Nine dragons fight for the throne, I don't want to sit on this throne

"Your Majesty, General Zhang Han led his troops to attack the center of the Chu-Zhou coalition army, but was defeated and killed!"

"Your Majesty, our frontline troops have been affected by the killing of General Zhang Han, and their morale is low. We are unable to resist the attack of the Chu-Zhou coalition army."

"Your Majesty, General Ying Ji was killed in battle by Feng Mulan, and our army on the western front has been defeated!"

As news came in, Ying Zheng's face on the Julu city wall became increasingly gloomy.

He knew that he had lost the battle.

The price of defeat could be his life and the entire Qin State.

But he didn't want to admit defeat, and he didn't want to lose to Chu Ning.

As long as he leaves this place alive, there may still be a glimmer of hope.

Thinking of this, Ying Zheng's eyes flashed with a cold look: "Chu Ning, do you really think you can win?"

Having said that, his trembling body betrayed his inner feelings at the moment.

The morning sun dyed the top of Julu City dark red, and Ying Zheng's five fingers almost dug into the cracks in the bricks of the city wall.

He looked at the Qin army retreating like a tide outside the city, and cold sweat oozed from his back under the bronze armor - the 200,000-strong army was reduced to only half by the Zhou-Chu coalition forces, and the piles of corpses on the southern battlefield turned the entire battlefield into a scarlet quagmire.

"Send the order!"

Ying Zheng suddenly shouted, startling the guards behind him so much that their flags almost dropped: "Gather all the troops and retreat to Julu, gather at the north gate and prepare to break out!"

"But there are 30,000 cavalrymen from Liangzhou in the north of the city..." Before the deputy general finished speaking, the Taia sword on Ying Zheng's waist had already been unsheathed half an inch.

This action caused the temperature on the city wall to drop sharply, and the smell of blood coming from afar seemed to be stronger.

The sound of the bugle was particularly harsh in the dusk. The remaining Qin troops outside the city rushed towards the south gate as if they had been pardoned. They threw away their broken spears and spears on the ground.

Ying was staring at the stumbling figures when he suddenly noticed that the dust raised by the fleeing soldiers' feet was unusually sticky - this was clearly the trace of tung oil being splashed on them over the past few days.

"Wu Zhao!" He clenched the hilt of the sword fiercely, and his knuckles made a crackling sound.

Sure enough, when the first batch of fleeing soldiers rushed across the moat, a wall of fire over ten feet high suddenly rose from the ground.

The smell of burnt meat wafted from the flames, and thousands of Qin soldiers instantly turned into human torches.

What was even more deadly was that a series of black flags lit up behind the sea of fire, and the phoenix embroidered with gold thread on the imperial flag of the Great Zhou Dynasty spread its wings in the flames, ready to fly.

"The three talents are trapped in the army formation!" Xian Zhen, who was chained to the arrow stack, suddenly spoke.

Although the Jin general's hair and beard were disheveled, his eyes flashed with a strange light: "The position of the Vermillion Bird hides kerosene, the position of the Black Tortoise hides a heavy crossbow, and the position of the White Tiger must be a chain of thunderbolt chariots - the Empress is going to use your defeated army as firewood."

As if to confirm his words, the humming sound of a mechanism turning could be heard from behind the wall of fire.

Hundreds of three-bow crossbows rose from the underground caves, and the two-meter-long iron-feather arrows tore through the air, pinning the fleeing Qin army to the ground in rows.

This was not the most fatal thing - when the surviving Qin army tried to bypass the wall of fire, the ground suddenly collapsed, revealing criss-crossing trenches. The Zhou army archers ambushed in them stood up and fired a volley of arrows with specially made barbed arrows that were specifically designed to break iron armor.

Ying Zheng suddenly grabbed Xian Zhen's collar and threw him onto the battlement: "Since you figured it out, why didn't you say it earlier?"

"Cough cough..."

Blood foam flowed from the corners of Xian Zhen's mouth, but he laughed happily: "When you plotted against my tens of thousands of Jin troops, did you ever think of the outcome like this?"

Before he finished speaking, smoke and dust rose from the northern horizon.

Ying Zheng's pupils suddenly shrank as he saw 30,000 Liangzhou light cavalrymen approaching like a dark cloud covering the city. Each warhorse was covered in special scale armor, and the white mist from the horses' nostrils condensed into mist in the twilight.

What's even more terrifying is that these cavalrymen did not charge, but instead stopped their horses three hundred steps away, blocking their retreat!

"Report! The defeated army at the South Gate has been completely wiped out!"

The blood-soaked messenger fell to his knees and said, "A nine-foot-high ladder has been raised in the Zhou army. The dragon flag of the empress has already reached the city!"

Ying Zheng turned around suddenly and saw eighty-one Kui cowhide war drums beating loudly in the center of the battlefield in the south.

The imperial guards of the Great Zhou were like black waves, and thirty-six bronze chariots guarded the six-horse golden carriage of Empress Wu Zhao.

This empress, who was known for her iron fist, was not wearing armor. Instead, she wore a black twelve-chapter crown used for sacrifices. The nine-tasseled jade ornaments remained intact in the smoke.

What frightened the Qin army the most was the change in the Zhou army's formation.

When Wu Zhao waved her jade hand lightly, the army formation that was originally in the Bagua formation suddenly shrank. The heavily armored soldiers in the front row erected tower shields that were two meters high, and sabers with a cold glow poked out from the gaps.

Three thousand soldiers from the central army's archery battalion were half-kneeling on the ground, holding in their hands crossbows that could fire ten arrows continuously - this should have been the secret of the Chu army!

"put!"

As the Zhou army generals chopped down their flags, a rain of arrows with shrill screams covered the top of the city.

Ying Zheng pulled the corpse of his personal guard to block in front of him, and the dull sound of the fine iron arrow piercing through three layers of leather armor was right next to his ears.

He clearly saw that some crossbow arrows had bamboo tubes tied to the end, which exploded with poisonous smoke as they hit the ground.

"Your Majesty, be careful!" The guards suddenly pounced on him.

Ying Zheng staggered and raised his head, three red meteors reflected in his pupils - a catapult was set up behind the Zhou army formation at some point, but what was thrown was not stones, but linen balls soaked in kerosene.

These fireballs were ignited by rockets in mid-air, and after landing, they stuck to the city walls and burned. The sand prepared by the defenders could not put out the fire at all.

Xian Zhen's wild laughter was particularly piercing amid the explosions: "When you poisoned Chu Ning, did you ever think that one day you would be poisoned by someone?"

The chained hands desperately pointed at Ying Zheng: "Ying Zheng, you stabbed your ally in the back, and you will be punished by the world in the end!"

"Shut up!"

Ying Zheng swung his sword horizontally, and Xian Zhen's head flew off the city wall, splashing blood in front of the Zhou army.

This action triggered a more fierce attack. The empress's golden carriage suddenly moved forward and the Zhou army's formation changed again.

The front row of tower shield soldiers separated to the sides, revealing three rows of archers at the back - the first row shot upwards, the second row shot horizontally, and the third row was actually half-kneeling and shooting.

Arrows from three angles formed a three-dimensional arrow net, and the surviving Qin soldiers on the city wall fell down like wheat being cut.

Even more deadly were the twenty huge monsters launched into the formation.

These iron-clad wooden beasts were two zhang tall, with hollow bellies. Soldiers inside stepped on the axles, and copper tubes at the beasts' mouths continuously spewed out flaming caltrops.

Ying Zheng recognized that this was the long-lost "wooden ox and flowing horse", but it had been transformed into a killing machine.

Only the Chu army has this item.

But now he appeared in the Zhou army camp.

"Your Majesty! The North Gate Suicide Squad is ready!" Meng Kuo, covered in blood, knelt on the ground and begged for orders.

The young general's left arm drooped unnaturally, but he still tightly grasped the curled sword.

Ying Zheng took one last look at the battlefield to the south, and suddenly twelve Kongming lanterns rose up in the Zhou army’s formation, which was the signal for a general attack.

He bit his tongue, and the smell of blood made him clear his mind a little: "Order, abandon all baggage, and the guards will lead the way with double-edged sabers."

Just as he finished speaking, a thunderous roar suddenly came from the north.

The 30,000 Liangzhou cavalry finally launched a charge, but suddenly split into two groups a hundred steps outside the city, revealing three hundred crossbows flashing with cold light in the rear.

These crossbows were actually connected by iron chains. When fired at the same time, the hundred-pound javelins formed a steel torrent that instantly blew the city gate into pieces.

The north gate of Julu City was broken!