Chương 92: Attacking Poloia

Li Qinwu sat in the hall that originally belonged to Baron Zoao, with musket Goblins standing on both sides of the hall. The hall door was wide open, and the early morning sunlight spilled in, making it very transparent and bright. Li Qinwu held a wooden block that had been shaved into a square in his hand. He slammed the wooden block fiercely onto the table, making a crisp pa sound.

"Who stands below? What matter do you complain of? Speak it out quickly!" Several trembling serfs knelt in the middle of the hall. Surrounded by Goblins, who were monsters that killed without blinking, they all regretted it. Why did they take the initiative to come to the door today? But thinking that not coming would also mean death, they simply hardened their hearts. A serf said carefully: "Lord, we are serfs of Forest Keep, accusing the Lord of Forest Keep."

Li Qinwu's eyes bulged, and he picked up the gavel again and slammed it fiercely.

"tmd it's coming for me! Who stands below accusing this official!"

"Ah? No, no, no! Lord, you misunderstand, we are not accusing you, we are accusing Baron Zoao!" The serfs quickly explained. Li Qinwu took a sip of the scented tea water from the golden teapot.

"Hmm? What do you want to accuse him of?" The serfs had faces full of bitterness.

"We hope Baron Zoao can lower the taxes a bit. An 80% tax is really too high, we can't survive anymore." With a pfft sound, Li Qinwu directly spat the tea water. That's right, novel characters drink tea water precisely for the purpose of spitting it. Li Qinwu was in disbelief.

"80%! tmd they collect an 80% tax and you don't even rebel?" The serfs looked at each other. So there was actually an option like rebelling? Li Qinwu waved his hand: "Line, line, Baron Zoao has been defeated, and the master of Forest Keep is now me. I order that all serfs belonging to Forest Keep be converted into yeoman farmers, and all the lands under cultivation shall belong to you, and in the future you only need to pay a 30% tax."

Li Qinwu didn't know how long he could stay in this place either, so he just painted the big flatbread for them; distributing things that didn't belong to himself in the first place, he even gained a good reputation. He indeed gained a good reputation. When the serfs heard these words, it was like five thunders striking the top of their heads, and each and every one stood there dazed.

They had never thought that one day they could obtain the status of yeoman farmers, nor had they ever thought they could possess their own land, and least, least of all, only pay a 30% tax! Oh my Goddess of Life! Is this Goblin an angel sent by the Goddess of Life?! Looking at Li Qinwu's green ugly face, they actually fell into infatuation, as if this was the most handsome makeup-free face in the world.

"Clear-sky great old master!!" Not knowing who shouted a line, the serfs rushed toward Li Qinwu's plate armor boots on their knees, trying to offer their lips.

"My ni-ma! Beat them out for me!!" Li Qinwu was startled and jumped directly onto the table, preserving the purity of his plate armor boots. The musket Goblins rushed up, using their gun butts to smash the serfs out of the hall. While being beaten, they shouted that the Lord's kindness could never be repaid fully. Li Qinwu breathed a sigh of relief and slowly sat back into his chair. Just as he sat down, a system prompt came into his brain. Ding! Your favorability with the people of Forest Keep +50.

You conducted a deeply moving judgment, Charisma proficiency +5.

"Wo-cao! Added this much favorability! And added Charisma proficiency too?" 50 favorability, the surrounding people would probably joyfully welcome the king's army! He didn't expect that Charisma proficiency could be ground by judging cases. He got interested, and once again slapped the gavel.

"Who else wants to report a case, bring them up quickly!" This time coming up were two middle-aged men yeoman farmers. As soon as they knelt down, they loudly accused each other. Li Qinwu listened for a long time and understood. These two pooled money together to buy an ox, jointly raised it, and shared the plow field. But for an object, as long as it is a public good, after a long time everyone stops putting their hearts into it, each expecting the other to pay more.

The two accused each other, saying the other fed less grass feed, fed less water, plowed two extra mu of land and exhausted the ox, and so on and so forth; in short, it was a bunch of chicken-feather and garlic-skin small matters. Li Qinwu's head grew big from their arguing, and he picked up the gavel and slammed it fiercely.

"Arguing back and forth over such a small matter, come men, chop the ox into two halves, and divide it to these two persons!" Hearing that the ox was to be killed, the two made a ma-ya sound, shouting that they were no longer reporting a case, no longer reporting a case, and ran away like the wind. Ding! Charisma proficiency +1. The 3rd wave of reporting cases was two families.

The son and daughter of the two families had mutual affection and secretly pledged their lifelong commitments privately, but the two families looked down on each other. The male side's family disliked that the female side's family had little land, and the female side's family wanted to marry their daughter to a rich man. Both sides wanted to make the children separate from each other. Li Qinwu propped his feet up on the table, leisurely polishing his fingernails with a small knife.

He glanced at the young man and woman kneeling in the middle.

"What do you two think? Do you want to obey your parents' will and separate, or do you want to be together?" The young man and woman looked at each other with deep affection. Before they could open their mouths, the parents behind them grew noisy.

"What do you mean together! Your daughter is completely unworthy of my son, your family only has a few mu of land, once married she still has to rely on my family to be raised!!"

"Humph! You think my family thinks highly of your son? Doesn't know how to do business, and has no noble title, who would marry their daughter to your son!!" Both sides chirped and adjusted their noises, turning the Lord's hall into a vegetable market. Li Qinwu saw that the young man and woman kneeling in the middle had painful expressions, yet still tightly locked eyes on each other. He had a plan in mind, slapped the gavel, and made everyone shut up completely.

"Since both of your sides' parents are unsatisfied, then let's dou-sha-la! This way they cannot secretly be together. Come men, drag this young man and woman down, si-la-si-la-di!" He said these words in the human common tongue. The musket Goblins standing guard couldn't understand it, otherwise they really would have complied. The parents on both sides were terrified to death, thinking in their hearts what kind of case this dog official was judging, and immediately shouted loudly: "No, no, no! Lord!

We won't interfere with them anymore, let them marry, let them marry immediately!!" The parents on both sides pulled and dragged the young man and woman and ran away. The young man and woman looked back at Li Qinwu, their eyes full of gratitude. Ding! Charisma proficiency +2. For the next few days, Li Qinwu judged cases during the day and smithed iron at night, continuously grinding the proficiency of the two skills.

Among them, the Charisma proficiency was ground by him to 25, unlocking a skill, Eloquent Discourse. Eloquent Discourse: When communicating with intelligent creatures, it is easy to make the other party concentrate attention to listen to you speak, and agree with your viewpoint. He also obtained 1 personality trait. The Merciful Liberator: People across the entire continent have heard of your deeds of liberating serfs, all slaves across the entire continent and your favorability +3.

Li Qinwu's deeds quickly spread in Forest Keep and radiated to other lords' territories. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Everyone marveled that there was a Goblin who could speak the human common tongue, and this Goblin was so wise. Some serfs heard that the Goblins of Forest Keep were distributing land, and they actually escaped their original lords' lands and came toward Forest Keep.

Meanwhile, the original serfs of Forest Keep, after becoming yeoman farmers, began to turn over massive amounts of taxes to Forest Keep. Various foods piled up to fill the warehouses, and even Li Qinwu's system received a large amount of system food turned over by the villages! It was just a pity that happy times are always fleeting. A week passed, and the soldiers' minds and bodies obtained relaxation; resting any further would be indulgence. Li Qinwu pointed his troops and horses, and marched toward Poloia!

3 days later, the troops arrived at Poloia. Along this way they passed several castles, but those castles kept their castle gates tightly shut, and the lords didn't come out to launch an attack at all. Li Qinwu felt that driving a wedge had taken effect; the lords who hated Earl Kali refused to add troops to Poloia, and Earl Kali was about to pay the price for his own tyranny.

It was said that Poloia at its peak could mobilize 20, 000 troop strength, but Li Qinwu rested for a week in Forest Keep, and Poloia actually didn't send troops to fight him. He suspected that Poloia lacked capable generals, and the Poloia side did not have the capability to lead troops on a distant expedition. Li Qinwu actually guessed it right, but it wasn't because there were no capable generals, but because capable generals had left with the troops.

Many generals were driven away in anger because Earl Kali was making trouble. The remaining generals, because a world war was currently being fought, capable local generals had taken troops to go north and down south. Once the two waves of sieves passed, those who were left behind, weren't they just a pack of wine-sacks and rice-bags?

Even the troop strength was no longer the 20, 000 of its peak period; there were only two thousand city guard soldiers, plus various newly conscripted line-filler militia, fluctuating and adding up altogether to just over 5, 000. These stay-behind generals had self-knowledge; they knew they didn't have the capability to lead troops to go on an expedition, and with the quality of the soldiers being so poor, they couldn't go on an expedition either.

Then they wouldn't go on an expedition, waiting in the original place for the enemy to fight up, and then push the troop strength up in one wave. Their intelligence network investigated that the demon army, mainly composed of Goblins, numbered just over 1, 000. Their own side's numbers were five times that of the opposite side—the advantage is on me! So when Li Qinwu brought the grand army under Poloia city, what he saw below the city walls were dense human infantry phalanxes.

"Interesting, they actually abandoned the city walls to come out of the city for a field battle." Li Qinwu swept a glance at the tall city walls behind the infantry. This city wall's height exceeded 25 meters, very tall and grand. There were arrow towers on the city walls, and several small bed-ballistas could be seen.

For defensive fortifications of this level, if the enemy had sufficient troop strength, it would probably be very difficult to handle even with artillery, and the war would drag on for several months. But now that the opponent's main force had come out of the city to fight, then he had the confidence to break the city in one day!

Actually, coming out of the city to fight couldn't blame the Poloia side's command personnel's mistake either; they were afraid that this demon army would scatter into the surrounding villages to destroy and slaughter, then the loss would be too big. The serfs and land in the villages all belonged to the noble masters; how could it be fine if this was lost!

So even if intelligence showed that the enemy had special long-range weapons and was very dangerous, after various considerations, they still chose to ignore the intelligence and fight according to the traditional method. The two sides launched a confrontation at a distance of one kilometer from each other. Horns blew in the Poloia army, and the human infantry phalanxes began to advance slowly, pressing over toward Li Qinwu's side. Li Qinwu made the troops stop and form a line.

This crude line formation could maximize firepower to the greatest extent; the risk was that once the enemy's cavalry rushed, it would scatter. Fortunately, Li Qinwu swept a circle and didn't see enemy cavalry, only a few officer characters, with horses in the single digits. He had also sent Gobu-Gallop's cavalry to scout in advance, and still didn't see enemy cavalry troops.

He felt that it should be because they were currently in a world war; Halyun Province did not border a foreign country, and local armed forces were redeployed to other battlefields. High-end main forces like cavalry, how could they be left here to look at big trees. The artillery company commander of the 10th Company was called Gobu-Boom. He ran to Li Qinwu's side and asked: "Boss, do we want to shell? The opponent has entered range."

"No shelling allowed, it would be terrible if we beat the enemy into running into the city. Let the opponent get close to 100 meters. The artillery will be filled with canister shot. Direct the muzzles of the four guns right at that heavy infantry phalanx in the dead center to blast, I want to blast the enemy's formation into two segments!" Li Qinwu pointed at the bed-ballistas and arrow towers on the city walls.

"After finishing the canister shot, immediately knock out those bed-ballistas for me!" Gobu-Boom answered a yes and returned to the troops. Li Qinwu continued to give orders to Gobu-Spear and Gobu-Bow: "When the sound of cannons rings out, the infantry will fire a volley! Then immediately change ammo, fix bayonets and launch a charge, charge right into the opponent's face, and shoot another volley, end the battle for me with bayonets!!"

After delivering the orders, he directly took his hands off the keyboard, waiting for the victory prompt. He had the confidence that two waves of musket volleys could wipe out forty percent of the opponent's personnel; as for the remaining ones, wait for them to route on their own! Amid the military whistles and horn sounds, the distance between both sides closed quickly. The 5, 000 humans were divided into over a dozen phalanxes, looking terribly frightening to look at in their dense numbers.

They leveled their spears, swords, and knives amid the lords' shouting, preparing to launch the final charge. Even those peasants holding hoes had flushed faces. The noble masters had said, as long as they could kill an enemy, the spoils on the enemy would belong to them. For these farmers living hard lives, even if they obtained a single iron implement or a piece of beast skin fragment, it could slightly improve their lives.

So a large number of yeoman farmers and serfs picked up agricultural tools from their homes and participated in the war responding to the lord's call to war. A minor lord riding a tall horse and wearing plate armor saw the distance was about right, drew out the sword from his waist, and prepared to issue the charge command.

"Give me..." Before the word chong could come out, hong hong four sounds of blasting came over, just like the thunder of a torrential rainy day, startling his horse. The horse's forelegs raised high, and he fell to the ground. The minor lord made an ai-yo sound. What just happened? What thing was so loud? He slowly regained his senses, and heard a burst of metal being twisted and torn apart sounds, and pu pu pu meat-entering sounds, and then it was a succession of screams!

He hurriedly stood up to check and was stunned. His most elite troop, the heavy infantry phalanx equipped with plate armor, had suffered a destructive blow! Over 500 fully armored soldiers were knocked down in a swath by the unknown weapon. The precious plate armor on their bodies was full of holes, and blood gushed out from the holes continuously! The 4 cannons, each firing nearly a hundred steel balls, possessed outstanding killing capability within this distance of 100 meters.

Various severed limbs and blood mists flew and danced, clearing out the morale of this most elite fully armored infantry phalanx! But this was not over yet. While panic was generated in the human array, a succession of thunders came from the Punisher Army's line again! A large amount of white smoke spewed out from the iron mouths, and a thousand projectiles shot into the human array; the soldiers in the absolute front row fell down a large swath in unison.

Wails and screams echoed through the whole field, and all people were questioning, what happened?! What on earth happened?! All humans panicked. The line began to mess up, the phalanxes that were originally neat and tidy began to lose shape, and some people had already started running. The minor lords tried their best to maintain order, and the Punisher Army took the opportunity to complete the 2nd wave of reloading. Chiu, chiu chiu, chiu chiu!!

A military whistle of one short and two long sounded, and the soldiers cleanly drew out their bayonets, locking the bayonet mounts onto the muzzles. Chiu! Chiu chiu chiu chiu chiu chiu!!! The charge whistle sounded, and the musket Goblins shouted and launched the charge. The lords on the human side were all stunned. The opponent only had 1, 000 men, yet dared to take the initiative to launch a charge?

"Raise weapons! Raise weapons! Those who kill the enemy will be rewarded one silver coin!!" The minor lords shouted loudly, but their troops were mostly composed of militia. The militia were flustered and frantic; once they got messy it was very hard to recover. Being counter-charged by the Goblins, some people ran away directly. At this time, the Goblins had already charged to ten paces in front of the human soldiers.

Whether willing or not, the human soldiers leveled the weapons in their hands, preparing to carry out slaughtering. The Punisher Army soldiers stopped urgently, raised their guns, and fired with the muzzles almost pressed against the enemy's chests. Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang!!! A row of gunshots rang from the far left of the battlefield to the far right.

The human infantry phalanx was like being wiped by a divine eraser; the outermost infantry fell down a layer directly, exposing the rear infantry whose faces were full of bewilderment. These rear soldiers hadn't even realized what happened yet, and the Punisher Army soldiers thrust up holding bayonets. A great rout occurred. The phalanx composed of militia took the lead to flee, the minor lords found something wrong and ran away too, and then it was the regular army.

Their courage completely dissipated, and they had only one thought in their brains: run back to the city! The Punisher Army chased behind, bayoneting the fleers one by one. Several nobles on the city walls were dumbfounded. Defeated just like that? A noble shouted anxiously: "Quick quick quick! Archers, bed-ballistas, shoot to cover!" Hong hong hong hong! The bed-ballistas were just prepared, and the artillery fired. The artillery fired grape shot.

This stuff was smaller than solid shot and larger than canister shot, firing 12 tennis-ball-sized projectiles at a time. These "tennis balls" hit near the bed-ballistas; hitting people meant severed limbs, and hitting the bed-ballistas destroyed them directly, making them lose their function. This time the lords panicked even more, and didn't dare to stand on the city walls anymore. A lord shouted in panic.

"Quickly close the city gate!!" Another person stopped him.

"Cannot close! Must let our soldiers back, without soldiers to guard the city we will all die!" Several lords heard this and also agreed not to close the city gate for the time being, and let part of the team back first. However, Li Qinwu would not allow them to run back to the city. For such a high city wall, if there were too many people defending, attacking the city would be too difficult! So he made preparations in advance, and now was exactly the time to strike!

A dozen Mount Spiders rushed into the fleeing human soldiers, knocking them over to the ground. The Mount Spiders did not attack these human soldiers; they ran toward the city gate with full strength. The 10 Mount Spiders quickly rushed out of the fleeing infantry, surpassed them, and rushed to the opened city gate. The soldiers guarding at the city gate were startled into retreating continuously; spiders this big were too terrifying.

Sitting on the Mount Spiders were two Goblins, one rider, and the other was a Goblin Incinerator Recruit. The Incinerator Recruit condensed a fireball and threw it fiercely into the city gateway. After the splashing rupture sounds of water balloons, dozens of "napalm bombs" smashed into the city gateway, igniting a large swath of fire sea. After unleashing the fire, the Mount Spiders divided into two teams and ran along the left and right sides of the city walls.

A city this big had more than one city gate; they were going to block the other gates. The human soldiers ran hard to the city gate, looked inside the city gate hole and saw it was all big fire, and despaired. Finished, they were completely finished!! The lords on the city walls stamped their feet in anxiety, shouting: "Go to the east and west city gates, go to the east and west city gates quickly!!" Some people were reminded, let loose their feet and continued to run.

And some saw the big spiders running along the city walls, knew this was going to burn other city gates, plus the flight was too exciting, and directly collapsed limply on the ground. On the frontal battlefield, the musket Goblins made a round of wild killing, and the corpses of human soldiers dragged all the way from the engagement point to the bottom of the city walls. In the end, nearly 2, 000 people were forced to have their backs against the city walls.

The city walls that used to bring them a sense of security in the past had now become a fatal cage instead. The humans on the city walls tried to shoot arrows, but the musket Goblins didn't get close either, standing 100 meters away putting bullets into the muskets, and then shooting shot by shot. Every time the gunshot rang, a few people by the city wall fell down, the corpses stacking up a layer, and Poloia's city walls were dyed into blood color. Li Qinwu saw it was about enough, and ordered to stop the attack.

These people's courage had been completely broken, unable to cause a threat to him anymore; killing them was just wasting gunpowder and projectiles, and Li Qinwu's goal was the resources in the city. He called Knight Leo over, pointing at the soldiers paralyzed with fear under the city walls.

"Go, tell them to take off all the things they are wearing on their bodies, and they can leave once they take them off completely clean!"