Chapter 40 Siege of Luochuan Road Granary

The Luochuan Road Granary, although nominally called a granary, is actually a strong city that stores half of the grain of the Gongdu Kingdom. It has various defensive fortifications including moats, arrow towers, and urn cities.

However, under the continuous fierce attack of the palace army, these fortifications have basically been scrapped.

"Brothers, hold on! Reinforcements will be here soon."

Standing on the ruined city wall, the commander Wang Kangxin did not care about the fierce attack of the soldiers in the palace. Surrounded by his personal soldiers, he personally put on armor and took up weapons to kill the enemy.

Under the encouragement of Wang Kangxin, the Zhou army, which was at a disadvantage in terms of numbers on the city wall, once again displayed its strong fighting power and actually drove back the palace soldiers who had already rushed up step by step.

After a while, the palace soldiers who had rushed up could no longer hold on and retreated like a tide. The imperial guards of the Great Zhou in the city also got a chance to catch their breath.

"Reporting to the commander, there are less than a thousand brothers who can still move in the city!"

After counting the casualties, a lieutenant general lowered his head and reported the situation to Wang Kangxin.

Wang Kangxin's already ugly expression darkened after hearing this. After a moment's silence, he whispered, "Give all the dried meat to the brothers so that everyone can have a good meal. It won't be long before these Gongdu dogs attack the city again!"

After the lieutenant went down to do his work, Wang Kangxin stood up and looked at the bustling military camp in the palace in the distance, gritting his teeth.

The action of him and Li Wanshun was very smooth at the beginning. They took advantage of the slackness of the palace capital army and captured Liangcang on Luochuan Road with only 300 casualties, thus controlling the most important source of supply for the army in the palace capital.

But before Wang Kangxin and Li Wanshun had time to get excited for too long, their nightmare came true. They were surrounded on all sides by the Gongdu army of 8,000 men.

In order to recapture the granary in Luochuan Road, the Gongdu army that attacked the city was completely reckless. No matter how bravely the Great Zhou Imperial Guards in the city fought, these Gongdu people still fought to the death. In just a few days, the Gongdu army suffered 2,500 casualties.

With such heavy casualties among the people in the palace, the Great Zhou Imperial Guards in the city were not much better off. More than half of the more than 2,000 people led by Wang Kangxin and Li Wanshun have now been killed. Even about half of the remaining people are injured. Not only that, even Li Wanshun was hit by a stray arrow and has been unconscious ever since. Only Wang Kangxin is left to command the army in the city.

Observing the enemy situation outside the city, although Wang Kangxin remained expressionless and looked calm on the surface, giving his subordinates a sense of peace of mind, he was actually very anxious in his heart.

Although he had repeatedly emphasized to his subordinates that reinforcements would arrive soon when the people of Gongdu were attacking the city, that was just a stopgap measure he adopted to boost morale.

There are only about 5,000 soldiers left in the palace army outside the city, and less than 1,000 Zhou army soldiers inside the city. If reinforcements do not arrive, under the current situation, he can only hold out for one day at most. After one day, the granary in Luochuan Road will be breached!

According to Wang Kangxin's own calculations, it would take at least two days for the reinforcements to reach the Luochuan Road granary from Wanfeng Prefecture. Although the difference between the two seemed to be only one day, that one day was enough to kill all of them. If that time really came, Wang Kangxin would only have two options.

There is nothing much to say about the first one, that is, fight to the death, fight in the streets when the city is broken, shed every last drop of blood of the Great Zhou soldiers, and then burn all the food in the granary so that the palace army will get nothing. Of course, with such an extreme situation, the fate of Wang Kangxin and his Great Zhou soldiers can be imagined.

The second option is to abandon the city and escape. The purpose of the palace army outside the city is to recapture the granary in Luochuan Road. They are not very interested in destroying their Zhou army. As long as they abandon the city and break out, the palace army will definitely not chase them.

Although Wang Kangxin's head was temporarily saved by doing this, his abandonment of the city and escape officially declared the conspiracy of the Supervisory Office bankrupt.

In this way, even if Wang Kangxin's uncle Wang Zhongsen was a captain of the Supervisory Office, it was inevitable that Wang Kangxin would be used as a scapegoat by the Supervisory Office and thrown to the noble families to appease their anger.

Therefore, Wang Kangxin knew very well that although he seemed to have two paths to choose from, in fact he only had one path. If the time really came, he could only die here, in this Luochuan Road granary!

Thinking of this, Wang Kangxin was filled with resentment and unwillingness...
As a military commander who had become the commander of the seventh-rank imperial guards in his early twenties, Wang Kangxin had always been ambitious and conceited, believing that he would be granted a title of nobility and become a prime minister one day, and that this change in the palace was just a stepping stone on his road to success.

When planning this operation with Li Wanshun, Wang Kangxin had already anticipated that after they captured the granary in Luochuan Road, the number of Gongdu troops besieging them would reach 8,000 people, and Wang Kangxin also made some preparations for this.

However, what Wang Kangxin never expected was that these people from Gongdu, whom he had always looked down upon and regarded as a group of rabble who would be deterred whenever they encountered a tough challenge, actually dared to fight him to the death and attacked the city without caring about casualties even though the casualties had reached 30%.

If these people were not still wearing the blue Gongdu military uniforms, Wang Kangxin would have really doubted whether this group of people were still the Gongdu army.

“Woo…Woo…”

Seeing the shrill horn sound coming from the Gongdu military camp outside the city again, hundreds of Gongdu troops gathered again, and huge stones were loaded on the catapults. Wang Kangxin's eyes became firm again, and he turned around and shouted loudly with all his strength:
"Great Zhou Wansheng!"

"Wan Sheng! Wan Sheng!"

Although they had not yet fully rested, the soldiers of the Great Zhou Dynasty on the city wall still gave an earth-shattering response.

Hearing the shouts coming from the top of the city wall, Zhao Lianggao, the anti-rebellion general who was surrounded by other generals in the palace camp, immediately looked over.

As one of the few surviving veterans in the army after the palace strife, although Zhao Lianggao was over 50 years old, he was still very trusted by King Lee Jae-won. He served as the general to suppress rebellion and commanded a palace army of 5,000 people. The Luochuan Road granary was one of his defense areas.

(End of this chapter)