The cart pushed with food and water buckets was sent into the rebel camp. They had also been fighting for most of the day and sat down to eat and drink, even thanking the imperial troops guarding them from the outside.
What kind of strategy was this? Was the King of Hell trying to reform them?
Suddenly, a furious roar erupted from within the rebel ranks: "Not good! The water buckets are filled with kerosene underneath!"
"The food is also sitting on kerosene barrels!"
I followed the sound and saw that the rebels over there kicked open a "water bucket" on the cart. About one-fifth of it flowed out as water, but in the middle section, there was a partition. Beneath the partition, the water bucket contained a pale yellow oil. I recognized this oil; it was kerosene from the underworld!
Another rebel overturned a wooden food box, and beneath it was also a large amount of kerosene!
Could it be!
Swish! Swish! Swish!
In an instant, arrows rained down like locusts from a concealed spot about a hundred meters outside Grassland Gorge, all of them incendiary rockets!
The rebels had only put down their weapons but, for their own safety, had not removed their armor. The rockets wouldn't kill them directly, but they ignited the kerosene tanks on the water carts and food carts. In a moment, flames and explosions filled the entire Grassland Gorge depression. The kerosene fires, in turn, ignited the resinous trees within the depression, engulfing the entire Grassland Gorge in a sea of fire with no escape.
The flames soared over ten meters high. Even standing on the city wall, I could feel the heat on my face. Not to mention the rebels inside clad in armor. In less than half a minute, more than half of them were annihilated. Rebels trying to break out were either cut down by the imperial troops or pushed back into the inferno with water-soaked shields.
Five minutes later, the fire still raged, but the "battle" seemed to have ended. I could hear no more cries, only the crackling of burning objects and an indescribable smell in the air.
At the same time, shouts came from outside the city: "Enemy reinforcements have reached the mountain pass, quickly close all four city gates!"
I activated my Qi sensing technique and looked. No need; it was visible to the naked eye. A cavalry troop appeared at the northern mountain pass, the place where Li Yuanhao and I had met before. However, my Qi sensing showed their numbers were not large. Perhaps they were just the vanguard, with the main force still behind?
Zheng Baobao ascended the city gate, looking at me with triumph: "Your Majesty, isn't this strategy brilliant?"
I sneered, "Brilliant, exceedingly brilliant. Sacrificing a thousand soldiers and hundreds of civilians to lure the rebels, only to burn them all to death. How brilliant!"
Zheng Baobao, sensing my sarcasm, explained, "Isn't that better than fighting them to the bitter end outside the city, where even more brothers would be lost?"
"That is true. Annihilating them completely would have required the sacrifice of about ten thousand men. But they would have died glorious deaths. And these men!" I pointed angrily at the fire, "the brothers burned to death, how do we count them? To their last breath, they probably didn't even know why they were wiped out along with the rebels!"
"Those who achieve great things need not concern themselves with trivialities. This was the optimal solution. Preserving nine thousand men to deal with the newly arrived rebels is more reasonable, isn't it?" Zheng Baobao clearly didn't understand my anger.
I sighed. Fine, it was done. Nothing more could be said. It seemed the King of Hell still didn't truly grasp the meaning of two words: morale.
Fighting to the death outside the city, even with the loss of ten thousand men, would have boosted morale. Not just the morale of the tens of thousands of imperial troops in Erqi City, but it would have inspired millions of imperial soldiers throughout the underworld!
But with the King of Hell's method, even if the victory was achieved at the lowest cost and the enemy was annihilated, would morale truly be boosted? The fact that their own citizens and soldiers were abandoned for the sake of victory would inevitably cause some imperial soldiers to harbor doubts. They might question future commands from their superiors: would they, too, become expendable pawns like their fallen comrades and countrymen who were burned to death?
Sacrificing pawns to save the chariot is a tactic in chess. The military, however, dreads such methods. Unless a pawn willingly sacrifices itself, it will chill the hearts of the soldiers!