He carefully stored the box and strolled toward the hall of the city commander's residence. A group of people were hurriedly entering and exiting the hall.
The empress was seated at the seat of honor as she daydreamed. It was unknown what she was thinking about.
"Your Majesty, how's the situation now?" Ren Baqian walked beside her and asked.
Upon hearing the noise, the empress's eyes finally came into focus. Her eyes first circled Ren Baqian's face before she extended her hand to take the bag he was holding. She rummaged through the contents of the bag before placing it by her feet.
Then, she finally spoke, "Great Xia has been attacking for the entire night. Over the past two days, they lost about 30,000 people. There are about 1,500 injured or dead Great Xia soldiers in the city as well. Now, even the winged cavalry is staying behind to defend the city wall."
This was the greatest weakness of the aboriginals. Even though they were strong, they only had a small number of soldiers. 6,000 Dayao soldiers had to defend three sides of the city wall, and excluding the negligible number of guards defending the southern area, there were only about 2,000 soldiers defending each side as a matter of fact. Furthermore, they were constantly under attack from Great Xia's unending stream of soldiers.
As the number of casualties gradually increased, the pressure on the remaining soldiers increased as well.
All of these were expected. Great Xia's tactic of taking by storm caused both sides to suffer heavy losses.
Now, it just depended on who could hold out longer.
Ren Baqian thought for a while. It seemed like Great Xia wasn't able to hold out any longer.
Even if they could, he wouldn't allow them to do so.
Ren Baqian accompanied the empress in the hall until it was time to light the lamps. By that time, Great Xia still didn't have the intention of withdrawing their soldiers. It was now evident that Great Xia's 100,000 plus soldiers were taking turns to attack Liao City all day and night until the several thousand aboriginal soldiers could no longer hold on.
After dinner, Ren Baqian walked around the top of the city walls accompanied by a few guards. As soon as he got up there, he choked on the smell of blood that permeated the air. The blood-curdling screams around him were also drilled into his head.
Ren Baqian saw eight huge scaling ladders being pushed to the side of the city wall. Each scaling ladder was just like a building that was able to move. At the top of the scaling ladder was a platform and dozens of Great Xia soldiers were standing on it. When the distance was extremely close, they directly jumped across and attacked with their weapons. There were also countless soldiers at the base that were incessantly climbing upward.
"Kill!" Dozens of Great Xia soldiers jumped over and roared with malevolent looks on their faces.
Most of them merely shouted the word "kill" and had yet to establish a firm footing, but they had already been hacked and fell to the ground. Only a few of the more powerful Great Xia soldiers were fighting against the aboriginals.
A winged cavalry warrior appeared from the side, slashing ferociously and quickly with the sword in his hand. He knocked down several Great Xia soldiers with ease and waved his sword at the same time, which helped him to deflect the few arrows that were shot at him.
More Great Xia soldiers jumped from the platform of the huge ladder.
At this time, the city wall was filled with torches from one end to the other, and everything within tens of meters below the city wall was brightly lit. The entire area below the city wall was covered with dead bodies, damaged gear, and Great Xia soldiers that were flocking up in the dark.
Boom! There was a loud noise as a fire broke out directly underneath the platform of the scaling ladder in the distance. The ladder immediately blew up, and the Great Xia soldiers at the top fell to the ground while screaming tragically.
This was the meritorious service of explosives. Otherwise, a heap of effort would be required to destroy an enormous scaling ladder like that.
Besides, a tube of explosive was all that was needed for things to be resolved.
Thereafter, a few more blasts broke out. After all the scaling ladders in Ren Baqian's sight were destroyed, numerous aboriginal soldiers finally had time to take a breather.
"Sir Ren!" One of the winged cavalry warriors wiped the blood on his face, cupped his fist while facing Ren Baqian, and sat at the side of the wall to rest.
"Does the Great Xia army still have more siege equipment?" Ren Baqian asked.
Wasn't it difficult for the other party to manufacture a huge scaling ladder like this?
"I hope there isn't anymore!" that winged cavalry warrior mumbled to himself.
From the beginning of yesterday morning, 18 consecutive hours had elapsed since the start of Great Xia's attack. Even experts at the Earth Wheel level were already beginning to feel tired.
However, an imagination was always good. Not long after, the Great Xia soldiers rushed forward once again.
This time, it wasn't the same exhausted Great Xia soldiers who had attacked previously. These new soldiers had already had a sufficient rest of 10 hours and were honing their strength for this attack. They were carrying scaling ladders which looked similar to modern day ladders and were charging over again.
"Damn it!" Ren Baqian cursed. This time, he even brought quite a few bouncing landmines and was prepared to bury them outside the city. However, if the other party didn't retreat, how would he bury these landmines? Of course, he couldn't bury them at the top of the wall, right?
After walking to three different parts of the city wall, Ren Baqian hastily returned to the city commander's residence and took his mortar out. He then went to the bottom of the city wall.
If their opponent didn't retreat, then he would bomb them until they retreated.
This time, he returned with a total of 40 mortar shells, which were the napalm bombs he used previously. In addition, he also brought along 50 OZM-72 bouncing landmines. There were a total of 650 pieces of steel ball bearings in each of these 50 landmines, which would explode out after the mine jumped up about a meter high. The the lethality of these landmines were perhaps even greater than that of the mortar shells.
(OZM-72: soviet manufactured bounding type anti-personnel mines.)
He went up the city wall and took a glancem but couldn't see clearly in the pitch black darkness. However, in the few areas visible under the city wall, he kept in mind which areas had more or fewer people. Thereafter, he ran at lightning speed to adjust the angle of the mortar.
After a short while, a boom was heard and smoke could be seen emitting from the muzzle of the mortar. Tens of seconds later, there was immediately a burst of fire outside the city which engulfed the surrounding Great Xia soldiers in one go. At the same time, two scaling ladders were instantly destroyed.
"Oh yeah!" Ren Baqian's voice didn't sound pleasant; rather, it sounded calm.
"Sir Ren made a move!" The aboriginal soldiers cheered. Upon seeing the scale of this attack, everyone knew it was Ren Baqian who had instigated it. Besides him, there wasn't anyone else who would have such a thing. The destructive power of those black cylinders wasn't as powerful as this.
He adjusted the muzzle of the mortar and fired again.
Boom!
The people at the top of the city wall cheered even louder.
"Sir Ren, I want to give birth to a monkey with you...!" Someone's voice trailed together with the wind.
[In chinese internet lingo, people use monkey to tease someone.]
Ren Baqian's face immediately twitched.
Which bastard shouted these words?
Do you believe that I will kill you?
After the third shot was fired, Ren Baqian continued to adjust the angle of the mortar.
When the mortar shells were fired, people cheered on the wall, but after tens of seconds, the cheers spontaneously came to an end.
A dud?
A thought like this emerged in Ren Baqian's head as he stuffed another mortar shell into the barrel to fire once more.
Boom!
He adjusted the angle and fired once again.
There wasn't any sound of explosion.
This time around, Ren Baqian immediately discovered that something was amiss. If there was something wrong with the first shot, that would be understandable, but if something went wrong with both shots, then it wasn't a question of probability anymore.
"Ren Baqian, that thing of yours has been pinned to the city wall!" a winged cavalry warrior ran down from the wall and hurriedly shouted.
Ren Baqian responded, "What do you mean?"
He also knew that it wasn't the time for him to just stare. After he heard this, he knew what had happened and quickly headed up to the city wall.
"Where is it?"
"Sir Ren, follow me." That winged cavalry warrior brought Ren Baqian along the city wall and dodged the sabers and swords that were swung at him from time to time.
Ren Baqian twisted left and right, passing through the silhouette of a streak of sword gleam. At the place where the winged cavalry warrior stopped, Ren Baqian leaned over the wall and looked downward. He saw a dark green mortar shell pinned to the wall by a long arrow. At the same time, it was swinging with the wind, just like a clock.
"So ruthless?" Although Ren Baqian already guessed what was going on, it was still a little shocking for him to witness this scene.
This was an mortar shell! It travelled at a few hundred meters per second!
Besides, it was night now!
Where did this expert come from?
"Sir, be careful!" Shi Hu pushed Ren Baqian away as a long arrow whizzed past his shoulder.
"Do you know where is he? I will blast him to death!" Ren Baqian was indignant as he lay on the ground after breaking out in a cold sweat.
"Bring me my binoculars, my night vision device, and my machine gun!"