“What a pain, it's raining…” Xue Jingze muttered. Perhaps having learned that Xue Jingze had attacked all night to prepare a gift for him, or perhaps out of absolute trust in Xue Jingze, Tong Bingwen actually sent a message saying he would postpone his arrival for a few days. Tong Bingwen naturally had countless things on his hands, and Xue Jingze's performance in troop deployment and attack this time seemed to satisfy him. Therefore, Tong Bingwen did not need to rush to the front to steal the credit from his confidant and beloved general. After all, Tong Bingwen's problem now was also the lack of room for promotion. However, Xue Jingze was not satisfied with his performance: Da Nan Pass was still in the hands of Chun Nan.

The attack, launched while the reinforcements brought by Liang Xudao had not yet adapted to the intensity of the attacks on the city wall, although it failed to directly take Da Nan Pass, the results were also extremely impressive. Of the 10,000 reinforcements brought by Liang Xudao, one-third were lost in this one night. Coupled with the losses of the original soldiers on the city wall, Da Nan Pass began to feel somewhat precarious overnight. However, Da Nan Pass was still in the hands of Chun Nan after all.

For a total of four days, the manpower and materials that Xue Jingze had thrown at Da Nan Pass made Chun Nan's side shudder. He had almost never worried about consumption. All the siege equipment and fire oil bombs were distributed as needed, without any hesitation. Tong Bingwen staying behind to personally manage the logistics also achieved excellent results. Even now, Xue Jingze still had sufficient supplies of all kinds.

The city wall of Da Nan Pass had already shown mottled cracks due to continuous burning. Although it was a city wall built of stone, it could not withstand such torment. Sometimes, when a fire oil bomb hit the wall, the scorching hot oil would seep into the gaps between the stones and burn out there. This degree of burning would deepen with each attack. After continuous attacks, some parts of the city wall were actually hot. When fine raindrops hit the city, some places even emitted steam.

Xue Jingze frowned. He suddenly thought of something and ordered loudly, "Ordinary crossbow cannons fire at full power, focusing on that dark patch on the left side of the city wall, all with fire oil bombs. Those big guys, replace them with stone bullets and bombard that place."

Several officers under his command were stunned, but Chen Libo, the officer in charge of the heavy equipment, who had been huddled in a corner, had his eyes light up. He stood up and asked, "General, are you going to smash that section of the wall?"

Xue Jingze nodded and said, "I don't know if it will work. If we can break it open, naturally the entire line will be smooth. Even if it doesn't work, hehe, whether it's charging the city gate on the ground or scaling the city for battle, we can have cover. We just have the troops to advance on three routes. Let's see how they cope. Chen Libo, you go personally."

Chen Libo rubbed his palms and said excitedly, "I'll have to go personally even if the General doesn't order me to. When it comes to accuracy, I still have to do it."

Xue Jingze saw that Chen Libo was relaxed and nodded, encouraging him, "Go ahead. If you do well, I'll apply for a reward for you alone."

Whether in Xi Ling or Chun Nan, generals like Chen Libo, who were promoted from ordnance officers, did not seem to have a very high status. On the one hand, most of these people were not from military families, and no one supported them in the army. On the other hand, everyone also disliked them for hiding behind and firing cannons during battles, especially during successful battles, when it was difficult to even find dead people. However, the heavy equipment troops, which were being promoted by Dong Ping, were increasingly becoming an important part of capturing cities and territories, especially in city and pass defenses. During large-scale group battles, heavy equipment troops had already dominated the victory or defeat to a certain extent. Officers like Chen Libo, who excelled in technology, had thus obtained very good promotion opportunities.

Chen Libo rushed to the crossbow cannon position, conveyed Xue Jingze's orders, and after allocating the crossbow cannons for concentrated bombardment and segmented support, he stood directly on the cannon body of that super large crossbow cannon. He took out two copper rulers from his arms, measured the angle, and carefully observed the current wind direction and other weather conditions. Then, he jumped off the crossbow cannon frame and tested the feel of the cow tendons in the torsion spring group... After such a series of mysterious actions, he whispered a series of orders to the gunners who were waiting for his orders.

Rows of fire oil bombs directly hit the city wall, but this did not cause much reaction on the city. After a few days, everyone's nerves had become much stronger. The small flames splashed by the fire oil bombs did not cause much damage to the city wall. On the contrary, the Xi Ling army climbing up to attack under the city were a little embarrassed. Along the city wall, streams of flames flowed along the flowing fire oil, running through the gaps in the stone bricks, which was shocking.

However, when another batch of fire oil bombs hit the city wall at the same awkward height, Zhang Chen immediately realized that there was a problem!

He immediately summoned several officers in charge of firearms and heavy equipment and asked, "What does this mean?" But everyone looked at each other in dismay. But suddenly, a loud noise came, accompanied by a scattering of rubble that shot everywhere. "General Zhang, come and take a look... the city wall... the city wall is cracked."

The burning of the flames, the uneven heating and cooling causing mutual extrusion between the bricks and stones, coupled with the bombardment of stone bullets with tremendous energy, finally opened a gap in the city wall. Zhang Chen bent down and leaned out of the city wall, glanced at the gap in the city wall, and blood uncontrollably rushed to his head. All the surrounding sounds seemed to turn into buzzing bees, moving away from him. Zhang Chen shook his head vigorously, and this feeling of dizziness began to leave him. It was really terrible. The gap in the city wall was quite large, with about three or four stone bricks actually collapsing and falling at the foot of the city wall. Although several Xi Ling soldiers were killed, Zhang Chen would rather these stone bricks had stayed there. In the moment of his distraction, two Xi Ling officers, holding iron bows and supervising the attack under the city, had already shot two arrows. If it hadn't been for the guards beside Zhang Chen raising their shields to block them, Zhang Chen would almost certainly have died on the spot.

Even after a few stone bricks collapsed, it was still very solid. The city wall was not just a layer of stone bricks. The outermost layer was stone bricks, completely cut from natural rock. The inner layer was hard blue bricks, densely stacked. Moreover, this layer of blue bricks was the thickest layer in the city wall. Further inside were huge stone beams. When Da Nan Pass was built, these stone beams were the most difficult part. Each stone beam was cut from natural giant rocks, then transported here, and then hoisted into place using clumsy methods, clearing the burrs from the stacking joints between the stone beams, making complex wedges and matching holes, polishing the remaining contacting surfaces smooth, and then stacking the stone beams together, joining them tightly. Only then was the outer wall built on the framework built by the stone beams. This complex and inefficient framework structure ensured that Da Nan Pass stood firm. However, ordinary soldiers did not know this complicated matter. This gap in the city wall was still a long way from forming a hole that could break through the city wall. Moreover, on careful thought, with the current rate of fire and accuracy of these heavy weapons, it was unknown how long it would take to repeatedly attack this point until the city wall could be breached. However, the collapse of the city wall had a huge impact on morale.

Listening to the Xi Ling army under the city cheering and attacking more vigorously, taking advantage of the low morale of the Chun Nan soldiers on the city, a team of Xi Ling elite soldiers rushed up the city wall. Zhang Chen quickly led a pair of guards to block the gap, while reporting the situation to Liang Xudao, and then hurriedly notified people to send reinforcements to the city to defend against the enemy. However, a crackling sound made Zhang Chen fall into despair. It was the sound of the thick wooden pillars supporting the gate below breaking. In the past few days, four of those well-protected siege vehicles had been damaged, but each time, Xue Jingze had unhesitatingly sent another one. Xi Ling soldiers had to brave the arrow rain, rolling stones, and scorching oil from the city to move away the damaged siege vehicles and push the new siege vehicles up to continue working. In the area of the city gate alone, Xi Ling had lost at least one thousand seven or eight hundred people.

But finally, this moment had arrived. All these sacrifices had been worth it. When the wooden bars supporting the two extremely heavy oak doors wrapped in copper skin broke, the wood of the doors, which had become loose after countless hammerings, could no longer withstand the attack. Moreover, the saddlebags on both sides of the gate, which were almost as tall as a person, had long been covered with hidden injuries. Chun Nan soldiers tried hard to support the wooden bars behind the city gate, but before this arduous task could take effect, the city gate could no longer hold on. With a rumble, the gate fell into the deep gatehouse, instead crushing many Chun Nan soldiers below, turning them into powder.

"Full army, charge!" Xue Jingze, who saw this scene in the telescope, shouted loudly, and this order was immediately shouted out by the officers layer by layer. The entire Xi Ling army turned into a wave of attack, rushing towards Da Nan Pass. Those soldiers who had just seemed to have exhausted the last of their energy were revitalized and rushed towards the gatehouse; those reserve troops who had been lined up not far from the city wall to replace their comrades attacking in front ran forward; the soldiers who were rotating to rest came out of the camp one after another, picked up their weapons, and rushed towards Da Nan Pass... At this moment, the entire Xi Ling army was boiling.

The city wall was cracked, the city gate was blasted open, and the Chun Nan soldiers on the city wall of Da Nan Pass were terrified, and there was a trend of collapse. They were killed and fled by the increasing number of Xi Ling soldiers who jumped onto the city wall. And half an hour later, Xi Ling had occupied the main city gate of the entire Da Nan Pass, driving the Chun Nan forces to the auxiliary buildings behind Da Nan Pass to resist stubbornly…

After several years, this famous pass changed hands again.