The speaker was naturally Ji Su. When Peng Yuancheng saw a Rong person wearing a strange helmet suddenly chime in from behind Li Jun, he was first taken aback, then remembered what the spy had told him, and laughed: "So it's Princess Ji Su of the Rong people. Commander Li takes you with him to war?"
Even Ji Su himself could sense the sarcastic undertone in Peng Yuancheng's words—that Li Jun and Ji Su had a rather unusual relationship—and was furious. He spurred his horse and charged off. Li Jun reached out to stop him, but then withdrew his hand. This Rong woman was in a fit of anger; if he tried to stop her, she would target him instead of Peng Yuancheng.
"Coward, take this!" Ji Su swung her sword and charged forward, but Peng Yuancheng just smiled and said, "Sorry, I don't have the habit of dueling with women. Miss Ji Su, you should go find Commander Li and prepare to fire arrows!"
Behind him, over a hundred riders all drew their bows and nocked arrows. Although Ji Su was furious, she did not lose her mind. She immediately stopped her horse, caught between the two armies. If she advanced, her life would be in danger; if she retreated, she would only be ridiculed. For a moment, she did not know what to do.
Section 2
Just as Ji Su was caught in a dilemma, neither advancing nor retreating, Li Jun slowly rode his horse to her side.
"You may leave now," Li Jun said to her in a low voice. Ji Su felt surrounded by malicious gazes and mocking smiles. Li Jun's arrival was timely. For the first time, she did not object to Li Jun's words and silently turned her horse around and retreated. After returning to the crowd, she suddenly realized why she had obeyed Li Jun's order so readily. In front of so many people, wouldn't this just give them more reason to laugh at her?
“Lord Peng, as intelligent as you are, you are certainly able to understand the general situation in Yuzhou.” Li Jun felt there was no need to beat around the bush and said directly, “There is nothing left in Yuzhou that can hinder my Peace Army. For the sake of the Lord, it is the best way to ensure long-term peace and stability by submitting to me as soon as possible!”
"Stop talking. What you can't get on the battlefield, you can't get with words either!" Peng Yuancheng sneered. He had the upper hand at their first meeting, which boosted his confidence. Clearly, Li Jun's repeated attempts to persuade him only proved that he didn't have a very good way to attack Dagu City.
"If that's the case, then let's meet again on the battlefield." Li Jun nodded slightly, then turned and left with the others. Watching their departing figures, Peng Yuancheng's smile faded. He hadn't provoked Li Jun into launching an immediate attack. Although he had gained the upper hand in verbal exchanges this time, the actual results were minimal; he had only increased the psychological pressure on Li Jun. Whether this pressure could become the key to his victory remained to be seen.
"Let's go back too. If I'm not mistaken, Li Jun will definitely come to challenge us every day. You all should get some rest and prepare for tomorrow's big battle," he said to his subordinates.
As expected, early the next morning, the Peace Army began to approach Dagu City, stopping at the cliff edge and starting to shout insults. The insults, such as "cowards in the city," "lackeys," and "incompetents," were relatively mild. Some even went so far as to insult Peng Yuancheng and the mothers of his men. The city's inhabitants, not to be outdone, organized several hundred people to shout insults at Li Jun and the Peace Army in unison, their voices carrying from high to low, like a waterfall cascading down a thousand miles. The Peace Army retaliated tenfold, and in the heat of the moment, both sides spat at each other, some even unzipping their pants and urinating on each other, while simultaneously showing off their genitals.
Upon seeing this, Li Jun couldn't help but sigh. He thought that if Commander Lu knew he had led his troops to such a remarkable victory, he would surely laugh his head off. However, compared to a direct assault that would sacrifice the precious soldiers of the Peace Army, he still felt that provoking the enemy through verbal sparring and inciting them to come out of the city for a decisive battle was more worthwhile. Thus, the two sides engaged in an unprecedented "verbal battle." Every day, they organized a group of people to take turns shouting insults at the enemy. Eventually, when all the vulgarities they could use were exhausted, both sides racked their brains to come up with even more insidious words. Inside and outside the mountain city, crude language raged, and spittle flowed freely on the rocky cliffs. But both commanders were quite composed, or rather, their skin was thick enough, and they were extremely strict with their subordinates. This verbal battle lasted for three days, and neither side fired a single arrow or gained an inch of ground.
But this didn't mean there were no losses on either side. Initially, the soldiers were allowed to hurl insults, but later, when their voices became hoarse, they turned to the civilians, especially the women soldiers. Their insults were unbearable for the Peace Army, particularly their personal attacks on Li Jun. The Peace Army soldiers had always regarded Li Jun as a war god, and the blow to their morale from such humiliation by these women was unimaginable. By the fourth day, some soldiers even defied orders and demanded to attack the city. After suppressing them, Li Jun suddenly had an idea, saying, "Perhaps we can provoke Peng Yuancheng to come down like this: he's using women to insult me, so let's insult him like women."
A moment later, a horse was released from the Peace Army, carrying a package on its back. The Peace Army soldiers shouted from the foot of the mountain, "This is a gift from Commander Li to Lord Peng! This is a gift from Commander Li to Lord Peng!"
The horse, under the shouts of the Peace Army soldiers, arrived at the gate of Dagu City. Seeing that the Peace Army was still at the foot of the mountain, the soldiers opened the gate and let the horse in. Peng Yuancheng opened the bundle on the horse's back and found a brightly colored bridal gown inside, along with a letter handwritten by Li Jun.
The letter reads: "Your Excellency is hiding in Otani Castle, much like a woman secluded in her boudoir. Now that I suspect you are about to get married, I am sending you a wedding dress. I would like you to try it on in front of the entire army. What do you say?"
Peng Yuancheng was shocked by what he saw. In the entire Divine Continent, apart from Li Jun mentioning gender equality in the oath in Kuanglan City, women had always been looked down upon. Now, Li Jun was giving Peng Yuancheng women's clothes, which was indeed a great humiliation, far better than cursing him for three days under the city walls. Moreover, many soldiers around had witnessed this, and if it spread, it would be extremely detrimental to the morale of the city.
Peng Yuancheng was indeed furious. He drew his sword, mounted his warhorse, but when he reached the city gate, he turned back, a sinister smile on his face.
"A provocation, a provocation..." he muttered to himself, then grabbed the garment and went into the house. A moment later, he came out again, and the whole army was in an uproar. He had actually put the bride's dress on himself!
Immediately afterwards, Peng Yuancheng went up to the city wall, swaggered a few steps in front of the soldiers of both armies, and said loudly, "Thank you, Commander Li, for giving me your clothes!"
The soldiers of Otani Castle all burst into laughter and shouted in unison, "Thank you, Commander Li, for the clothes! Thank you, Commander Li, for the clothes!"
Li Jun looked utterly dejected. He was, after all, a young man, and his composure was slightly weaker than Peng Yuancheng's. He spurred his horse to attack the city, but Xiao Lin reached out and grabbed his warhorse, desperately shouting, "No! No!"
Li Jun immediately realized that if he couldn't tolerate it himself, how could he expect his soldiers to tolerate it? He knew that if things continued this way, not only would he fail to pick out Peng Yuancheng, but his own side would likely be the first to be provoked and lose their minds. Therefore, he had to strictly order his subordinates not to leave the camp to curse the enemy anymore, and they could only sit and listen to the shouts and curses coming from the city every day.
This prolonged siege was extremely disadvantageous for Li Jun. Even before supply problems arose, the enemy's insults alone would be enough to completely demoralize the Peace Army, potentially leading to their collapse. He needed to convince his soldiers that continuing the siege still offered a chance of victory; otherwise, a retreat would be preferable. Therefore, on the fifth day after the siege began, Li Jun convened another military meeting.
“The city has a large grain reserve, enough to last for three years. If things continue like this, we will not be able to take Dagu City. Gentlemen, do you think there are any other methods? Otherwise, we might as well retreat,” Li Jun asked his generals.
The generals exchanged glances, surprised that even the usually resourceful Li Jun was at a loss, but given the current situation, they couldn't come up with a better idea.
Xiao Lin pondered for a while and said, "The enemy has no obvious weaknesses. It seems that we can only retreat for the time being and observe the situation."
Even though Li Jun knew Xiao Lin was absolutely right, he still felt somewhat unwilling. After all, since arriving in Yuzhou, he had never returned empty-handed. Even when he was temporarily thwarted at Leiming City and forced to abandon a city he had gained, he turned defeat into victory, sowing the seeds for his future recapture of Leiming City. But this time, Peng Yuancheng's defense of Dagu City was like a flawless egg, making it impossible for him to take a bite out of it.
"To retreat without even fighting is too cowardly. Let me challenge them tomorrow!" Song Yun suddenly shouted, his voice flaring with anger. Meng Yuan nodded in agreement, "That's right. If we retreat without even fighting, it will be difficult to explain to the soldiers, and it will also have a negative impact on morale."
"Are you going to retreat only after suffering a defeat? Tomorrow we're going to attack the city. Are you confident you can take it? If not, it's better to retreat." Xiao Lin said bluntly to these two brave but younger men. He had been fighting on the battlefield for longer than they were actually old.
"How about this, let's take a closer look at Oguri Castle tomorrow. I don't believe there aren't any blind spots in its defenses." Li Jun's compromise suggestion was reluctantly accepted by everyone. He himself was unwilling to retreat. Perhaps there was still some opportunity for victory hidden in the city. As long as they searched carefully, they would surely find it.
The next morning, Li Jun and his main generals approached Dagu City again. Upon seeing someone approaching, the city began its usual cursing, which the people were already used to and didn't take seriously.
This time, instead of walking onto the stone road leading into the city, the group circled the cliff for a while. Suddenly, Li Jun pointed to a spot on the cliff and asked, "What's that?"
Following his finger, everyone saw dozens of dark, round objects hanging down from the cliff and falling into the river.
"Could it be that the enemy has sent men to launch a surprise attack on our army?" Meng Yuan asked.
“No, no.” Song Yun, with the sharpest eyes, said, “They are some wooden barrels.”
The wooden buckets bobbed a few times in the river before being pulled up again. It turned out the buckets were tied with ropes; people from the city were drawing water from the river. Li Jun's heart stirred. He asked, "Aren't there any wells in the city?"
"The entire city is just stone when you dig three feet into the ground; where are the wells?"
Li Jun's eyes immediately brightened, the rising sun reflecting in them like two burning flames: "There is no water in the city. If we have people cut their ropes and cut off their water supply, what good will it do even if they have food?"
Everyone was overjoyed upon hearing this, but Xiao Lin immediately looked worried: "The river is so turbulent that it is already extremely difficult to get close to that cliff. Moreover, if the enemy throws stones down from their high position, I'm afraid our soldiers who are going to cut off their water supply will be in danger."
"This is no problem. I will immediately send mages from Thunder City to build large rafts from giant logs, and have the barbarians in the army drive them. We can then burn them from a distance using fire magic. Wouldn't that solve the problem?" Li Jun laughed heartily, feeling as if a huge knot had been untied in his heart. The pent-up anger that had been building up for days was swept away, and victory seemed to be just around the corner.
Everything was according to his plan. Urged on by the fast riders, Chu Qingfeng, who had shared the experience of slaying the dragon with Li Jun, sent ten fire-elemental magic users from the Magic Academy. Li Jun had also ordered the barbarians in his army to build rafts. Although the huge rafts were somewhat unstable, they were much safer than ordinary boats in the turbulent current. To be on the safe side, Li Jun personally stepped onto the raft and stood with the ten magicians. These ten were all Taoist magicians of the True Person level, three of whom were Chu Qingfeng's own disciples, skilled in fire-elemental magic among the Five Elements. As the buckets from Dagu City sank, they chanted incantations, and powerful spiritual energy transformed into flames, burning all the ropes tied to the buckets. In a short while, all the buckets were carried away by the river.
The soldiers and civilians on the city walls were terrified. It was the time when the plums were ripe, and the sky was clear and cloudless, with no sign of rain in the near future. Without water, the people in the city would be unable to fight within three days, at which point Li Jun would only need to come and take over the city.
Upon hearing this report, Peng Yuancheng sneered, "Is Li Jun still not giving up?" He ordered his men to take out iron chains from the treasury and use them to tie buckets to lower them to fetch water. This way, the True Men's fire magic would be powerless against the iron chains, and the buckets would be soaked and unable to be burned. Just when the True Men were at their wits' end, Li Jun came up with another plan.
He ordered the barbarians to shoot arrows at the wooden barrels from a distance. In a short while, countless holes were shot into the barrels, and all the water was drained away. Peng Yuancheng, who was in the city, saw this clearly and immediately ordered that the wooden barrels be replaced with iron barrels.
Although the iron buckets were heavy and there weren't as many of them as the wooden buckets, the daily water supply was enough for the city's residents. When one plan failed, Li Jun devised another. He ordered large wooden rafts to be lowered from upstream, which swept away the iron buckets and their chains. Two men who tried to hold onto the chains were also swept away and fell to their deaths in the river.
"Still not willing to give up?" After two days of fighting for the water buckets, Peng Yuancheng ordered the stone wall to be chiseled open, and the soldiers and civilians in the city took turns chiseling, and they actually managed to carve out a row of vertical wells that led directly to the water-eroded caves below the cliff. Li Jun did not know that they were chiseling wells in the stone wall. He was just paying close attention to the riverbank. When he saw that no buckets were hanging down from the cliff, he thought that the city had given up, so he waited outside the city for Peng Yuancheng to surrender.
This was the twentieth day of the siege. Li Jun believed that the city had been without water for seven days, and even with the most frugal water use, the city could not sustain itself any longer. Li Jun decided to send someone to investigate.
So, another horse carrying a leather bag entered Dagu City.