Chapter 26: A Sky Full of Fireballs, Bombarding Everything!

Across the desolate sky, a massive streak of fire suddenly tore through the air like a shooting meteor. Although it was broad daylight, everyone could see it with terrifying clarity and even feel the searing heat radiating from the blaze.

"Fireballs! It’s a fireball!" A soldier shrieked, but the warning came too late.

The giant fireball, five meters in diameter and soaked in tung oil, plummeted after its high-altitude arc. With a thunderous crash, it smashed into several unfortunate rattan-armored soldiers, instantly crushing them into a bloody pulp. The splashing tung oil, trailing sparks, erupted across the ground like fireworks. Before the infantrymen in their rattan armor could react, their bodies were already engulfed in flames.

"Aaaah!"

Piercing screams echoed incessantly. Panic-stricken, the soldiers whose bodies were ablaze scrambled in every direction or rolled on the ground in instinctive desperation. These fleeing soldiers became human torches, igniting even more of their comrades.

"Shoot down those burning soldiers immediately!" Sun Wei’s face was pale with horror, but he still managed to issue the only correct command. However, the rattan armor itself provided such high defense against arrows that these soldiers were ultimately left with no choice but to die at the hands of their own comrades' spears.

"Whoosh..." "Whoosh..."

The sky roared again as consecutive wooden barrels were launched by the trebuchets inside the city walls. Soldiers who failed to dodge were instantly crushed or knocked unconscious. As the barrels shattered, a pungent, acrid stench filled the air, and many were splattered with a thick, sticky black liquid.

"What is this?" Cao Xueguang stared, unable to immediately identify the substance. But the vanguard commander below was already paralyzed with terror, howling at the top of his lungs, "Scatter! Disperse! That is earth-fat!"

Earth-fat—the ancient term for petroleum. Liu Zhizhong, standing nearby, remained confused but dared not ask. It was only when three more giant fireballs were launched simultaneously from within Beining City that the realization finally dawned on him.

These three fireballs seemed to have struck the perfect trajectory, instantly cleaving the infantry battalion into four segments. For reasons unknown, two of them did not explode upon impact but instead rolled forward along the ground. Their immense momentum and speed were impossible for foot soldiers to evade. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of soldiers were either crushed to death or consumed by the sea of fire.

At the same time, the earth-fat launched earlier played its lethal role. The slightest spark was enough to ignite it instantly. Those who, like Liu Zhizhong, had not understood what the substance was, now experienced the true meaning of despair. Large numbers of soldiers were incinerated, their frantic, instinct-driven flight only accelerating the spread of the inferno. The frontline, once a thousand meters long, had been transformed into a furnace. Screams, thick smoke, and the nauseating odor of charred flesh filled the entire battlefield.

A horn was sounded in desperation. The Great Qi coalition had no choice but to retreat.

"They’re retreating! The enemy is retreating!" On the city walls, the Shence Army, having suffered no casualties, cheered in unison. This victory was vital to them.

Qin Xuan looked calmly at the battered and fleeing coalition forces. Despite the sea of fire before him, his heart was not at ease. This fire-attack tactic was originally intended for the Jurchen or Hangu tribes. Beining City had not possessed giant trebuchets; Qin Xuan had spent the last few days gathering every craftsman in the city, including those among the refugees, and—relying on memories from his past life—had improvised six of them using standard, existing trebuchets. Four were placed at the North Gate, and two at the South.

As for the massive fireballs, they were constructed from vines and dead wood scavenged from a forest within the city. Qin Xuan had ordered the materials soaked in tung oil, then wrapped in layers of vines over a wooden frame, working tirelessly to finish the batch just in time.

"I wonder how things are at the South Gate," Qin Xuan worried, though he could not leave the North Gate yet. He had already sent out small cavalry units to quickly scavenge the battlefield. The coalition had fled in such haste that they left behind a vast number of shields and weapons—treasures worth their weight in gold. From a distance, the coalition could only watch helplessly as the enemy collected the spoils of war one by one.

Liu Zhizhong had suggested a foolish plan to send out their own cavalry to ambush the Shence Army while they were busy cleaning the battlefield. But neither Sun Wei nor Cao Xueguang even bothered to dignify the suggestion with a response, looking at him as if he were an idiot. The two sides were ten miles apart; the Shence Army had more than enough time to retreat. If they launched their own cavalry, they would be unable to stop their momentum once they reached the front, only to be met by a hail of arrows that would slaughter them all. Cavalry were far too precious to be squandered like that.

At the South Gate, a similar scene was unfolding. However, unlike the rattan-armored troops of the Great Qi, the Tulan Army wore conventional soft leather armor with metal plating, so the fire attack was not as devastating as it had been at the North Gate. Even so, once the earth-fat landed and sprayed across the field, a large portion of the Tulan Army followed the fate of their coalition allies.

When this siege began, both the Tulan and the Great Qi forces had intended to encircle and annihilate the Shence Army in the Northern Territory. Consequently, neither army had brought heavy siege weaponry, relying instead on cavalry. This, ironically, was exactly what gave Qin Xuan and the Shence Army a chance to resist.

Half an hour later, the Tulan Army was also forced to signal a retreat.

"Damn it! Since when did Beining City have such defensive weaponry?" Tulan, who had once led an army into the city, knew its military capabilities all too well. He gnashed his teeth in frustration, yet felt utterly powerless.

The Grand Preceptor, Gurna, furrowed his brow, sighing, "He is indeed worthy of being the greatest military genius of the younger generation. I suspect he modified the existing trebuchets and found a way to procure earth-fat, catching us off guard. But it does not matter; this is only the beginning."

In ancient sieges, barring rare exceptions, they usually lasted three to five days, or even months. Gurna had already calculated that Beining City was low on food and cold-weather supplies, so he was not in a hurry.

Inside Beining City, riders raced through the streets, loudly proclaiming that the two enemy armies had been repelled. The commoners, who had been hiding in their homes, could hardly believe it. Although they knew the Shence Army was formidable, they had never imagined they would be this powerful.

"Mother, they’ve retreated! They’ve retreated! Our home is safe!" A man sobbed with the excitement of a child. Last time the Tulan Army entered the city, he had hidden in a cellar with his mother and barely survived. This time, he had been certain of death, only to be granted a second chance at life.

His white-haired mother wept, nodding repeatedly. "It is the Shence Army that protected us. Because they are here, we are alive."