After the strategy meeting was concluded, I remained behind with the staff officer who had briefed me earlier and began receiving basic instruction on siege warfare.
"Count Harper, your field tactics on the plains earlier were excellent. But pushing the enemy into the fortress is not the end. Allow me to teach you about siege warfare."
"I look forward to it."
"Our Imperial Army has fought countless sieges while conquering the continent, and in this field, we are unrivaled experts of consummate skill."
The staff officer placed models of siege towers and catapults on the map and began.
"When commoners think of siege warfare, they imagine leaning ladders against walls and foolishly pushing soldiers up to butt heads with the enemy. That is something only the worst of amateurs does. Doing so would result in enormous casualties. In a proper, orthodox siege, scaling the walls is only done as a finishing move—when you are one hundred percent certain the fortress will fall the moment you get over the walls. That is, after you have completely strangled the enemy to death."
"Strangled to death... What specific methods do you use?"
"We are not picky about means and methods. We burn and fill in all the farmland and wells around the fortress, turning the vicinity into a wasteland; or we use the Imperial Army's overwhelming mobility to occupy every strategic point around the fortress and form a perfect encirclement. Sometimes, we cut off supply lines with just a small force, or even bypass the fortress entirely and strike straight at the enemy's heartland."
The staff officer smiled with overflowing confidence.
"Besides that, there are various methods such as beating drums day and night to make noise so they cannot sleep, or executing prisoners one by one outside the walls to drive enemy morale into the ground. When hunger and terror rule within the walls, the gates will open on their own without a drop of blood being spilled."
Listening to his explanation, I looked down at the map and smacked my lips bitterly.
"But Staff Officer, aren't the Empire's siege doctrines all useless before the first wall of the Kingdom of Roland?"
"...That is correct."
The staff officer's smile stiffened in an instant.
"The Kingdom of Roland is blocked on three sides by rugged mountain ranges, making flanking or encirclement impossible. Furthermore, all of the kingdom's prime territories and breadbaskets are preserved intact within the basin behind that first wall. In other words, no matter what we do outside the gates, the enemy will constantly receive supplies of food and weapons from within their safe interior territory, and their troops will be replenished endlessly."
We cannot cut their supply lines, nor starve them to death.
Flanking maneuvers are impossible too. Only a crude method remains—breaking through the massive rock walls head-on.
It was then. The sound of ordnance and supply staff officers conversing with serious expressions reached me from the hallway in front of the conference room.
"One hundred fifty thousand troops are mobilized for this expedition. I have a headache over how to handle the excrement of such an enormous force."
"If an epidemic breaks out like before, it'll be the end. Digging deep pits far from the camp and thoroughly scattering ash as preventive measures..."
"Or how about building field latrines locally?"
"Hmm, will this expedition last that long? Rather than taking latrine specialists, we should only take combat and supply troops, and just receive the rest from the southern depots..."
'...Excrement?'
As I listened to their conversation absentmindedly, a bizarre and filthy idea flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning.
I couldn't say my past life's enjoyment of marine literature had no influence.
"Excuse me, Staff Officer."
"Yes. Have you thought of a good breakthrough?"
"I just thought of something... but it is quite dirty and vulgar. May I speak?"
The staff officer coughed and nodded as if interested.
"What use is nobility if one wins the war? Speak comfortably."
"We discussed catapult bombardment earlier. If the enemy abandons battle on the plains and retreats behind the walls, beginning a siege..."
I swallowed dryly and proposed a tactic that was disgusting even coming from my own mouth.
"I'm talking about the massive amount of excrement and urine our 150,000 Imperial soldiers produce every day. Instead of burying it in the ground, we fill crude earthenware vessels—made from hastily shaped clay—to the brim and seal them. Then we let them ferment thoroughly for about ten days, and preparations are complete."
"...Yes. And then?"
"Yes. Then couldn't we load them as-is onto catapults and fire them at the enemy walls and inside the fortress?"
"...?!"
The staff officer's face twisted in an instant, colored with horror.
As if nauseated by the very imagination, he even made a show of pinching his nose.
"You mean to fire feces instead of stones?!"
"Of course we would shoot stones too. The point here is that we dispose of the shit the Imperial Army produces inside the enemy walls. No matter how high and sturdy the walls are, they cannot stop filth bombs falling from the sky. When fragile earthenware shatters against the walls or the ground inside the fortress, the fermented excrement of 150,000 men will splatter in every direction."
With a serious face, I explained the effects of biochemical warfare.
"Sewage will pour over the heads of enemy sentries standing watch atop the walls, and the stench of filth will permeate every corner of the fortress—the wells, the food stores, the barracks. When they try to eat, they will smell shit; when they try to sleep, the stench of urine will assault their noses. If we cannot starve them to death, we make them so nauseous they cannot swallow food themselves."
"..."
"Well, even if we cannot get it over the walls, having excrement smeared around the fortress is sufficient. The Imperial Army is stationed far from there, after all, and the shit will only stick to the enemy walls. No, it doesn't even matter if it simply falls into the moat around the fortress."
The staff officer's face grew increasingly pale.
"Enemy morale will hit bottom as if stuffed into a shit bucket, and if we are lucky, a deadly epidemic might spread through the unsanitary interior of the fortress, causing troop losses. If it is shit and piss we are going to throw away anyway, isn't there profit in recycling them as siege weapons?"
"Urk..."
The staff officer suppressed a retch and furrowed his brow deeply.
To his noble-born common sense, it was a barbaric and filthy idea he had never imagined.
But like the seasoned staff officer he was, he soon began to ponder seriously for a long while with a twisted face.
"...It is a disgusting and vulgar method."
The staff officer muttered, stroking his chin with a trembling hand.
"The enemy is packed tightly inside a narrow fortress blocked on three sides. If water sources like wells are contaminated, they will inevitably suffer a fatal blow. Above all, the psychological damage of soldiers having to fight covered in shitwater will be beyond imagination. Hah, it sounds insane, but the effect will certainly be outstanding. I shall gladly adopt this idea after consulting with the Quartermaster General."
"Thank you."
"Of course, there may be some resistance from the soldiers..."
"I do not think that will be a problem. Who would dislike the idea of shooting shit at the enemy?"
"...Huh, you may have a point. There would likely be the auxiliary effect of soldiers laughing and chatting, raising morale."
"Moreover, fermented excrement produces flammable gas. It would be good to shoot fire arrows simultaneously with the shit bombs."
"...Enemies burning to death in shit fire. That would be the most miserable way to die."
The staff officer shook his head as if admitting defeat.
I cheered inwardly.
In fact, I knew well that in the history of the world I had actually lived in, the Mongol Empire had committed acts far more vicious and terrible than this.
Shit and piss was a given, but they had also tied up corpses of those who died from the Black Death with ropes and launched them into fortresses with catapults, conducting biological warfare a thousand years ahead of its time.
They had also taken the opportunity to capture prisoners and launch them with catapults.
(The prisoners sometimes flew while alive, and sometimes just their heads flew to reduce weight.)
Of course, this was a romance fantasy world, and since my ex-girlfriend had no military knowledge—I would go down in history as the one who introduced this garbage-like tactic.
'Well, having Black Death corpses would be nice too, but I don't want to go that far. The goal is occupation, not scorched earth...'
I swallowed a hollow laugh, relieved inwardly.
'No matter how dark and destructive the novel my ex-girlfriend wrote was... she surely wouldn't have had the courage to include a strategy like firing shit in a romance fantasy siege.'
I don't know why, despite being open to furries and BL, I didn't like marine literature...