Stannis's assault on King's Landing would not be slowed by the attention of various factions.
After five days of confrontation, Stannis had rebuilt a batch of siege weapons; though not as refined as the previous ones, they were still usable.
Stannis, who had long grown impatient, immediately ordered an assault from the Iron Gate.
The Iron Gate was located on the east side of King's Landing, right next to Blackwater Bay. Inside the city walls were Flea Bottom, Dragonpit, and the slums, while the other side of the road was enclosed by a high wall, within which were the residences of King's Landing's nobles.
Considering the terrain, this location was neither convenient for attacking nor defending.
The reason it was inconvenient for attack was that the area outside the Iron Gate was very small, with only a not-so-large open space, behind which were cliffs and Blackwater Bay, preventing the attacking army from spreading out. Inside the Iron Gate, there were numerous slum houses, full of obstacles, which also prevented the defending army from spreading out. Another point was that due to the terrain, the Iron Gate's wall height was much lower than other city gates, making it easier to climb.
However, attacking here gave Stannis a significant advantage: his fleet in Blackwater Bay could assist the siege, with their ballistas and trebuchets on board able to fire over the high wall and strike the defenders within the city.
Before the formal siege, Stannis played a trick, gathering a large number of commoners from outside the city, disguising them as soldiers, and assembling them near the Old Gate, making the defenders believe they were preparing to attack the Old Gate.
In reality, his true siege army had moved from the Kingswood outside the city to the Iron Gate, hidden, and upon Stannis's order, launched an attack, catching the defending Gold Cloaks and recruited defenders off guard.
Stannis's siege army once managed to scale the city wall and occupy it for a while, but the Hound, Sandor Clegane, leading the Kingsguard and a contingent of city defenders, arrived in time to provide support and drive Stannis's army off the wall.
At the Old Gate, after Tyrion discovered that the attacking army outside the city was a feint, he did not immediately send Adam Marbrand with the main force of Gold Cloaks to reinforce the Iron Gate. Instead, he had the Hound lead the newly formed city defenders to provide support, and at the same time, ordered Adam Marbrand to sally forth and attack the disguised army outside the city, treating this commoner-disguised army entirely as a regular army.
In this battle of true and false armies, Adam Marbrand easily routed this force, directly killing Rodland Storm, who was in command, and then pursued the victory, attempting to attack Stannis's rear camp, but was discovered by Ser Goode Morrigen, who set up an ambush within the camp, ambushing Adam Marbrand.
After suffering over two thousand casualties, Adam Marbrand led the remaining troops back to King's Landing. However, upon entering King's Landing, Tyrion had Adam Marbrand's army feign a triumphant return, and had Adam Marbrand hang the royal standard, which he had seized from Stannis's camp, on a spear, making it appear as though the army had broken through Stannis's camp. Coupled with the previous routing of the disguised army, this created the illusion among the city's observers that Stannis was nothing special, thereby greatly boosting morale.
Afterward, Tyrion offered high prices to continue recruiting city defenders. Perhaps thinking Stannis's army was easy to deal with and that victory would soon be theirs, allowing them to share in good spoils, more and more people joined the city defense. In a short time, the newly formed city defense force grew to over ten thousand people.
Although the number of these people was astonishing, just like the commoner force Adam Marbrand had routed earlier, they had no combat effectiveness and were purely sent to the city walls as expendables.
However, even so, Tyrion still paid a considerable sum for this, but the empty treasury simply could not afford it, so he had no choice but to find another way, such as taking it from his sister, Queen Mother Cersei.
"You filthy idiots, get out of here, all of you! This is not where you belong!" Cersei directly blocked Bronn, a mercenary who was barging into her bedchamber, yelling at him and the dozen mercenaries following him.
"Dearest sister, we will certainly leave, but only after we get paid." Tyrion emerged from the crowd and stood before Cersei, saying, "We need to hire a large number of people to expand the city defense army, but the treasury doesn't have that much money. I know you definitely have some here..."
Cersei immediately refused, "No, absolutely not! This is what I've accumulated over many years..."
Tyrion said with a serious expression, "Cersei, you haven't understood the situation yet. What we need to do most right now is defend King's Landing and defeat Stannis. If Stannis breaks into King's Landing, your possessions will eventually become his. Rather than that, it's better to use them now to recruit city defenders." As he spoke, he showed Cersei his hands and his clothes, saying, "Look, even I've taken out all my valuables. Now, everything must be centered on defending King's Landing."
Looking at Tyrion, Cersei's face was filled with hatred. In the end, she could only step back a few paces, sit on a chair, and say dejectedly, "Take it. Take it all!"
Upon hearing this, Tyrion immediately winked at the people around him. The city defense soldiers immediately entered the room, took out a box full of various gold, silver, and jewels from the wardrobe, and left the Queen Mother's room.
As Tyrion was leaving, he suddenly added, "Oh, and one more thing, if Joffrey could appear on the city wall, it would greatly impact our morale..."
"Get out! Get out!" Cersei yelled at Tyrion, grabbing a fruit knife from the table and brandishing it at Tyrion, saying, "Say one more word, and I'll use this knife to stab you through the throat!"
Tyrion knew it was not the time to provoke Cersei further, so he quickly scurried away on his short legs.
When they reached the Prime Ministers Tower, Bronn, who was accompanying him, suddenly asked in confusion, "Didn't you keep all your jewelry and valuables with Shae?"
Tyrion shrugged and said, "I only said I took out all my valuables; I didn't say I used them all for military expenses. Giving them to my woman is also taking them out, isn't it?"
Bronn raised an eyebrow, about to scoff at him, when he suddenly saw thick smoke rising from the distant city.
Tyrion also saw the thick smoke and was startled, thinking Stannis's army had broken through the city gate. But he quickly realized that the smoke was not coming from the city wall, but rather from near the Great Sept of Baelor in the city center.
Tyrion's mind immediately brought up what facilities were nearby, and he quickly pinpointed where the fire was, his face turning pale in an instant, while he cursed, "Damn it, it's the granary! The granary is on fire! Stannis wasn't attacking the city before; he was covering his inside men in the city!"
Just as Tyrion had guessed, Stannis, who was intimately familiar with King's Landing's defenses, knew that even the Iron Gate would be difficult to capture quickly. Therefore, his objective in attacking the city was initially to draw the attention of Tyrion and others, creating an opportunity for his inside men hidden within the city to burn the city's grain.
Originally, due to war and other reasons, large numbers of refugees had fled to King's Landing, increasing its grain consumption. The main grain supply areas for King's Landing were the Riverlands and the Crownlands, but grain production in these two areas had either decreased or ceased due to the war.
Although Tyrion had promptly purchased a batch of grain from Tumbleton and transported it to King's Landing via the Blackwater River in the shortest possible time after returning to King's Landing, this batch of grain was still insufficient for the entire city. However, if used sparingly, it could still last for one or two months.
And now, a large fire had been ignited in the granary. Although the monks from the nearby Great Sept of Baelor and the patrolling city guards managed to extinguish the fire in time, nearly half of the grain was still destroyed.
What was worse was that Stannis's inside men were also spreading various rumors within the city, such as the city's grain being insufficient, and that in the future it would only be supplied to the nobles in the Red Keep, while ordinary people in the city would starve to death.
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