r18novel Chapter 125 The Eve of the Blood Moon
Chapter 125 The Eve of the Blood Moon
"Quick! Quick! Quick! Place these crossbows here, and notify the conscripted laborers to bring up the rolling logs and stack them up as soon as possible.
In addition, quickly prepare the lubricating oil and rolling stones, and start placing them on the city wall today.
There are many caves to the west of us, and many evil spirits are hiding there. We will definitely be the side that has the most difficulty."
On the west city wall, a city defense officer in armor was giving orders to his adjutant.
Then, as if remembering something, he muttered, "No, I still have to go there myself. Supplies are in short supply now, and those guys must be hiding in the supply department. I won't suffer this loss."
After saying this, the city defense officer left his adjutant behind and hurried down the city wall.
At this moment, this section of the city wall looked like a large construction site. Several craftsmen were carefully installing a crossbow, and a large number of parts were scattered all over the ground.
On the sidewalk, many conscripted laborers were carrying huge stones and piling them into a corner of the city wall. These stones were the "ammunition" for defending the city.
Such scenes were also being played out at other locations on the city walls.
In order to cope with the upcoming blood moon night, the entire Hengzhou Prefecture is running at full capacity like a machine.
In the back hall of the Hengzhou Prefecture government office, all the bigwigs from the entire Hengzhou Prefecture gathered together.
In the center of the hall, a map was spread on a large long table. The yellowed paper indicated that the map was quite old. Marked on the map were the city defense outlines of Hengzhou Prefecture, as well as nearby mountains, rivers, hydrology and other geographical landmarks.
Zhang Huaizheng, the prefect of Hengzhou Prefecture, stood in front of the long table and looked at the map for a while: "Deputy Commander Shen, is the plan to clear the cave where the evil spirits live during the day feasible?"
"Reporting to the prefect, I arranged five teams of ten people to try it the day before yesterday.
Twelve caves in the south and west of the city were cleared, and more than 25 evil spirits were captured and killed, but on the night watchmen, 17 were seriously injured and were killed. One team of ten was ambushed by a group of third-level evil spirits during the clearing process and was completely wiped out.
I think that going deep into the cave to strangle the evil spirit is like going deep into the enemy's home ground. Although the evil spirit cannot escape from the cave, the corresponding loss of our personnel in the fight of trapped beasts is also great, and the cost-effectiveness is not high. "
Shen Xiaoyin on the side answered helplessly.
The daytime clearing plan proposed by the prefect had been proposed before, but each time it had little effect and only increased casualties. This time, the Night Patrol cooperated with the prefectural army and ended with heavy casualties.
"Okay, now that I know about this, let's temporarily scrap this plan to strangle the evil spirit in broad daylight.
Yan Rui, your Yan family is proficient in the art of formations. How are you doing in sealing the entrance to the evil spirit's cave? Is it feasible?"
"Reporting to the prefect, the results of the operation are not ideal." An old man in brocade clothes said with regret.
“According to the instructions of the Operations Department, all the members of my Yan family who are good at formations went out a few days ago to seal eight caves in the east of the city. We also tested the effect at that time and found that the evil spirits could not enter or leave the sealed caves.
But after last night, news came from the tribe this morning that only one of the eight caves was still sealed intact, and the others had all been destroyed by evil spirits. "
"Was the formation broken by brute force by the evil spirits in the cave?" Zhang Huaizheng asked with a frown.
“It shouldn’t be. According to the results of our current investigation, it should have been destroyed from outside by the evil spirit that roamed outside last night.
We have reason to believe that with the gathering of high-level evil spirits, the evil spirits now wandering around our Hengzhou Prefecture have begun to become organized and disciplined.
Therefore, even if we use formations to seal the cave during the day, it will still be destroyed by other evil spirits at night.
Unless we set up another high-level defense formation outside the cave to prevent the wandering evil spirits from causing damage.
But the cost is much higher than killing the evil spirits in the cave. After all, high-level defensive arrays are not cheap."
Zhang Huaizheng smiled bitterly and said, "Thank you for your help. I originally wanted to target the evil spirit in advance, but I didn't expect that in the end I could only defend against it openly.
"Lieutenant You, have all the city defense materials arrived? Have the recruitment of civilians in the city been completed? How are the people outside the city being resettled?"
A scholar in a green robe stepped out and said, "Reporting to the Lord, the elixirs, talismans, and instruments used by the cultivators are still insufficient, and the surrounding Taoist temples and sects are rushing to produce them.
Baisha Prefecture and Yongzhou Prefecture also gave us some assistance, but it was still not much per capita.
The city defense troops had basically collected enough logs and boulders for defending the city, and their weapons and armor had almost been built, but the oil and fat for defending the city was still in short supply.
In addition, we began to recruit civilians to help defend the city half a month ago, and have now recruited more than 70,000 civilians. This number is sufficient to assist the government troops and the city defense troops in defending the city.
We have also carried out sufficient publicity for the people living outside the city. Except for some people who are really inconvenient to evacuate, more than 200,000 people have temporarily moved into the city, and the number is still increasing.
At present, there is enough food in the resettlement sites, and most of the young and strong have participated in the construction of urban defense."
Zhang Huaizheng stroked his beard and nodded when he heard this: "Finally, I heard some good news. It can be said that these people understand a little bit. If this nest is overturned, there will be no eggs left unbroken. If this city cannot be defended, then none of us will survive."
Afterwards, Zhang Huaizheng asked about the progress of other city defense matters. At present, since preparations had started a long time in advance, overall, Hengzhou Prefecture’s preparations were relatively sufficient.
Finally, Zhang Huaizheng glanced anxiously at the half-lying figure in the corner: "Commander Guo, how are your preparations going? Have you adjusted your status?"
The person being questioned was naturally Guo Huaiyi, the leader of the Night Patrol Division, who was also the most powerful person in the entire Hengzhou Prefecture.
"belch!"
Upon hearing this, Guo Huaiyi actually burped.
“Haha, I’m in good shape as long as I have wine.
Don't worry, I will take care of the fourth-level evil spirits that night, and don't bother me with the others."
Everyone sighed in silence when they heard this. Guo Huaiyi did not take the blood moon in the sky seriously.
Logically speaking, if Guo Huaiyi wasn't a drunkard and lazy, there would be so many things going on in the Night Patrol Office that Shen Xiaoyin shouldn't be in charge.
Finally, Zhang Huaizheng looked at Qi Yegui, who was in charge of hunting evil spirits outside the city: "Deputy Commander Qi, can you give an approximate number?"
"I'm ashamed to say that my men have only discovered about two hundred hiding places of evil spirits around Hengzhou Prefecture.
According to conservative estimates, the number of evil spirits when the blood moon comes will not be less than 40,000, and this is only the number of first-order evil spirits. Based on the normal birth ratio of second-order evil spirits to first-order evil spirits, there should be no less than one thousand.
As for those at level three and above, we cannot count them, but we have confirmed that there is a level four evil phosphorus twin-tailed scorpion."
Upon hearing this, everyone present, except Guo Huaiyi, looked very unhappy.
The number of cultivators in the entire Hengzhou Prefecture who can participate in the war, including the government troops, the Night Patrol, and the forces of the various aristocratic families and sects, should be over 5,000 at most.
But in the face of at least 40,000 first-order evil spirits, they were a bit overwhelmed, not to mention that there were more than a thousand second-order evil spirits and an unknown number of third-order evil spirits.
Even with the advantage of the city's defense, in the face of such a huge numerical disparity, no one present had the confidence to say that they could hold the city 100%.
At the same time, in the Liu Mansion in the east of the city, Liu Fusheng was discussing something with several cultivators in front of a map, and bursts of laughter occurred from time to time.
These cultivators were sent by the Liu family of Baisha Prefecture to help with the city defense of Hengzhou Prefecture, and that map was actually the city defense map of Hengzhou Prefecture.
At this moment, on the map, a chess piece with an evil head carved on it was placed at Ximen's position.