As Sun Wu methodically besieged the city day after day, the soldiers in the Wu Capital were tormented almost to the point of numbness.
In the army camp, drums once again thundered encouragement, and ranks of soldiers in square formations raised their great shields and slowly advanced toward the walls.
The soldiers protected their siege weapons, ladders and battering rams as they headed toward the walls and gates, their figures surging like the tide.
Thanks to Sun Wu's command and relatively cautious tactics, although Qingji's army had failed to take the Wu Capital in a single rush, its casualties had been light, so the soldiers' morale remained high.
As the siege engines moved into position one after another, Helü sensed that Qingji's army seemed particularly different in spirit today, as though it had come out in full force to take the city in a single battle.
Under Sun Wu's command, Qingji's army charged toward the walls in successive waves, following the formations they had rehearsed before.
Archers crowded the earthen ramps built earlier, exchanging fire with the archers atop the Wu Capital's walls. Because the ramps had been piled so high, Qingji's archers even held the advantage, inflicting considerable casualties on the archers defending the walls.
Sun Wu's earlier strategy of forcing Helü to throw his own ranks into disorder had proved highly successful. In recent days, Helü had carried out sweeping acts of killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys among the city's wealthy households and nobles, with great clans being destroyed almost every day.
Finally, after Qingji's army intensified its assault, those in the city who could endure no more launched a rebellion, and under their lead, order temporarily collapsed throughout the Wu Capital.
Hearing the chaos inside the city, Sun Wu laughed loudly. "Crown Prince, we have