Chapter 308: Defend Zhang Sancheng (Part 2)

Not long after Sun Muren was rescued, he died of anger. He was covered in wounds, but the fatal knife was on the back, and the spine was cut off by a knife. He lay quietly on the ground. The heavy rain washed away the blood on his body. His face was extremely peaceful, as if he was thinking about his son's innocent and cute face. Yes! He hasn't seen his wife and children for three years, and I don't know if he can meet them in the next life.

Guan Ying knelt beside him, covering his face with his hands and sobbing silently. At this time, after a moment of silence, the Uighurs used the same trick again, cut down more than a dozen big trees and moved forward step by step.

"Captain, what should we do?" Sun Muren died, and Guan Ying was the head of the Tang army. Guan Ying wiped away her tears and stood up. At this moment, he suddenly matured.

He observed the enemy's movements for a moment. The Uighur army was about eighty steps away from them. In the heavy rain, their bows and arrows had a maximum range of fifty or sixty steps, which means that now was their only chance to retreat.

"Retreat the castle!" Guan Ying gave a decisive order. The Tang soldiers carried the dead brother's corpses, turned around and ran towards the castle. Guan Ying also carried Sun Muren's body on his shoulders and stumbled along the muddy mountain road toward the castle.

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It had been more than two hours since the Uighurs' attack. The rain gradually stopped. Thunder was still rumbling in the distance. The mountain stream in the south was still flashing with lightning. A sharp wind blew from the east, dark clouds drifted and stars emerged. The moon above the mountains was moving eastward, emitting a faint yellow light in the remaining clouds after the storm. It was almost dawn.

Above the Zhangsancheng castle, more than hundreds of Tang troops were ready at the top of the city. After the Uighurs occupied the highland, they temporarily stopped the attack. Most of them retreated, leaving only a thousand people stationed in the highlands. They seemed to be waiting for something.

The distance between the highlands and the castle is about five hundred steps. The road was originally wide and had been destroyed by the Tang army and seemed even narrower.

Moreover, the castle is not a wall, it is tall and strong, as if a giant is lying across the top of a mountain. Even if it attacks it, it will be difficult to get to the city. It is obvious that the Uighurs are waiting for weapons to attack the city, such as ladders or bumps into wood.

But the Tang army was also ready. They blocked the city gate with huge square stones, cut down hundreds of big trees on the mountain, sawed them into five-foot-long sections of rolling wood, and there was a bucket of turbulent oil in the castle. It might work at a critical moment. Unfortunately, there was no Tang army's first weapon: gunpowder, otherwise the Uighurs would not be able to fly over this pass even if they had wings.

Time passed little by little, the sky was already dawn, and the Uighurs still had no movement. At the easternmost point of the castle, Guan Ying sat in his knees, looking at Zixia in the distance sadly. Last night's fierce battle seemed like a dream. He also hoped that it was a nightmare, but it was not. The eldest brother who had been living with hardships for many years was dead.

“I was sorry last night.”

Wang Tingjiang slowly walked behind Guan Ying. He sighed and apologized: "If I could come and pick me up, maybe Captain Sun would not die."

Guan Ying smiled bitterly, "What if he didn't die last night? Even if you and I can still stand here and talk now, can we live through tomorrow?"

He stood up and pointed to the high place not far away and said, "Look at it and you will understand."

Wang Tingjiang looked along his finger and was shocked. He saw that hundreds of crossbows and dozens of ladders were placed on the high ground at some point. Moreover, the road below the high ground was densely packed with Uighur troops, with a total of 10,000 or 20,000 people. Judging from their appearance, they seemed to be no longer the group of people who attacked last night.

"Person Wang, let your brothers leave their last words while the enemy has not attacked yet!"

Speaking of this, Guan Ying's eyes shot fiercely, "No matter what, we must not let the Uighurs succeed, unless we all die in battle."

Wang Tingjiang looked at his eyes tightly, and he nodded slowly, "Okay! I'll make arrangements now." He turned around and walked down the castle quickly.

At this moment, there was a commotion among the Uighurs, and they all gave way to both sides. The Uighurs commander Jie Gangas walked up quickly.

In the battle last night, nearly a thousand people were killed or injured by just testing the strength of the Tang army. However, what reassured Jie Gangas was that the Tang army did not have many weapons, especially the most terrifying fire thunder. In this way, it was only a matter of time to capture Zhangsancheng Castle, and this time would not be too long.

Jiegangas looked at the castle from a distance. The gray-white castle was washed extremely clean by a heavy rain. It stood there so strikingly, as if mocking his decision-making mistakes and occupied Yanqi, but actually handed over the fortress to the Tang army.

Jiegangas couldn't help but feel angry. He glanced at the pioneer general Urimodagan and said coldly: "If you give you ten thousand people, when will you be able to take the castle?"

"I promise to take down the castle before dawn tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Jiegangas shook his head and flatly rejected his plan. "No, you must take down the castle before dark."

After saying that, Jiegangas turned around and walked down the mountain. His undisputed order came from afar, "If you can't take the castle before dark, come and see you."

Urimodagan looked at the fort that was dyed red by the morning glow. He gritted his teeth and shouted loudly: "I ordered the army to attack. Anyone who dares to retreat will be killed immediately!"

‘Woo~~’ The low sound of trumpet rose into the sky, and the fierce siege battle began again. The Uighur army began to rush to the castle in groups under the cover of flying crossbows.

More than a hundred flying crossbows roared and shot, and giant arrows about three feet long were inlaid with iron heads, hitting the city heads, making a sound, and bricks and stone debris flew around. A Tang army was unfortunately hit, and a huge force actually penetrated his body and nailed it to the ground. He didn't even have time to scream, but most Tang soldiers could obviously deal with these giant arrows. They were close to the city wall and used the wide wall as their backing.

"Shoot!" As soon as the flying crossbow stopped, Wang Tingjiang gave the order. The Tang army at the top of the city immediately turned over and lie on the battlement. The trigger of the steel crossbow in his hand was pulled, and hundreds of arrows shot towards the mountain road like lightning, shooting a group of enemy troops that were more than a hundred steps away from the castle to the ground. Then several rolling wood were thrown down, rolling over the last seven or eight people, rolling down the deep valley with a ladder, and a long scream came. In a moment, more than one hundred enemy troops were either dead or injured, and no one stood up.

"Bastard!" Urimodagan cursed. These flying crossbows obviously did not have the effect they should have. He remembered the attack last night and immediately ordered people to cut down more than a dozen trees and ordered the second team of attacking troops to carry them forward.

The flying crossbow above his head made a huge roar, and the momentum rushed towards the city, making the Tang army unable to raise its head. More than 800 Uighur soldiers rushed towards the castle with lush trees. In a moment, less than a hundred steps away from the castle. At this time, under the effective protection of the tree wall, the lethality of the Tang army's crossbow suddenly decreased, and most of the thrown rolling trees were also knocked by the tree wall and fell directly into the valley.

"See it and shoot!" Guan Ying shouted. He aimed at a centurion, pulled the trigger, and the arrow passed through several clumps of leaves. He shot the centurion in the face with an arrow. He screamed and rolled down to the sky.

At Guan Ying's reminder, the Tang army on the city began to shoot at a fixed point, and it was indeed effective. The enemy was constantly shot by arrows and fell to the ground. However, in this way, hundreds of Uighur troops took the opportunity to attack the city. Some of them set up stairs and started climbing, some used ziplines to hook the city walls and climbed up hard, and some simply used big trees as bumps into the door violently. Behind them, the third and fourth Uighur troops seemed to be surging, rushing wave after wave, and the situation was quite serious to the Tang army.

"Person Wang, I'll deal with the people who climb the city, and you'll deal with the enemy behind you."

Guan Ying's eyes were red. He led more than 100 Tang troops to fight with the Huihe people in the city. At the flash of swords, one by one, one by one, one by one, and a ladder was chopped down. Dozens of Huihe soldiers climbed the city tower and were cut down. Behind them, Wang Tingjiang led more than 200 Tang troops to smash the wood down. The mountain road was already filled with dense Uighur soldiers. Every rolling wood was smashed, and dozens of people were always smashed.

At this time, an extremely fierce Uighur centurion jumped onto the top of the city. He raised his spear and poked over three Tang soldiers in a row. Wang Tingjiang was furious. He raised a piece of rolling wood and smashed him down the city wall. But just as the moment the Uighur centurion was hit, the spear in his hand also came out, and it pierced Wang Tingjiang's chest and nailed him to the wooden pillar.

As soon as the commander died, the soldiers of the Tang army seemed to be crazy. They swung their swords together and killed all the Uighur army that had climbed up the city tower. However, there were too many Uighur army. They rushed in like a tide. Many hooked cables hooked the head of the city, and could not be completely cut off or thrown back. More than thirty long ladders set up the city wall, and many ladders were overturned or broken, but more ladders continued to rise. The Uighur army was like agile apes, climbing up agilely. At this moment, Guan Ying had naturally taken over as the commander of the Tang army. He organized the Tang army to carry out attacks again and again, killing the Uighur army hundreds of times down the city wall. Countless casualties were piled up at the foot of the city wall, just like magma erupting from a volcano, piled up higher and higher, like a small hill, but the enemy's attack never stopped.

The Tang soldiers were exhausted. Their swords were rolled up and their shields were broken. But with the determination to fight to the end, they killed the Uighur army again and again. The blood dyed the gray-white castle red, and the bodies and limbs piled up into mountains. By the afternoon, more than half of the Tang army had been killed and thousands of Uighurs had been killed or injured. However, the Zhangsancheng Castle still stood tall like an isolated island in the sea.

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The night was gradually coming, and a sharp army finally arrived at the foot of the Silver Mountain from the north like lightning. This was the vanguard of the five thousand Tang troops. They marched thousands of miles and rushed to support Zhang Sancheng's guards.

At the foot of the mountain, they saw the castle fire on the mountain ridge soaring into the sky, but they did not see a Uighur army crossing the mountain. It was much faster and closer to climbing the ridge from the north than the south. Three thousand Tang troops rushed towards the castle on the top of the mountain, getting closer and closer. They saw that the Tang Dynasty's military flag was already in the flames, but it was still proudly floating above the castle.

Under the Tang army flag, only three Tang soldiers stood with their heads held high. Five hundred Tang army soldiers faithfully fulfilled their promise with their passion and life: "Fight for the country until the last one!"

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Chapter completed!