ShortCircuit

Not the YouZhou soldiers, the ones in the enemy camp.

Nobody destroyed the food supplies of the army that surrendered, they're okay with the food. And nobles aside, eventually they probably dismissed all the soldiers to their homes. It's not their fault their leaders are idiots.

If its made of wood, it'll burn. If you throw it down but doesn't break (and they're reinforced anyway), the people on top of it will probably die, but the rest, from about middle to the lowest rungs, can jump off and raise it again. And you need a TON of force to move them, particularly if they have claws embedding in the woodwork of the defenses.

If the ladder is long and heavy enough, it can get to hundreds of kilos by itself. When loaded, the weight of the people and their armours and weapons gets added to the resistant force. The ANGLES at which they're set against the wall work with the resistance against a pushing force. Seriously, you need MANY people to break an anchoring ladder. Think of it as a lever and fulcrum problem - it takes a lot of effort to turn it once it's in place.

Much easier to just clear it of people and maybe, if you're lucky, set it on fire.

And now I might get on the problem of only attacking the smallest part of a defending wall (particularly where it's probably the easiest to defend) instead of trying out the weakest part LOL. THAT is a huge non-working siege strategy. But then, Liang isn't the brightest of most courageous traitors ever...

PS Not to mention the ever-present logical problem in ANY and ALL war scenes where there's cavalry attacking and there's foot soldiers around. There are basically one or two correct (and cruel) takes of foot soldiers gutting the horses and killing the lightly armoured cavalrymen (that's how peasants in Europe dealt with even heavy noble cavalry, and they used farm tools). When I see still riding people among a sea of spear-wielding idiots my blood pressure rises LOL.

Okay, here after 28, now we have 3+ days to wait, right? Dammit.

First things first: WangDu people invented the revolving door, CMM. I mean, first the scholars with their death wish and now General Zhou the dad. Okay, I'm fine with what he eventually decided, but that was a sea change after a lifetime of being a jerk.

And now, for the main event. Here we have it - the Lord of the Rings, Chinese costume drama edition. Featuring:

GJS as Aragorn (fearsome warrior, worried man of the hour, deep thirst kisser. Whoever watched TRotK knows EXACTLY what I mean by that LOL).
ShiAn as Legolas (those MOVES! I almost expected him to slide off an elephant's trunk but sadly they hadn't invented elephants in China in those times).
Shen Ming as Gimli (he has it - MY AXE, well not the axe but the same energy - the bad jokes, the way he can't be bothered to deal with nice things LOL).
New Qin future wife as Eowyn (complete with spear and horse of her own)
LYR as maybe Arwen (she DID ride that horse, didn't she? And she did participate in the battle in an aswesome way).
Zhou Ye as Gandalf ("Look to my coming in the first light of the fifth day - at dawn, look to the east" He did come at dawn and rescued them all, he just forgot to let them know in advance).
LZS as Grima Wormtongue (at this moment, busy setting up some more intricate traps)
Commander Fan as Theoden King (maybe, still not sure about him. But so far so good).
Zhou the dad as Eomer (maybe - he'd better get that stick out of his own...)
WenChang as Sean Bean, wait, I mean as Boromir. (Heroic death and all that. And we all know him by name, that's a huge accomplishment in a drama where new charas are coming from the woodwork left and right).
Mme Gu as Galadriel (because I like her the most, LOL.)

There are a few positions waiting to be filled, but we're on a track here hahaha.

PS GJS teasing Zhou Ye - "you're on the good siblings page, you're almost there - trust me, I KNOW ALL ABOUT IT" and he DOES LOL. That was hilarious.

PPS Is it just me or did LYR banging those drums look VERY MUCH like Gu Xiang (Amethyst Devil, WKX's adopted daughter/sister in WoH?) Even the hairdo looked the same. And her drumming away seriously sent my mind over there.

Once the Gu leave, the commissioner will find other merchants to rob. And then all hell's bound to get loose.

Only 27th so far but OMG they have Legolas, they're going to win now :D (Seriously, ShiAn is the coolest archer since LOTR).

Also, Traitor-in-chief: "Can't have any traitors under my command". Dearest soul, look in a mirror.

And oh-ho, that dawn scene is the moment GJS and LYR brought French kissing to Ancient China :D

May I say, Zhou Ye's future wife is cute and I hope she does the same thing as him :D

PS Based on my extended knowledge regarding sieges (I DID watch LOTR multiple times), Traitor-in-Chief REALLY is that incompetent. No wonder he didn't defeat the army in the capital either, LOL. Does he not have anyone who knows what they're doing in a siege?!

She's alive but gone to the army to defend the borders (not the same border war he goes to - he's in the north, she's in the east IIRC). In the drama, she gets the news of his death and is grieving. In the novel, she gets married to one of his subordinates (even in the drama that character even mentions briefly that he doesn't know how to feel about MCS coming back from the dead because he has feelings for her. But in the novel, he gets to marry her in the end, so it's kind of not totally hopeless for her).

In NiF or TU? :D

There's no possible salvation for the ML in NiF, but there's a chance for redemption and revenging his fallen comrades and family. So don't expect a HEA for the both of them in any way (this is not a romance). But it's a glorious ending, totally earned and fitting to the tale.

Try it out, it's a very slow burn, awesome story.

WAIT WAIT WAIT this is already out?! BRB, have to go watch :D

Thank you! They're pretty cute together, but I won't read anything other than good friends in it :D And I'm grateful for it - I think that's where that amazing chemistry comes from.

I don't have twtr, and won't make an account. Looks I'm out of luck with future links on it, since yesterday's (yet another one) stupid decision of its owner ;(

It was the late Emperor. Liang used to be a highly placed minister, but fell from power and decided to rebel. Both the former Emperor and the Liang uncle/traitor are bad guys. So was the Crown Prince.

Commissioner Fan and General Zhou (the stupid one, not the younger one) mentioned there are only the Empress and "the orphan" now. As long as there's no more princes to be called orphans, they might have meant the princess who was to marry GJS if the Gu family had wanted to.

In the very first few moments after the wedding, her righteous husband left her alone in a room to go fend off the demonic crows. How little protection she truly had is immediately apparent when TTJ just waltzes right in and CHOOSES not to harm her.

So yeah, her husband - whom she suspects does not really love her but is compelled (for reasons explained in the next few eps from where you're in now) - is not her go-to saviour.

As for why go to TTJ - she thinks he likes her (from the first eps, when he stood up for her causing the few freezing nights etc), she knows he has power now, and she sees him as someone similar to her. A nobody no one wanted, rejected by his family, who now found his (superior) place in the kingdom and is not afraid to use any means to win. She wants to marry him - or be his concubine or whatever - because he CAN protect her and he just might, under the right persuasion.

15-20 eps in, and it'll turn into a lifetime addiction. You've been warned. Also, it's a great story to get addicted to, so it's worth it anyway :D

Yeah but where the heck does all that hair go?! Everybody had long hair, and there's not a lot of space under those helmets. It just struck my curiosity nerve to find out where does the topknot go when they put the helmet on.

It had been a year since they got to YouZhou, a few more months after the bandits episode, maybe another month for the gathering of grains, coming back and having dear traitor uncle come to pay a visit, lay a siege, something or other.

My current peeve is what the heck happened to the store(s). Is anybody still buying rouge when the city is under siege? What if they save the city but go broke!! We can't have that!! :D

1-those fools were pathetically hilarious though. One moment they're like, "the sky is falling, woe on you, children of WangDu!" and the next they're like, "This guy seems to be right. We should probably try to actually resist a bit. Oh well then, nevermind, let's go back to work" LOL.

3-I'd say, he persuades her to get out by the way he CAN'T play that leaf well, LOL.

4-He's so passionate he could care less he could just... keep her. She won't be persuaded by his offer or help or his coolness (well, I am, but he's not after me so I'm safe :D)

He called him "xiong" (tl-ed as brother) as a term of respect. If they would have been really close, he'd have called him "ge" (older familial brother) or "didi" (younger familial brother). The term "da" (great, big) added in front of any of these words - except for didi - would imply the one who is so addressed is older, too, or more important (da-ge, da-xiong).

Inside families, younger brothers and sisters would call the older ones "gege" as an endearment term (jiejie for older sister, meimei for younger ones).

And then you get to wuxia and everybody's a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, elder, etc - either familial, adopted, or martial, LOL.

Maybe the description is meant to mention weiqi (the game of go), not chess. The rules are different and it's more dynamic, more abstract, and generally, more complex than chess. I could see LZS trying to play a board of weiqi and moving in the shadows behind everything - including the death of the emperor and his Crown Prince.

It does not compute. He's the son of a concubine so less worthy than the official son(s) but at the same time he's trustworthy enough to send for immensely important supplies (in YangZhou). He is good enough to make General, and to be left in charge of the city and the Commissioner's son, but still not important enough to have a real father-son discussion into the whys and wherefores of things at the time when the provincial capital is under siege.

Zhou dad got either book or script stupid. He's also Fan's best friend and supporter, how come Fan didn't ever set him right?!