ushernet Chapter 289 The Strange Disappearance
Chapter 289 The Strange Disappearance
If it weren't for the new textbooks that the emperor ultimately approved and adopted, he would never have conceived of such a bizarre and ingenious strategy to defeat the enemy until his death.
The 500 drummers were all incredibly strong and physically gifted men. Following the deputy advisor's instructions, they struck the drum every 5 seconds, every 5 seconds, every 5 seconds, every 5 seconds... continuously. When they got tired, they would call on their teammates who were waiting nearby to take over, and together they would continue drumming, without stopping.
Zhao Yun and his men watched for over two hours, but couldn't figure it out. Shaking their heads, they returned to their tent to rest, their minds full of questions, leaving several hundred drummers and forty thousand guarding soldiers standing on the main road, continuing to listen to the thunderous drumming...
Among the 40,000 soldiers guarding this position, there are a few hundred exceptionally elite soldiers. They stand in the soldier's stance, straighter than a flagpole planted in the ground, the kind of abnormal soldiers who can stand motionless for seven or eight hours without moving.
After a night, at 5 a.m. on March 8, a soldier who had been standing still since the previous night suddenly felt something was wrong: why was his heart beating so strangely?
Based on pulse rate, a normal heart rate should be over 60 beats per minute. Why do I feel increasingly short of breath now, and my heart seems to be beating only a dozen or so times per minute, as if it's about to stop beating?
After standing motionless all night, he finally felt something was wrong and couldn't help but move his body a few times, stretching his limbs and waist. Strangely, he found that he had returned to normal.
That morning, several hundred soldiers who had been standing still for hours, absolutely serious, experienced the same thing. They felt something was wrong with their bodies, couldn't help but move a few times, and then the symptoms strangely disappeared.
Of course, this place was too close to the cliffs on both sides of the canyon, with the furthest point not exceeding 1000 meters. The Dayuan soldiers were definitely not trained to the same standard as the Chinese Imperial Army, so despite listening to the drums all night, they did not exhibit the inexplicable symptoms seen in the hundreds of Chinese soldiers. They were simply very dissatisfied with the Chinese soldiers beating their drums all night, and everyone cursed the drummers down the mountain as "crazy."
As dawn broke, the 40,000 soldiers on defense were replaced, and the drummers, also replaced, continued to beat the drum incessantly, striking it every 5 seconds, every 5 seconds, every 5 seconds…
On March 8th, over 100,000 soldiers of the Chinese Empire and 20,000 soldiers of the Dayuan Kingdom stood around Mount Kemuzi listening to 500 large drums beating incessantly. Many felt extremely annoyed and confused. The soldiers of the Chinese Empire were of high quality and no disturbances occurred, but the Dayuan soldiers were not so disciplined.
Some stood on the edge of the mountaintop, facing east and cursing loudly, while others banged on iron pots, trying to drown out Zhuge Liang's drumbeats.
March 8th passed, marking the third day. Several drummers changed, but they continued to play every five seconds as instructed by Zhuge Liang, leaving each drummer utterly bewildered. Often, when an ordinary person does something without understanding its purpose, and those around them view them as "crazy," it's very easy to lose confidence and become extremely insecure.
At this moment, Zhuge Liang stepped forward and told each drummer that what they were doing was extremely important. He assured them that if they persevered, the 20,000 enemy soldiers on the mountain would be annihilated within two days. If things didn't turn out that way, Zhuge Liang would personally offer them a toast as an apology. The drummers, he told them, simply needed to focus on their work and ignore what others said.
On the evening of March 9th, finally, a few hundred Dayuan soldiers, unable to contain themselves any longer, disregarded their commander's threats and charged down the hillside, shouting and yelling, intending to kill all the Hua soldiers. However, these men were wiped out by the 40,000 Hua soldiers who were defending the area with all their might, without affecting the established drumming rhythm of Zhuge Liang's drum formation.
That night, while all the generals and soldiers in the Hua Zu camp were filled with resentment, Zhuge Liang lay prone on the ground in his tent, listening intently with his ear pressed to the earth. After a while, he stood up, dusted off his clothes, stepped out of the tent, looked at the outline of the Kemuzi Gorge in the distance, and revealed a smile of triumph.
Early in the morning of March 10, Zhao Yun, Xun Yu and others found Zhuge Liang and questioned him about what he was up to.
"Kongming, what's going on here? Please explain! The soldiers are getting impatient. We haven't made a move for days, and they're starting to say I, Zhao Yun, am a coward. You have to give me an explanation today!" Zhao Yun asked, frowning, his face grim. Being privately scorned by the ordinary soldiers as a coward, and with the war drums beating for days without a single sound, General Zhao was in a very bad mood.
Zhuge Liang glanced at the distant canyon and the almost vertical cliffs on both sides, then looked at the 500 drummers still meticulously beating their drums, and turned to Zhao Yun, saying, "General Zhao, my method has worked. Can you feel the ground shaking?"
"The ground is shaking?" Xun Yu and the others stomped their feet, puzzled, but felt nothing. Only Zhao Yun's eyes lit up when he heard Zhuge Liang say this. He closed his eyes and sensed for a while, as if he had sensed something incredible. Ignoring the dust on the road, he squatted down, placed his palms on the ground, palms down, and carefully felt the tremors of the earth.
Seeing Zhao Yun's actions, Ma Teng and Zhang He exchanged a glance, squatted down, calmed themselves, and carefully felt the tremors of the earth with their palms.
Xun Yu, Xiang Lang, Dong Zhao, and others followed suit, but they didn't notice any difference. It seems that people who don't practice martial arts have a much poorer sense of their surroundings.
After a while, Zhao Yun stood up, staring at Zhuge Liang incredulously, and asked, "What exactly did you do? Did you create an earthquake?"
“Hehe, an earthquake is unlikely, but landslides are definitely possible! Look, the cliffs on both sides of the canyon are basically vertical, and the rock composition is not very hard or solidified. If the earth were to shake violently, do you think the cliffs on both sides of the canyon would collapse on their own?” Zhuge Liang said, pointing to the canyon in the distance.
Zhao Yun and his companions were dumbfounded. Looking at the almost vertical mountain walls on both sides of the canyon, Ma Teng pointed to the hundreds of drummers who were still striking the drums every 5 seconds and asked, "You made the earth tremble with these war drums?"
Xun Yu, Xiang Lang, and the others finally realized what was happening. Hearing Ma Teng's question and recalling the expressions of Zhao Yun and the others earlier, it seemed as if the earth was indeed trembling slightly. At this moment, they looked at Zhuge Liang with a sense of disbelief, as if they were looking at Martians.