The imperial army arrived at Guangling like an unending tide, a living flood of steel and banners that seemed to have no shore. From the towering city walls, the watchmen peered out with mounting dread at the vast plume of dust rising on the horizon, heralding the approach of tens of thousands of soldiers. There came endless columns of infantry, proud regiments of cavalry, and behind them an ocean of conscripted peasants driven forward by the iron will of the Invincible Chancellor. The red standards of the Empire rippled like a forest in the wind, and the relentless pounding of war drums made the earth tremble beneath the boots of both attacker and defender alike.
Guangling was no ordinary city. It was the crown jewel of the northern frontier, a bastion built to defy empires. Its walls, raised upon artificial hills, rose higher than any fortress in the region, their stone faces broad and forbidding. The towers, capped with black tiles and lined with battlements, offered deadly firing platforms. The moats, filled from diverted river channels, encircled the city like deep, wet scars. At the main gates, enormous iron-reinforced doors stood ready, jaws of iron and oak clenched shut in defiance.
Upon his warhorse, Luo Wen surveyed the citadel with narrowed eyes. He had burned villages, toppled fortresses, and laid waste to the land to reach this point, and now only this wall remained between him and total victory. Yet he knew—no city of such scale and strength would crumble to a single hammer blow.
Even so, he commanded that the defenses be tested at once."Send them to the assault," he said in a voice as cold as steel to his assembled generals. "I want to measure the strength of their walls—and the resolve of those who stand upon them."
At dawn the following day, thousands of conscripted peasants were driven forward to the moats, clutching rope ladders and makeshift shields of wicker and wood. Behind them marched the heavy infantry, armored and grim. From the battlements, Wei Lian and Zhao Qing stood shoulder to shoulder, their faces set like stone.
"They are throwing everything they have," Zhao Qing muttered, fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword."Let them try," Wei Lian replied. "Guangling will not fall in a single day."
The clash that followed was both ferocious and chaotic. The defenders rained down a storm of arrows and bolts that darkened the sky. Cauldrons of boiling oil were tipped over the first climbers, whose ladders slipped away from the walls, sending screaming men tumbling in heaps to the blood-soaked ground below. The great engines of the city thundered to life, hurling massive stones that smashed into the densest formations of attackers, scattering bodies like straw in the wind.
The imperial peasants, poorly trained and pushed on by the threat of swords at their backs, died by the hundreds in the moats. Those few who clawed their way up to the parapets were cut down before their boots touched stone. The first wave dissolved into carnage, the waters of the moat turned scarlet with their blood.
From a nearby hill, Luo Wen watched without flinching. His face was a mask of iron, unmoved as his men fell in droves. When the sun dipped toward the horizon, he lifted a single hand. The signal was given. The retreat was orderly, the drums of war fell silent, and the battlefield lay in grim quiet.
Guangling still stood, its walls unbroken. From atop the battlements, Wei Lian allowed himself a single, weary breath of relief. This had been but the opening gambit, and he knew it. The true siege had only just begun.
That very night, Luo Wen summoned his generals within the imperial command tent. The map of the city was unfurled before them, and with a voice like tempered iron, the Chancellor gave his decree:"This city will not fall to clumsy, direct assaults. We will build machines. Siege towers, catapults, rams. If their walls are of stone, then we shall answer with iron and fire."
The order set the imperial camp ablaze with activity. Forests were felled overnight to provide timber. Dozens of furnaces roared to life, spitting sparks as they forged nails, hinges, and plates of iron. The conscripted peasants, once shoved into battle lines, were now forced into labor gangs, dragging logs, shaping wheels, and assembling towering wooden behemoths that would soon loom before Guangling's gates.
Yet Luo Wen did not grant the defenders respite. The harassment was relentless. Every night, detachments rushed the gates, trying to ignite them with bundles of straw soaked in oil. Every day, cohorts crept near the walls to unleash volleys of arrows or dig shallow trenches. None of these raids sought to break the city immediately—they were meant to gnaw at the defenders' strength, to keep them ever watchful, ever weary.
From atop the walls, Wei Lian's soldiers began to show the strain. They slept little, ate in haste, and lived in constant readiness. Still, their morale held. They had repelled the first blow, and Guangling still stood proud above the plain.
In the council chamber, Wei Lian spoke with unflinching honesty:"This will not be a short siege. Luo Wen means to grind us down, as he has done to every fortress before. But Guangling is no mere fortress. Here we have men, supplies, and walls he cannot so easily tear apart."
Zhao Qing nodded grimly."True. But with every passing day, his machines edge closer to completion. When those towers roll against our walls, then the real test shall begin."
The Chancellor, for his part, remained patient. He strode through the ranks, speaking to veterans, reminding them that the Empire had not marched this far to falter before a wall. His presence alone stiffened spines. Discipline and morale held firm, and his officers whispered like zealots: Guangling must fall, even if it costs one hundred thousand lives.
And soon, the first siege towers began to rise over the imperial encampment like towering wooden beasts. Enormous catapults were tested, flinging boulders that shattered against distant hills, each impact a thunderclap that rattled bones. The message was unmistakable to those watching from Guangling's walls: this was no passing storm. The siege would not end in weeks, nor even months. It would end only when Guangling lay reduced to ashes.
Thus, the long winter of attrition gave way to the spring of siege. Luo Wen had revealed that a direct assault would not suffice, but he had also shown he would not withdraw. The city had become the final bastion, and both sides understood that what was decided here would carve the fate of the entire north.
From the battlements, Wei Lian watched as the siege towers took shape on the horizon, monstrous silhouettes against the sky. His voice was low, almost a whisper carried by the wind:"The true war has begun."