The false trebuchets disappeared one after another. But while defenders were destroying apparent siege weapons, the shield walls continued forward.
Thousands of men carried sandbags. The moat began filling. Slowly. Then faster. The defenders finally understood the real objective.
"They're filling the moat!" Someone shouted in the chaos.
Jin Mulan immediately ordered the scorpions to redirect their fire. Massive bolts tore into advancing formations. Explosions shattered shield walls. Men disappeared beneath splintered wood.
Yet Wu soldiers continued advancing.
The first assault cost them six thousand. Perhaps eight thousand. The exact number was impossible amid smoke, blood, and shattered shields.
But they had accomplished their objective. Nearly one-third of the moat had been filled successfully filled.
Then the scorpions found their targets. The surviving shield formations broke. Elder Zhoung sounded the retreat.
Night fell.
The Jin defenders were exhausted. Their ammunition was running low. The Wu army attacked once again.
Darkness became their greatest ally. Defenders could barely see. Most bolts disappeared harmlessly into the night.
Jin Mulan watched several volleys fall nowhere near the enemy. "Stop. Do not waste ammunition." She ordered.
Then Jin Mulan raised her hand. Fire spread across her fingers before she threw it into the darkness. For few brief moments, the battlefield became visible.
"Fire." She shouted.
The Jin crossbowmen released another volley. This time bolts found their targets.
But Wu soldiers had learned from the first assault. They advanced with greater discipline. More sandbags. More shield walls. More men.
They didn't carry torches, as they marked obvious targets, so they travelled in the complete darkness. Carrying more and more sandbags to fill the moat.
The moat filled further. Two-thirds of it was now covered. Most importantly, the section blocking the siege towers was almost completely filled.
Jin Mulan's expression became grim. Now the towers would be able to cross.
The second assault eventually withdrew. Wu soldiers returned to their camps with high morale.
Jin defenders remained upon the walls, their numbers fallen, their ammunition fallen, their strength fallen.
The greatest difference between Duke Lu's army and Zhoung's reinforcements soon became apparent. Duke Lu's archers had been firing upon the walls since the beginning of the siege.
Yet their volleys had accomplished almost nothing. The Jin soldiers were protected from head to toe by Luo He's high-quality steel armor.
Helmets covered their heads, plates protected their chests and limbs, and even the exposed portions of their bodies were minimized as much as possible due to available technology.
Most of Duke Lu's arrows simply struck steel. Some bounced away. Others broke against the armor. A few left scratches across the plates.
But almost none reached flesh. Then old Zhoung's elite archers entered the battle. They were an entirely different matter. These men did not waste arrows against armor like before.
From positions about a hundred meters away, they carefully watched the battlements, studying the movements of the Jin soldiers atop the walls, waiting for the briefest openings.
A soldier raised his head. An eyelid appeared beneath the edge of a helmet. A man turned too far, exposing the side of his neck. A helmet shifted during combat, revealing a narrow strip of flesh.
Those were the places Old Zhoung's archers targeted. Their arrows came from the ground in disciplined volleys. The first Jin crossbowman dropped.
Then another. Then another.
The defenders initially thought it was nothing more than an unlucky volley. It wasn't. The next wave came. And again, the arrows found the gaps.
The accuracy of elder Zhoung's elite archers was frightening. Nearly one arrow in ten found a genuine opening. Against ordinary soldiers, that accuracy would have been impressive.
Against an army of heavily armored defenders, it was devastating. Every successful arrow meant a dead Jin soldier.
The difference became especially obvious during the first two assaults.
Duke Lu's archers continued pouring arrows toward the walls, their ammunition accomplishing almost nothing against the steel armor.
Elder Zhoung's archers, however, deliberately hunted the exposed portions of the defenders. Hundreds of Jin soldiers fell during those two assaults.
Not because their armor had failed, but because the enemy had learned how to shoot around it.
Jin Mulan quickly recognized the danger.
"Keep your helmets down!" The order spread across the battlements.
Crossbowmen crouched lower. Archers exposed themselves for shorter periods.
Soldiers began using the crenellations and shields to cover their faces whenever they were not actively firing.
But the enemy archers were already adapting. Every time a Jin soldier leaned out to fire, several Zhoung archers watched him.
Every time someone exposed his neck, they waited. The battlefield had become a contest of patience. The Jin armor remained extraordinarily effective.
It still stopped the overwhelming majority of arrows. But armor could not protect a man from an arrow that never struck the armor in the first place.
And that was precisely what made elder Zhoung's elite archers so dangerous. For the first time since the siege began, the defenders understood that their obvious technological advantage had at least a few weak points.
Luo He's armor could turn aside a hundred ordinary arrows. But even the finest armor could not cover every inch of a man's body. The enemy had finally found the gaps.
But their walls remained. And behind those walls stood Luo He's weapons. That was enough for them to hold on.
Day Six: The Army of the Dead
The courtyard had changed completely. What had once been a wealthy family's private grounds was now filled with thousands of poor people.
Thousands upon thousands stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the open sky. Men and women who, only a day earlier, had been:
Merchants, craftsmen, servants, guards, farmers, and ordinary citizens now stood waiting in uneasy silence, surrounded by soldiers who had once been dead for thousands of years.
The first transformation had been frightening.
The next ones however, were different.
Once Wu Shan, Xiong Hong, and Xia had acknowledged Luo He as the One True Human Sovereign, the process became far more orderly.
The ancient souls no longer attacked. They searched. One group after another entered the courtyard. Ten thousand people at a time.
Then another ten thousand. Then another. Bodies were examined by ancient souls searching for vessels that could accommodate them.
Some were rejected immediately. Others were suitable enough to be accepted despite differences in age. The process took a few hours.
By the end of it, the courtyard no longer resembled a gathering of civilians. It had become an army.
Fifteen thousand archers stood in ordered ranks. Twenty thousand infantrymen stood behind them.
Among the archers were five hundred women, the vessels chosen for the elite female archers who had once served directly under sister Xia.
The transformation had also revealed something Luo He had not expected. The ancient army had preferences. Most of the infantry soldiers souls preferred male bodies.
Particularly those between twenty and thirty years old. Bodies that were too young were often unsuitable, while bodies approaching fifty were accepted only when no better choice existed.
The archers were similar. The majority of Xia's twenty thousand archers had been men. But among them had been five hundred women who had formed her personal elite archer corps.
Those five hundred souls had been exceptionally particular. They required women of roughly the same age as the bodies they had once possessed.
Fortunately, enough suitable vessels had been found. The result was an army that could scarcely have existed in this age.
Fifteen thousand archers. Twenty thousand infantry. Thirty-five thousand soldiers who had possessed no military experience the day before.
Yet now every one of them stood with the bearing of a veteran. Their posture was different. Their eyes were different.
Even the way they breathed was different. They were not ordinary citizens who had been handed weapons. They were soldiers who had merely borrowed the bodies of ordinary citizens.
The three commanders stood before them. Wu Shan was at the center. Xiong Hong stood to his right. Xia stood to his left. Then all three stepped forward.
They lowered themselves onto one knee. Behind them, thirty-five thousand elite soldiers followed. At once the courtyard thundered with the sound of thousands of knees striking the ground.
Luo He stared at them. Then he walked straight toward Wu Shan. The old general lowered his head. "Your Majesty." Luo He reached down and caught him by the shoulder with surprising strength.
"Get up." Wu Shan hesitated. Luo He pulled him upright. "I said get up." The old general obeyed.
Luo He looked at the three commanders and then at the vast army behind them. "I've already told you. I am not interested in people kneeling before me." Wu Shan opened his mouth.
Luo He raised a hand. "From now on, call me Sovereign if you must. But when you meet me, a bow is enough." His carefree expression became more serious.