Mis-practiced Armor Piercing, Initial Signs of Effective Countermeasures

The instant red firelight shot into the sky, the operator atop the war chariot jerked up his head. His fingers froze on the control lever, his pupils contracting.

Chen Wuya did not wait for him to react.

As the command flag swept down, he had already leaped from the platform, swung onto his horse, and galloped toward the front lines. A long plume of dust rose behind him, while hooves hammered against the hard, dry ground in a rapid clatter.

"Off-center! Counter! Ram!" His voice pierced the battlefield clamor. "Don't chop at the iron hide—hit the places where it can't move!"

The soldiers in the front row had been standing rigidly in place. Hearing that three-word mnemonic was like being violently dragged back onto the training ground. Images from those days of repeated drills flashed through their minds—the axle models on the sand table, the skewed arrows of force, the trajectories of Misalignment drawn by their instructor. They had no time to ponder whether it was right or wrong. Following only the rhythm etched in their memories, they began to move.

The first group charged the war chariot's front wheel with their long spears raised. The spearheads drove viciously into the seams, then levered upward. The chariot had meant to surge forward, but this obstruction jolted its body and forced its turning angle wider.

At the instant it turned right, the second group on the side slope hurled chain-linked iron claws. The hooks lodged precisely in the grooves of the wheel axle. Three men at the other end pulled the chains taut with all their strength, deadlocking the wheel's rotation.

"Now!" Chen Wuya growled, leading the third group as they burst from the bottom of the dry canal.

He gripped a specially made armor-breaking awl, its tip gleaming with a