actually got lost along the way!
This delay actually took them seven days to exit from the mountain range. The livestock that they brought along initially was only supposed to last them long enough according to the original plan. If they hadn't managed to feed on wild animals and fruits to tide themselves through the duration of this mishap, they probably would have had to kill their mounts to mitigate their hunger.
Even so, these thousands of soldiers were so famished that their chests were literally stuck to their backs. Their stomachs were all growling like drums, and they wished they could immediately conquer the city in front of them in order to be able to eat to their heart's content.
Li Qianqiu arrived at the front of the troops on a fork-horned cow. Looking past the city walls with a pair of binoculars, all he saw were frightened faces.
After estimating the number of enemies he was facing, he immediately made a decision.
There were just a few hundred people on the city walls. If things went as anticipated, the whole of Great Xia should currently be almost empty of troops. Therefore, Great Xia would be totally incapable of withstanding the strength of this Dayao army.
"Winged cavalry, open the city gate and kill anyone who resists. The first battalion and the second battalion will control the four city gates. The rest will first gather the rations, especially the livestock, and then assemble at the magistrate's office." Li Qianqiu waved his hand.
It shouldn't be difficult to take down this city. Even if there was resistance, they wouldn't be a match for the almost 1,000 Earth Wheel level winged cavalry warriors.
After that, grab the rations! Grab the rations!
"Kill! Destroy the city!"
"Kill!" Following Li Qianqiu's command, hundreds of winged cavalry warriors stepped down from their mounts. Wielding long sabers, they charged toward Jinyu City. In just less than three minutes, they travelled across 1.5 kilometers and arrived at the city walls as sparse arrows shot down from above.
To this bunch of winged cavalry warriors who were at the Earth Wheel level, those arrows barely caused any disturbance to them. Many of them immediately caught ahold of those arrows with their bare hands and tossed them back.
Thereafter, with the aid of a takeoff run, they leaped around eight meters up into the sky, one after another. With just a single push on the city wall, they directly flipped up and landed on top.
Even 100 ordinary soldiers stood no chance against one winged cavalry warrior. Needless to say, in the current situation, there were almost two winged cavalry warriors fighting against each ordinary soldier.
It was similar to two tigers preying on a little rabbit.
Looking at how these Dayao aboriginals had actually leaped up the city wall, which was ten meters high, the guards' legs turned into jelly as their entire body froze.
Streaks of light reflected off the sabers.
Blood curdling screeches of impending death resounded from the top of the city walls.
However, shortly after, the city gate broke open. The resistance forces within the city were like a weak and gentle lolita who would fall down easily as she was bashfully repelled by a two meter tall and burly man who weighed 150 kilograms.
"Enter the city!" Li Qianqiu ordered.
While everyone entered the city, the winged cavalry was already dashing toward the magistrate's office.
During this period, the aboriginals still faced some resistance from the city's renowned practitioners that were gathered by the Great Xia imperial court. However, just as the practitioners assembled, the city gate had already been broken open.
Thereafter, over ten Earth Wheel experts began fighting against almost 1,000 winged cavalry warriors. At that moment, they were dumbstruck.
They wanted to surrender after just a single clash, but the winged cavalry didn't listen to their pleas and immediately cut them down with their long sabers.
Eventually, only two people managed to escape from the city with their skills.
Out of 3,000 soldiers, half of them went to take control of the city gates located at the four cardinal directions, while the other half began to rob the commoners everywhere.
One by one, the winged cavalry warriors kicked open the doors of the commoners' houses. The warriors stared at them with their long sabers out and shouted, "Hand over all your food!"
These Great Xia commoners were originally already very terrified. When their doors got broken open, they were completely disheartened. Furthermore, a burly man wielding a saber still shouted, "Hand over all your food!"
Trembling, they immediately put all of their rations in a bag and handed it over, then looked on as the burly man left with their rations and went to another house.
The Great Xia commoners heaved a sigh of relief after tightly shutting their doors.
The inn that Li Mengyuan and two others were hiding in wasn't spared either. When a commotion started brewing in the courtyard, their hearts were in their mouths.
Eventually, those Dayao soldiers simply took the rations and left, leaving the trio stunned as they hid in the room.
"They were here just to take rations? So Dayao doesn't even have enough food now? I've long heard that Dayao was a land of scarcity and poverty, but never had I expected them to be that poor." Yao Zhengyan was a little dumbstruck.
Throughout the wars that had been recorded in the past, there had never been any incidents where after conquering a city, the soldiers only took rations and nothing else.
Most of them milked people dry without any restraint while rape and pillage occurred too.
After a war, almost every household would be wearing their mourning garbs.
These Dayao aboriginals were considered pretty humane to only take rations and leave without bothering about other things after conquering the city!
This was indeed contrary to Yao Zhengyan's expectations.
"Hopefully we can get away safe and sound this time." The other two really wanted to stay alive.
Ever since they knew that Dayao was going to attack the city, they hadn't been at ease. Due to the disaster and chaos of war, they couldn't even escape to anywhere else and feared getting killed if they weren't careful.
At present, given that the soldiers of Dayao merely took their rations, the situation couldn't get much better.
Even before noon, the former magistrate's office was already piled up with loads of rations.
There was very few livestock, especially horses and cows. There was relatively more poultry, in the form of chickens and ducks, but most of the rations were coarse grains and the like.
Starting from the afternoon all the way until late at night, the smoke from the kitchen in the magistrate's office never ceased.
Thousands of aboriginals ate meal after meal, from lunch to afternoon tea to dinner and then supper. Those coarse grains weren't actually of much use and did very little to replenish the soldiers' qi and blood.
If 2.5 kilograms of meat was required to fill one aboriginal's stomach, then it would require about 15 kilograms of coarse grains to do the same. Almost everyone had to eat at least half a pot of grains to barely fulfill their bodily needs. However, following their physical exertion, they would be feeling hungry again very quickly.
From afternoon until late at night, all of the soldiers were busy with their cycle of eating, sourcing of food to bring back to the magistrate's office, eating again, continued sourcing of food, and eating again.
On the second day, the aboriginals nabbed over a dozen of scholars, including Li Mengyuan and the two others. Since they were surrounded by tall and strong men wielding shiny sabers, all of them were trembling as if they were livestock that were about to be slaughtered.
Li Mengyuan and the others were all ashen-faced, not knowing what these Dayao aboriginals were going to do to them.
"Hand out the papers and brushes to them. I will speak, and you will write!" Li Qianqiu declared with a heavy voice as he stood on the steps in front of everyone.
Everybody started feeling a little more at ease.
After the papers and brushes were handed out, a few scholars sat cross-legged on the ground, and the others followed. They placed their papers on the ground, sat down, and prepared to write.
Li Qianqiu took out a piece of paper and started reading from it.
"Xia Baichong was brutal and ruthless. In his own selfishness, he had gathered many soldiers and attacked Dayao. At present, many soldiers and generals have died, and 500,000 Great Xia soldiers were buried far from their native land. Also, Dayao has been robbed. What have the innocent people done to deserve this? Thus, Great Xia is required to compensate Dayao for their funerals, city restorations, damaged fields, psychological damage, trees that were chopped down, garbage disposal, and burial of bodies… The total sum will be one billion and five million taels of silver.
You have to pay with your life when you kill someone. You have to pay back money when you owe a debt. You have to compensate when you damage something. This is right and proper. Xia Baichong has committed mistakes, but has yet to bear the consequences and has refused to pay reparations. Therefore, we, Dayao, will claim it ourselves. If you have any complaints, you may place the blame on Xia Baichong."
After Li Qianqiu finished talking, he touched his head and cursed, "F*ck! What bullshit is this?"
"What the f*ck are you looking at? Aren't you going to start writing?" Li Qianqiu frowned and cursed at the scholars who were staring blankly at him
"If a ruler has been insulted, his servants ought to die. You have insulted my nation's ruler, and I would rather die than write," one of the scholars yelled as he threw away his brush and lifted his head.
"Take him away and behead him. Where is his family? Behead them as well." After Li Qianqiu waved his hand, that scholar was dragged away.
"A man is responsible for his own actions. Don't implicate my family!" that scholar cried as he was being dragged away.
"This is granting your family a reunion in case you get lonely during your journey."
What an uncivilized person. How can someone like you be a scholar?
As the saber flashed across, a man's head fell off. Fresh blood spurted a few meters away.
"Go ask around about who brought him here and where his family is. Send his family on the journey with him," Li Qianqiu told the guard beside him. He then turned to speak to the rest and explained, "Principal Ren once said, 'Unity is the most important in a family.' Those are my exact sentiments on this matter."
"So, are the rest of you going to write or would you rather die?"
After witnessing that scholar whose head was chopped off, everyone felt sorrowful.
This bunch of wretched barbarians. Everyone was cursing in their minds, but didn't dare show it. Nobody wanted to test whether the saber was sharper or their necks were thicker.
Besides, those barbarians didn't only kill that person, they wanted his whole family dead as well. When faced with such means, they didn't dare to rebel.
Between life and righteousness, however, which was more important? For the majority, life was still more important. The best that they could do was just to console themselves in their own minds. Even if one person refused to write, there would still be others who would do it.
After some time, Li Qianqiu held the papers that had been written on. With strong feelings, he said, "That's why the more a person studies, the more his character worsens and the more timid he becomes."
With just this phrase, everyone became flushed with anger.
After half a day, those papers were posted all over the major locations within Jinyu City.
Li Qianqiu went scouring for food in Jinyu City for two days, and almost all of the livestock had been gathered.
Apart from livestock, there was also a lot of gold, jewelry, and salt that had been raked in from the shops and rich families.
Li Qianqiu couldn't be bothered to deal with those poorer families.
He only needed to take the most valuable items. Taking too many things would in fact create inconvenience for their advancement.
To the ordinary families in Jinyu City, this was considered a blessing amid their misfortune.
"Find a few people who are familiar with directions. We will set off tomorrow," Li Qianqiu ordered to the people beside him. He was determined not to take a detour this time around.
Two hours later, Li Mengyuan's group of three appeared before Li Qianqiu once again.
Nowadays, the majority of the commoners had never stepped more than five kilometers away from Jinyu City before.
This trio of scholars had traveled from another place, so they were unfortunately placed in the clutches of Li Qianqiu again.
Seeing this fierce-looking Dayao general in front of them, the trio wanted to cry, but no tears came out of their eyes.