Chapter 265: Bloody Battle At Queyue
“Dong! Dong! Dong!”
Several miles away, the Cao Army’s drum sound boomed, and the horn sounds echoed.
Cao Ren committed fifty thousand siege army all at once, while also deploying hundreds of siege ladders and twenty siege towers.
He gritted his teeth, his cruel gaze fixed on the high city wall. “Attack!” Cao Ren swung his battle saber and roared hoarsely.
The Cao Army’s drum sound began to grow tight—this was the offensive drum sound. The fifty thousand Cao Army army, escorting hundreds of siege ladders and twenty siege towers, surged toward Queyue City like a tide, resembling a massive black carpet that covered the entire plain.
But this was only forty thousand soldiers; another ten thousand soldiers ran out from the trench. They could rush to the wide wooden bridge first, striking preemptively to attack the city.
Inside the city, the giant trebuchets had increased to over five hundred. Long arms took turns hurling, smashing hundreds of boulders and fire oil cans into the enemy clusters dense as ant swarms. Every boulder that landed created a gap, with dust clouds billowing, blood spurting, wails resounding across the plain—but the gap instantly closed, swallowed again by the attacking enemy clusters.
With a “Boom!”, a siege tower was struck by a boulder. Wood chips flew everywhere, giant timbers collapsed, and dozens of soldiers on the siege tower screamed as they fell.
The tall siege towers were custom-built for Queyue City. Each was twenty feet long and wide, sixty feet high, assembled from giant timbers, fully covered in cowhide. The structure was very simple: hollow inside with stairs leading straight to the top, where a wooden platform stood packed with forty or fifty Cao Army soldiers. The front of the platform had thick wooden planks covered in cowhide, which could withstand the Western Chu Army’s crossbow bolts and fire oil.
Below were four wooden wheels, pulled by fifty warhorses, with hundreds of soldiers pushing from the left, right, and rear. As long as a siege tower wasn’t hit by a boulder, it could deliver soldiers to the city wall—more effectively than siege ladders.
Another siege tower’s base was smashed, one wooden wheel dislodged. The siege tower immediately tilted, wobbling, gradually losing balance. Soldiers on both sides shouted and fled, and amid the cries, the siege tower crashed down.
The fifty thousand Cao Army army’s offensive surged like a tide. The boulders and fire oil cans launched in volleys were like splashes in the ocean, instantly engulfed by the human tide. The enemy army, like a raging torrent, finally approached the city wall.
Ten thousand Cao Army soldiers emerged from the trench. In the front were two thousand vanguard army, carrying siege ladders as they charged onto the wooden bridge, swarming across it like ants toward the city wall.
The frontal siege battle had begun. Arrows rained densely from the city wall and below; people constantly fell pierced by arrows. One siege ladder after another was placed against the city wall. Cao Army soldiers climbed upward madly, one hand holding a shield, the other fighting the Western Chu Army fiercely with spears and blades. Boulders smashed down from above; several soldiers always screamed and fell from the siege ladders, but others immediately surged up.
Western Chu Army soldiers shot arrows from both sides. Heavy arrows pierced leather armor sharply. Strings of soldiers on the siege ladders were hit and fell, but soon Cao Army soldiers ignored the boulders overhead, shielding their sides. The number of hit Cao Army soldiers gradually decreased.
On the city wall, dozens of Western Chu Army fought fiercely with the enemy at every siege ladder. At one siege ladder on the north side, a tooth general had bloodshot eyes from killing. He led fifty Western Chu Army in fierce battle against the surging enemy—the elite soldiers of the Cao Army, each tall and sturdy as oxen, holding shields, wielding long blades and sharp spears.
Spears thrust, battle sabers hacked; the slaughter was bloody. At the front of one siege ladder, a Western Chu Army soldier was chopped on the forehead, blood gushing as he fell backward. Another Western Chu Army soldier charged forward with his spear, piercing an enemy’s chest and hurling him off the wall, resealing the gap.
A burly Cao Army soldier used his shield to repel the Western Chu Army’s attack and was the first to leap onto the city wall. In an instant, dozens of Western Chu Army spears stabbed from all sides, piercing his body. The Cao Army soldier screamed and tumbled down.
But this one enemy reaching the city wall created a brief gap in the siege ladder defense. The Cao Army soldiers pinned on the ladder seized the chance; in a flash, over a dozen ferocious Cao Army soldiers rushed onto the city wall.
“Seal the gap! Follow me up!”
Great General Wang Ping led hundreds of soldiers charging up. Wang Ping killed seven or eight fierce Cao Army vanguard soldiers in one go, then with another push slaughtered all twenty-plus Cao Army soldiers who had climbed the wall, finally sealing the gap.
The bloody battle continued. Cao Army soldiers kept climbing the wall, only to be quickly killed. Corpses piled up on both sides, with heavy casualties.
At this moment, five large siege towers had been pushed across the bridge and were approaching the city wall.
“Set it on fire!”
Huang Zhong, who had endured patiently, issued the order.
On the city wall, thousands of soldiers began dumping barrels of fire oil down the wall, directly onto the siege ladders and attacking soldiers. All the attacking soldiers were terrified—their greatest fear had arrived.
Chaisang had sent a total of twenty thousand fire oil cans and three hundred thousand loads of rice straw, enough for the Western Chu Army to defend Queyue City with fierce fire.
“Boom!” The thousands of fire oil cans poured down the wall were ignited. Massive fires erupted on countless siege ladders, and on the attacking soldiers’ bodies. They wailed as they fell from the ladders.
Thousands of soldiers began throwing bundles of rice straw down, hurling a full thirty thousand bundles. The area under the city turned into a complete sea of fire, even engulfing the five siege towers in flames.
Despair filled Cao Ren’s eyes. It was like this again, the same scene—the Western Chu Army had once more unleashed a fiery hell.
Xun You’s gaze was equally shocked. He hadn’t anticipated this scene. He suddenly turned his head and asked Cao Ren coldly, “Has the enemy’s fire tactic happened before?”
Cao Ren was suddenly speechless. It seemed he hadn’t mentioned this part in his report.
“The military report wasn’t comprehensive enough, but I reported it to the Chancellor privately.”
Xun You sighed. “Withdraw the army!”
He turned and walked down from the high platform. Cao Ren’s face flushed and paled by turns; he could only order, “Withdraw the army!”
“Dang! Dang! Dang! Dang!”
Urgent bell sounds rang out. The attacking army retreated like a tide. Fortunately, they had built sturdy bridges and weren’t cut off like last time; the withdrawing soldiers weren’t drowned in the moat.
Even so, the fifty thousand attacking army had lost over fifteen thousand, including eleven thousand killed and over four thousand burned and incapacitated.
The wooden bridge that Xun You had painstakingly built was finally completely consumed by the fierce fire.
Inside the tent, Xun You stared blankly at a wooden model of Queyue City. He had thought of all sorts of methods, all kinds of clever stratagems he deemed brilliant, but they were powerless against absolute strength.
At this moment, Cao Ren slowly stepped forward, his mood heavy. “Two battles lost, forty thousand casualties. Morale is very low now. What should we do?”
Xun You pondered for a moment. “Frankly, I have no good countermeasure yet for their arson tactics. Let’s use long-range attacks for now! Once the Chancellor comes south, we’ll discuss countermeasures properly.”
Cao Ren nodded. Long-range attacks were the only option for now.
