knife

Chapter 783 Attack
A deafening roar came from his ears, and then Tao Silang saw a sieve-sized rock fly through the air from a distance and land with a thud a few dozen steps away from him. The spot where it landed happened to be an artificial pool of water, splashing countless muddy waters onto the ground.

Tao Silang shrank his neck; if that thing had landed on him, it would have smashed him into a pile of minced meat.

Just now there was only one launch, but now he can see dozens of them. Just imagining the scene of dozens of such large rocks falling down, Tao Silang felt a chill run down his spine.

Shouts came from behind. It was the operators of one of our catapults, hidden behind the arrow tower. Each catapult required more than twenty people to operate, and these people spoke pure Chu Mandarin, unlike the people at the arrow tower.

After a flurry of activity, Tao Silang saw a stone, roughly the same size as the one that had flown over earlier, being launched and sent flying towards the enemy on the other side. With a loud bang, the attack was extremely effective, destroying a catapult on the other side. As the massive catapult arm and support collapsed, the soldiers below scattered in panic.

Cheers erupted behind them. An officer inside the arrow tower laughed and leaned out, holding a half-basket of copper coins in his hand. With a forceful flick, countless coins clattered to the ground. "Well done! This is a reward for you. As long as you've done your job, money is no problem!"

This basket of copper coins must contain dozens of strings of cash, Tao Silang couldn't help but gasp in astonishment.

Making money this way is a bit too easy.

Another loud bang came from afar, this time not just one, but several in succession. Tao Silang rolled over, lying on his back looking at the sky. If that thing landed on his head anyway, there was nowhere to hide; he would die. The advantage, though, was that he would die extremely quickly; his mind probably wouldn't even have time to process what was happening before he was gone.

That's fine too.

A dozen or so stones flew through the air, this time clearly thrown much farther, and with a very clear purpose: to hit the catapult that had just struck the enemy.

"Run!" Tao Silang shouted at the guys who were still picking up money as he watched the stones flying towards them. He had a feeling that several stones were going to hit them on the head.

The people picking up the money looked up. As professional catapult soldiers, they immediately judged the location where the stone projectiles had fallen. They stood up and tried to run, but they had been too focused on picking up the reward money and were a little late in running. Apart from a few people on the periphery who managed to escape, the rest were crushed under the catapult with the roar of it collapsing.

Smoke and dust billowed up, and the stench of blood filled the air.

Tao Silang abruptly closed his eyes. When the stone came crashing down, it confirmed his earlier thought: human life was indeed as insignificant as an ant. The guy who was hit directly by the stone turned into a pile of flesh.

Amidst countless gasps and curses, more stones flew up from behind, and the same thing happened on the opposite side, with both sides' catapults exchanging fire.

Once such a large contraption is installed, it's virtually impossible to move, but it's also not difficult to destroy; a single stone bullet will take it down.

Both sides' catapult soldiers were quite skilled, and in the back-and-forth exchanges, many of their catapults were destroyed.

Amidst the roar of the catapults, a long horn call sounded, and Tao Silang, craning his neck, saw rows of soldiers on the opposite side carrying shields as tall as a man, pushing towards them like a wall.

Before the battle even began, Tao Silang was terrified. But when the stones flew overhead and the crossbow bolts whistled and crisscrossed in the air, and when he saw people being smashed into a bloody pulp and others having a bowl-sized hole shot into their chest by a crossbow bolt, he was no longer afraid at all. He even became interested in leaning out halfway to watch the attack from the other side.

After walking about twenty steps, the large shields crashed to the ground with a loud thud. It was unclear what they were doing behind them, but after a moment of fiddling, countless feathered arrows suddenly flew out from behind the shields, covering an area of ​​several dozen steps in radius. Then, after a brief silence, they rose again like locusts, this time covering another area nearby. They were using feathered arrows to mow down the ground.

Tao Silang silently shrank into a hole in the trench wall. It was a hole that their team leader had ordered everyone to dig when they were digging the trench, and now it proved useful.

He huddled into the cave and had just dragged the big yellow dog inside when countless arrows rained down from the sky, piercing the ground more than half a foot deep with a rustling sound. Tao Silang was terrified. Armored soldiers might not be afraid of such a barrage of arrows, but these men had nothing but a linen coat. If they were hit by an arrow, they would lose half their lives.

A scream rang in my ears. Turning around, I saw Tao Huzi, the biggest guy in the village, with an arrow in one leg. He was big and had been lazy when digging his hole. As a result, his upper body was inside, but his legs were exposed. At this moment, his left leg was stuck in the ground by an arrow. The guy was holding his leg and howling in pain!

The arrows in the air began to veer off in other directions, and the officers on the arrow towers began to blow their horns. Hearing this horn meant it was time to prepare for battle.

Tao Silang pushed the big yellow dog into the hole, patted its head, and shouted, "Brother, hide here and don't move. It's good to live a little longer."

The big yellow dog raised its bright green eyes and looked at him, whimpering softly, but it seemed to understand what he meant and buried its head between its legs without moving.

Tao Silang stood up, spear in hand.

He knew there was no escaping it; if they didn't stand up and prepare for battle, the soldiers on the arrow tower would certainly fire arrows at them without hesitation.

Arrows rained down on Tao Silang and his men. By the time Tao Silang stood up from the trench, the rows of large iron shields were only a dozen steps away from them.

As the drumbeats changed, the large shield bearers suddenly quickened their pace. Tao Silang and the others climbed out of the trench, brandishing their spears and charging forward while yelling and thrusting wildly.

With a clang, Tao Silang's spear struck a large shield squarely. The force from the shield struck him like lightning, shattering his spear and sending him tumbling headfirst back into the trench. Before he could get up, countless dark figures swarmed towards him. The only thing he could do was curl up into a ball, but waves of excruciating pain continued to surge through him, his head buzzing, and after a moment he lost consciousness.

Countless corpses, lying upside down on the ground, buried Tao Silang.

His luck was actually quite good. When he thrust out his spear, he was facing a captain of the Tiger Legion, a martial arts master who had reached the first level. The captain knocked him back into the trench. His companions, on the other hand, were fighting with the enemy. However, behind the iron shields, besides the crossbowmen and spearmen, were all armored swordsmen. These young men were basically killed with one strike each, and they died cleanly and swiftly.

The crossbowmen on the arrow towers fired wildly, completely ignoring the young men and soldiers below who were entangled with the enemy. Sometimes, a single crossbow bolt would pierce both sides together.

No matter how well Na Wei arranged the defense system, it could not compensate for the fact that most of the defenders of these positions were young and strong. Under the powerful attack of the Tiger Army, the positions were still slowly advancing towards Liyang County City.

However, as time went on, the number of Southwest Wolf Soldiers increased, making it more and more difficult for the Tiger Legion to attack.

(End of this chapter)