stonecrandall Chapter 840: Repelling the Chu army is only temporary!
Chapter 840: Repelling the Chu army is only temporary!
Gao Yao's personal guards were like maggots on the tarsal, firmly pinned to the narrow corridor on the city wall, harvesting the lives of the Chu soldiers with chilling efficiency. He witnessed with his own eyes a brave Chu centurion leading his men across the gap, only to be stabbed to pieces by a few skillfully coordinated halberds in the blink of an eye!
The losses caused by this fuel-fueling tactic made Xiang Yu's heart bleed. He brought with him the most core and most skilled soldiers of Western Chu! Every fallen soldier meant that his capital for world domination was lost!
Retreat? He was utterly unwilling to do so! They had paid such a heavy price to gain a foothold on the city wall. To retreat now would not only undo all their efforts, but would also severely damage their morale. Would the blood of those soldiers who died on the city wall have been shed in vain? Continue the assault? In such a narrow terrain, deploying more troops would only make the grinding wheel turn faster, sending more elite soldiers to their deaths in vain! He seemed to see Gao Yao sneering from the top of the city wall, waiting for him to fill the city wall with the corpses of the Chu army!
More crucially, the sky! The setting sun was sinking into the horizon at a visible speed, and a massive shadow began to engulf the battlefield. Attacking the city at night? Xiang Yu immediately rejected this crazy idea. Darkness would greatly weaken the attacker's organization and vision, and in the chaos, it would be easy for accidental injuries and command failure. The defenders, relying on the city walls and familiar terrain, would have a greater advantage. Then, it would not be a siege, but a matter of soldiers trampling on each other in the darkness, being used as targets by the defenders! This was no longer a tactical issue, but a blatant waste of soldiers' lives!
Xiang Yu's chest heaved violently, an indescribable sense of frustration and anger threatening to burst through his throat. He longed for victory, eager to wash away the shame with Gao Yao's head, but he was not a butcher! He couldn't completely bury the foundation of his struggle for world domination—this elite army that had followed him through hundreds of battles—in this damned city wall just for Yangping Pass! What he needed was an army that could conquer the world for him, not a pile of cold numbers! Gao Yao could be chased if he ran away, but if the army was wiped out, there would be nothing left!
"Dang-dang-dang-!"
In the end, reason overwhelmed his boiling fighting spirit. Xiang Yu suddenly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, only coldness and determination remained in his pupils. He practically gritted his teeth as he squeezed out the command: "Sound the horn! Retreat!"
The dull and endlessly unwilling sound of the golden gong penetrated the noisy fighting on the battlefield and rang like a death knell in the ears of every Chu soldier.
Atop the city walls, the Chu soldiers, locked in a desperate battle with the imperial guards, were stunned at first upon hearing the familiar signal to retreat. Then, a wave of grief and indignation erupted, followed by a faint sense of relief. Like a tide, bloodstained and exhausted, they desperately surged towards the ladders, scrambling to retreat, despite the arrows and rocks hurled at them by the defenders behind them. In the chaos of the retreat, many stumbled and fell, or perished in the pursuit of the defenders.
Postwar Reckoning: Cold Numbers, Searing Pain
As the last Chu troops retreated in disarray to the camp, darkness had already fallen. Xiang Yu did not return to the comfort of his tent, but rode through the wounded camp, filled with blood and wailing. The general of the imperial guards, holding the bamboo slips containing the casualties he had just counted, knelt before his horse, his face pale, and his voice trembling:
"King... Your Majesty... Today's siege... including the casualties from the past few days... our army... our army's dead and seriously injured... have... have exceeded twelve thousand!"
"Twelve thousand?!"
Xiang Yu's body lurched violently, as if struck by an invisible hammer! He snatched the bamboo slips and, by the light of the torch, fixed his gaze on the numbers. Every single ink character burned his heart like a red-hot iron! He had previously estimated that with only 3,000 defenders at Yangping Pass, even if Gao Yao was a skilled defender, even at the cost of 5,000 elite soldiers, they would be enough to crush it! 12,000! This number was more than double his expectations! It was almost a quarter of his core combat power! And at Yangping Pass, the tattered banner with the Chinese character "Gao" still flying above the city walls seemed like the greatest mockery of his life!
A sweet, fishy taste surged up his throat, but he forced it down. Within his pupils, anger, resentment, heartache, and a subtle tinge of fear towards Gao Yao's bizarre tactics intertwined, causing his handsome features to appear slightly distorted. This loss was too great! So heavy that it made his heart tremble!
At Yangping Pass, the remaining defenders were also silently licking their wounds.
Gao Yao stood at the top of the tower, looking down at the hellish battlefield below. The night wind blew against his blood-stained battle robe, bringing a biting chill. The captain of the personal guard battalion, a veteran who had served him for many years, dragged his injured leg and trudged behind him, his voice hoarse and low:
"Your Majesty... of the three thousand brothers guarding the pass... there are less than five hundred alive, including those with minor injuries who can still move..." He paused, his tone growing heavier, "The personal guards... were killed... over nine hundred and seventy..."
Gao Yao's body tensed imperceptibly. Less than five hundred... nine hundred and seventy... Behind this cold number, three thousand fresh lives turned to the mud beneath the walls, and nine hundred and seventy elite and loyal souls he had painstakingly nurtured remained here forever.
He slowly turned, his gaze sweeping across the city walls. In the flickering light of torches, the survivors silently gathered the bodies of their comrades and bandaged their wounds. Each face was etched with exhaustion, pain, and the bewilderment of surviving a catastrophe. Those still able to stand were sparsely represented, looking singularly thin against the vast walls. The personal guards, though still organized, were wounded, breathing heavily, their armor tattered. Their eyes, though sharp, could hardly conceal a deep sense of fatigue.
A heavy pressure, heavier than the night itself, weighed on Gao Yao's heart.
Military strength! An absolute gap in military strength!
At the beginning of the war, he still had 1 defenders and 7 personal soldiers. With people against Xiang Yu's more than , he was already at an absolute disadvantage (John :).
Although the Chu army suffered heavy losses, with 12,000 dead or seriously injured, its huge base was still there. Xiang Yu could still mobilize at least 35,000 fresh troops! This did not include his huge logistical support troops!
And what about our own side? Yangping Pass garrison: less than 500. Imperial Guards: just over 2,000. All told, those still capable of taking up arms and fighting, less than 3,000!
The comparison of troop strength has changed from the initial 1:7 to the current close to 1:12, or even higher!
Ten times! This was a despairing number. Xiang Yu only needed to launch one or two more reckless attacks like today's. He didn't even need to employ complex tactics. Simply relying on his sheer numerical superiority and heaps of corpses would be enough to completely overwhelm the remaining, exhausted 3,000 men!