Chapter 91: The Bloody Battle at Changping Pass, Part 4

“Loose arrows! Loose arrows!”

After breaking free from the Wei army’s iron grip, the Qin troops began to counterattack.

They had to press hard, because the Wei assault troops were already close at hand.

Shafts hissed through the air. On the walls, the Qin soldiers snapped into fighting formation, scrambling to rain arrows down from behind the parapets.

But such wild shooting did little to the Wei infantry. Protected by round shields in their hands, the Wei soldiers kept advancing.

“Do not panic! All units, wait for the order, then loose together!” Gu Jian roared from the wall.

If they did not put up an effective defense now, the Wei army would soon have its siege ladders hooked over the ramparts.

Only after hearing the general’s command did the Qin troops, under the direction of their own officers, begin striking the Wei infantry in earnest once more.

This time, the results were much better. More than twenty Wei soldiers fell.

Seeing the Qin men organize their resistance again, the Wei archers moved their formation forward once more.

“Loose arrows!”

Another overwhelming rain of arrows fell from below the pass, and the Qin assault was checked again.

“Speed up!” the Wei infantry commander shouted angrily.

The tramp of Wei boots grew urgent. The earth itself seemed to thunder, as though the whole world were trembling.

“Hold them back! Hold them back!” On the wall, Gu Jian drew his sword and issued a stern order to his men.

By now, the Wei infantry were fewer than a hundred meters from Changping Pass.

Within minutes, the leading ranks of the Wei army would reach the base of the wall.

Under such circumstances, the Qin army had no choice but to fight with everything they had.

If the Wei soldiers made it up onto the battlements, Qin’s advantage in terrain would vanish entirely.

“Anyone who flinches is to be beheaded!” Gu Jian’s eyes were bloodshot.

“Gu Kui, take my personal guard at once and go up to the walls to supervise the fighting. Anyone who dares to retreat, kill him on the spot.”

“Yes, sir!” the scouting guard captain answered at once.

With Gu Jian’s measures, the Qin resistance truly stiffened.

Arrows pouring down from the wall inflicted fresh losses on the Wei troops and slowed their pace a little.

But it still could not change the fact that the Wei infantry were drawing ever closer to the wall.

“Speed through! Keep moving!” shouted the Wei officers, urging them on.

For the sake of rank, wealth, and their own fortunes, they had already thrown caution to the winds.

At this point, to avoid hitting their own men, the Wei archers no longer loosed a single shot.

The Qin soldiers, pressed back under the enemy’s assault, fought with renewed frenzy under the pressure of the supervising troops.

Over the remaining fifty meters, the Wei army left nearly two hundred corpses behind.

One soldier after another was shot down, only for another to fill the gap immediately. The Wei formation advanced steadily.

At last, the siege ladders were set against the wall, and the most terrible phase of close combat was about to begin.

Wei infantrymen drew their long swords and began climbing.

Because they had prepared in advance, the Qin defenders had stocked a great many stones and logs on the wall.

When those were hurled down on the Wei troops, they caused heavy casualties.

Fortunately, the ladders were only a means of pinning down the Qin defenders. The Wei army’s true reliance in this assault lay in the more than a dozen massive siege towers.

Soon, those cumbersome machines were pushed up to the base of the wall as well.

These towering siege engines stood nearly as high as the walls of Changping Pass, and each could disgorge nearly a hundred men at once. They were true instruments of conquest.

“Use fire!” Gu Jian shouted.

At his command, fire-tipped arrows were lit and sent up.

Regrettably, none of them managed to ignite the siege towers.

The rolling logs and stones were helpless before such monstrous contraptions. Hand-to-hand combat seemed unavoidable now.

At the sight of this, Gu Jian was frantic with worry. He was like an ant on hot coals, at a complete loss.

Against siege towers of this scale, there was almost no solution. The only answer was to meet them head-on in bloody close quarters.

“Soldiers... draw your swords and prepare to meet the enemy!” Gu Jian led the way, once again drawing his own sword.

He had originally believed that, with his careful arrangements, the Wei army would have to expend great effort merely to force their way up.

But now, under the crushing pressure of Wei strength, many of his preparations had never even had the chance to matter before the struggle came to naked, face-to-face slaughter.

Under the general’s lead, the Qin soldiers all drew their swords in unison.

“I have long heard that Wei’s armor and weapons are the finest under heaven,” Gu Jian said calmly, sword in hand, “but I simply do not believe it.”

“Today, our elite Qin troops will show them who the true strong army is.”

His expression heated with resolve, and an unstoppable spirit blazed from him.

“Kill!”

The morale of the Qin soldiers surged to its peak.

In the distance, Ji Tuo, the chief commander of the state of Chen, watched this scene and could not help feeling moved. Truly, this was the clash of great powers.

If the army of Chen possessed such spirit, there would be no need for the Qin men to take command on their behalf.

“General, do you think the Qin men can hold back the Wei army?” Zhang Yunliang asked from behind Ji Tuo.

Ji Tuo thought for a moment, then said solemnly, “The Qin army is among the strongest in the world, and they hold the advantage of terrain. Even if the Wei army is unmatched in valor, they will likely have to pay a heavy price.”

After another pause, he added, “Do not forget: decades ago, Marquis Cheng of Wei marched with four hundred thousand troops, almost sweeping across the realm. In the end, did he not still return in defeat?”

Zhang Yunliang did not share Ji Tuo’s optimism.

Back then, when Marquis Cheng of Wei brought his mighty host to the pass and sought to pressure the royal house of Zhou into granting him titles, he had returned in disgrace because he had aroused universal outrage and been opposed by the allied states.

But now it was only Qin, standing alone and barely holding on. Zhang Yunliang truly could not see where the optimism lay.

What was more, by his judgment, the Qin army had just been beaten so badly they had no chance to strike back.

The battle had scarcely begun, and the Qin defenders had already seen siege ladders and siege towers set in place.

“General, in my view, Changping Pass is in grave danger,” Zhang Yunliang said honestly.

Ji Tuo turned and looked at him, then replied, “No matter what, let us first do our own duty. Go and urge the various units to make certain that supplies to the pass are fully maintained.”

“Yes, sir. I will see to it at once.” After bowing, Zhang Yunliang departed.

Once Zhang Yunliang was gone, Ji Tuo gave a bitter shake of his head. How could he not know that Changping Pass was not as secure as it seemed?

But he needed to numb himself, to force himself to believe the pass stood as firm as a mountain.

For if Changping Pass fell, then the very state of Chen would be in peril.

As the commander of the Chen army, how could he answer to the Marquis of Chen? How could he answer to the former rulers of Chen?

And beyond that, Chen was itself one branch of the royal house of Zhou. How could he protect the Son of Heaven if he could not even guard his own state?

“I only hope the Qin men can hold them off,” Ji Tuo said with a long sigh.

His old bones were already prepared to be buried here. If he could not preserve the state, then he would die with it.

At that moment, before Changping Pass, everything was cold and grim.

The Qin soldiers on the walls gripped their swords tightly. Even with sweat gathering in their palms, none of them stepped back.

More than a dozen siege towers operating at once could deliver nearly two thousand infantry onto the wall in a single wave. Fierce close combat was about to erupt.

When all the Wei soldiers had climbed aboard the siege towers and taken their positions, a shrill cry rang out.

“Drop!”

At that command, the spiral ramps on the siege towers were lowered and locked onto the wall.

“Kill!”

Qin and Wei soldiers unleashed a thunderous roar.