Chapter 5300: Retreating
The battle of Niangzi Pass has touched the hearts of hundreds of millions of people.
At this moment, all the attention and topics in the world are on Niangzi Pass.
This morning, after destroying the catapults on the second line of defense of Niangzi Pass, the heaven used the siege cloud tower to engage in close combat with the human defenders on the second line of defense.
There are constantly mad warriors who have gone berserk, carrying giant axes from the high cloud tower and jumping onto the city wall.
The goal of this group of berserkers is not to kill people, but to try to destroy the human defense weapon, the rolling log.
With these rolling logs weighing thousands of pounds, it is difficult for the Skeleton Corps to exert its combat power.
As for the capture of the Niangzi Pass defense line with the siege cloud tower, An Wenxiu is not so arrogant.
The siege cloud tower can only be used by mad warriors. As for the giant warriors with huge bodies and weighing thousands of pounds, they cannot climb up the siege cloud tower and are easily crushed.
The small number of berserkers transported by hundreds of siege cloud towers alone cannot pose a substantial threat to the human defenders.
The battle ten years ago allowed the heavenly army to see the determination of the human soldiers to resist and defend the land.
This group of lowly ants will fill it with human lives at any cost to recapture every inch of the defense line occupied by the enemy.
Xu Kai also discovered An Wenxiu's intention at the first time.
Now the enemy has begun to appear on the top of the city, and Xu Kai is not panicking.
This gray-haired old general has a kind of steadiness of sitting on the Diaoyutai.
From early morning to dusk, the two sides fought fiercely for several hours, and the rolling log was destroyed by nearly half.
Without the rolling log as a targeted weapon, many skeleton warriors also successfully climbed to the top of the city wall and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the human defenders.
It was not until this time that Xu Kai ordered the destruction of the hundreds of siege towers that the enemy had attached to the city.
Many holes were suddenly opened on the city wall, and bags of ignited black gunpowder were thrown out of the holes.
Although those siege towers were coated with fireproof liquid and were not afraid of fire, the huge energy generated instantly by the explosion of black gunpowder could still easily tear the siege towers apart.
Continuous explosions sounded near the city wall.
More than a hundred siege towers collapsed in this round of explosions.
At this time, hundreds of mad warriors who were fighting fiercely with the human defenders on the city wall roared in anger and despair after discovering that the siege towers behind them were destroyed.
Xu Kai knew that the next battle would weaken. After all, he was an old man. He had been sitting here for a day and a night and was already sleepy. After issuing a few orders, he turned back to rest.
The six or seven hundred mad warriors who had lost their retreat had become trapped.
The city wall was dozens of feet high, and they would definitely be killed if they jumped down.
Their only way out was to be eaten away bit by bit by the human defenders.
Xu Kai didn't want to waste his troops. If it was a normal battle, to kill these hundreds of crazy warriors, the human world would have to pay at least 8,000 elite soldiers.
Before Xu Kai left, his first order was to shoot these crazy warriors with bows and crossbows.
When the siege cloud tower was destroyed, An Wenxiu sighed.
He also knew that it would take at least an hour to rebuild a new siege cloud tower.
There was no way to support the crazy warriors who had attacked the city wall.
It was already dark, and An Wenxiu ordered to temporarily stop the attack, and the whole army retreated to five miles away from the first line of defense of Niangzi Pass to set up camp.
After a day and a night of fierce fighting, the sound of the golden bell in the heavens finally ended with the failure of the heavens.
Half an hour later, the capital, the palace.
The emperor sat on the wide dragon throne, and the clothes embroidered with five-clawed golden dragons shone brightly under the candlelight in the hall.
In the hall, all the civil and military officials were there.
They were all discussing the battle of Niangzi Pass, and the meeting did not end even after dark.
The battle report of Niangzi Pass was also transmitted.
The Heaven Realm had withdrawn its troops, and the two sides entered a truce period.
After counting, in this siege, the human world lost more than 36,300 people and injured more than 29,000 people.
The Tianma troops lost 3,200 cavalry, and the Northern Frontier Air Cavalry lost a lot, a full 6,000 cavalry.
In terms of individual combat, the Tianma troops' Niangzi Army is far inferior to the Northern Frontier Air Cavalry.
The Northern Frontier Air Cavalry suffered such a heavy loss mainly because of insufficient gunpowder equipment.
The black gunpowder that Zhan Ying obtained through Ye Xiaochuan's relationship was equipped with the human army in Liaobei, and was not supplied to the Northern Frontier Air Cavalry.
In this battle, the human world suffered a great loss, and the heaven world also suffered a great loss.
The Six-Winged Legion of the Heaven Realm lost 4,500 cavalry, the Madman Legion lost 1,500 people, and the Skeleton Legion lost nearly 2,000.
As for the most powerful Giant Legion, the loss was not great, with only 300 casualties.
Behind the battle report, there is a memorial from Xu Kai asking the court for black gunpowder.
Black gunpowder has always been controlled by the five tribes in southern Xinjiang and the Tiannu Kingdom. The court began to imitate black gunpowder after the Battle of Longmen, and the quantity is not large.
Xu Kai has always regarded black gunpowder as a trump card, and dared not use it freely, otherwise he would have used black gunpowder to blow up the opponent's siege cloud tower, and this battle would not have lasted so long.
Xu Kai said so in the memorial, but the actual situation is not so.
The black gunpowder stockpiled in Niangzi Pass is enough to fight a high-intensity battle. The reason why Xu Kai delayed using black gunpowder until dusk was intentional.
He not only had to train his troops through actual combat, but also had to consume the enemy's manpower.
In this catastrophe, the human world has two advantages.
There are many people and fighting on the home ground.
From the beginning, Xu Kai deployed millions of elite troops outside Niangzi Pass, hoping to consume the manpower of the heavenly realm bit by bit through layers of blocking.
But he did not expect that the outer defense line would be vulnerable under the fierce attack of the Sky Fire Beast.
Now, Xu Kai has applied this plan to the defense line of Niangzi Pass.
He now has 25 million elite troops in his hands, and behind the army, there are at least 15 million civilians and craftsmen who can pick up swords and fight the enemy at any time.
According to intelligence, the total number of troops in the central army of the heaven led by An Wenxiu is only 2 million.
He wants to use the human sea tactics to consume the enemy's strength bit by bit.
Today's battle has consumed more than 6,000 combat forces of the heavenly realm. Although the total number of casualties in the human world is nearly ten times that of the heavenly realm, in general, the human world has won this battle.
This battle loss ratio is completely acceptable.
When they heard that General Xu Kai had repelled the enemy's fierce attack, the officials in the court all breathed a sigh of relief, and many began to praise General Xu for his bravery.
Before this, most of these princes and ministers were cursing Xu Kai for his lack of military talent.
Some even thought that Xu Kai could not defend Niangzi Pass. Now Niangzi Pass was the main battlefield, and Zhao Zi'an, the commander of Yumen Pass, should be transferred to Niangzi Pass...
Although they were all fools, they also knew that once Niangzi Pass was lost, the capital would definitely not be safe.
It was said that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had secretly established the Southern Court in Jinling, just to prepare for the fall of the capital.
The day Niangzi Pass was broken was when His Royal Highness the Crown Prince officially retreated to Jinling.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince could run away, but they could not.
They were all a group of old nobles, and they had long lost the heroic spirit and sharpness of their ancestors who rode horses to conquer the world. Crown Prince Zhao Shiyu was a representative of the hawk faction, so he naturally would not take them with him.
Their only fantasy is that the human defenders can defend the three major passes and keep the enemy out of the country forever.
Now that Niangzi Pass has been defended, these gentlemen are naturally happy.
However, they were happy for less than a quarter of an hour before their bad news came.
A royal monk wearing flying fish clothes walked into the hall quickly. He said: "Your Majesty, I just received news from Cangyun Sect. At noon today, the fleet heading south was intercepted by the cultivators of the Xiaoyao Sect in the South China Sea. Now the entire fleet heading south has been hijacked by the Xiaoyao Sect and taken to the Dayan Gui in the South China Sea."