Edited by: Michyrr
In the alliance, An Lushan was the leader, and all the countries would heed his order. If he couldn’t even deal with this ‘minor situation’, there was no need to discuss what would happen for other matters.
“Master, there is no need to worry. Leave everything to Generals Cui and Tian.”
Gao Shang’s brow was slightly creased, but he did not appear panicked. He swiftly turned to Cui Qianyou and Tian Qianzhen.
“Generals, I leave this matter to you,” Gao Shang calmly said.
“Mm!”
Cui Qianyou and Tian Qianzhen immediately mounted their horses.
“Master, let us handle this matter.”
Confident looks on their faces, they bowed to An Lushan and then rode off.
An Lushan gave a slight nod, his expression calming down.
Youzhou didn’t merely have strong soldiers. It also had many generals. Cui Qianyou and Tian Qianzhen might not have been famous in the Central Plains, but they were both formidable tacticians.
Moreover, when under the command of Zhang Shougui, An Lushan had secretly been training them. In the wars against the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, the Xi, the Khitans, and Goguryeo, they had been able to hold their own.
As they vanished into the battlefield, the situation swiftly began to change.
The two generals quickly began to issue orders.
“All soldiers, halt the advance!”
“Soldiers at the front, withdraw to the flanks!”
“All shield carts, cease the advance and prepare to defend!”
“Underworld Army, prepare to move out!”
The soldiers had been rushing forward, spreading the chaos, but now, they heard the order and came to a stop.
And at the very front, the dense ranks of soldiers seemed to gain a backbone after receiving their orders. The soldiers at the back began to move to the sides, and then back, creating an opening in the center.
The clear and precise orders had quickly restored discipline to the army.
Cui Qianyou’s judgment was very precise on this aspect.
But this was not the greatest response from the Youzhou side.
Bang!
A giant boom came from the horizon, and then a massive boulder hurtled through the air in a massive arc toward the steel fortress.
But different from expected, these boulders did not strike inside the fortress, their angle slightly adjusted so that they attacked…
The forty thousand Tang soldiers!
Bang!
The giant boulder suffused with destructive energy made impact, sending twenty-some Tang soldiers flying through the air.
The five or six Tang soldiers unlucky enough to be right under the boulder instantly had their bones crushed and armor deformed, blood gushing out from them as they died on the spot.
But this was only the beginning.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
More boulders came hot on the heels of the first, inflicting massive casualties on the forty thousand Tang soldiers.
These boulders weighed several hundred jin, some almost reaching one thousand.
These rocks descended from high in the sky, and the force of inertia increased their impact strength to sixty thousand jin, even as high as eighty thousand.
Let alone ordinary soldiers, not even elites could hold up against them.
“Catapults!”
Everyone on the walls shivered. Guo Ziyi, Chen Burang, and Sun Zhiming all turned to Wang Chong.
Wang Zhongsi and Abusi also turned grim.
“The enemy generals aren’t simple.”
Abusi narrowed his eyes.
Wang Zhongsi frowned and said, “It seems to be that rebel general, Tian Qianzhen from Youzhou.”
Catapults were normally used for attacking cities. Using catapults to sow chaos on the enemy’s front lines was an idea that even a War God like Wang Zhongsi had to praise. This enemy general clearly wasn’t mediocre.
“Pass on my order! All soldiers, scatter, and remember to keep under cover!” Wang Zhongsi grimly ordered.
The catapults were few in number, but if countermeasures were not taken, they would inflict enormous damage on the army.
But moments after Wang Zhongsi had spoken, another boulder hurtled down somewhere else.
Boom! The boulder did not strike the Tang army, but the spiked moat. The boulders flattened the metal spikes, and the spikes in turn broke open the boulders and sent debris flying.
One boulder, two boulders, three boulders…
More boulders lobbed by the catapults landed in the moat.
“What are they doing?”
Chen Burang and the others were flabbergasted by the sight.
The first boulder could be considered a ‘miss’, but these catapults were missing far too much!
“They want to use the catapults to fill the moat!” A voice suddenly drew everyone’s attention.
Wang Zhongsi grimly surveyed the front, a dark cloud of worry on his brow.
This opposing general was far more formidable than he had imagined. The other side had clearly divided their catapults into two teams. One was targeting the forty thousand Tang soldiers while the other team was focused on filling in the moat.
The greatest obstacle for the alliance army was the long moat of spikes. If it were filled in, even partially, the alliance army could charge past and continue to exhibit their advantage in numbers.
“Pass on my orders! Divide the archers into two teams. Half of the archers should intercept the stones!
“Chen Burang, I leave this to you!” Wang Chong declared in his calm and unperturbed voice.
“Yes, Your Highness!”
Chen Burang was taken aback at first, but then his face lit up in delight.
All of Wang Chong’s subordinates considered it an honor, and Chen Burang had been impatient to receive an order.
Kaclack!
As Chen Burang took his leave, the walls began to twang with the sound of bowstrings.
Thwishthwishthwish!
The master archers had divided into two teams. The first team continued to fire at the rear of the alliance army while the other team began to aim at the falling rocks.
Boom! Boom!
Struck by numerous arrows, the boulders exploded into debris in mid-air.
Chen Burang’s command immediately showed its effects. Stone debris showered the battlefield, presenting far less of a threat than before.
Cui Qianyou and Tian Qianzhen glanced at each other, their expressions turning grim.
This response had come far faster than they had expected. The actual killing power of the catapults was fairly limited. Not only that, it also seemed like they would be unable to use the catapults to fill the moat.
“Forget about it! Send out the Underworld Army and finish off those forty thousand soldiers! They’ve already crossed the moat, so it won’t stop us dealing with them! Once we kill them all, we can use their bodies to fill the moat!” Cui Qianyou coldly said, his face exuding a baleful energy.
As one of An Lushan’s leading Great Generals, Cui Qianyou possessed a savage and callous nature that was normally restrained, but on the battlefield it was fully displayed.
The righteous did not grasp for wealth, and the kind did not command soldiers. Cui Qianyou had a much more vicious command style than other people might have believed.
Cui Qianyou once more began to speak. “In addition, hear my order! All soldiers, advance! Anyone who retreats is to be executed!
“Order has already been restored to the army. I’d like to see how many soldiers those forty thousand soldiers can stand against!”
Cui Qianyou’s eyes radiated thick killing intent.
Although the Great Tang had struck first, and its moat of spikes had killed at least one hundred thousand soldiers, the alliance army was back in order. Meanwhile, the forty thousand Tang soldiers were now surrounded. One order from the alliance army would be
enough to crush them.
“Attack!”
As Cui Qianyou gave the order, a shift took place in the alliance army. A somber force that had been standing like an imposing mountain suddenly charged forward like an arrow from a bow.
Putting aside the reaction from the alliance army, the forty thousand Tang soldiers, with the threat of the catapults removed, began to advance once more, and screams came from the alliance army as row after row of soldiers fell.
Abusi suddenly spoke. “Your Highness, the army no longer has any barriers to protect it and the enemy army has regained its order. Should we have the army retreat to avoid any further losses?”
The region of Youzhou was the territory of the alliance. They were far more familiar with this terrain than the Great Tang. In Abusi’s view, their role was to defend. For forty thousand soldiers to inflict more than one hundred thousand losses on the enemy army was already wonderful.
Right now, the best strategy was to bring the forty thousand soldiers back into the fortress and use the walls to defend against the enemy.
Chapter 2167 - City Defense Battle! (III)
Chapter 2167: City Defense Battle! (III)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
The enemy’s morale had already been damaged. There was no need for the Tang army to continue fighting.
“There’s no need.”
But to everyone’s surprise, Wang Chong rejected Abusi’s proposal without hesitation.
“It’s not time to withdraw the soldiers yet!”
Abusi was taken aback by Wang Chong’s words.
As the Tongluo Great General and the Emperor’s close aide, Abusi possessed an outstanding grasp of military strategy. In his view, the forty thousand Tang soldiers were in an extremely disadvantageous situation, but Wang Chong seemed to be speaking with great confidence.
For a moment, Abusi didn’t know what to say.
Just when everyone was about to ask what was going on, a momentous shift took place.
“Kill!”
“Master has ordered a full offensive! Deserters are to be killed!”
“Bastard! They’re only a few tens of thousands! I don’t believe that so many of us can’t kill them!”
“All soldiers, press forward and kill them all!”
The front line of the alliance army had regained order, and it had also realized that forty thousand soldiers had lost their ‘natural barrier’ and had been encircled. The soldiers roared, their eyes crimson as they charged at the forty thousand soldiers from various directions.
It was not so easy to break such a heavily defended fortress, but killing these forty thousand Tang soldiers was another matter entirely.
If they couldn’t even take care of this lone army of forty thousand, how could they handle the six to seven hundred thousand soldiers within the fortress?
In a flash, all of the alliance soldiers rallied, their bodies seething with killing intent as they charged.
From the sky, the forty thousand Tang soldiers appeared like a small splash of froth in the ocean, about to be dashed to pieces at any moment. Even so, the forty thousand soldiers stood firm like a rock, showing no signs of retreating.
On the contrary, they continued to advance.
“Kill!”
War cries filled the air as the armies crashed against each other like two waves.
“For His Majesty!”
“Conquer the Great Tang!”
A string of Goguryeon cries rose from the army, and from the left flank, thousands of Goguryeo soldiers with two black sabers in their hands charged out, savage and fierce expressions on their faces.
These Goguryeons, organized into teams, lunged like beasts of prey at a small group of Tang soldiers.
This group had only twenty-some people and was located at the very edge of the forty thousand soldiers. To the Goguryeon soldiers, these were lambs that had been abandoned. With their advantage in numbers, it would take only a few exchanges to kill them all.
Clangclangclang!
In a din of clashing metal, the two groups began to battle, their weapons glinting with cold light.
Blood gushed out and turned into crimson mist. This battle ended much faster than imagined, but the final result was not something these Goguryeon soldiers could have imagined.
With heavy thuds, the Goguryeon soldiers dropped their heavy sabers and collapsed to the ground in pools of blood, their bodies cleaved open.
“How could this be?”
The pale-faced Goguryeon captain looked around with disbelieving eyes at all the Tang soldiers that had suddenly outnumbered them. Blood spurted out of his back, his body went limp, and he collapsed to the ground and knew nothing.
At the final moment, he vaguely sensed that there was something odd about the Tang formation.
It now seemed that the twenty-some ‘isolated soldiers’ at the edge were not as simple as they had appeared.
This deceased Goguryeon commander had been rather sharp, but most of the alliance soldiers had been completely caught in the trap of ‘destroying the forty thousand Tang soldiers’, failing to realize what was going on.
“Kill!”
The alliance soldiers charged forward like waves beating against a sea wall, failing to notice that the forty thousand Tang soldiers had reconfigured themselves into a complex circular formation.
This massive formation was like a toothed gear that was constantly turning and clashing with the alliance army. Within the toothed gear, the armored soldiers had divided into units of three to four thousand men, serving as chains that shot out from the gear and penetrated into the alliance army, pulling them into the gear.
Any alliance soldiers pulled into the gear ended up being vastly outnumbered and surrounded, so they all inevitably died.
Moreover, the toothed gear was constantly shifting. At times, the upper half of the gear would collapse, transforming into long and intersecting chains that charged and scattered the enemy before once more turning back into a gear that devoured and pulverized its foes.
Even though the Tang soldiers were vastly outnumbered, not only did they not crumble, they used this method to completely suppress the alliance army. Blood gushed out of the bodies of Youzhou soldiers, Eastern Turkic soldiers, Goguryeons, Xi, and Khitans as they collapsed to the ground.
The number of deaths began to exceed those of the previous clash!
What was most terrifying was that even though the alliance army was far more numerous, when an alliance soldier charged up and killed an enemy, he for some reason felt that it was his side that was getting smaller. As they battled, it took only a few seconds for them to be inexplicably surrounded by Tang soldiers.
The alliance soldiers had no way of stopping the attack of seven or eight heavy swords, and in only a few clashes, they collapsed in pools of blood.
“How could this be?!”
Cui Qianyou grimaced as he stared at the stalwart Tang army.
“It’s a formation!”
Tian Qianzhen blinked, also deeply affected by the strength displayed by the forty thousand Tang soldiers.
“These aren’t randomly selected soldiers, but an elite army that specializes in a joint attack formation!”
In this world, armies had various formations, such as the Arrow Formation, the Tibetan Echelon Formation, and the Turkic Wolf Pack Formation. The alliance commanders were familiar with all these formations.
But Wang Chong’s appearance had raised formations to a new level and refreshed the understanding of formations in the eyes of other generals.
In Wang Chong’s hands, formations became much more complicated and terrifyingly lethal.
An army trained in a formation could contend against an opponent that was many times their number. Wang Chong’s Cutting Formation was a classic example of this, and there were very few people on the continent that did not know about it by now.
This force of forty thousand soldiers was clearly displaying a s
imilar ability, though it seemed even more complicated.
“Cui Qianyou, be careful! Ordinary soldiers can’t deal with them! We have to rely on the Underworld Cavalry to break them!”
Tian Qianzhen’s eyes widened as he once more glanced at Wang Chong.
All warfare was based on deception!
This was a saying in one of the strategy books Wang Chong had used to teach his subordinates, and at present, there were few in the alliance that did not know about them.
Wang Chong deployed his soldiers in a way that was impossible to fathom. When one believed that Wang Chong would fight in a direct confrontation, he would launch a sneak attack, and when one believed that he would attempt a scheme, he would engage in a direct clash!
In this aspect, Youzhou and its allies were far inferior and extremely reactive.
Thirty thousand, forty thousand, sixty thousand, one hundred thousand!
The alliance army was completely unprepared for this sort of tactic and was easily cut down, large swaths of soldiers being ground down by the formation. It took only a few moments for nearly one hundred thousand soldiers to fall on the battlefield.
Considering that one hundred thousand soldiers had already been lost, in this first skirmish, forty thousand Tang soldiers going on the offensive had already slain two hundred thousand enemy soldiers, and the casualties continued to climb, more and more alliance soldiers collapsing motionless onto the ground.
Upon seeing this efficiency, even Wang Zhongsi and Abusi were deeply shaken.
“In the Imperial Court’s recruitment drive, I heard that you took twenty thousand of the best recruits, and then you also took twenty thousand veterans from the various armies. Was that for this?” Wang Zhongsi suddenly said.
The quality of the soldiers in this recruitment drive was far higher than had been imagined. The Protector-Generals and Great Generals had all been fighting for the recruits, and even Wang Zhongsi had sought some.
However, the one who had moved the fastest was none other than Wang Chong.
Though others might not have known, Wang Zhongsi knew that Wang Chong had transferred out twenty thousand of the best recruits before the others had even had a chance.
Wang Chong had said nothing about where those twenty thousand recruits had gone, and the others were not in a position to ask too many questions.
The Human Emperor c1-2382 Page 1306
