The God of War Who Protects the Nation: Starting with Saving a Mother and Daughter in Distress

Yuwen Rong never imagined how much his leading by example would boost morale.

As an unparalleled warrior, he felt his blood boiling as he returned to the battlefield.

After he had made all the preparations, his personal guards, who were going into battle with him, were still gesturing to the city defense map.

Upon seeing Yuwen Rong approach, they all stood in a straight line.

"No need to look at it." Yuwen Rong glanced at the city defense map, raised his hand and pointed to the east city wall, "Let's attack from there."

"General, that's where the garrison is most concentrated..."

"I'm targeting the most densely packed areas." Yuwen Rong slung his gilded halberd over his shoulder. "Siege team, follow me!"

After several rounds of fierce attacks, the government troops paid a considerable price but failed to gain a foothold on that section of the city wall.

The rebel commander was standing behind the battlements, brandishing a bloodstained knife, his voice hoarse from shouting.

"You spineless cowards of the government troops, come on! Grandpa has another pot of hot oil waiting for you!"

Yuwen Rong walked to the foot of the city wall and heard these words.

Without looking up, he reached out and grabbed a ladder that had just been placed on the city wall. After testing its stability, he began to climb.

"General!" The captain of the personal guards behind him reached out to pull him back. "That's boiling oil! You should let the assassins go first..."

Yuwen Rong ignored him.

He was wearing full heavy armor, grabbed the ladder with one hand, and leaped up in twos and threes at a time.

The iron boots creaked as they stepped on the horizontal bars of the ladder.

The defenders on the city wall clearly did not expect that a heavily armored man could climb the ladder so quickly. By the time they reacted and threw stones down, Yuwen Rong had already reached the middle of the ladder.

A stone the size of a millstone came hurtling toward him. He dodged to the side, and the stone grazed his back before striking a soldier below him squarely on the head.

The man fell down the ladder before he could even utter a sound.

On the rampart, a rebel soldier held a pot of boiling oil above his head, about to pour it down on Yuwen Rong.

Yuwen Rong gripped the ladder tightly with his left hand and thrust the gilded halberd upwards with his right.

The halberd pierced through the iron pot, through the chest of the rebel soldier, and sent him flying along with the pot.

The boiling oil dripped down the boring bar, scalding his palms with a hissing sound.

Yuwen Rong remained unfazed, switched hands, and continued climbing.

In the next instant, he had already flipped over the crenellations and landed steadily on the city wall.

The gilded halberd swept out horizontally.

The three spearmen who surrounded them were cut in two, spears and all.

A swordsman with a shield and sword took advantage of a gap in his attack and crouched down to launch a sneak attack, thrusting his short sword straight into the seam of his armor on his waist.

Without turning his head, Yuwen Rong swung his halberd and cleaved Yuwen Rong and his shield in two.

"The General has ascended the city wall!" The government troops below the city wall erupted in commotion.

The reserve team, which had been waiting in the back, carried ladders and charged toward the city wall.

More ladders were placed over the ramparts, and the first wave of suicide soldiers climbed up the gap. One fell, and the next person stepped on the corpse to continue.

On the city wall, soldiers from both sides clashed, roaring as they charged. The muffled thuds of daggers piercing through gaps in armor, the cracking of bones, and the screams of the wounded mingled together.

A government soldier had his stomach pierced, his intestines dragging on the ground, and as he crawled forward, he was still slashing at people's ankles with his knife.

Just as Yuwen Rong was about to advance towards the city wall, Pei Ji suddenly led several hundred personal guards to flank him from both sides.

These private soldiers of the Pei family were completely different from ordinary garrison troops. They wore iron armor, held hundred-refined steel swords, and moved in unison when they formed a dense spear formation.

Three rows of spears thrust in alternatingly, with the front row retreating after each thrust, and the rear row immediately following up, creating a clear rhythm.

Yuwen Rong cleaved the first three spears in two with a single blow, and the spearheads of the second row were already upon him.

He dodged a spear to the side, grabbed another spear shaft with his other hand, and flung the private soldier, spear and all, flying him to the ground behind the ranks.

But then the third row moved up.

If it were a mounted battle in the open field, these few hundred men wouldn't be enough for Yuwen Rong to kill alone.

But on the city wall, there was only so much space.

There were people everywhere, and there was simply no room to move around.

Under such circumstances, even someone as strong as Yuwen Rong felt a bit strained facing such a powerful, all-out attack.

His vanguard, numbering from dozens to less than ten, was repeatedly attacked by a large number of rebels, and the line of defense retreated step by step toward the edge of the battlements.

A rebel captain sneaked up from behind while Yuwen Rong was blocking the gunfire.

"Yuwen Rong, you've shown your weakness!" he roared, slashing down with all his might at the gap in Yuwen Rong's shoulder armor with his ring-pommel sword.

The blade chipped, and the impact of the blow caused Yuwen Rong to grunt and stagger half a step.

Yuwen Rong turned around and swept the captain away with a single blow, sending him crashing into the battlements.

The sound of the spine cracking could be heard even through several layers of armor.

Qin An could see it clearly from below the city walls.

More and more flags of the defending troops were planted on the city wall, and the reserve forces poured up the stone steps on both sides of the city wall, converging on Yuwen Rong's location.

His elite assassins fell one after another.

Seeing the unfavorable situation on the city wall, Han Quan, who was standing next to Qin An, was the first to speak up: "General, I will lead men up to support General Yuwen."

"I'll go!" The others also volunteered.

But at that moment, Qin An gave an unexpected order: "Sound the retreat!"

Everyone was stunned upon hearing this.

Is that it? That's it, are we calling it a day?

Although everyone was puzzled, on the battlefield, military orders were paramount.

The next moment, the retreat signal sounded.

Yuwen Rong was just about to kill a rebel soldier in front of him when he heard the gong sound and stopped charging forward.

He swept his halberd around, forcing back several enemies, then flipped over and leaped down from the rampart. In mid-air, he stepped on the ladder to cushion his fall, and when he landed, his feet left two deep craters in the yellow earth.

His armor was covered in blood, and his shoulder armor had several white marks from being slashed.

He looked up at the city wall, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and turned to walk back to his own camp.

"General, are you alright?" Qin An personally came to greet him.

Yuwen Rong waved his hand: "This little commotion can't hurt me. What about casualties?"

He paid no attention to his own situation, but instead focused more on the situation of this siege.

"More than three thousand casualties, and the number of casualties among the defenders on the city walls must have been considerable as well!" Qin An stated the figures truthfully.

More than 3,000 people were killed or wounded in the first battle.

Qin An was not discouraged; this was definitely a terrifying number.

But neither Qin An nor Yuwen Rong paid any attention to this.

Siege warfare is inherently the most difficult type of battle.

Especially at the very beginning, when the other party is well-prepared, it is almost impossible to succeed.

The enemy's defensive equipment was all consumed by human lives.

Yuwen Rong didn't pay too much attention to the casualty figure, but simply asked Qin An, "Are you confident you can take it down?"

Qin An nodded: "The scene of the general personally ascending the city wall has already shattered most of the rebels' courage. Now that we have a clear understanding of the rebels' strengths and weaknesses, the battles to come will only be easier."

That night, Qin An redeployed his forces in the central command tent.

Relying on his superior numbers, he divided his army into three shifts, taking turns attacking the city day and night.

Catapults continued to hurl stones and fireballs into the city day and night, causing more and more cracks to appear in the city walls and fires to break out in many places, with thick smoke obscuring the sun.

Each wave of attack left hundreds of corpses, but the next wave surged forward immediately afterward, giving the defenders no chance to catch their breath.

The attacking soldiers surged forward, stepping over the corpses of their fallen comrades. What they were stepping on wasn't soil, but soft, bloody mud.

By the evening of the fourth day, the number of soldiers guarding the city walls had noticeably dwindled.

Of the more than 20,000 troops who were defending the city, after a series of fierce battles, no more than 8,000 were still standing, and most of them were wrapped in blood-stained bandages.

Wang Chong stood on the city wall, watching his wealth accumulated over more than a decade gradually dwindle, his face growing increasingly grim.

"My lord, when will the reinforcements arrive? Qin An is clearly trying to wear us down. If this continues, our forces will be exhausted sooner or later!" Pei Ji said anxiously.

He realized that if things continued to drag on like this, his side would definitely not be able to outlast the government troops.

Upon hearing the words "reinforcements," Wang Chong's expression turned somewhat grim.

He did ask for help, but the delays Qin An had made before came in handy.

Because several more days had passed, the other two rebel groups were still on their way.

No one can say for sure when it will arrive.

Moreover, judging others by his own standards, he had some doubts that even if the other two groups were able to arrive, they might not actually go all out.

Maybe they're deliberately stalling, hoping to make a fool of themselves and suffer heavy losses.

Although that's what he was thinking, Wang Chong didn't show it on his face.

"Don't worry, reinforcements will definitely arrive. Tell the brothers to hold on a little longer. When the reinforcements arrive, it will be time for our counterattack," Wang Chong reassured his anxious generals with a firm tone.

Hearing him say that, everyone felt a little relieved.

……

At dawn on the fifth day, Qin An sent all the reserve troops up.

The catapults no longer launched stone projectiles; they were all replaced with oil canisters.

Hundreds of earthenware pots smashed against the city wall, turning it into a burning wall of fire.

The rebels were thrown into chaos amidst the flames and thick smoke.

Yuwen Rong donned his armor and went into battle once again.

This time he chose the southeast corner tower.

The corner tower had been mostly destroyed by days of bombardment, and the defenders had temporarily filled the gaps with sandbags and timber. When the defenders on the corner tower saw the figure carrying a gilded halberd appear under the pile of rubble, some of them instinctively took a step back.

Yuwen Rong climbed up the pile of rubble.

A rebel soldier jumped out from behind the ruins, brandishing a knife.

Yuwen Rong swung his halberd, sending the man and his sword flying. The corpse hung on the crumbling wall above the battlements, half of its body dangling outside the city wall.

The remaining defenders of the corner tower were still putting up a desperate fight. A few of them lit the last barrel of oil and rolled down the rubble with it in their arms.

But in the face of absolute power, everything is in vain.

Thanks to Yuwen Rong's leadership, the southeast corner tower ultimately fell.

The government troops poured in through the breach and fought the defenders inch by inch along the city wall.

Each section of the city wall changed hands several times, and the corpses were piled up layer upon layer.

Blood flowed down the cracks in the city wall, forming a dark red stream at the foot of the city.

Wang Chong watched as the southeast corner tower fell and government troops poured in one after another.

Especially when she saw Yuwen Rong heading straight for her, her legs went weak, and she had to hold onto a pillar to steady herself.

His gaze swept across the city gate tower.

Those generals who usually patted their chests and pledged their loyalty were now avoiding his gaze!