"I will do it myself!"
Murong Xue strode to the ship's side, grabbed the winch handle with both hands,
With a loud shout, he drew the bowstring of Ba Shiqiang's iron-rimmed bow to its fullest extent, inserting a fine iron arrow, as thick as a child's arm, into the quiver.
"Put!"
Murong Xue kicked open the mechanism of the suspended blade.
The iron arrow, trailing a sharp whistling sound, pierced the air and, with a loud crack, pierced directly through the thick wooden raft used to block the wind outside the largest cave on the west side.
Wood chips flew everywhere, revealing twenty giant bronze cauldrons inside, still emitting purple smoke.
"Release the arrows!"
Xue Huan waved the flag on the deck.
Thirty repeating crossbows were fired simultaneously, and hundreds of rockets wrapped in poisoned rags and raging oil shot out, piercing the cave through the breach and crashing densely into the bottom of the bronze cauldron and the unfinished barrels of corpse oil beside it.
With a loud bang, the remaining corpse oil and sea snake bile were completely ignited by the raging oil.
Fueled by the wind, the hot air currents rising from the valley floor propelled the purplish-black smoke, three times more toxic than before, through the cave's ventilation shafts, wildly pouring into the bunker on the western cliff and the watchtower on the top!
"Cough cough! Retreat quickly! Close the stone door tightly!"
The Shimazu Clan's guards inside the cave didn't even have time to put on their wet vinegar-soaked protective cloths. They were immediately hit by the backflow of toxic fumes, and dozens of them rolled on the ground, covering their eyes.
His eyes were bleeding from the toxic fumes, and he let out a bloodcurdling scream like a pig being slaughtered.
On the eastern hilltop, Corporal Satsuma covered his mouth and nose, lying prone beside a rock, looking down.
When he saw the hundreds of corpses of his fellow villagers lying on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, their throats torn open and their bodies covered in blackish-purple pus, the man's breathing suddenly became heavy, like a bellows, and his eyes turned so red they seemed about to bleed.
"We're from the same hometown... That's A Jian, he even shared half a piece of salted fish with me last month!"
Corporal Satsuma slapped himself hard across the face, turned around, and knelt down in front of Lin Qingdai with a thud, his forehead hitting the gravel ground with a heavy thud. When he raised his head, blood was already seeping from his forehead.
"General Lin! Those beasts of the Shimazu Clan are treating us Satsuma people like livestock, poisoning us to death!"
I no longer ask for the gold Great Yan the Prince of Dayan. I beg the general to give us a fire bomb, so we can chew that piece of trash Shimazu Yoshihiro's bones to pieces!
The hundreds of Satsuma soldiers who had surrendered behind him also knelt down in unison, each of them planting their katana in the ground, their eyes filled with a mad, bloodthirsty light.
Lin Qingdai glanced at him twice, said nothing more, and directly reached out to untie more than a dozen leather pouches filled with miniature Subduing Fire Thunder from her waist and threw them into Corporal Satsuma's arms.
She drew her soft sword from her waist, the tip pointing towards the suspension bridge connecting the east and west mountain peaks:
"Stay close, or you'll lose your head and have no one to blame but yourself."
Corporal Satsuma grabbed the leather pouch and hung it around his neck, then jumped up, sword in hand, and roared:
" Satsuma men, come with me to chop up that old Shimazu dog!"
More than three hundred Satsuma soldiers braved the thick, purplish-black smoke billowing from the mountaintop and recklessly rushed towards the western main peak via a swaying iron chain bridge.
At this point, the western watchtower was so choked by the toxic fumes that it was impossible to stay there.
Shimazu Yoshihiro covered his mouth and nose tightly with his soaked battle robe, and escaped through the back door of the watchtower, escorted by a group of equally disheveled samurai.
Just as they reached the bend in the mountain road, they bumped into Corporal Satsuma and his men, who emerged from the thick smoke.
Shimazu Yoshihiro recognized the group of men wearing tattered bamboo armor typical of lower-ranking foot soldiers from the Satsuma Domain. He immediately released his gag from his sleeve, adopted the imposing demeanor of the Satsuma Domain, drew his gold-inlaid katana from his waist, and pointed it at the group, shouting angrily:
"You lowly wretch have gone too far!"
How dare you side with the Great Yan people and attack our clan leader!
"Get over here right now and kneel down to die, or I, the patriarch, will tear your parents, wives, and children back in your hometown of Satsuma apart by chariots!"
Upon hearing the words "parents, wife, and children," Corporal Satsuma not only didn't stop, but instead grinned, his mouth full of blood and saliva from biting his tongue.
Without uttering a single unnecessary word to the high and mighty lord, he directly tore off the three fuses of the Subduing Fire Thunder hanging on his chest with his left hand, pressed the hissing, sparking grenades against his chest, and charged towards Shimazu Yoshihiro's tachi!
"You madman! Get out of here!"
Shimazu Yoshihiro was terrified and, gripping the knife with both hands, stabbed forward with all his might.
The sharp katana pierced through Corporal Satsuma's left chest, leaving a trail of blood.
Corporal Satsuma didn't even flinch; he gripped Shimazu Yoshihiro's arm, which was holding the knife, tightly with both hands, and pressed his bloodied mouth against Shimazu's face:
"You old dog, go to hell and sell our land!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three Subduing Fire Thunder exploded simultaneously between the chests and abdomens of the two men.
Corporal Satsuma's upper body was instantly blown to pieces.
Despite being protected by the Nanban armor, Shimazu Yoshihiro was still struck in the face by the explosion, causing him to cough up blood and fly backwards for three zhang before crashing heavily into the mountain rocks.
The armor on the left side of his body was completely shattered, and his face and ribs were a bloody mess, revealing charred bone fragments underneath.
Shimazu Yoshihiro's eyes bulged out as he tried to get up from the ground, supporting himself with his intact right hand, when a blinding golden light suddenly flashed through the thick smoke.
Xie Linyuan, dressed in a white monk's robe, swept through the air. With a flick of his right hand, the spinning golden Dharma wheel brushed past Shimazu Yoshihiro's shoulder.
Two soft "plop" sounds.
Just as Shimazu Yoshihiro managed to straighten himself, he lost his balance and fell headfirst to the ground.
Both of his arms were severed at the root, the cuts were smooth as a mirror, and blood spurted more than a foot high.
Xie Linyuan kicked the old man over, tied him up with hemp rope, and threw him by the side of the mountain path.
An hour later,
Seeing their commander captured and the poison array backfiring, the Japanese soldiers on the cliffs on both sides of Ghost Cry Shoal were thrown into complete chaos, abandoning their weapons and fleeing madly into the back mountains.
On the sea, Tuoba Mang led his engineers in Xiaochuan boats to approach the wooden wall blocking the road, stuffing a dozen or so Subduing Fire Thunder tied together into the gaps in the giant wood.
With a violent explosion, a jet of water shot up, blasting open a gaping hole ten zhang wide in the giant, sharp-edged tree that had blocked the waterway.
Three catamaran ironclad floating fortresses raised their sails and rushed out of the Ghost Cry Shoal along the waterway. The rams, reinforced with wrought iron, smashed directly into the wooden seawall surrounding Tsukushi Port. With a deafening roar, the massive bows were forcefully pushed against the stone pier of Tsukushi Port, cracking more than a dozen of the bluestone slabs on the pier.
With a thud, the heavy gangplank slammed onto the dock.
Gu Moran straightened his sleeves, stepped off the diving board, and landed firmly on the soil of Kyushu Island, Wa.
Kim Seon-a followed closely behind him as he disembarked. Her white silk robe, which had been soaked by the sea breeze, was mostly dried, yet still clung tightly to her curvaceous figure.
As she walked, the outline of her long, slender legs was clearly visible.
Murong Xue, Shen Ling'er, and Meng Jiuning also disembarked. The women stood behind Gu Moran, some exuding heroic spirit, others delicate and fair-skinned.
Xie Linyuan leaped down the mountain path carrying the barely alive Shimazu Yoshihiro, and casually tossed the armless old man at Gu Moran's feet.
Gu Moran glanced down at Shimazu Yoshihiro, who was convulsing on the ground, and ground his boot tip against his intact right cheek. Then he turned around, naturally put his arm around Kim Seon-a's slender waist, pulled her closer to him, and smiled at her.
"Princess Goryeo, the pig iron and sulfur you requested are in the city ahead."
Kim Seon-a felt the warmth from the large hand around her waist, glanced at the soldiers coming and going around her, and this time she didn't reach out to push him away. Instead, she lowered her eyelashes and softly replied:
"It's entirely up to Your Highness."
Just then, a rapid sound of horses' hooves suddenly came from the direction of the wide-open gates of Tsukushi City.
A Wa messenger with three red-feathered arrows tucked into his back rode a fast horse and charged onto the dock like a madman, only to pull back and fall off his horse thirty paces from the Great Yan army formation.
The messenger scrambled to the plank, pulling a secret scroll from his robes bearing the seal of a purple-gold black dragon.
He raised both hands above his head, bent over, and shouted in a shrill voice in distorted Mandarin:
"Calm down, Heavenly Soldiers of the Great Yan Kingdom!"
The Shogun of the Capital Imperial Palace has an urgent document to present to His Great Yan Prince Yi!
Kuki Yoshitaka and Shimazu Yoshihiro recklessly provoked border conflicts; both were the work of treacherous officials!
The shogunate is willing to immediately offer the entire castle of Tsukushi as provisions, one million taels of silver, and send them to the Princess Takaichi Nanako.
They came to the army camp to serve as imperial concubines and arrange a marriage, only asking that the prince stop at Tsukushi!
Gu Moran raised an eyebrow, released Kim Seon-a's waist, bent down and took the secret scroll from Lin Qingdai's hand, flicking his fingertip on the black dragon seal.
Send a princess to serve you in bed?
That's it? You think you can control me?
As everyone knows, there aren't any normal people in the royal family on that day, right?
It's hard to say anything about someone's intelligence, let alone Takaichi Clan.