As an important transportation hub and information exchange center, Malacca knew about the last large-scale pirate invasion, and also knew that the Great Song Dynasty was organizing an expeditionary force to prepare for retaliation, and the target was likely to be them.

This is not to say that the rumors have leaked out, but that the pre-war preparations required for a large-scale war such as the one now, which would require thousands of people to be mobilized for an expedition across the sea, are simply impossible to keep secret.

Therefore, as long as you collect all kinds of information on the market, you can roughly deduce a series of important information such as the number of expeditionary forces, goals and some equipment.

But even though they knew that the expeditionary force might be aiming at themselves, the Malacca side didn't do much to prepare - not that they didn't want to prepare, but that they didn't have the strength to do so.

During the last large-scale pirate attack, Malacca mobilized seventy percent of the country's regular army and almost all of the navy to join the pirate fleet in an attempt to make a profit.

After all, decades ago, the Great Song Dynasty was still in the midst of war and was extremely weak, so in their eyes, this raid would be an easy trip, and they could simply go home with a large amount of wealth.

Contrary to what they had imagined, the Malacca army was wiped out in this massive attack, and the mess was left to the king of Malacca.

Obviously, the king of Malacca did not want to bear the consequences of the defeat and did not want to pay the price, so at the suggestion of the national teacher, they devised a plan to use the opportunity of negotiations to assassinate and behead the command of the expeditionary force.

According to their ideas, the decapitated expeditionary force would lose its unified command and be defeated by them through a series of guerrilla warfare with the help of the terrain.

With this tantalizing result in mind, they put almost all of their resources into this plan.

As a result, when the plan, which had had placed almost all hopes, failed completely, and the expeditionary force began to land, he could only hastily gather a part of his troops to try to defend the beach.

The troops sent were an elite army of 1,100 armor soldiers and 10 armored war elephants, which were originally the royal guards of Malacca, and basically maintained combat readiness to guard the royal city in peacetime.

According to the king of Malacca, this elite should be able to defend for half a day or more with the help of those simple fortifications, buying him time to mobilize his army.

But what the other side obviously did not expect was that the expeditionary force did not land in small boats in batches as they imagined, but directly used small ballistas and trebuchets to throw iron-hulled bombs and incendiary bombs.

Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible for the ammunition fired by these small war machines mounted on ships to break through those defenses, and if you really send cultivators to attack, it is easy to sneak up on hostile cultivators hiding among the defenders.

But when the iron-clad bombs and burning bombs fell, the seemingly impregnable defenses were blown to pieces or scorched, forcing out the cultivators who were hiding in the guards.

The rest of the matter became logical, and the not high-level and small number of Malacca practitioners were quickly defeated by the cultivators on the side of the expeditionary force, and several of them were killed.

Realizing that the beach could not be defended, the cultivators who were still alive had to retreat to the city with the Praetorian Guards who had survived the previous indiscriminate bombardment. Leave the beach to the expeditionary forces.

After the successful landing, the expeditionary force soon began to set up camp, and with the support of a group of practitioners in the team, a camp that could accommodate everyone appeared not far from the city of Malacca at nightfall.

After a simple dinner, a pre-siege preparation meeting was held at the end of the Chinese army's tent, and as the commander of the artillery and the chief of the military doctor, Liang En naturally also attended the meeting.

"The main reason for inviting everyone here now is to discuss the siege of tomorrow." After everyone arrived, the general soldier Ping'an pointed to a simple sand table and laid out a plan for tomorrow's attack.

"According to the confessions obtained from the previous interrogation of the captives and the investigation, there are 80,000 inhabitants in the city, but there are probably only two troops left to defend the city

There are about a thousand people, and most of them are improvised militiamen."

"At the same time, the entire perimeter of the city is a huge wooden fence, with no rammed earth and no masonry. Only Miyagi has been fortified with earth and stone."

"But we must not take it lightly." The prison guard, who was wearing a Confucian mage's robe, spoke at this time.

"While most of their elite troops have been left on our soil by us, and the city defenses are miserable compared to ours, they have a terrain advantage."

"In particular, many of the powers used by the previous group of assassins were of the nature of plague and curse, and this kind of power can easily be used and developed in a densely populated city like Malacca."

"But—but this is the Malacca capital!"

"Wouldn't it?"

After hearing the supervisor's concern, many of the officers present showed shocked looks.

Although many of them had encircled some evil spirits in the mountains, and even faced nomadic armies in the north, the overseer's speculation still made them shudder.

After all, their previous opponents, whether they were nomads or pirates, or even those spirits in the mountains, all had a certain bottom line.

These guys may only care about themselves after defeat, or they may betray each other just to survive, but they will never kill their own people before the war has even begun.

"I don't want to, either, but judging from previous fights, it's not out of the question." The Confucian mage sighed and said.

"I can feel that the other party's current cultivation is based on killing many innocent people, and once this kind of killing starts, it will be difficult to stop."

The overseer's words cast a shadow over the military meeting, which led to a very conservative battle plan for the second day.

But when faced with an enemy that could spread the plague, it is understandable how conservative the war plan is.

After the meeting, each participant returned to their tent with a heavy heart and directed their personnel to prepare.

Since he was in charge of both medical and artillery work, it was already 1:30 a.m. when Liang En was lying in bed.

Fortunately, as a cultivator, he can completely replace a long sleep with a short period of practice, so after waking up at five o'clock the next morning, Liang En, who had slept for more than three hours, looked radiant.

"Brethren, let us go." After packing up and walking out of the tent and looking at the militiamen who were completely ready, Liang En cheered loudly. "Today may be our first battle, but we will inevitably make the enemy tremble under the artillery."

"Whoever fights today will each be given two acres of watered land in the pioneer land, and if they make a meritorious service, they will be given more land—"

"Wan Sheng, Wan Sheng, Wan Sheng—"

As soon as Liang En's words fell, the militia cheered.

Although the young militia did not quite understand the war and the artillery they wielded, they knew that the time had come to fight for their future land.