“Prince Ji, Prince Ji, a ridiculous man!”
“He wins over soldiers with his large intestines!”
“Queues outside his tent, their cries echo!”
“Open lewdness is easy to avoid, hidden depravity is hard to guard against…”
Soon, the neat curses of the imperial army rang out.
The curses of tens of thousands of people shook the heavens, and Prince Ji on the city wall found it hard not to hear them.
Listening to the earth-shshaking curses, Prince Ji couldn't help but fly into a rage, roaring murderously, “Curse! Curse him fiercely for this Prince!”
The boomerang hitting him directly broke Prince Ji’s defenses.
Mainly, the other side’s curses were too vulgar.
As a Prince, there were already very few people who would curse him even with elegant words, let alone with such ugly and unbearable language?
Prince Ji continuously roared in anger, ordering his soldiers to curse back, but Master Leng’s pleas were useless.
However, the imperial army outside Yuping Pass cursed with increasing vigor, directly suppressing the rebels' voices.
Seeing that the tide had turned, Prince Ji could only roar with bloodshot eyes, “If I don’t kill Pei Ji, I swear I am not a man!”
While Prince Ji was fuming with rage, Pei Ji and the others were laughing heartily.
“Good lad!”
Pei Ji heavily clapped Shen Jing’s shoulder, saying heartily, “For what happened today, this old man owes you a favor!”
“What the heck?”
Shen Jing was pleasantly surprised, he already owed him a favor?
This favor was too easy to get, wasn't it?
Pei Ji was the Minister of War!
With this favor that Pei Ji owed him, this trip wasn't in vain!
Ning Ji and the others looked at Shen Jing enviously, wishing they could slap themselves twice.
“Damn it!”
Why hadn't they thought of those curses?
After regaining his composure, Shen Jing said with a smile, “I have even uglier things to say. How about Duke Qi owes me another favor?”
“You little rascal, you wish!”
Pei Ji glared at Shen Jing with a smile, “It’s enough for this old man to owe you one favor. You still want this old man to owe you two favors? Alright, go busy yourself! This old man is still waiting for you to break through the city wall!”
“Alright!”
Shen Jing didn't say much, “I still need ten people to help.”
“No problem!”
Pei Ji readily said, “As long as you can make something to break through the city wall, let alone ten people, even if everyone in the camp goes to help you, it’s fine!”
…
After dinner, Shen Jing immediately took Du Heng and the ten soldiers arranged by Pei Ji to get busy.
He had already planned to let these people do the initial work together, and when it came to preparing the gunpowder, he would do it alone.
They worked until nearly the Yin hour before completing all preparations.
At this point, Shen Jing also stopped, seemingly a bit troubled.
“What’s wrong?”
Du Heng asked at the opportune moment.
“I can’t quite remember the exact amounts of various ingredients. I need to think carefully.”
Shen Jing frowned, “We’ve been busy all night, you all should go rest. I need to think carefully! This matter is too important to allow any mistakes.”
“No…”
Du Heng’s expression changed slightly, “Are you really capable or not? If you’re not, we’ll all suffer with you!”
“I didn’t say I can’t, I just need to think it through carefully!”
Shen Jing glared at Du Heng irritably, “Alright, alright, everyone go rest, don’t disturb me!”
Saying that, Shen Jing waved his hand impatiently.
Du Heng and Fan Qinghu were helpless and could only leave temporarily.
Seeing Shen Jing’s expression wasn’t good, the others also quickly left, afraid of disturbing him.
After they left, Shen Jing immediately began to prepare the gunpowder.
He planned to make two types: one for testing, which would have very little power, just to throw people off.
When they saw that this thing wasn't very powerful during the test, they wouldn't be so fixated on it.
The other type was the true weapon of mass destruction.
After a while of work, Shen Jing walked out of the tent again, pretending to be deep in thought.
After pondering for a bit, Shen Jing returned to the tent and began to get busy again.
It wasn’t until dawn that Shen Jing finished making several bundled, homemade explosive packages.
When Pei Ji came to find him, Shen Jing was sound asleep inside the tent.
“Shen Jing, Shen Jing…”
Pei Ji stepped forward and gently patted Shen Jing.
Shen Jing groggily opened his eyes, and seeing Pei Ji, he quickly got up.
“You stay lying down!”
Pei Ji pressed Shen Jing down, “This old man just heard you might have some trouble here, is there anything we can help you with?”
“I’ve roughly made it.”
Shen Jing yawned, pointing to the explosive packages nearby, “However, there’s one part I don’t remember very clearly. We’ll know if it’s successful after testing it.”
“Just these things?”
Pei Ji walked over, picked up an explosive package, and weighed it, “This thing can collapse a city wall?”
“As long as the test goes well, it should work.”
Shen Jing patted his head and stood up, “If it doesn’t work, I might need to improve it.”
“Then… shall we test it now?”
Pei Ji asked tentatively.
He knew Shen Jing must be very tired now, but he also wanted to see the effect of this thing sooner.
“Alright!”
Shen Jing nodded, “Let’s test it now!”
Soon, Shen Jing took one of the deceptive explosive packages and went outside with Pei Ji.
After simply digging a hole, Shen Jing had someone light the fuse, instructing, “Light it and run! Run as far as you can!”
“Okay!”
The soldier nodded and immediately stepped forward to light the fuse.
After lighting it, the soldier quickly slipped away, and Shen Jing silently calculated the time in his mind.
Although he had left a very long fuse and treated it in some ways, he hadn't tested it, so he didn't know exactly how long it would take to explode.
One, two…
When Shen Jing counted to twelve, the explosive package buried in the pit finally exploded with a “boom.”
The sound was not loud, and it was somewhat muffled.
Shen Jing had deliberately reduced the power of this type of explosive package, but under the explosion, it still kicked up some dirt and caused the ground to vibrate slightly.
Shen Jing’s heart skipped a beat, and he secretly rejoiced.
“Good thing we tested it!”
Otherwise, there wouldn't have been enough time to run far at all.
Just the shockwave inside the tunnel could have killed them!
“Damn it, the fuse needs to be even longer!”
When the smoke cleared, Shen Jing and Pei Ji quickly went forward to check.
“Is that all?”
Pei Ji turned his head, looking at Shen Jing in astonishment, “Did it fail?”
This was completely different from what he had imagined!
This was something meant to collapse a city wall, so why was there so little commotion?
“It succeeded!”
Shen Jing grinned, “Don’t let the small commotion fool you, this thing can cause resonance under specific circumstances, thereby achieving the goal of collapsing a city wall…”
“Resonance?”
Pei Ji was puzzled, completely not understanding what this meant.
“Well, specifically, I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
Shen Jing thought for a moment, then said, “It’s like people crossing a bridge. If many people run across the bridge deck with the same stride, under specific circumstances, it can cause the bridge to suddenly collapse…”
Shen Jing continued to spout nonsense.
Of course, he knew that this matter needed an explanation, and it couldn't be done completely secretly.
Afterward, whether it was Emperor Zhou or people like Pei Ji, they would definitely inquire.
Now, he could only use the concept of resonance to cover it up, letting them know that this thing wasn't omnipotent, and only useful under specific conditions.
“This old man just remembered something!”
Pei Ji suddenly slapped his head, a look of recollection on his face, “More than twenty years ago, when this old man led troops across a bridge, the bridge was perfectly fine, but it inexplicably collapsed! This old man only thought at the time that the enemy had secretly tampered with the bridge, but now that you mention it, this old man seems to understand a little…”
“That should have been caused by resonance!”
Shen Jing grinned.
“Excellent!”
With a real-life example, if Emperor Zhou asked, he wouldn't need to conduct experiments and explain in detail to them later…