Chapter 1481 – Attacking Nie Liang and Yang Tao, Sword Pointing to the World (XX)
Even though it was just a probing attack, the troops under Nie Liang were no easy targets, and they actually managed to apply pressure on Zhanjiang Pass.
However, Qi Guanrang had already anticipated this. He fully utilized the terrain of Zhanjiang Pass, commanding the archers and crossbowmen to focus their fire on the weak points of the enemy’s formation, and as a result, the advance of Nie Liang’s army was significantly slowed down.
Jiang Pengji waited for a while in the back, but she simply couldn’t sit still.
Though the messenger would relay urgent battlefield information accurately, it still couldn’t compare to seeing it with her own eyes.
“It’s been almost a quarter of an hour, and the enemy shows no signs of retreating?”
At this moment, both sides had suffered minimal casualties. It was only when Nie Liang’s soldiers set up the ladders and began to batter down the gates that the casualties would rise dramatically. At that point, the chaos would be substantial; even a blind archer could hit two targets with one arrow. As the attackers climbed the walls using ladders or ropes, defenders would throw people down, and given the height of the Zhanjiang gates, it would basically be like tossing a child down.
If it came to that, the losses for Nie Liang’s army would be much greater than they are now.
Jiang Pengji muttered, “It’s just a feint, why work so hard?”
Right now, she wanted some downtime; the live stream was duller than a dried fish, and the battle reports simply weren’t exciting enough! They wanted to witness the frontline combat!
Hearing just the reports felt like scratching an itch through the boots; it was worse once you listened.
【Gym Buff】: Sigh, why is Nie Liang taking this so seriously? Don’t you have any AC in your heart, streamer?
If she didn’t provoke Nie Liang, how could his anger be so high?
【Weight Loss is About Persistence】: I now feel like a player sitting on the bench for the entire World Cup, watching my teammates sprint across the field while I can only sit here and mold. Isn’t the streamer supposed to be the husky type? How could you withstand being in the back?
Even though many idle folks complained that the live stream was too bloody and violent, there were still plenty of them who enjoyed the thrill.
Jiang Pengji, the battle-crazed warrior at the frontline, was now sitting idle on the bench, and those idlers felt pity for her.
With the idlers stirring the pot, and given Jiang Pengji’s fidgety nature, she decided to climb the walls and join the fray.
Everyone: “…”
On the walls, the chaos was intense as the enemy’s main army set up ladders, trying to ascend the city. Qi Guanrang and Sun Wen remained unflustered; they waited until the enemy had climbed two-thirds up before pushing down the ladders, and they’d treat the ropes they threw up the same way.
However, the same method couldn’t always succeed. The enemy swarmed like hornets, gathering at the base of the walls. The enemy’s archers launched black-oiled fire arrows to disrupt the defending soldiers on the walls while covering those climbing up, creating a well-coordinated assault.
The wall had limited space, and so did the number of defending soldiers.
If these defenders panicked and failed to push the enemies down effectively, losing the wall would be imminent.
Qi Guanrang and Sun Wen certainly wouldn’t make that mistake, and Jiang Pengji’s soldiers were particularly obedient.
They had been brainwashed by the military’s political commissars for years after joining the camps.
Even if they feared dying, when the call sounded, they’d charge ahead because their bodies had conditioned to respond to orders.
Sun Wen was still relatively merciful, commanding the lookout tower to watch for changes in the enemy’s rear lines while splitting the archers into three waves.
One wave targeted the enemy archers at the front, falling back half a step once they shot, allowing the next wave to take over, minimizing the vacuum period. The third wave focused on the climbing enemies. Additionally, some soldiers armed with red tassel spears targeted the enemies’ eyes, faces, and throats, directly shoving them down. The defenders on the walls might seem numerous, but the tempo of battle was both fast and steady.
Qi Guanrang’s side was much more ruthless; not only did they have archers and spearmen disrupting the ascenders, but they also poured boiling water and heated charcoal. A pot of scalding hot water could severely burn the faces of the soldiers at the top of the ladder, while the soldiers below had to contend with human projectiles falling from above, with the unlucky ones also getting splashed with hot water and charcoal. If time hadn’t been tight, Qi Guanrang would have also liked to embed iron spikes into the wall bastions. If the enemy dared to ascend, their hands and feet would be bloodied and bruised. However, this idea was shot down by their own lord.
The reasoning was simple—
【Iron spikes cost iron!】
In addition to these usual tactics, Qi Guanrang also hung iron boards studded with thick iron nails on the wall. The soldiers just had to loosen the ropes to send the iron boards crashing down on the climbing enemies, and when they pulled the ropes back, the enemy’s bloodied bodies would be tossed off the walls.
With this probing attack, the enemy was unable to ascend the city successfully.
Nie Liang’s side took careful note of the defending items used on the wall.
The first assault didn’t gain much advantage, but Nie Liang’s army didn’t give up. Instead, they commanded the soldiers to bring in dozens of catapults.
These catapults weren’t solely Jiang Pengji’s invention, as they were widely used during warfare and counted as powerful weapons of mass destruction in battles. The massive catapults Jiang Pengji had used when attacking Cheng’an County had undergone several modifications; their overall performance—accuracy, range, and impact—far surpassed the average standards of this era.
Of course, Zhong Zhao, as one of the five great nations, possessed significant technological prowess as well.
Even if these catapults weren’t as powerful as the ones Jiang Pengji had prepared, they were still formidable.
With that in mind, Qi Guanrang, who had initially planned to keep some cards up his sleeve, had to reveal one of his trump cards.
Due to the size and transportation issues associated with catapults, Jiang Pengji had let Zhang Ping and others study alternative models.
They sacrificed some load capacity for greater range and ease of handling, further simplifying operations.
This simplification meant that the time from loading projectiles to launching them shrank, allowing them to hurl three times for every single shot from the enemy, while also adjusting the trajectory. Who couldn’t hurt back? While catapults were indeed powerful, Zhanjiang Pass as a critical location had walls built with massive stones that were used for constructing the Great Wall, making them dense and extremely difficult for ordinary heavy objects to breach.
Nie Liang’s army clearly considered this point, so they targeted the defending soldiers on the walls.
Due to the height issue of the walls, the launch distance couldn’t be too far, making it just within the range of the wall-mounted crossbows.
“Wenzheng, order the soldiers to target the joints of their catapults—”
Qi Guanrang’s expression grew serious as he saw the enemy setting up their catapults. His mood was already foul, and hearing a familiar voice almost made him choke.
“Lord! This place is dangerous; please leave immediately!”
Qi Guanrang was fully aware of how devastating the power of catapults could be, and even if their side could still retaliate, it wouldn’t reduce their casualties.
But at that moment, their lord was climbing the walls, and it was practically asking for death!
