Chapter 31: The Stormy Weather of Yu Guan (10)

  Ke Dan looked at the newly sealed gate of Yu Guan and cursed: "Damn it!"

  Wuri asked strangely: "Kedan uncle, what's wrong?"

  "Lock the door and seal it."

  Wu Li didn't understand and asked again, "Haven't they been repairing the gate for these past few days? We all know that. What's the problem?"

  Ke Dan explained: "The problem is that it was too fast. Just a few days ago, they were just setting up the scaffolding, but overnight, the door was sealed, which means that in the past few days, they were just pretending to be fearless."

  Wu Li said: "Is Uncle Ke Dan saying they are guilty?"

  "Exactly! It seems there aren't many people inside the Yu Guan. I should have led a charge against their formation that day... damn it..."

  Wu Li didn't have so many regrets after all. Hearing that Yu Guan had few soldiers, he couldn't help but feel some excitement: "Then let's attack the city!"

  Ke Dan nodded, and after a brief gesture, a cavalry unit dismounted, dividing into two teams of ten men each. One team went to the foot of the small hill where the fortress was located, while the other team went to the front of the city gate's defensive barrier. Both teams held bows and arrows, and after taking their positions, they removed the quivers from their backs, took out the feathered arrows one by one, and stuck them into the ground at their feet.

  Li Chengzhong lay on the wall of Guanmen, carefully observing the Khitan people who were attacking the city. After careful counting, there were more than 730 Khitan people attacking Yu Guan. According to their equipment and horse arrangements, more than 340 of them were regular soldiers, and the rest were auxiliary soldiers.

  "What is this for?" Li Chengzhong asked Zhang Xingchong beside him.

  Zhang Xing took a deep breath and said, "It seems... that they are going to attack the city. The Khitan archers are preparing."

  "Are we going to attack the city? No cloud carts... no battering rams... no arrow towers... nothing at all..." Li Chengzhong was speechless, looking at the five wooden ladders lying under the feet of the auxiliary soldiers behind the Khitan army: "Can it be that they're relying on those wooden ladders?"

  Zhang Xing nodded heavily: "It seems... it's really like that..."

  Li Chengzhong couldn't believe it, and when he saw several paths flashing in the Khitan army formation, those auxiliary soldiers carrying wooden ladders to the outside of the city wall, he was sure that the other side really wanted to attack the city, and he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief: "It seems that my previous worries were somewhat superfluous."

  Since last night, a new Khitan military camp has been set up outside the pass, and the inner city of Yu Pass has begun to make preparations for defense. Due to time constraints and limited conditions, all the defensive equipment in Yu Pass was destroyed by the Khitans, so Li Chengzhong had no way to produce fire oil cans or other similar items. He could only order people to set up stoves on the city tower, boil several large pots of water, and prepare to pour hot water down in case of an emergency. In addition, some stones were piled up on the pass wall, which can also be used to attack people. From last night to this morning, the scene of the Lulong Army attacking Weizhou has been flashing in his mind. If those massive siege engines were used to attack Yu Pass, Li Chengzhong would really be at a loss with the current conditions.

  It was just that, since there were only a few wooden ladders, Li Chengzhong put his mind at ease. However, the subsequent developments made Li Chengzhong greatly surprised. The Khitan people were indeed nomadic and did not have large-scale siege engines, but if they said they would give up easily, it was completely wishful thinking. In fact, the Khitan people's secret to capturing cities was very simple - relying on accurate archers to suppress from a distance, ensuring that their troops could be transported to the top of the city wall. This simple method made the Pingzhou army inside the Yuanguan City suffer significant losses.

  The lower setting of the abatis was marked by Li Chengzhong as areas 7, 8 and 9. When the Khitans began to move the abatis, Meng Xuzhong and Jiao Chengqiao, who were in charge of the pass, divided into two groups and started covering fire according to their previous drills.

  Meng Xu Xing commanded the first group, loudly ordering his ten archers to nock their arrows and then shouting "Eight!" The ten archers simultaneously emerged, shooting towards the eighth area. Ten feathered arrows covered the eighth area, with seven hitting empty ground and three hitting Qidan auxiliary soldiers who were moving the abatis. Two of the arrows did not injure anyone due to angle and force, but one hit an auxiliary soldier's arm. The soldier cried out in pain, clutching his arm as he retreated.

  The first round of arrows managed to knock down one, and Li Chengzhong was somewhat satisfied with the effect. However, what made him anxious was that the first group of archers on the fort also suffered losses. Just as they were shooting arrows, the Khitan archers below also launched a barrage of arrows. These arrows not only had great force but were also extremely accurate. Two of them scattered the helmets of two Pingzhou army archers, scaring them so much that they thought they had been shot and stood frozen in place, their faces pale. They were pulled down to the ground by their companions, narrowly avoiding becoming the Khitan people's next target. Three arrows whizzed past the ears of two archers, only a few inches from being fatal. Two more arrows hit a Pingzhou army archer in the chest, knocking him down on the spot, his life or death unknown!

  This accuracy is really astonishing, Li Chengzhong's lips are a bit dry, and he can't help but swallow his saliva. In fact, only six of the ten Khitan archers shot arrows, and the other four did not find a good opportunity due to the angle, so they did not shoot. They moved a few steps to the side, then continued to stand calmly, looking up at the fortress, ready for the next round of shooting at any time.

  Li Chengzhong hastily called over Wang Dalang and ordered him to go to the pass, instructing Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao to change their plan. They would no longer follow the original method of regional coverage, but instead focus on shooting at the Khitan archers, even if they couldn't win in the shootout, they had to disrupt the Khitan archers' aim at all costs.

  For these new recruits, Li Chengzhong did not have high expectations. He believed that with the ability displayed by the Khitan archers, it was a luxury to successfully suppress the enemy in archery, so he simply ordered the defenders on the city gate to retreat slightly and avoid the Khitans' long-range attacks. In other words, he decided to let the Khitans come to the city gate to fight, according to the previous deployment and drills, with the gunners resisting the enemy soldiers who were climbing the city, and the knife-shield soldiers making up for the defensive loopholes.

  When Wang Dalang delivered Li Chengzhong's order to the fortress, Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao had already ordered their men to shoot three rounds at areas 7, 8, and 9. The results of these three rounds were that two Khitan auxiliary soldiers were shot down, while they themselves suffered three casualties. Thereupon, Meng Xuxing and Jiao Chengqiao changed their target according to Li Chengzhong's order and began exchanging fire with the Khitan archers. Because they had to dodge the arrows shot from the fortress, the Khitans' marksmanship was also discounted and no longer as accurate as before.

  Another pair of Khitan archers under the city gate have not fired a single arrow, they are staring at the city gate, looking for targets. The Khitan's long-range suppression tactics worked, and the auxiliary soldiers quickly cleared the abatis under the city gate, and set up wooden ladders against the city wall. A team of Khitan infantrymen rushed to the foot of the ladder, with one person climbing up each ladder.

  Li Chengzhong deployed Zhang Xingchong's first team of gunners on the city gate, two by two, holding wooden guns and staring at the embrasures. He himself retreated to the position of the city gate tower, where the burnt remains had been cleared away, leaving a small empty space, where he and Zhou Kan were waiting with thirty knife-shield men. In the drill ground under the city gate, Jiang Miao led another team of gunners and reserve troops who were resting.

  The Khitan people set up five wooden ladders on the pass wall, and five Khitan soldiers held sharp blades in their mouths, climbed with both hands, and quickly reached the top of the ladder. This position was level with the pass wall and was at a short wall between two embrasures. The Khitan soldiers paused for a moment at the top of the ladder, transferred the sabers from their mouths to their hands, and then jumped in with force under their feet.

  Liu Jinhou was a Han refugee from outside the pass, who grew up on the banks of Bailang River. A month ago, the Khitan people came here, and he could only bring his elderly father and gentle wife to leave the land that had been cultivated for decades, fleeing to Pingzhou and joining the Pingzhou army. He chose to become a soldier not only because the Pingzhou army could distribute three shares of rations, allowing his father and wife to eat their fill, but also because of the hatred in his heart towards the Khitan people and his reluctance to part with his own land. Although the Pingzhou governor's office had issued 50 mu of barren land under Yishan Mountain, the Bailang River, where his ancestors and he had lived for decades, still appeared frequently in his dreams, making him often dream back at midnight.

  That day, Li Doutou was right, having escaped from Yu Guan, where else could they flee to? Rather than continuing to flee, it's better to fight to the death here, maybe as Li Doutou said, they can drive back outside the pass and retake their homeland. Therefore, in these two days of training, Liu Jintou worked very hard, his efforts were noticed by Zhang Si Lang, who appointed him as the commander.

  Liu Jinhou stared at the short wall between the two embrasures, holding his breath. He saw a black shadow flash out, so fast and so swift that he was tense to the point of shouting, but the repeated training over the past two days allowed him to swallow back the cry, until this figure had fully emerged, and then jumped inside...

  "Kill!" Liu Jinhou suddenly shouted, and the wooden spear in his hand stabbed forward. Because it was his first real battle, the spearhead he stabbed out wasn't very accurate, on the contrary, it deviated slightly upwards, stabbing towards the right shoulder of that Khitan man.

  The Khitan did not hold a shield as previously guessed, but only had a single saber. However, the Khitan reacted quickly and instantly raised his saber to block upwards, knocking Liu Jinfeng's wooden spear away. Just as he was about to swing his saber downwards to slash Liu Jinfeng, who was now wide open in front of him, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his thigh and lost his balance, stumbling forward and falling down.

  Liu Jinhou's companion stood on one side of the mound, and the Khitan people's line of sight was attracted by Liu Jinhou in front, so they didn't notice him stabbing over with his wooden spear. Liu Jinhou and his companion saw the Khitan people fall at their feet, and in the chaos, they swung up the wooden spears in their hands as clubs and struck down. Several clubs hit the back of the Khitan person's head, and that Khitan person suddenly fainted. Liu Jinhou saw that the Khitan person was motionless, and only then came to his senses, hastily turning the spearhead around and giving the Khitan person a fatal blow. After killing the Khitan person, Liu Jinhou and his companion exchanged a glance, both panting heavily, their hands gripping the spears wet with sweat.

  Wu Li watched as the five brave warriors from his tribe quickly climbed up the wooden ladder and then jumped into the city with their knives, feeling a thrill in his heart. But afterwards, he only faintly heard some shouting, and there was no more movement on the city wall, so he pulled at Kedan's sleeve and asked: "Uncle Kedan, how did five people go in...?"

  Kedan furrowed his brow and stared intently at the city gate, but on the gate, there was a dead silence, as if nothing had happened. Could it be that all five of them were killed instantly? It's impossible! Those were five elite warriors from the Imperial Guard, how could they not even stir up a ripple?! The archers waiting below the gate with their bows at the ready also looked at each other in dismay, seemingly unsure what was happening on top of the gate. Kedan gritted his teeth and waved his hand, and the Khitan soldiers waiting below immediately continued to climb up the ladders. This time, as soon as the first person reached the top of the ladder, the second person followed right behind him onto the ladder. Two people climbing a single ladder at the same time was already the maximum capacity it could hold; if one more person climbed on, the ladder would collapse.