Chapter 214: Chapter 171 Finally Back 1
Translator: 549690339 |
Seeing Lin Xiuming almost driven mad with frustration, Li Feng hastily said, “General Lin, don’t be anxious, there’s no need for us to be too tense.”
“There are at most five thousand Barbarian soldiers in the distance, and even if they attack the city, they won’t be able to breach it.”
“Moreover, it’s very likely they’re not here to attack the city.”
Seeing Li Feng acting so nonchalant, Lin Xiuming asked with suspicion, “General Li, how can you be so sure they’re not here to attack the city?”
Li Feng answered, “After the North Fre King’s army was repelled by us, they’ve occasionally sent a few thousand men to harass us, but they usually just shout provocations and don’t actually attack the city, probably hoping to wage psychological warfare.”
“I guess they’re at least going to wait until next spring before the North Fre King’s army makes another move south to attack Tianguang City.”
Hearing Li Feng’s answer, Lin Xiuming looked at him with a face full of skepticism.
At this time, Li Feng said to Lin Xiuming’s soldiers, “Don’t attack yet, we’re currently short on bows and arrows, so let’s conserve them for when the Barbarians do attack the city.”
No sooner had Li Feng finished speaking than a Barbarian soldier rode up to the city and shouted in the Great Sum language with a Barbarian accent, “Our king has spoken, he demands the North Prince immediately hand over his queen and compensate us with ten million tales of silver, otherwise, next spring, the North Fre King tribe will assemble an army of one million to move south.”
“By then, wherever the Barbarian warriors go, not a blade of grass will be left standing, and rivers of blood will flow.”
No sooner had the Barbarian soldier shouted than the thousands of Barbarian Cavalry in the distance stood and chanted, “Not a blade of grass will be left standing, rivers of blood will flow!”
“Not a blade of grass will be left standing, rivers of blood will flow!!!”
Afterward, the Barbarian soldier uttered some very unpleasant words, insulting the people of Great Sum as sheep on two legs, with small courage, who dare not come out, and only dare to stay in their pens.
The imperial soldiers brought by Lin Xiuming, upon hearing those words, all wished they could shoot that Barbarian soldier dead with a single arrow, but they did not act rashly. After all, the General had not given the order, and attacking on their own would likely result in military law punishment.
At this moment, Lin Xiuming noticed a strange phenomenon.
Li Feng had been in a fluster when looking for him earlier, as if the Barbarian Army was about to breakthrough, but now he was standing on the city wall as if nothing was the matter.
Not only was he like this, but so were the soldiers left behind in North City.
Only the soldiers he brought felt like they were facing a formidable enemy.
It made it seem as though the Barbarian assault had nothing to do with the soldiers from North City.
Weird, too weird…
Lin Xiuming simply gave up trying to figure it out and directly handed over battlefield command to Li Feng, letting Li Feng decide whether to attack or not.
Li Feng just stood there on the city wall until the Barbarian soldier finished shouting and left.
For a long time afterward, the Barbarian Cavalry would come to Tianguang City every now and then, but they just shouted provocations and never attacked.
Eventually, Lin Xiuming, upon hearing reports of Barbarian attacks, couldn’t be bothered to pay attention anymore.
Lin Xiuming was no fool; he too had realized that those Barbarians had no real intention of attacking Tianguang City, and it wasn’t even certain if they were actually Barbarians.
However, as the general dispatched by the Great Sum imperial court to provide support, Lin Xiuming still documented everything he witnessed in battle reports and sent them to the Capital City.
Of course, he did not include some of the more trivial details in the reports.
Half a month later.
Tianguang City.
Li Feng was organizing things in his room when a soldier from North City entered, speaking softly, “General, the Prince truly has divine foresight, there really are people digging up graves.”
Hearing this, Li Feng was taken aback, then after scanning the doorway to ensure only North City soldiers were present, he asked, “How much soil was overturned?”
The soldier replied, “I took a look, sir, and there seem to be more than twenty spots; each covers an area of about one square meter.”
Hearing the soldier’s answer, Li Feng said, “The imperial court really doesn’t trust North City, but this likely isn’t General Lin’s doing. It’s probably the work of spies the court has planted within our army.”
The reason Lu Chen had all the clothes on the bodies of the Barbarian corpses switched to those worn by Great Sum people was mainly to prevent people from digging up the graves to verify the identities of the dead.
Frankly, Lu Chen didn’t believe the army brought by Lin Xiuming would do such a thing, nor did he think Lin Xiuming would desecrate graves to verify the identities of the bodies.
No matter whether the mounds contained North City soldiers or not, at least nominally they were the Black Cavalry of North City, and nominally, they had died for North City, for Great Sum.
If it became known that their graves had been dug up, it would certainly be a bad look.
Lu Chen had bodies dressed in new clothes purely to anticipate the worst in the soldiers of Lin Xiuming’s forces; in his view, even if Lin Xiuming did not intend to verify the bodies as Black Cavalry, it was very possible that someone among his men would.
As a result, not half a month since Lu Chen had left Tianguang City, and even before he had returned to Yan County, the graves had indeed been tampered with; but now, verifying whether those buried were Great Sum people might not be so easy.
Although bodies don’t decompose easily in winter, being buried in the ground still brought some changes, and even ice-frozen corpses, once coated with soil, would not easily reveal whether the soldiers were Barbarians or Great Sum people.
At this juncture, the soldier asked, “General, is there anything we need to do?”