The spring wind at the border remained cold. Fang Yizhi stood atop the walls of Yongdeng County, gazing at the Western Liang army that had yet to attack, his heart heavy.
Two days earlier, Gulang County had fallen in a single day. After more than a decade of training under Han Zongwang, Grand Marshal of the former Great Liang dynasty, the Western Liang Army's fighting strength had increased dramatically.
Suddenly, a rumbling sounded in the distance.
"General Ruan, the enemy has heavy siege equipment." A deputy general pointed at the carts approaching from afar, alarm spreading across his face.
Ningyuan General Ruan Dashui, who was responsible for defending the walls, peered into the distance. As far as his eyes could reach, carts were advancing slowly in a single broad line.
On the carts were straight fir trunks seventy to eighty feet long and as thick as a man's waist. Triangular wooden braces had been nailed onto them to form broad, flat ladder frames, each about thirty feet high, with large iron wall hooks fitted to one end. Once hooked onto the walls, they would allow troops to charge up to the battlements in groups.
Behind the flatbed carts, dozens of large catapults stood in a line. They could hurl boulders weighing several hundred pounds as far as five hundred paces. These heavy catapults, twenty-one feet tall, had originally required more than a hundred men to pull them. After Han Zongwang's modifications, however, the old machines were drawn backward and used the elasticity of leather belts to launch their loads. Pulleys and multiple winches replaced direct pulling, allowing just twenty men to operate each catapult.
Between every pair of catapults stood a massive Ballista. Each could fire ten cross-headed javelins at once, pierce shields within four hundred paces, and reach a