Chapter 902

February 15th.

It was a day with a clear sky and beautiful spring sunshine. If it had been in Qingzhou Province, the weather at this time would still be a bit chilly, but here, the climate was still warm and pleasant.

On the third day after the Huben Army and the Shenji Army rendezvoused, the two, having recovered from the fatigue of prolonged marching, ordered a general assault on Guangzhou City.

At this time, with the continuous arrival of reinforcements, the number of soldiers outside Guangzhou City reached 170,000, and the number of field cannons also reached 700.

“Seven hundred field cannons, three hundred mortars. This will be enough to give them a hard time!” Luo Xin’s face was beaming. He was skilled at commanding artillery. For him, now was the best opportunity to leverage the advantage of overwhelming firepower.

Lu Fei said, “Once Guangzhou City is captured, the merchants’ council will basically be finished. Now that ammunition is plentiful, you can use the artillery however you wish.”

Luo Xin’s eyes gleamed with excitement. The number of soldiers armed with firearms inside Guangzhou City was now few, and they were all newly recruited soldiers. For them, these soldiers had very little combat effectiveness.

And the common people incited by the Azure Dragon King were merely cannon fodder.

“It’s time to end this farce.”

Luo Xin said sternly. Then he began to deploy his field cannons and mortars. To achieve a decisive victory in one blow, this time he chose not to bombard from all four sides simultaneously.

Instead, he concentrated all his field cannons and mortars in front of Guangzhou City’s North Gate. Guangzhou City was now completely surrounded, and he had no worries that they would escape.

In one morning, field cannons and mortars, totaling a thousand pieces of artillery, were assembled. Following Luo Xin’s command, the Battle of Guangzhou City officially began at one o’clock in the afternoon.

“Boom, boom, boom…” Amidst the earth-shaking roar of cannons, shells rained down on the northern city wall of Guangzhou City.

In an instant, the city wall was covered in a sea of fire. Bricks and stones shattered, and flesh and blood splattered everywhere. The council army’s defense north of the city was shattered in just one round of bombardment.

“Boom, boom, boom…”

After the first round of bombardment, a second round of bombardment immediately followed. The council army soldiers, who had been through a circle of hell, once again plunged into terror.

Then came the third and fourth rounds. When the smoke and dust dispersed, less than forty percent of the council army soldiers on the city wall remained alive, and the cannons they had set up were basically destroyed.

“I want to go home! I want to go home!”

On the Guangzhou city wall, a council army soldier broke down. The hellish experience made him throw caution to the wind and run downwards. The soldiers who had miraculously survived numbly looked at the city wall, which was covered in corpses. This was not fighting; this was a massacre.

The soldiers’ screams tightened their hearts. After the first soldier routed, the remaining soldiers also desperately fled the battlefield.

Inside Guangzhou City, the common people under the Azure Dragon King all looked terrified. The huge explosions from the north made their hearts pound.

And the blood-stained routed soldiers further intensified their worries.

“Hurry and run! You can’t win! You can’t win!” a soldier shouted piercingly, but his words were cut short. A general’s saber fiercely pierced the soldier’s heart.

Drawing his dripping saber, the general roared, “All forward! Don’t you want land, and to never pay taxes again? The imperial army is outside the city! As long as we win, we’ll have everything!”

“Charge!” Some desperate men in the crowd shouted. The immediate benefits made them forget their fear. They cursed and headed north.

Outside the city, the imperial soldiers sat leisurely in the trenches. They were waiting for the bombardment to end. Having experienced numerous battles, large and small, they had completely understood the meager combat effectiveness of the merchants’ council.

Now, they were very confident.

“Boom, boom, boom…”

After a brief pause, the roar of cannons resumed. The entire artillery position was filled with flashes of fire and gunsmoke.

The city wall of Guangzhou City, after suffering continuous bombardment like raindrops, gradually appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

Seeing this, Luo Xin urged the artillery to continue the bombardment. Finally, after the seventeenth round of bombardment, the northern city wall of Guangzhou City collapsed with a roar. At this point, the Azure Dragon King’s soldiers also reached the foot of the city.

The sudden collapse caused many soldiers to panic, but something even more terrifying than the city wall then occurred: they experienced artillery bombardment for the first time.

Before the soldiers could even regain their wits, dense shells fell around them.

Shrapnel flew, and shockwaves surged. The Azure Dragon King’s soldiers suffered heavy casualties in an instant. These soldiers were ordinary common people who cultivated land; they had never experienced such a terrifying war.

Looking at their fallen comrades, they cried and fled. At this moment, a terrible piece of news suddenly arrived.

“Everyone, stop fighting! The Azure Dragon King has fled! Cao family father and son have also fled! They took all our silver! Now, they’ve just left us to die! Don’t resist any longer, or you’ll just die for nothing!”

The speaker was Lin Youde. At this point, the council members inside the city had already exploded with fury upon discovering that Cao family father and son and the Azure Dragon King were no longer in the city.

Upon hearing this news, he immediately spread it. This was the time to sow discord in the council army’s morale.

Indeed, as soon as this news broke, the soldiers immediately erupted in an uproar. They had fought out of faith in the Azure Dragon King of the merchants’ council, but now, they had been shamelessly abandoned.

“Damn it! They want us to die, but they ran away! Brothers, we’re not fighting anymore!” a general cursed fiercely.

“The merchants’ council is a den of swindlers! They tricked us into losing everything we had!”

“Kill them!”

“…”

Angry words burst from the soldiers’ mouths. They no longer rushed to the front line. Instead, they picked up their weapons and charged towards the council headquarters.

At this moment, Lin Youde was disguised as an ordinary soldier. Seeing the situation, he smiled faintly. As long as Guangzhou fell into chaos, their casualties would be reduced.

And when the enraged soldiers stormed the headquarters and discovered that Cao family father and son and the Azure Dragon King were indeed no longer there, greater chaos erupted. Soldiers began firing at the council members within the council.

For them, now, they only wanted to vent their anger.

At the same time, when the Guangzhou city wall collapsed, Lu Fei issued the order to charge.

Imperial soldiers, wielding bayonet-fixed Falcon Rifles, surged into Guangzhou City like a flood. Facing the chaotic Guangzhou City, they quickly took control of the situation.

The common people and soldiers who saw the imperial soldiers charging immediately chose to surrender. The imperial army’s advance was very smooth, encountering basically no resistance.

Luo Xin and Lu Fei entered the city after it was breached. When they saw Lin Youde walking towards them, the two dismounted and said with a smile, “Lin Youde, you’re actually still alive.”

“How could I die before the merchants’ council is eliminated?” Lin Youde laughed heartily.

He had known the two before infiltrating the merchants’ council. At that time, Li San had introduced him to the military personnel, all for this day.

The novel has already been fully translated up to the final chapter. You can access it on my Patreon at /caleredhair

Check another translation project:

Title: The Golden Family Rises, Starting from the Western Regions. The NovelBin tell a youth named Li Xiao rises from the Western Regions, forges an unprecedented iron-cavalry empire through steel, cannons, and conquest, defeats Mongols, Jurchens, Rus, South Asians, and Crusaders alike, and establishes the largest territorial empire in human history in the name of Yan and Huang.