To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Changsha.

The war drums thundered, and a contingent of the Ning Army marched out of the main camp, carrying weapons and slowly advancing toward the city of Changsha.

Xiang Duan sat in the command carriage, watching the already raging combat at the city walls, his thoughts drifting away.

Actually, he was reluctant to siege the city.@@novelbin@@

Inside the city, the elite Chu soldiers numbered twenty thousand, and with widespread conscription of able-bodied men, they had gathered eighty thousand militia, bringing the total military force to a hundred thousand, more than those besieging the city.

Though militia generally had poor combat abilities and were unable to fight tough battles, like the civilian workers conscripted by Nanhai Country, who were hardly capable of guarding the city.

But the civilian workers of Chu State were different.

Ever since Lu Yuan established the Militia Corps system in Shaoyang Prefecture, all the civilians under his jurisdiction over the age of fifteen had to participate in autumn military training organized by the counties, townships, and villages after the busy farming season each year.

Although autumn training only involved one to two months of military skills training, as long as one participated for three to five years and coupled with Chu’s martial tradition, and with Lu Yuan often conscripting militia to go to war,

Even just for the sake of having more self-preservation on the battlefield in the future, those rural civilians would learn martial arts in their free time and acquire some military skills from others.

All these factors combined could make an untrained Village Brave learn the basic use of a weapon, understand Military Orders and signals, and familiarize themselves with military laws and regulations.

Once they mastered these, they could basically be considered qualified cannon fodder.

Furthermore, ever since Chu State established itself, there had hardly been a year without war, and large-scale battles involving more than a hundred thousand were common, requiring the conscription of a large number of militia to accompany the army.

Like when they waged war against the Southwest Barbarians.

Lu Yuan deployed a hundred thousand in the Forbidden army, but behind them came more than three hundred thousand militia tasked with transporting food and fodder and garrisoning the towns and cities secured by the army.

Transporting supplies and garrisoning in the rear was not just about toiling labor.

Although the Chu army had defeated the main forces of the Yi People, after their dispersal, a large number of remnants were still scattered throughout Qianzhong County, some fled into the mountain ridges while others joined local Yi tribes.

These remnants, supported by the local Yi People, would often choose to raid Chu’s grain roads and attack the Chu garrisons.

At such times, when the enemy came attacking, the accompanying militia could not stay uninvolved and had to fight alongside the leading Forbidden army.

Fighting for their lives and having seen blood, the militia with some basic military skills naturally improved quickly.

After going through battle after battle, some frequently conscripted militia had overall qualities and strength that were no less than the soldiers of long-established countries like Nanhai and Ning, which had their own Prefectures and County soldiers.

These seasoned militia could even be sent to the frontlines and fight positional warfare against the enemy.

If assigned to guarding the city, relying on the terrain advantage, they could be used as half a soldier.

Even the lesser militia, if just for guarding the city, would not necessarily be worse than the ordinary Prefecture and County soldiers.

Therefore, just looking at the numbers, the hundred thousand Chu army inside the city, mostly composed of militia, seemed to have no great strength.

But when it comes to defending the city, the Ning Army outside might not necessarily be stronger than the Chu militia.

This had been verified by Ningjing’s own blood and life through countless battles previously.

It was precisely because he knew that the Chu army inside the city was tough to deal with, even the militia, whose strength was no less than the Prefectures and County soldiers, and their numbers more than his own,

that Xiang Duan felt extremely resistant and opposed to the outnumbered and most brutal form of warfare, the siege.

But he was helpless.

His superior, Emperor Shenqiu of Ning, in order to apply more pressure on the Chu army on the Dongting battlefield, forcing Chu State to divert more troops from Lingnan to relieve the pressure on Nanhai Country,

had already issued a death order ten days ago, demanding him to initiate the siege on Changsha, and moreover, it had to be an intense and vigorous one.

To supervise him, a supervisor was even dispatched to ensure Xiang Duan’s unit carried out the order.

Limited by the pressure from the supervisor and the fact that the situation in Ning Country was indeed unfavorable, with Lingnan’s dire situation indeed needing support from Dongting,

he executed Emperor Shenqiu’s orders faithfully, despite his reluctance.

Starting ten days ago, besides the more than ten thousand troops stationed in the rear to defend Anjiang and Fengling counties, Xiang Duan’s division of seventy thousand people dispatched ten thousand every day to attack the city of Changsha.

After such a rotation, the seventy thousand-strong army had already fought one round, and even the second round had begun, and they were now in their third engagement.

But after seven days of fierce attacks, Xiang Duan’s forces had suffered terribly heavy losses.

As of now, even though he had emphasized before the war that sieging the city didn’t require them to exert their full strength, just to launch a couple of assaults to apply some pressure to the Chu forces would suffice,

it was, after all, a siege that they could not take, there’s no need to really stubbornly grind it out to the death.

Yet even so, exerting pressure on the Chu forces in the city was not a simple matter.

If the Ning Army didn’t pay a price, the so-called siege was nothing more than a farce.

Xiang Duan’s so-called “not trying too hard” was only relative, as after ten days of fighting, his seventy thousand-strong army had already lost over ten thousand men, with only fifty-six or fifty-seven thousand remaining, the casualties exceeding twenty percent.

The remaining army, too, was demoralized, and their combat power had diminished by nearly half compared to before the siege.

And the city of Changsha ahead had remained, for all these days, as solid as a fortress.

The morale of the city’s defenders was still exceedingly high, with no sign seen of any chance of taking the city.