Yuzhang Prefecture
Prince Shu's face darkened like still water as he gazed toward Yuzhang Prefecture. He had shouted a challenge just now, only to be met at once by a concentrated volley. Had the distance not been great, and had his guards not been formidable, he would have been shot dead on the spot.
"The court no longer regards me as a king!"
Seeing several newly embedded feathered arrows in his personal guards, Prince Shu pulled them out directly, yet turned a blind eye to them, only grieving in silence.
"Boom, boom, boom!"
Massive stones occasionally whistled through the air, sometimes smashing into the city walls. Bricks, stones, earth, and timber burst outward in all directions. Amid the rolling smoke and dust, figures moved in scattered layers.
"Fire!" A command came faintly from atop the walls. With a bang, the sky darkened as a rain of arrows and stones shrieked down into the surging crowd, bursting up sprays of blood. Assault frames, carts, and cloud ladders snapped and toppled, crushing scores beneath them.
"Pour the oil!"
"Golden juice!"
Scalding liquid was poured down in torrents from time to time, drenching the charging masses and leaving a broad swath of people rolling about and crying out in agony.
As the Ying soldiers withdrew slightly, great numbers of civilian laborers pushed carts loaded with mortar, bricks, and stones up the walls, setting up shields and repairing the broken sections.
"The will to resist is growing ever firmer."
At the sight, Prince Shu could not help but feel a chill crawl over his skin. This meant that the new Emperor was becoming ever more secure, and that both court and countryside were increasingly resolved to resist.
When he turned back, he saw seventy to eighty thousand Ying troops, half of them cavalry, arrayed