After recruiting 5,000 recruits, Li Su immediately opened the arsenal and distributed the only 2,000 knives, guns, and blades in the arsenal to the recruits.

At the same time as Li Su recruited new troops. With the disdainful efforts of Luan Lu and the labor propaganda team, the streets and alleys of Linzicheng were filled with large-character slogans overnight, and blackboard newspapers were erected at every major intersection.

"Defend your hometown, don't give up an inch of land." "Unite as one to defeat the Yuan thief." "Our Lady and Linzi are together, and the Yuan thief will be defeated." "It is the responsibility of the husband to defend Linzi." "To defend the homeland, there is money to donate, and there are things to donate."

There are always no duplicates. There were also clergy who gave passionate speeches under the board newspapers, denouncing Yuan Shao's anti-imperial and anti-holy religious behavior, and calling on the people of the city to help each other in the same boat, go to the national disaster together, and beat Yuan thief back to his hometown.

For a time, the people of Linzi City were excited, and both men and women, young and old, in the city invited Yingying to participate in the war, not to mention offering money and materials.

The blacksmiths in the city also sent the farm tools, knives and axes made in the shops into the church; The butcher even brought all the people who ate - the long knife for slaughtering pigs, the hairy knife for shaving, and the hand knife for the livestock to be tortured (cutting small chickens).

These blades Luan Lu all laughed at, and at present, they are the most scarce in Linzi. As for gold and silver, saint? There are more than 3 billion yuan in the treasury of the cathedral of Jixia. That's the equivalent of more than 20 years of taxes in the four states of the diocese.

Of course, this money is the savings of the people of Qingzhou for more than ten years or even a lifetime, and it must not be snatched away by Yuan Shao's army. Otherwise, for Qingzhou and the Holy Sect, it would be a huge disaster comparable to the collapse of the sky.

Obviously, the people also realized that if Yuan's army entered Linzi, it would mean that they would have nothing. In order to keep the wealth of life, you must keep Linzi. As a result, the fighting spirit of the people of Linzi became even more high, and they all gritted their teeth at the invaders from afar.

Luan Lu gathered together the civilian knives donated by blacksmiths and butchers, and asked skilled craftsmen to process them.

Due to the limited time, the craftsmen did not have time to further process, so they had to take bamboo poles, tie the collected short knives firmly to the top of the bamboo poles, and make them into simple spears and distribute them to recruits who had no blades.

At the same time, as a sharp weapon to defend the city, the number of bows and arrows in Linzi City is obviously insufficient. In order to solve one of the problems, the craftsmen of Linzi City brainstormed and used sharpened wooden sticks to temporarily serve as bows and arrows. Later, the iron pot donated by the people was burned into molten iron, and the tip of the wooden stick was wrapped with an iron coat to strengthen the penetration of the wooden arrow.

In addition, in his capacity as the patriarch of the diocese, Luan Lu also summoned more than 2,000 old and weak people to serve as people's husbands, and hired more than 50 carts to dispatch back and forth in the city, transporting rolling wood, gravel, grain and grass.

Just when the preparations for war in Linzi were being carried out in an intense and orderly manner, the Malay newspaper was reported and the movements of Yuan's army were discovered ten miles away.

An hour later, under the blazing sun, tens of thousands of black shadows poured out from the end of the horizon. Like locusts in transit, everywhere they passed, the emerald green of the land disappeared, completely covered by the orange and yellow uniforms of the Yuan army.

The war drums, symbolizing advance, explode slowly and rhythmically in the wilderness. The footsteps of trampling the earth and the beating of the drum hit the hearts of people.

At this time, Li Su was standing on the head of the city under the cold north wind. In this late autumn season, when the slight chill gradually appeared, he was covered with sweat, boiling hot sweat, and cold sweat.

The surging courage that had been accumulated after praying just now, after seeing the army of Yan Liang that was several miles long and neatly arranged, suddenly poured like a river bursting its embankment.

He couldn't help but ask himself, could he hold Linzi City with the 1,500 guards under his command plus 5,000 recruits?

Luan Lu, who had been engaged in pre-war mobilization for a long time and was ideologically guided, quickly read the timidity in Li Su's heart from Li Su's face and expression at the moment. He comforted Li Su and said, "Linzi will definitely be able to hold it." ”

Li Su complained: "But looking at the appearance, the enemy army has 30,000 or 40,000 soldiers and horses, and we only have 6,500 men, and the vast majority of them are new soldiers. The Sect Leader and Lu Thorn Shi were far away in Yanzhou for a while and couldn't support. We can beat it with outnumbered! ”

"Yes, surely!" Luan Lu gave Li Su an extremely affirmative look, "Our Lady is with us, and the Holy Guardian is invincible. With the blessing of the Virgin, Yan Liang will be defeated. ”

"Our Lady? Hu ...... "He's an old man, can he take care of this?" Li Su didn't dare to say the second half of the sentence. Although he was also baptized, he prayed morning and evening according to the canon. But I have always been skeptical of our Lady.

Luan Lu said again: "Now, Yan Liang's army is pressing, and fear is useless. It is better to be still and pray to Our Lady with a sincere heart. May the great Mother of God give you the strength and wisdom to repel the enemy. ”

"That's all there is to it!" Li Su felt that what Luan Lu said was reasonable. Anyway, Linzi must be defended, and we must not retreat. Since you can't retreat, fear is useless, it's better to calm your mind, stay calm at all times, and see if you can come up with a good plan to break the enemy. Obviously, prayer is a good way to calm down.

"Sons, let us pray with the Patriarch!"

Li Su gave an order, and the soldiers of the city, as well as the people under the city, held their folded hands in front of them at the same time, lowered their heads and closed their eyes.

"My Mother in Heaven. Your pious descendants face an unprecedented challenge, with an army of tens of thousands of wicked men besieging us. We could have abandoned the city, but we didn't. We stay to guard your temple with flesh and blood, the Holy? The Cathedral of Kieki is a testament to our faith with our souls. Great Lord, wise God, thou art with us, and may the merciful Thy give us courage, strength, and wisdom to crush the enemy before us. Let us continue to prostrate in your temple, to serve you, to honor you. Patriarch Luan Lu of the Qingzhou branch of the Church of Our Lady prays to you. In the name of our Lord Our Lady Nuwa...... Yes! Heaven's Gate. ”

"Ahh Heaven's Gate. The 6,500 officers and soldiers of the Church of Our Lady shouted in unison, and the shouts moved the sky.

After praying, Li Su suddenly felt that the strong fear that lingered in his chest disappeared, and turned into fearless courage and endless strength. He glanced sideways at the surrounding officers and soldiers, and like him, the fear on his face was replaced by the excitement before the battle, and his dark eyes were filled with a strong fighting spirit at this time.

He couldn't help but wonder, is there really a Mother in this world, and Our Mother really gave courage and strength to everyone?

How did he know that for religion, prayer is a religious ritual for people to establish a spiritual connection with God and ask the gods for gifts. This religious practice has another name in psychology – psychological suggestion.

According to psychology, the moment a Notre Dame learns to pray, he actually splits a personality in his heart. The Church of Our Lady calls this personality, which is independent of the ontological body, but is hidden deep in the subconscious, the Holy Spirit. Psychology, on the other hand, calls this split personality the third personality, which is an illusionary image in which the image and thinking are different from the ontology.

Just like the Saint Dame cultists, the third personality that they have conjured up in their hearts is exactly the same as the Nuwa God created by Luan Yi in terms of image and thinking.

Believers can communicate with the illusioned goddess of Nuwa, that is, the third personality, to express their negative emotions such as sadness, fear, and depression.

In fact, everyone has courage and strength, but when the catastrophe comes, the positive energy is masked by negative emotions such as fear and nervousness. Now, by venting negative emotions through prayer, courage and strength will naturally come to the fore, and they will come very violently.

Therefore, when Yan Liang led the army to Linzi City, there were not many church guards on the city wall, only more than 6,000 people, and the armor was also uneven, some were holding brand-new swords and wearing bright armor; Some carried rusty spears and leather armor; Others had no armor at all, holding a wooden stick with a knife tied to one end of the stick...... But without exception, the eyes were filled with a thick battle.

He didn't understand why such a weak brigade was not only afraid when facing his 35,000 bear army, but instead showed an appearance that he couldn't wait to fight.

After thinking about it to no avail, he simply threw the question out of his mind and attributed everything to the arrogance of the church guards.

At this time, the military advisor Xin Ping suggested that Yan Liang said: "I am outnumbered and attacking from all sides, fearing that the other party will fight to the death with our army in order to survive." If you don't encircle three and lack one, leave a way for the soldiers and civilians in the city to jump. In this way, in the face of the power of our army, the people in the city will retreat. Morale withers when retreat grows, and our army will be able to take the city without much casualties. ”

Xin Ping's suggestion is not unreasonable, but Yan Liang still has his own ideas. Why did he come to Linzi this time? The siege was small, mainly to loot the treasury of the church in Linzi City. What if there is a shortage of one of the three and the money in the treasury is secretly transferred by the church?

Absolutely not, no one is missing.

Therefore, Yan Liang did not hesitate to reject Xin Ping's suggestion, and immediately ordered the city to be besieged on all sides and immediately attacked the city.

The rumbling drums rang out all over the ground, only this time it was much louder than the previous one, and the tempo was a little faster. This is a sonata that symbolizes the attack.

Li Su, who was standing in front of the gate of the city tower, drew his sword and shouted: "Sons, the time has come to kill thieves and make meritorious contributions." Our Lady is with us. ”

"Our Lady bless."

"Crossbowmen ready!" As the lieutenant gave the order, a row of crossbowmen came out of the line and raised the longbow in his hand.

There are veterans patrolling back and forth in the front row, helping the recruits adjust their firing angles. For veterans, they don't expect the recruits who have just started martial arts to shoot arrows accurately, as long as they can cooperate with the veterans to form an arrow array that covers a certain range.

"Rangefinder arrows." At the sound of an order, a good shooter took the lead in throwing the range-measuring arrow that tested the distance and wind direction out of the wall.

After determining the flight distance of the arrows under the influence of today's wind direction and speed, the "Wangzi" in charge of ranging held a telescope and lay down in front of the female wall to carefully observe the movements of Yuan Bing, "Fifty paces away...... Thirty...... 10. Release the arrows. ”

"Shoot the arrows!" The standard-bearer waved the command flag, and more than 3,000 arrows flew into the sky from the four walls of the city, forming a dense rain of arrows and falling into the Yuan army's array.