Chapter 1728

Su Yuchi's kill order didn't have much effect; nearly a thousand corpses of refugees shot dead under the city gate had thoroughly aroused the refugees' anger; they recklessly crossed the moat, most of them being the elderly, weak, women and children.

Faced with unarmed civilians, the soldiers all hesitated, each lowering their bows.

Su Yuchi roared, "Fire! I told you to fire! Don't you know the consequences of defying military orders?"

One soldier threw his bow to the ground first, clasped his hands behind his back and shouted, "To hell with military orders—kill me if you want, but what's the difference between shooting arrows at our own people and slaughtering the elderly, weak, women and children, or beasts? And what exactly are we defending our homes and country for, and who are we really protecting?"

Su Yuchi snapped, "Seize them!"

"If you're going to arrest us too, brothers, we'd rather die than do such an inhumane thing." One after another, the soldiers threw down their weapons.

Su Yuchi never expected the situation to become uncontrollable; his anger turned into panic, the situation was dire, and his subordinates clearly were greatly dissatisfied with his actions; if he continued to impose his will by force, a mutiny might break out.

Su Yuchi, being experienced, quickly realized he needed to change; he nodded, said nothing, turned and walked down the city wall—just then, a deafening explosion rang out, the entire city wall trembled, smoke and dust billowed, and the heavy city gate was blown open with a large hole.

Su Yuchi nearly got knocked over by the violent shock; he steadied himself on the arrow slit and stared ahead, only to see smoke filling the West Gate, dozens of gate guards struggling in pools of blood, no one knowing why the West Gate exploded, the refugees outside the gate were stunned by the violent blast, but immediately they snapped out of their shock, shouting, "The gate is open! The gate is open!" Tens of thousands of refugees began to surge through the broken gate into Yunyang City.

Although Su Yuchi could see clearly, his ears kept ringing; the blast had temporarily deafened him. He shouted, ordering soldiers to stop the civilians, and the West Gate descended into complete chaos.

The defending soldiers tried to block the civilians, but the refugees had completely lost their reason, recklessly charging forward, even using their bodies to crash into the soldiers' swords, seizing the weapons and madly stabbing the defending soldiers.

A refugee lunged at Su Yuchi with a seized spear, its gleaming tip aimed at his chest. Su Yuchi drew his sidearm, parried the spear with a clang that rang in his ears, his hearing began to recover, and he followed up with a slash that severed the refugee's head. Watching blood gush like a fountain, he let out a mournful roar and shouted, "Anyone who trespasses into Yunyang shall be killed without mercy!"

Zong Tang loaded a shell into the barrel; this Heaven-Shaking Thunder was a secret between Hu Xiaotian and him. After Zong Tang left Da Yong to follow Hu Xiaotian, he spent most of his time improving the Heaven-Shaking Thunder. Through repeated research and refinement by Zong Tang and Zhuge Guanqi, they not only perfected the Heaven-Shaking Thunder but also, based on Hu Xiaotian's hints, developed a miniature version. This miniature Heaven-Shaking Thunder is no longer than five feet long, with a bore diameter of half a foot, its barrel divided into three sections, and all its brackets and fittings can be disassembled, assembled with screws and nuts, all of which were drawn up by Hu Xiaotian.

Although the screws and nuts were not Hu Xiaotian's original invention, to Zong Tang and Zhuge Guanqi they were already a remarkable feat of invention; Hu Xiaotian had grasped too much knowledge from his past life, but he lacked the ability to turn it into reality himself, and Zong Tang's appearance precisely filled that gap.

The destructive power of this miniature Heaven-Shaking Thunder left even Zong Tang stunned; the shell's formula was originally provided by Hu Xiaotian, then refined by Zhuge Guanqi, and the first shot already blasted the city gate to pieces—so sudden was it that even Su Yuchi's side failed to understand how the gate had been destroyed.

Zong Tang hid on the seventh floor of the Great Square Tower; from his position he could clearly see the West Gate, and the second shot was aimed at the city wall's steps—with a thud!

A black sphere shot out along the rifling's arc, striking the city wall's stone steps as accurately as a meteor from outer space, shattering the middle section of the steps into fragments; several soldiers stationed above and below the steps to respond were blown to pieces, and in an instant smoke and dust filled the air while stone shards flew everywhere.

The powerful recoil made the entire tower tremble; after completing his mission, Zong Tang quickly disassembled the Heaven-Shaking Thunder, and his four assistants helped him, instantly taking it apart—to prevent exposure, ensuring it wouldn't fall into enemy hands, otherwise the consequences would be unthinkable. Although the Heaven-Shaking Thunder is hardly high-tech for Hu Xiaotian, in this era it is an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction.

Zong Tang's task was simply to blow open the city gate; now that the mission is fully accomplished, the next step is to move the Heaven-Shaking Thunder to a safe hiding place, then proceed to the rendezvous.

The refugees surged into Yunyang's West Gate like a tide; the two unexplained explosions did not scare them off—for them, staying outside meant waiting to die, and a desperate gamble might still carve out a path to survival.

The garrison of Yunyang rapidly gathered at the damaged West Gate, personally led by Su Yuchi to drive back the incoming refugees, but the situation had slipped beyond their control. Faced with the madly charging refugees risking their lives, the Yunyang soldiers could initially restrain themselves, unwilling to strike unarmed civilians, yet they quickly realized that without decisive action, not only could they not drive the refugees out of the city, but even their own lives would be in jeopardy.

The refugees used wooden sticks, stones, and any possible tools as weapons to attack.

After great effort, Su Yuchi broke free from the refugees' encircling melee, organized the soldiers to begin a sweeping suppression and shooting; after a bout of chaos, the Yunyang troops quickly readjusted, being trained troops, they first had archers fire in volleys to suppress the refugees' advance, then spearmen stepped forward to form a huge arc-shaped encirclement, trapping the refugees within; under Su Yuchi's command, the encirclement slowly contracted, attempting to drive the refugees out of the city.

The situation reached a stalemate, and the archers stationed on high ground began to cease fire, after all these were unarmed civilians, and they did not want to cause more bloodshed.

Su Yuchi roared, "Fire! Anyone who enters the city shall be killed without mercy!" The situation before him was far from optimistic; they could not yet say they had control, for if the refugees counterattacked again it would surely cause greater trouble. Many soldiers' eyes showed extreme reluctance, for they faced not enemies but their own compatriots, and Su Yuchi's today displayed cold-blooded cruelty that had already aroused their great resentment.

Swish! A feathered arrow shot from behind toward Su Yuchi's back; he kept his gaze forward, unaware of the rear, but fortunately his nearby guard noticed in time, lunged forward, and used his body to block the arrow.

The arrow pierced the guard's chest, and he died without a sound; Su Yuchi turned in shock, only to see a fellow soldier in the ranks shout, "Damn it, do you have any humanity? These are our fathers and brothers, among them are our wives, children, and elders—they're just seeking a way to live, why are you so cold-blooded?"

The surrounding soldiers closed in to seize him, but he tossed his bow aside, pulled from his shoulder a pair of huge hammers like pumpkins, let out a weird wah-yah-yah cry, swung the hammers like windmills—anyone nearby either died outright or was injured—and he bellowed, "Brothers, fellow villagers, we cannot be accomplices; we must save our own fathers and brothers."

This guy is none other than Xiong Tianba, who had been ordered to infiltrate Su Yuchi's army; he had just tried to assassinate Su Yuchi with a cold arrow, never expecting that the guard beside Su Yuchi would take the hit instead.

When Xiong Tianba caused a commotion, quite a few soldiers also defected; in fact, many of Yunyang's troops came from Xichuan, and they would have no hesitation fighting the Xichuan army, but today they were slaughtering their own fathers and elders; to most soldiers, Su Yuchi could easily have opened a net, letting the Xichuan refugees in—after all, Hu Xiaotian had already expressed willingness to take them in, and Su Yuchi needed only to do a simple favor, requiring nothing of him, yet even this simple act he refused, plain for all to see; if these refugees remained trapped outside, the death toll would inevitably rise in a straight line, and the refugees' desperate assault on the city today was unavoidable.

Su Yuchi's various iron-fisted measures had already provoked many soldiers to rebel; now they clearly had the situation under control, yet Su Yuchi issued another kill order, and the resentment of many Xichuan soldiers had reached the brink of eruption—Xiong Tianba's appearance was perfectly timed; in truth this guy isn't even a Xichuan accent, but amid the present chaos no one questioned it.

At the same time, the refugees who had been temporarily suppressed were encouraged by the enemy's internal split, and someone among them shouted loudly, "Folks, we're doomed either way—what's there to fear? Let's fight him!"

Another voice cried out, "These soldiers are also our brothers and sisters; they're all forced by that traitor Su Yuchi to act this way—kill Su Yuchi, kill Su Yuchi!"

The refugees shouted loudly, but actually most refugees didn't even know who Su Yuchi was? The one who had just called for killing Su Yuchi was actually Liang Yinghao hiding among the refugees, he and Xiong Tianba, together with many of their followers, had infiltrated both sides' camps, taking the opportunity to stir up chaos, making the situation increasingly complicated.

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