Kim Seon-a's shoulders twitched, and she thrust the White Tiger Sword into the mud with a backhand motion, then took a step toward the moat.
Gu Moran on the reins, and the tall horse stood firmly in front of her.
He looked down at her pale face, bent down, grabbed her smooth chin with his right hand, and lifted it up, forcing her to look up at him.
Did I give you permission to move?
I actually laughed, so what?
Did your donkey, instead of pulling the millstone, deliberately kick you in the head?
"If you go there now, what good will it do except let your father watch as those beasts strip you naked and rape you, and then burn you both to ashes?"
Kim Seon-a's eyes were red-rimmed, tears streaming down her face through Gu Moran's fingers, her voice trembling.
"That's my father... I can't just watch him burn to death..."
"He won't die! I say he won't die, even the King of Hell wouldn't dare take him!"
Gu Moran released her chin, patted her cold cheeks twice, straightened up, and flicked his whip behind him.
"Someone come here!"
"Bring out all the late-night snacks we've prepared, let the Satsuma folks in the city smell them!"
Thirty large carts creaked and groaned as they were pushed to the front of the formation.
When the thick tarpaulin on the truck was lifted, twenty large iron pots were filled with tenderly stewed fatty pork, along with dozens of baskets of freshly cooked white flour flatbread, steaming with white vapor.
The night breeze was blowing from the east, carrying with it the strong aroma of savory meat and wheat, which wafted straight into the western gate's barbican.
Gu Moran patted the horse's neck, signaling the thirty loud-voiced translators behind him to grab tin megaphones and shout in unison in Japanese:
"Listen up, brothers of Satsuma!"
"The Prince of Great Yan has given an order!"
"Cut off Inukami Jusaburo's head, and all thirty cartloads of fatty pork and white flour cakes, plus twenty thousand taels of gold, are yours tonight!"
"Whoever cuts the suspension bridge's iron chains first will be rewarded with a hundred taels of gold and two beautiful women!"
In a blind spot of the barbican, the Satsuma infantry, who had been huddled together under the crossbow bolts, sniffed hard at the aroma of stewed pork wafting through the air. Their stomachs rumbled louder than the war drums outside.
Upon hearing the reward of twenty thousand taels of gold and one hundred taels of gold, Corporal Satsuma steeled his heart, grabbed the corpses of two of his comrades at his feet, held them to his chest, and howled at the top of his lungs:
"Either way, I'm going to die!"
"Being shot by an arrow is death anyway, but charging in and risking it might get you a good meal and some gold!"
"Fight them!"
The desperados behind them followed suit, carrying the corpses on the ground as human shields, bracing themselves against the oncoming iron arrows, and charging towards the wooden doors of the bunkers on both sides with bloodshot eyes.
Puff puff puff!
The crossbow bolts pierced the flesh of the dead bodies. The Satsuma soldiers, stepping over the intestines and blood of their comrades, smashed the wooden door of the bunker to pieces with their shoulders, rolled inside with broken swords and bamboo spears, and stabbed and bit the Inugami crossbowmen Inukami, their bodies pressed together.
On the city tower,
Upon hearing the commotion of the bunker below being breached, Inukami Jusaburo's face twitched twice, and he turned his head to glance into the barbican.
"Useless! Can't even stop a bunch of peasants!"
While he turned his head, Lin Qingdai, who had been staring at the city wall in front of the Great Yan, waved her left hand downwards and made a gesture to Zhen Meili behind her.
Zhen Meili had been waiting impatiently for a long time. With a blade of grass in her mouth, she quickly turned the gears under the three improved crossbows, raising the angle of the crossbow arms by three inches.
Several engineers carried up three hollow spheres, each about the size of a washbasin, made of thin clay and fired, and inserted them into the crossbow slots.
"Go upstairs and give me a bath!"
Zhen Meili kicked the mechanism open.
Buzz!
Three ox-tendon bowstrings, each as thick as a child's arm, vibrated simultaneously.
Three thin-shelled ceramic projectiles, accompanied by a piercing whistle, traveled three hundred paces and struck the brick wall above the plaque on the west gate tower precisely.
Crash!
The thin, brittle ceramic shell shattered into pieces upon impact with the blue brick.
It contained a full two hundred pounds of quicklime ground finer than flour, mixed with about ten pounds of red powder made from ground chili peppers.
The night wind swept through, enveloping the entire west gate of the city wall, even extinguishing the torchlight.
"Cough! My eyes! Ah!"
As soon as Inukami Jusaburo turned his head back, he inhaled a mouthful of quicklime mixed with chili powder.
The quicklime, once it touched the sweat and tears in his eyes, immediately burned and steamed.
He screamed, the torch in his hand clattering onto the city bricks. He desperately covered his face with his hands, tears and snot mixed with blood streaming down his face. His throat burned so badly that he couldn't even utter a word. He paced around aimlessly on the city wall.
The dozens of Wa archers around them fared even worse, covering their eyes and groping around in the white fog. Several of them lost their footing and fell straight off the three-zhang-high city wall.
At this critical moment,
Before the Great Yan Formation, Xie Linyuan, who had been resting with his eyes closed on his horse, opened his eyes.
Without saying a word, he used the toes of his right foot to push off the stirrup, and his gray monk's robe billowed in the night wind.
He took three steps in mid-air, lightly touched the top of the siege ladder pushed to the moat with his toes, and leaped directly across the moat to the top of the three-zhang-high West Gate.
Before the white fog had completely dissipated, Xie Linyuan, still in mid-air, drew his longsword from its sheath, a flash of cold light.
bite!
The two thick iron chains suspending Kim Tae-heung snapped instantly.
Xie Linyuan grabbed Kim Tae-heung's bloodied and mangled waist with his left hand, stepped on the edge of the battlement with his toes, and swung his long sword backward with his right hand.
Three Japanese soldiers, who were blindly hacking and slashing in the white mist, had three spurts of blood gushing from their necks and collapsed to the ground with a thud.
Inside the barbican, Corporal Satsuma, covered in blood, crawled out of the bunker. Seeing the chaos on the city wall, he raised the stolen katana, aimed it at the thick wooden bolt on the heavy-duty winch, and chopped it down with all his might.
Click!
The wooden peg snapped, and the iron chain spun wildly with a rattling sound.
The heavy iron suspension bridge, weighing several thousand kilograms, crashed down with a whooshing sound, slamming solidly onto the muddy ground on the opposite bank of the moat with a deafening roar, kicking up clouds of dust.
"The military officers of Great Yan!"
The door is open!
Come in and give us gold!
Three thousand Satsuma soldiers, their eyes bloodshot with rage, threw their bamboo spears to the ground, lunged forward, and, shouting battle cries, pushed open the inner city gate.
"My men! Follow me and charge in!"
Murong Xue had been waiting for this moment. She squeezed her legs against the flanks of her horse, held her spear in one hand, and charged onto the drawbridge.
A thousand heavily armored cavalrymen followed behind, their hooves making the wooden planks of the drawbridge tremble violently.
Several Wa samurai who weren't quite dead yet were just about to get up and push open the city gate...
Murong Xue swept her spear left and right, the shaft carrying immense force as it smashed down, instantly sending the warriors, swords and all, flying. They crashed heavily against the base of the city wall, coughing up blood and dying.