It was the twelfth month of winter, frost wind sweeping across the borders.
The boundary between the southeastern two regions had long since been trampled vague beneath iron hooves.
Were someone to look down from the high heavens, they would see—
Dense ranks of armored soldiers stretching into a long dragon, like a river racing over the vast earth. Banners snapped in the wind, as though waging war against the sky.
The Demon Beast warhorses and pack beasts were like leaping fish racing through that "river."
The chariots and arrow carts were its surges, fierce and unyielding.
And among the "river's" reefs, the most eye-catching were enormous tower carts that seemed to reach the vault of heaven.
The tower carts stood thirty zhang high, with horned eaves and upturned roofs.
Their tops resembled iron umbrellas, rounded and glimmering with light.
The level beneath the canopy was cast like a city battlement, heavy ballistae mounted atop it, armored soldiers standing guard with halberds in hand.
Below that seemed to be nothing but iron walls, black and impenetrable, solid and seamless, like moving city ramparts.
Within the iron walls came the sounds of mechanisms at work—clack, clack, rumble, rumble! Steady and constant.
At the very bottom were eight pairs of massive wheels.
Every stretch of ground they rolled over was crushed flat...
In overall appearance, they resembled enormous iron barrels mounted on carriage bases and capped with the domes of towers. Such a construction should have looked somewhat awkward, yet the ingenious design of Qi State's master craftsmen made it seem so fitting, so whole. When it rolled fully into view, all one could feel was majesty—then fear.
A white, one-horned beast over seven zhang tall and twelve zhang long strode alone at the front, hauling its load by chains.
Its mountain-like