total war rise of empire

Chapter 96 Battle Four (Subscribe)

Under the city of Megara, thousands of young Pylos slaves tremblingly held large wooden shields, lined up in a tight square formation, and faced the slowly gathering crusaders.

Behind these Pylos slaves is the Siris Revival Army with spears. The Pylos slaves in front don't have any weapons in their hands, only rough wooden shields made temporarily. Apart from being big enough, their defensive capabilities are not very strong. Okay, but it doesn't matter if the shield is low quality, these Pylos slaves holding wooden shields are human shields in Lei Zihao's eyes!
The Siris Spearmen behind were supervising these Pylos slaves, while stabbing the approaching enemy with their spears from behind!
In this way, the defenders under the city can save a lot of troops to strengthen the defense on the city wall!
After all, with the strength of the Crusaders, it was only a matter of time before the defenders under the city were defeated. Lei Zihao just wanted to use this method to consume the strength of the Crusaders as much as possible.

The Siris spearmen under the city were all promised in public that after the battle, their relatives would receive a large amount of food and coins as pensions. If they survived, they would have made a great contribution. After the war, they could get an intermediate "relaxation camp" Tickets!
The longer you persist, the more tickets you get...

In later generations, it may be very common to give pensions to the relatives of soldiers who died in battle, but in this world with backward productivity and frequent wars, pensions are quite a noble term, except for some wealthy kings and nobles In addition to promising pensions to his Janissaries and Guards in wartime, whether it is a mercenary or a standing soldier, he will lose everything when he dies...

At most, in some important battles, the commander-in-chief will add some accommodation expenses so that the assault troops acting as death squads can die in peace!

In this backward civilized society, it is not generous pensions that urge soldiers on the battlefield not to flee, but harsh punishments for deserters!
Once a deserter is caught by his own boss, the lightest crime is to be reduced to a slave. Some lords even use various means to torture the cowardly deserter in order to make an example of them, making their life worse than death!
It would be even more unlucky if the deserter had family members. If one person escapes, the whole family suffers. This is a common practice in the human society of this world...

Compared with the orcs who rely on bravery to fight, the dwarves rely on fortifications to fight, the night elves rely on racial glory to fight, and the human army relies on harsh punishment!

There are not many lords like Lei Zihao who kindly use pensions to the soldiers who died in the front line...

This is also Lei Zihao's shortcoming. Whether it is the population of Longhan City or Siris, it is too rare compared to the human main world. With the population, how many hundreds of people are there enough for him to scare the monkeys?
As the drums of the Crusaders sounded, the large trebuchets set up took the lead in attacking!

In order to avoid the smashing stones, there were only a few sentries on the Megara city wall to observe the enemy's attack, and Lei Zihao's main force hid in a safe place behind the city wall!

Boulders fall and gravel flies up. This ancient and effective attack method, although the pace is a bit slow and the accuracy is about zero, is still quite shocking to people's hearts. Before the emergence of artillery, the trebuchet can be said to be the most powerful. A destructive siege machine!
Lei Zihao narrowed his eyes and watched the huge boulder fall. After seeing the destructive power caused by the city wall, he was slightly relieved. The Megara city wall was quite powerful. With such a smashing method and hit rate, the Crusaders could throw stones for a month. , and can't smash the Megara city wall out of the gap!
After all, the Crusaders used crude trebuchets made from local materials in the Greek peninsula. The load-bearing capacity and hit rate were far inferior to the hardcover torsion trebuchets!

The commander-in-chief of the Crusaders did not expect to be able to blow down the city wall of the Seres with the trebuchet alone. The function of the trebuchet was mainly to hit the morale of the soldiers defending the city.

It was quite scary when the boulder fell and splashed red sauce on the human body!

Even the bravest warrior would not choose that way of death...

This is like, many people can accept their own death, but they cannot accept the truth that they are eaten and died...

Death is actually divided into many realms!
Faced with the falling of such an irresistible boulder, the soldiers seemed to comfort themselves with prayers...

Therefore, in ancient siege warfare, trebuchets were the most effective way to attack the morale of the enemy. This is also the reason why trebuchets, which have an extremely high hit rate and can only smash out gravel when blasting a city wall, were so popular in ancient warfare. !

Because the Crusaders came from across the sea, it was difficult to transport the installed siege equipment, so the craftsmen had to hurry up on the spot. Out of time considerations, the Crusaders only made some rough trebuchets and a large number of siege ladders. The crusaders, who had enough cannon fodder, directly chose the method of attacking the city with ants!

However, Alibach must first clear the infantry shield phalanx under the city of Megara!
At this moment when the siege began, the authority of the church was fully reflected in the Crusades!

The aristocratic armies who had conflicts with each other, big and small, gathered together regardless of previous suspicions under the strict warning of the deacon of the church, and launched a charge with various weapons!

The reason why there are all kinds of weapons is mainly because the first wave of charges are all cannon fodder such as temporary conscripts and farmer conscripts!

Obviously, Alibach did not intend to use the real main force before attacking the city wall of Megara!

The cannon fodder of the crusaders, armed with spears, wooden sticks, dung forks and other exotic weapons, with numb eyes, rushed into the effective range of the arrow rain at the head of Megara under the leadership of the leader!
When the cannon fodder of the Crusaders charged, the sentries on the wall of Megara issued a warning to the rear, and a group of neat troops came to the wall according to their functions. At this time, the catapults of the Crusaders did not Stop projectiles!

Soldiers on the top of the city have to face the pressure of boulders that will fall on their heads at any time!
It is absolutely impossible to say that it has no effect on combat effectiveness!

"Shoot the arrow!!!"

As the officers at various locations roared loudly, a black wave suddenly rose from the walls of Megara. After crossing a beautiful parabolic arc, it landed on the heads of the running Crusaders' cannon fodder!
Immediately, screams rang out from the cannon fodder cluster of the Crusaders, and the fairly neat charge formation was instantly disrupted!
This is the cruelty of siege warfare, and it is also the reason why the ancient army did everything possible to avoid storming the city. After this round of arrow rain, the crusaders cannon fodder fell at least a thousand people!

(End of this chapter)