Author notes: Thank you for reading, I don't own kingdom.

So if you won't to know something about warfare sieges is what wins or loses a war. Even today sieges and key locations are still the main objectives of a army. And sieges here are a little different then today, for one most of the time it is nothing but waiting around and firing arrows at one another. However when when the gates are breached the fighting might take only thirty minutes and the entire siege is over.

However this is Kingdom. We shall not just see people sitting around and firing arrows. Heads shall fall and blood spilled by the gallon.


Chapter two

Shia

Shin looked out at the city from the battlement. Ten was going over the supplies, troops and so forth. Shin wasn't focused on any of that. His mind wondered by to the kid who smiled at him. The kid had an aura about him that he couldn't quite feel, like it was just dust that swayed about him.

"Ten," Shin interrupted her thinking, "what did you think about that three-hundred man commander."

Ten looked up from her reports, "he seemed like a creep. I got chills seeing his smile at you, maybe he swings that way."

"What! No you didn't even see his eyes then," he spouted slapping her on the back, "no his eyes weren't human he had the eyes of a crazed man."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Shin shrugged. "Not sure, but he had the look like he really wanted to take my head," shin made a chopping motion to his neck, "it felt like he was actually going to do it."

"Shin maybe you should start focusing on the battle at hand. The Chu is only a day and a half march away from here. We don't have a lot of time to organize. The food storage is quite vast the governor really thought about all of this, months in advance. The water supply comes from wells so we don't need to worry about poisoning."

"All let you worry about that," Shin grinned, "all worry about cracking skulls when the time comes."


Fu wiped her brow. She was finally done storing the smoked and salted meat in her masters shed. They would be needed it for the future battle that she couldn't wait to see. Her mother acted scared but Fu wanted to see the soldiers in action.

She dusted off her dirty tunic. After several tries she decided it was a losing battle. She ran out of her master's courtyard and down the street where her mother would be with the other slaves loading up more supplies in the cart.

When she turned the corner she spotted a group of soldiers watching the slaves. She spotted their eyes; all of their gazes fell on the petite middle aged woman who was Fu's mother.

Fu hated how soldiers were like that. They thought just because they were soldiers they could have whatever they wanted women and drink without permission. Fu felt anger boil in her stomach, she ran to her mother giving the soldiers a snarl as she passed them.

"Lad there's one for you," one of the soldiers said.

Fu spotted a young soldier who was no more than fifteen or so the same age as she. Fu didn't like the way how he looked at her though. She gave him the best glare she could manage.

"What are you doing here Fu?" her mother asked clearly running out of breath.

"Hey you two," the soldier's tone of voice made a shiver go down Fu's spine, "who's your master? We want to pay him for having some private time with you and your daughter."

Yan forced a smile and bowed to the soldiers, "I'm sorry but we have much work to do we can't take a rest."

The soldier put a hand on her shoulder. Another soldier but his own hand on Fu, she held in a yelp that wanted to escape her lips.

"Come on you can spare a few hours," the soldier said, his voice low and deadly.

"I don't think they can spare a few hours."

Fu watched as a young man in a long tunic walk up to them. Behind him were two other men. They looked completely different than the other soldiers. The three of them looked like true soldiers. Their bodies were molded into vessels that were made for battle. But that didn't really stand out all that much for Fu.

What really stood out was the young man. His face was disfigured by a burn, without the burn that covered his left cheek and down his neck and stopping at his collarbone he would have looked handsome. She wondered what happened to him to have such a scar. The other thing that stood out was his eyes, they had dark circles around them and his gaze looked wild, like the stray dogs that inhabited Shia.

"The Chu is only a day away," the young man proclaimed, "have a drink and get prepared for the battle at hand."

"We don't need to listen to this from some brat," the soldier said angrily.

"Lau, what happened to the last guys who broke military protocol in the Shili unit?"

The tall skinny soldier to the young man's right cleared his throat, "well the commander cut their fingers off and then gutted them in front of the entire unit."

A dark smile spread across the young man's face, "oh I remember that. Hmmm…I can still remember their screams as they cried out for their mothers. Fucking funny as shit to see some men drop down to that level."

"Who the hell are you," the soldiers let go of Fu and Yan, "I'm tired of you talking. Just because you're part of the Shili unit doesn't mean shit."

The young man sighed, "I'm Zisha Lia commander of the Shili unit. I'm the traitor of Chu, I single handedly cut my own generals head off during a battle with the Qin and offered it to the Qin general. Got me a place in your stupid army and in time I became a three-hundred man commander. You two gentlemen must have heard of what I do to my own comrades who I don't find interesting."

Fu saw the two soldiers faces turn pale, the colour drained from their faces. Without even saying a word they walked away keeping their eyes on Lia the entire time.

Tan got to her knees bowing to the commander, "thank you." She said keeping her eyes fixed on the ground.

"No need for thanks," Lia replied, he crouched and gave Fu's mother his hand. "I was actually hoping they would attack me and I could end their lives before the battle even started. There is always something thrilling about infighting."

"You're crazy," Fu said, before she could hold her tongue back.

Lia gave her a smile before placing a hand on her head, "you are exactly right. They don't call me Zisha Lia for nothing."

Fu watched him leave. For some reason she didn't feel scared of him. He obviously tried to put fear into her, but it didn't bubble up. It was like he was faking the entire thing with truth. She decided that she wanted to learn more about him.


The next day an army of 60,000 from the Chu arrived at nightfall at Shia city. The army seemed to be high spirited thinking that they would take Shia easy enough. They had a supply route that would keep them stalked, and many of them were trained soldiers not just conscripts

They set up six camps each one containing 10,000 soldiers. This way they would surround the city as well as create a buffer if reinforcements came in aid for the city. The Chu was determined to take the city, and the way it looked they would take it by the weeks end.

What General Jung Gen didn't predict though was the strategist Ten. The young strategist set up 500 cavalry outside of the city and into the nearby hills. They would torment and raid the enemy camps night after night striking fear into the enemy.

The Qin army numbered 30,000 or so but also had 10,000 militia forces from the city. They also organized the women and slaves to set up medic camps and support units to help with the defenses. With the Qin army organized and ready for a long term siege it all came down to who could hold out the longest.

Battles were famous. They always depicted the great generals fighting on the plains with thousands of soldiers. What history neglected to put in was that sieges were the majority of the fighting that occurred during the warring state period. Throughout history sieges were the way of winning a war.

Sieges allowed a small number of soldiers to fight against an overwhelming force. Sieges however also allowed an army to literally loose almost no men when taking a town or city. They could simply let the city starve out after months of waiting then just attack when the defenders were too weak to pick up their weapons.

In the siege of Shia both sides had high morale. The Chu thought they had the time, resources and training to take the city. The Qin thought they could easily defend the city because of how organized and the well-stocked food storage they had. Both sides were right, but if one side had a break in their morale the entire thing would fall apart and the battle would be over.

The fighting didn't take place right away however. The Chu set up their camps and then constructed their own defenses when entering bow rage of the city. Wooden walls that were pushed by carts would suffice cover for the archers that would attack the walls. Wooden boards that took five men to lift were constructed for the soldiers that would be attacking the ramparts.

The only thing the defenders could do was wait entail their enemy would finally attack them. However the Qin didn't set and wait. They constructed their own defenses and did drills endlessly to prepare for the fight ahead.

The standoff lasted three entire days entail the first attack was launched. The Chu was prepared and ready to attack. They set up their men on all four walls and sent in the archers first. They set up defenses despite arrows that rained down on them. After that they setup archers and commenced attacking the city with bow and arrow.

When half of the day was gone did the Chu finally set up their infantry. They had waited entail the arrows weaken the defenses; it was also a way to keep the Qin restless. They set in their men hard and fast, and the Qin only had one option.