With layers of cavalry protecting him, Yueji thought he was invincible.

After all, they suffered a loss at the hands of the Xuanjia Cavalry yesterday.

The Xuanjia cavalry slaughtered Yueji's cavalry with the ease of cutting through tofu, losing two thousand of their five thousand cavalrymen in an instant.

Therefore, Yueji learned his lesson this time.

Even though they knew the Xuanjia cavalry in the city had left, what if they suddenly turned back?

Marshal Yueji then arranged two centurions leading two to three thousand cavalrymen to surround him.

However, while they could defend against ground attacks, they couldn't defend against attacks from the air.

It's over a thousand steps away after all!

In the minds of these Qiang knights, a weapon capable of shooting a thousand paces was simply nonexistent.

However, it just so happened to appear here, and it even gave the Qiang cavalry a head-on blow.

For a moment, Yueji and the knights around him were stunned.

Twenty crossbow bolts rose from the city wall, tracing graceful parabolas in the sky.

When they reached their highest point, they all fell rapidly.

Pfft! Pfft!

Accompanied by the sound of crossbow bolts piercing flesh, screams of agony erupted from the Qiang cavalry.

Twenty crossbow bolts rained down from the sky, piercing a small hole in the densely packed cavalry formation, killing at least forty or fifty knights on the spot.

Some of the crossbow bolts were not only incredibly powerful, but also carried immense force.

Moreover, after piercing through one knight, it did not slow down, but instead pierced through two more knights side by side.

In one go, three or four knights were strung together like candied hawthorns.

The surrounding Qiang knights were terrified!

When had they ever seen a crossbow bolt as big as a javelin, one that could instantly take the lives of four people?

Right next to Yueji, a cavalryman and his horse were pinned to the ground by crossbow bolts.

Fresh blood gushed out like a fountain, shooting skyward.

Ahhh!

Before Marshal Yueji and the other knights could react, the second wave of crossbow bolts had already taken to the air, pouring down with an aura of death.

Soon, dozens more knights were killed on the spot.

In the blink of an eye, several hundred of Yueji's two thousand knights were killed instantly, with no chance of survival.

One by one, the tribal warriors who were still alive and kicking died in the blink of an eye.

Such a powerful deterrent left Yueji both shocked and furious.

He glared with bloodshot eyes and roared the order:

"Charge! Charge forward!"

"Mounted archers, fire arrows at the city walls!"

The bugle sounded, and the warhorses neighed.

The bloodshed brought by crossbow bolts fired from a thousand paces away stirred the wild beasts within the Qiang cavalry.

Countless cavalrymen pounded their horses' bellies with their legs, urging them to speed up and charge toward the city wall.

At the same time, squads of a thousand-man Qiang cavalrymen, under the command of their centurions, also raised their willow bows and arrows and launched a fierce counterattack.

However, their attack came too late, when the city gates were wide open and the arrows from the three-bow ballistae were already in the air.

On the city wall, three thousand infantrymen had already activated their mechanisms, and the arrows fired from their crossbows covered an area of ​​fifty to one hundred and twenty paces outside the city wall.

With the long-range coverage of the three-bow ballistae, the battlefield within a thousand paces was already being bombarded from above by arrows of all sizes from the city.

Of the 15,000 Qiang cavalry, at least half had entered this area.

If they wanted to shoot at the city walls, they had to get within a hundred paces of them.

In an instant, the Qiang cavalrymen, covered by Han army arrows, fell from their horses one after another like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

In the areas unaffected by the arrows, the Qiang cavalrymen were packed together in a chaotic mess.

In this situation, there is no possibility of retreating, because seven thousand cavalrymen are continuously pouring in from a thousand paces away.

If you try to retreat, you'll immediately be dragged forward by the cavalry that are rushing in from behind.

Of the more than 8,000 Qiang cavalry, the number of dead riders dwindled to a visible number.

Corpses lay strewn across the fields, and blood flowed like rivers.

The Qiang cavalrymen screamed in agony under the onslaught of Han arrows. The brains of their warhorses and the blood of their knights mingled, staining the battlefield a nauseating color.

"Charge into the city, capture it, and we'll win!"

Upon seeing this, the Qiang chieftains shouted to boost morale.

The only way to survive is to charge forward.

If you were to exchange fire with the enemy on the city walls from below, you would have absolutely no advantage.

"Awooo, awooo!"

"Charge! Charge!"

The dark, bottomless hole before them was the outlet for the Qiang cavalry, who had been riddled with arrows and lost their bearings.

Thus, countless cavalrymen converged into a torrent and rushed toward the three-zhang-wide city gate.

The city gate was about ten zhang thick.

After all, Zhangye was one of the three commanderies of Hexi, and its strategic location was very important. After the Western Han Dynasty seized Hexi, it built a city and established a commandery here.

Zhangye City may not be as large as major cities like Chang'an and Luoyang, but it is definitely unique in the Hexi Corridor.

Therefore, when these Qiang cavalrymen surged into the city gate like a tide, they had to pass through this ten-zhang-long gate.

The distance wasn't long; the warhorse could cover it in just a few breaths.

However, they found that their warhorses had become restless and were trembling all over.

What happened?

Without time to think, the knight whipped his warhorse hard, hoping to get through the city gate as quickly as possible.

The doorway, which was only a little over two zhang high, looked very oppressive and gave people a sense of foreboding.

When the vanguard of these Qiang cavalrymen, numbering about ten, broke through the gate, the view suddenly opened up.

But before them lay an empty square.

Soon, more and more arrived, and suddenly three or four hundred riders filled the area.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!