Late Han Dynasty: Did the Yellow Emperor truly descend?

Chapter 129 The Grinding Wheel of Flesh

When the mound of earth reached a height of two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters), Chen Deng stood on it.

He leaned against the makeshift wooden railing with one hand, squinting at the city across the way.

The morning mist had long since dissipated, and the moisture on the Sishui River had been evaporated by the sunlight, revealing the city of Xiapi clearly in the field of vision. The crenellations, ramparts, and arrow towers on the city walls were all clearly visible.

There is an arrow tower on each side of the south gate, and archers walk back and forth on the top of the tower.

Chen Deng slowly frowned.

The city's defenses weren't particularly strong; the city walls were more than half a zhang shorter than those of the capital, but the layout was flawless.

Li Feng, the Taiping rebel commander, spread his less than a thousand troops across the four city walls. While the defenders' forces weren't exactly impenetrable, they were still quite formidable.

There were men on the arrow tower, men at the corner of the rampart, and men behind the crenellations on both sides of the barbican. There weren't many men, but they were all positioned in key locations. If we really wanted to attack them, we would have to sacrifice lives.

Chen Deng observed the earthen hill for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before walking down the slope.

Chen Gui was standing in front of the central command tent, stroking his beard with one hand. When he saw him return, he asked.

"how?"

"Father, it will probably take a lot of effort to take this fortified city."

Chen Gui glanced at his son, a moment of contemplation in his eyes, but he didn't ask any further questions, only nodding.

"You make the decision."

Given Chen Deng's performance these days, Chen Gui decided to let him take charge.

If the son can accumulate some merit through this, it will add some prestige when he is recommended to the court for the title of filial and incorruptible official in the future.

Chen Deng nodded and turned to the messenger standing beside him.

"Order the three armies to launch the main attack from the south gate, with simultaneous support from the east and north gates. Raise all ladders, battering rams, and ramming machines. Each unit shall act according to the drumbeat; after three drumbeats, advance simultaneously, and those who retreat shall be executed."

The messenger received the order and left, while bugle calls echoed throughout the camp.

Half an hour later, the war drums sounded.

At the sound of a drum, hundreds of laborers outside the city pushed earth carts forward, filling baskets of sand into the moat.

At the same time, on the earthen hill that Chen Deng had built earlier, more than thirty archers leaned out and unleashed a hail of arrows at the city wall.

As soon as the archers on the Taiping Army's arrow towers nocked their arrows, they were forced to retreat behind the crenellations by a dense rain of arrows. Occasionally, someone would risk leaning out to fire an arrow, but their aim was terrible, and the arrows landed crookedly between the earthen carts, causing few injuries.

The city walls were silenced for a time.

Seizing this rare opportunity, the laborers, with ferocious expressions, desperately pushed sand into the river despite the sparse stray arrows.

Although some laborers were still hit by arrows and fell to the ground, with no chance of survival once they fell, many more people stepped over the corpses of their companions and rushed forward.

After repeating this process several times, about a dozen corpses were thrown into the narrow road, and the moat was finally filled in with several sections of hardened ground that were passable.

The archers on the earthen slope were firing with great gusto, their quivers emptying round after round.

At this moment, Li Feng stood inside the city wall, his face ashen.

This is the downside of lacking knowledge and experience.

He never expected that the unremarkable earthen mound built by the soldiers could play such a role.

The soldiers used the earthen mound to block their own archers from emerging.

After a brief moment of surprise, he quickly came up with a solution.

"Bring all the crossbows up! Push the ballistae up to the crenellations too! Quickly!"

Xiapi County was originally an important town for government troops. The warehouse contained dozens of standard crossbows with arms over three feet long and strings made of twisted ox sinew. Their range was far greater than that of ordinary bows and arrows, and their penetrating power was several times that of bows.

However, due to the hasty engagement just now, these heavy weapons had not been set up and were only now being carried up to the city wall by the soldiers in a flurry of activity.

The string creaked as the crossbowmen knelt on one knee and loaded the iron-tipped bolts into the quivers.

Before the second drumbeat could sound after the first, the city walls finally launched a counterattack.

Several ballistae and more than ten crossbows were simultaneously aimed at the earthen mound, and the crossbow bolts flew through the air with a whistling sound much deeper than that of bows and arrows.

The crossbow bolts, as thick as an arm, pierced the earthen slope, raising clouds of dust; the powerful crossbow bolts flew even faster and denser, heading straight for the archers on the slope.

As soon as one archer leaned out to draw the bowstring, he was struck in the chest by a crossbow bolt and was thrown backward down the slope; another archer was impaled in the calf and hung on the slope, unable to be pulled out, screaming for half an hour before finally dying.

The archers on the hill immediately turned from strong to weak, and the frequency of their archery shots changed from continuous fire to only a few hurried shots every now and then, just to give the people below the city a moment to catch their breath.

The second drumbeat sounded, and the siege ladders were carried to the front lines. Armored soldiers carried the ladders, while archers provided cover on the earthen slopes behind them. But by this time, the city walls were no longer in a passive, defensive position.

Logs rolled down from the city wall, crashing onto the siege ladders with a dull thud, knocking the entire ladder and the soldiers who had climbed it to the ground. Scalding hot excrement poured from the crenellations, drenching the soldiers, whose screams were heart-wrenching.

With the sound of three drumbeats, the battering ram and battering log were rammed together. The battering log was carved from a single tree trunk, with the front end covered with sheet metal, and was carried by twenty men.

The top of the log slammed heavily against the city gate with a dull thud, shaking the entire gate and sending dust falling from its panels. The defenders on the city wall immediately poured boiling oil down from the holes above the gate, drenching the men who had struck the log and carried it. Amid screams, more than a dozen men collapsed and rolled on the ground.

From the sound of the drum until now, only half an hour had passed. More than a hundred corpses lay on the open ground outside the south gate, most of them civilians who had filled the moat and light soldiers who had carried ladders; the truly armored elite troops had suffered fewer than ten casualties.

The water in the moat was dyed dark red, seeping into the filled-in sand, creating a shocking dark brown color at first glance.

The situation at the East Gate and North Gate was slightly better, but the casualties were still heavy.

Two siege ladders outside the East Gate were knocked down, the sound of the wooden frames breaking could be heard half a mile away. The attacking force at the North Gate rushed to the base of the city wall, but was pushed back three times by rolling stones thrown from the crenellations, leaving behind a trail of dead and wounded each time they retreated.

When the second wave of attack began, Chen Deng stood under the central command flag, his eyes scanning the front line.

He could see clearly that his own soldiers were beginning to retreat, and although there were supervisory teams in the rear to suppress them, the effect was minimal.

Chen Deng raised his hand to summon the messenger beside him, his voice decisive.

"Pass down the order: the first person to reach the top of the city wall will be rewarded with 100 gold coins and promoted three ranks. The person who beheads an enemy will be rewarded with 5,000 coins per rank. Also, bring out the boxes at the back."

Several large wooden crates were carried to the open space in front of the battle lines and opened in front of all the soldiers.

The copper coins gleamed a golden light in the sunlight, and several bolts of silk were neatly folded, their whiteness dazzling. These valuables piled on the open ground were more impactful than any words.

Chen Deng stood on the wooden platform high on the earthen hill, and his voice carried on the wind.

"Now that the city has fallen, all the wealth you have taken from it will be released without consequence!"

After these words were spoken, the battlefield fell silent for a moment.