But as he turned back, he saw smoke rising from his own fortress. Castellan’s flag flew from the bamboo tower.
But Zhao did not need grain. He needed time . While the Crusader celebrated a burning paddy, thirty —Zhao’s alchemical corps—rode around the western bluff. They carried no metal armor, only silk and saltpeter. They struck Castellan’s unguarded ox tether . Five oxen died. Twelve serfs ran. The quarry output dropped by half.
The Crusader stood on his battlement. Below, his knights were saddled. His crossbowmen had fresh bolts. His trebuchet was loaded with burning stone. He could crush Zhao’s army in the open field. He could burn the oasis to deny it. Or…
“Let the Crusader build his cathedral of rock,” Zhao smiled. “We will water it with his tears.” Castellan’s first attack was methodical. A trebuchet flung barrels of burning pitch at Zhao’s northern rice field. The flames turned green to black. Zhao’s peasants fled. Castellan grunted approval. “He will starve before he storms my gate.” stronghold crusader 2 vs warlords
In the desolate badlands where the River Jordan’s ghost once flowed, two lords prepared for annihilation. On one side, the iron-wrought keep of , a veteran of the first Crusader wars. On the other, the bamboo-and-jade fortress of Sun Tzu’s heir , Warlord Zhao, whose ancestors had never lost a siege in the Celestial Kingdoms.
“You took my home,” Zhao whispered. “I will take your future.”
Castellan’s scout saw the movement. “My lord! The Warlord flees!” But as he turned back, he saw smoke
Zhao moved first. He sent his at dusk. They crossed the sand in loose, laughing waves—half-naked, coated in mud to defeat arrows. They climbed Castellan’s outer palisade like it was a playground. Five fell to crossbow bolts. Ten reached the top. They threw down ropes. Behind them, Zhao’s Mounted Crossbowmen circled, firing volleys into the Crusader’s archers.
Under a moonless sky, Zhao and his remaining two hundred soldiers—Monkey Warriors, Fire Lancers, a handful of peasant spearmen—marched silently toward the oasis. They left their walls unmanned. Torches burned in empty towers. A ruse.
watched from a misty hill. He did not see dirt; he saw feng shui . His peasants did not mine—they cultivated. Rice paddies terraced the wadi. A bamboo watchtower sprouted where Castellan would have built a gallows. Zhao’s strength was not stone but speed . His horsemen, mounted on hardy steppe ponies, did not carry lances—they carried flaming arrows and whistling darts. His elite unit, the Monkey Warriors , could scale any wall not covered in pitch. He needed time
And in the desolate badlands, two enemies shared water for the first time—and the last—before returning to their separate wars, each knowing that the real enemy had never worn armor or silk.
Zhao, however, had anticipated. His read the ground’s tremor. Before the tunnel reached the wall, he ordered his Drunken Monk unit to pour boiling rice wine down iron pipes sunk into the earth. The steam scalded the Tunnelers blind. Two died screaming. The rest crawled back to Castellan’s lines, faces blistered. Day Seven: The Oasis Beckons Now both lords were bleeding. Castellan had lost his quarry speed. Zhao had lost his eastern rice paddy. The oasis lay between them—a crescent of blue water and a broken slave market. Whoever seized it by blood moon (three nights hence) would claim the sultan’s prize: a shipment of Greek Fire for the Crusader or Thunder Crash Bombs for the Warlord.