Chapter 155: The Edge Appears

Wei Ba did not rush to have Xiahou Hui write the letter of surrender. Until Xiahou Mao felt the pressure, sending such a letter would serve no purpose. He left Zhu Yi in command of five hundred Shu soldiers—including two hundred of the Wei family's elite warriors—along with five hundred newly surrendered Wei soldiers to guard Meiwu. Accompanied by Zhao Yun, Wei Ba led nearly three thousand men straight to the outskirts of Chang'an, establishing their main camp right beside Kunming Lake.

Kunming Lake was originally a sprawling imperial garden filled with water, connected to various tributaries of the Wei River, and dotted with surviving Han dynasty palaces. The surrounding forests teemed with wildlife, though it was impossible to tell if any rare creatures from the former imperial menagerie still remained. Setting up camp here was ideal for beating the summer heat and convenient for fetching water; more importantly, grain transport vessels arriving from all directions could dock directly within the lake.

Until the autumn harvest concluded and newly conscripted troops arrived, Wei Ba lacked sufficient forces to launch a siege. He could only maintain a strong deterrent against Chang'an, forcing Xiahou Mao, who was holed up inside the city, to remain immobile. With merely two thousand men inside the walls, someone else might have dared to risk a sortie. But now that Xiahou Mao was the supreme commander, facing the renowned Shu general Zhao Yun and the rising star Wei Ba outside, he lacked even the courage to venture forth. Refraining from surrendering the entire city outright was already considered remarkably restrained on his part.

Wei Ba was far from idle. The greatest spoils of this surprise raid into Guanzhong were more than five hundred warhorses. Cao Wei possessed a stable source of horses, allowing for a relatively high proportion of cavalry; ten thousand men typically included a thousand cavalrymen, a luxury that both Shu Han and Eastern Wu deeply envied. Aside from the remnants of the Ma family's thousand-odd horsemen, Shu Han currently equipped horses only for primary commanders and their personal guards, at ratios no higher than twenty to one, and often thirty to one or even lower. Eastern Wu's situation was remarkably similar.

With over five hundred warhorses now at their disposal, Zhao Yun selected men from his own ranks who possessed basic riding skills or nimble reflexes to transition into cavalry, starting with fundamental riding lessons before moving on to mounted combat drills. Every day, they rode horses galloping around the perimeter of Chang'an. This not only honed their horsemanship and served as patrols to monitor movements within a radius of thirty to fifty li, but also steadily increased the psychological pressure on Xiahou Mao inside the city.

When it came to the proficiency of mounted warfare, a significant gap existed between Shu Han and Cao Wei, with horsemanship itself posing a major hurdle. Simply using a horse for transportation was vastly different from charging and shooting arrows atop a sprinting steed, or engaging enemies in close-quarters combat. Superb horsemanship was an indispensable foundation. Zhao Yun remarked that training a true cavalry force required three to five years, with fully half of that time dedicated exclusively to mastering basic riding.

Yet Wei Ba possessed a trump card. Taking three days, he gathered craftsmen to forge two thousand pairs of stirrups, presenting this ultimate invention of a time-traveler to Zhao Yun. Aided by the stirrups, the riders progressed in their horsemanship at a noticeably faster pace. In Zhao Yun's words, assisted by this ingenious device, this cavalry unit would have no trouble drilling tactics and putting on a formidable display within three to five months, provided they did not engage in actual combat.

While Zhao Yun trained the cavalry, Wei Ba had more pressing matters to attend to. He ordered men to fell trees and construct siege engines, the most formidable of which was the catapult. Catapults had existed since the Three Kingdoms era; Cao Cao had deployed them against Yuan Shao at the Battle of Guandong, where they were dubbed "thunderbolt carts" because their stone projectiles roared like thunder. Wei Ba made further improvements to these thunderbolt engines, the most significant being the replacement of human traction with counterweights. Human traction not only required a massive crew of pullers but also failed to guarantee uniform force, greatly impairing the accuracy of the catapults. Switching to counterweights drastically reduced manual labor while substantially improving accuracy and firing range.

Spending three days, Wei Ba first built a single catapult and immediately began test-firing it. The target was the covered walkway spanning the western wall of Chang'an city between Jianzhang Palace and Weiyang Palace. Following a day of adjustments and as the operators grew increasingly skilled, a stone projectile finally struck the covered walkway.

Whistling through the air from a distance of a hundred paces, the boulder slammed into the corridor with a deafening crash, sending splinters flying. As the dust settled, a pitch-black, gaping hole stood revealed before the defending Wei soldiers.

Gazing at that massive breach and listening to the groaning, creaking timbers of the corridor, not only was Xiahou Mao—who had rushed over upon hearing the commotion—terrified to the point of losing all color in his face, but nearly every Wei soldier broke out in a cold sweat. Staring at the precarious, trembling walkway on one side and the bustling Shu army outside the city on the other, eyeing the rows of newly taking-shape catapults, they fell silent and trembling like cicadas in winter.

If a single thunderbolt cart possessed such terrifying might, what scene would unfold if a hundred of them unleashed their fury simultaneously?

As if to further shatter the morale of the Wei troops, Wei Ba fired a few more test shots. Every single stone struck the corridor. Against the heavy projectiles, the sturdy walkway felt like a thin sheet of paper; each impact carved out another huge hole before the debris plunged into the moat below, sending up waves several zhang high.

After more than a dozen strikes, the shattered corridor could no longer hold its own weight. With a thunderous crash, it completely collapsed, plunging into the moat and stirring up a massive wave. Once the swells subsided, floating bundles of timber drifted across the water in disarray, silently bearing witness to the merciless power of the thunderbolt engines.

With the covered walkway severed, Weiyang Palace and Jianzhang Palace—previously linked as a single complex—were now isolated into two separate compounds, dealing a severe blow to the morale of the Wei forces. Though the distant Wei soldiers could not see the expressions in their comrades' eyes across the gap, they distinctly shared the same suffocating aura of despair.

Still held as a captive, Xiahou Hui stood atop a dilapidated palace tower, watching silently from afar as the Shu soldiers cheered around the thunderbolt engines. Though she remained mute, a raging tempest churned within her heart. She finally understood why Wei Ba had not rushed to send a messenger into the city with a demand for surrender; he possessed an even more devastating trump card designed to completely dismantle Xiahou Mao's confidence.

She had originally held profound faith in the impregnability of Chang'an. Even as the enemy tents multiplied day by day, she refused to believe that Wei Ba could capture Chang'an—even restricted merely to the two palaces of Jianzhang and Weiyang—with a force of hastily conscripted peasants. Yet, gazing upon these immensely destructive thunderbolt engines, her conviction began to waver.

Catapults were supreme defensive armament, functioning much like heavy defensive crossbows, and had always been strictly restricted weapons within the Cao Wei military. Not only had Wei Ba converted the catapult into an offensive siege weapon, but he had also dramatically magnified its destructive power, enabling heavy stone projectiles to cross a distance of over a hundred paces while maintaining a hit rate of fifty percent.

This astonished her immensely. She had long known that Wei Ba excelled in mechanical contrivances, but she never imagined his skills had reached such heights. In just the past few days, she had witnessed the invention of stirrups, improved heavy crossbows, novel siege rams, and now the catapults. It seemed that no matter what weapon fell into his hands, he could unleash an even more terrifying potency from it.

Facing someone like him, could Xiahou Mao—an Anxi General and Governor of Guanzhong who knew only how to practice Daoist longevity arts—possibly hold the city?

A wave of palpitations gripped Xiahou Hui. Without warning, Wei Ba strode up the stairs, followed by Dun Wu and others. Noticing Xiahou Hui staring blankly at the distant catapults, he smiled.

"Do you think I am formidable?"

"Indeed." Startled, Xiahou Hui quickly bowed in greeting and replied indifferently, "You have opened my eyes once again."

"Then has that bred even a sliver of adoration for me within you?"

"Adoration, no. Vigilance, much more," Xiahou Hui replied coolly after a moment, adding, "And a hint of killing intent."

Wei Ba turned his head in surprise. "My lady, saying such words to my face—are you not afraid I might execute you right now?"

"Not at all. Lord Wei is a man of supreme confidence. If you feared even a woman like me who lacks the strength to truss a chicken, how could you contend for power with Prime Minister Zhuge, and how could you vie with the heroes of the realm for dominion?"

Wei Ba shrugged. "Do not lavish flattery upon me; I do not buy into that sort of routine."

"I am not flattering you. I am merely speaking the truth."

"Speaking the truth can sometimes cost a person their life. Better to speak falsehoods instead," Wei Ba laughed. "Deceiving the dead incurs no debt."

"To deceive the living, one must first speak the truth." Xiahou Hui turned and gracefully walked toward the inner chamber. After taking two steps, she paused and added, "I learned this from Lord Wei as well. Having known Wei Ba for several months, I have gained much enlightenment, for which I thank Lord Wei."

"If you wish to thank me, why not offer yourself in marriage and become my concubine? Not only can you assist me, but you can also learn a great deal more."

Xiahou Hui continued walking forward, her voice drifting back from afar. "Should Lord Wei achieve victory in every battle and compel our Great Wei to enter a marriage alliance for peace, then speak not of Hui alone—even a maiden of the imperial clan would pose no difficulty."

"My eyes are set only on you." Cupping his hands around his mouth, Wei Ba shouted loudly toward her retreating back, "I shall certainly strive for it!"

Xiahou Hui's footsteps faltered for a fraction of a second before quickening, vanishing into the groves of trees. Watching her somewhat flustered retreat, Wei Ba let out a teasing, hearty laugh. Terrified that she might attempt another leap from the building, he dared not pressure her too severely and had to content himself with verbal banter.

"Young Master, do you truly fancy this woman?" Dun Wu asked with a puzzled expression. "If so, what are you waiting for? Have someone carry her to your bed tonight."

"What do you know, you crude brute!" Wei Ba's face darkened. "Can you have a shred of romance? If she is unwilling and you force her onto the bed, how does that differ from rape? What if she fights back desperately and bites you—what then?"

Dun Wu scratched his head. "Then knock her out first!"

Speechless, Wei Ba realized he shared no common language with these martial brutes. He patted the railing, gazed out toward the distant city of Chang'an, and sighed inwardly. Twenty days had passed since the Shu army entered Guanzhong. By holding Tongguan Pass, they had maximized control over intelligence regarding Guanzhong and delayed Cao Wei's reaction time. Yet he believed Cao Wei must have received the news by now; it was merely that their main forces remained engaged in the southeast and could not extricate themselves immediately. The moment the southeastern conflict concluded, regardless of victory or defeat, they would rush hither at full speed.

Time was running out. If he failed to capture Guanzhong before Cao Wei's reinforcements arrived, he would be unable to break away to support his father. Lacking his reinforcement, his father would inevitably suffer heavy losses against Cao Wei's full counteroffensive. Excessive losses would render these newly conscripted troops incapable of holding Guanzhong on their own.

Pondering for a moment, Wei Ba turned and entered the chamber where Xiahou Hui was confined.

"Now, my lady, I must ask you to pen that letter of surrender."

(To be continued)