After the battle at Pingyang City, Yan also understood… that the massive giant elephants couldn’t handle slippery snowy slopes, so as soon as their army arrived, they first trampled the accumulated snow solid to create ice paths.
Experienced generals all understood that all countermeasures work best the first few times they’re used. Once used repeatedly, the enemy would find ways to break them. So Murong Yan’s order was… in this one battle, they must use all their strength to slaughter Tianfeng’s elephant army – kill as many as possible.
“Your Majesty! We can’t wait any longer. Let the elephant army charge out!” the great shaman’s disciple shouted anxiously.
Sa’er Khan gripped tightly to the armrests of the chair on the elephant’s back, closing his eyes: “Charge out!”
Now Tianfeng’s elephant army was trapped inside the city. The cunning Great Zhou army wouldn’t come down from the walls, and Yan’s army outside wouldn’t come in…
Once the elephant army charged out, they would be brought down by the accumulated snow that had been trampled solid and smoothed in advance, then swarmed by fearless Great Zhou and Yan soldiers who would thrust swords into gaps in the elephants’ armor, or directly splash fire oil on the giant elephants and ignite it.
This was simply a life-and-death slaughter of giant elephants by the Great Zhou and Yan soldiers.
With their massive weight and extremely heavy armor, once these giant elephants fell, soldiers would swarm over them like ants, using swords and sabers together. On this slippery ground, it was extremely difficult for giant elephants to stand up again.
Sa’er Khan gritted his teeth: “Kill our way out!”
With one command, bone whistles commanding the giant elephants rose and fell across Pingdu City’s sky.
Bai Jinzhi, her silver armor stained with blood, stood atop Pingdu City’s north gate wall, forcefully planting a banner. In an instant, the black sail with the white python flag fluttered in the wind. She raised her hand to wipe the fresh blood from her face, her long hair bound at the crown, and a red hair ribbon flying in the cold wind.
Seeing several giant elephants that had panicked and fled through the north gate only to slip and fall, already bound by dozens of iron chains by fearless Great Zhou soldiers – over a hundred men gripping the chains and roaring as they pulled them tight, determined to subdue these giant beasts – she turned to look back into the city…
The city had almost become a sea of fire, with screams everywhere.
Fortunately, because Tianfeng needed to make space for these giant elephants, they had driven Pingdu City’s people out early, leaving only those who served the elephants. Otherwise, with these elephants charging about wildly, who knows how many ordinary people would have died?
Pingdu City’s east gate.
Because Bai Jinzhi had taken the north gate first and soldiers had already killed their way over, Yang Wuce’s unit also accelerated their climb up the city gate and smoothly occupied the east gate.
Giant elephants crashed against the city walls, making them tremble and dropping rubble and mortar. The city gate maintained an extremely twisted posture but stubbornly remained across the east gate’s entrance. From inside the gate came the shrill trumpeting of giant elephants, with the next collision gathering force.
Yang Wuce, mounted outside Pingdu City’s east gate, shouted: “Prepare!”
Cavalry carrying iron chains on both the north and south sides of the formation immediately galloped toward both sides of the city gate. The chains scraped against the ice path that had been polished extremely smooth, just waiting for giant elephants to charge out and slip so they could control them.
Pingdu City’s west gate.
Yan’s first batch of soldiers had already stormed the city gate. They used the same method Bai Qingyu had used before – using ropes to trip any giant elephants that might charge out. But they had replaced the ordinary hemp rope used by Rong-Di forces in the trial battle at Pingyang City with iron cables. If any giant elephants came out from the north gate, they wanted to capture these elephants alive and take them back to investigate the elephant army’s weaknesses.
Pingdu City’s south gate saw especially fierce slaughter.
The elephant army spared no cost to kill their way out through the south gate, cross the Danshui River, and make camp at Quanya City.
Sa’er Khan deployed most Xiliang soldiers entirely to the south gate, forcing those Xiliang troops to charge out of the city to fight Yan’s army, with Tianfeng soldiers following closely behind, using horses to drag ignited combustible materials across the snowy ground, attempting to melt the accumulated snow to fight their way to a passable path for the elephant army.
Under bone whistle commands, giant elephants charged out rapidly from the south gate in orderly fashion. The method of using horses to drag combustible materials to melt trampled snow seemed to work – subsequent elephants rarely slipped while running.
Murong Yan, wearing a mask and mounted in the distance, felt the ground trembling violently.
He turned and shouted: “Cavalry prepare!”
The cavalry immediately covered their mouths and noses with a wet cloth. Soldiers holding torches behind the cavalry horses poured fire oil on fine iron nets, dragging wet peppercorns and wet chili peppers behind the horses’ tails, igniting them with torches. In moments, thick smoke billowed everywhere.
“Kill!”
With Murong Yan’s command, cavalry soldiers each seemed to be dragging smoking furnaces as they charged straight toward the elephant army.
War horses were agile, weaving back and forth among the war elephants. Not only the keen-sensed giant elephants, but even the elephant trainers on their backs were choked to tears. The giant elephants went mad, swinging their trunks and crashing about wildly, not knowing which direction to flee in the thick smoke.
Some giant elephants stepped on snow and slipped, some crashed into each other in the smoke, others suffered so much they crashed head-first into city walls, trumpeting as they fell. Once these giant elephants fell, they were quickly swarmed by soldiers working together to kill them.
Under the choking thick fog at Pingdu City’s south gate, blood spread everywhere. Underfoot was all muddy red. The bloody stench mixed with spicy fumes made people nauseous.
Sa’er Khan was nearly thrown from his elephant’s back by the agitated giant elephant. He covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief, looked toward the south, and took out the bone whistle hanging from his neck to blow it.
The elephant trainer controlling Sa’er Khan’s elephant drove it desperately southward, with those frantically trumpeting giant elephants charging close behind.
At the same time, Li Tianjiao, having received news that Great Zhou and Yan had begun attacking Pingdu City, ordered Yun Poxing to immediately lead the Huoyun Army to attack Pingyang City.
Yun Poxing believed that although Pingyang City’s south gate, after the giant elephants’ impacts, was certainly now the weakest position,… today, Great Zhou was attacking Pingdu City, and Bai Qingyan needed to guard against Pingdu City’s elephant army charging toward Pingyang City, so she would certainly deploy all of Pingyang City’s remaining small force at the south gate.
If they led Huoyun Army in a large circle to begin attacking from the north gate, it could delay the speed of Pingyang City’s defenders coming to aid, but fighting after a long march was not only a military taboo, it would also affect how quickly they could grasp news of whether Great Zhou had already attacked Pingdu City.
Huoyun Army’s numbers weren’t large and weren’t suitable for dividing forces, so Yun Poxing decided to make Pingyang City’s east gate Huoyun Army’s breakthrough point.
Yun Poxing, along with Yun Lingzhi, Yun Tianao, and several Xiliang generals, sat around a fire holding maps of Pingyang City, discussing how to attack.
Now that Xiliang had its own “Huying Army,” they couldn’t fight using those methods of just throwing men at the problem, since Huoyun Army’s soldiers were all selected from thousands – they were precious!