Chapter 2173: Kerosene Bombs!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“Something’s not right!”
Upon seeing that the army was about to reach the walls, Tian Chengsi, another one of Youzhou’s Great Generals, frowned in unease.
Quiet!
Too quiet!
In the previous battle, the Great Tang had used a hidden moat and forty thousand soldiers who had been so aggressive that they had only retreated after they had been almost exhausted. But now, the army was almost at the walls, yet there had been no response from the fortress. This was far too abnormal.
Military Advisor Gao Shang was also uneasy. Although he wasn’t a battlefield general, he could tell that this silence was abnormal.
But at this stage in the battle, Gao Shang was incapable of intervening.
“What is this bastard up to?”
An Lushan clenched his fists, his expression grim.
He was sure that Wang Chong had some sort of scheme, but he didn’t know what it was. This sort of feeling was extremely uncomfortable.
Two hundred feet! One hundred feet!
It was less than thirty meters to the wall now, and the alliance was on the verge of reaching its objective. But for some reason, whether it was Tian Qianzhen, Tiechi Bileli, Cui Qianyou, Yeon Gaesomun, or An Lushan, all of them felt an extreme unease that prevented them from smiling.
Wang Chong was the renowned War Saint, a true master of military strategy!
The quieter it was, the more dangerous!
In a certain way, this tension and unease began to influence the soldiers at the very front.
Bang!
In the midst of this eerie silence, a great boom came from the depths of the steel fortress. With a piercing whistle, a giant silhouette streaked with faint wisps of flame crashed down from the heavens.
With a boom, the black object crashed into the dense ranks of the alliance army and exploded into a ball of raging flame.
“Ah!”
At the center of the explosion, several alliance soldiers were splashed by some black substance and then ignited into balls of flame.
“Keroseeeene!”
A plaintive scream tore through the air, shattering the silence.
A moment later—
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
One giant ‘kerosene bomb’ after another flew over the steel walls and crashed into the army.
Resounding explosions rang out, and in a few moments, the battle front had been turned into a sea of fire.
After Wang Chong had defeated the Arab army in the northwest, an important reason for his conquest of the rest of the Arabian Empire was the kerosene possessed by Arabia.
Gao Xianzhi and An Sishun were not garrisoned in Baghdad purely to pacify rebels. Another important purpose was to organize the people of the Arabian Empire into extracting kerosene.
The amount of kerosene and the speed at which it was extracted was far from what Wang Chong had desired, but that was because Wang Chong’s requirements had been very high. The Arabian Empire had produced significant amounts of kerosene, and all of it had been sent to the Great Tang.
Some of it had been sent to various areas for heating, but a significant portion had also been sent to the forward base, where they had been formed into these ‘kerosene bombs’.
Wang Chong had waited until now to use them in this battle, right when the dense ranks of the alliance army were right up to the walls.
Boomboomboom!
When Wang Chong made his move, he did so with maximum saturation. Thousands of kerosene bombs crashed down and exploded in the ranks of the alliance army.
The area for several thousand feet in front of the steel fortress was drenched in kerosene, even the shield carts and raised shields, and all of it was set aflame.
Smoke and flames rose more than ten meters into the air in a shocking sight.
The northeast had been cold and frozen, but now, all the chill had been swept away, leaving only roiling waves of heat.
Snowflakes drifted down and melted into water, and when this water entered the kerosene, the flames burned even more fiercely.
“Watch out!” a Turkic general cried out, but he was too late.
The moment the soldiers reached the walls, Wang Chong had never thought about giving them a chance to escape.
Dying screams could be heard through the black smoke, and the stench of burning flesh and skin filled the air.
The high temperatures even made the shield carts turn bright red, the inscriptions and formations beginning to melt. As for the losses, they were innumerable.
An Lushan and Yeon Gaesomun instantly paled at this sight.
The orderly and somber ranks of the alliance army had instantly been turned into a hellish landscape.
“This madman!”
An Lushan cursed, his eyes flying open.
Wang Chong loved the people of the Great Tang like they were his own children, and he had a virtuous reputation that no one could match, many people even revering him as a sage.
But to the other countries, Wang Chong had nothing to do with the word ‘virtue’. His actions and methods were those of a complete devil.
No—not even a devil could perpetrate such cruel acts.
Not only was this sea of fire created by kerosene difficult to extinguish, the melting snow carried the kerosene with it and spread the fire.
A general of average height, surrounded by a storm of energy, swiftly shouted an order. “Sandbags! Sandbags!”
If one looked carefully, one would notice that this man wore five long sabers on his back. This was none other than the Brigadier General of Goguryeo, King Bojang.
The army swiftly took action, the Goguryeon soldiers rushing up with packed cloth bags.
These cloth bags were rapidly delivered to the front line.
Bang!
A Goguryeon soldier heaved the cloth bag on his shoulder into the sea of fire.
The flames burned away the cloth, revealing large amounts of sea sand.
In this alliance, each country had a specific job.
When assaulting a city, one of the most common defenses was attack by fire. The task of dealing with this had been left to Goguryeo.
Goguryeo and the Great Tang had fought for many years in close battles, so the Goguryeons were extremely experienced.
King Bojang had even sent up a division of the army specifically for putting out fires.
These cloth bags contained coarse sand extracted from the shores of the Goguryeo Empire and were excellent for putting out flames.
King Bojang had planned on using this sand to fill in the moat, but the situation on the battlefield was constantly shifting, and the Great Tang had given him no chance. The forty thousand heavy infantry in their Hell Wheel Formation had already crossed the moat and plunged into the alliance army.
As for later…
Considering that they might have needed to use the sand to put out flames, King Bojang had decided to let Cui Qianyou use corpses to fill up the moat.
Thudthudthud!
As the bags were thrown into the fire, the flames were finally suppressed. But extinguishing the flames entirely was a much more difficult task.
Before this battle, the Goguryeons had never imagined that they would be facing Arabian Kerosene.
This sea sand was much less effective than expected.
This man was truly frightening!
It was fortunate that Zhang Shougui had been overseeing Andong, not him!
As King Bojang looked at the distant walls, he felt his heart thump in fear.
There were many ways a soldier could die on the battlefield, but being burned to death by kerosene was one of the cruelest.
The Great Tang’s King of Foreign Lands was far crueler and more frightening than they had imagined!
The Goguryeo Empire had always considered itself unlucky that it was located on a peninsula, restricted no matter in what direction it tried to expand. Moreover, the powerful Andong Protector-General Zhang Shougui of the Great Tang Empire had left the Goguryeo Empire bound to its current territory for decades.
But now, King Bojang counted himself lucky that it had been Zhang Shougui. If not, he might have had to face the Great Demon King that was Wang Chong.
This man’s methods and style would have left Goguryeo utterly ruined!
As these thoughts ran through his mind, King Bojang suddenly heard a scream of terror from the distance.
King Bojang instinctively turned to look, and the sight made this renowned general of Goguryeo shiver in fear.
Bang!
With a massive boom, a giant steel ball hurtled out of the air.
No!
This was not some simple metal ball, but a giant caltrop that was as tall as four people.
The caltrop was covered in sharp spikes that were six to seven feet long, the tips gleaming with a frightening light.
Swooshswooshswoosh!
When the caltrop dropped to the ground, the spikes stabbed through the bodies of alliance soldiers, carrying them along as it rolled across the ground.
The alliance soldiers all possessed above-average cultivation. In normal circumstances, they should not have been so easy to kill.
But no matter how much Stellar Energy they had, they were nothing in front of this weighty caltrop and its sharp spikes, further bolstered by the power of gravity.
“Ah!”
Screams tore through the air as the giant caltrop rolled forward, carried by its immense inertia.