"heard it!"
"Remember! Thracians are invincible!"
“No one can defeat me!”
"Let's kill all those guys who call themselves civilized!"
At this time, the horn sounded again.
The Thracian army, now numbering more than 40,000, once again launched a fearless charge against the Byzantine city, and this time, the attacking team was a little different. In the middle of the team, there were about 3,000 soldiers wearing crude armor and scary ghost masks. These soldiers were obviously completely different from the Thracians around them. They were the most elite troops under the Thracian king, the hunters.
Their weapons are sharp daggers, short swords, and Thracian hook swords. These weapons require the user to have flexible combat skills, so they are not equipped with shields, but once they rush into the enemy's position, they will set off a bloody storm. Therefore, during siege warfare, once these Thracian hunters climb up the city wall, the defenders on the wall will encounter great danger.
Sitalces on the city wall.
He said to the officers around him:
"The hunters are out."
"hunter?"
"Yes, the hunters... are the most formidable troops under the Thracian king. They have... about 3,000 men, and their fighting power... is very fierce. They can deal with at least four or five of our heavy... infantrymen by themselves. They are particularly good at... close combat, and their fighting methods are... endless. I think they must have learned... from yesterday's lesson, and plan to... directly... conquer us this time." After Sitalses finished stammering, he turned around and continued to the officer, "Get ready, get ready, withdraw from the first city wall, just in case."
"Sir, will the first wall be lost?"
"Will do."
Once the hunters come up, it will cause huge casualties to the defenders on the city wall.
Sitalses remembered that Hilde had said that the life of any soldier was very precious, especially these conscripts, who were all civilians from Byzantium or the surrounding areas. If the civilians were injured too much, it would lead to serious social problems. Therefore, Sitalses had only one choice, which was to reduce the losses as much as possible to delay time. In itself, Sitalses' goal was not to destroy the enemy, but to delay time until Hilde's reinforcements arrived.
The officer also quickly took away Sitalses' statement.
The soldiers defending the first city wall were also ready for battle.
Sitalces could see.
The enemy's hunters are basically concentrated in the middle area.
It is estimated that the enemy intends to seize the city gate as quickly as possible, and then open the city gate to let the large army in. So, Sitalses quickly ordered the troops on the city wall to disperse slightly to both sides. Once the enemy hunters attack the city wall, then their soldiers will evacuate from the low wall as quickly as possible. At this time, the soldiers on the Hild Wall can shoot the enemy across the ten-meter-long moat.
Soon, the Thracians once again arrived at the city.
The bed crossbow is already loaded with ammunition.
They concentrated their shooting targets on the center of the enemy team.
That is the area where the hunters are.
The crossbow's projectiles were extremely fast, and no matter what kind of armor, they would never be able to stop this weapon. The projectiles flew quickly and hit the hunters' army. Several hunters wearing armor were directly smashed through. The armor was like a decoration, useless. However, even so, the hunters and other soldiers did not stop their pace. Instead, they quickly approached the city wall.
"Fire arrows!"
The soldiers on both the low wall and the high wall began to shoot arrows.
At the same time, the Thracian soldiers also raised their shields.
The Thracian soldiers in the front row used their shields to protect the hunters and those soldiers without shields, and the number of casualties was greatly reduced.
"This time, they really did come...prepared."
Sitalses looked at the Thracians, who had already arrived below the city wall.
It's almost time.
When the Thracians arrived at the city wall, they did not rush to put down the ladders, but threw out many hooks from the team. These hooks with ropes directly hooked the battlements of the city wall. At the same time, the hunters also grabbed their bodies and quickly climbed up the city wall with ropes. The hunters equipped the hook swords on the armor of both hands, and after climbing up the city wall, they drew out the two swords.
Chapter 7, Section 8: One-sided siege
The hunters were very fast. After they fixed the ropes, they immediately extended and retracted them to climb up the wall. The whole process was so fast that even the soldiers defending the wall didn't have time to react. After the hunters jumped onto the wall, they drew their hook swords and immediately attacked the defending soldiers.
"The enemy is coming!"
"I know."
Sitalses frowned as he looked at the battle situation on the city wall.
Hunter is almost the purest killing machine.
After they came to the wall with hook swords in hand, the heavy infantry with spears tried to drive the hunters off the wall, but before they could stab them, the hunters directly cut off their spears with hook swords, and then directly pierced the necks of the Byzantine heavy infantry with the sharp blades. The wall was suddenly in chaos, and the Thracians who followed took advantage of the chaos and quickly put up ladders.
"Retreat."
"Yes!"
Now, there is not much point in continuing to defend the low wall.
The clarion call for retreat was immediately sounded from the top of Hilder's Wall.
When the horn sounded, the soldiers immediately stopped fighting and began to retreat to both sides of the city wall. Sitalses had foreseen this and made preparations in advance, so the soldiers were able to leave the battle as quickly as possible and then cross the suspension bridge to the Hildeswall. The hunters originally planned to chase them, but the distance of ten meters was simply the best shooting distance for the soldiers at the Hildeswall.
The soldiers of the Hildeswall attacked the hunters and Thracian soldiers on the low wall from a high position. Although the armor on the hunters could block ordinary bows and arrows, it could not block the crossbows with steel arrows. Many hunters were shot and killed on the wall before they could catch up. Their bodies tilted and fell into the moat. At the same time, all the Byzantine soldiers returned to the Hildeswall through the drawbridge.
“There’s a bridge here!”
The hunters quickly caught up.
However, at this time, more than a dozen crossbowmen had already gathered at the entrances of each drawbridge.
When the hunters swarmed in, the crossbowman pulled the trigger, and the crossbow arrows pierced through the hunters in the front. At the same time, the crossbow cannons that were deployed behind the crossbowmen and hidden in the wall facing the drawbridge also fired. This type of crossbow cannon fired not stone projectiles, but giant crossbow arrows that were one meter long and had metal arrowheads weighing several kilograms.
The hunters walking on the suspension bridge had never expected this.
All I heard was a sharp sound of breaking wind.
The crossbow arrows pierced these people directly through their hearts.
Just like the meat on skewers when grilling.
The powerful crossbows could not stop their advance at all. They shot through more than a dozen people before they stopped. At this time, the drawbridge had been pulled up. The hunters who were shot dead could only roll into the moat as the drawbridge rose. The hunters were also dumbfounded. They thought that after breaking through this wall, the next one would be easier. But who could have thought...
Between these two walls.
It’s a ten-meter-wide moat!
Moreover, it is the kind of moat that has no foothold.
The city wall itself is the river bank. If you fall from the wall, you are bound to fall into the water.
When the officers of Byzantine City saw this, they couldn't help but laugh.
"These idiots!"
"Quick! Crossbowmen! Show them some color!"
The height of the low wall was about ten meters. When the Thracians climbed up the wall, they found that the Hildes' Wall in front of them was higher than they had imagined, a full twenty meters. The width between the two walls was only ten meters. In other words, the Byzantine attack was carried out from a height of ten meters within a distance of only ten meters.
Moreover, the Thracians had no means of defense.
The hunters who climbed up the city wall became the focus of attention.
Every crossbow arrow was poured into the hunters. The hunters who were so majestic just now had to fall into the water one after another under such a blow. The ordinary Thracian soldiers without any armor suffered even more severe blows. The distance of ten meters is one of the best application ranges of javelins. The Byzantine soldiers standing on high ground played their outstanding advantages as Greeks and kept throwing javelins.
Even soldiers with shields.
It will also be directly penetrated by the javelin.
A large number of corpses fell from the city wall and fell into the moat.
Many Thracians jumped into the river, only in this way could they have a chance of survival. However, heavily armored soldiers like Hunter basically sank to the bottom after falling into the water. The ordinary Thracian soldiers dropped their weapons, swam to the bottom of the Hildeswall, and then tried to climb up by relying on the uneven surface of the Hildeswall.
But when they looked up, they found that the Hildeswall was not vertical.
But it's tilted!
It was indeed vertical up to 15 meters, but the distance between 15 meters and 20 meters was an inclined design, so that the attack range on the wall was greater, and it was impossible for the soldiers to climb up along the inclination. The Thracian soldiers who fell into the river could only tremble and wait for the battle to end. After all, the water was three meters deep, and even if they swam, they probably didn't have the strength to swim to the sea.
Now, if this is Tartarus.
That's not an exaggeration at all.
This battle was far more terrifying than the previous attack.
The hunters, including the elite, were helpless in the face of the ten-meter-wide moat. At the same time, outside the ten-meter-wide moat, there was the twenty-meter-high Hildeswall. The Byzantine soldiers on top continued to attack the Thracians below with javelins, crossbows and stones. They had no way to retreat because the Thracians behind them kept climbing up the wall. The Thracians didn't know what was going on, so they just climbed up the ladder.
As a result, most of the dead fell into the river.
The survivors could only retreat and jump off the ten-meter-high city wall.
And here in Byzantium.
But a considerable number of javelins and crossbows were prepared.
So much that we can’t even use it all up.
Some Thracian soldiers also realized that relying on this alone would only lead to more deaths, so they focused their attention on the siege weapons abandoned on the low walls of the Byzantine city, such as ballistae or corpse dumpers. When they rushed over and found these weapons, they found that the turntables of these weapons were stuck.
The Night Before the Storm, No. 7, Section 9
Faced with such a situation.
The Thracian soldiers were in complete despair.
How can we fight this!
This almost one-sided massacre forced the Thracian soldiers to flee in panic. Fortunately, the following troops seemed to have noticed something. They no longer climbed up the city wall with ladders, but stood under the city wall, listening to the screams outside with sullen faces. Soon, many Thracian soldiers rushed down the ladders, and some even stepped on each other. In order to get down quickly, these soldiers did not consider the issue of order at all.
Some people even climbed down by stepping on their companions' bodies.
As more and more people came, the ladder could not even support their weight.
As a result, the ladder carrying more than a dozen people fell directly to the ground.
Many soldiers were killed or injured in the fall, but this was better than being slaughtered on the parapet. Those who did not have time to escape were shot by the Byzantine soldiers who were on high ground. When the Thracians were basically dead or retreated, the bodies of the Byzantines on the parapet had filled almost every place where the parapet could be walked.
Looking at the tragic scene before him, Sitalses couldn't help but raise his head and look at the sky.
it's getting dark.
Today's battle should be over.
The result of this battle was within Sitalses' expectations. There was no suspense in this battle. The Thracians, who lacked heavy siege weapons, could not attack the Hildesh Wall. This was beyond doubt. Now, the bodies of these soldiers were piled up together. Many of them were Sitalses' former fellow villagers. They came from Adlisia and fought for the Thracian king. Now, many of them died here.
"Clean up the bodies on the low wall."
"Yes!"
"By the way, if...if there are any survivors, remember to keep them and don't kill them."
Sitalses said to the officer beside him: "They don't want this either."
"...Yes, I understand, Lord Sitalses."
When the Thracian troops retreated.
The Byzantine army rebuilt the drawbridge and returned to the low wall. They examined the Thracian corpses, pulled out the arrows from their bodies for recycling, and then pushed the corpses under the city wall. These corpses would rot and breed bacteria if they were left there. Therefore, after a while, when the materials for Greek fire were ready, they would rebuild the Greek fire defense line and burn all the corpses in one go to avoid the plague.
As for those soldiers who were only breathing, the Byzantines put an end to their suffering. The Byzantines sent the Thracians who were only slightly injured and unable to move to the city, where the doctors in the city gave them simple treatment. As for those Thracians who fell into the moat and were still struggling, the Hildes used the prepared ladders to help them climb up the city wall. Anyway, after soaking in the water for a long time, they had almost no strength to resist when they got ashore.
Sitalses took a quick inventory.
This time, the Thracian casualties amounted to 7,000 people.
Two-thirds of the hunters who participated in the siege died. The heavy armor these hunters wore could not defend against the attack of steel crossbows, and after falling into the moat, their heavy armor directly caused them to sink to the bottom of the river and drown. The honor of the hunters made them absolutely unable to retreat. In the end, the hunters kept looking for ways to break through the Hildre Wall, trying to hook the Hildre Wall across a distance of ten meters with a hook, or to take away the crossbows or catapults on the low wall, all of which were done by the hunters and their men.
But they are elite capable.
But it is in the city defense system that is like a natural moat.
Like a joke.
The hunters were almost wiped out, which was fatal to the Thracian army.
Even if the Thracian king really captured the Byzantine city, such a huge loss would make it almost impossible for the Thracian king to resist Hilde's troops. It is easy to know that the Thracians, who had paid such a huge price for two consecutive attacks and had not achieved any results, were on the verge of collapse due to low morale.
Such tragic deaths probably made the Thracians lack the courage to attack the city a second time.
However, this is also what Sitalses is worried about.
He felt that the King of Thrace would be here soon.
This guy will never retreat just like that.
When he found that his army had no way to capture Byzantium, he would definitely go out himself and try to take the city directly. The Thracian king was a hero with strength and defense. His rock-hard muscles were almost invulnerable to swords and guns, and his powerful explosive power was more powerful than the shells of a crossbow, and could directly break the city gate. Therefore, if the Thracian king really went out, the gate of Byzantium would probably be in danger.
