On the twenty-third day of the twelfth month, beneath skies threatening rain, nearly ten thousand men of the Northern Command Army scaled the city walls from all four sides.
Liu Cheng had the good fortune to witness the battle.
He had known things looked bad as soon as the sky darkened. Truly worried that Xun Xian might have water in his head and keep stubbornly holding on, he had brought the Cavalry Column over, ready to remonstrate-or, rather, force his hand.
Fortunately, Xun Xian had not stubbornly held out. By the time he arrived, the assault had already begun.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about the fighting itself. This little city used a small river that had only just emerged from Mount Tai beside it as its moat, and its walls stood no more than two men tall. It essentially had no natural defenses or fortifications to rely on. It existed only because it stood at the junction leading from Mount Tai to the plains along the Ji River.
In fact, even Jia Jian's splendid initial sortie had merely been a surprise attack launched before the men beneath the walls had secured their footing. And while its results had been astonishing, his own losses had been considerable, especially given that he had started with fewer than a thousand fighting men.
Now that the city was under attack from all four sides, no effective resistance was apparent.
In scarcely half an hour, several sections of the wall had fallen, and unrest had broken out within the city.
Soon, the defenders reacted. Abandoning any attempt at defense, they gathered their horses and fighting men on all four sides, lowered the drawbridges, and broke out in every direction!
And sure enough, because Jia Jian himself had been spotted on the eastern side and