Chapter 731: Attack on the City!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Tibetan cavalry used extremely thick and heavy plate armor, and the armor of the White Braves was even heavier and sturdier. Not only that, their armor was also strengthened with many toughening inscriptions.
This had been the reason they were able to fight against the Mamelukes of the Abbasid Caliphate!
Thwish! Thwish! Thwish!
On the wall, Wang Chong’s forces had chosen restraint, but the White Braves down below had chosen the completely opposite strategy. A shrill whistling filled the air as a dense rain of arrows shot toward the wall.
It seemed like even space itself was being torn apart.
When she saw the long tears left in the wake of the arrows, even Bai Siling paled.
“Careful!”
“Dodge them!
Shouts could be heard on the walls as the clan experts, and even Bai Siling and Zhao Yatong, chose to dodge or hide from the arrows.
These arrows contained an incredible power, and not even these two women were sure that they could block them.
The only person who remained unmoving in the face of this violent storm of arrows was Wang Chong. His face was calm and unchanged.
Boom!
Hundreds of arrows with enough strength to shatter rock and bore through metal exploded toward him. But when these arrows were still several zhang from Wang Chong, they suddenly froze in the air.
Bzzt! Wang Chong blinked, and there was a cold flash of light in the darkness. Suddenly, the countless arrows around him began to rotate under the force of some invisible energy, crashing into and pulverizing each other before dropping to the ground.
Even the roars from the White Braves outside grew quieter for a moment. On the walls, all the clan experts and guards looked toward Wang Chong with deep reverence.
The unmoving Wang Chong amidst the rain of arrows seemed like a god, bolstering and supporting their morale.
“Ready!”
“Raise the auxiliary walls!”
With the creaking of gears, thick and angled metal plates began to rise from the walls, protecting the people behind them.
Mere moments after these plates were raised, the second wave of attacks from the White Braves arrived. Ten-some White Braves were dragging a long, silvery-white object. Driven by the high speeds of the warhorses, it appeared like a shooting star as it flew toward the lofty gate.
A panicked shout came from the wall. “Careful! It’s a battering ram!”
At this moment, everyone could clearly see that the silvery-white object had an extremely sharp tip. This was clearly a sharp battering ram of five or six zhang in length.
The surface of this battering ram was covered in complicated silver patterns. Anyone in the army was familiar with these patterns as countless sharpening inscriptions.
These sharpening inscriptions were always used on the best siege weapons, so that even a steel gate several feet thick could be run through.
Bang!
Before there was any time to think, everyone heard a massive boom. At that moment, the entire City of Steel hummed and shuddered as if it had actually been struck by a shooting star.
Before the effects of the first strike had faded away, another set of galloping hooves could be heard. The second silver battering ram from the Great Snow Mountain Holy Temple had arrived, hurtling forward as fast a lightning bolt.
Boom! A second earth-shattering crash rang out in everyone’s ears.
“Lord Marquis!”
Su Shixuan looked at Wang Chong, his face ghastly pale. If these attacks continued, the gate wouldn’t be able to last for long.
At the start, neither he nor Cheng Sanyuan had understood why Wang Chong had ordered them to retreat, but now, even Su Shixuan at his lowest could tell that this enemy was different from others, was no ordinary group of cavalry.
No ordinary cavalry force would also bring battering rams with them while charging on the battlefield.
This wave of enemies was far more formidable and prepared than he had imagined.
“There’s no need to worry. No matter sort of siege weapons they use, they’ll never be able to open the gates of the City of Steel.”
Wang Chong’s voice was flat, neither too loud nor too soft, yet it contained an intimidating strength.
The White Braves were nearly invincible in a charge on open ground, and the cavalry under him were simply no match for them. But sturdy walls were a completely different matter.
Wang Chong knew what Su Shixuan was worried about, but this sort of situation would not occur.
The gates of the City of Steel were not made of ordinary steel, but the Meteoric Metal that Wang Chong had imported from overseas. No matter how many sharpening inscriptions those battering rams had or how powerful the White Braves’ charge was, they would never be able to break through the gates of Meteoric Metal.
And besides that, Wang Chong had even added many defensive inscriptions onto the gates.
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Ü-Tsang isn’t good at manufacturing things, so they would never be able to forge such a high-level item. It must be a product of the Great Snow Mountain Holy Temple.
Wang Chong’s mind was abuzz with activity. The regard Ü-Tsang had placed on him was constantly surpassing his expectations, but no matter what they had planned, they would never be able to succeed.
The City of Steel was his dream built on his blood and sweat. In order to give himself a foothold here, he had made ample preparations. Not even the mighty White Braves would be able to break his walls.
“Tell Xu Keyi to start getting ready!” Wang Chong said.
“Yes, Lord Marquis!”
A messenger quickly left with the order.
Outside the City of Steel, the White Braves were only just getting started in their assault. Boom! Boom! Boom! The silver battering rams struck again and again, crashing against the gates.
At the same time, there was a metal clattering as five-clawed hooks caught onto the edge of the walls.
“Up!”
With a roar, several hundred White Braves dismounted and began to climb up the walls along the ropes attached to the hooks.
“Everyone, come with me! Stop them!”
Su Shixuan grimaced and unsheathed his sword, the first to emerge from the cover of the auxiliary walls and rush toward the hooks.
Fully-armored soldiers rushed to catch up with him.
Every person outside the walls had extraordinary strength. If they succeeded in mounting the walls using these hooks and opened the gate, the more than one hundred thousand workmen within the city would be exposed.
The City of Steel would be the site of a massacre!
Clangclangclang! Swords hacked at the hooks, severing the ropes. Without the ropes, the White Braves dropped back to the ground.
But before they hit the ground, the White Braves cast out their right hands, causing yet another set of five-clawed hooks to latch onto the walls. The White Braves immediately restarted their rapid ascent…
“Sir Zhang!”
Just when the Tibetan assault was at its most intense, when Wang Chong could see that the White Braves had packed the base of the wall, he suddenly turned his head to Zhang Shouzhi, who was being protected by several guards.
“It’s about time for us to use the beehives.”
“Mm.”
Zhang Shouzhi nodded and turned around, quickly descending the walls.
Although he was only skilled in construction, Zhang Shouzhi had been with Wang Chong during the war of the southwest, so he was not completely ignorant in military affairs. These people were formidable cavalry, yet they also had battering rams and hooks, tools that cavalry usually did not use.
These were clearly not ordinary opponents.
But no matter who they were, they had clearly underestimated Wang Chong’s convictions in building his city here and the preparations he had made.
Buzz!
While hundreds of White Braves were trying to get up the walls along the hooked ropes, none of them noticed that a dense honeycomb of holes had appeared on the wall, fifteen meters from the ground.
The cold glimmer of arrows could faintly be seen within these holes.
Boom! In a flash, thousands of arrows suddenly exploded from these holes, enveloping the White Braves outside. This sudden attack caught the White Braves completely off-guard.
Dingdingding! Countless arrows landed harmlessly against thick armor, but tens of thousands of arrows had been fired from the wall, and there was no means of dodging them at such close distances. Plushplushplush! Arrow after arrow managed to find a chink in the armor, shooting into unprotected areas like the neck.
Thudthudthud!
In a flash, thirty or forty White Braves who had been caught off-guard dropped to the ground, their corpses sprinkling the battlefield. Others had their ropes severed by the sudden arrow volley and dropped to the ground. In addition, the White Braves outside the walls were also caught in the arrow volley. Squelchsquelchsquelch! Seventy or eighty White Braves were shot dead.
“Damn it!”
“Careful of the arrows!”
Howls and shouts came out of the darkness. None of the White Braves had expected such a strong volley of arrows at close range. Wang Chong’s ‘beehives’ had been hidden very well and given no warning, leading the White Braves to suffer more than one hundred casualties.
In a battle involving tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers, this loss was insignificant, but to the five or six thousand White Braves, this was no small wound.
“Raise shields!”
“Defend!”
At this moment, the ferocity of the White Braves revealed itself. Despite the furious volley of arrows, not a single White Brave retreated. In the dim light of the fires, the White Braves lowered their bodies and reached under their horses. When they stood up again, they each clutched a thick plate shield in their hand.
The shields were raised into the sky, and in the blink of an eye, they were linked into a massive ‘wall’ that blocked all the arrows.
“Everyone, get up there and open the gate! Attack the City of Steel!” someone who appeared like an officer of the White Braves harshly shouted. The moment he finished speaking, even more hooks crossed the forty meters of distance to latch onto the wall.
Not only that, under the rain of arrows, several White Braves equipped with strange armor mounted their horses and charged toward the walls under the cover of the shields.