Chapter 177 – Killing Device (1)
Translated by Gamer
“Choose?” Liu Mang sneered. “Sun Ce! You think too highly of yourself!”
Liu Mang realizes that he is no match for Sun Ce. In martial arts, Sun Ce can defeat Liu Mang with just 1 hand. In tactics, Liu Mang is so far behind that it is not even funny. Even if you gave Liu Mang 3 times more soldiers than Sun Ce, there is still a high chance of losing. If it was Liu Mang sieging the city, he would not have even reached the walls of the city.
Comparing ranks and achievements, Sun Ce is a duke of Jiang Province and is in control of the south of China and hundreds and thousands of people. Under the leadership of Liu Mang, three thousand soldiers were strained and they still need help to form an elite squad like Urban Management Army.
Now the two generals are facing each other with their actual strength.
Sun Ce wants to take revenge. He wants to capture Wan Cheng City to make Lu Bu pay the price of blood. Wan Cheng city also originally belongs to Sun Ce. He is just taking back the things that belonged to him.
Liu Mang on the other hand needs to defend this city. This is because it is not merely a city to him. It is the source of food for the Lu Bu Army. They have travelled this far in order to find food and shelter. Not to mention Liu Mang’s relatives are also staying here. They must not let Wan Cheng city fall.
“BOOM!” The two siege weapons rammed into the gate again. The cloth wrapping the copper of the rams slip open with every hit.
“Hehe! I want to see how long you can act tough!” Sun Ce looked at his siege rams. Behind the siege rams are several hundred private soldiers. Each strike from the ram is followed by the whining sound of Wan Cheng’s city gates.
Look at your walls. The moment they break in your city is your time of death. The 3 thousand Black Flag Army and the remains of the Urban Management Army has not made any new moves and stood with Liu Mang at the walls. He is at a loss. His elite soldiers are able to take on two enemies at the same time but 3 or 4 enemies a time would be risking it. With the amount of enemies attacking the walls, Liu Mang is unable to detach his soldiers to destroy the rams. To open the gate and destroy the rams he would need at least two thousand horseman. Any less would just be giving free food. Where would he find two hundred horseman?
“It is about to break!” The gates could not withstand the power of the rams and a crashing sound is heard. The gates were broken and created huge dust above the ground.
“Haha!” Lu Su was also happily laughing. With those powerful siege equipment the gate barely lasted 2 hours of impact.
In that two hours, fighting at the walls was also difficult. They were constantly rushing in to prevent Lu Bu’s Army from interfering with the siege weapons and the Lu Bu’s Army have killed a lot in that time. Since the morning, they never had the time to clean up the bodies that have been piling up.
For Sun Ce, this is about a great loss but it was worth it. This is because the gates were finally open.
Sun Ce is grinning and is eager to bring the head of the Western Chu Prince. Bring up his hands he shouted. “Wan Cheng City is breached!” Leading his soldiers, he charged towards to the city only to stop abruptly.
This is because when the dust settled, they found that the gates were indeed open. However, they are still unable to enter because the entire passageway is blocked.
“How is this possible!” Wan Cheng City is part of the Lujiang government. It is also one of the bases Sun Ce has prepared in order to attack Xu Province. This is why Sun Ce personally supervised the construction of the gate to make it as strong as possible. This would mean he also knows it’s weak spots due to the difficulty of constructing the gate. The gate basically used iron-copper alloy creating a small gap between the two sides of the gate.
If you were to attack the gate directly, the gate will not open and will only be sealed up. Therefore, Sun Ce’s army have been targeting the middle where the gap is. This still ended up taking too hours as the gate was extremely difficult to break.
Now that the gate is open, Sun Ce found himself dumbfounded. What is the difference between having a city gate or not? In front of him were all kinds of things stacked up together to form a blockade.
“When did this happen?” Huang Zhong also noticed the gate being blown open but he realized that no soldiers are entering the city. He remembers it was not there yesterday as he used it together with the Urban Army management to fight. However, the blockade is clearly there today.
Does he really intend to defend this place to the death? Sun Ce looked down. He had intended for Liu Mang to choose his options. Either way Wan Cheng City would be broken. However, now his only choice was to climb the city walls as the gate was blocked.
Did he not even think of running? Liu Mang knows that few people will be defending the gates so he blocked it entirely. Not only that, he also sealed off the escape routes. If the Sun Ce’s Army entered the city, there is no way to escape death.
“Last night!” Liu Mang replied indifferently as he explained that he sacrificed some soldiers from the Urban Management army to find things to block the gates. Fallen trees and boulders were also used to block the gates. The passageway was initially big enough to fit in 3 carriages but it is now blocked.
When Liu Mang visited the prison, he did not have the ability to really convince the Black Flag Army to surrender. A few days ago, they have been enemies and Liu Mang even killed their leader. Therefore, he resolved to bury all 3 thousand Black Flag troops without sparing anyone. Blocking the walls is also something Liu Mang persuaded the Black Flag Army to do. Blocking the gates can delay Sun Ce’s Army from settling into the city by at least 2 days. Hopefully in that amount of time Lu Bu would be able to provide reinforcements.
If it was any other way, Liu Mang’s stratagem would not be able to be implemented. This is because even his own escape path is blocked. Other soldiers will still remember to save themselves but the Urban Army is different. They follow military regulations. If you have any ideas or opinions you can only say it after the master raise the question. Otherwise, you would be punished as a rebel.
“Damn!” Sun Ce stared at Liu Mang on the walls. He got played once again. In Sun Ce’s eyes, Liu Mang’s indifferent expression is as if Liu Mang is laughing and mocking him.
He put in so much effort and took out big siege weapons. Initially he wanted to see Liu Mang rush around. In the end he felt like a monkey jumping around while being watched with an indifferent expression.
“Liu Mang!” Sun Ce raised his arms again. “All troops charge!” His horse started to move and was abruptly stopped by Lu Su. Lu Su was not worried about Sun Ce this time. It is just that the sky is turning dark and further combat will not bring any benefits.
“Zi Jing. Do not stop me!” Sun Ce spoke commandingly. This entire day is going to waste! To make things worse the wolf may be able to arrive tomorrow. If he does not win today he can only run away.
“Milord, the sky is turning dark and it is no longer a good time to siege. If you continue the battle, both parties will just fight disorderly. Our army may be large but they cannot fight as well as Lu Bu’s army. We will suffer more losses!” The entire Urban Army uses equipment made with modern technology. The protective abilities of the armor do not provide much difference. However, for the soldiers, the armor is not cut open so easily by standard weapons unless it is slashed at it’s vital points. These armors were worn by the Black Flag Army as if they were nothing.
“Then what do you propose! Don’t tell me you want to wait until tomorrow to see their reinforcements arrive and then go back home with regrets!” In this campaign Sun Ce has already lost 2 generals. If you include Jiang Qin’s severed arm and Dong Xi becoming stupid then it would be 4 generals. The Danyang troops are also almost gone. From hundreds of thousands of soldiers, now left 70,000. If Sun Ce were to give up and return, how would he face his elders?
Once Sun Ce is defeated, the Sun Family’s rule in Jiangdong will be shaken. Other houses that are clueless may help Sun Ce but once they have seen Lu Bu’s military might, they might help Lu Bu instead.
“Keep calm Milord.” Lu Su tried to handle Sun Ce’s usual bad temper. If that person was here, he would be able to calmly analyze the situation of the entire Wan Cheng City and their own troops. If it can be done, he will immediately order an attack. If it cannot be done, he will sound the retreat. Unlike his brother who relies on his feelings and emotions to fight.
As he is fierce, it is natural for him to take the lead. However, that is merely the skills of a general who charges forward to gain more merits.
Today he is not only a general but also a prince and a commander. To speak bluntly, Sun Ce is just a local tyrant. Only he is able to reward others as he charges into battle while you watch.
Even if he is like the late Emperor Wu who likes to personally lead expeditions, the late emperor takes a senior general with him. Sun Ce personally leads a group of soldiers to charge at the enemy.
“No! We must capture Wan Cheng today!” Sun Ce lead his horse to battle again.
“Milord! Su has a plan for tomorrow. Please reconsider!” Sun Ce continued to show his dissatisfaction. Lu Su just clasps his hands in respect. If Sun Ce does not listen to Lu Su and ignores him means he is very discontented as Sun Ce is a cold-blooded killer.
“Zi Jing, you really have a plan?!” Sun Ce also stopped his worry and anger. He knows that these advisors always have different ways to make the war go easier. Sun Ce only had Zhou Yu and a few soldiers last time. At the time, Zhou Yu proposed his first stratagem which is to take the Imperial Seal left behind by his father and trade it with Yuan Shu for troops and horses. Sun Ce received his foundation from such an event. As for Yuan Shu, he played with the seal until he almost got destroyed.
Lu Su is someone Zhou Yu personally recommended as someone with talent. He even admitted that there are areas where Lu Su is superior. This kind of recommendation did not escape Sun Ce’s attention.
Zhou Yu is a person who hates others. He despises Sun Ce like many other people such as Chen Rui and Han Dang. He considers Chen Rui as someone with talent but not enough. Someone who would somehow unable to accomplish anything and destroy everything. Only someone with sufficient capabilities can manage the county. As expected, Lu Bu has killed Chen Rui.
He considers Han Dang as someone brave but without talent. Simple and stupid. Can only reach the rank of deputy general. It began when Han Dang was not satisfied and went into Sun Ce’s camp to ask for troops. As Han Dang has been a loyal retainer since Sun Jian’s time, to the point that Sun Ce called him uncle during his childhood, he is unable to refuse Han Dang’s request. Sun Ce gave Han Dang 1 squadron.
Diligently training his troops, Han Dang then wiped out a lot of invaders coming from Changjiang river. Han Dang who rose to glory always mock Zhou Yu during the banquet without anyone else knowing. Sun Ce thought that Zhou Yu will be very unhappy. However, Zhou Yu only laughed without caring about what Han Dang has said.
Yan Baihu was a general that Sun Ce had defeated once. Sun Ce initially sent Han Dang to deal with him. Who knew that the second tier general ended up pushing back Han Dang.
Initially, Han Dang and Yan Baihu fought on the front lines but eventually Yan Baihu started winning. No matter how strong Han Dang is it does not mean that the army is strong. Even Lu Bu does not dare to take on so many soldiers at once.
Finally, when Han Dang ran out of troops and weapons. Waiting for this opportunity, Yan Baihu sealed off his escape routes. By the time Han Dang realized, it was already too late. Without proper commands, the soldiers were routed. Han Dang relied on his superior martial arts skill to break out of the encirclement and escaped. Ever since then, Han Dang has been avoiding Zhou Yu. If he cannot be avoided, he calls Zhou Yu with Little Teacher. (TN: xiao xiansheng)
Zhou Yu’s evaluation of Lu Su is actually the talent for managing cities. Hearing Lu Su’s confident claim of taking back Wan Cheng city made Sun Ce excited.
“Zi Jing teach me!” Sun Ce said happily and look extremely approachable. If not because Lu Su saw the massacre of the noble families he would actually think that Sun Ce is a good person.
“If Milord asks, Su must go all out.”
However, Sun Ce still have some doubts. “If Zi Jing has a plan, why did you not tell Ce earlier?” If Lu Su had a plan earlier then there should not have been so much trouble. From the first day of siege, Jiang Qin’s arm may still be attached. Chen Wu may still have lived. A lot of dead people would also still be around.
“Milord. Su was not unwilling to say. It is just that yesterday and today the plan will be difficult to use! Tonight is also required to make sure it’s full capabilities can be used tomorrow!” Lu Su explained hastily. The continuous sieging in Wan Cheng city only cause Lu Bu’s Army and Sun Ce’s Army to become more tragic. Both men want each other dead without showing any signs of mercy.
Each day, tens and thousands of people perish. All the soldiers are fatigued. These past two days can be considered easy. At first Lu Su thought he would not be used. Who knew there is still a chance to be useful.
“Oh!” Sun Ce felt interested and recalled the troops.