Eagle Byzantium

Gawain and Giovanni, who were on the city gate tower, did not even move. They just watched the trajectory of the stone bullet passing over their heads. Then, there were more and more such stone bullets. Many soldiers were crouching down behind the wall or the city gate tower at first. They felt with some horror that the black shadows of the stone bullets thrown by the enemy flew past them like lightning. , but after a while, they felt that the bombardment of these stone bullets did not cause any substantial damage to them or the wall, so they gradually became braver, turned around, opened their eyes, and watched the stone bullets flying in the air with great interest. Ah fly.

Because under Gedier's design, the walls of the fortress were low and sloping, the Persian trebuchet with a parabolic trajectory flew very high before it even touched the wall of the fortress. It fell on the soft ground between the camps, or in the empty tents, or in the ditches filled with water.

"What's going on? When you were designing the trebuchet, you should carefully look at the enemy's camp regulations!" General Amasa, who was standing beside the trebuchet with slave soldiers and flags supervising the battle, was furious, "Now you trebuchets The stone machines are fixed with iron nails and wooden bases. It is extremely troublesome to dismantle them and then move back to change the trajectory. "

But the Persian craftsmen knelt in front of his horse and said that they had already prepared their backup plan.

What the Persian craftsmen call the "backhand" is the small serial trebuchets with four wooden wheels that then came out of the queue. A dozen people held shields, either guarding or pushing them, rumbling towards the camp. Go to the front line.

Surrounding this group of small trebuchets are fish-scale storm formations, including infantry, cavalry, archers and cupper men. Under the control of their respective flag bearers, they closely and bravely accompany the siege equipment and move toward Gawain's stronghold fell heavily.

"Porcupine arrows, shoot!" After the enemy array was approaching like a cloud and within the shooting range, behind Ziqiang and Juma, as Giovanni's flag waved on the city gate tower, several porcupine arrows were hammered. With a loud sound, bursts of crossbow arrows were fired again, flying into an overwhelming group of "black bats" in the mid-air directly in front of the camp, with a bloodthirsty whistling sound.

In an instant, the daring shieldmen at the front of the Amasa formation rushed to each of their own small trebuchets, forming a wall of shields and flesh: In order to save physical strength and increase the speed of reaction, they did not wear armors or helmets. , not even wearing weapons, most of them just wore identification headscarves, holding two shields on their left and right, facing the incoming crossbow arrows.

Under the hail-like blows of the "Porcupine", blood and flesh flew everywhere, and a large number of the death shielders fell down and died. The rest of the injured were wailing, some knelt down and rolled, and some stood there waiting for the blood to drain out and died. , some are scratching and trying to pull out and ejaculate The arrow clusters in the body and arms (but this is almost impossible. The crossbow arrows designed by Agnes have no feather tails, only a curved fin. Once wedged into human flesh and bones, and then lubricated by blood , cannot be pulled out at all).

However, the tragic casualties of this group of death shield bearers protected the safety of the small trebuchet gunners behind them. After moaning and twisting their bodies everywhere, Amasa's Persian gunners hurriedly lined up the discarded shields in front of the low transverse gun mount. Then the two of them used a rope and quickly pulled it to rotate the shaft. Flying like flying, with a dense rain of small stone bullets, they hit the defenders in the staggered sub-wall.

The two Porcupines were instantly smashed. Decius saw with his own eyes that a flying stone bullet cut off the heads of the two Porcupine gunners, and sprayed the bloody flesh onto the sub-wall behind them. There were traces of flowers.

Decius grunted, then turned to look at the enemy array about three hundred feet away - small trebuchets with wheels, arranged in a line at regular intervals, and the rotating shafts made a death-like laugh. With a loud sound, the arm went up and down, constantly raining down stones and bullets at the nearest location. The Turkic archers also poured out from everywhere and began to shoot arrows wildly to cover their own assaulters.

"Get down the bulletproof roll!" Decius made a decisive decision and shouted almost at the same time as Gedier, the engineering director at the top of the city. One or two soldiers stood up on the platforms behind the walls, swung their axes, and cut off the pieces hanging in front of him. the rope, then the pulley goo Lulu started to spin: the leather and linen rolls picked up on the dog-leg wood of the flat wall began to tremble and were spread flat. The sound of snapping suddenly sounded. They kept twisting and rising, blocking the stone bullets fired by the Turks. and arrows, causing them to fall to the ground one after another.

"Counterattack, don't think they are the only ones who can throw stones!" At this moment, behind the sub-walls closest to the city gate tower and on the city gate tower, Gao Wenfang's craftsmen and gunners were pulling ropes, Or they hammered the mechanism, concentrated fire and threw guava bullets and large iron spears at the enemies within the range, and launched a fierce counterattack.

The Turkic commandos who were originally crowded on the front line and preparing to attack the enemy were caught off guard by this wave of shooting. The front line was as if it had been swept by a sudden hurricane. Some three or four people were pierced by the iron spears fired by the crossbows, and some He was hit by a stone and his brains were all over the place. He fell down and was instantly The weapons were completely mutilated. Even the levers of several wheeled trebuchets were broken and they whirled and fell. Many Persian gunners' waists and legs were smashed by them. They fell to the ground with bleeding mouths and noses, crying. Flapping, begging their companions to remove the ejection lever pressing against their torso.

In the chaos, several Crescent Moon believers who were released by Gawain earlier (as expected, they turned around and joined the siege army) were the most active. They snatched the crescent moon battle flags from the dead and wounded, rushed to the front and waved them, and shouted to their companions, "Don't shrink back, everyone split up and charge at the gaps between their walls. The pagans and the guilty lack food and physical strength, and they have few soldiers, so they can't hold on for long!"

"Ungrateful bastards!" After seeing this scene, the soldiers guarding the city spread the news, and everyone's eyes were red. They held their weapons and stood up from the chevaux de frise and the platform, ready to fight with the Turkic soldiers pouring in.

Because according to Geddie's design, the more than 20 sub-walls in front of the city gate, each section is about 35 feet long, independently guarded, staggered in three rows, blocking the camp, and the gaps between them are filled with chariot guns with spears and trenches - so if Amasar made siege hammers and siege towers, he would not be able to bypass these sub-walls and reach the wall of Gawain's camp. He could only send lightly armed and brave soldiers to attack inside. After clearing the sub-wall positions, he could break through the enemy's city gate tower.

This is exactly the case. Groups of Turkic soldiers, carrying ropes and grappling hooks on their backs, carrying small shields with spikes, holding convenient scimitars and battle axes in their hands, split into several fierce torrents, rushed into the sub-walls and fought with the guards. (To be continued ~^~)