Chapter 36 Preparations and Surprises before the Attack
As a professional scout of the team, Xie Jin had learned the skill of map drawing. With some simple writing and drawing, a rough topographic map was presented to Li Qing.
"Hmm, this terrain..."
This gnoll tribe was built on the edge of a river valley. To the west of the valley was a very steep slope that could basically be ignored.
Behind the tribe is a complex area of hills consisting of small mountains, filled with trees, vines and thorns, making it not very convenient to walk there.
To their south was a lush primeval jungle.
The one on the right is the east, probably the direction where the gnolls usually go out. Although there are trees, they are relatively sparse, and there are many paths trampled by the gnolls.
According to Xie Jin's map, there is no usable terrain in the four directions. Normally, if one wants to attack this werewolf tribe, they can only force a force attack from the east.
The defense of the werewolf tribe is also not weak. It is estimated that the danger in this plane fragment is not low. There are other enemies. Although the walls that surround the entire tribe are made of wood, they are all wooden walls made of thick logs. According to Xie Jin's description, they are both thick and high.
While painting, Xie Jin said to Li Qing:
"With the current size of our army, a head-on attack would be very disadvantageous."
Xie Zhu also agreed and said:
"Perhaps we can first find a suitable place to build a temporary camp, set up simple defenses, and then find a way to lure some of the gnolls over and annihilate them. As long as we can eliminate some of the gnolls outside first, it will be easier to fight later."
"Go on, is there any other way?"
Xie Zhu paused for a moment and continued:
"That would be easier if we had siege equipment."
He looked at Li Qing:
"Mr. Li Qing, do you have these war weapons in your divine domain?"
"Well!"
Li Qing shook his head and said:
"We do have siege weapons, but I don't think they will be of much use."
"Do you think we need to attack the Gnoll tribe head-on?"
Xie Zhu was stunned:
"Shouldn't we attack?"
Li Qing smiled and said:
"Of course we just need to eliminate these gnolls, but that doesn't mean we have to attack the city head-on."
“Is there… any difference?”
Xie Zhu was surprised:
"If we don't attack the city, how can we completely wipe out this tribe of gnolls?"
"Of course there is a way. We can't afford the losses if we attack the city head-on, but we can do the opposite and let the gnolls attack our city."
"???"
Not only Xie Zhu, but also the two brothers Xie Jin and Xie Heng were full of questions.
Li Qing smiled slightly, kept it a secret, and said:
"Keep it a secret for now, and you will know when the time comes."
Looking back at his men, he said to Xie Jin:
"Let's move forward first. I need to investigate the terrain outside the Gnoll Tribe."
Although Xie Jin had a puzzled look on his face, since Li Qing had said so, he did not ask any more questions, but just nodded and said:
"Let's take another route. There is a Jackal sentry tower at the edge of the river valley with sentries on it. We will be discovered if we take the river valley."
"By the way, these gnolls have reclaimed some land on the dry riverbed in the west and planted some unknown plants, which are probably their food."
Li Qing nodded:
"You lead the way."
After saying this, he turned to look at his subordinates and whispered an order:
"Everyone, move gently and try not to make loud noises."
With a wave of his hand, the troops followed Xie Jin who had already set out.
Xie Jin did not walk along the river valley, but instead dived into a twisted jungle about ten meters away from the valley.
Although it is difficult to walk, you will not be discovered by the werewolves.
It would be very troublesome for a person to walk through this primitive jungle, as there are poisonous insects and snakes everywhere. Being bitten would be very troublesome. However, they are all regular troops, wearing thick leather armor or even chain mail, which cannot be bitten by small snakes.
They used knives to clear the way and soon arrived not far from the werewolf tribe.
The team stopped here, and Xie Jin and Li Qing continued to move forward under the protection of Long Shou.
Not long after, the jungle in front of him began to thin out, and Li Qing soon saw the fire between the trees in front of the jungle. When he got closer, he saw a tribe of werewolves built on the high ground.
There are tents outside, wooden houses inside, and a stone house inside. There seems to be a stone temple inside. It looks disgusting.
Li Qing asked Xie Jin to take him around the outside of the tribe and observe from other directions.
This wolf tribe was built on a high ground near the river, or on the south side of a small hill. There were no roads to the west and north, and the only way in and out was from the south and east.
To the south is a dense jungle, which is only slightly sparse near the werewolf tribe, but it is not suitable for deploying siege equipment.
Only in the east, which is the main entrance and exit area for the Gnolls, there is a large open space, and the gate of the Gnoll tribe is built there.
Just as Xie Jin said, the defense of this gnoll tribe was indeed extraordinary. The wooden wall made of thigh-thick logs was five or six meters high, and with a slope difference of two or three meters, a frontal attack would be very disadvantageous.
Even what Xie Jin said was too euphemistic. Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible to capture this tribe without one or two hundred elite soldiers and professional siege equipment.
Li Qing stood behind a bush, holding his chin with his hand as he looked at the open space, thinking about how to make use of this terrain.
Or to put it another way, how to activate this cheat.
He was determined to defeat this tribe of werewolves.
If we can capture it before the end of this month, we will make a lot of money.
It’s not about resources. A werewolf tribe like this can’t expect to have any good resources, but it’s another benefit.
According to the rules of this new era, if you can break through a foreign tribe with legitimate tribal people, racial heroes, and heritage, you will definitely be able to plunder a treasure chest that contains the condensed destiny of the entire tribe.
There is a small probability that there is active matter inside.
If there is no source essence, a hero transformation card will be condensed 100%. According to the strength of this werewolf tribe, the hero card should be one-star and can be transformed into a one-star hero.
Of course, there is also a very small chance of getting a Werewolf Hero Card directly, and after using it you will directly get a Werewolf Hero.
In addition, there will definitely be some Gnoll cards and Gnoll unit cards.
This thing can be used by oneself, and a group of gnolls can be raised as slaves and cannon fodder in one's own divine domain.
Of course, the above are the benefits in most cases, and other related treasures may also be condensed.
After pondering for a while, Li Qing asked them to stay where they were , and he opened the door to the divine realm and dived in.
In fact, Li Qing already had a vague idea in his mind at this time.
First, the original city wall needs to be modified.
It turned out that the city wall was three meters wide or four meters wide, which was not as high as the wooden wall of the gnolls, not to mention the slope of one or two meters. How could they fight without the advantage of height?
so……
Li Qing first collected sections of the city wall into the space in his palm, then decomposed them into stone powder, and then re-synthesized them into a new section of the city wall.
In other words, it can no longer be called a city wall, but a hollow round stone pillar with a diameter of ten meters, which is exactly the limit of the space in the palm of your hand, and a length of twenty meters.
The bottom of the stone pillar is hollowed out to form a bowl-like shape, because a solid flat bottom would make it unstable if the ground was uneven.
A one-and-a-half-meter-deep groove was dug at the top of the stone pillar, and the edge was shaped into a parapet battlement.
Then hollow out the half-meter thick stone layer below the top to create the second layer, and dig out shooting holes on the edge. Archers can then hide in the shooting holes and shoot outwards.
With a height of over sixteen meters, it is completely possible to suppress the outer wall of the Jackals from above.
Li Qing only made two such stone pillars.
Add to that the original six ten-meter-high arrow towers, two solid and four hollow, which are basically enough.
Then, there are the extremely important siege weapons.
He had retracted his previous idea and felt that he still needed some siege weapons, at least to break a hole in the city gate or wall.
Li Qing used thick logs to make huge components, including two huge solid counterweight stones, and then put them together at once to form an integrated whole. A large counterweight catapult was formed.
The so-called counterweight trebuchet, the main principle is to convert the potential energy of the falling weight into kinetic energy, so as to shoot out the cannonball at the other end of the lever.
The weight of its counterweight is usually more than five tons, and often ten or twenty tons, which makes the catapult very large and extremely inconvenient to move.
Because the counterweight stone is heavy enough, the thrown stone is also heavy, often weighing hundreds of kilograms, and sometimes even thousands of kilograms.
Such a heavy stone can be thrown down and even the solid stone wall can be broken down.
The technical content of this thing is actually not very high. The main difficulty in construction lies in building such a large and strong enough frame, as well as ropes that can withstand the continuous use of counterweight boulders of more than ten tons, and arm bars that can withstand more than ten tons of torque but are not very thick.
But these are not a big problem for Li Qing.
When the molecular structure inside the wood is arranged tightly enough, the strength of the wood will increase.
This is also the experience that Li Qing slowly figured out after repeated decomposition and synthesis. He found that the arrangement of wood fibers will affect various factors of wood.
First, the wood is synthesized into tighter wood fibers according to the principle of wood fibers, and then a large number of wood fibers are synthesized into whole wood strips. In this way, the wood fibers in the same arrangement are combined into a wooden stick, and the hardness of this wooden stick is much greater than that of randomly synthesized wood with the same tight texture.
This kind of wood is very tough, and a small piece of it can withstand a very high force, so it can be used as a lever for a catapult.
Of course, after all, without any other treatment, this thing is still not durable enough and may crack or break after being used a dozen times.
But it’s not a big problem. It’s good enough if it can be used more than ten times.
A few hundred kilograms of stone thrown out can break the wooden wall just by hitting it a few times.
It's a pity that he can't fly, otherwise he could fly several thousand meters above the tribe and drop ten-meter-sized rocks directly, which would be enough to smash anything.
The same operation is used for ropes. Li Qing directly uses fine iron to pull out thin steel wires, and then twists them into a strand with normal ropes. This way, the rope will not be too hard , nor too fragile like a simple hemp rope.
Anyway, you only need to use it a dozen times, so just make do with it.
It’s still because there are insufficient resources at hand. If there are enough resources, many problems will not be problems.
After getting ready, Li Qing walked out of the divine realm and was about to find his subordinates to assign tasks, but he saw An Yiqiu walking over with a serious face and whispered:
"Boss, someone wants to see you."
"???"
Li Qing didn't understand the meaning of this sentence at first.
But the next second he realized something and said in surprise:
"Are there other teams nearby?"
An Yiqiu nodded:
"When you were away just now, Xie Jin discovered someone snooping around us. At first he thought it was a ferocious beast, but later he found out it was a stealth hero."
…
"Where are the people?"
"Wait outside."
"Send him over."
An Yi Qiu nodded, turned and left.
After a while, he, Xie Zhu and others came over with a thin man wearing black clothes and with a black cloth covering his face.
Li Qingwei squinted his eyes and looked at the man, and asked:
"Who are you with?"
The man hummed back:
"My boss is Chu Jaejoong."
"He's leaving too?"
Li Qing raised his eyebrows slightly, but was not surprised.
The bloodline of the mammoth beast that Chu Zhong could most easily awaken was the easiest, so he took the same melee route as Cao Wenyuan. He did not need to learn a bunch of magic courses, so it was not surprising that he went out for training in advance.
The man nodded:
"My boss set out half a month ago and discovered this Gnoll tribe a week ago. We have been preparing, but we didn't expect to find your team today. My boss asked me to come and inform you that we were the first to discover this Gnoll tribe."
Li Qing frowned slightly:
"Then what?"
"According to the rules, if we find this gnoll tribe first, it will belong to us, unless we can't defeat it or give up."
…
Li Qing rubbed his brows and said:
"I understand the rules, and I accept them."
"But how do I know you found out first? Anyway, I didn't see any trace of you before I came here. Words are not enough. You have to give me a reason to believe."
Li Qing did not lie. If they really wanted to produce evidence to prove it, he would turn around and leave without saying a word.
In the wild, during the apprenticeship period, there are some tacit unspoken rules that must be followed.
If you don't comply, others may not comply if you encounter such a thing next time.
The black-clad stalker was silent for a moment, speechless.
Li Qing smiled and said:
"I abide by the rules, but you have to prove that you really came earlier than me, otherwise I can't give up the benefits in front of me and leave just because of your words."
After a long while, the black-clad stalker said:
"My boss's camp is nearby. Let him come and talk to you."
"Okay, I'll wait for him here."
The man in black turned around and walked away. After a dozen steps, his figure quickly faded and disappeared. At first, Li Qing could still vaguely sense him, but after a few seconds, this perception disappeared.
At about twenty minutes past midnight, someone saw several flames approaching in the dark forest.
After waiting for a few minutes, I saw that the fire was two torches, and a dozen infantrymen came over escorting an acquaintance.
They stopped not far from Li Qing's temporary camp, and Chu Zhong shouted:
"Mr. Li Qing, I'm here."
Li Qing also walked out under the protection of Long Shou, and the two stopped about ten meters away from each other.
Chu Zhong looked at Long Shou, who was over three meters tall and looked like a little giant, with envy, and said to Li Qing:
"Let's be frank. Although I arrived a week ago, I didn't do anything to this tribe of gnolls in order not to alert them. I can't provide any evidence to prove that I was here first."
"I know you will definitely be unwilling to quit, so how about this, I will give you 500,000 and you give me three days. If I don't conquer this tribe after three days, I will turn around and leave immediately. I don't care what you do next. How do you do it?"
"this……"
Li Qing was silent for a moment, and was about to respond when Xie Jin suddenly appeared and whispered in his ear:
"Mr. Li Qing, I just went to their place and took a look around. I found that they also just arrived not long ago."
