Zhan Long

Chapter 871 Birds in danger will peck, beasts in despair will fight back

The sun set in the west, the dense iron cavalry swiftly traveled toward Fire Elephant City. Under the setting sun, the city was dyed in a layer of blood. In truth, this city was surrounded in fresh blood. To take down this city, the China and India servers lost many players, and their overall losses had reached ten million.

Looking out, smoke bellowed from within Fire Elephant City. It wasn't the red-colored smoke clouds from the Flame Dragon Cannons and Dragon Crystal Cannons. Looking at my expression which was filled with doubt, Lin Wan Er laughed, "Q-Sword's sneak attack succeeded. Last night we used a million players to attack, attracting their players and NPCs. A portion of the assassins that Q-Sword sent entered and burnt their seven large granaries. The smoke still hadn't faded till now."

I was delighted, "As expected, Q-Sword didn't let the China Region players down. As long as we burn down their granary, the city basically belongs to us. Based on our rest time, two days have passed in the game. There are so many NPCs in there and they definitely would have no food. Who knows? They might already be killing war horses for food."

Wang Jian carried the sword and moved forward on his horse, nodding and smiling, "Yes, we have received news that the Wing Searching Army, the Clear Current Army, and the Autumn Leaf Army have started slaughtering horses for food. However, there are simply too many people inside. Just NPCs alone there are over four hundred thousand troops. War horses can't support that amount. With that, the Fire Elephant City NPC cavalry would be greatly weakened and wouldn't be able to be comparable to Tian Ling City."

The Fire Dragon Cavalry, the Steel Blade Cavalry, and the Royal Army swept across the city wall region and when we passed through it there were dense amount of Tian Ling City players and troops forming a defense line. They had already surrounded Fire Elephant City in many layers. Many trebuchets and long distance weapons have been smashing at the walls. We were just waiting for them to counter attack.

We arrived at the front of the [Zhan Long] camp. Fox led his men to camp here, he smiled and nodded, "Little Li you are finally back. Tsk tsk, you finally killed Clear Black Eyes?"

I smiled. "Your news spread so fast?"

"Bullsh*t, it was said in the guild chat, I'm not even deaf and blind."

"Haha."

"Don't laugh, you all used Dragon Crystal Cannons to kill Clear Black Eyes. Although you did well you also pissed this woman off. She set a post on the India Region to declare war on [Zhan Long]. She said that even if she lost Fire Elephant City she would kill our entire [Zhan Long]!"

Song Han's sword brows loosened and smiled, "Just let her come if she wants, our [Zhan Long] will wait for her to try to wipe us out!"

I smiled and didn't say a word. For Clear Black Eyes to place all the blame of White Wood Forest's defeat on [Zhan Long] wasn't a good thing. The country war was still underway and I was still hoping for the [Zhan Long] players to obtain more Country War Achievement Points to obtain high rewards. Now that Clear Black Eyes was eyeing me, this was destined to not be a good thing.

I turned around and let the horse move slowly forwards towards the south gate of Fire Elephant City. This was the tunnel towards Flaming Cloud City. The other few gates needed them to charge out several layers of encirclement to escape. If I were them, I would come out from here. The ones in charge of this were the Fire Dragon Army and Royal Army, or the two strongest armies.

…

On the city walls, the Flaming Cloud Empire troops seemed to be exhausted and out of strength. Most of them were holding up iron pots to brew leather to feed their hunger. They pretty much went crazy from hunger.

I could even hear many clanging bone scraping sounds. A bunch of soldiers were scratching off the meat pieces to appease their hunger. Some even shattered the bones and swallowed them. No matter how I thought about it, I didn't think that would taste good. The few archers on the city walls in charge of defense all sat on the ground. No one showed their heads and only the players were pumped up and defending there.

The God Dragon Horse slowly made its way to the center tent which faced right at the south gate. Queen Pearl sat there and when she saw me a smile appeared on her face, "General Li Xiao Yao is finally here!"

I nodded my head, "Your Highness what is the situation?"

Pearl said, "This is the third day since they’ve run out of grain, and most of them probably can't take it anymore. An army with over five hundred thousand people can't last for very long without food."

Louis laughed coldly and said, "If my guesses are correct after they finish the war horses they will kill the craftsmen and slaves."

I couldn't help but feel a chill down my spine, "They won't right?"

Louis said, "It isn't like things like this haven’t happened before. It has happened more than once in our long history. Like when Rob went to attack Moon City's Lingyue City. It was surrounded for eleven days and after the leather and grass were eaten they started to kill people for food. First were the people, the craftsmen, and then the women. When the city was broken the three hundred thousand men city was left with seventy thousand. Then Emperor Rob ordered to kill them all!"

I frowned and didn't say a word.

Xu Wei looked towards me, "General Li wouldn't think that it is too cruel right? War is like that, either you live or you die. For victory, all sorts of methods can be used as long as anything is feasible and logical."

I didn't want to argue too much with these two and said towards Pearl, "Your Highness, Fire Elephant City won't last for long. Even if they don't charge out, their tens of millions of adventurers won't continue to wait inside. Give the order. We are at risk of being crashed into."

Pearl's brow relaxed and she smiled, "It seems like you have a plan?"

I nodded my head, "Yes, our front and middle troops can block their attacks but we won’t block for too long. We should purposely open a path and let the Flaming Cloud Empire troops proceed south. I had a look at the map, from here to the south is a valley known as the Fire Elephant Canyon which is shaped like a giant elephant. We should move our Dragon Crystal Cannons and Flame Dragon Cannons to the sides of the canyon and then hide archers and Blade Shield Soldiers at the sides. Tens of miles will be our battlefield and we will shoot them down from above. Their Fire Carp Army is already dead. We should try to wipe out the Clear Current Army, Punisher Army, Wing Searching Army, and Autumn Leaf Army in this fight to kill their main forces. Let's see what they use to defend against our future attacks!"

Pearl smiled happily, "Great, that is what I wanted!"

Louis frowned and said, "Since we can trap them in the city to kill them, then why let them out? Li Xiao Yao, I think that your plan is lacking. We can lock them up and kill them, but you want to let them go. That is so stupid!"

I felt annoyed right away, glaring at him while spitting word for word, "Although I don't know the art of war, I do know about how if birds are in danger they will peck and beasts in despair will fight back. Fire Elephant City still has at least four hundred thousand troops. If they go all out, even if we can kill them all, we will lose over half of our numbers. Why not give them some hope and lay men around to compensate their numbers? Then we can reduce our own loses."

Louis gritted his teeth and said, "You are just saying things to fit your words…"

Pearl seemed to be unhappy and said, "Marquis, you are just the vanguard general, strategy is not in your jurisdiction right? Even if someone were to do it would be Marshal Xu Wei. General Xu Wei, do you think General Li's plan is wrong?"

Xu Wei cupped his fist and said, "It is logical and appropriate."

"Okay, let's follow the plan. Send our main force to the sides of the Fire Elephant City valley to ambush and focus the rest on the south gate. Prepare to fight with the struggling beast which is Fire Elephant City."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

…

In the end, the time they attacked was much earlier than we expected. Just as the Royal Army sent twenty thousand men to Fire Elephant Canyon to ambush, Fire Elephant City already had players jumping from the city walls. This could raise the speed at which they sent troops. The gates opened and numerous horses charged out. First was the Clear Current Army around twenty thousand of them. Then, all the infantry and transport units flooded out. We couldn't blame them — from hundred thousand cavalry, only twenty thousand was left. At least in terms of cavalry impact they couldn't compare to Tian Ling City’s.

Not long later, a large number of men and horses had gathered beneath Fire Elephant City roughly two hundred meters away from our formation. I held the sword and headed out of the tent to the [Zhan Long] area. I pulled out the Dragon Reservoir Sword and said, "The basic strategy is to defend here for a while and kill them when their morale is highest and then we will back off into the canyon to give them a way out. Then we will chase and kill them!"

Everyone pulled out their weapons. The bunch of Fire Dragon Cavalry and Steel Blade Cavalry had high morale.

In the next moment, two cannons exploded out. The Dragon Crystal Cannon glow spread out within the Fire Dragon Army group, smashing a bunch of them into pieces. In the direction of the Fire Elephant City, Drunk Maple and Barry raised their weapons and shouted towards the Tian Ling City China Region Players, "Kill!"

The trapped beast was finally here!

I pointed my sword forward, charging out along with the Fire Dragon Cavalry. This was a great chance to obtain Country War Achievement Points. The faster the [Zhan Long] cavalry moved and crashed with the enemy the greater advantage we would have. We swept across, over ten miles of land around the city walls became chaotic, dust covering the sky. War was like at the iron wheel, smashing anyone's wheel, numerous deaths, and no one had the power to turn anything around.

The [Zhan Long] vanguard kept a perfect structure. Li Mu, Wang Jian, Mocha, and I commanded together. Every hundred meters forward we’d back off and then continue to head forwards. We maintained minimal loses to kill them. The Indians had no way to counter our close to shameless tactics. The few guilds helplessly went around us to charge at Thousand Burial. However, they had close to twenty thousand Greedy Wolf Cavalry there so the Indians probably wouldn't fare any better against them.