17 Preparations are Complete

The sounds of battle rang through the night, and by the morning the attacking Persian army led by Ban Chao was nowhere close to pushing through the narrow passage. However, Ban Chao didn't think this was of any issue. His army still vastly outnumbered Baron's and he had another trick up his sleeve. One advantage that the attackers would get is that everytime a simulation of this mode was played, the attacking side got a random number of troops ranging between 100,000 to 500,000. This time he had actually managed to draw an army of 400,000.

He had only brought about 150,000 of these soldiers to this small pass, while the other soldiers were out trying to find another passage so that their allies could sneak behind Baron and deal a fatal blow to them. Most of his army consisted of infantry, therefore even with the two-week preparation, his army still had not found any suitable flanking opportunities. Even if they did find one they would have to send a messenger back to consult Ban Chao for further instructions.

Of course, Baron was not such a simple-minded fool to allow Ban Chao to do this freely. Before the battle began, Baron had strategically placed 2,000 soldiers along the many small passages that he had found to conduct guerrilla warfare. These soldiers were to rotate shifts, one group would wait for others to come while the others had to scout the area more to see if they missed any possible locations the enemy could exploit.

Baron didn't make any big moves, and neither did Ban Chao. With the two strategists unwilling to make any moves, a week had passed after the initial day of battle. On the eighth night of the battle Baron's soldiers showed visible signs of fatigue. Although they had managed to hold out until now, their mistakes and death toll grew with each passing day. Baron began to get a little uncertain. The past few days' mistakes couldn't be considered very big, but it was only a matter of time until they did manage to screw up gravely.

The tally for each army was 4,000 in the passage for Baron, and 65,000 for Ban Chao. This meant that excluding the soldiers that were off somewhere else, Baron had lost close to 1,000 of his men while Ban Chao lost about 85,000. This had been a great upset on Ban Chao's expectations. He only sent the bulk of his army to do other tasks was for two reasons. One was that he wanted to prove to Baron how capable he was, and the second was as a precaution to if Baron could actually hold up against such a dire situation.

No matter how you spun it Baron had completely exceeded Ban Chao's expectations a million times over. Now he had an iron will to completely demolish Baron. That was when he sent out the word, all troops advance and surround the enemy. He had sent out the order at night so some soldiers were still sleeping, but they hurriedly got dressed and set out at once to encircle Baron's army. Many of the men actually tried to scale up the steep incline around the passageway that Baron was defending. However, none of it came to any fruition as they didn't make much progress, even the few that did manage to get past the natural fortress that was the terrain, they were easily dealt with by the independent units sent by Baron.

Baron was in the middle of ordering troops around when a messenger informed him that the preparations for the repeating crossbows were finally complete, and that a shipment was already delivered to the 2,000 men hiding around the other passageways.

(BM) "That's wonderful news, with the enemy assault being this fierce this news is a godsend. Have the remaining repeating crossbows be distributed to groups C, D, and E." Baron ordered with relief in his voice.

(M) "As you command, general."

Baron had groups A and B remain with their shields and spears so they could still defend the passageway, everyone else would equip the repeating crossbow and hunt down the enemies.

This new equipment allowed Baron's army would be able to slay many more soldiers with a fraction of the energy as they could manage with shields and spears. With Baron's brilliant tactics and use of every strategic point that was available to him, they not only managed to push the enemy back but also unleashed massive casualties to them.

The obvious advantage of the repeating crossbow was that it was quick, it is the ancient world equivalent of a machine gun. Another advantage of this was that it was super easy to kill, all you had to do was aim and shoot. Even with the darkness of the night enveloping them, with so many enemies to shoot at they hardly needed to aim.

By the morning the results of the battle was quite obvious. Due to the superior weapon that is the repeating crossbow and Baron's excellent tactics they had taken less than 100 casualties while theBan Chao had lost 30,000. Both parties retreated back to their own camps leaving only a handful of men to keep watch of their enemies. The morale between the two camps is like heaven and earth.

Ban Chao was horrified at how effective Baron was at causing such devastating amounts of casualties. He only now knew that he shouldn't have given Baron this much time to prepare such a horrifying advantage. He was quite familiar with the repeating crossbow, after all he had commanded a few such troops back when he was alive, and a couple more times when he played a few simulation matches on planet 4. However, he could not produce them like how Baron had managed to do. After all, he didn't pay much attention to the weapon as much as he payed attention to the soldiers wielding such devastating weapons. He thought for a moment before ordering the messenger.

(BC) "Messenger, give a message to the enemy camp requesting a temporary truce and a meeting between me and Baron. Be quick about it"

(M) "Yes, sir" The messenger said respectfully and hurriedly rushed towards the narrow passageway.

Within the hour Ban Chao had arranged the meeting with Baron and the two went to an empty tent to discuss things.

(BM) "What's with this temporary truce?"

(BC) "You already know the answer to that question." Ban Chao said with a scowl on his face.

(BM) "Ah, the repeating crossbows?"

(BC) "Of course it's about the repeating crossbows!" Ban Chao said with disdain. "How did you make them?"

(BM) ".....I had the people living around here make them for me?"

(BC) "Don't play dumb with kid. Do you know how rare it is for any strategist to have any idea as to how to make any weapons?"

(BM) "What? The repeating crossbow isn't too hard to produce if you know how the inner mechanics work. Does no one here know how to recreate such a great weapon?"

(BC) "Oh of course we do, but that is a privilege only the top 20 elders, 3 great elders, and the venerable overlord has access to."

(BM) "Oh so it's like that, Yue Fei hadn't told me about that part yet."

(BC) "There are countless blueprints to build each and every weapon the world has ever known. Yet the repeating crossbow can be considered to be one of the top 100 most coveted by the Chinese community."

(BM) "Wait, why don't we just let everyone see and memorize these blueprints? Would we not be able to perform better in the Death Match Tournament this way?"

(BC) "You are still such a naive little child for thinking like this. Here, on planet 4, you have to earn the right to be granted such powerful weapons. Plus the the top 20 elders and everyone above them declares it to be this way."

(BM) "Every one of them?"

(BC) "Most of them, I believe the only one to reject this policy is the newcomer Madam Zheng, the naval genius."

(BM) "Oh does she now....." Baron said as he trailed off in his thoughts.

(BC) "How many weapons do you know the schematics of?"

(BM) "Let's just say quite a few."

(BC) "I've been here for so long, but i've only managed to get 6 such blueprints, yet you come to planet four already having at least as much blueprints as me? This is just not fair."

(BM) "Well...." Baron started before he paused to think. "How about we form an alliance?"

(BC) "Alliance? What are your conditions, because it seems to me that you have more say in this matter than I do."

(BM) "The condition is that you follow under me, give me your absolute loyalty, and you never question my motives. If you do this well, i'll give you some blueprints."

(BC) "Follow under you?" Ban Chao had quite a reputation in the Chinese Community, how could he follow under such a newcomer like Baron? On the other hand, the reward of blueprints was quite enticing. It wouldn't be too exaggerated to say that you could dominate almost all of the simulations if you had a lot of blueprints and sufficient skill to lead men.

(BM) "Well, how about it?"

(BC) "I accept." Ban Chao said a little regretfully. He was throwing away all of his face once he made his decision.