The thunder of imperial war drums became unrelenting, a sound that never ceased, like the heartbeat of some colossal beast that did not know sleep. Each dawn, as the pale light crept over the horizon before Guangling, new silhouettes of siege engines rose into view. Towering wooden behemoths, clad in hides soaked to resist fire, creaked forward like giants of another age. Catapults hurled stones so massive they could shatter entire buildings with a single strike. Battering rams advanced beneath roofs of timber and iron, their heads like the jaws of monsters eager to devour gates. The imperial camp itself seemed less like a gathering of men than a mechanical forest, a living factory where thousands of soldiers moved as cogs in a war machine built for one purpose only: to smash walls to rubble.
Chancellor Luo Wen had sworn that Guangling would not endure. Now, step by step, he fulfilled that oath with a discipline that admitted no hesitation and no pity. Each day, without exception, he ordered waves of attackers against the city. At times they were the pressed peasants, driven forward in masses, thrown at the battlements like worthless kindling to feed the flames. At other times, they were the seasoned cohorts, the iron backbone of the Imperial elite, advancing beneath the shelter of rolling siege towers. What had once been a blockade was now transformed into a storm of blood and steel, a daily hammer blow that fell again and again with the absolute certainty that, sooner or later, stone would crack and flesh would fail.
The defenses of Guangling groaned beneath the pressure. Inside the city, the very air seemed heavy—thick with the acrid tang of smoke, the choking dust of shattered stone, and the stench of rotting corpses. The walls still stood, but they bore scars: sections splintered by stones from the enemy's engines, towers blackened by fires hastily quenched, gates reinforced with crude timbers nailed in panic. And yet, every night, teams of laborers worked tirelessly by torchlight to mend what the day had broken, hammering, patching, and praying that their repairs would last long enough to withstand the next assault.
Wei Lian herself walked the ramparts each day, keenly watching her men. The hardened veterans clung to their discipline, but the hastily raised militias and the raw young recruits already carried exhaustion in their eyes. Even so, no one fled. They all understood what was at stake. Beyond these walls there was no refuge, no second line of defense. Guangling was the final wall, the last sanctuary.
Zhao Qing, ever frank, stood beside her and spoke without disguise:"If this continues at the same pace, our numbers will not suffice. Luo Wen does not hesitate to spend thousands of lives. We do not have thousands to spend."
Wei Lian clenched her jaw until her teeth ached. The truth could not be denied. Each day cost them hundreds of lives, and though the walls still held, their defenders were being drained away drop by drop. In the streets of Guangling, makeshift funerals multiplied. Public squares filled with the sobs of widows, the cries of orphans, and the moans of the wounded.
One evening, after a particularly brutal onslaught, Wei Lian summoned her council of war in the governor's hall. The air was thick with fatigue and dread."There is no other path," she declared, her voice sharp as steel. "Guangling cannot be held with soldiers alone. We need more arms to bear weapons."
The generals exchanged grim glances. They all knew what she meant, though none wished to say it aloud. At last, Zhao Qing gave a slow nod."You mean… the civilians?"
"Yes," Wei Lian replied without pause. "Every soul who can raise a spear, draw a bow, or even throw a stone must take part. This is not a choice—it is survival itself."
That night, the order rang through the city. Bells tolled, and heralds cried out through the streets: the young, the artisans, the merchants, even the boys barely grown and the grey-haired elders, all would be conscripted as militia. Strong-willed women came forth as well, some gripping kitchen knives, others hefting the axes of woodcutters. By midnight, Guangling was no longer merely a city—it had become an armed camp, an improvised army unto itself.
Training was almost nonexistent. A few hurried drills: how to brace a spear, how to steady a shield, how to hurl a rock from the ramparts. There was no time for more. The arsenals handed out whatever could be found—warped spears, bows that creaked with age, swords dulled by rust, farming tools hastily refashioned into weapons. Quality mattered little; what counted was numbers.
And when the Imperials came with their next assault, they were met with a sight they had not expected: not only soldiers lining the walls, but merchants clutching spears, artisans fumbling with bows, children rushing along the parapets with buckets of water to douse flames. The whole city had risen, and every inhabitant fought for their own life.
The clash that followed was a slaughterhouse. Siege towers ground forward until their bridges dropped onto the walls, and soon the fight was hand-to-hand. Civilians and soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, stabbing, pushing, and grappling against the flood of Imperials. Many fell screaming into the void, their bodies breaking on the stones below; others were skewered on pikes before they could cross.
It was in those moments of peril that Wei Lian proved she was not only a strategist but a warrior born. Whenever the militia faltered—whenever panic opened a gap in the line and Imperial soldiers began to gain a foothold on the ramparts—she was there. Clad in light armor, curved blade flashing in her grip, and always flanked by her loyal guard of elites, she threw herself into the thick of the fray. Her presence alone rekindled courage in hearts that had nearly given way.
"With me!" she cried, voice ringing clear above the chaos, as she drove headlong into clusters of enemy soldiers scrambling across the bridges.
With methodical fury, cold and unyielding, she led counterattacks that swept the invaders back, driving them down from the parapets and into the towers they had climbed. Farmers and merchants alike, seeing her fight at the front, found new strength to hold their ground. Fatigue, wounds, terror—it all melted away under the fire of her example. As long as Wei Lian fought upon the walls, Guangling would not fall that day.
The Imperials did breach small sections, but every time a gap yawned wide, it was Wei Lian herself who stormed in to seal it, her sword raised high, cutting down foes in droves until her elite guard closed ranks behind her. Again and again, the city was dragged back from the brink of collapse.
By nightfall, Guangling still stood. Yet the price was dreadful. Hundreds of civilians lay dead. Streets ran slick with blood. Hatred for the Empire deepened into something raw and enduring.
From his command hill, Luo Wen gazed upon the city wrapped in smoke and chaos. He had lost thousands of conscripts and even some hundreds of hardened veterans. Yet his lips curled into the faintest shadow of a smile."Let them resist," he told Han Qiu. "The more they cling, the more they will bleed themselves dry. This city will eat its own heart before long."
Han Qiu, his beard grizzled with age and wisdom, frowned with concern."Chancellor, even with our strength, each day exacts a heavy toll. The men can see it."
"Victory is never cheap," Luo Wen answered, voice as unyielding as iron. "Guangling will fall. And when it does, its fall will stand as proof that nothing—no wall, no people—can bar the will of the Empire."
And so the siege ground on. Day by day, imperial catapults hurled stones and fire into Guangling. Houses blazed. Towers collapsed. The walls split and cracked. Each night, Wei Lian dispatched work crews under cover of archers' arrows to patch the breaches by torchlight, hammering stone into stone with desperation.
Life within the city became nothing less than permanent resistance. Workshops turned out endless arrows, makeshift spears, and wooden shields. Children served as swift-footed messengers, darting through alleyways with word from the front. The elderly cooked for the fighters. Every plaza became a barracks, every street a barricade.
When Wei Lian walked the walls now, she saw exhaustion in every face, yet also a flame she had not foreseen. She had forged Guangling into a single will, one voice shared by all: resist, or perish.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor pressed ever harder. He ordered night assaults, denying the defenders their rest. Imperial drums beat without cease, a merciless pounding that wore at the mind like waves on stone. Each day, more attacks—first waves of conscripted peasants, then seasoned cohorts. The siege had become a cycle of slaughter, grinding both sides, but never stopping.
On rooftops, mothers clutched their children as stones crashed down. On the walls, men fought until they could barely stand, snatching sleep in stolen moments, then rising to fight again. Guangling teetered on the very edge of collapse—yet still it did not fall.
Wei Lian knew it well: each day endured was itself a triumph. The Empire advanced like a river of iron, unstoppable in its flow—but as long as Guangling stood, that river would not yet reach the heart of the North.
"We will endure," she told Zhao Qing one night, gazing at the horizon where thousands of imperial campfires burned like stars fallen to earth. "We will endure until the Chancellor himself is worn to the bone."
Zhao Qing said nothing. He knew Luo Wen's reservoirs of men were vast, and his will was unbreakable. But he also knew this: Guangling was more than just stone and mortar. It was the last refuge of an entire people. And though its walls might shudder and crack, so long as even a single hand could lift a spear in its defense, the city would not fall without leaving the Empire forever scarred.
The siege had entered its most brutal phase. Imperial engines roared night and day, and Guangling's walls trembled under the weight of an enemy that had never learned the meaning of rest. The city was stretched to its very limits, but it had not yet been broken. And in that liminal space—on the very edge between survival and ruin—the war of attrition reached its climax, transforming every stone, every street, and every life into part of a struggle that would decide the fate of the entire North.