Chapter 1677: Bloody Battle

The Battle of Kucha erupted in full force from the moment the western expeditionary Han army set out. From the forward base at Wulei Town to the walls of Kucha was a mere one hundred eighty li, yet it took a full ten days before the army finally arrived beneath the city.

Along the march, the Han army suffered endless harassment from Kara-Khanid cavalry. The flat roads and convenient terrain gave the light Kara-Khanid horsemen ample room to gallop to and fro.

The Han army, however, advanced in tight formation, burdened with large quantities of heavy siege equipment and logistical supplies. Their pace was already slow to begin with, and under the enemy cavalry's harassment, it became even more sluggish.

The Kara-Khanid cavalry were well-trained, fearless in the face of death, and not without cunning. They dared not charge the Han formations directly, instead employing their customary style of roaming and shooting from horseback, focused primarily on harassment and exhausting the enemy.

Of course, this kind of superficial harassment could not truly harm the Han army, especially with a greater number of Han cavalry escorting alongside. But the march was indeed delayed considerably. Though the Kara-Khanid horsemen lost some men to Han cavalry counterattacks, their objective had been achieved.

They bought Kucha more time to prepare, wearied the Han army, and blunted their edge somewhat. They even forced the Han army, upon arriving at Kucha's walls, to refrain from launching an immediate assault, instead choosing to camp on the spot and construct earthen ramparts and fortified stockades.

However, Liu Min was not one to suffer losses quietly. The Kara-Khanids had tried to intimidate him during their advance. After passing through the pass, he dispatched large numbers of Han and barbarian cavalry—on one front to protect the supply lines, on another to deal with the Kara-Khanid raiders, and on yet another to ride west beyond the city, plundering Kucha's subordinate villages and towns, cutting off all traffic in and out of Kucha. Within just five days, he had formed a posture of besieging the enemy.

The Kara-Khanid commander at Kucha was still Ariyaman, a man of royal blood with rich combat experience. Seeing through the Han army's intentions, he did not defend passively but chose to strike out proactively, continuously sending out death-defying warriors from the city to assault the Han camp, trying to break their fortification tactics. However, the Han army was well prepared and easily drove those waves of enemy soldiers back into the city.

It was not until the thirteenth day of the fourth month—a full twenty days after the Han army had set out—that they formally commenced siege operations, having tightly encircled Kucha with hard stockades and solid ramparts and secured their foothold. Even then, at the outset, they did not directly threaten the city itself.

From the very beginning, the Kara-Khanid army had apparently committed to a defensive-counterattack strategy. They made extensive preparations in city defense construction—not only reinforcing the walls and stockpiling large quantities of defensive equipment, but also conducting repeated offensive and defensive drills.

At the same time, they built sturdy horn-shaped outworks and watchtowers outside the city, dug over a hundred crisscrossing trenches, and laid numerous traps, making Kucha as impregnable as an iron bucket—at least it appeared that way.

It was precisely because they witnessed with their own eyes Kucha's formidable defensive posture that the western expedition's commanders, after deliberation, adopted a relatively conservative approach, prioritizing stability above all.

Of course, this also followed the Han army's consistent tactics since the founding of the state. In siege warfare, the Han army had long formed a complete operational system—experience distilled from over thirty years of warfare—a system even more mature than their field combat.

Excelling at city fighting was a Han army tradition; whether attacking or defending, they showed no timidity whatsoever. Thus, although Kucha's defenses were formidable and troublesome to crack, that was all they were—merely troublesome.

Therefore, once the siege plan was set, the Han army mobilized and proceeded methodically. First, they cleared and filled the obstacles and traps outside the city—a process that took a full three days and cost them a certain number of casualties.

Of course, this only cleared enough ground for the Han army's siege equipment and troops to deploy. The Kara-Khanids' fortifications both above and below the city were nothing short of frantic, employing every conceivable method to create difficulties for the Han assault.

Still, though the effect existed, it was like those harassing enemy riders—it could not truly halt the Han army's advance.

To be honest, the Han army's siege methods were just those same tricks: clearing obstacles, establishing positions, "firepower" suppression, and pressing the assault against the walls.

This time was no different. With powerful crossbows, thunderbolt fire-arrows—when the siege formally began, the well-prepared Kara-Khanids truly witnessed the offensive art that the Han army had honed to its peak over decades.

When they did not move, they were still; when they moved, they committed fully—earth-shattering and stone-splitting. Mirroring the Kara-Khanids' defensive preparations, the Han army had also made ample offensive preparations for the siege.

This was fully reflected in their diverse attack methods and abundant siege weaponry. They had prepared one hundred sets each of great yellow crossbows, thunderbolt catapults, and fire-arrows. When these instruments of the Han army's unstoppable conquest were arrayed and operated by Han soldiers, they delivered saturation strikes against Kucha city.

Piercing arrows, exploding fire-oil bombs, and roaring rockets—each of tremendous power—struck in a single wave that left the Kara-Khanid defenders dazed. Direct casualties were not terribly high, but the blow to their morale was severe. Especially the wounded defenders—not one remained intact; all were torn to pieces.

Even a fearless Kara-Khanid army could be shaken by such a gruesome spectacle. Of course, ranged strikes were merely the prelude; taking the city still depended on fighting beneath the walls.

Kucha's walls were tall, but not taller than the Han army's scaling ladders. After paying a certain cost in casualties, those siege behemoths reached the walls, pressing directly against the parapets. The Kara-Khanids' plan to use their height advantage to inflict massive casualties on the Han army below was bankrupt from the start.

The Han army's siege tactics had developed over so many years with one core purpose: to minimize the defender's positional advantage, crush the garrison's morale, and create maximum convenience for the assault.

During the Battle of Tanzhou in the first northern expedition years ago, Murong Yanzhao had even piled earth into a mountain outside Tanzhou—an extremely cautious move, yet it successfully neutralized the Liao army's defensive advantage.

They did not do the same at Kucha, but a series of successful tactical executions brought the siege to the stage of wall-to-wall combat in the shortest possible time.

The tactics were simple; the key lay in execution, especially in the wall-climbing phase. Fortunately, most of the Han soldiers on this western expedition were veteran elites, well-trained in this type of combat.

Thus, when assault warriors scaled Kucha's walls without suffering heavy casualties, both Liu Min watching from afar and Yang Yanzhao commanding at the front breathed sighs of relief.

However, the subsequent course of battle proved they had rejoiced too early. Though caught off guard by the Han army's diverse tactics, the Kara-Khanid forces never collapsed. Once the fighting devolved into a bloody melee atop the walls, their ferocious side erupted.

In face-to-face, close-quarters combat, the Kara-Khanid troops—especially their standing army—were not far behind the Han army, whether in training or in weapons and equipment.

Thanks to their advanced metallurgy, Kara-Khanid weapons were of excellent quality. In the quality of their swords and blades, they were in no way inferior to the Great Han, and in some respects even slightly superior.

The Han assault came swiftly and the wall-climbing was sudden, catching the Kara-Khanids off guard. But in the close-quarters phase, the effectiveness of the Han army's siege weapons diminished, since they had to avoid friendly fire. What could serve as support were the archers and crossbowmen fighting near the walls.

In the past, when the Han army successfully scaled an enemy's walls, the defenders usually collapsed into rout; even those who resisted did not hold out long.

But the Kara-Khanid army was somewhat different. If it came down to fighting to the death, they seemed to fear nothing more than that. Cannon fodder forged by religious zeal often carried certain attribute bonuses.

Moreover, the Kara-Khanid commander Ariyaman led from the front while simultaneously enforcing harsh military law to compel the defenders to fight to the death, disregarding casualties, determined to drive the Han army back down the walls.

The struggle was brutal, the scene cruel. Amid the bloodshed and casualties, both sides' savagery was unleashed. Yet facing the Han army's tide-like assaults, Kucha's defenders stubbornly held their ground.

On the first day of assault alone, the Han army suffered over fifteen hundred casualties, with direct deaths exceeding sixty percent. The Kara-Khanids also took heavy losses, but the ratio was roughly 1 to 1.5.

This result was hard for Liu Min to accept. The Kara-Khanid army's tenacity and madness were somewhat unexpected, forcing him to completely abandon any notion of underestimating them.

Likewise, the Kara-Khanid side was shaken. The Han army's formidable offensive capability stunned them—this was city warfare, where they held the natural advantage of the defender, yet they were completely suppressed.

Most critically, from the very start, Ariyaman had been forced to expend his finest troops on the walls—not volunteers or militia, but trained professional soldiers he had intended to use for counterattacks. Even Ariyaman himself was wounded in the fierce fighting, his arm pierced through by a Han crossbow bolt.

If the first day's battle was merely a prelude, a probing action, then in the subsequent fighting, once both sides held nothing back, the Kucha campaign inevitably sank into a stalemate.

And the price of maintaining that stalemate was the blood and sacrifice of soldiers on both sides.

On the second day, after four hours of wall combat, the Han army lost over seven hundred men, while the Kara-Khanid army suffered over a thousand dead.

On the fourth day, after half a day of assault, the Han army lost over a thousand men, and the Kara-Khanids over thirteen hundred.

On the fifth and sixth days, both sides rested and regrouped.

On the seventh through tenth days, rain forced a halt to fighting.

On the eleventh day, a full day of bitter combat still failed to take the city. The Han army suffered two thousand casualties, and the Kara-Khanid defenders were forced to throw their cannon fodder into the meat grinder, losing over three thousand.

Thereafter, compelled by the grievous casualties, Liu Min finally restrained his impulse to continue the fierce assaults.