At the same time, in the Shanyue.
At this time, the war had already reached its climax.
The twelve mountain paths were littered with corpses and rivers of blood.
However, the corpses belonged to Jiangdong soldiers.
Ling Tong and the others had not been able to step onto the city walls.
No matter how hard Ling Tong, Huang Gai, Gan Ning, and Cheng Pu tried, it was to no avail.
The ballistae had a long range. They could not get close to the city walls.
However, the Jiangdong soldiers finally managed to hit the city walls with their arrows.
They realized that the city walls were as hard as iron. They did not move an inch.
Even Gan Ning, who was the best at archery, could not penetrate the city walls.
"Retreat, retreat!"
"Inform the other troops to retreat!"
Huang Gai could not take it anymore.
So many soldiers had died. His troop alone had lost more than a thousand soldiers in just an hour.
He did not know how many soldiers from the other troops had died.
If this continued, even if the ballistae ran out of arrows, more than half of the soldiers would be dead by the time they reached the city walls.
How would they fight against so many Shanyue soldiers then?
Therefore, it was better to go down the mountain and discuss a plan.
Soon, the Jiangdong Army spread the news.
The twelve Jiangdong Army troops retreated like the tide.
At this moment, Taishi Ci was slightly touched.
In reality, Tai Shici did not want to kill too many Jiangdong soldiers.
Therefore, Tai Shici told them not to kill too many people when they fired arrows to stop the enemy.
On this point, Zhao Yun agreed as well.
After all, Zhao Yun's plan was based on Bai Feng's.
Bai Feng did not want all the Jiangdong soldiers to die. He only wanted Sun Quan's life.
Therefore, to ensure that the Shanyue would not fall, the troops were more or less merciful.
The casualties had been minimized.
However, more than ten thousand Jiangdong soldiers had died.
This made Huang Gai and the others' hearts ache.
Other than heartache, there was only annoyance and regret, followed by endless anger.
"Why are these Shanyue people so strong?!"
"None of the Outsiders in the south can compare to them!"
"Also, why exactly did they suddenly think of building walls and ballistae?!"
Huang Gai's mind was filled with countless questions, but no one could answer him.
No one knew what had happened in Shanyue.
Ling Tong, in particular, was even more confused than Huang Gai.
Not long ago, Ling Tong had clearly fought with these Shanyue bandits.
Although Ling Tong had lost because of the soldiers, he knew very well that the strength of these Shanyue bandits was only average.
However, at that time, they came in full force. Their numbers and the Young Master Soldiers were indeed not enough, which led to their failure.
However, the failure this time was not because of the soldiers, nor was it because of the general.
Shanyue actually knew how to use equipment!
Not only that, but the ballistae were also very fast!
They could fire without needing to be reloaded!
"This won't do. If this continues, we won't be able to break through the Shanyue's walls!"
Gan Ning slammed his fist on the table, his eyes filled with endless fury.
Most of the dead Jiangdong soldiers were elites who had followed them in the south for a long time.
How could Gan Ning accept the fact that they were all dead?
"Why don't we just focus on attacking from one side?"
"Those ballistae are fierce, but I've seen them before. They're huge, and the walls can only fit two of them at most."
"If we charge forward together, the ballistae won't make it in time!"
Cheng Pu said with narrowed eyes.
At first, Ling Tong was the one who suggested attacking from two sides, but no one blamed Ling Tong.
After all, no one had expected the Shanyue to have suddenly become enlightened. Not only did they come up with better crossbows than Jiangdong's, but they also had ballistae!
Moreover, there was something strange about the rough-looking walls!
When the arrows hit the surface, they would even be deflected!
Could it be that the inside was made of iron?
They would never have guessed that under the thin layer of rammed earth was a hard concrete wall.
It wasn't as hard as iron, but it wasn't something that ordinary arrows could pierce.
"Now's not the time to attack."
"We've just set out, but we've already suffered so many casualties. Our morale is low."
"Let's rest for a while and wait for our morale to recover before we attack again!"
Ling Tong, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke up.
Huang Gai nodded.
"That's our only choice."
"The next time we attack, I'll let those vicious Shanyue have a taste of Jiangdong's might!"
The more Huang Gai thought about it, the angrier he became. In the end, he left in a huff.
Gan Ning and Cheng Pu heaved a long sigh and quietly returned to their tents.
Ling Tong was the only one left in the tent.
Ling Tong sat woodenly in his chair, looking at the map in front of him. He didn't know what to do.
What had the Shanyue gone through?
There was definitely something fishy about the ballistae!
Ling Tong had attacked countless cities, so he knew about ballistae.
Ballistae had a long range, strong penetrative power, and a high hit rate, but they had a fatal weakness.
That was reloading!
The fastest ballistae that Ling Tong had seen took at least two to three minutes to reload.
The large arrows alone would require several people to carry them.
However, the Shanyue's ballistae were unbelievably fast!
They started firing in a matter of seconds!
Although they were slower towards the end, Ling Tong could guess that they were running out of arrows and wanted to use them sparingly.
Ling Tong became more and more suspicious. Was there someone behind the Shanyue?
Compared to Jiangdong, the Shanyue were a bunch of barbarians.
In their minds, other than burning, killing, looting, and seizing territory, there were no other thoughts at all.
They didn't even have high-quality weapons.
Not to mention such sophisticated ballistae. Even the best craftsmen in Jiangdong couldn't make ballistae, but the Shanyue had developed them.
"This won't do. It's better to report this to the lord."
Ling Tong muttered to himself. He picked up a bamboo slip, raised a brush, and wrote on it, ordering the scouts to deliver it to Wu County.
However, Ling Tong still had a bad feeling about this.
He had a feeling that there was an even bigger secret behind the Shanyue's walls.
If they had ballistae, they might have something else he hadn't seen before.
Moreover, Ling Tong didn't know if he was imagining things, but he felt that the Shanyue were going easy on them.
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