Chapter 19: Braised or Poached?

Beneath the walls of Qingyang, the sounds of slaughter shook the very heavens.

Fan Tong, clad in brand-new black armor, stood at the front of the vanguard battalion, feeling like a giant, confused roe deer being roasted over an open fire. The gear was thicker and more menacing than his previous set, but it was also stiflingly hot.

Behind him, twenty elite guards, similarly equipped in new armor, stood like twenty silent gods of slaughter. They looked entirely out of place among the surrounding veteran soldiers of the vanguard, whose faces were numb and whose bodies were caked in filth and dried blood.

The veterans watched this newly appointed, portly commander with eyes full of suspicion and disdain.

A cook, leading them—men who licked blood off the edges of their blades? On what grounds? Because his face was large?

Fan Tong knew exactly what they were thinking. With these old scoundrels, if you didn't offer them something tangible, forget about commanding them; they would be lucky if they didn't stab you in the back just for the sake of it.

"Boss, the way these guys are looking at us... it doesn't feel right," Bao Nianfeng grumbled, his voice muffled as he hoisted his massive axe and leaned toward Fan Tong.

Fan Tong ignored the glares. He looked up at the towering walls of Qingyang, where the dense ranks of defenders bristled like the quills of a hedgehog.

On the ramparts, a man dressed in the armor of a Yuan general was pointing in their direction, his mouth opening and closing in what appeared to be some sort of cordial and friendly greeting.

Fan Tong licked his lips and turned to Bao Nianfeng, his tone carrying the earnest intensity of someone studying a recipe. "Tell me, this Zhang Liangchen... would he be better braised, or perhaps served cold-cut to preserve his original flavor?"

Bao Nianfeng paused, smacked his lips, and replied with great seriousness, "Boss, looking at his build, he’s too stringy. Not good eating. Better to chop him up and feed him to the dogs."

Their conversation, though not loud, carried clearly to the ears of the nearby veterans.

The veterans exchanged glances, their disdain deepening.

Lunatics. Two absolute lunatics. Joking about how to prepare the enemy commander for dinner wasn't just bold; it was brain-damaged.

Just then, Fan Tong suddenly turned and roared at his guards, "Show them what we've got!"

Bao Nianfeng and the others responded with a thunderous shout.

Instead of drawing weapons, they turned and sprinted toward the supply wagons, pulling out several heavy sacks to the astonished stares of the entire vanguard.

*Clatter!*

The sacks were untied, but they contained neither arrows nor spare weapons. They were filled with neatly stacked, glistening strips of dried meat!

The scent of meat instantly permeated the murderous atmosphere of the battlefield.

The veterans, who had been gnawing on hard, black buns for days, felt their Adam’s apples bob uncontrollably. Their eyes were fixed, unblinking.

Fan Tong walked over to the piles of meat, grabbed a handful, and shouted to all the soldiers of the vanguard, his voice deep and resonant.

"Brothers!"

"I know you look down on me because I'm a cook!"

"That’s fine! Today, this 'victory feast' is on me!"

He slammed the meat he was holding onto the ground, pointed at the towering walls of Qingyang, and raised his voice until it sounded like a thunderclap.

"Once the city falls, I will personally serve you Zhang Liangchen's head to go with your wine!"

"Now, everyone, eat until you're full!"

The field fell into a deathly silence.

Everyone was bewildered by Fan Tong’s antics.

Before a battle, shouldn't commanders shout slogans and promise gold and beauties? What kind of tactic was this—handing out meat? Was he trying to win them over with food instead of cold cash?

A veteran hesitated, but unable to resist the hunger gnawing at his gut, he cautiously stepped forward, picked up a piece of meat, and shoved it into his mouth.

The meat was tough, but the more he chewed, the more flavorful it became. A pure, meaty taste exploded in his mouth, and a warm current slid down his esophagus into his stomach.

The long-forgotten sensation of fullness brought tears to the veteran's eyes.

With someone taking the lead, the others could no longer restrain themselves. They swarmed forward, frantically grabbing at the meat.

For a time, the only sound on the vanguard’s position was the frantic chewing of starving men.

Fan Tong watched this scene without a word, then signaled once more.

Bao Nianfeng and his men acted again, lifting twenty massive, dark tower shields from the wagons.

These shields were twice as thick as standard ones, and the front was reinforced with three sharp, cold-glinting steel spikes. They didn't look like defensive gear at all, but rather like vicious instruments of siege.

The cooks held the shields in one hand and their heavy weapons in the other, their tunics stuffed full of dried meat.

Armed to the teeth and still chewing, their appearance left the surrounding veterans dumbfounded.

Just then, a messenger galloped up, shouting the final order from Xu Da.

"The Commander-in-Chief orders: breach the city within the hour!"

*Woo—woo—!*

The desolate sound of the war horn blew.

"Attack!"

The commander of the vanguard roared the order.

Thousands of soldiers surged forward like a black tide, carrying scaling ladders and pushing siege towers toward the walls of Qingyang.

"Fire!"

The Yuan commander on the wall gave the order.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!*

Arrows rained down like locusts, blotting out the sky.

The soldiers at the front fell in swathes, like wheat being mown down.

Cries of agony and the clashing of weapons merged into a symphony of death.

The vanguard soldiers were fearless, but faced with that seemingly insurmountable wall of death, their momentum stalled, and their morale visibly plummeted.

Fan Tong watched it all, his eyes slowly clouded with blood.

He abruptly raised his massive bone-cleaving knife and, without a moment’s hesitation, slashed it hard across his own thick left arm!

*Rip!*

The deep wound, showing bone, instantly stained his arm armor red with blood.

He held his blood-soaked blade high and let out a roar that shook the heavens at all the soldiers who were hesitating and afraid.

"If you're afraid to die, get the hell back!"

"If you want to eat meat, follow me and charge!"

"Aura of Fearlessness, activate!"

A blood-red aura rippled out from him, expanding like a shockwave!

Wherever the aura passed, every Ming soldier who caught sight of his blood-drenched figure felt their eyes turn scarlet, their fear completely replaced by a primal, fanatical frenzy!

"Charge!"

"Kill them all!"

Thousands let out a single, unified roar, acting like enraged beasts, and followed that massive figure into another assault!

Fan Tong and his twenty guards, hidden behind their twenty special tower shields, formed a sharp arrowhead. They pushed through the rain of arrows and slammed into the base of the wall.

Scaling ladders were raised. Fan Tong was the first to climb, his left hand gripping the ladder, his right hand wielding the bone-cleaving knife, a piece of meat still clenched in his teeth. He climbed with an agility that defied his massive frame.

*Splat!* A Yuan soldier poured boiling gold-juice down from above.

Bao Nianfeng, right above Fan Tong, reacted instantly, thrusting his large shield upward. The scalding liquid was blocked, sizzling against the metal.

"You're courting death!" Bao Nianfeng roared, pulling a hand-axe from his waist and throwing it blindly upward!

The axe cut through the air, a cold glint of light, and precisely split the Yuan soldier’s skull.

Fan Tong finally reached the top of the wall! Ignoring the terrified Yuan soldiers around him, he swallowed the meat in his mouth, let out a satisfied belch, and swung his bone-cleaving knife in a wide arc.

The twenty of them were like twenty human-shaped beasts, ascending the ramparts via ropes with incredible speed!

On the wall, blood and gore flew instantly.

These twenty men were like twenty mobile fortresses; every swing of their heavy weapons brought a storm of blood.

The Yuan soldiers' scimitars could only strike sparks against their black armor.

But their axes and maces, even a glancing blow, resulted in shattered bones and broken tendons.

Even more terrifying to the Yuan defenders was the fact that these monsters were eating as they killed, pulling pieces of meat from their tunics and chewing them frantically!

One of the cooks had his shoulder pierced by a spear; he didn't even frown, instead hacking the attacker in half with a backhanded swing of his axe, then pulling a chunk of meat from his chest to chew on.

The gruesome wound seemed to move and knit itself shut at an imperceptible speed!

This bizarre sight of fighting and eating, mixing meat with human fragments, completely shattered the Yuan soldiers' will to fight.

They weren't facing men! They were monsters! They were demons crawled out of hell!

"Hold the line! Hold the line for me!" Zhang Liangchen, the defender of Qingyang, slashed at a retreating soldier, his voice hoarse with desperation.

However, Fan Tong’s squad had already torn a bloody gap right in front of him.

More and more Ming soldiers poured onto the wall through this breach.

Qingyang had fallen.

Zhang Liangchen looked at the fat man walking toward him like a demonic god, covered in blood and carrying a massive bone-cleaver, and finally, despair flickered in his eyes.

He turned to run.

But Fan Tong kicked aside a pile of rubble, his massive body lunging forward with a speed that defied his bulk. His bone-cleaver traced a cold arc.

*Thwack—*

A head flew into the sky.

Fan Tong caught it, held it in his hand, scanned the surroundings, and roared, "Zhang Liangchen is dead! Surrender and live!"

The brutal siege was over.

The sunset dyed the city of Qingyang in shades of blood.

Fan Tong sat on a mountain of corpses, looking at his twenty-man squad. Twenty-one had come; now, less than half could stand.

Everyone was severely wounded, their armor riddled with blade marks and arrow holes.

Bao Nianfeng’s left arm had been severed; he leaned against a brother, gasping for air.

Two others lay there, never to stand again.

Fan Tong walked to their side and knelt, wanting to close their wide-open eyes, but found his hands shaking violently.

It was his first time feeling the cruelty of war so vividly.

It was his first time tasting the sorrow of losing a brother.

It was a pain that cut deeper than any wound.

He stood up, looking at the scarred city and the Great Ming banner flapping in the distance, feeling a hollow emptiness inside.

"My boy, don't be sad. 'The success of one general is built on the bones of ten thousand.' War is just like this. Let me give you a reward to cheer you up."

[Ding! Detected that the host has completed the epic campaign "Assault on Qingyang," annihilated the main force of the Yuan army, and made an unparalleled contribution to the pacification of Shaanxi and Gansu for the Great Ming!]

[Congratulations to the host for obtaining: Gaze of the Ogre Lord (Passive Aura)! The morale, combat power, and recovery rate of the entire army are permanently and slightly increased!]

[Congratulations to the host's cooks: due to the consumption of vast amounts of flesh and blood essence, they have evolved—Berserk Ogres! Strength and constitution significantly increased; new talent unlocked: Bloodthirsty Frenzy!]

The series of system prompts could not improve Fan Tong’s mood in the slightest.

He only looked down at the head in his hand, its eyes still staring in death.

Just then, Xu Da arrived on the ramparts with a group of officers.

He looked at Fan Tong, at the two cold corpses, and then at the surrounding cooks, who were severely wounded but still possessed ferocious glares. Even his habitually calm face showed a look of being moved.

He walked over to Fan Tong and patted him heavily on the shoulder.

"Good lad, you've rendered another great service for us."

Fan Tong didn't speak; he simply handed over the head he was holding.

"Commander, the side dish for your wine has arrived." His voice was hoarse and strained.