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

Nothing happened that night and the Chu army slept soundly.

But, early the next morning, before dawn.

The sound of the bangzi at the hour of Yin was still lingering in the morning mist, and Ran Ming's red flag had already torn through the sky.

Thirty siege towers covered with animal skins emerged from the mist. The Chu army's heavily armored infantry advanced to the rhythm of drumbeats. Their iron boots made the newly planted chevaux de frise outside the Tang army camp tremble.

Yuchi Gong's hand pressing on the camp did not move at all - those seemingly messy wooden stakes were actually arranged according to the directions of the twenty-eight constellations, and poisoned caltrops were hidden in every gap.

"put!"

As Ran Ming swung the axe in his hand, fifty crossbows roared at the same time.

An iron arrow about ten feet long came flying through the air, wrapped in the smell of sulfur. The dark blue flame dancing on the arrowhead was actually the terrifying ghost fire phosphorus.

Three Tang army arrow towers were set on fire in an instant, and the defenders fell into the sea of fire with screams. The smell of burning mixed with morning mist filled the nostrils of every soldier.

Yuchi Gong suddenly waved the black iron flag, and seven short and three long horns sounded in the camp.

The arrow tower that was originally burning suddenly exploded from the inside, and the three hundred barrels of kerosene hidden inside poured out along the ditch, instantly forming a ten-foot-wide fire dragon in front of the camp.

The Chu cavalry who were in the front were turned into charcoal, including their horses and men, but their charred skeletons still maintained the posture of charging.

"Raise the shield!" Ran Ming's roar was drowned out by the roar.

Twenty catapults were launched from the rear of the Chu army, and flaming boulders drew an arc and smashed towards the Tang camp.

Yuchi Gong sneered. The Tang soldiers lifted the camouflage straw mats, revealing the quilts soaked in river water underneath. The burning boulders hit the wet cotton, causing billowing white smoke, but they failed to ignite even a military tent.

The two sides fought fiercely!

When the sun was high in the sky, the Chu army finally filled the trench with corpses.

When the first warriors who entered the camp cut the iron chain of the camp gate, the ground suddenly collapsed three feet.

Yuchi Gong had already dug a pit inside the camp gate. The bamboo spears inserted upside down at the bottom pierced more than a dozen bodies of the Chu army. The subsequent charging soldiers were unable to stop in time and fell into the blood pit like a pile of monks.

"Change the formation!" Yuchi Gong waved the flag for the third time.

The seemingly defeated Tang army suddenly retreated to both sides, revealing three hundred divine crossbows in the rear.

These improved crossbows could throw out nine hundred short arrows in each volley, and the vanguard of the Chu army that rushed into the camp was instantly nailed like hedgehogs.

Ran Ming's mount was killed by three crossbow arrows piercing its brain. He rolled into the pile of corpses in a panic, and his axe scraped a string of sparks on the bluestone ground.

By dusk, the Chu army had changed three groups of drummers for its rhinoceros-skin war drums.

Ran Ming finally called for the battering ram hidden in the rear army. This huge iron-clad wood required eighty strong men to push.

But when they approached the central military camp, hundreds of iron chains suddenly popped out from the ground - the chain tripwires set by Yuchi Gong cut the Chu army's formation into pieces, and the Tang army's swordsmen and axemen jumped out of the cellar and focused on chopping the enemy's ankles.

At three quarters past the hour of Xu, when the first star lit up, Ran Ming, covered in blood, was still leading his troops in a mad charge.

The corpses of the Chu army piled up in front of the Tang camp gate had formed a new low wall, but Yuchi Gong ordered the lighting of twelve beacons.

Amid the flames, five hundred Tang soldiers sneaked out of the camp carrying kerosene cans and set fire to the seven catapults left by the Chu army on the battlefield.

At midnight, Ran Ming's face changed drastically.

How could he have imagined that the smoke was actually a trick created by the Tang army using wet firewood - Yuchi Gong's real killer weapon was three hundred war horses with gags in their mouths and cotton wrapped in their hooves, which were now circling towards the Wutou Valley where the Chu army stored grain.

But at this time, Chu Ning, who was watching the battle coldly on the side, revealed a sneer.

Jia Yu even chuckled: "Prince, it's almost time."

Chu Ning nodded slightly: "Send the signal arrow!"

Suddenly, three rockets took off, lighting up the night sky and attracting the attention of troops from both sides.

The moonlight at midnight was cut into pieces by the thick smoke. Yuchi Gong had just put on his armor and climbed up the arrow tower when a huge flame suddenly rose from the direction of the rear camp.

The fire tornado formed by the burning of twelve granaries shot straight into the sky, dyeing half of the night sky blood red - this was no ordinary fire attack, the Chu Army's Western Route Army actually brought in flaming oil, and the sticky flames poured back into the Tang Army's trenches along the ditches.

"Report! All fifteen gates on the west route have been destroyed!"

When the messenger rolled off his horse, there were three swallowtail arrows stuck in his back.

"The heavy cavalry of the Chu army were all wearing bronze ghost masks. The brothers thought they were... the Yin soldiers passing through..."

Before he finished speaking, a thunderous roar shook the earth from the southwest corner. Thirty armored buffaloes smashed the wooden fence, and the unique blood-red battle flag of the Chu army fluttered on the backs of elephants.

Yuchi Gong's black iron sword cut off the flying arrows, and he clearly saw that the Chu army general who was rushing in the front was wearing a bronze Taotie mask.

The ghost-faced general swept the long spear in his hand, splitting the Tang army general and his horse into two halves. The splattering blood formed a strange totem in the firelight.

"Gather the troops!"

Yuchi Gong's roar drowned out the sound of the explosion.

"Let General Cheng lead the Modao team to block the west gate!"

However, the cowhide drumhead of the rallying drum had been burned through by rockets, and the beacon tower for messaging was extinguished by the mud and sand kicked up by the elephant's trunk as soon as it was lit.

The deputy general of the Tang army rode his white horse through the swarm of insects, covered in blood. "General, hurry up! The Chu army has built a dam upstream of the Yinma River, and is now opening the gates to release the poisonous water!"

As if to confirm his words, the black tide mixed with dead fish had already reached the front of the central army tent, and the floating corpses of the Tang army were rotting at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Yuchi Gong narrowed his eyes and said fiercely: "Pass on my final military order - the Black Armor Army will follow me to cover the rear, and the rest of you will break out to the southeast!"

"You don't have to go."

The deputy general suddenly laughed miserably and split the tent open. The scene outside the tent made everyone's blood freeze.

The main force of the Chu army, which should have been ten miles away, was standing with flags everywhere, and Chu Ning's Nine Dragon Chariot was standing proudly on the commanding heights of Beishan.

The messenger stumbled into the tent, with only half of the command flag in his hand left as a burnt cloth: "General... The Chu army's western army has occupied our rear camp and burned our food and fodder!"

Yuchi Gong's pupils suddenly contracted, but before he could roar in anger, the ground beneath his feet suddenly collapsed.

Twenty of the Chu army's city-breaking cones fired at the same time, and the central army tent fell into a three-foot-deep pit.

When Yuchi Gong swung his sword to cut off the iron chain around his ankle, Chu Ning's laughter could be heard from the top of the pit: "The Tang army will definitely lose today!"

Kerosene tanks poured down like a rainstorm: "Let this ten-foot-deep pit be the final arsenal for your Tang Dynasty warriors!"

At the moment when the flames rose into the sky, Yuchi Gong roared angrily, suddenly thrust the Mo Dao in his hand into the ground, and using the force to leap, he actually jumped out of the huge pit!

"Even if I die today, I will not let you have an easy life!"

After he finished speaking, Yuchi Gong brandished his Mo Dao and rushed towards Chu Ning.

But Chu Ning didn't dodge or evade, and sneered: "Unfortunately, you no longer have this opportunity."

Just as he finished speaking, a huge axe came from the side.

"Qiang~"

The big axe blocked the Mo Dao, and it turned out to be Ran Ming who came!

"The unfinished battle continues today!"

"Either you die or I die!"