xymnovel Chapter 38 Showcases Culinary Skills
Chapter 38 Showcases Culinary Skills
"Alright, alright, I'm in a good mood today and don't want to kill anyone."
Zhang Fei turned and waved to the soldiers behind him: "Men! Show your weapons!"
The Qingzhou cavalrymen dismounted and unloaded large cooking pots from their horses, lining them up in a row along the official road—there were over a hundred of them.
Immediately afterwards, they started to gather firewood and start a fire, and poured water into the pot.
Xiahou Yuan and Cao Cao's soldiers were completely bewildered. What was this dark-faced man up to? Was he setting up camp and cooking a meal right in front of both armies? What kind of military strategy was this?
They found out very quickly.
The Qingzhou soldiers carried off the large carts at the back, unloading pieces of prepared fatty pork and mutton, as well as bags of fine white rice.
In front of Cao Cao's army, they began to cut meat, wash rice, and cook it.
Before long, steam began to bubble up from hundreds of large pots.
A rich, almost suffocating aroma of meat and rice wafted unhindered into Cao Cao's camp on the cold wind.
"Gurgle..."
Among Cao Cao's soldiers, someone's stomach growled first. Then, as if a chain reaction had occurred, a chorus of rumbling stomachs filled the air.
They hadn't had a proper meal in a long time. To save food, Cao Cao kept reducing the army's rations, giving them only two meals of thin porridge a day, and meat was out of the question.
At this moment, smelling the enticing aroma and seeing the pots of boiling meat, the eyes of Cao's soldiers widened and their Adam's apples bobbed wildly.
The weapons in their hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
Xiahou Yuan also smelled the aroma, and he felt as if a hand was scratching at his stomach. He swallowed hard and shouted:
"Pay attention, all of you! This is an enemy trick! Don't look! Don't smell!"
However, how could military orders suppress such a physiological instinct?
Zhang Fei held a freshly cooked leg of lamb in his hand, eating with gusto. As he ate, he shouted loudly at Cao Cao's soldiers:
"Brothers over there! I know you're hungry! That Cao Cao is stingy; he won't let you eat your fill! My lord is benevolent and can't bear to see you all go hungry!"
"This meat and rice today is for everyone! As long as you lay down your weapons and come over, we're all brothers! It's all you can eat!"
These words were like the last straw that broke the camel's back.
One of Cao Cao's soldiers could no longer contain himself, threw down his spear, and charged madly into the Qingzhou army's camp.
"I quit! I want to eat meat!"
Once there's a first, there's a second, a third...
"I want some too!"
"I'm starving!"
In the blink of an eye, more than half of the five thousand elite cavalrymen behind Xiahou Yuan threw down their weapons and rushed toward the hundred large cauldrons.
The whole scene instantly descended into chaos.
"Damn it! Get back here! I'll kill anyone who tries to run away!"
Xiahou Yuan trembled with rage. He drew his sword and slashed down two fleeing soldiers. He then pointed his sword at the group and roared.
But this was of no use.
Faced with hunger, who cares about anything else? All they can think about is getting the meat from the pot across the street into their mouths.
Even his personal guards looked at him with a hint of resentment and longing.
"General...the brothers are so hungry..." the captain of the personal guard said in a low voice.
Xiahou Yuan looked at the absurd scene before him, and saw his once proud cavalry completely collapse over a few bites of meat. He felt his heart bleeding.
"Retreat! Retreat now!"
That's so pathetic!
Xiahou Yuan knew that the situation was hopeless, and if he stayed any longer, he would probably perish here.
Left with no other choice, Xiahou Yuan led his remaining thousand-odd defeated soldiers and fled in a sorry state toward Yanzhou.
Zhang Fei watched Xiahou Yuan flee, but instead of giving chase, he burst into laughter.
"That's great! That's fucking great! Five thousand elite cavalry were driven back without losing a single soldier! The strategist's 'fragrant meat scheme' is truly brilliant!"
He turned to the surrendered soldiers of Cao Cao who were wolfing down their food and shouted:
"Eat slowly! Don't choke! Once you're full, come back to Qingzhou with me, Old Zhang! We'll have meat every day from now on!"
"Thank you, General! Thank you, Magistrate Li!" the surrendered soldiers mumbled as they ate.
In this battle, the Qingzhou army won a great victory without firing a single arrow, relying solely on a hundred large cauldrons and several carts of meat. They not only successfully rescued tens of thousands of refugees but also incorporated more than three thousand of Cao Cao's elite cavalry into their ranks.
When the news reached Juancheng, Cao Cao was so enraged that he vomited blood and fainted on the spot. Upon waking, he looked up to the sky and sighed deeply:
"Since Cao Cao was born, why was Zhao also born! This Li Zhao is truly my mortal enemy!"
Following this battle, Qingzhou's population surged once again.
[Li Zhao, the Prefect of Pingyuan]
[Registered population within the jurisdiction: 856,000]
Daily rice production: 856,000 liters (approximately 8560 shi)
Current grain reserves: 5,800,000 shi (a unit of dry measure).
A population of 850,000! More than 2 million shi of grain reserves!
Looking at the heart-pounding numbers on the system panel, Li Zhao was filled with ambition and high aspirations.
He knew that he had finally gained a foothold in this chaotic world.
Next, we will use this huge population and resources to build an invincible army to fight for hegemony over the world!
Qingzhou's demographic dividend is being transformed into war potential at an astonishing rate.
Outside Linzi City, in a secluded valley.
The area is heavily guarded, with a sentry every three steps and a patrol every five steps.
The outer perimeter is marked with a sign that reads "Royal Hunting Ground, Unauthorized Entry Will Be Punished." In reality, this is a secret armory that Li Zhao has painstakingly built.
Thousands of skilled craftsmen, hired at high salaries from all over the country, were gathered here to work day and night.
In the valley, the furnace fire glowed red, and the sounds of hammering and sawing filled the air, along with the mixed smells of coke, rust, and sawdust.
In a spacious workshop, Li Zhao stood with his hands behind his back in front of a huge workbench. On the workbench were several oddly shaped crossbows, some already assembled and others still just parts.
An old craftsman with gray hair and a wrinkled face was sweating profusely as he fiddled with one of the crossbows.
His name was Ma Jun, a rare mechanical genius of his time, who was invited by Xu Shu from Fufeng County at great expense.
"My lord, the design of this repeating crossbow is truly ingenious," Ma Jun said, wiping the sweat from his brow and pointing to the wooden box above the crossbow mechanism.
"This wooden box can hold ten short arrows. Utilizing the lever principle, simply pulling the lever back and forth automatically strings the bow, lowers the arrow, and fires it. Such a design is unheard of in this old age; it's truly ingenious!"
Ma Jun looked at Li Zhao with eyes full of admiration.
He had studied mechanics his whole life and thought he had reached the pinnacle of his field, but after seeing the blueprints given to him by Li Zhao, he realized that he had been a frog in a well all along.
"But..." Ma Jun changed the subject, a troubled look on his face.
"Just what? Master Ma, please speak freely."
Li Zhao said gently.
"But the mechanism of this repeating crossbow is too precise, requiring extremely high standards for materials and craftsmanship," Ma Jun said, pointing to a core gear component.
"This ratchet, even a slight deviation, will cause it to jam. Moreover, in order to ensure the speed of continuous firing, the tension of the bowstring cannot be too high, which results in insufficient range and penetration."
The currently produced prototype has an effective range of only fifty paces, barely enough to penetrate a single layer of leather armor.