"Kill!" Lu Xiaoyun raised her red-tasseled spear and charged towards the Northern Qi soldiers with Zhu Yu.
Suddenly, a long cry pierced the sky, and a huge eagle swooped down, its sharp beak aimed at Lu Xiaoyun's eyes.
Even with the iron helmet protecting him, Zhu Yu knew all too well how formidable that eagle was. During his ten years in the Northwest, he had suffered at the hands of this feathered beast countless times.
Just as it was about to approach Lu Xiaoyun, Zhu Yu took off from his horse. A cold light flashed past in the cold wind, and the gyrfalcon, which was about to peck out his beloved wife's eyes, flapped its wings twice and fell to the ground dead.
Without the gyrfalcon, it was as if the Northern Qi army had lost its eyes, and they were caught off guard and quickly suffered a crushing defeat.
No one noticed that at that moment, a fierce general from Northern Qi was hiding in a blind spot on the city wall, aiming an arrow at Zhu Yu's throat.
The fierce general thought viciously, "As long as we kill the Prince of An of Zhou, even if Pingcheng is temporarily taken by them, Zhou will be half defeated, and it will not be difficult to take back Pingcheng!"
Seemingly sensing danger instinctively, as the arrow flew towards Zhu Yu's throat, Lu Xiaoyun dodged to the side, deflecting it with her red-tasseled spear. However, the arrow's force was immense, and with its remaining momentum, it slashed Lu Xiaoyun's right arm, instantly drawing blood.
Zhu Yu's pupils contracted, and he immediately spotted the Northern Qi general who had been lying to him. He swiftly drew the dagger from his boot and swung it at the general. Almost without needing to be careful, the next moment a sharp dagger was embedded between the Northern Qi general's eyebrows, the entire blade sinking into his skull. He fell backward and crashed off the city wall from the other side.
The fierce general of Northern Qi stationed in Pingcheng was killed by the general of Great Zhou with a single blow. The morale of the Northern Qi soldiers who were still fighting on the city wall collapsed. Their faces turned ashen and their hands holding arrows lost their strength.
Wu Chuan and his men led soldiers with excellent archery skills, attaching gunpowder to arrows and shooting them toward the city walls.
Dozens of gunpowder exploded simultaneously on the city wall, blasting countless Northern Qi soldiers into the air, only to have them fall back down, their brains splattering and flesh flying everywhere.
The people of Northern Qi were stunned. They had never seen anything like it before. What was it? How could such a small thing be so powerful?
Soon, Pingcheng, which had been occupied for nearly a month and whose people had been almost completely slaughtered, finally returned to the territory of the Great Zhou that afternoon.
When Zhu Yu sounded the retreat, it was just past Shenshi (3-5 PM).
Of the 10,000 soldiers, about 1,000 were killed and hundreds were wounded. Lu Yuyan and a medical team were treating and bandaging the wounded one by one.
They could only rest here for two days before the 100,000 strongest cavalrymen of the former Northern Army set off for the southern frontier.
Zhu Yu led his army and killed 50,000 Northern Qi soldiers in just two days. When the news reached the Northern Qi camp, the people of Northern Qi simply did not believe it was true.
"General, they used some kind of dark, round balls, about the size of sesame dumplings. They explode as soon as they hit the ground, with tremendous force. The walls of Pingcheng were blown down by these dozen or so dark balls."
"What did you say, Blackie? Who the hell are you trying to fool!" The general kicked the man away.
The subordinate dared not get up, kneeling on the ground and trembling as he replied, "Yes, it is indeed a black pellet. No, I heard them call it something like black gunpowder. Yes, that's the name, black gunpowder!"
"Gunpowder? What's that? Have you ever seen it?" The general looked at the other adjutants in the tent, his face blank.
The lieutenants shook their heads, their faces grim. Ever since Zhu Dan became the emperor of the Great Zhou, their spies and strongholds in the Great Zhou had been wiped out one by one, leaving them completely ignorant of the situation in the Great Zhou.
However, the spies that the Great Zhou had planted in the three kingdoms were elusive and rarely seen.
Two months ago, a woman who called herself Li Ruorou sent a letter saying that she was the eldest princess of the Great Zhou Dynasty and was willing to open the gates of Pingcheng for them on the condition that she become the empress of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Of course they knew that the person currently stationed on the northwestern border was the Grand Prince Consort of the Great Zhou Dynasty. They sent people to investigate and learned that ten years ago, Zhu Dan, who had just ascended the throne, had exiled the couple to the frontier, and they had long harbored deep hatred for the Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Unfortunately, the Northern Qi has been weak in recent years, and there are still a group of soldiers in the Yan army who are loyal to the Great Zhou, which is why it has dragged on until now.
They were naturally willing to accept such a good deal, but the Great Zhou was powerful and Zhu Yu was still alive. The Northern Qi could not swallow up the entire Great Zhou. So they sent envoys to the Chen Kingdom and the Southern Liang Kingdom to persuade them. Unexpectedly, they hit it off immediately.
The rulers of the three kingdoms immediately convened an alliance and, after several days of discussion, finally reached an agreement. Each kingdom would contribute 350,000 troops to form a powerful army of one million, which would launch a simultaneous attack on the Great Zhou Dynasty on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month, divided into three routes.
The chosen locations were Pingcheng, which bordered the Northern Qi and the Great Zhou; Liuzhou, which bordered the Chen Kingdom and the Great Zhou; and Bianzhou, which bordered the Southern Liang Kingdom and the Great Zhou.
Among them, there were 400,000 cavalrymen. No matter how powerful Zhu Yu was, the Great Zhou had no chance of winning.
However, what they did not expect was that in just two days, Zhu Yu had severely damaged 50,000 of their Northern Qi soldiers! What kind of godlike strength was this!
Could that black pellet called gunpowder really be that powerful?
...
In the southern frontier, the Southern Liang bypassed the heavily guarded Anyang City and instead chose to attack Bianzhou City. However, who could have imagined that such a small city as Bianzhou would be so difficult to conquer? More than 100,000 cavalrymen were dispatched, and ten days had passed without success.
They knew that reinforcements from the Great Zhou were already on their way. If Bianzhou City could not be captured after a prolonged siege, and the battle lines were stretched too thin, supplies and provisions would not keep up, which would be extremely detrimental to their campaign.
At this moment, General Saihada of the Southern Liang Dynasty was sitting on his horse, anxiously watching the Great Zhou banners fluttering in the cold wind and planted on the city wall.
This time, Saihada mobilized all his forces—100,000 cavalry and 150,000 infantry, a total of 250,000—to launch a simultaneous attack from the four gates of Xuancheng, vowing to take Bianzhou City today.
"Shoot this flag down for me! Whoever can open the gates of Bianzhou today will be rewarded with one hundred taels of gold, and whoever kills the general guarding Bianzhou will be rewarded with five hundred taels of gold!"
The morale of the Southern Liang soldiers soared, and more than 200,000 troops surged forward like a tidal wave.
The battle lasted for several hours until the last soldier on the Bianzhou city wall fell, and the city gates of Bianzhou were finally breached.
Two hundred thousand Southern Liang soldiers quickly poured into the city. However, to their surprise, they found only empty streets and houses that had been looted.
It turned out that the prefect of Bianzhou had already dismissed the city's residents a few days earlier.
Enraged, the Southern Liang soldiers, having looted nothing, set fires throughout the city, and in an instant, the entire city of Bianzhou was engulfed in flames.
After Bianzhou was captured, Saihada led the Southern Liang army south and successively captured five more cities: Yueshi, Pengcheng, Wancheng, and Luocheng.
Wherever they went, they resorted to all sorts of arson, murder, looting, and cruelty.
Apart from Anyang City, a large portion of the southern border territory of the Great Zhou Dynasty was captured by Saihada.
Saihada planned to head north and take Anyang City as well. Only by taking Anyang City could the southern Xinjiang region truly be brought under the control of the Southern Liang.
The morale of the Southern Liang army soared, and they clamored to destroy the Great Zhou by the end of the year.
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