A group of unkempt men walked through the siege troops and slowly walked towards the Hope River suspension bridge pile. Each man was holding a wooden board and without any armor.
"Sir, the enemy really sent civilians to build the pontoon bridge." Lei Feixiang rushed to the top floor to report to Ding Kui, "What should we do? Attack them?"
Ding Kui said unhappily: "I know! You go down first and listen to my explicit order to hang the flag. Ding Cai, let people bring the prisoners of our country to the city wall!"
He had already anticipated this situation. When the national war started, the people of our country would not be so polite to the civilians. It was inevitable that they would be used as cannon fodder to attack the city. How could he not be prepared?
On the first day of his country's invasion, he captured more than 5,000 prisoners. Later, he captured more than 2,000 prisoners one after another. There were seven or eight thousand of his countrymen in Hengfu City.
Langchun suddenly raised his head, and drew the long bow in his hand into a full moon. The arrow was wrapped with armor-piercing heavy arrows, and the arrow was aimed at a person flying out of the tower.
"Here comes someone who can talk!" Ding Kui held the barrel of the gun under his arm, raised his forearm, and shot out a beam of gun light at will, targeting the group of magicians from his country who retreated hastily.
Bang, Lang Chun released his fingers, and the heavy arrow was like black lightning, stopping the gunfire in mid-air, "Stop it!" He ordered the siege troops to stop attacking. The big boss on the opposite side came out and asked for a talk, and the minimum respect must be given.
"Haodong!" Ding Kui raised his gun and pointed at the military commander of his country on the commander's platform.
"Hahaha, Prince Consort Ding, have you changed your mind? The previous agreement is still valid." Haotong laughed and flew over.
Ding Kui pointed to the civilians below and said: "I am very disappointed with you! But don't forget that I have nearly 10,000 prisoners in my hands. If the civilians continue to attack the city, I will order the prisoners to be thrown off the city and returned to you."
"Oh, are you threatening me?" Haotong could not ignore the prisoner's life.
The troops currently attacking the city are all local troops, and they are comrades with the prisoners in the city. Watching the prisoners being killed will greatly damage our own morale.
"Don't say these useless things. Is it a sign of respect for me to let civilians go to the battlefield? I spend so much food to feed the prisoners, and I'm still waiting to exchange them for some ransom. It won't do any good if they all die." Ding Kui felt unhappy.
Naturally, you are not polite when speaking.
"Then what do you want? If I choose to keep the prisoners alive, then the soldiers who are attacking the city will die, so of course I will choose to kill the ones in your hands. Is this how the account should be settled?" Haotong did not want to be threatened.
"All the civilians in Juyang City are my subjects. If you return them all to me, I will release all those prisoners."
There are about 20,000 civilians who have not fled Juyang City. Ding Kui's proposal is equivalent to exchanging one prisoner for three civilians. Seriously, Ding Kui will suffer a bit. There are many old, weak, women and children among the civilians, and three plus one can't make up for it.
A strong man is no match for a soldier.
"Hahaha, you are talking like a lion." Haotong stretched out two fingers, "Two civilians for one prisoner."
At this time, prisoners were being led to the top of the wall one after another and lined up to stand on the edge of the city wall.
"Humph, those disobedient subjects will die. Don't even think about using them to bargain with me!" Ding Kui was very determined and did not give Haotong any room to bargain.
"You are the lord of a city. One sentence can determine the life or death of many people. Don't be so hasty in making a decision. I will give you time to think about it." Haotong was dissatisfied with Ding Kui's attitude and did not save him any face.
"Back then, City Master Zhang Xun once said that for every civilian who dies during the attack on the city, he will kill ten Meng army beasts to avenge him. Today I am telling you the same thing here. The city defense attack will not stop. If every civilian dies, I will kill ten Meng soldiers.
life!"
The cracking wind cone swung around in the air, then swung down. A beam of gun light hit the bridge on the north bank of the Hope River, and a ditch formed on the solid stone ground.
"Hmph!" Haotong walked away, but turned around and signaled to Lang Chun not to launch an attack.
Ding Kui saw that his army was not attacking, so he was not in a hurry. He stood in the air with the wind-splitting cone and looked at Gong Jun on the commander's platform.
He knew that the exchange of prisoners was not something that Haotong had full authority to make. It required the approval of an army commander. Juyang City was conquered by Le Pi and Gong Jun. Now that Le Pi is dead, only Gong Jun can make the decision.
"Give them all back to him?" Gong Jun couldn't help but hesitate. This time he didn't bring all the civilians in Juyang City, only half of them at best.
"Instead of leaving civilians to eat our military rations, it would be better to stuff them all into Hengfu City. It would not be a bad thing to increase the food consumption in the city." Zhan Jie was not afraid of Ding Kui's threat. He considered it entirely from a military perspective.
"Then if we continue to attack the city with our people, there will be a lot of casualties." Gong Jun's captured men were not many, and most of the prisoners were from the Le family.
"If we don't return them, there will be casualties. I think that Ding Kui can do something to his own people. At most, it will consume some supplies for defending the city. If there are too many corpses under the city, it will easily cause plague." Zhan Jie disagreed with Gong.
Jun's point of view.
"Actually, you can do some tricks when changing people and take the opportunity to kill some of the defenders who have combat effectiveness." Haotong smiled sinisterly. As a war supervisor, he was no stranger to exchanging prisoners.
"Then switch with him?" Gong Jun glanced at Ding Kui in the sky, and felt a chill in his heart. All the generals of the Iron Beast Division were killed by that guy. It seemed that it would not be difficult at all to assassinate him.
"Change!" Haotong and Zhanjie nodded together.
The seven or eight thousand prisoners would be of much greater use than the civilians, so they would not suffer any loss in this transaction.
"In this way, Lord Lao Hao will negotiate with Ding Kui." Gong Jun followed the good advice.
Haotong's face darkened, feeling uncomfortable thinking of Ding Kui's arrogant attitude, but he was the only one suitable to negotiate here.
When Ding Kui saw Haotong leaving and coming back, he held the Splitting Wind Cone in his arms and waited quietly for the other party's reply.
"The palace commander has a kind heart. Seeing that Prince Consort Ding cherishes his subjects so much, he finally decided to agree to your request and exchange all the civilians of Juyang City for the prisoners."
Haotong was particularly emphatic when he said "treasure", and his sarcasm was clearly revealed. He laughed at Ding Kui's words that "the disobedient people will die if they die"; and because he wanted to save face, he had to say that he agreed to Ding Kui's "request".
"It's not because of Ding Kui's threat that he took advantage and behaved.
"Okay, when?" Ding Kui didn't care so much with Hao Tong.
"It will take two days to gather your people. Let's give it three days. How do you want to change it?" Our country is the dominant side, and Haotong can let Ding Kui choose the exchange method.
In fact, Ding Kui didn't have much choice. "Just exchange between your camp and Hengfu City. You let half the civilians come over, and I let half the prisoners come over, until the last thousand prisoners are released, both sides release them at the same time."
"Okay, no problem, then exchange in three days!" Haotong gestured downward.
"Take the civilians back to the camp!" Lang Chun officially ordered.
The civilians who had already reached the archer formation, holding wooden boards and looking blank, were driven back to the camp by their own troops.
"The siege will continue. Does Prince Consort Ding plan to go into battle himself?" Haotong did not leave immediately.
"Humph, there will be a chance!" This time it was Ding Kui who waved his sleeves and left.
"Bring the prisoners back to their cells." He ordered after returning to the tower.
"Master, do you want to take special care of those prisoners?" Ding Cai heard the entire negotiation process.
"Pick a thousand of them out and take care of them, and be careful to isolate them from contact with other prisoners. Ji Kou will not be able to exchange with us so smoothly." Ding Kui understood the meaning of this coward.
"Okay!" Ding Cai ran down happily. He had been Ding Kui's prisoner, and he never wanted to try that feeling again in his life, but that didn't stop him from letting others try.
Our army continued to attack the city, but with less force than at the beginning.
Shao Dianluan's green and green fingers were combing Ding Kui's eyebrows, "Didn't you reach an agreement with the enemy? Why are you still looking like this?"
Ding Kui simply closed his eyes and let his wife mess around, and used his mental energy to observe the situation on the battlefield. "There are reasons for the changes on the battlefield. Anyway, there are no civilians to serve as cannon fodder. The Jiji invaders should strengthen their offensive and strive to break through Hengfu City within three days without having to follow them."
I made an exchange, but on the contrary, they weakened their offensive. There is a reason behind this."
"Maybe it's because they are tired, and they won't be able to capture the city wall for a while."
"It's different. It doesn't feel like this when you're tired." Ding Kui was sure that his feeling was correct.
"What are you afraid of? According to your words, when the soldiers come, the water will be blocked and the earth will cover it."
Before Shaodian Luan could say anything, his hand was grabbed by Ding Kui, "What? Water!" Ding Kui opened his eyes, as if he thought of something.
"Yes, isn't that what you said?" Shao Dianluan thought about it and didn't think he was wrong.
"Well, it's not that you are wrong, but you are absolutely right! You reminded me that the enemy is very likely to come from the water." Ding Kui looked down the Hope River.
"Ah!" Shaodian Luan opened his mouth wide and immediately understood what Ding Kui meant, "They can sail the warship into the Hope River and use the ship to build a pontoon, which can reduce the damage to the city defense."
"Dachuan, please ask Zhong Wei to come over."
Although he did not see any enemy ships appearing downstream, Ding Kui knew that Shao Dian Luan's guess was correct.
There is one characteristic of the Hope River. You cannot block the river channel with sunken ships, because the sunken ships will not only sink to the bottom of the river, but will continue to sink until they are submerged in the mud at the bottom of the river. This is the case for most rivers in the Everglades.
"Our warships may be no match for our own invaders' warships." Zhong Wei came to hear Ding Kui's guess and was thinking hard about countermeasures.
"When you find the enemy warships approaching here, set all the ships on fire and lay them across the river, and drag them through the next three days."
Ding Kui was cruel enough to give up all the ships he had worked so hard to build in his territory. Zhong Wei, Qian Bu, Xue Chong, Fei Ze and others who came after hearing the news were all heartbroken.
"But three days later, when we return to civilians, we will also have to face the enemy's warships." Zhong Wei was most reluctant to part with those new-style ships.
"Lord, do you think there will be changes in three days?" Fei Ze keenly caught the implication of Ding Kui's words.
"Well, actually I'm not sure. Calculating at normal speed, the Eighth Army should be able to reach Qatar City in three days. And, and, it's really hard to say." There is another possibility that Ding Kui did not say.