Ji Xia's midnight should not have been so cold, but the villagers who were guarding the defense line at the moment were grateful for it.

The cold temperatures made their armor less stuffy, and while many still complained about the makeshift armor, especially the edges and ill-fitting silhouette of the man, they knew it was indeed something that could save their lives after seeing the samurai test it with bows and swords.

The materials used in armor are all used in life. At best, the blacksmith of the hot spring village can hammer a few hoax nails and sharpen a sickle, and it is difficult for a strong man to expect him to make the iron armor of the whole village in two or three days. Because Zhangzhou is not a major iron-producing state, even the amount of iron ingots is insufficient.

So in reality, the armor is all hardened soft armor - beeswax and bone glue are added to a large pot to make a liquid, and then the hides and scraps of cloth are boiled. This is not a Crescent tradition that has always been elaborate, but a Rigalese method recommended by Henry—that is, the "boiled leather armor" of mercenary light armor.

Beeswax and bone glue turn into a liquid state at high temperatures. Due to the relative rarity of cowhide in Crescent Island, in fact, more people wear the multi-layered cotton armor of shabby clothes at home, soak it in liquid, boil it thoroughly, and then scoop it up and dry it, so that it will have a defensive ability similar to that of the high-end large patent leather armor of the samurai.

It takes three months to make a large lacquer armor, and it takes a week for a large lacquer to dry before it can be continued. Direct exposure to the sun in pursuit of speed can cause the paint layer to crack, but this Rigalese crude method can produce more than a dozen pieces of armor in a matter of hours.

The two-centimeter-thick impregnated vests were hard to penetrate, and after cheering up the villagers with practical demonstrations, everyone honestly put on these smelly and crooked but practical armor.

After all, having seen the fangs and claws of the ghoul that Henry carried, no one wanted to be disemboweled.

The sage used his knowledge to prepare for the battle as efficiently as he could, but the attack that came at midnight in this summer still caught the villagers of Hot Springs by surprise.

The teenagers fled, and with the exception of a few in the prime of life, almost all of them were old and weak. The youngest person on the entire line of defense is also 37 years old.

The peasants, accustomed to going to bed early, fell asleep at midnight under the blessing of low temperatures, and their already numb consciousness and the howling wind masked the dense movement of ghouls approaching. So they waited until the first ghoul climbed onto the roof and knocked down the guard, and then they screamed in a panic.

The ronin, who had been scattered on the defensive line as the backbone of the grassroots, roared hoarsely, but how could the peasants, who had no military literacy, understand his orders. Some of them tried to run backwards out of fear, and many more rushed up to save their neighbors who had been knocked down.

As a result, several gaps appeared in the originally well-laid defensive line.

The battle turned into a worst-case scenario in just 10 minutes.

Originally, with the combat strength of these old and weak villagers and the temporary bunkers, as long as they could make good use of the city defense equipment and buy enough time for Henry and the others' special forces to carry out the decapitation tactics, they could still win at a small cost.

But now the defense line has completely collapsed, there are holes everywhere, and the ghouls are literally "in a no-man's land" except for a few that have been pierced by passive bamboo thorns from above.

The twisted monsters easily crossed the low wall, no more than two meters high, and they rushed up like rats and tides, quickly widening the gap in the defensive line that had been created by the villagers running around. In just 10 minutes, the gap widened to the point where it could not be easily suppressed, and at a rate of several heads per second, the ghouls quickly spread across the lines and spread throughout the spa village.

"What about the rogues!" The rogues, who were supposed to be cannon fodder on the perimeter of the line, didn't even let out their screams as an alarm - or they did, only to be ignored by the villagers because they were drowsy.

"Stealing the boat overnight and running away!" said one of the ronins who had fled from the line of defense, apparently underestimating the survival instincts of the low-level hooligans, who had a choice of water despite being caught between the fence and ghouls. Due to the fact that the villagers had caused the teenagers to flee in large numbers and Ryunosuke needed to preserve his strength, the guards on the defensive line were insufficient, and ships on the other side of the water only occasionally patrolled the area.

Obviously, these rogues seized this point and took the opportunity to slip away with a batch of supplies.

Ryunosuke wants to use them as cannon fodder to drain the ghouls' military power and act as an early warning, and these hooligans want to recuperate and eat and drink well all day long. The people in the village below are still shouting at them for eating white-eyed wolves, because in their opinion, if they are given food to these rogues, they should serve as cannon fodder for fighting. But from the perspective of the rogues, it is not that they cannot understand this move.

And the root cause is the lack of manpower caused by the villagers who let the teenagers flee privately, which gives these gangsters an opportunity.

Throughout the ages, wars have always been the most intertwined at the beginning of battles, and the choices and wills of different people have influenced each other so that nothing can be easily achieved by simple layout. But now that the situation is decided, will the incompetent rush to find a scapegoat and start blaming? They must change course and immediately meet it.

"Use the house as a base to meet the attack, cover the front line retreat first, let them save their forces and regroup. The backup plan that Mr. said earlier has been completed?" Ryunosuke said to the sage, who nodded? He randomly turned his head and gave orders to his subordinates: "Blow the trumpet, abandon the wall." ”

"Woo-woo-woo-" The long horn sounded? The ronins who were still fighting on the fence roared to gather the villagers under their command when they heard this, but most of the villagers who had long since dispersed were haunted by several ghouls? They can only turn a blind eye to the helpless hands that are stretched out towards them.

"The archers went up to the roof to take cover, and the cavalry went out. "The well-trained ronin troops, under the orders of the commander, quickly spread out with the help of torches and moonlight, and climbed onto the roof to occupy the commanding heights? But in the dim darkness of the night, they couldn't tell the difference between the ghouls and the humans, and the effectiveness of the bow and arrow was greatly reduced.

"Can these things have night vision?"

"Yes. "The one who answered was our Luoan girl? Although she wasn't entirely sure that the ghouls were the same as the originals, it was clear from their unobstructed performance that they were capable of seeing in the dark.

With humanity's vision greatly limited after dark and its combat effectiveness severely reduced, the arrival of these ghouls at midnight may prove that their commander, Saburo, is still capable of planning operations - but that may not only be a bad thing.

"Infantry, passive defense. ”

"Archers, get on the rockets. Ryunosuke instructed in a flat tone: "Set the houses on the left and right sides on fire." ”

"My lord, that's my family—"

"It's time to care about this! When people are gone, there is nothing. "The peasants screamed? This did not affect the previous prefectural ordinance in the slightest. Is a thatched roof flammable on a dry summer day? Rockets easily ignited them? The massive torch lit up half of the sky, allowing the archers to distinguish between monsters and humans from their silhouettes.

"Cavalry out!!" Precious cavalry units also had to be thrown in at this moment? In order to save the forces of the front line, they launched a wave of counter-charges against the pursuing ghouls.

The war horses of Crescent Continent are far less tall and sturdy than Rigal? Coupled with the lack of vests, several horses were scratched and fleshed out in this kind of hard encounter. The bloodied horses rapidly declined in strength, and although they immediately returned to the cover of the infantry, the cavalry weakened with each sortie.

"Count the number of people. ”

"Get out of the way of the stabbing cart!"

"Keep shooting, don't stop!" the lieutenants commanded, and the wheelbarrows and ox carts filled with sharpened bamboo were pushed out and blocked in the middle of the road. However, after crossing the wall of the narrow junction and spreading into the whole village, the routes that ghouls could travel greatly increased, and the passages between the scattered houses led in all directions, which could not be held by this little manpower.

The hot spring village was not a military town, so the houses were mostly built haphazardly, and due to the large rice fields, only the part near the swamp actually had a narrow main entrance due to the presence of water. This is where the group built the wall, and at this moment, the wall defense line is breached, and the ghouls are gradually scattered into this huge area, which will only become more and more disadvantageous to humans.

"Retreat to the hotel. "The number of people has been counted, and no more than a third of the people on the line have been successfully withdrawn.

The situation is even more serious at the moment when the already overstretched forces are overstretched, but fortunately they have a second option, and the hotel of the manager of Masayuki is sturdy and large enough to be used as a fortress for retreat.

"Bow troops!" ordered the adjutant in a loud voice, and the archers on the roof quickly returned to the ranks with almost no loss of strength after half their arrows had been consumed.

"All retreat!" "All retreat!" Retreating from the center of the village and town in all directions, the scattered ghouls were quickly slaughtered along the way, but some villagers who could not keep up with the forced march were thrown down and eaten in the dark. They will definitely lose in the open field, but they still have a chance to win the battle if they occupy the main points.

"Stampede, stride, stride-" The dense and chaotic footsteps of humans and horses sounded one after another on the hard ground covered with debris, and the fire in the house ignited by the rocket behind him gradually spread, and the heat wave chased after him.

"Bang bang!" the four-legged ghoul waded through the middle of the rice fields that had already been harvested, making a splash in the darkness.

"Go upstairs, guard the window!" and now returning with a wounded body, the non-combatants still stationed at the inn and some of the ronins quickly understood what had happened. Jian Ye and the others began to dig out the medicine cabinet to heal their wounds, while the sage, who was still at the door of the inn, squinted his eyes and observed the ghoul Kuroshio that was gradually converging at the door of the inn like a thin tributary.

Beep Pavilion

"It's time. Henry said this to Ryunosuke, and then they pushed out several wheelbarrows full of barrels that had been placed near the inn, and lit the fuses with torches.

This is a hidden card.

Since the name of the hot spring village has hot springs written in it, it is inevitable that there will be sulfur, a by-product of natural hot springs.

Gunpowder Crescent, made from a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, had been invented for an early age, but their recipe was more likely to explode brilliant fireworks than to kill people.

It was a surprise that there were fireworks craftsmen in the village, but considering the products, it was also expected, and the summer festival was coming, so the craftsmen who planned to make a lot of money made a lot of fireworks and stocked them up at home. The Sage changed the recipe and mixed them with stones into the barrel.

The iron leads emitted faint sparks, rapidly closing the distance as the cart was pushed downhill towards the ghoul.

The "crackling" lead made a "pop-" sound as it burned to the end, and the entire barrel swelled up after a second of green smoke that was clearly visible in the moonlight.

!!The splintering stones and other debris flew at high speed and tore apart a large area of ghouls in front of them, but that wasn't the end of it, as the pyrotechnicians' entire inventory of finished gunpowder was still limited, and the other barrels were actually incendiary.

Gunpowder was originally named so because it was found to speed up the process of burning a flame.

Straw, peat, animal oil. Everything that could accelerate the burning was simply and crudely mixed together, combined with the cartridge arranged in the middle, to amplify the power of the kill.

"Extinguish!" Some of the sparks and stones even fell on the hotel, but fortunately the roof was made of fireproof tiles, and the few that fell in the corridor were quickly extinguished.

But the rice fields and houses of the villagers not far away are not so lucky.

The painless ghouls burned to black charcoal and tried to move forward, and along with the houses that had been set on fire by the rockets, many of the huts where the villagers had lived for generations were reduced to ashes.

The villagers, who had been comforting others that the house was gone, could be built again, and if the people were gone, there would be nothing left, and they knelt down with a "poof", looking at the burning rice fields and houses, and perhaps it was only at this moment that they clearly realized that this disaster was not a joke.

But even that wasn't the end of it.

Explosions and flames had killed hundreds of ghouls, but they were still coming.

The unintelligent beasts rushed straight into the flames and fell to the ground, but they still had the advantage in numbers, and gradually extinguished the flames in some places with their corpses.

And the hole cards on their side have been played.

The explosion only bought them time to set up inside the inn and somewhat weakened the number of ghouls.

None of this went as planned.

The Kuroshio Tide had already arrived, and although the number was much smaller, there were still three or four hundred ghouls that appeared in the light of the fire.

Half of the archers' arrows were consumed, and at least a third of the horsemen's horses were weakened by wounds. Although the Rifling Ronin is still relatively well preserved, they have also suffered the most attrition in previous battles.

The villagers, who were supposed to share the pressure, lacked military literacy and the young people fled, so the residual combat effectiveness was almost negligible at the moment.

And the next battle.

It is based on the hotel as a stronghold, a simple war of attrition.

The inn was built strongly, but it was still not a fortress. There are many windows on the first and second floors, and there are many entrances.

With the ghouls' footsteps, it would be difficult for them to even retreat.

A last-ditch fight is the only option.

But there is still hope for a comeback - because the ghouls clearly saw the drowsiness of humans in the middle of the night and attacked, proving that Saburo still retains his consciousness as a human being.

And as long as it is human, it will make mistakes.

"Whew-" Ryunosuke glanced at Henry, nodded, and then took the torch from his subordinate.

He pulled up his hair, illuminated it with a torch to make sure his face was revealed, and walked out of the inn in dignity.

The former prefectural commander of "......" didn't say a word, but the ghouls didn't rush up and tear him apart.

They suddenly dispersed like a raging tide meeting a rock in the middle of a river, and then Saburo walked out with a few followers who were still human.

The snake-like man's eyes were bloodshot, and he looked at Ryunosuke playfully.

Like a cat looking at a mouse that has nowhere to run.

- He took the bait.