Chapter 7: Weizhou (2) An arrow with a feathered shaft was stuck in the earth bag, and the tremendous force made Zhong Si Lang stumble forward, almost falling to the ground.

  He hastily gritted his teeth and steadied himself, rushing to the moat in one breath. He flipped the earth bag on his back into the river, then turned around without looking back and sprinted away. In his heart, there was only one thought: leave the city, the farther the better! Another arrow stuck into the ground less than two steps in front of him, scaring Zhong Si Lang so much that he involuntarily leaned to the right.

  In front was the arrow array of their own Lu Longjun, a row of Lu Longjun soldiers were bowing and shooting arrows under the command of the team leader towards the city head.

  He gazed at the silver ornaments carved on those bows, and suddenly a strange thought popped up: these bows really look good! The officer in charge of shooting arrows yelled at Zhong Si-lang for several sentences, but the surrounding cheers and drumbeats were too loud, Zhong Si-lang didn't hear clearly, his feet moved out of inertia, and he still rushed forward.

  The officer furiously drew his sword and made a slashing motion towards Zhong Si Lang, who suddenly snapped out of his daze and ran to the rear, dodging the hail of arrows.

  There was an order before, if you rushed into your own army formation, the officer could behead you on the spot! Zhong Si Lang ran to a safe area in fear, then slowly turned back to his camp, scooped up a ladle of water from a large wooden bucket and poured it down his throat, continuing to wait by the mound.

  The Dudo team was patrolling back and forth not far away, and more than a dozen corpses were already lying under their feet, one of which was Wang Qi from the village.

  That normally clever and wise young man threw away the earth bag halfway and ran back, but did not escape the eyes of the executioner's team, was directly dragged out and beheaded.

  Zhong Si Lang's eyes darted nervously at the robust soldiers, and he let out a sigh.

  Zhong Si Lang was young but short in stature. In the midst of the tall and strong men of Yan Zhao, he was really unnoticeable. After joining the army, he was directly assigned to the civilian soldier camp.

  There were thousands of laborers like him carrying soil bags to fill the moat, just at the East Gate. They braved the hail of arrows from atop the city wall and poured the soil bags into the moat. After a short while, they gradually blocked the river water that was over one zhang deep and formed several wide paths on the moat.

  Li Chengzhong sat on the ground in the middle of the formation, the entire Jianting Camp was outside the range of the arrow rain covering the city wall, and his brothers looked at everything in front of them with excitement and tension.

  More than a hundred workers had fallen down under the east city wall, some of whom were still struggling on the ground, their cries covered by the sound of war drums and shouting. Li Chengzhong saw their painful expressions with open mouths, clenched his fists tightly, but finally could only helplessly release them.

  No one has any spare time to take care of them, and even if they were rescued, with their injuries, in this era, it would be impossible to save them.

  The drumbeat suddenly changed, and the cloud car behind him began to move forward.

  This cloud carriage is as high as the city wall, with more than a dozen civilians pushing four large wooden wheels to move forward.

  The cloud car can hold five people, and behind it is a wooden ladder that leans back to the ground, allowing people to get on at any time.

  When the cloud cart was pushed to the front of the array, the soldiers of each Jiantuozheng's battalion stood up and formed a team under the command of the Duotoudui, gathering under the cart.

  The east city wall pushed out six cloud cars, and the vanguard camp threw in six teams, nearly three hundred troops. Li Chengzhong's Youdu was not among them according to the order, and he still sat on the ground waiting.

  After the troops were dispatched, five people went up on top of each cloud cart. Three were knife shield hands and two were bow and arrow hands. The others surrounded the cloud cart, covering it with shields to form a shield array.

  Several wooden buckets filled with clear water were hung on the cloud cart, and the soldiers on the top of the cart splashed water on the cloud cart, making it wet and dripping.

  As everything was ready, the army shouted in unison, and the civilians under the vehicle pushed the wooden wheels. The cloud cart slowly approached the city wall.

  The front row of Lu Longjun's arrow array replaced another batch of soldiers. After this batch of fresh troops came on the field, the speed of shooting arrows became a bit faster, and they gradually suppressed the Wei Bo archers on the city wall.

  The cloud carriage moved slowly and steadily through the passage filled with the lives of the people who had been sacrificed to build it, directly to the edge of the city.

  The defenders on the city wall suddenly shot out some fire arrows, which were nailed to the cloud cart, but due to the fact that it had been watered, the cloud cart did not catch fire.

  The cloud car leaned against the city wall, and the Lu Longjun shield hand on top of the car would press against the front shield array. With a loud shout, he jumped into the city wall.

  The soldiers of the Lu Long army saw their own brothers on the city wall, and they were excited at the same time, shouting loudly, shaking the earth, and beating the war drums even more tightly.

  Li Chengzhong's side of the army also couldn't sit still, everyone stood up and gazed intently at the city wall.

  Only when the first sword and shield man jumped onto the city wall did the city head suddenly become noisy and chaotic.

  Li Chengzhong couldn't see the situation above clearly, he only saw his brothers under the cloud cart climbing up to the top of the cloud cart through the wooden ladder one after another, and then jumping into the city.

  The armies of Lu Longjun immediately erupted in cheers, and the commander Zhang Zhongyan led the troops to form up quickly, then swiftly marched towards the city gate, preparing for battle.

  Li Chengzhong followed the team to the third cloud car under the city, and saw that the previous group of brothers had all jumped into the city. Zhang Zhongyan waved his hand and let everyone get on the cloud car.

  Li Chengzhong drew out a bright horizontal knife from its scabbard and was about to climb up the wooden ladder.

  After occupying Bei State, a batch of new horizontal knives were seized from the Bei State government arsenal. Priority was given to replacing part of the equipment for the robust and well-trained soldiers who lacked armor. Li Chengzhong, as a newly promoted deputy captain, also received a horizontal knife with a scabbard, which was much stronger than his previous one.

  He had just climbed a few steps when suddenly more than ten black pottery jars flew out of the city. In a daze, several of these jars smashed directly onto the cloud cart and burst open, releasing a pungent smell of oil that rushed straight into his nostrils.

  He was greatly frightened, and didn't dare to climb the ladder again, so he jumped down directly, shouting loudly: "Retreat! Retreat! Oil tank! It's an oil tank!" Zhang Zhongyan also had a sudden realization after hearing this, and waved his hand for everyone to retreat, but in the chaos, dozens of people were crowded in front of the cloud car, where could they retreat?

  Only to see the city wall throwing out a few torches, the cloud car blinked and suddenly jumped up with high flames! There are also some oil tanks that did not hit the cloud car falling to the ground, splashing oil all over the place, and a large fire broke out at the foot of the city.

  Li Chengzhong had watched many ancient costume dramas before crossing over, so he reacted quickly to such sudden events and made judgments early. By the time the big fire broke out, he was already pulling Jiang Miao out of the range of the flames.

  But unfortunately, more than a dozen porters who were supporting the carriage and over ten brothers who didn't have time to escape all turned into human torches, crying out in agony as they rolled around on the ground like headless flies, a truly heartbreaking scene.

  Fortunately, the archers of the Lulong army at the foot of the city were suppressed relatively successfully, and the remaining Lulong army withdrew from the city without too many casualties.

  Everyone turned back to see that the six cloud cars had all burst into flames, and many sections of the city wall below were burned into a fire dragon. Countless Loulong soldiers who did not have time to withdraw were buried in this big fire.

  Such a tragic scene unfolded before everyone's eyes, and they were all shocked into speechlessness.

  Many of those wailing figures were brothers who had become familiar with each other in recent days, although most couldn't call out each other's names. However, they had sung together, shouted together, fought side by side, and drunk together. Now, they were separated forever, and everyone felt extremely heartbroken.

  The great fire below the city not only caused heavy casualties among the soldiers who followed up on the attack, but also completely burned down six cloud cars. What was burned was not just vehicles, but also cut off the retreat of the three hundred strong brothers on the city wall! Now those three hundred brothers are still fighting on the city head, but there is no response, and they cannot withdraw. How can this be good? Everyone can only jump their feet in anxiety below the city, watching the three hundred Lu Longjun brothers fight alone on the city head through the big fire, but all are at a loss.

  As the fire below the city gradually weakened, the fierce battle on top of the city also slowly came to a stop.

  After a while, hundreds of corpses of the Lulong Army brothers were thrown down from the city head, and the Weibo Army returned to the edge of the city wall, pointing at the Lulong Army below and scolding them incessantly.

  The sound of golden drums came from the rear, and Zhang Zhong's strict command was helpless, ordering everyone to retreat.

  This defeat was a heavy blow to morale, and everyone's heart wasn't feeling good, returning to the camp with their heads hung low.

  The first siege failed and the Lulong army suffered heavy losses.

  In the offensive against the eastern city wall alone, six or seven hundred soldiers were killed, not including several hundred civilian laborers.

  Of course, Dongcheng is the main direction of Lulong Army's attack today. Other sides are just coordinating and responding, with less casualties, but adding up to nearly a thousand.

  In the following days, the Lulong Army continued to intensify its attack on the city. The east city was attacked twice, and the west and north cities were each attacked once, but all failed, and the main attacking troops lost nearly 3,000 soldiers.

  The wounded soldiers in the camp had a huge impact on morale, with limited medical conditions and very few medical personnel. Those soldiers who were seriously injured could only die helplessly, either being abandoned by doctors or begging their comrades to end their lives when they couldn't bear the pain.

  Even many soldiers who were only shot in the legs or arms could only get the same fate, most of their symptoms were simple - fever, but at that time, the medical conditions were helpless.

  Only those soldiers who were lightly wounded or relatively outstanding officers could receive treatment.

  Like Ren Dou's head who was seriously injured in the waist and abdomen, due to the family relationship of generations, he received special attention from Zhou Yuzhu and sent someone to pull him back to Youzhou.

  Of course, Ren Dou still had to pass through a ghostly gate - if his injuries worsened during the journey, he would still be dead.

  In Li Chengzhong's view, considering Ren Dou's injury, Commander Zhou Zhiyue was just going through the motions.

  Li Chengzhong witnessed many injured brothers screaming in agony as they received medical treatment, causing him to break out in a cold sweat.

  The crudeness of that diagnostic method made Li Chengzhong's teeth ache.

  The process was roughly as follows: several people went up to press down the hands and feet, tightly binding the injured soldier to a wooden board. The doctor used a heated knife to forcibly scrape off the rotten flesh from the wound, then applied a medicinal herb paste that had been simmered until it resembled mush, and simply bandaged it with a cloth strip, considering it done.

  Then after a couple of days, when the wound rotted again, the doctor continued to cut.

  Only those with strong vitality can survive this torture, and then compete with the heavens for good fortune. If they don't develop a fever or recover quickly from one, they can live; otherwise, they will still die.

  After all, they were comrades-in-arms who fought and lived together. In Li Chengzhong's view, these people were his fellow soldiers.

  Whether before or after crossing over, life in the army is a big melting pot that can influence one's temperament to the greatest extent.

  In these days, he had unknowingly integrated into the atmosphere of the Lulong Army, and the laughter and scolding of his comrades around him were silently influencing him, making him regard himself as a thoroughbred Yandi.

  When someone asked about his origin, he would pat his chest and say loudly: "I was born in Guan, grew up in Fanyang! I am a man of Youzhou!" When encountering exciting things, he would shout with his brothers, and when encountering setbacks, he would sigh with his brothers. He would be excited for the majesty and military power of Lulong Army, and worried about the progress of the war.

  So Li Chengzhong was unable to transcend everything in front of him with the mentality of a passerby, and he did his best to help these injured brothers.

  His former camp had also suffered significant losses in the battles of the past few days, and more than 60 brothers who were able to move before the war now only half remained. However, the recovery rate of wounded soldiers was higher than that of other camps, thanks to Li Chengzhong's help and timely reminder.

  All he could do was simple: before bandaging the wound, boil the cloth in boiling water for a moment.

  Thanks to this work procedure, at least a dozen more brothers were able to survive.

  He wanted to promote this method throughout the army, but unfortunately, he was a minor figure and couldn't explain things like microorganisms and bacteria to others. Even Commander Zhang Zhongyan only agreed to try out this method because of his good performance in the capital.

  To be honest, whether those brothers who survived were really benefited from it, Zhang Zhongyan did not dare to confirm. As for persuading other troops and even reporting to Commander Zhou Zhiyong, Zhang Zhongyan didn't have the guts to do so. It was a matter of life and death for countless brothers, and he couldn't bear that responsibility.