Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Before the slaves stumbled to Luzhai, the soldiers in the city started firing arrows, and suddenly the city screamed repeatedly...

Just when Koblebus bent their bows and arrows and drew out their javelins, the slaves in the city shouted: "Don't let the arrows go, I am Sifnos, Sifnos, the son of Sipacus!"

"I am Pararus! The neighbor of Askamas!"

...

The Crotone soldiers froze: it was not slaves under the city, but their compatriots who were captured after the defeat of the previous battle!

"Damn Siracusa! Dionysius the hell!" Askamas punched angrily on the battlement, his blood suddenly stained his fist, he did not expect Dionysius Even disregarding the Greek tradition, let the Greek captives serve as the meat shield consumed by the siege.

At this time, Dionysius, who had followed the arch of the bow and arrow, looked down at the city and sneered.You have to know that after the last battle, Syracuse captured nearly 10,000 captives. After torture, beatings, fasting, etc., it forced more than 2,000 people to pull out the village of Syracuse and fill it up. The moat in exchange for the promise not to be killed or sold as a slave.Of the 2,000 people, not only the Crotones, but also a few Siritines and Trines, but no Dionysians.On the one hand, Dionysian soldiers are the least captured, and more than half of them have been replaced by Dionysian. The remaining Bruti captives, Dionysius has other uses, and the pure Greeks Most of Lucanians have a tough temper...

Dionysius did not think about this annoying little problem. He was now proud of the strategy he used and wanted to see how the Crotonians would respond. For this reason, he ordered the archer to refrain from archery, to retain physical strength and arrows Then, when the whole army is attacking, it will remove obstacles for the army.

At the head of the city, the adjutant asked eagerly, "General, what shall we do?"

Askamas did not immediately answer, he let the guard bandage his left hand, while looking at the Crotone captives under the city under the persecution of the Syracuses, walked to the moat and carried the earth bag Throw it into the moat, and then turn back to destroy the deer's wall that the guards carefully arranged.

Askamas denounced these traitors, but he did not dare to order them to attack, because he thought: Crotone’s former enemy Turiri, their chief general Kunogolata, was ordered to close the city gates. Although the whole city was saved, some citizens were killed because of the death of the citizens. The people were not reluctant to do so. Not only did they expel Kunogolata but also hurt his family, but now he directly ordered the killing of Croto Even if the captives have repelled the enemy's attack, how can the families of these thousands of deceased hate themselves in the future, I am afraid that their end will be worse than Kunogolata!

Askamas is not a general who only knows about fighting. He is able to be elected as a general in the great Greek power state of Crotone with tens of thousands of citizens. His political literacy is not low.After quickly weighing the pros and cons, he said to the adjutant: "You immediately go to the city hall and tell the council about the situation here and let them decide."

After the adjutant left, Askamas saw that a small section of the moat was about to be cut off, he could not help but sigh, and ordered to the left and right: "Go and find some ropes, hang down under the city, so that they can grab and climb up. "

He didn't dare to open the gate, for fear that the Syracuse would take advantage of the influx.

The soldiers hurriedly found the rope to hang down the city, and then shouted to their compatriots: "Come here! Grab the rope and climb up!!"

Some of the captives stumbled across the filled moat when they heard it, but the light infantry of Syracuse immediately shot arrows at them, causing the captives who had never been fed and weak to be easily shot down.

Most of the soldiers in the city's head fought back in anger, and most of them were unable to hit the Syracuse people who were hiding behind the arrow car, but injured their compatriots by mistake.

The captives no longer dared to act rashly.

Seeing this scenario, Askamas reluctantly gave up the rescue of his compatriots.

The Crotone Council apparently had no ideological preparation for Siracusa’s use of captives to attack the city, and the dispute was fierce, but it was still unable to make a decision, which allowed the Syracuse people enough time for the captives to fill up several Duan moat cleared the Luzhai on both sides of the moat.

Askarmas looked at all of this depressedly, but he quickly forced himself to regain his energy: In this case, let us fight face to face!

As if hearing Askarmas's inner cry, the captives were driven back and never appeared again.

Seeing everything is ready, Dionysius gave the command on the high platform ambitiously: "Offense!"

As soon as the voice fell, I felt a cold face, and I touched it, it turned out to be water.

It's raining?Dionysius looked up at the sky. Before the clear sky somehow became gloomy, although it was only a small raindrop, Dionysius was a little worried because the weight of the siege tower would cause the land to become soft after being soaked in rain. And caused the wheel to sink into the mud and unable to push.

"Speed ​​up the attack!" He gave the order again.

The bugle sounded long.

Stone bombs over the city of Crotone continued to roar past, and the dark enemies under the city slowly flowed like tide...

The sound of bugles, drums of war, shouts, footsteps... mixed together, hitting the eardrums of the soldiers, making them breathless.

"It's starting." Askamas whispered, picked up the javelin, and walked to the battlement.

At this moment, a black spot suddenly passed over the top of his head, followed by another...

He immediately widened his eyes and looked up, and heard the soldiers next to him shouting excitedly: "Our ballista! Our ballista finally started to show power!!"

It wasn’t Crotone’s ballista... Askamas thought to himself, but when the soldiers’ morale rose, they didn’t care anymore. Instead, they felt thankful: Fortunately, Dionia and Croto Stand together inside!

The Crotone soldiers were excited, and the Syracuses were anxious, especially Dionysius, who saw with his own eyes that the stone bombs flying from the city almost hit the siege tower not far from the barrier .

He heard Fasi Pesas said,'Dionia also has ballistas.'Because Crotone was not used in the previous two days, he thought that Dionysia did not lend Crotone such a weapon with complicated production processes, expensive materials and powerful weapons, but It is used to defend Asprostum, but Crotone has been hidden until now, and Syracuse did not start to show power until he attacked the city with all his strength.

"Cunning Crotonians!" Dionysius scolded. He knew that the enemy's ballista was aiming at the siege tower, but he could only hurry: "Notify our ballistas that a crossbow may be placed in the enemy city. Attack the cannon area!"

Although Dionysius gave the order, he also knew that the accuracy of the ballista was not high enough. It was too difficult to hit the enemy ballista when it could not be seen, but the siege troops had already Approaching the city wall, the ballista can no longer bombard the city wall, so as not to accidentally injure yourself, it is also good to make some attempts to disturb the city of Crotone.

In front of a huge tide-like siege team, the enemy has no more than a dozen ballistas.Dionysius made a quick decision. Under his instructions, hundreds of archers on the earth's base began to shoot arrows at the city ahead, suppressing the enemy's attack on the soldiers under the city.

The Crotone light infantrymen at the head of the city began to pour arrow rain towards the enemies approaching the moat.

The Syracuse crossed the filled moat, braved the javelin thrown by the Crotone, and put the carrying ladder on the wall.The Crotonians have experienced many siege experiences and the specially made ladder has two curved iron hooks at the head, which can hook the battlements so that the ladder will not be easily slipped or pushed down.

Crotone soldiers could not quickly push down the ladder, so they had to throw javelins and stones down to attack the enemies in the city, dump the tung oil, and burn the ladder with fire...

The Syracuse Light Infantry also came out from behind the arrow shield and rushed down the city to shoot arrows at the head of the city to reduce the attack of the defenders on the siege soldiers...

Syracuse's siege equipment advances the slowest.At the forefront were those covered wooden wheels driven by the people in the car, and finally rushed to the filled moat. Under the protection of the roof, the people in the car picked up the tools and began to re-consolidate the ground. Fill the gap with mud, and then lay planks to ensure that the heavy siege tower can pass through the moat.

Dionysian ballistas are concentrated not far behind the west wall, the distance is widened, and there are houses around it, which is relatively safe.However, due to the wide spread of the ballistas, it was impossible to adjust the trajectory with the same data after the attack target calculation. There were not so many artillerymen from several colleges, so Kurdorode made a recommendation: ten ballistas bombarded at the same time A region or a target can improve the accuracy of hits.After the ballistic artillery commanded by him makes the first shot, other ballistas can adjust the launch data according to the height and speed of the stone projectile.

This proposal was accepted by the Ballista team, and now their primary goal is the siege tower approaching in front of them.

Kurdorod has been watching the observer holding the colorful flag high on the city wall. The position he is standing at is exactly the direction of the siege tower, and the number he uses in the air to mark the air is the distance between the siege tower and the wall, and then observe The hand points the flag to the left. After this action is repeated twice, the number of strokes is the azimuth and distance of the stone projectile previously launched by Kurdolod.

The first two launches failed to hit. Kurdolod felt the pressure. He wiped the rain on his face to make his sight clearer. He knew that he had to hit as soon as possible, otherwise the rain would have been falling and the crossbow After the cannon's spring set is wet, the elastic force will change, making it more difficult to judge the accurate trajectory.