Chapter 94: Right and Wrong (7)

Racing along the horse path, Li Siyeh dismounted from the city wall and mounted his horse, whipping it hard toward the northern city.
Although Julan City was not large, its southern and northern parts were separated and opposed to each other, with a round trip taking at least the time it took to burn a stick of incense. Under normal circumstances, this amount of time wouldn’t matter much, but right now, the Tang army in Anxi was most short of time—time being their greatest enemy.
Li Siyeh was extremely anxious. According to his predictions, the Arabs had already launched a fierce attack on the northern city. It was likely that the elite troops of the Arab forces were carrying out this mission, and their combat strength was certainly far greater than that of the Hu soldiers from Hezhong. Although the troops led by Li Kuo were part of the legitimate Tianwei Army, they might not stand a chance. Otherwise, General Gao, who had been coordinating operations inside the city, wouldn’t have sent the last thousand of his elite troops to reinforce the northern part of the city.
“Boom!”
“Boom!”
Several loud explosions shook the ground, confirming Li Siyeh’s suspicions. As a veteran general with many battles under his belt, he knew exactly what was causing those sounds. It seemed the northern city gate was the key target for the Arabs. The weakest point of Julan City was its gates, and if they continued to bombard them like that, the gates would soon fall!
Turning into an alley, near an inn, Li Siyeh happened to encounter the last batch of Tang elite troops heading to reinforce the northern city.
Leading them was Colonel Lang Hong, who had a close personal relationship with Li Siyeh. Without Li Siyeh needing to say anything, Lang Hong spurred his horse over and asked, “Leader Li, why have you come to the northern city?”
It wasn’t surprising he was suspicious. Before the battle, Gao Xianzhi had already assigned guards to each city gate, with each person responsible for defending one gate. As the commander, it was indeed improper for Li Siyeh to leave the city gate unguarded during battle.
“Heh, the attacks from the Hu armies in the southern city aren’t very fierce, so I left them to my subordinates. I’m just worried that the Arabs’ real goal is to attack the northern city, so I came to check it out!”
At that moment, Li Siyeh didn’t have time to explain in detail to Lang Hong. He simply asked, “Why did you go to the northern city? Has the battle really started?”
Lang Hong replied, “It’s a time of war—which city gate isn’t under attack? I don’t know the specifics, but it seems that Commander Li sent his elite troops to the city earlier, and then General Gao sent all of them to the northern city.”

What he said made sense. Generally, during a siege, the attacking force would outnumber the defenders by far. To make the most of this numerical advantage, the attackers would usually launch assaults from four directions, leaving the defenders unable to defend all fronts and eventually causing gaps in their defenses. If they focused their attacks on just one area, wouldn’t that delight the defenders, who had the advantage of being in a favorable location?

Therefore, if conditions permitted, the attackers would launch attacks from four directions, though their specific tactics would vary, with some feints and some real attacks.

Li Siyeh nodded and said, “Well, since I’m here, I’ll go with you to see what’s going on. That way, I’ll have peace of mind.”

“Hmm, then let’s go!”

Lang Hong didn’t say much more. He turned his horse and headed north toward the city…

The banners floated peacefully over Jinghan Yuan, while the drums roared in Lugu Valley. Clouds and sand obscured the sky, and the river and borders appeared gloomy with a darkened sea-like hue.

Han generals fought fiercely in the battles, while the Hu invaders were in disarray in the northern regions. If only the generals could fight a hundred battles, there would be no need for the emperor to build the Great Wall.

The sky north of Julan City had turned entirely red.

Li Kuo held the black bow that had killed countless Hu soldiers. Without looking away, he took the feathered arrows handed to him by Wang Xiaochun and shot them with all his strength. With each arrow he shot, he took a life. The young man no longer knew how many Persian soldiers he had killed; all he knew was that Wang Xiaochun’s quivers kept getting empty.

He had thought the Persians were just conducting a routine probing attack, but he never expected their assault to be so fierce. Two hours had passed since the start of the battle, and the quivers of his comrades were already empty, yet the Persians showed no sign of retreating. Unlike the Hu soldiers by the river, they seemed unaware of death and kept charging at the city walls.

Fighting against such fearless enemies was undoubtedly extremely difficult. Even the young man himself didn’t know if they could hold the city gates. That’s why he asked General Gao for reinforcements. The arrival of nearly a thousand elite soldiers from Anxi indeed stabilized the situation, giving everyone hope when things were about to get out of control in the north.

“Commander, continuing like this won’t work! There are at least ten thousand of those enemies. If they get close to the city gates, they’ll eventually break through. How about I lead two thousand of my men out of the inner city to fight the Persians? That way, we can draw their attention and give our comrades a chance to catch their breath.”

Wang Xiaochun pleaded anxiously, watching the endless stream of Persian soldiers rushing toward the city walls.

“Arrows!”

“Commander!”

“Give me arrows! Don’t think about anything else!”

“Sigh!”

Wang Xiaochun took out the last arrow with carved feathers and handed it to Li Kuo, sighing deeply. The governor was good in every way except that he placed too much emphasis on loyalty. It was the governor who had saved Wang Xiaochun’s life. Without him, Wang Xiaochun would likely have been tortured to death by the Tubo chieftains by now. If that was the case, why not go out and fight? Even if he couldn’t repel the enemy, he could at least buy time for the brothers in the other city gates to come to his aid—better than waiting to die here, right?

But he couldn’t say such things. Even if he did, the governor wouldn’t listen given his temperament. It was truly frustrating!

“Order the militia brothers to pile sandbags at the city gates and fill them with boulders,” Li Kuo commanded, catching his breath slightly.

Although they were doing their best, they still couldn’t guarantee keeping the Arab invaders at a distance of over a hundred steps. If things continued like this, the invaders would eventually reach the city walls. By then, he had to ensure that the city gates could withstand repeated fierce attacks.

“Ah, I’ll go right away!”

“Wait!”

“Governor, do you have any other orders?”

Wang Xiaochun leaned forward and asked earnestly.

“Go tell Yan Ji that if they really can’t hold on, they should retreat.”

Glancing at his brothers fighting bravely inside the inner city, Li Kuo’s heart softened. These were his comrades he had fought side by side with—he couldn’t just watch them die.

“Ah, don’t worry. A battle is inevitable sooner or later. Those Arab brutes…”

Wang Xiaochun shook his head and said nothing more.

At this moment, Li Kuo felt as if a huge stone was pressing down on his heart, leaving him overwhelmed with depression.

Unlike the structures of the east, west, and south cities, the north city of Julan had an inner city similar to the wengcheng structure found in Central Plains cities. This architectural layout, which was supposed to help the defenders, had now become a nightmare for everyone.

He should have expected there to be spies in the army, but he never thought this person could be so cunning as to operate the iron wheels on the inner city gates and open the outer city gates!…