Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 264 - 206: Bombing the Camp

Chapter 264: Chapter 206: Bombing the Camp

Fan Cun’s subsequent two charges at the camp still ended in failure.

Clearly, this matter was not as simple as he had thought.

Therefore, in between attempts, Fan Cun also had no choice but to wait for darkness to fall, all the while smoothing out the lessons from previous failures and formulating his own plans anew.

This operation, for him, could be seen as an upgraded version of the Cavalry Trial.

The Cavalry Trial required finding an opening during the enemy’s formation change and charging into it to slay their general;

This time, however, required finding a breach in the enemy’s static camp and then charging in to capture Ma Anbang alive.

Although the two situations were vastly different, seeming to have no similarities at surface level, a closer consideration revealed some common ground in their combat strategies.

Fan Cun might have been completely inept at using cunning plans, but when it came to leading a charge, he still had some insights.

If one were to make a comparison with ancient generals, Zhao Haiping would be considered a more versatile leader, laying out detailed and comprehensive plans before combat and adjusting his approach based on the enemy’s condition; while Fan Cun would belong to the kind of fierce general who would recklessly surge forward when in doubt.

But a fierce general charging into battle definitely needed to use his head, those who didn’t were basically all extinct. If Fan Cun truly never used his brain, then he wouldn’t have been able to clear so many instance trials.

This was Fan Cun’s first time, as it was for nearly all other players, trying a "raid on the camp" operation in the game "Dark Sand".

Although some game content had involved camps before, such as the "Coarse Grass Heroic Air" "Commander" role-playing, back then players only needed to give suggestions as Emperor Taizu of Sheng when setting up a camp and didn’t need to directly engage in it, let alone lead troops to attack a camp.

But now, the game had presented the players with the tough challenge of a "raid," and it couldn’t be avoided.

At this moment, Fan Cun was unaware that players like Li Hongyun had already thought up cunning methods to achieve their goal. Since he couldn’t share the strategy in real-time, he could only continue with his clumsy approach, seriously pondering how to accomplish the objective through sheer martial force alone.

The success of a minority raiding a camp, although rarely successful in history, was not entirely impossible.

After all, this was the age of cold weapons, and the charm of that era was that, with proper application of tactics, defeating the many with the few often resulted in extremely exaggerated military achievements.

Fan Cun looked up at the moon in the sky.

In the latter part of the night, clouds would temporarily cover the moon, creating a particularly dark period. That would be the optimal timing for a surprise raid on the camp.

However, there was some prep work that needed to be done beforehand.

At Fan Cun’s command, everyone behind him wrapped their horses’ hooves with thick cloth, and they all bit down on tree branches.

This was what they called "men biting branches, horses hooves muffled."

Fan Cun hadn’t realized this before, and as a result, they were detected by sentries on the outskirts of the camp too early and engaged in battle prematurely.

But now, fifty cavalrymen, taking advantage of the cover of night and approaching silently, if they could choose a weak spot to penetrate the camp, the success rate of the raid would greatly increase.

As for how to select a weak spot in the camp?

That was a skillful task.

It was only after two charges that Fan Cun realized that this fifty-thousand-strong camp was much larger and more complex than he had imagined.

With fifty thousand men, just the logistics of feeding, hydrating, and providing for the needs of such a number within a certain area was already a major challenge.

Ma Anbang’s fifty thousand men couldn’t possibly be crammed together but were split into three large camps arranged in a "品" character formation, with certain distances between them, thereby providing mutual defense.

This seemed like good news at first glance, as Fan Cun wouldn’t immediately face the entire fifty thousand strong army, but upon actually infiltrating a camp, he discovered that even a camp of over ten thousand was far larger than he had expected.

Outside the camp, there were deep ditches, filled with numerous sharp wooden stakes. Beyond the trench were layers of caltrops, and further ahead were set traps.

Behind the ditches were wooden fences, towering more than a zhang high.

The entire camp could be regarded as an almost circular shape, with the main body of the camp behind the wooden fences.

The outermost circle was the tents for ordinary soldiers. Because ancient tents were handmade, the tents for the soldiers were relatively small, barely enough for sleeping, allocated to ten people each.

The tents further inside were slightly larger; here resided the various levels of officers and were also areas in the camp for various other supportive functionalities such as eating and relieving themselves.

At the very center was the main tent for the central army, and these tents were quite spacious, not only providing the best living conditions but also convenient for summoning various officers for discussions.

Around the main tent of the central army, there were various carts forming a wagon fort, further increasing the difficulty of making a breakthrough.

The norm in the camp was to rest after sunset, and it was not allowed to walk around, make noise casually, of course, this didn’t apply to various officers feasting and entertaining.

However, this didn’t mean that raiding the camp would be very smooth because there would be sentries outside the camp, watchtowers within the camp would have patrols, and every so often, fire basins provided illumination within the military camp.

The first time he charged, Fan Cun had foolishly tried to force his way through the main gate, the result was, of course, a disaster, and he couldn’t even make it close to Ma Anbang.

In the subsequent two attempts, he smartened up, understanding to approach quietly, looking for gaps in the ditches and fences to sneak in and head straight for the central army’s main tent where Ma Anbang was, but for various reasons, he failed again.