Chapter 90 A Carpenter's Battlefield

"I was originally a carpenter, and after the war, win or lose, I'll be going to jail. But now you're under my command." Ye Tao said this to the army composed of more than two thousand scattered soldiers. His expression was so indifferent, as if he wasn't about to lead them into a bloody battle, but to a sauna. "The west wall has been under attack for two hours, and the south and north sides have been under attack for a while too. There are still enemies queuing up to attack from behind. The two thousand heavy infantry are exhausted, and we need to hold out for another two hours. If anyone doesn't want to die on the city wall, speak now. Once we're on the wall, I won't bother sending any supervisory teams. It's pointless to chop off our own people's heads. ... No one? That's for the best. Ascend the city in batches, replacing the heavy infantry banner teams. Those who know how to use the Shenbi crossbow and trebuchet, and the ballista, should quickly take over. Remember, two hours. If we can make it through, we'll survive tonight. If we can't, everyone knows the consequences."

Ye Tao's "mobilization" left everyone looking at each other in dismay. But Ye Tao's mindset was indeed like this. For him, dying in battle wasn't such a bad ending. But his current posture, wearing armor and leaning casually on a stone hammer, along with his calm and truthful tone, still made everyone feel a sense of security. The indelible, now blackened bloodstains on the stone hammer further made everyone understand that this was a general who would fight alongside them. As for the "carpenter" identity...bullshit, that's what most of the soldiers thought.

Ye Tao's opening on the city wall was magnificent. His hammer smashed onto the shield of a Xi Ling captain who had charged onto the city wall. The shield shattered. The captain let out a miserable cry and fell off the city wall.

"The entire Blood Kirin Army, leave the city wall. We're taking over here." Pulling Qiu Haohui aside, Ye Tao ordered.

"I can't go down." The elaborate cloisonné enamel decorations on Qiu Haohui's heavy armor were already covered with a thick layer of blood.

"You can barely walk. Get down." Ye Tao waved his hand, and people helped Qiu Haohui down.

When the ragtag army led by Ye Tao ascended the city wall to fight, it was exactly when one Xi Ling battalion had been decimated and was gradually retreating, while another battalion was taking over the offensive. Without encountering too much resistance, these two thousand gathered stragglers took over the entire western wall's defensive line. And according to their previous military branches, they each picked up weapons and began to enter the battle in an orderly manner. Among these two thousand people, there were more than two hundred officers and non-commissioned officers from the Blood Kirin Army, and they would become the backbone of the defensive organization.

Looking at another wave of enemies below the city forming into formations and starting to charge the city wall, Ye Tao couldn't help but curse inwardly, "Damn it! Why did we have to run into the elite?"

After the first batch of enemies broke through the three-dimensional barrage of various long-range weapons, the enemies could attack the city wall continuously. Although the entire process would still suffer continuous attacks and harassment from long-range weapons, due to the different levels of proficiency of the soldiers on the city wall in operating the equipment, and the need to constantly adjust targets, it was no longer possible to form a volley. Although this piecemeal attack caused casualties to increase continuously, it was not as shocking as when the volley started.

This batch of charging Xi Ling soldiers was no different from the previous waves of enemies in terms of equipment, but it was obvious that they were different. From assembling into formations outside the range of the ballista and trebuchet, to setting up ladders and starting to climb under the city, this round of offensive came faster than before. The Xi Ling side had no way to organize archers to focus on parabolic shooting, but in this round of offensive, scattered archers were mixed in the ranks of infantry, focusing on constantly firing blindly at the city wall around the ladders. Arrows with long white tail feathers pinned down the soldiers, who were now obviously less well-armored, on the city wall, making them unable to raise their heads. The other side seemed to have keenly noticed that the heavy infantry's stamina couldn't hold on any longer, and knew that now, in their main offensive direction, there was only a much weaker defensive force.

"Hold the left and right sides, let them come up the ladders in the middle!" They couldn't continue like this. Ye Tao decisively issued an order, changing the way of defense. Instead of letting the other side suppress them with arrows, making it difficult to move, it was better to gamble on whether the enemy could climb the city faster, or the soldiers on the city wall could kill faster. "Protect the equipment. Get the hand crossbows ready."

Xi Ling soldiers immediately rushed up the city wall, and what greeted them first was a dense volley of arrows shot from hand crossbows. Immediately, the Dongping soldiers, like wolves and tigers, pounced up. Those who were hit by arrows would inevitably be slightly stagnant due to injury, and these people were immediately pushed or thrown off the city wall. Gravity would complete the rest. Intertwined with the Xi Ling soldiers in close combat, the Xi Ling archers below the city had no choice but to stop shooting arrows at the city wall that they couldn't see clearly, so as not to injure their own people. But while fighting, the Dongping soldiers drew out a part of them to use hand crossbows to shoot and kill those archers who were already under the city wall. They leaned out of the city wall, aimed roughly at the archers, and pulled the trigger. Anyway, the enemies under the city were so dense that the possibility of shooting astray was not very high. But many Xi Ling archers were unlucky in this way, almost without any ability to fight back. After all, it was impossible for them to always draw their bows fully and shoot at the guys who poked their heads out of the city wall, and the shooting speed of the hand crossbows that had been loaded was too fast for these archers to react.

Wielding the stone hammer, Ye Tao gradually became a little frenzied. At first, he was a little afraid. Seeing hideous faces roaring and pouncing towards him, wielding bright and bloodstained knives in their hands, fear was a very instinctive reaction. If he didn't want to be captured without a fight, he had to wield the stone hammer in his hand and smash the frightening faces.

One blow, two blows, three blows... After solving a few enemies in the melee, Ye Tao even found a strange sense of rhythm in wielding the stone hammer. The fear in his heart turned into calmness, and gradually rose into fanaticism. As long as he saw where his comrades were struggling to resist attacks, or a few people were besieged by more people, Ye Tao would instinctively pounce on them, using the hammer in his hand to smash the enemy hard. There were no more techniques, it was completely a desperate stance. The carefully crafted armor on his body could protect him from harm to the greatest extent, but when he found that unless the enemy concentrated his strength on the weak points of the armor, otherwise, although it hit him all over and caused pain, it would not really hurt him much, he began an exchange-style fighting method of hacking at each other. Although it made Lu Dan, who was closely following him, frightened, this fighting method was indeed the most effective for Ye Tao, who was not very skilled.

"Kill the one with the hammer!" A vice-general under the city pointed at Ye Tao on the city wall, who was running around and waving the stone hammer in his hand, and knocking down a private who had barely climbed onto the city wall like a gopher, and ordered. Beside him, several masked elite soldiers wearing leather armor respectfully accepted the order and jumped towards the ladder. Their steps were much lighter and more powerful than ordinary soldiers. In a few swift movements, they climbed up the ladder. Their feet even stepped on the shoulders and heads of their comrades, but it seemed as if they were just lightly touching, without any weight.

"Be careful!" Lu Dan's exclamation came too late. At the same time as he exclaimed, three crossbow arrows had already been shot at Ye Tao one after another.

Almost subconsciously, Ye Tao raised his arm and turned sideways, but the crossbow arrows still hit him. Under the obstruction of the tough armor and the copper grid under the armor, one crossbow arrow bounced off, one got stuck in the gap of the armor, but another one still embedded itself in Ye Tao's ribs.

He let out a low roar, like a wounded beast. He broke off the arrow shaft casually and rushed towards the enemy of unknown strength without hesitation.

Lu Dan wanted to rush up to protect Ye Tao, but was entangled by two Xi Ling soldiers who had climbed onto the city wall. He swiftly cut down two miscellaneous soldiers and rushed up quickly.

Those masked elite soldiers were the secret force of Zang Keming, the commander of the Mo Shui Battalion. They were often used to seize passes and kill important opponents in major battles. This group of people, known as the Wolf Guard, numbered less than twenty under Zang Keming's command. And now, in such a highly destructive siege battle, he had invested six of them at once, which was already a huge expenditure. And the vice-general under the city, who instructed the Wolf Guard to attack Ye Tao, was considered to be good at recognizing and employing people.

If the string of reason in Ye Tao's mind was still tense, he would never rush up to fight with such enemies, but the continuous death of enemies and comrades had already broken this string. Two Wolf Guards pounced up from the left and right. What they held in their hands were not the broadswords, spears, or scimitars and daggers used by ordinary soldiers, but blade thorns with deep blood grooves and no handguards.

Ye Tao's strength was unexpectedly great. One Wolf Guard didn't even block Ye Tao's hammer. Just as this Wolf Guard retreated two steps, his leg bumped into the parapet behind him. At the moment of balancing his center of gravity, the Dongping soldiers, who were already very accustomed to taking advantage, conveniently stabbed and killed the Wolf Guard on the spot, and conveniently picked him up and threw the corpse off the city wall.

The Mo Shui Battalion was Zang Keming's personal army, especially the Wolf Guard, which was small in number but had made countless contributions. Almost everyone had their own unique skills. These people, if placed in the martial world, might not even be considered experts, but the military had its own skills and methods, and on the battlefield, these people could exert several times the effect of so-called first-class experts. Zang Keming was indeed furious to send the Wolf Guard into the bloody and simple siege battle. The death of this Wolf Guard would make Zang Keming feel heartache for a long time.

Ye Tao was a newbie after all. His bravery, coupled with the tight and solid armor on his body, could indeed make him invincible when facing ordinary soldiers, but once he faced the Wolf Guard who had been on the battlefield for a long time and was familiar with the massacre to the point of numbness, he inevitably fell into crisis. As if in an instant, a Wolf Guard invaded behind Ye Tao and slammed his palms on Ye Tao's back with a boom. Then, he confidently flipped over and jumped away, dodging the stabs of the spears in the hands of the surrounding Dongping soldiers, and then jumped directly off the city wall. Seeing that they were not good at this meat grinder-style fight, the Wolf Guards retreated from the current battle one after another. Although the city wall of Baishi City was not very low, it was not a great height for them.

Ye Tao fell down. The two palms on his back were not painful at the moment of being hit, and the powerful impact that came randomly made Ye Tao think of the mechanical stamping machine that was placed in a workshop in Danyang and had now become the treasure of many technical officials of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry. He spat out two mouthfuls of blood almost immediately and collapsed to the ground.

"Ye Tao!" Lu Dan rushed up, his face full of anger. But this was the battlefield after all. Years of military training, plus the Princess's Mansion's guard and the play-like participation in several exercises under the two armies' review, had already made him somewhat accustomed to the various casualties that might occur in this incomprehensible place on the battlefield, but once it really happened to the people around him, especially the protection target of his duty, he still broke out in an instant.

Regardless of life and death, he slashed a few times, making him closer to the place where Ye Tao fell, but the surging battle group rushed him away again. Just as a Xi Ling soldier was about to stab Ye Tao with a spear, a guy in coarse cloth overalls rushed up from the side, kicked the Xi Ling soldier away, and pulled Ye Tao down.

Lu Dan knew this person, too familiar. This guy was an apprentice sent by the Ye Family Workshop to the Blood Kirin Army's barracks, responsible for the repair of various equipment. This time, the entire Blood Kirin Army launched an attack, and they didn't intend to bring these "non-combatants", but most of the apprentices still followed, and they played a big role in building the pontoon bridge. But Lu Dan didn't expect that this guy named Xu Ping was an expert among these apprentices. Looking at the power of his kick and the arc that the poor Xi Ling soldier flew out, it was impossible without ten or twenty years of practice, but this Xu Ping looked only twenty-five or six years old.

"I'm from the Princess's Mansion," Xu Ping said, which immediately answered all of Lu Dan's questions. How could that magical princess, that great princess, not arrange a few reliable guards around Ye Tao? "Young Master Lu, I'll take the young master down to settle him, you command everyone to hold on for a while. I'll let General Yu come up." By the time Lu Dan rushed to Xu Ping's side, Xu Ping had already carried Ye Tao on his back. Lu Dan deeply agreed with Xu Ping's statement. Although Ye Tao was injured now and seemed to have fallen into a coma, since there were people like Xu Ping, he would definitely make good arrangements. And Lu Dan's most important responsibility now was to stabilize the battle formation, not to let Ye Tao's hard work be in vain, not to let the deaths and injuries of so many brothers be in vain.

Lu Dan picked up the stone hammer. Nodding vigorously, Lu Dan shouted and encouraged the already frenzied original scattered soldiers, waving the stone hammer to save the situation. Although the Mo Shui Battalion was the elite in Zang Keming's hands, even the most elite soldiers could not defeat desperate people. Although the Dongping soldiers on the city wall were becoming sparser and sparser, the battle situation was miraculously stabilized.

Before long, Yu Kang, who had just retreated not long ago, rushed up with a team of people. Although Yu Kang was also tired to death, he still had some remaining strength compared to those heavy infantry of the Blood Kirin Army who had been fighting in heavy armor for a long time. And this batch of people he brought up could also be regarded as the last batch of quasi-combat civil servants in Baishi City. Among these people were the city guard's guards, the guards of his own mansion, the subordinate officials who usually guarded the city gate and did not belong to the military, and even the jailers of the Baishi City prison. The nearly three hundred fresh troops, regardless of their combat power, injected a new blood into the stalemate battle situation on the city wall. With their fierce and reckless three axes, they even recovered a small section of the city wall.

Finally, the Blood Kirin Army still did not rest for a full two hours. After a little more than an hour and a half, Qiu Haohui came up with a group of soldiers who claimed to have recovered. Whether they had really recovered or were just showing off and forcing themselves, they couldn't care about it at this time. And Qiu Haohui, in desperation, also used a super rogue tactic. Several heavy infantry formed a group and rushed to the most densely populated place of the Xi Ling soldiers, and then the archers behind them covered the shooting regardless of their own people or enemies. The meticulous to the point of perversion armor of the Blood Kirin Army heavy infantry made them not worry about arrows from any angle, but the Xi Ling soldiers who were attracted to their side fell in batches.

After more and more heavy infantry and archers rejoined the battle, this overnight battle finally came to an end. When the huge bonfires on the city wall and under the city gradually extinguished, and when the dawn reappeared on the horizon, the most intense siege battle since the city was besieged ended. The Blood Kirin Army, the Baishi City garrison, and the gathered stragglers were scarred and riddled with deaths and injuries, but the Xi Ling army was even more miserable. That night, all their troops were put into rotation, and several main forces, including the Mo Shui Battalion, were crippled. In just one night, the deaths and injuries of the Xi Ling army were more than twelve thousand. This number was more than three times the loss of the defense side centered on the Blood Kirin Army in Baishi City. The balance of power inside and outside the city had undergone a subtle change.

Zang Keming could only send a military report to Tong Bingwen for help, and Tong Bingwen, while surprised by the strength of the Blood Kirin Army, had no choice but to mobilize a large army to besiege Baishi City. The battle situation in Ningshi City was in a stalemate, but Tong Bingwen chose to besiege but not attack. In comparison, he still felt that taking Baishi City, which had weaker troops and defenses, was more certain. In any case, he needed a strong support point on this front line, a city that could be used as a bargaining chip in the future.

This was exactly what Ye Tao and the others had expected.

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ps: Correct the chapter number error in the previous chapter, it should be eighty-nine (lower), it was casual when uploading.

ps2: Continue to vote. Manuscript...can still hold on.