Chapter 1161 - Breaching Khorasan!
Chapter 1161: Breaching Khorasan!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Wang Chong turned his gaze back to the walls of Khorasan, smiling as he squinted at the two figures standing there.
“Abu Muslim, Ziyad, I’ve already given you a chance. Since you’re not willing to surrender, then I’ll do as you wish and have you live and die with this city!”
With these words, Wang Chong closed his eyes and became motionless. The two hundred thousand soldiers behind him were also like sculptures, none of them showing any signs of movement. But this only made the pair standing on the wall even more uneasy. No one knew what Wang Chong was scheming.
Abu Muslim turned to Ziyad. “Ziyad, check again. We can’t allow Samarkand to be repeated. The gates must be kept under strict watch. If any Sassanid tries to approach, they must be killed without question! In addition, has the news reached Baghdad? When will our reinforcements arrive?”
Khorasan was the final gateway of the Arabian east. Once Khorasan was lost, the Arabian capital of Baghdad would be threatened. The two were only two-thousand-some kilometers from each other; only a few days would be needed to travel the distance. In the Arabian Empire’s history of constant conquest and expansion, this was the first time an enemy had ever gotten so close.
This was the reason Abu Muslim had not continued to flee westward, instead choosing to remain in Khorasan.
“I’ve already checked. All the city gates are under heavy guard. No mishaps will occur. The news has already reached Baghdad, but all the nobles in the capital are in panic.
“In addition, in the previous battle, the forces of Cairo, Qutaybah’s northern war zone, and our own forces were deployed, and the eastern half of the empire has been essentially emptied out. There are no soldiers behind us that can be deployed. Although there are still other governors with their own armies, they wouldn’t be able to make it in time. The closest army would need at least half a month, and it doesn’t have many soldiers. Even if it managed to make it, it’s not guaranteed to be of much help,” Ziyad frankly reported.
As he spoke, his gaze flitted over the vast sea of soldiers, a force of two hundred thousand soldiers made up of the Great Tang, Khorasan, and other factions. Every time he saw it, he felt a chill in his heart.
When Arabia and the Great Tang had first begun to fight, the Tang army had only been one hundred and ten thousand, but now, the ranks of their army had swelled to an astonishing two hundred thousand. And all of these soldiers exuded abnormal strength, their bodies seething with killing intent as they stood arrayed outside the city.
The rebels and survivors of old dynasties that he and Abu Muslim had failed to find were now borrowing the strength of the Great Tang to emerge from their hiding places. This was something Abu Muslim and Ziyad had never imagined.
Abu Muslim’s heart sank upon hearing Ziyad’s report. At this time, he could only depend on himself.
The only thought he had to comfort him was that as long as the gates stood, he still had time to wait for reinforcements.
“It’s not right!”
As he stared out the enemy, Abu Muslim’s eyes suddenly went wide, and a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“There’s something strange! There must be something that we haven’t noticed. Ziyad, bring a group and examine the soldiers again. If you find any Khorasani spy, kill them on the spot!”
Abu Muslim was treating every tree and bush as an enemy soldier, and he would prefer to kill a wrong soldier than let a potential spy go. Khorasan was simply too important. If it were lost, then even if he managed to survive, his fate would be little different from death.
“But, Milord, if the Tang want to take Khorasan, they have to breach the walls. The gates are under our control, so how can they get in? And we’ve recruited thirty thousand militia. Even if there are spies in Khorasan, they will find it very difficult to shake our position. What are they going to do, drop from the sky?”
“Drop from the sky?”
Abu Muslim’s eyes widened at Ziyad’s last words. He seemed to grasp at something, but he couldn’t yet determine what it was. For a moment, time seemed to stop.
As Abu Muslim was frozen in thought, a loud bang came from the southeast part of Khorasan. At that moment, numerous soldiers began to holler and shout.
Buzz!
The sounds of fighting caused Abu Muslim to tremble as if he had been struck by a lightning bolt. He had finally realized what was wrong! Wang Chong and his men might not be able to come in from the sky like birds, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t come out of the ground!
Although the Tang weren’t familiar with this place and didn’t have the time to excavate a tunnel underneath the walls, the same could not be said of the Sassanids. And most importantly, this had once been the capital of the Sassanid Dynasty.
“Damn it!”
Abu Muslim’s face twisted and contorted, his hard and determined face instantly turning into a nasty grimace. He knew that he had still managed to underestimate Wang Chong.
But by the time Abu Muslim could react, a roar came from outside the city. The motionless army of two hundred thousand soldiers gave heaven-shaking bellows, and as the pair of Arab commanders watched, they began to push out metal weapons from the rear.
“Fire!”
Su Hanshan swung his hand down, upon which these metal weapons hastily constructed by Zhang Shouzhi fired sharp metal anchors from long metallic tubes. Dingdingding! The sharp metal anchors, dragging out long ropes behind them, firmly stabbed into the walls.
Flying Grapples!
These were weapons that Zhang Shouzhi had ordered his craftsmen to create while on the westward march. Although time had been short, the grand craftsman Zhang Shouzhi had succeeded in creating many of these Flying Grapples.
These objects had a very simple structure. All they required were formidable elastic force and firing power, which were no problem for someone who had studied the mysteries of ballistae. Discarding the more complicated components and leaving only the crucial parts had resulted in the Flying Grapples.
“Go! Everyone, prepare to ascend and attack the walls!”
With this order, countless soldiers began to climb up the ropes like monkeys, quickly ascending the walls.
“Everyone, attack!”
Clang! Bahram unsheathed the sharp Wootz Steel sword and thrust it into the air.
The eight-thousand-some Aswaran Cataphracts charged into Khorasan through the tunnel that had been furtively excavated in the era of the Sassanid Dynasty.
The imperial household of Khorasan and the Aswaran Cataphracts had used precisely this tunnel to escape from the Arabs and vanish without a trace. Now, it had become a vital tool in attacking the Arabs in Khorasan.
“Hurry! Stop them!”
“Hack off the anchors! Cut down the ropes! We can’t let them climb up!”
On the high walls, the Arabs were in a state of panic. Everyone began to move, vigorously hacking at the Flying Grapples.
“Hurry!”
Abu Muslim furiously roared, both shocked and angered by this sight. Boom! Pitch-black energy exploded out of his body. Clangclangclang! Ten-some sharp Flying Grapples were immediately pulverized.
“Hahaha, Abu Muslim, there’s no need to waste your strength. You’ve already lost this battle!”
Wang Chong loudly laughed, and then he stomped on the ground. The Stellar Energy in his body exploded with the roar of a dragon. An enormous golden dragon rapidly spiraled into the air, soaring toward the walls of Khorasan.
Leaping Dragon Art!
At his new level of cultivation, the same techniques displayed vastly different levels of power. The walls of Khorasan seemed to soar into the clouds and were almost impossible to jump up to, but things were different with Wang Chong’s Leaping Dragon Art.
Bang! The moment the first Leaping Dragon Art’s energy was about spent and his speed began to slow, Wang Chong pressed his right foot against the back of his left foot. There was immediately a metallic boom, and a visible shockwave emerged from the bottom of Wang Chong’s foot. Relying on this repulsive power, Wang Chong once more spiraled into the sky as a golden dragon. Once, twice, thrice… In just a few seconds, before anyone could react, Wang Chong had appeared on the edge of Khorasan’s high walls.
“Great Yinyang Heaven Creation Art!” Wang Chong yelled in a cold and callous voice. At the same moment, a light more dazzling than the sun exploded from his body. In the blink of an eye, Wang Chong had become a fierce red sun that occupied half the sky of Khorasan.
“Ah!”
The moment this red blazing sun appeared, screams began to fill the air.
On the walls, the surprised Arab soldiers felt the blood and energy pouring out of their bodies and surging into Wang Chong. Twenty to thirty of them that had been vigorously hacking at the Flying Grapples were immediately sucked dry and dropped to the ground.
And this was far from the only effect of the Great Yinyang Heaven Creation Art.
“Milord, watch out!” Ziyad cried out in alarm. Even though Ziyad was doing his utmost to resist, his blood and energy were still escaping his control and being drawn away by the Great Yinyang Heaven Creation Art.
And Abu Muslim was in almost exactly the same situation.
Now that Wang Chong was a Great General and had reached the peak of this realm, his strength had risen to an inconceivable level. He was also extremely proficient in a variety of martial arts, and his mastery over the Great Yinyang Heaven Creation Art could make any expert tremble in fear. Even though Abu Muslim and Ziyad had recuperated the majority of their energy, they were still no match for Wang Chong.
“Damn it!”
Abu Muslim’s eyes twitched. Wang Chong had appeared too quickly, needing only a few seconds to appear on the walls.
“Get out of my way!”
Abu Muslim gathered up all the black energy around him and viciously flung it at Wang Chong. As he struck, he began to rapidly withdraw.
In a ringing explosion, black and gold energy clashed in the air. The collision of Stellar Energy caused that powerful suction force to immediately vanish, and Abu Muslim’s stern resistance caused Wang Chong to tremble and fall from the wall.