Defending the City (4)

  The whole Chen Cang is now filled with the sound of human voices, the rebels are constantly shouting, these Xiongnu people who have dismounted their war horses keep rushing up from behind until the entire mountain path is completely blocked.

  The pressure on the city wall was undoubtedly enormous, with rebels constantly trying to climb up from below, and a little further away were the rebel archers who were naturally skilled marksmen on horseback and still formidable on foot. Fortunately, after half an hour of fighting, the rebels suffered more casualties, and under the tight defense of Gao Fei and others on the city wall, not a single cloud ladder was successfully erected.

  Even so, the situation is not optimistic. The rebels under the city wall are holding curved knives in their hands and have smashed out pits on the city wall. Those stones collected from the mountain seem to be slightly inferior under the curved knife of the rebels.

  "How can you react so slowly? Why haven't you launched yet?" Gaofei saw that among the 1,300 defenders on the city wall, more than 400 had been shot dead by the rebel army's arrows, and over 300 were injured and retreated. The reserve soldiers also climbed up to the city wall one after another, and the arrows on the city wall were all over the ground, but the orders that had been passed down until now had not yet been implemented.

  Gao Fei pointed at a soldier who was just about to ascend the city wall and shouted loudly: "Quickly, let Fu Xiu and Gai Xun bring up the fierce fire oil, I want to set fire to burn these treacherous rebels!"

  As soon as the words fell, Gao Fei raised his head and saw a huge boulder flying over from behind the city wall, bringing with it a whistling wind, and smashing towards the rebel army on the mountain path outside the city. With a loud "boom", the huge boulder immediately smashed several rebels on the mountain path, their skulls shattered, and blood splattered everywhere.

  "Boom! Boom! Boom!"

  Boulders fell from the sky with a loud crash, and every time they hit the ground, they would let out a deafening roar, followed by a mournful cry.

  Lu Heng and Xiahou Lan's crossbowmen took advantage of the situation to shoot down at the city, although they were fewer in number than before, but still managed to knock down many unprepared rebel infantry.

  The rolling logs and stones on the city wall had been used up, and Gao Fei, Zhao Yun and others were holding knives in their hands, either pushing down the cloud ladders or chopping down the rebel soldiers who were about to climb up, while also carefully dodging the arrows shot out by the rebels.

  Zhou Cang, Liao Hua and Guan Yu led the archers to continuously fire arrows, plus Pei Yuanshao, Bian Xi and Pang De commanded soldiers to launch giant rocks with catapults, creating a death zone for those rebels, many of whom were crushed into meat patties, making those rebels have a hint of fear.

  Han Sui drew his curved knife and shouted loudly to the rebel soldiers beside him: "Charge, charge! The Han army has only these tricks. There are countless gold in Chen Cang City. Whoever captures it will be whoever's! Those who retreat without permission will die!"

  To establish military prestige, Han Sui even beheaded a nearby Qiang person with his own hands and kept boasting about the gold and silver treasures in Chen Cang City. In this way, the low morale of the rebel army rose again, and the people behind him also rushed into the death zone without hesitation, trampling on the corpses and those rocks, and launched another fierce attack.

  Shouts came again from the rebel side, and Gao Fei exposed his head to see that another group of rebels had rushed up, with faces even more ferocious than those of the rebels who were almost repelled under the city wall.

  "Lord Li, the fierce fire oil has arrived!" Lord Li took advantage of the weakened arrow fire from the rebel army on the city wall and brought up several dozen soldiers carrying over 300 jars of fierce fire oil in wine containers.

  As soon as Gao Feng saw the strong fire oil being delivered, he was overjoyed and quickly distributed it to the soldiers defending the city. Then he said to Li Wenhou: "These are enough, you quickly go tell Zhou Cang, Guan Yu, Liao Hua to temporarily stop shooting, use arrows to tie up the cloth with fire oil, after a while I will send someone to order them to shoot and ignite the fire when they shoot. Also prepare some strong fire oil for Pei Yuanshao, Pang De, Bian Xi to launch with catapults."

  Li Wenhou received the order and quickly walked down from the city tower to pass on Gao Fei's command.

  Gao Fei ordered the soldiers on the city wall: "Throw all the strong fire oil under the city wall, throw it as far as possible, and throw it as far as you can."

  Then, the guard quickly threw the strong fire oil in his hand out of the city wall. Only to hear the crisp sound of the wine jar breaking, and soon a very unpleasant smell was heard under the city wall, a bloody smell mixed with the smell of oil.

  At this moment, the catapults no longer shot stones but jars of blazing oil. Gao Fei seized the opportunity and ordered Zhao Yun, Lu Heng and Xiahou Lan: "Lu Heng and Xiahou Lan, hold the city tower firmly, Zilong, follow me to the city gate, we'll go out and fight soon!"

  Zhoa Yun, Lu Xiang and Xiahou Lan all replied in unison: "Yes!"

  Before he had finished speaking, the swift and prompt Zhou Fei had already descended from the city wall and arrived at the edge of the earthen fortifications. There, he saw that the 3,000 bowmen led by Zhou Cang, Liao Hua, and Guan Yu were all ready with fire-tipped arrows. He loudly shouted to them: "Release your arrows!"

  With a single order, three thousand fire arrows flew into the sky and landed on the mountain path, which was already filled with oil. As soon as the fire arrows landed, they quickly ignited, and the flames began to spread in all directions, burning along the mountain path and surrounding the dense rebel army that had just charged into the killing zone with a sea of fire.

  Flames shot up into the sky, and outside the city gate, the wails of despair were endless.

  Gao Fei had already summoned Zhou Cang, Liao Hua, Guan Yu, Pang De, Bian Xi, Pei Yuan Shao and Li Wen Hou, among others, and led 200 infantrymen to the gate of the city. The soldiers guarding the gate opened it, and suddenly they saw flames shooting up into the sky. Many of the rebel troops were struggling in the firelight, and everywhere was filled with the smell of burnt offerings.

  There were still two or three hundred remaining rebel soldiers by the city gate, they looked at the big fire behind them with terrified eyes, leaning against the city wall, without realizing that Gao Fei led his men to kill from inside the city gate.

  "For the Great Han, for Liangzhou, for our homeland, kill!" Gao Fei had chosen all of his sworn brothers from Xiangwu, and with a rallying cry, he was the first to charge out, striking down a rebel soldier who was still in a state of panic.

  Zhao Yun, Pang De and more than 200 others shouted in unison: "For the young master, kill!"

  The rebels were already frightened and scattered, unable to withstand this sudden charge of a small group of Han soldiers, and were killed in an instant.

  Everyone gathered together, looking at the big fire a few meters away from themselves, and their hearts were particularly excited. At this time, a shout came from the city tower: "Master Hou, the rebels have retreated, the rebels have retreated again!"

  Everyone who heard this loud shout was extremely excited, and their hearts were once again strengthened with cohesion towards Gao Fei.

  Lu Heng stood on the city wall, his eyes rolling around, and suddenly shouted loudly: "Long live Master Hou! Long live Master Hou!"

  The voices of "Long live the Marquis" spread rapidly throughout Chen Cang, as if they had contracted a contagious disease, and all the soldiers in the city shouted slogans of "Long live the Marquis".

  The big fire burned for a good half an hour before gradually dying out. After the fire went out, it revealed a miserable scene. Many of the charred corpses were in strange and grotesque postures, their hideous faces showing their struggles at the moment of death, as well as the pain they had endured in the flames.

  The corpses were scattered all over the ground, stretching out from the city wall of Chen Cang for a distance of nearly 400 meters. Within this range, there were almost five or six thousand people who could be seen, not to mention those who had died in battle earlier and been trampled by later arrivals into a bloody pulp. Roughly estimated, this battle had wiped out nearly ten thousand rebels. However, Gao Fei's side had also paid a certain price: over 300 men had fallen, more than 600 were injured, and the army's numbers had suddenly decreased by almost a thousand men. And this number was only those who had been shot down by arrows.

  "Killing a thousand enemies, but suffering eight hundred casualties ourselves - that's probably the price of this era. I previously underestimated these Qiang rebels too much. If I hadn't made that trip to Liangzhou and only managed to recruit two thousand militiamen, I reckon today's battle would have been lost and Chen Cang wouldn't be holding out." Gao Fei muttered to himself as he swept the battlefield later on.

  Hua Xiong and Ma Chao's group of guards did not participate in this battle, but instead served as a logistics reserve team to help treat the wounded. In the newly built simple barracks within the city, Hua Xiong, Ma Chao and others were extremely busy helping military doctors treat many wounded soldiers, while the 200 village braves recruited by Hua Xiong also joined in at this time.

  Gao Fei had his own ideas, and Hua Xiong, Ma Jiu, and the two hundred militiamen temporarily served as a logistics unit. Although Hua Xiong was personally brave, he couldn't compare to the real government army, so Gao Fei feared they wouldn't be able to coordinate their battles. Apart from this, Fu Shuo and Ge Xun also made significant contributions. They led five hundred men in shuttling back and forth within the city, continuously delivering arrows, stones for catapults, and later, flammable oil. These things were like ammunition for guns and cannons at that time.

  In short, all the defenders were extremely exhausted today. The 3,000 archers alone shot out more than 90,000 arrows, which means each person fired an average of 30 times. How much physical strength must have been consumed by the archers! The crossbowmen relatively shot fewer bolts, averaging about 10 per person.

  After surveying the situation after the battle, Gao Fei had the arrows scattered throughout the city collected, as the rebels had not retreated and might launch an even fiercer attack later. Arrows were an important weapon for defending the city. Gao Fei also ordered people to repair the damaged city walls, reinforcing the city's defenses. After finishing these tasks, it was already deep into the night.

  After returning to the county government office, Gao Fei simply ate a little dinner and went back to his room. Now all he wanted to do was sleep. Just as he lay down on the bed and hadn't even closed his eyes yet, he heard someone knocking at the door, which made Gao Fei, who had been tired for a day, feel somewhat impatient.

  "Who is it? It's so late, can't you let people sleep?"