Chapter 58 The Crown Prince came to attack the city with great momentum, but ended up being beaten so badly that he questioned his existence!
The general was startled. "You mean we should send out all 170,000 troops?"
The young face of the Crown Prince of Yu was already somewhat distorted. "Had I not made myself clear enough?"
"Your Highness!" the general knelt down and advised, "Such a rash move is really inappropriate. I suggest that we first summon all the generals in the army to formulate a strategy together, and there is no need to mobilize the entire army!"
The Crown Prince of Yu roared, "You are all high-ranking generals of the Great Yu Kingdom, why are you so hesitant and indecisive when it comes to fighting! If you had just crushed them earlier, you wouldn't have lost 30,000 soldiers! Stop being so indecisive with me, or I'll chop you up!"
The general had a lot of things he wanted to say to persuade the enemy, but he could only swallow them back down.
This guy acts on a whim, knows nothing about warfare, and does things completely on a whim.
Ultimately, the loss of those 30,000 elite troops was due to a general eager to curry favor encountering the prince, who gave reckless orders. The prince bears the greatest responsibility for this.
Moreover, he has repeatedly violated the taboos of leading troops into battle, and now he hasn't even figured out the situation at Xitun Pass, yet he's already ready to start a fight as soon as his temper flares up.
However, his status was extremely high, and if anyone disobeyed him, all the generals would be in deep trouble if he uttered a few words of dissatisfaction in front of the emperor.
"Yes... Your Highness, this humble general will go and relay the order immediately." The general, with a complex expression, bowed his head and backed away.
Just after the first watch of the night, the mighty army of the Yu Kingdom set off.
The 170,000 troops stretched as far as the eye could see, threatening to flatten Xitun Pass.
However, when they were still ten miles away from Xitun Pass, they were discovered by the Xuanjia Army's drone scouts.
Duan Wu, who had replaced General Duan as the commander of Xitun Pass, immediately made arrangements.
He left four other generals to oversee the situation, while he and General Li Yao led five thousand Xuanjia cavalry out of the city gate at top speed.
About half an hour later.
The Yu Kingdom's army arrived in front of the Xitun Pass city gate.
The Crown Prince of Yu Kingdom, dressed in a magnificent and handsome golden armor, sat atop the general's chariot.
He was surrounded by tens of thousands of elite soldiers who protected him.
“Your Highness, you must be tired from your long journey,” said a lieutenant beside him. “Why don’t you rest for a while and let us send a few men to scout out the enemy’s city gates and walls, and find out if there are any ambushes nearby.”
The Crown Prince of Yu, full of vigor, gazed at the outline of the Xitun Pass city wall under the night sky and laughed, "This remote and desolate borderland is nothing more than some earthen and stone city walls."
"As for an ambush, ha! They have a mere ten thousand soldiers. Tell me, how could they possibly ambush my seventeen thousand troops?"
“You don’t need to be so cautious, otherwise you’ll be boosting the morale of others and diminishing your own.”
After a moment's thought, he ordered the catapults to be used to break through the defenses.
Who cares about city gates and walls?
Even if Xitun Pass were built to the best of its ability, it would not be able to withstand the catapult attacks of the Yu Kingdom's army.
Upon hearing this order, the lieutenant breathed a slight sigh of relief.
Fortunately, the Crown Prince's first order to attack was normal.
Soon, rows of catapults were moved to the front of the army by soldiers pulling horses, and huge, hard stones were also lifted onto the catapults.
With a command from the catapult commander.
The boulder was launched high into the air, and then, like a meteor falling from the sky, it accurately crashed into the city wall of Xitun Pass.
Boom!
The impact was deafening, and the ground trembled slightly.
Under the bright moonlight, the gate tower of Xitun Pass and the city walls on both sides were swallowed up by the flying yellow sand and dust in the blink of an eye.
"Hahahaha!" The Crown Prince of Yu Kingdom burst into laughter. "Those people at Xitun Pass are probably scared to death. They haven't even realized what's happening yet, and the city wall is gone! Hahahaha!"
Then he looked triumphantly at the generals around him.
“The Crown Prince… seems a bit off…” one of the generals said with a look of surprise.
"Something's not right?" The crown prince turned his head and looked ahead again.
But when the yellow sand and dust settled, the outline of the city wall was still there.
His expression changed slightly. "Each boulder used in the catapults weighs thousands or even tens of thousands of kilograms. How could the walls of Xitun Pass possibly withstand them?! Keep smashing them for me!"
The generals felt something was amiss, but for the time being, they could only obey the Crown Prince's orders.
Boom! Boom!
More boulders were hurled toward the Xitun Pass city wall.
Each smash was more violent than the last.
Little did they know, at that very moment, Duan Wu and Li Yao were watching the spectacle nearby with the Xuanjia Army.
"How are you? Are you alright?" Duan Wu asked into the walkie-talkie.
"It's alright!" came the excited voice of the general guarding Xitun Pass over the walkie-talkie. "The reinforced concrete bestowed by Fairy Jinli is truly amazing. After being used to reinforce the city walls, it is completely impervious to the attacks of the Yu Kingdom's catapults! There isn't even the slightest damage!"
Duan Wu then asked, "How are the city gates?"
The other party replied, "The outer layer of the city gate is reinforced with steel bars, so it's not a big problem!"
"That's good," Duan Wu said with a smile. "If it weren't for the fact that the raw materials for explosives given by Fairy Jinli were almost used up, I would really like to retaliate against them."
Li Yao gazed enviously at the catapult convoy of the Yu Kingdom's army from afar, saying, "It's a pity we don't have catapults now."
Duan Wudao said, "Isn't the enemy sending them to us? We'll capture those catapults and use them to launch gas canister bombs!"
The sound of boulders hitting the city wall, which had been as dense as rain, gradually became sparse.
Before long, the commotion completely subsided.
The Crown Prince of Yu could hardly believe his eyes.
All the usable boulders have been thrown, yet the walls of Xitun Pass still haven't collapsed!
"How...how did they do that?" the Crown Prince asked in shock. "Can any of you tell me how a city wall built of yellow earth and gravel could withstand such an attack?"
The lieutenants also looked at each other, their eyes filled with astonishment.
Let alone ordinary earthen and stone walls, even properly constructed brick and stone walls should at least have breaches smashed into them.
The Xitun Pass area should not even have the conditions to build a brick and stone city wall.
Yet, right under their noses, they endured a fierce attack from the catapults without suffering a single injury!
In that instant, the lieutenants recalled the annihilation of Bayon's 50,000-strong army and the fate of the 30,000-strong vanguard army just two days prior...
Could it be... that there really is divine assistance?
That's what they thought, but they didn't dare say it out loud.
“Your Highness… as you can see, the situation is very strange. Why don’t we withdraw our troops first, figure things out, and then attack again?” a lieutenant suggested, mustering his courage.
The Crown Prince of Yu's expression shifted between anger and uncertainty. Without a second thought, he gritted his teeth and said, "We just failed to breach their city walls. Wouldn't retreating like this make me even more humiliated? Send troops out immediately and get them to scale the walls for me!"
"It's...the Crown Prince..."
The deputy general received the order and relayed it again.
Immediately afterwards, a large group of elite soldiers from the Yu Kingdom, carrying long ladders, surged toward the city wall like a tidal wave.
One wooden ladder after another was erected, and everyone rushed to climb up, eager to be the first to reach the top.
At that moment, Xuanjia soldiers suddenly appeared on the city wall to guard it.
Armed with long swords and spears, they slashed and stabbed, killing the elite soldiers of the Yu Kingdom who tried to climb the city walls.
After a brief but intense battle to breach the city walls, countless elite soldiers of the Yu Kingdom were killed or wounded, but none of them managed to climb over.
The Crown Prince of Yu was frantic and ordered more soldiers to be added, even if they had to climb over corpses!
He declared: Whoever is the first to reach the summit will be granted the title of a thousand-household commander and rewarded with ten thousand taels of gold!
The saying goes, "A generous reward will surely bring forth brave men."
More elite soldiers from the Yu Kingdom surged forward, several times more than the number who attempted to scale the wall in the first wave!
Seeing that there was indeed a large crowd that could climb the city wall, the general inside Xitun Pass remained calm and ordered everyone inside to pour the prepared petroleum jelly water over the wall.
The dark, sticky petroleum liquid cascaded down like a waterfall.
The enemy soldiers who were climbing the ladder slipped instantly and fell down one after another.
The densely packed enemy troops below the city wall quickly descended into chaos. Before they could even figure out what was on their bodies, they heard a whooshing sound overhead.
They looked up.
Fiery arrows pierced the night sky and fell like a sudden rain.
Wow!
In the blink of an eye, flames erupted!
The elite soldiers of the Yu Kingdom were shocked to discover that the sticky substance on their bodies would ignite rapidly upon contact with fire, and could not be extinguished no matter how hard they tried!
In just a short while, the area beneath the city walls of Xitun Pass was engulfed in flames!
The Yu Kingdom's elite troops had gathered in too many people. In their panic, they pushed and trampled each other, which only made the casualties worse.
A piercing scream, accompanied by raging flames and billowing smoke, shot straight into the night sky!
"How...how could this be!" The Crown Prince of Yu Kingdom stood up in shock, staring at the scene that looked like a living hell, his mind blank.
"Your Highness! Withdraw the troops!" The lieutenants knelt down and pleaded.
"Xitun Pass is truly too eerie!"
"The city walls are impregnable, and they've even managed to launch such a counterattack! We're unprepared; if we launch another strong attack, even with a larger army, we'll only suffer losses in vain!"
Faced with the persuasion of his lieutenants, the Crown Prince of Yu wavered.
What he witnessed tonight had exceeded his expectations.
I thought that with an army of 170,000, we could sweep through Xitun Pass without any tactics.
result……
Not only did they fail to capture the city walls, but they also suffered heavy casualties.
He had never been on a battlefield before, and now seeing countless soldiers of the Yu Kingdom screaming miserably in the sea of fire, he suffered an unprecedented shock.
"Escort the Crown Prince first!" A lieutenant shouted immediately when he saw that the Crown Prince's face was pale and his appearance was blank.
This is the future king of Daewoo.
No matter how poorly he performs in this campaign, we must not allow him to suffer even the slightest loss.
Immediately afterwards, the crown prince, under the protection of several generals and tens of thousands of elite guards, left the army in a chariot.
As a result, the sudden unusual activity among the countless tanks was quickly detected by drone scouts.
Duan Wu, who was lurking near Xitun Pass, had a bright look in his eyes. "We've finally found that kid's location! Everyone, listen up! Charge with me! Slay their general and capture the Crown Prince of Yu!"
He and Li Yao led a portion of the Xuanjia soldiers out ahead of time for this very purpose.
After all, even if the crown prince leading the troops was an incompetent fool, his military strength was undeniable—170,000 elite soldiers, which was far beyond what their few thousand Xuanjia soldiers could handle.
Only by eliminating as many enemy generals as possible and capturing the crown prince can this battle be resolved at its root.
In the Yu Kingdom's army camp, a deputy general took on the main command role. After the crown prince's chariot had gone far away, he organized the army to retreat in an orderly manner. While retreating, he did not forget to cover the crown prince's rear in layers.
As for the countless corpses left under the city wall of Xitun Pass, there was no time to care about them anymore.
Just then, five thousand Xuanjia cavalry appeared out of nowhere, like a giant sword, tearing a gap in the edge of the Yu Kingdom army's camp.
The Xuanjia cavalry moved swiftly and decisively, wielding their lances and cutting down enemies in their path, heading straight for the direction in which the crown prince had fled.
The Yu Kingdom's elite army, which had been retreating in a relatively orderly manner, was instantly thrown into chaos.
"Protect the Crown Prince! Protect the Crown Prince!!!" The deputy generals leading the guards shouted at the top of their lungs.
Unbeknownst to them, the Yu Kingdom army's objective had shifted from flattening Xitun Pass to protecting the crown prince's retreat.
These enemy troops were elite after all. After being caught off guard by the Xuanjia cavalry and thrown into chaos for a while, they quickly reorganized their formation and fought back fiercely.
Duan Wu and Li Yao, leading five thousand Xuanjia soldiers, slowed down their pursuit.
At the beginning, they were almost unstoppable, chasing and killing enemy soldiers at full speed. However, as the enemy formations gathered, although they killed more and more enemy soldiers, even more came to surround and attack them.
The Xuanjia soldiers were unable to break through the enemy's formations layer by layer in a short time, and the enemy, due to the vast difference in weaponry, could only rely on a continuous stream of lives to hold them off, rather than kill the Xuanjia soldiers.
During the protracted battle, the elite troops of the Yu Kingdom began to question their very existence.
Before this, their iron armor and weapons were outstanding in the entire Central Plains.
Thanks to the abundance of high-quality iron ore within the territory of the Yu Kingdom and its mastery of smelting and forging technology, although their military strength was less than that of the other six kingdoms, their combat power was not to be underestimated by the other six kingdoms.
But now.
Their prized, sturdy armor was barely more reliable than an eggshell against the strange longswords of the Xuanjia soldiers.
The iron weapons they wielded, which were widely recognized as the sharpest in the seven kingdoms of the Central Plains, were unable to penetrate the strange armor worn by the Xuanjia soldiers.
What materials are used to make armor and weapons that are even more powerful than those forged from pig iron?
When did Xitunguan, this desolate place that's already suffering from a severe drought, develop such incredible manufacturing capabilities?!
What they found even more unbelievable was that the Xuanjia soldiers were still fighting them on horseback.
For the first time in their lives, they witnessed cavalrymen wielding weapons and fighting while charging and rampaging. Their power was far beyond what they had previously known as cavalrymen who could only roam and harass the enemy with mounted archery. Even the main infantry forces were far inferior!
How did they manage to do that?
Why don't they fall off the horse?
Although the number of Xuanjia soldiers was small, they became more and more courageous in battle.
The elite army of the Yu Kingdom was as numerous as the sea, but they were constantly questioning their existence and becoming more and more fearful as they fought. If it weren't for their absolute numerical advantage and the fact that they were protecting the crown prince, their formation would have been broken through.
As a result, the two sides gradually fell into a stalemate.
At this moment, Ning Jinli drove to the vicinity of Xitun Pass.
Before even seeing the city walls and towers, we could already hear the commotion.
Both of them could tell from the sounds that a large-scale battle was taking place ahead.
Xiao Qidi's face darkened. He knew without a doubt that the only ones fighting here were the Yu Kingdom's army and the soldiers of Xitun Pass.
This situation was somewhat unexpected.
He had originally deduced that after losing 30,000 vanguard troops, the Crown Prince of Yu Kingdom would definitely wait for the arrival of the barbarian army before daring to launch an attack.
It now appears that the initial prediction was slightly inaccurate.
Ning Jinli looked around and found a high point not far away, so she decisively turned around and drove the car up there.
Before she had a clear understanding of the situation, she didn't want to recklessly rush into the battlefield with the injured Xiao Qidi.
After the car stopped, she and Xiao Qidi hurriedly got out and looked towards Xitun Pass.
With the bright moonlight and the sea of fire in front of the Xitun Pass city wall, both of them could get a general overview of the battlefield.
"Hiss... so many people?" Ning Jinli gasped.
Xiao Qidi continued searching, and when he saw the Xuanjia Army charging into battle, his pupils dilated. "This is bad, the enemy forces surrounding the Xuanjia Army are gathering in greater numbers. If this continues, I'm afraid..."
"Miss Ning!" he said without hesitation, "Please drive me a little closer!"
Ning Jinli knew he wanted to go on stage himself, and quickly tried to dissuade him, "No! In this situation, even if you went, it wouldn't be enough—"
Seeing her resolute attitude, Xiao Qidi stopped wasting time arguing and turned to walk towards the battlefield.
Just then, the ground trembled slightly, the tremor coming from another direction.
Ning Jinli turned her head and looked around, then immediately shouted, "Wait! Don't go! Look over there!"
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