Chapter 623: The Situation

Chapter 623: Chapter 623: The Situation

The food in the military camp was either dry biscuits or soup biscuits. Dry biscuits were easy enough to understand, but soup biscuits were a bit abstract—it wasn’t noodles soaked in broth, but bone soup, vegetables, minced meat boiled together with rice, the soupy mixture served to each person in a wooden basin.

Wooden basin, wooden spoon, Shen Hao and Wu Kai each hugged a big basin, sitting on little stools inside the tent, heads down wolfing it all down. Soup biscuits were easier to eat than dry ones because they went down with the broth, so you could eat fast with a few huffs and puffs, and it was pretty filling. And for the cook, it was quicker to make, too.

Neither man said a word. When they’d finished the soup biscuits in their basins, they set them down, wiped their mouths, and smiled in satisfaction.

"Hoo! If only we had wine, that’d be perfect. This really hits the spot, but there’s still something missing." Food Wu Kai used to turn his nose up at now felt like a rare treat—in any case, it was hot. His craving for a drink, though, was gnawing at him.

"Heh, I’ve got wine. You dare to drink it?" Shen Hao pulled out a jar of Wuliangye from his storage bag and showed off in front of Wu Kai.

"Gulp!" Wu Kai swallowed hard, quickly looked away, and waved his hand. "Put it away, put it away! No drinking in the army during wartime—they catch you, it’s fifty strokes, not a joke."

Wu Kai refused, and Shen Hao naturally wasn’t about to tempt someone to break the rules—he wouldn’t drink either. In the military, break the discipline and the commander could chop your head off. Best to keep your head down.

Shen Hao put away the wine and smiled, "Then I’ll save it for the day we return victorious."

"Haha." Wu Kai chuckled and nodded, but in his heart he wasn’t at all sure he’d ever get to drink from that jar.

Shen Hao could read something in Wu Kai’s face. He asked seriously, "Vice General Wu, you look exhausted, and your men seem to have taken heavy losses. Can you tell me about it?"

"Why not? But why are you here at Jianchuan? Aren’t you supposed to be with the central army at Wu Lake?"

"Here, Marshal Zuo appointed me Chief of Miscellaneous Affairs in the camp. I came here with Chen Zifang, Alchemist Chen, to inspect the camps. Originally, I was supposed to go to the Central Military Camp to see General Shen, but before I got there, I ran into the Wolf Riders. After a tough time shaking them off, the Daoxing Chief’s Office sent me here instead."

"You? Chief of Miscellaneous Affairs?"

"Don’t believe it?" Shen Hao pulled off the rough waist token at his hip and handed it to Wu Kai, "Didn’t you see that huge array outside when you got back to camp? The one burning corpses—I had someone set it up."

Wu Kai was surprised; he’d thought Shen Hao was here as Inspector, but it turned out he was "Chief of Miscellaneous Affairs." This was the first time he’d heard of that position, but just from the name he guessed it must be mostly internal jobs.

"You set up the corpse burning? Heh, that’s actually good. Too many dead, brings rats and mosquitoes, get unlucky and you’ll have plague. Burning keeps things clean. But what about our own men? Burn them too?"

"Burn them. Dug separate pits, then put up a monument when it’s over. At least it fulfills the bond—living together as comrades, dying together and buried in the same grave." Shen Hao sighed, knowing his words were just a gloss, but that was the reality. Whether it was Barbarian corpses or Human Race corpses, there were just too many. Just the ones outside the camp, Shen Hao estimated over five thousand—counting the ones inside, probably more than seven thousand. With numbers like that, just burying them was pointless.

"Good idea. If I die, burn me with my brothers in the same pit—beats being lonely."

Hearing that, Shen Hao instinctively turned to look Wu Kai over, curious: "Since the last time we met, you’ve changed a lot."

The impression Wu Kai gave Shen Hao now was the absence of that sly glint in his eyes; he’d become like a stone, almost no emotion showing. Even talking about "burying himself," he stayed calm.

"If you were killing the enemy every day, watching brothers fall all around you, patrolling point after point, never daring to let go of your blade even when eating or sleeping—you’d change, too. No fight left for anything else, just thinking about how to kill more enemies and save a few more brothers."

Truth is, Wu Kai didn’t know how much longer he’d live. Maybe next time he went out, he wouldn’t come back.

But there wasn’t a trace of fear or dread in Wu Kai’s heart, just as he’d told Shen Hao—there wasn’t any room for other thoughts. All he cared about was survival and killing the enemy. Death? Thousands upon thousands dying outside—never saw anyone dodge it just because they didn’t want to die.

"Barbarian army bearing down?"

Wu Kai shook his head. "Not yet. But a lot of troops are massed right across from Jianchuan, all kinds. Our mixed army sent scouts to probe ahead, they said nearly eighty thousand Barbarians were gathered in front of Jianchuan. That’s no small number, but it’s not enough to break through Jianchuan’s defenses right now."

The main thing is attrition. In terms of equipment, the Barbarians lag far behind us. They barely have crossbows, all close combat. Their leather armor is thin, and there’s no iron protection on the vital spots. Their battle array skills are few. If it weren’t for their greater strength and size compared to us Humans, we’d be able to trade one for three or more.

Let alone supply lines. We’re struggling too, but the Barbarians have it worse. It’s just a matter of who can last longer now.

Shen Hao’s smile faded, hearing the matter-of-fact bleakness in Wu Kai’s words, and sensing how the battle had become a struggle over "who can afford to die."

"When will you rotate out for rest?"

"Soon. We came in twenty thousand strong. After these days of fighting, judging by my men’s losses, we can hold out five more days at most, then we’ll have to pull back for rest."

Wu Kai didn’t say what the casualty rate was for rotation, because the order "rest only after fifty percent casualties" was something he couldn’t bring himself to say. Every time he thought of it, it stuck in his throat. But the main camp of General Cheng Jinhou in the Upper Military Camp had the same rules—so harsh it didn’t even make Wu Kai angry anymore.

After a moment of silence, Shen Hao asked again, "How long do you think Jianchuan can hold out? Is there any chance we can wear down the Barbarians with the fortifications and kill them off across the river?" He kept his voice low, not hiding anything. Now he really wanted to hear what a veteran like Wu Kai thought about the situation.

Wu Kai took a deep breath, glanced around, looked at Shen Hao for a long moment, then replied, "Looks like you’re concerned with more than just the paperwork, Chief of Miscellaneous Affairs. Can we hold? That’s not for me to say, not even General Cheng. It all depends on support from Wu Lake and whether the Temple Hall can stomach long-term losses."

"If they can?"

"If they can, then the Barbarians might get dragged down by their limits, and in the end, we press the attack and wipe them out for good."

"If support runs short or the losses are too much?"

"Then the army breaks and the line from Jianchuan to Hu Zhu Yuan collapses. Wu Lake falls, and we’re forced to retreat to Zhuo Huo Pass—to hand back the ancestral land to the Barbarians."