Chapter 691

Yet that uniform, thunderous shout,

a morale like a rainbow, made Boerhu and all the Yuan soldiers involuntarily turn to look.

The Great Yuan conscripts now building siege equipment could not help but wonder to themselves.

Against such a mighty, steadfastly believing Tang Army, could they truly prevail?

That single cry of "Long live Great Tang" once again lifted the Tang Army's morale.

Boerhu, watching the Great Tang soldiers below roar in unison, knew this battle would be a brutal one.

He could only wheel his horse around and return to camp.

The night passed without incident.

Not a single man among the Tang Army lost his nerve and surrendered.

Nor did they send the few defenders they had to raid the Yuan camp while it was still settling in.

Seeing the Tang Army like this, Boerhu sighed again.

This battle, it seemed, could only be a pure siege by numbers—no tricks whatsoever.

Later, after the three armies had cooked their meals and eaten breakfast, he ordered the army to prepare to assault on three sides.

Yanmen Pass had in fact been built primarily to defend against the Great Yuan.

For although Yanmen Pass had three main gates, the northern gate's defenses were the strongest, with twenty giant siege crossbows.

The Dongmen was next, with ten.

The Nanmen had the fewest, only four!

But to destroy Yanmen Pass's other great weapon—its defensive grand formation—

Boerhu deliberately put on a show of intending to make the main attack on the south, dispatching troops and conscripts who, together with the disciples of Meng Chixing's Demon Teacher Palace, swarmed toward the gate towers in a noisy assault.

The other two sides also launched attacks at the right moment.

The northern defenses were the strongest, yet General Wulisu sent only two thousand Yuan soldiers, driving eight thousand conscripts into the fight.

It looked like ten thousand men were storming the walls, but in truth it was the weakest of the three sides.

Wei Chi Zhen could not match Captain Chen when it came to defending a city.

Therefore, for this battle, he handed over command entirely to Captain Chen.

And told him that he, Wei Chi Zhen, would only be responsible for dealing with enemy experts.

Everything else Captain Chen would have to handle alone.

Hearing this, Captain Chen was not displeased in the slightest; instead he felt this young Lord Sikong was very sensible.

After all, even though this Lord Sikong was skilled at defending cities, having just arrived, he might not yet have fully mastered Yanmen Pass's defenses.

The one who understood Yanmen Pass's defensive system best was naturally Wang Xiaojie, who had always been in charge of Yanmen Pass.

Next came the various officers under his command.

Captain Chen was the finest among them.

This was also one reason why, when Wang Xiaojie was forced to leave Yanmen Pass, Captain Chen stayed behind.

Seeing that this young Lord Sikong, who seemed like a mere nobleman's son, would not get in the way, Captain Chen immediately began issuing orders.

He saw that the north was a feint, while the south bore the weight of a real army.

The east also had a large force, but its attack was clearly not as fierce as the south's.

Although Captain Chen saw through the enemy's ruse, he still ordered men to push all ten giant siege crossbows from the north, plus four from the east, over to the south.

The Yuan Army certainly had other tricks in mind, but if you truly played into guarding against their tricks and did not deploy the forces you should,

then when the Yuan Army broke through the walls in the ensuing momentum, the Ranyebu Society would not hesitate either.

So Captain Chen made a swift decision and redeployed these great siege crossbows, the city's prime defensive weapons.

But the reason these siege crossbows are called "giant" is precisely because of their enormous size.

Moving them was extremely inconvenient.

Before those fourteen giant siege crossbows could be transported over, the Yuan Army's assault had already crashed down like an avalanche.

Tang Army archers and the four giant siege crossbows on the south side kept firing.

Yuan elites and Demon Teacher Palace disciples were mixed in among the conscripts.

Most of them were shielded by siege equipment such as shielded carts and lou carts.

Though the rain of arrows was fierce and seemed to have killed many Great Yuan men,

in truth the Yuan elites and Demon Teacher Palace disciples suffered very few losses.

When they reached three hundred paces from the wall, the Demon Teacher Palace disciples heeded the lesson of Watching Bi Xuan's disciples' setback the night before.

They did not rely on their superb lightness skill to charge up the towers, but instead hid behind the siege equipment, using hidden weapons to continuously shoot down the Great Tang defenders.

When martial world experts clash in battle formations, they may well be far inferior to a regular army.

After all, soldiers have always been trained in battle formations, and there is great trust between them.

Martial world experts do have their own formations too, but apart from close senior and junior brothers and sisters,

most martial world experts are actually not skilled at forming up together to resist the enemy.

But even if they cannot form up well, the hidden weapons of martial world experts are far more terrifying than a regular army's arrows.

A regular army's arrows also rely on arrow formations.

They are area saturation fire, not aimed at killing specific targets.

But martial world experts' hidden weapons not only stress speed, accuracy, and ruthlessness; more importantly, they are almost always coated with secret poisons by the Duoban Society.

Three hundred paces is far, to be sure.

But for Demon Teacher Palace disciples, it was well within the effective range of their hidden weapons.

Even while attacking the wall from below, they could send their hidden weapons straight at the Great Tang defenders without the slightest deviation.

Quite a few Great Tang soldiers, caught off guard for a moment, were struck on the hands, face, and other spots left exposed outside their armor by hidden weapons thrown by the disciples of the Demon Master Palace.

A hit to the face meant an instant loss of fighting ability.

A hit to the hand drew a scream of agony, and the hand would swell up in no time.

Captain Chen immediately ordered his men to take cover, then had the field medics carry off the wounded who were still alive for treatment.

Last night's battle had looked like Watching Bi Xuan was bearing down with terrifying force, but in truth the Great Tang garrison hadn't even lost a single squad.

Today, after fighting for only a short while, at least a hundred men had already lost their fighting ability.

For Yanmen Pass, which had only five thousand defenders, this was an extremely precious loss of combat strength.

While ordering his men to take cover, Captain Chen was also turning over in his mind how to counter these Jianghu experts.

After all, if they only thought about staying hidden, the defensive arrow rain was bound to be affected.

Without the restraining pressure of the arrow rain, the enemy's speed in approaching the city wall would quicken.

When it came to close combat again, it wouldn't be as easy as last night.

After all, although Watching Bi Xuan's disciples had high Wu Gong last night, they weren't skilled at coordination, and their numbers were only around three hundred.

But the Great Tang garrison had numerical superiority, was bolstered by a great defensive formation, and with the men coordinating with one another—

Groups of seven or eight working together to take down a single man was no difficult task at all.

But now the Yuan army was mixed in with laborers and Jianghu experts.

Once they climbed the wall again, the balance between attack and defense would reverse in an instant.

"What? Run into a problem?"

Just as Captain Chen was racking his brain, Wei Chi Zhen appeared beside him at some unknown moment.

"Ah! Lord Sikong, there really is a bit of a small trouble.

Our soldiers fighting the Yuan army will Bidingbu Society show the slightest hint of fear.

But those Demon Master Palace disciples, mixed in among the ranks, are loosing hidden weapons at our men.

They can't kill that many, but Zhongjiu Society end up sharply reducing our firepower.

Once the arrow rain weakens, and the giant siege crossbows from the rear haven't arrived yet—

I'm afraid they'll seize the chance to storm the wall, and in close combat we'd be at a disadvantage now."

Seeing no one nearby, Captain Chen spoke frankly to Wei Chi Zhen.

"Good! Then leave those Demon Master Palace disciples to me!"

After saying that, Wei Chi Zhen stepped right out and addressed the Great Tang soldiers,

"Soldiers, those Demon Master Palace disciples ambushing our army is utterly shameless and despicable.