Day Six: The Last Stand
The first light of dawn barely touched the horizon when horns sounded. Thirty-six siege towers began moving. The ground trembled beneath them.
Jin Mulan stood atop the wall with her spear. "Prepare everything." The huge scorpions turned. Enormous ballistae were loaded. Crossbowmen formed ranks. Archers raised their bows.
Then the first volley came. The battlefield erupted. Massive bolts tore through advancing towers. One siege tower collapsed. Then another. A third caught fire immediately.
Jin Mulan herself moved along the battlements, sending waves of flame toward wooden structures. Six towers burned beneath her attacks.
But there were thirty-six. The Wu army kept pushing. The scorpions fired again and again and again.
Strange explosive ammunition tore apart tower after tower. Twenty-four siege towers were crippled or destroyed before reaching the wall.
The shield walls proved far more difficult to break than Jin Mulan had anticipated.
These were not Duke Lu's ordinary troops. Elder Zhoung's soldiers were elite kingdom troops, trained for frontline warfare and equipped accordingly.
Their shields overlapped tightly, their formations barely wavered under ordinary arrow fire, and they advanced with the discipline of soldiers who had spent years fighting together.
Compared with the second-rate troops commonly fielded by nobles, the difference was immediately apparent. Jin Mulan realized that ordinary attacks would not stop them.
She had no choice. Another explosive round was loaded into the scorpion. The moment it struck the shield wall, the formation vanished into a storm of utter destruction.
Wood and iron erupted outward. Shields shattered, armor twisted, and bodies were hurled through the air.
Some soldiers lost limbs instantly, others were torn apart by fragments of shields, weapons, and armor.
Several men were burned so severely that their skin was gone, leaving only raw flesh beneath. Others collapsed bleeding from their ears.
While countless soldiers were struck by jagged fragments that had been turned into deadly shrapnel.
The devastation was so horrifying that even the surviving soldiers instinctively recoiled. And that was exactly what made the weapon even more terrifying.
After witnessing the explosions, the soldiers could no longer distinguish between an ordinary ballista shot and an explosive one.
A normal iron bolt struck a shield wall and several men immediately flinched.
Another impact came.
A section of the formation broke apart as soldiers instinctively lowered their shields and tried to escape the place where they believed the next explosion would land.
Sometimes there was no explosion. Sometimes there was. That uncertainty became a weapon of its own.
The shield walls that had seemed almost unstoppable began to hesitate whenever the great scorpions turned toward them.
Men who had previously stood shoulder to shoulder now glanced nervously at every incoming projectile, wondering whether the next impact would annihilate them all in to minced paste.
Jin Mulan watched the chaos from the battlements, her expression grim. She understood then why Luo He had been so careful with these weapons.
There were too few explosive rounds to waste, and each one could change an entire battlefield.
Yet against formations this disciplined, she could not afford to preserve them merely for the siege engines.
If those shield walls reached the moat intact, thousands of soldiers would follow them. So she gave the order again.
"Fire."
Another explosive round screamed across the battlefield. The shield wall disappeared beneath another violent burst of fire and shrapnel.
For the first time, the advance of Elder Zhoung's elite soldiers truly began to falter under the attacks.
The defenders cheered. But sixteen remained. Then ten. Then eight. The explosive ammunition ran out.
The last of Luo He's precious projectiles disappeared into smoke. Jin Mulan felt exhaustion in her body. Her elemental power was nearly depleted.
She had already burned several towers. Now there was no choice but to rely upon soldiers. Barrels of fish oil were rolled toward the battlements.
Flaming arrows were prepared. Ordinary ballista bolts continued crashing into towers. Even without the miraculous ammunition, the massive weapons remained extremely deadly.
One tower took a direct hit. Its entire upper section collapsed. Another lost a wheel and tilted violently. But remaining towers continued forward.
Eight reached the walls. And then the real battle began. Wu soldiers surged upward. Ladders appeared alongside towers. Men climbed. Others crowded beneath them.
And while the siege towers drew the toll many infantry soldiers came with ladders and climbed atop the walls.
The battlements became a storm of steel. Jin soldiers met them head-on.
Their special armor proved its worth immediately. Heavy steel plates turned aside countless blows.
Swords struck armor and snapped. Spears scraped across metal. Arrows struck helmets and bounced away.
But Wu Kingdom's elite archers quickly adapted. They stopped shooting at armor. They aimed for gaps.
The throat. The eyes. The joints beneath arms. The narrow openings around helmets. Men began falling.
Yet Jin soldiers did not retreat. They fought. And fought. And fought.
Elder Zhoung personally entered the battle. Unlike Duke Lu, he did not remain safely behind lines. He fought beside siege towers. His sword moved very consistently.
Every opening was exploited. Every Jin soldier approaching him was forced backward. He was not a Grandmaster, but his martial arts were formidable.
At least enough that ordinary soldiers could not easily stop him. Jin defenders were already exhausted. Wu soldiers kept coming.
For six hours, the walls became a slaughterhouse. Jin Mulan was everywhere. She moved from one section of wall to another, killing whoever reached the battlements.
When one siege tower reached the wall, she leapt directly into it. Soldiers inside barely had time to react. Her spear flashed. One fell. Then another. Then another.
Within moments, the tower belonged to her. Soon she jumped back onto the battlements and crouched. Then again launched herself into the air.
Her leg struck the wooden structure with overwhelming force. The siege tower groaned. Wood snapped. The entire machine tilted sideways and collapsed.
Another tower reached the wall. Jin Mulan immediately charged it. Her spear pierced through wooden defenses. She tore through men inside. The siege tower burned behind her.
She moved to the next. And the next. By then, she had stopped counting kills. The eight siege towers that reached the battlements were eventually destroyed.
One after another. The final tower burned beneath dozens of barrels of fish oil. Flames climbed into the sky. Wu soldiers began retreating.
But Jin Mulan did not order archers to stop. Ballista bolts continued falling among retreating formations. Crossbows fired. Again. Again. Again.
Luo He's weapons had not been designed merely for long-range fire. Elite Jin soldiers carried crossbows in one hand and swords in the other.
One soldier would fire. Another would immediately pass a loaded weapon. The first would return to his sword. The rhythm became almost mechanical.
Slash. Fire. Reload. Slash. Fire. Reload.
Wu soldiers attempting retreat were struck from behind. Those still fighting were cut down. The retreat became chaos.
Elder Zhoung himself was struck. A bolt pierced through his left arm. The impact shattered bone before exiting the other side. Blood covered his sleeve.
He staggered but did not fall. He was right-handed. His sword remained in his right hand.
So he simply wrapped the wounded arm tightly and continued giving orders.
"Withdraw!"
By approximately eleven in the morning, the sixth-day assault had finally ended. The battlefield was silent. The cost was staggering.
Wu forces suffered approximately sixteen thousand casualties during the assault.
Combined with earlier losses throughout the siege, their total losses had climbed to roughly thirty-five to thirty-six thousand men.
The army that had seemed endless had been reduced to a battered remnant.
Yet it had not broken. Elder Zhoung's leadership preserved its discipline. Survivors still believed the Jin Mansion would eventually fall.
Jin defenders had suffered terrible losses. Of roughly five thousand soldiers who began the defense, only around twenty-six hundred remained combat capable.
Nearly half had fallen. And yet the Jin flag still flew. The walls still stood. Jin Mulan still stood.
She leaned against her spear, breathing heavily as she looked across the quiet battlefield.
Bodies covered the ground. Burning siege towers collapsed in the distance. Smoke drifted across the moat.
Remaining Jin soldiers stood exhausted upon the battlements. They had fought an army more than ten times their own strength.
And they had survived. Not because they were stronger. Not because they possessed more men.
But because Luo He's weapons had transformed the battlefield.
The crossbows alone had killed countless soldiers. The enormous scorpions had shattered shield walls and siege towers alike.
The explosive projectiles had turned tightly packed formations into chaos. And Jin Mulan had used every advantage with ruthless precision.
But victory was never without any real consequences.
The Jin army was nearly exhausted. Now their ammunition stores, which were full, are staggeringly low. Their soldiers were wounded.
The Wu army, despite losing far more men, still possessed thousands of soldiers. And Elder Zhoung was still alive.
He stood in the enemy camp with his wounded arm bound tightly against his body, refusing to remain in bed. He continued issuing orders. He continued studying the walls.
And he continued looking for the next way to break them. The siege was far from over.