Chapter 148 – Turnaround
Translator: TeamTWO
Editor: Jun
When the suggestion from the Military Affairs Department was declined, the meeting entered a dilemma.
Ouyang Shuo wanted to break the stalemate and said, "Since the military is limited, we can only work with other avenues. No matter what, we are defending the city and have the home advantage. What's most important now is to increase the preparation of city defense resources like alchemical fire oil, rolling wood, and giant stones."
Ouyang Shuo turned and looked at Tian Wenjing and said, "The Material Reserves Department needs to contact the quarry and the logging camp to ask them to put down all the work at hand and focus on batches of rolling wood and giant stones, moving them above the city walls."
Tian Wenjing nodded in acknowledgment. In truth, when Shanhai Town's city wall was completed, the Material Reserves Department had already built a warehouse beside the wall to store rolling wood and giant stones.
When General Shi heard Ouyang Shuo mention the alchemical fire oil, he asked, "Sire, do we have to set up the alchemical fire oil formation?"
3 months ago during the siege of beasts, they used the alchemical fire oil formation which hammered in their victory. Hence, it left a lasting impression on General Shi.
Ouyang Shuo shook his head. "The alchemical fire oil formation is too old school. It can be used on dumb beasts, but on raiders, we won't even have a chance to use it. The moment we use it, they will just retreat until the alchemical fire oil has been completely used before restarting the attack. They aren't as stupid as the beasts were.”
"Then what is sire's meaning?" General Shi asked in confusion.
Ouyang Shuo didn't want to keep them guessing and smiled. "If we want to use alchemical fire oil, apart from using the alchemical fire oil formation, there are more flexible methods. Among those is the alchemical fire oil cabinet."
"Alchemical fire oil cabinet?"
"That's right." Ouyang Shuo explained to everyone the theory and function of the alchemical fire oil cabinet.
The alchemical fire oil cabinet was one of the earliest flamethrower instruments in Chinese history. It used alchemical fire oil as fuel, and copper as the cabinet. It had 4 legs and 4 brass tubes. The tubes were connected to a pump that was perpendicular to them. All 4 tubes were connected to the oil cabinet where 1500 grams of oil would be injected. The front part of the pump would be a huolo which had gunpowder.
When firing, the huolo, which had fire embers, would ignite the gunpowder. Pulling and pushing the pump would compress the air in the cabinet and push out the oil through the huolo, igniting it into flames and burning everything in front of it.
Apart from that, there was another small sized variant flamethrower that could be used to defend cities and during water warfare, using a copper gourd to replace the oil cabinet for increased portability.
Fan Zhongyan, who was born during the Song Dynasty, had a deep understanding of the alchemical fire oil cabinet, saying worryingly, "Sire's idea is good, but we might not have enough time and enough gunpowder. This might not work."
Ouyang Shuo nodded and said, You’re right. I don't wish to make many of them. After this meeting I'll buy an alchemical fire oil cabinet making manual from the market, and make the weapon workshop rush it. They should be able to make two of them before the raiders arrive. As for the problem with gunpowder, I think Zhu Daozhang or Magnus will have an idea on how to solve it. We only need a little gunpowder to ignite it, and they should have some stored up."
"Sire has thought this through. I respect sire."
Solving the issue with the city protection resources, Ouyang Shuo started to discuss the problem with logistical support.
In this raider city attack, they were aiming for the main town. Their attacks would come from the west and north. Since the north had the city protecting river, Ouyang Shuo predicted for most attacks to come from the west. To the east of Shanhai Town were many houses, so they had to shift these residents temporarily into the city to ensure their safety.
Ouyang Shuo placed the Administration Department in charge of this big project.
Apart from migration, having a civil team and a medical team was also very important. Comparing the siege of beasts to this raiders city attack was like comparing a small devil to a big devil. The civil and medical teams had to be set up early and trained. They also had to go up onto the city walls to practice, so this training couldn't be carelessly done.
This large project was handed to the Material Reserves Department.
After everything was arranged, Ouyang Shuo announced the end of the meeting. As for the specific strategies, they weren't suitable for discussion in that meeting, and they needed to hold a military meeting instead.
After the meeting, Ouyang Shuo called Yingyu into his office, and told him to contact Beihai Town to ask them to sell the sea salt from the first half of the 5th month. He wanted them to use the sum of money to change class for the soldiers.
After opening the alliance channel, the 4000 gold that he had gotten from the Langshan Mines now only had 140 gold left.
Luckily after the setting up of the Auditing Division, the salt from the Northern Saltworks didn't need shipping to the main camp to sell, and could sell under the supervision of the Auditing Division from Beihai Town's market. By tomorrow afternoon, the main camp would be able to get the gold from the sale.
After sending Yingyu away, Ouyang Shuo made a trip to the Advanced Market, and spent 20 gold to buy an alchemical fire oil cabinet making manual.
He spent 20 gold to buy a batch of alchemical fire oil.
It was already 6 PM when he returned to the Lord's Manor. He passed the alchemical fire oil cabinet making manual to the clerk, asked him to get it to the weapon workshop, and told him to tell Xu Kun to study it and try to start production tomorrow.
After giving his orders, Ouyang Shuo went to the backyard and went offline to rest.
……
The next day when he went online, Ouyang Shuo was nervous and couldn't calm himself down.
This was because Bengalore Town from the India region was undergoing the test today. All players in the world were quietly paying attention to the system notifications.
At that time, the one who was most nervous wasn't Ouyang Shuo, but Jack Dawson from the American region. His Free Town was going to take the test the next day, and if Bengalore Town succeeded, then it would be a huge miss for him.
Although Ouyang Shuo was really very anxious, he suppressed it and sat in the Lord's Manor with a calm expression.
The fighting machine of Shanhai Town had been switched on and was starting to work as planned.
Numerous rolling wood and giant stones were shipped from the quarries and the logging camps into the city. With the help of the civil team, they were carried onto the city walls.
The two infantry units to the west of the city had already left their camps and entered into the city. Under the leadership of the city defense unit, they got familiar with the various functions and facilities of the wall. As for the cavalry unit and the Qiushui Town city protection unit, they would enter tomorrow to minimize the risk to the affiliate territories.
The 5 Mengchong warships from the Beihai naval fleet first unit had already came into the valley, and were temporarily docked at the Shanhai Town Harbor. The Combat Logistics Division wanted to use this time to move the arrows onto the ships.
At the same time, arrows were also moved onto the city walls.
The triple-bow acruballistas had already been fixed onto the two sides of the west gate towers. The 4 ordinary acruballistas were fixed on the north gate towers. As for the soldiers of the god machine unit, under the leadership of Wang Yuanfeng, they were starting to adjust the configurations of every crossbow.
Shanhai Town had already published a warning that everyone who entered would be checked to prevent raiders from infiltrating early. Tomorrow, when all the residents had migrated into the city, there would be a travel ban where people could only enter the city and no one could leave.
The Security Division, under the leadership of secretary Li Tie, had increased the number of patrols and started to check everything.
Until 5 PM, there were no system notifications. Ouyang Shuo couldn't resist all this nervousness, and after instructing his men, he went offline early.
After going offline, Ouyang Shuo didn't leave the room and instead switched on the handbrain, logging onto the forums.
Expectedly, the India sub-forums were very boisterous with various rumors and news spreading around.
"Bangalore Town is about to succeed, wave to the first city lord Durava."
"Bengalore Town fails the defense, dropping out of the race for first city!"
"Raiders were like water. Did Durava prepare enough!!!"
"The last wave, whether Bengalore Town can succeed depends on this!"
"Raiders are too crafty, they actually use tunnels to break the defensive line!!"
At that moment, Ouyang Shuo was able to relax. He didn't bother about all this news and started practicing the Yellow Emperor internal cultivation technique in his room.
After two days of cultivation, there were already 8 strands of internal chi in his dantian. When he went online, Ouyang Shuo confirmed that one strand of chi represented one point of internal strength.
He could cultivate once a day, rotate 4 cycles, and produce 4 strands of chi. So in normal circumstances he would need 25 days to reach the maximum of 100 for the first layer. Through this, one could see the difficulty of an emperor level cultivation technique. One should know that this was only the first layer.
2 hours later, Ouyang Shuo finally stopped.
At this time, whether Bengalore Town succeeded or not should’ve had definite news.
Ouyang Shuo went into the forums and the top post in the India sub-forum was a giant red title: ‘Bengalore Town fails, Durava's dream for first has broken’.
Ouyang Shuo sighed in relief. Shanhai Town could finally turn around everything. The only thing stopping him was Free Town, which was taking the test tomorrow.
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