The slaves staggered to Luzhai, and the soldiers on the city began to fire arrows, and screamed in pain under the city...

Just as Kolebs and his friends bent their bows and arrows again and pulled out the javelin, the slaves under the city shouted: "Don't shoot arrows, I am Siphonus, Syphonus, the son of Siphonus!"

"I am Pararus! Askamas's neighbor!"

...

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

"Damn Syracuse! Dionysius who should go to the underworld!" Askamas punched the battlements with anger, and blood immediately dyed his fists red. He did not expect that Dionysius would ignore Greek traditions and let Greek prisoners act as the meat shield for siege.

At this time, Dionysius, who had already followed the archers to the ground, looked down at the city with a sneer on his face. You should know that after the last battle, Syracuse captured nearly 10,000 prisoners. After intimidation, beating, fasting, etc., more than 2,000 people were forced to pull out the Luzhai under the city and fill the moat for Syracuse in exchange for the promise not to be tortured or sold as slaves. Among these 2,000 people, not only the Crotones, but also a few Silits and Trinas, but no Dionys. On the one hand, the few soldiers of the Dionys were captured at least, and more than half had been replaced by Dionys. The remaining Brutis captured Dionysus had other uses, while the pure Greeks and Lucanians were mostly stubborn...

Dionysius did not think about this annoying little problem. He was now proud of the strategy he used and wanted to see how the Crotones would deal with it. For this reason, he ordered the archers not to shoot arrows first, retain their physical strength and arrows, and wait until the entire army attacked, and then clear the obstacles on the city wall for the army.

On the top of the city, the adjutant asked anxiously: "General, what should we do?"

Askamas did not answer immediately. While asking the guards to bandage his left hand, he looked at the Crotone captives under the city with heartache, walked to the moat under the pressure of the Syracuse people, threw the earth bags he carried into the moat, and then turned around to destroy the deer village carefully arranged by the defenders.

Askamas secretly cursed these traitors, but he did not dare to order attack them because he thought: Crotone's former mortal enemy Turiyi, their chief general Kunogorata, ordered the closing of the city gate. Although it saved the whole city, it caused the death of some citizens. The people refused to forgive him. Not only did they drive away Kunogorata, but they also hurt his family. Now he directly ordered the killing of the Crotone prisoners below. Even if he retreated from the enemy's attack, how could the families of these thousands of dead people not hate themselves in the future? I am afraid that their fate will be worse than Kunogorata!

Askamas is not a general who only knows how to fight. He was able to be elected as a general in the Greek powerhouse of Crotone, which has tens of thousands of citizens, and his political literacy is not low. After quickly weighing the pros and cons, he said to the adjutant: "You go to the town hall immediately, tell the council what is happening here, and let them make a decision."

After the adjutant left, Askamas saw a small section of the moat that had been cut off, and couldn't help but sigh and ordered his left and right: "Go and find some ropes and hang them down to the city so that they can grab them and climb up."

He dared not open the city gate, for fear that the Syracuse people would take the opportunity to rush in.

The soldiers hurriedly found the rope and hung it under the city, and then shouted to their compatriots: "Come here!! Hurry up and grab the rope!!"

After hearing this, some prisoners staggered across the filled moat, but the light infantry in Syracuse immediately shot arrows at them, so that the weak prisoners who had never eaten enough and were easily shot down.

The soldiers on the city wall fought back angrily, and most of them were unable to hit the Syracuse people hiding behind the shield, but instead accidentally injured their compatriots.

The captives no longer dare to act rashly.

Seeing this, Askamas reluctantly gave up the act of rescuing his compatriots.

The Crotone Council was obviously not prepared for Syracuse's use of prisoners to attack the city, and the debate was fierce, but it was still unable to make a decision, which gave the Syracuse people plenty of time for the prisoners to fill several long sections of the moat and clear the Luzhai on both sides of the moat.

Askamas looked at all this depressedly, but he quickly forced himself to cheer up again: Since that's the case, let's fight face to face!

As if he heard the cry of Askamas in his heart, the captives were driven back and never appeared again.

Seeing that everything was ready, Dionysius issued an order with confidence on the platform: "Attack!"

As soon as he finished speaking, his face suddenly felt a chill. When he reached out to touch it, it turned out to be water.

It was raining? Dionysius looked up at the sky. The clear sky had become a little gloomy at some point. Although it was just a small drop of rain, Dionysius was a little worried because the weight of the siege tower would cause the land to become soft after being soaked in rain, causing the wheels to sink into the mud and unable to push.

"Start the attack!" He issued an order again.

The military horn kept ringing.

Stone bombs kept whistling past Crotone's inner city, and the dark enemies under the city slowly rushed in like a tide...

The sound of bugle trumpets, war drums, shouts, footsteps... mixed together, hitting the eardrums of the soldiers guarding the city, making their breathing rapid.

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

At this moment, a black dot suddenly flashed over the sky behind his head, followed by another...

He suddenly widened his eyes and looked upwards, and heard the soldiers beside him shouting excitedly: "Our crossbow! Our crossbow finally begins to show its power!..."

That was not Crotone's crossbow... Ascamas thought to himself, but when the soldiers' morale rose, he stopped caring about it. Instead, he felt glad in his heart: Fortunately, Dionia and Crotone stood together!

The Crotone soldiers were excited, and the Syracuse people were anxious, especially Dionysius, who saw with his own eyes that almost all the stone bullets flying out of the city hit the siege tower not far from the earth.

He heard Fascipes say, 'Dionia also has a crossbow.' Since he had not seen Crotone use it two days ago, he thought that Dionia did not lend this kind of weapon with complex production processes, expensive materials and powerful consumption, but used it to defend Asprostum. Unexpectedly, Crotone has been hidden until now, and it did not start to show its power until Syracuse attacked the city with all its might.

"Crazy Crotone!" Dionysius cursed. He knew that the target of the enemy's crossbows was to siege the tower, but he could only do it in a hurry: "Notify our crossbowsmen to attack the area where the enemy's city might be placed!"

Although Dionysius issued an order, he also knew that the accuracy of the crossbow cannon was not high, and it was too difficult to hit it when the enemy's crossbow cannon was unable to see the position of the enemy's crossbow cannon. However, when the siege troops had approached the city wall and the crossbow could no longer bombard the city wall, so as not to accidentally hurt his own people, it was also good to make some attempts and disrupt the inner city of Crotone.

In front of the huge siege team like a tide, the enemy had only a dozen crossbows, and could not make too big waves at all. The key was to capture the city head first! Dionysius made a quick decision. Under his instructions, hundreds of archers on the earth tower began to shoot arrows at the city head directly in front, suppressing the enemy's attack on the soldiers under the city head.

The Crotone light infantry on the top of the city also began to pour arrow rain onto the enemies approaching the moat.

The Syracuse people crossed the filled moat and braved the javelin thrown by the Crotones to put the ladder on the city wall. After many experiences in siege, the specially made ladder has two curved iron hooks at the end of the head, which can hook the battlements so that the ladder will not be easily slipped or pushed down.

The Crotone soldiers were unable to push down the ladder quickly, so they had to throw javelins and stones downwards, attack the enemy climbing the city, dump tung oil, and burn the ladder with fire...

The Syracuse light infantry also came out from behind the rattle, rushed to the city, and shot arrows at the top of the city to reduce the attacks of the defenders on the siege soldiers...

Syracuse's siege equipment was the slowest. The covered wooden wheels running in the front were finally driven by the people in the car, and finally arrived at the filled moat. Under the protection of the ceiling, the personnel in the car picked up the tools and began to re-stick the ground without distraction, fill the gaps with soil, and then lay wooden boards to ensure that the heavy siege tower could pass through the moat.

Dionia's crossbows were concentratedly arranged not far behind the west city wall, with wide spacing and house blocking around them, which was relatively safe. However, because the crossbows were spread wide, it was impossible to adjust the ballistics with the same data calculated after the attack target, and there were not so many more gunmen from the Mathematical Academy. Therefore, Kurdorod proposed a suggestion: ten crossbows bombarded an area or a target at the same time, which could improve the accuracy of the hit. After the first gun was fired by the crossbows he personally commanded, other crossbowmen could adjust the launch data by themselves according to the height and speed of the stone bullets.

This suggestion was recognized by the crossbows, and their primary goal is now to approaching siege towers.

Koldorod kept staring at the observing hand holding the colorful flags on the city wall. The position he was standing at was the direction of the siege tower. The number he used the colorful flags to gesture in the air was the distance between the siege tower and the city wall. Then the observer pointed the colorful flag to the left. After repeating this action twice, the number he followed was the direction and distance of the stone bullet fired by Koldorod.

The first two launches failed to hit, and Kurdorod felt pressure. He wiped the rain from his face to make his vision clearer. He knew that he had to hit it as soon as possible, otherwise the rain would keep falling, and the elastic force would change after the spring group of the crossbow cannon was damp, making it even more difficult to judge the accurate ballistics.

Happy May Day!!
Chapter completed!