Volume 3 Chapter 17 The Battle Begins
July 23, early morning, 5:30 real time. Because since last night, we have been preparing for a gang war today, most of the alliance members are offline or sleeping in tents, so as to get enough rest. In the morning, we will form a team in the loneliness, waiting for noon. If the negotiations with the gang are fruitless (which is almost certain), we will start the war in the afternoon!
As usual, I went offline and went to sleep at almost 1:00 last night. I got up 4 hours later and entered the game. At this time, except for Bu San who was on duty, all other cadres in the alliance were still busy with their daily routines. I handed over the work to Bu San and asked him to go offline and have a rest after staying up most of the night. I personally guarded the headquarters. This is the rule set by the Jinglei Alliance. In 24 hours, there must be at least one senior cadre online and stationed at the headquarters at any time to handle all emergencies in the alliance. Moreover, a war is imminent, so we must be more careful. Before someone comes to take over the job, the cadres on duty cannot leave the headquarters or go offline at will.
And the facts that are about to happen prove that it is better to be cautious. Our strict cadre duty system has not played any role in the half month since the establishment of the headquarters. It only occasionally solves some small problems raised by some members. But today, less than an hour after I came online, a big thing happened!
I suddenly received a system prompt: The gang declared war on your gang! The battle starts at 7:30 (this is the time in the game, it is actually 6:30 in real time)! The battle ends when the headquarters is destroyed and the gang is disbanded! The battle lasts for 10 hours. War reparations: 200,000 gold coins!
Oh, oh, oh! Am I right? The gang declared war on us? And the winning condition is the most stringent one: destroy our headquarters and disband the gang? And, what a coincidence, the gang is also asking for 200,000 yuan from us? Humph, what a rich gang. Under such conditions, the deposit they paid is at least 1 million yuan. Is their boss, the King of Violence, really so confident that he can defeat our Thunder Alliance? If we win, not only will the gang automatically disband, but the 1 million yuan, hehe, will be our Thunder Alliance's first real "gang income"!
In Fantasy, a gang applies to the system to declare war on a hostile gang. They can set the time of the war by themselves, but there is at least an hour's buffer period for the other side to prepare. It seems that the violent group and Xiao Wu have the same idea, which is to catch us off guard, so they choose to start the war in the early morning, and there is only a short hour from the declaration of war to the start of the war. Naturally, I have to make all kinds of preparations within this hour.
Since the conditions for the war declared by the gang this time were so uncompromising, even if the other side did not know the details of our Jinglei League and thought they had a sure win, they would definitely attack with all their strength. I did not dare to be careless and immediately issued an emergency announcement within the league, ordering all online members to return to the headquarters and stand by.
At the same time, because we had made preparations for the worst, all the cadres did not quit the game, but slept in the tents at the base. I used the emergency notification function to wake up Lonely, Bad and Tyrant. The reason why I did not notify everyone was that I was on guard against the opponent's tricks. The team battle lasted for 10 hours. What if the opponent did not attack with the main force at the beginning, making us nervous, and then took advantage of our slackness to launch a full-scale attack a few hours later, and our cadres were in poor spirits due to lack of sleep, and made mistakes in command, then it would be a big trouble, so it would be better to adopt a rotation system. Of course, in fact, with the deep sleep function of the game, it is estimated that everyone should wake up on their own in more than an hour.
I explained the situation to the three of them and asked them to guard the headquarters for a while. I went to Pojun City through the teleportation array, found the NPC of the city defense center, and applied to the system to hire 42 level 50 guard NPCs. Now is not the time to save money. Although I am confident that I can definitely win this battle with the gang, an extra group of NPC guards will always add strength, which can at least make it easier for us to win.
After returning to the base, I evenly arranged these NPCs on the fortifications, and then immediately rushed back to the headquarters. Lonely reported to me: "There are currently 1,078 members online, including 652 members above level 30, including more than 40 knights. I have ordered them to serve as mobile sentries in the area between Pojun City and our base. Once they find members of the gang, they should immediately report back."
"Okay!" I patted Lonely's shoulder vigorously. He was actually a rough man on the outside but a careful man on the inside. The reason for arranging mobile sentries was to prevent the violent groups from making tricks. After declaring war, they would launch a sneak attack before the war officially started, when we were not ready. Although they would be punished by increasing their PK value, as long as they could win in the end, what would a little PK value mean to those violent elements who enjoyed PK?
"Arrange all alliance members above level 30 to immediately occupy the fortifications. I have hired 42 level 50 archer NPCs, which I believe will be enough to give the gang a hard time. There are 8 NPCs guarding the teleportation point, and 100 alliance members will be arranged to defend it. The enemy will just die if they attack the teleportation point! So we don't need to cancel the teleportation point, otherwise it will cost money to rebuild it in the future. All low-level alliance members will be organized into the reserve team and stay on the second line of defense. Don't wake up the resting alliance members now. At 7:10, if the enemy hasn't launched an attack, we can decide whether to wake them up by force based on the situation and how many alliance members are online. OK, let's get ready!"
In addition to arranging 100 alliance members to surround the teleportation point, the remaining 508 people were stationed in the outermost defensive fortifications of the base. This was a regular level 4 fortification that was 15 kilometers long, built with solid stones and supported by thick logs cut from the mountains. It cost 150,000 gold coins to hire architects and craftsmen NPCs to upgrade it. From the outside, it was a long defensive wall nearly one person high. It was a bit short, but it was already on the scale of a city wall. There were a large number of cabinets and horses, thorn nets, etc. in the area in front of the fortification. There was only a narrow passage in the middle leading to a gate built with wooden fences. Usually, the alliance members entered and exited the base through this passage, but if the enemy wanted to advance through this passage, they would inevitably be attacked by concentrated fire from our long-range defense forces, and I am afraid that they would suffer heavy casualties before they even reached the wooden door; and it was not so easy for the enemy to break through the thorn net. From the fortifications, you can attack the enemy from a high position, which is a great advantage. In addition, with the protection of the fortifications, you can easily avoid the enemy's long-range attacks. Before you can break a few gaps in the fortifications, it is almost impossible to break through the defense of the Thunder Alliance. In short, facing the level 4 fortifications, in the absence of advanced siege equipment, it is difficult for the attacker to take it down without 3 to 4 times the number of troops of the defender.
But after all, our defense line is too long. The territory reward of three times the area has become a bad thing now. 500 people are assigned to the 15-kilometer defense line, and there is only one member every 30 meters. If the opponent implements a breakthrough tactic, it will take a lot of time to mobilize personnel. It is hard to say whether we can hold it. Fortunately, as time goes by, our members go online one by one. In addition to assigning some people to defend the Feixian Bridge and patrol along the two rivers to prevent the opponent from buying a large number of ferries to cross the river and sneak attack tactics, the manpower on the fortifications is gradually strengthened. By 7:10, the number of members added to the fortifications alone exceeded 500. I am also relieved and decided not to forcibly wake up all the members.
Five minutes later, a mobile sentry reported: "About 10 kilometers southeast of the base, a large number of gang members were found moving towards our alliance. There are about 1,000 of them. They avoided the main road and attacked from the side in a circle. It is estimated that they will launch the attack as soon as the war starts!"
Lonely said: "Should we withdraw the mobile sentries and let them join the battle? More than 40 knights are also a considerable force!"
I shook my head and said, "No need. The gang only has 1,000 people, which is obviously not the entire army. There may be other troops, who may want to take advantage of our attention being diverted by this group of people and launch a sneak attack from other directions. Leaving behind mobile sentries will give us a lot of early warning time, which is more effective than having dozens of people participating in the battle."
At this time, Awei, Fatty, Xiaowu, Shitou and others came online one after another. I assigned them to be responsible for a section of the defense line respectively. In this way, I only needed to take an overall view of the situation and give orders, and the command system operated more smoothly.
Soon, the time was 7:30, and the system issued a wide-area broadcast: The gang war between the violent group and the Thunder Alliance has officially begun!
This news spread throughout the entire fantasy world in an instant. The first official war has begun!
"Enemy attack!" The elf archer with excellent eyesight shouted out immediately. At the eastern end of the fortifications, nearly a thousand meters ahead, countless small black dots appeared. Although the names of the enemy personnel and the gangs they belonged to could not be seen, it was clear without asking that apart from violent gangs, who would enter the Thunder Alliance base in groups at this time?
All the alliance members were nervous. After all, it was the first time for everyone to participate in a large-scale group battle in such a realistic virtual game! The warriors drew their swords, the archers drew their bows, and the mages began to chant spells. For a moment, we seemed to have truly entered the ancient battlefield of the fantasy world. What we were about to face was a life-and-death war!
The gang members were gradually approaching, and gradually, we could see their faces clearly. Hey, it seemed that their morale was high and they were murderous, but they had no organization. Knights, warriors, archers, mages... were mixed together in a mess, and there was even a strange formation with several priests walking in the front of the team. Damn, if I had known this, I would have organized a group of elite troops to launch a counterattack before the enemy launched an attack, which would definitely cause great casualties to the enemy.
One hundred and seventy meters away, the gang members stopped because there were thorn nets a few dozen meters ahead of them. If they took a few more steps forward, they would be in the range of our long-range attack. They could not launch a quick charge under the thorn net. When they reached the defense wall under the attack, they didn't know how many people would be left. The gang leaders were not stupid either. Naturally, they were unwilling to suffer such a loss. They immediately ordered the team to stop advancing and mobilized a group of magicians to come forward to destroy the thorn net.
Well… not to mention the chaos in the formation of the other side during the march, just from the action of mobilizing magicians, it can be seen that the violent group is really a mob. After the crowd experienced more than five minutes of riots, the magicians came out one by one, without a neat formation, and gathered in a mess, and began to cast magic. Fireballs fell into the thorn net one after another, and with skills such as burning and fire wall, a raging flame ignited in front of the defense wall. It won’t take long to burn a large area of thorn nets to ashes, opening up an attack path. Scorched earth offensive is a common means of clearing obstacles.
But if we just let them do what they want, what's the point of setting up these thorn nets? I had already ordered a pure archer unit led by Xiaoniao, which was specially selected from the alliance members, to stand by. As soon as the fire started, the archer unit quietly slid down the defense wall while the smoke blocked the sight of both sides. They crawled more than 20 meters and put those mages who were happily casting magic into the range of the bows and arrows. Although they couldn't see the position of the opponent, there were lookouts standing on the wall to indicate the coordinates for them. All the team members put arrows on the strings in unison. Xiaoniao turned his head to look at the gestures of the commander on the wall and said in a deep voice : "First team, the shooting angle is 5 degrees to the left, 20 degrees of diffuse shooting, three consecutive shots, fire!"
Of the 200 archery team members, one third shot their arrows in the direction indicated by the bird. The so-called 20-degree diffuse shooting means that the arrows are pointed at the sky at a 20-degree angle. The arrows will draw an arc in the air due to the free fall, and then fall from midair and pierce the target. Compared with the three-point straight line shooting like firearms, the accuracy of diffuse shooting is much worse, but the attack distance is farther. Anyway, the archery team cannot aim accurately now, and they are attacking in groups. Why not use diffuse shooting? With such a dense rain of arrows, you can hit a few by luck, right?
Sure enough, arrows rained down from the heads of the violent gang's mages like locusts, and there was an immediate sound of ghosts howling and wolves howling. At least a quarter of the mages were injured, and several white dots of light floated up, proving that several of the other side were dead!
The commander raised his thumb, indicating that the bird had accurately positioned itself. The bird immediately said, "Team Two, release! Team Three, get ready!"
Another round of arrows rained down, and before the opponent could react, the group of mages was hit hard again. The mages of the violent group were stunned. They wanted to fight back, but the fire they had set blocked their sight. They couldn't see the position of the opponent's archers at all. So there was nothing to do but turn around and run away! In fact, it didn't matter if they saw the archers. The archers' range was farther than that of the mages. Xiaoniao and the others were at an absolutely safe distance. If the mages wanted to attack them, they had to rush forward 20 to 30 meters, but then they would enter the range of the archer guard NPC on the defense wall. The arrows shot by the level 50 NPC could probably kill a level 30 mage in one shot, right?
The gang's mage was trying to escape, so Xiao Niao would not let him go easily. Following the lookout's instructions, Xiao Niao said, "Team three, 30-degree diffuse fire (30 degrees has a longer range than 20 degrees), fire! Team one, advance 20 meters, free diffuse fire without direction, fire!"
The arrows shot by the third group landed a little further away. It happened that these fleeing mages had only run about ten meters, and most of the arrows hit them right on target. The opponents were mostly injured, and now more than a dozen mages were "gloriously" killed. The rest were even more terrified, and they immediately fled in all directions. After the first group caught up with them 20 meters away, they drew their bows and shot at the front regardless of direction. Although most of the arrows missed, a blind cat can always catch a few dead mice. A few unlucky gang mages were sent to the sky by this indiscriminate attack...
"Group 2, Group 3, move forward 20 meters, aim and shoot!" Xiaoniao ordered fiercely. At this moment, she was no longer the innocent and lovely girl under 20 years old. She was even more fierce than a female demon. I looked at Han Jiang in confusion, and he shrugged his shoulders: "The result of training."
Ha, some time ago, Lonely was training the members for a team battle. Hanjiang was Lonely's assistant, so he naturally had to help. Xiaoniao, who was originally the assistant of the profiteer, knew about it and wanted to participate. The game was meant to be played, so as long as she completed the work assigned by the profiteer, no one could stop her from participating in the training, right? However, Hanjiang, who was very methodical in his work, was very strict with Xiaoniao, saying that she was also a gang leader, and since she was participating in the training, she had to take the lead. Xiaoniao suffered a lot for this... Well, it seems that the effect is quite good!
At this time, all the archery troops moved the line forward 20 meters, just enough to attack the vanguard of the violent group. Although the magician had fled back to their team, the already chaotic violent group was even more chaotic. The archers shot a volley of arrows, and the opponent had no good defense. The warriors could still resist, but a few priests and archers who rushed to the front had to pay the price for their "bravery".
Our archery team shot several rounds before the gang started to organize a counterattack, also firing a barrage of arrows. However, their archers did not line up in a concentrated formation, and the arrows they shot were sporadic and posed no threat.
However, the lookout saw that the other side began to reorganize the knights and were about to launch a mass charge, which is the nemesis of archers, especially since our archery troops are fighting alone without the protection of soldiers. Therefore, a retreat signal was immediately issued, and under the command of Xiaoniao, the archery troops withdrew quickly and orderly.
In the first wave of battle, the two sides only had a small tentative contact, but due to the gap in personnel quality and tactical arrangements, our side shot and killed one-third of the opponent's mages at the cost of zero casualties, which severely hit the momentum of the violent group. On the contrary, our allies were even more motivated because of the small victory in the first battle. This should be a good sign, right?
