The glow of an array rose along the rammed-earth city wall. Moments later, a heavy arrow gleaming with dazzling red light shot out from the battlements, flying straight toward the Qingming Army's battle array three li away.
The heavy arrow carved a vivid arc through the air, ultimately plunging to the ground less than a hundred zhang from the infantry guns.
It was a ranging arrow used by the Liao Clan to calibrate distance. At a shout of command from the Liao general atop the wall, the array's glow brightened considerably. Another arrow was loosed, flying far greater distance under the array’s enhancement. In a single breath, it crossed three li and fell toward the center of Wei Yuan's battle array.
A streak of sword light rose from the formation and intercepted the arrow. But in the next instant, having pegged the range, the Liao defenders loosed tens of thousands of arrows at once. A screaming storm of arrows swept toward Wei Yuan's army.
At the same time, the Liao troops threw open the city gates. Nearly ten thousand cavalry thundered out, deploying beneath the walls. In sheer numbers alone, this cavalry force was enough to crush Wei Yuan's modest contingent.
As the rain of arrows reached midair, Wei Yuan finally gave the order to fire. The infantry guns thundered in succession. Shell after shell exploded among the Liao cavalry, hurling countless Liao riders and their mounts into the air. Though Liao horses were fierce, they had never encountered explosions so earth-shattering. Many panicked on the spot, rearing and bolting wildly beyond the riders' control.
Simultaneously, the military qi of Wei Yuan's battle array surged. Countless heavy earth Dao arts flew out to meet the incoming volley. Empowered by the military qi, these techniques gained an extra thirty percent in strength, melding into a vast yellow cloud.
When the heavy arrows pierced the yellow cloud, thick grit clung to their shafts as though weighed down by layers of packed earth. Their weight nearly doubled. Plummeting sharply, they fell harmlessly short of the formation.
Though Wei Yuan's army numbered only several thousand, it boasted more than a thousand Dao Foundation cultivators! Even if the vast majority had only template Dao Foundations, a template Dao Foundation was still far stronger than peak Body Casting.
Wei Yuan held the battle array steady, declining to counterattack while the Liao forces were in disarray. Instead, he kept his guns pounding the Liao cavalry outside the city. After shelling them a while longer, with casualties among the elite Liao riders exceeding two thousand, the Liao commander finally realized the danger and hastily ordered a retreat into the city.
During their withdrawal, Wei Yuan concentrated his artillery fire on the city gate, inflicting ghastly losses on the cavalry. In the end, the cavalry commander had no choice but to wheel his force around the city walls and enter the redoubt through the rear gate.
Wei Yuan then ordered the barrels elevated to bombard the interior of the city. Shell after shell punched through the light screen of the defensive array, sending violent tremors through it. Upon impact, tremendous blasts detonated, each shell demolishing every building and tent within a radius of ten zhang.
Only then did the Liao commander realize that having their defensive array merely slow the incoming shells was utterly useless. The shells exploded exactly as intended regardless; the methods used to halt bed-crossbow bolts simply did not apply.
Wei Yuan held his troops in place and kept up the relentless bombardment. The protective arrays of Liao military redoubts typically served two purposes: defending against Dao arts and slowing incoming boulders and crossbow bolts. Even the giant bolts shot from bed crossbows would lose most of their lethality once slowed by the city array.
Yet such city arrays simply could not stop artillery shells. Once a shell was slowed, only a Dharma Idol cultivator could safely intercept it; any Dao Foundation cultivator who attempted to do so would easily be blown to pieces.
The artillery fire boomed without cease. Wei Yuan was resolved not to charge, relying solely on cannon bombardment. After nearly half a shichen of pounding, Liao casualties exceeded five thousand. Unable to bear it any longer, the commander threw open the left and right gates, sending over ten thousand light cavalry out from each side in a desperate charge toward Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan's left and right flanks, however, were already waiting with flying-sword guns and fire guns at the ready. Four Dharma Idol experts manned rotary machine cannons, laying down crossing fields of fire on both flanks.
Within moments, the Liao Clan left over ten thousand corpses on the ground. The survivors did not even attempt to retreat inside; they wheeled past the walls and fled. Shortly thereafter, the Liao commander abandoned the city and fled with his remaining troops.
This commander at least possessed some judgment. Knowing that staying inside meant enduring endless bombardment and that holding the city was completely out of the question, he decisively abandoned it.
Wei Yuan did not pursue—nor could his troops have caught them. He led his forces into the city, occupying this formidable fortress capable of housing an army of a hundred thousand.
Faint sounds of gunfire and cannon fire drifted in from the distance. The reinforcements dispatched from Citadel Two on the right had run into the defensive line formed by the Dao soldiers and three thousand Qingming troops. At this time, only a small number of the Dao soldiers were equipped with fire guns; most were still accustomed to bows and arrows.
The Qingming troops, on the other hand, were uniformly armed with long-range, high-powered flying-sword guns, supplemented by over a dozen infantry guns.
The Liao reinforcements mounted several successive charges, yet failed to breach the defensive position every time. Ultimately, they were forced to retreat, leaving behind thousands of corpses. Wei Yuan's side suffered only several hundred wounded and barely a hundred dead.
Wei Yuan immediately united his forces and marched on Citadel Two. He first established a circular defensive position to the north, then opened fire with his artillery outside the west gate.
After half a shichen of continuous bombardment, the garrison broke. They fled through the west and east gates, not anticipating that the circular defensive position could project firepower across a range of more than a thousand zhang. As a result, the retreating Liao left behind another thousand corpses before finally escaping.
Next came clearing the battlefield and tallying the spoils. To be frank, Wei Yuan was not entirely satisfied with these two engagements. Across both battles, fewer than forty thousand enemies had been killed; most had managed to escape.
This was unavoidable. Wei Yuan lacked sufficient troop numbers, and his army's mobility within the Liao domain was far inferior to that of the Liao light cavalry. The two Liao commanders on the front lines had also been shrewd, beating a hasty retreat the moment the tide turned against them.
To have engaged in a years-long tug-of-war with the Northern Mountain Gate and forced it back step by step proved that none of these Liao commanders on the front line were easy prey.
Having captured the two military redoubts, Wei Yuan did not abandon them. Instead, he relied on the existing fortifications to organize defenses, while sending word to the rear to dispatch personnel to clear the Liao corpses.
By this point, He Fang admired Wei Yuan to no end. In this battle, the Qingming Army's firepower had been overwhelmingly fierce. Without breaking much of a sweat, they had inflicted horrific casualties on the Northern Liao and seized two military redoubts in succession. Wei Yuan was truly worthy of his reputation as the man who had ventured alone into the Western Regions and built the vast foundation of Qingming with his bare hands.
Yet the way Wei Yuan handled the Liao corpses struck him as rather strange. Wei Yuan ordered his men to strip every piece of armor, clothing, and valuables from the fallen Liao—not even sparing their undergarments. In the end, only completely bare corpses remained, which were then packed into large crates, sealed, and transported to the rear.
He Fang found it somewhat bizarre. In the past, they had always piled the Liao corpses together and set them ablaze with Dao power. Why was Wei Yuan handling these bodies as though they were cargo? If nothing else, the crates were brand new, uniform in design, and each could hold over a hundred corpses.
However, since Wei Yuan held overall command, He Fang did not pry. Wei Yuan also appeared to take these corpses quite seriously, personally inspecting the crating process for a time.
What He Fang did not know was that after being packed into crates, the bodies were transported to the mountain gate and loaded onto the flying boats stationed there, which then carried them back to Qingming. Once the flying boats returned, they would transport fresh ammunition and troops to the front.
Wei Yuan's plan was to bring over Bao Yun's entire First Army. An elite force like the First Army was built for the offensive. The only issue was that the First Army possessed numerous war chariots, which made transporting them quite troublesome.
Chapter 694