"Report... Grand Governor, the Camp Supervisor Zhou has led his troops through the water gate."
Outside Guangling Commandery City, on a hilltop, a Yan scout galloped up and reported to Murong Boli, commander of the Yan right-wing army.
"What is the current situation?" Murong Boli asked, overjoyed.
"His unit is currently engaged in fierce combat with the enemy," the Yan scout replied.
"No wonder Teng Ge appreciates him, truly an extraordinary person!" Murong Boli laughed heartily, looking at Tang Qingsi.
"Although Camp Supervisor Zhou is young, he is both brave and resourceful, truly a rare general for our Great Yan!" Tang Qingsi nodded with a smile.
"Oh? Is Shixi so highly regarding him?" Murong Boli asked.
"Isn't that what you think, Governor?" Tang Qingsi countered with a smile.
"Haha..." After a hearty laugh, Murong Boli ordered, "The entire army is to attack the city. Within one hour, Guangling Commandery must be fully captured. After the city falls, a three-day leniency will be granted."
Such is the nature of a siege. Once one point is breached, others will follow, leading to a collapse and the fall of the entire city.
Murong Huiying, standing nearby, trembled slightly upon hearing the words "three-day leniency."
Murong Boli's order was too severe. "Three-day leniency" was a euphemism for a decree of massacre, allowing killing, burning, looting, rape, and plunder at will.
......
"White Tiger Camp, form up the entire army!"
"White Tiger Camp, advance!"
"Advance to live, retreat to die!"
"Comrades from the same hometown, live together, die together!"
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
In the fifth year of Yan Yongping, the third year of Xia Yuanjia, the Yan right-wing army fiercely attacked the Guangling Commandery City of Xia. Yan Camp Supervisor Zhou Fugui led two hundred brave warriors of the White Tiger Camp, utilizing fire, and broke into Guangling Commandery through the water gate.
Zhou Fugui and his nearly two hundred warriors were now facing the furious counterattack of the Xia army within the city.
Zhou Fugui and his nearly two hundred warriors were heavily armored, wielding sturdy iron shields and sharp broadswords. They formed formations of three or seven, with small formations supporting larger ones, creating battle formations to resist the frenzied counterattack of the Xia army.
Despite being only two hundred men, their battle array was as imposing as an army of thousands, truly ferocious and awe-inspiring.
"Kill the barbarian thieves, kill them!"
"Kill the damned barbarian thieves, let's fight them to the death!"
"We will all die here today!"
As Zhou Fugui led his troops into Guangling Commandery, the Xia soldiers and civilians alike understood that their doom had arrived. Yet, at this moment, hardly anyone retreated, whether male or female, old or young.
Innumerable Xia soldiers and civilians, armed with various weapons, charged towards Zhou Fugui and his two hundred men. Among them were the elderly, some in their sixties, some in their seventies, even some in their eighties. There were also youths, even children, men and women alike.
Under the flickering firelight, their faces were contorted. They charged forward with emaciated bodies, weakened by prolonged hunger.
"The wind whistles and the Yi River is cold, a valiant warrior departs and shall not return." The Xia soldiers and civilians of Guangling Commandery swore to fight the barbarians to the death.
"Raise your shields!"
Within the formation, White Tiger Camp commander Zhou Fugui, seeing the enemy's arrows approaching, shouted the order.
"Clatter!"
The iron shields were raised. The arrows shot by the Xia army and the stones they threw were almost all deflected, scattering across the ground. Then, dozens of warriors from the formation drew their bows and fired back. Their arrows rained down, felling wave after wave of the charging Xia soldiers and civilians. Blood flowed in streams, spreading in all directions.
Guangling Commandery had been besieged for four months. The city was almost out of supplies. The limited supply of arrows, sharp swords, and sturdy iron shields could only be given to Xia's elite troops. Therefore, the Xia soldiers and civilians facing Zhou Fugui and his men were armed with extremely rudimentary weapons, including cleavers, wooden sticks, even bamboo spears and bamboo knives, which were no match for the arrow storm.
The only way to resist, or rather, the only way to fight back, was to throw their lives into it, to use their flesh and blood to block the enemy's sharp arrows and blades.
Xia soldiers and civilians fell one after another. The survivors stepped over the corpses, holding their various weapons, shouting loudly as they continued to charge.
With a loud "boom!" after suffering countless casualties, the Xia soldiers and civilians finally reached Zhou Fugui and his two hundred warriors. But they were met with iron tower-like shields and gleaming, sharp broadswords.
"Block! Chop! Block! Chop!"
The two hundred warriors acted almost in unison, simple, direct, and uniform. They raised their shields to block and swung their sabers to chop, cutting down the Xia soldiers before them. Limbs and dismembered bodies littered the streets, forming a gruesome, horrifying scene like a hell on earth, enough to make anyone tremble with fear.
"Kill the barbarian thieves!"
A Xia warrior broke through the formation and stabbed a White Tiger Camp warrior beside Zhou Fugui. The warrior groaned and fell backward. Zhou Fugui swung his saber and decapitated the Xia warrior, then kicked the headless corpse aside.
"Kill!" Zhou Fugui, his eyes bloodshot, met a charging Xia woman with his saber. The woman, a middle-aged matron, swung her cleaver down at Zhou Fugui's head. He, however, slashed diagonally, severing her right foot. The woman fell, and Zhou Fugui immediately stabbed her to death.
With a "thud," Zhou Fugui's saber plunged into the woman's chest and abdomen. Blood splattered nearly ten feet high, splashing all over Zhou Fugui's face.
"Kill! Kill! Kill them all, you madmen!"
Zhou Fugui wiped the blood from his face, which made him look exceptionally ferocious and terrifying. He swung his saber and felled another Xia soldier, roaring with eyes wide like a wild beast.
The nearly two hundred warriors of the White Tiger Camp were almost the same as Zhou Fugui. Yesterday they were men, but today they had become beasts, bloodthirsty beasts, killing the Xia soldiers and civilians without mercy.
As fellow villagers and brothers fell and died before their eyes, Zhou Fugui and the others had already lost their humanity.
At this moment, mercy, righteousness, morality, and all such things had vanished. All they saw was the word "kill," and fear was cast aside. It seemed that frantic slaughter was their destiny.
Cruel war could turn a timid person into a warrior, and a kind-hearted person into a bloodthirsty beast.
With a "bang!" Zhou Fugui, Dian Meng, and several other White Tiger Camp warriors, wielding iron shields, cornered a Xia soldier, a mere seventeen or eighteen years old, against a wall. A White Tiger Camp warrior struck the boy's head with his shield.
The frail boy leaned against the wall, slowly slumping down. He raised his saber, attempting to fight back, but his body was weak. A strange smile appeared on his face.
"Thrust! Thrust! Thrust!"
Several blades pierced the boy's body.
......
"Kill! Kill your way in!"
"The Governor ordered a three-day leniency upon the city's fall!"
In the dead of night, the gates of Guangling Commandery City were cleared by the Yan army. The gates were now wide open. Countless Yan soldiers, holding torches and various weapons, surged in, climbing over the walls or charging in on horseback through the city gates, engaging in fierce combat with the Xia army within.
Troops and squadrons of Yan cavalry galloped through the city, their hooves thundering like thunder. Raising their sabers, the Yan cavalry roared as they charged into the fortress-like, yet dilapidated, Guangling Commandery City.
Xia Prefect Huang Yanlin had held Guangling Commandery. After his death, his son Huang Xing continued to defend it. Guangling Commandery City, which had held out under the heavy siege of the Yan army for a full one hundred and thirty days, finally fell.
During the one hundred and thirty days of resistance by Huang Yanlin, Huang Xing, and others, Guangling Commandery had long exhausted its food supplies. The soldiers and civilians of Guangling Commandery first slaughtered livestock, then boiled their bows, crossbows, and armor for sustenance, or ate bark, chaff, and dry grass. Cannibalism even occurred.
With no hope of reinforcements and no supplies, the fall of Guangling Commandery was inevitable. Zhou Fugui's entry through the water gate merely hastened the inevitable.
The Xia soldiers and civilians of Guangling Commandery understood the importance of the city and that no one within would be spared once it fell. Thus, countless ragged, emaciated soldiers and civilians of Guangling Commandery gritted their teeth and engaged in street fighting within the city, fighting and bleeding with the Yan army, refusing to yield an inch. Shouts of battle, screams, and cries of alarm filled the air.
However, the tide had turned. The young Governor of Guangling Commandery, Huang Xing, carrying his young son, official documents, and ancestral tablets, refused to surrender and drowned himself in the river. A pity that three generations of loyal ancestors, all died for their country.
Innumerable Xia officials and civilians committed suicide by drowning in rivers, jumping into wells, hanging themselves, or taking poison. However, many officials, generals, and soldiers surrendered to the Yan army.
......
With a "clang," Zhou Fugui, the commander of the Yan White Tiger Camp, threw his shield, bow, and saber to the ground. He sat down on the steps by the roadside, panting heavily as he looked at the devastation.
Zhou Fugui had been fighting with his troops for an entire night and was utterly exhausted. He just wanted to sleep, but his mind was in turmoil, and he couldn't close his eyes. When he closed them, the faces of his fallen comrades and the Xia soldiers and civilians he had killed would appear.
The sky had brightened, but the sound of horses' hooves, shouts of battle, screams, and pleas for mercy continued unabated.
"Camp Commander..." Wei Xiazi, a veterinarian from his hometown, handed him a bag of sheep's milk.
Zhou Fugui nodded, took the sheep's milk, and gulped it down. But he spat it out with a "puff."
"Why does it taste bloody?" Zhou Fugui glared at Wei Xiazi and asked angrily.
"Alas, Camp Commander..." Wei Xiazi pointed to the helmet on Zhou Fugui's head.
Blood dripped from the iron rim of the helmet into the sheep's milk.
"Damn it..." Zhou Fugui cursed, then removed his helmet and threw it aside. Two sounds were heard: one was the sound of the helmet hitting the ground, and the other came from inside the house behind Zhou Fugui.
"Someone's inside!"
The resting White Tiger Camp soldiers immediately became alert, picking up their weapons and standing up. Zhou Fugui also stood up, holding his saber, and looked towards the house.
Suo Dacheng, holding a shield and axe, kicked open the door of the wing. The scene inside caused Zhou Fugui and his men to exchange glances, unsure of how to proceed.
Author's Note: The author, Lao Xue, wrote this chapter with a heavy heart, but to best depict the bloodthirsty and brutal nature of ancient warfare, he had to grit his teeth and force himself to write it.