Chapter 63: Surrounding a Point to Attract and Destroy Reinforcements

The arrow struck the shield with a force that forced the elite guard behind it to take two steps back. The archer possessed astonishing arm strength indeed.

Zhang Jiawen glanced at the situation and immediately resumed commanding the battle. Having suffered losses from elite archers before, how could he possibly have failed to take precautions? A single master archer could not alter the ultimate outcome of this battle.

Seeing that Zhang Jiawen completely ignored him, Tedu drew another arrow and loosed it directly at Zhang Jiawen.

The moment the arrow left his fingers, he felt a chilling and pure murderous intent lock onto him, sending a shudder through his entire body.

Swish!

That familiar sound rang out once more. Tedu tried to dodge, but at such close range, there was simply no time for him to react.

The arrow pierced straight through his neck, drawing a burst of blood, and the immense momentum knocked Tedu tumbling to the ground.

Before falling from his warhorse, Tedu caught sight of a chisel-sharp face through the battlements' gap, holding a longbow and gazing coldly down at him.

He had not expected the Great Qi's master archer to be so young. In the end, he had failed to wash away his shame and had instead fallen beneath his enemy's arrow.

Tedu lay on the ground, blood continuously gushing from the wound on his neck, pooling into an crimson puddle before long.

The soldiers on the stairs had already rushed onto the ramparts, only to find that the Great Qi soldiers had long been waiting in formation with shields raised.

With a triangular barbed arrow lodged in his shoulder, Huerha looked at the military formation before him with a gloomy expression. It was only at this moment that he realized he had fallen into a trap.

The only reason they had managed to charge onto the city wall so smoothly was because the enemy had intentionally allowed it, all to deplete their forces with arrows.

If Lin Shize could hear the thoughts churning in Huerha's mind, he would undoubtedly confirm that the truth was precisely as suspected.

This was what military strategy referred to as "surrounding three sides while leaving one open." It appeared to be a path to survival, but was actually a meticulously designed death trap.

By the time the enemy stormed the city walls, it was already too late for regrets.

Huerha knew there was no turning back now; he had no choice but to fight his way through.

"Mongu warriors, attack! Kill!"

Charging with the fierce momentum of a tidal wave, the Mongu soldiers slammed heavily into the shields, only to crash like ocean billows against a boulder on the shore.

The spears behind the shields flicked their tips like vipers baring venomous fangs, thrusting and retracting to send more than a dozen enemies crashing to the ground.

After withstanding the enemy's initial onslaught, the shield wall rose up and pressed forward.

More and more Mongu soldiers were shoved off the ramparts by the moving shields. Zhou Gang let out a roar, putting his full arm strength into pushing the shield forward. Watching the enemy tumble about in disarray before him, he let out a hearty laugh of satisfaction.

He was finally experiencing the joy of combat formations. Waving his hand, he called out to the soldiers behind him, "Push forward! Keep up!"

With corpses piled like mountains at the base of the wall, Huerha watched the retreating Mongu soldiers, a bone-chilling cold gripping his heart.

Since when had the Great Qi soldiers become so fierce? Ever since his arrival here, he had found every single event imbued with a strange, eerie quality.

Triangular arrows, caltrops, horse-trapping pits, and now this Great Qi battle formation—every single thing was completely unheard of to him.

For the longest time, Great Qi soldiers had been synonymous with military achievements in his eyes. He never expected that it would be these very soldiers, whom he had always held in disdain, driving him into a desperate dead end.

Just as the Great Qi soldiers were making triumphant headway, Lin Shize gave the order to hold their ground and fortify their positions.

"Why aren't we charging forward? If we push just one more time, the enemy formation will completely collapse," Sun Zheng asked in puzzlement.

Even Zhang Jiawen and the others nearby could not fathom what Lin Shize was waiting for.

"There are still several hundred enemies outside the city. As long as the battle here doesn't stop, they are compelled to attack because their commanding general is still right here."

"This way, we can use the city walls to continuously wear down and kill the enemy. This is known as 'besieging a point to wipe out reinforcements.'"

"Otherwise, the moment the battle ceases, they will retreat, and without warhorses, pursuing and killing them would be as difficult as ascending to heaven."

"Brilliant!"

Sun Zheng gave a thumbs-up to Lin Shize and remarked, "How on earth does your brain work? To come up with such a vicious strategy."

Lin Shize had a lingering feeling that Sun Zheng's words were not intended as a compliment. Still, this tactic of besieging a point to catch reinforcements was exceptionally well-suited for the current Great Qi border army—simple yet effective.

"The fighting inside the city is basically over. Now we need to concentrate our forces to annihilate the enemy outside the walls."

Hearing Lin Shize's words, Zhang Jiawen turned around and issued orders, directing the soldiers to pivot their offensive direction.

Outside the city walls, the Mongu cavalry were continuously charging toward the city gates. Because this was a surprise raid, they had brought along zero siege equipment.

With the gates blocked shut, all they could do was charge forward frantically, attempting to clear away the mountainous piles of corpses so they could break through and rescue the deputy general. Failing that, they would not escape military execution upon returning.

The battle reached a fever pitch. Although Zhou Gang's men had never formally drilled in formation tactics, anyone could use a shield and a spear. All they needed to do was hold their ground and wait for the enemy to charge.

The archers on the ramparts had it even easier. With a dense mass of enemies swarming below, there was no need to aim; they simply loosed their arrows, and enemies would tumble to the ground.

Aside from a few unlucky souls struck by enemy arrows, there were virtually no casualties.

The enemy inside the city had been nearly wiped out entirely. Huerha, leading the few dozen surviving Mongu soldiers, retreated from the ramparts and crouched in a corner to dodge the arrows.

Outside the city, the Mongu cavalry had suffered over fifty percent casualties amid relentless waves of arrow fire. The Mongu thousand-man commander had already ordered a halt to the attack, realizing that if they continued to fight this way, saving anyone was out of the question—they would all die right here.

Seeing the Mongu forces outside halt their assault, Lin Shize drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed it straight at the Mongu thousand-man commander.

The commander was still hesitating over whether to press the attack when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"Pfft...!"

A burst of blood blossomed across his chest, and his body slumped limply from his horse, twitching a few times before going completely still.

"Brilliant shot!"

Standing atop the rampart, Sun Zheng waved his saber in mounting excitement. Although the sky was already quite dim, the firelight allowed him to see the distant Mongu commander tumble to the ground.

Zhang Jiawen also witnessed the scene, his eyes filled with profound shock. That distance was far greater than two hundred paces.

Moreover, under the abysmal visibility of the deep night, the difficulty of hitting the target increased exponentially.

Yet Lin Shize had managed to hit his mark on the very first try. Such a high hit rate was something not even the master archers of Mongu could match, let alone those of Great Qi.

Seeing their thousand-man commander slain by a single arrow, the remaining Mongu soldiers could not help but recall Wupingla, who had met the exact same fate earlier.

A pervasive sense of panic rippled through every single one of them. They dared not press the attack any further; while returning might mean facing execution, staying here meant certain death.

Every last one of them whirled their horses around and fled in unison toward the rear.

Yet, realizing it was time to retreat came far too late.

"Boom..."

Thunderous hooves suddenly erupted from both flanks as two troops of heavily iron-armored Great Qi cavalry burst out from the woods, completely cutting off their path to survival.

"Charge...!"