"Ta da, da da, da da..."
Baron Quinnier tightened his grip on the horse's belly and ran towards the soldiers whose morale was at a low risk of collapsing on the battlefield.
His red shirt fluttered in the spring breeze, and the chainmail on his body made a crisp "thumping" sound as the horse's back rose and fell. It was difficult not to let people notice him.
"Everyone, charge! Go under their village wall and avoid the blind spots of catapults and archers! In this battle, for every enemy you kill, you will be rewarded with three copper coins!"
Baron Quenier could not think of a better way to boost morale. He believed that the top priority was to get these soldiers out of the shooting range of the trebuchets.
Although the trebuchets kept firing, all the stone bullets in front were aimed at the siege vehicles, because not many soldiers were hit by the pile of soldiers or were hit by the splashing rubble. Only twenty soldiers were left behind along the way. There were just a few corpses, far from the casualty ratio that would cause morale to collapse.
"Kill!" Baron Quinnell took the lead and rushed towards the village wall.
Knights wearing iron helmets, chain mail, and holding large fleur-de-lis shields, and mercenary privates wearing leather helmets and armed clothing also rushed forward. They were followed by freedmen soldiers and serf soldiers holding wooden shields.
"They're starting to charge, change the shotguns!"
On the trebuchet turret, Ryan, who was always paying attention to the dynamics of the battlefield, quickly gave instructions to the worker who picked up a large stone bomb from the ammunition pile next to him.
The worker put down the stone bullets and lifted a basket full of heavy pebbles from the side.
The two workers next to the trebuchet tried their best to rotate the cross lever of the trebuchet, and lowered the power arm again amidst the "crackling" sound of gears on the rotating shaft and the "crunching" sound of the coil tendons.
Ryan was very anxious. He knew that the workers had tried their best to increase the reloading speed, but judging from the charging speed of most enemies, I am afraid that after this round of shooting, they would almost enter the dead zone of the trebuchet.
"Ready, let go!"
"Snapped!"
Baskets full of cobblestones were thrown out at high speed. In the extremely frightened eyes of the soldiers charging in the open space, the cobblestones drew a beautiful arc and scattered like fairy flowers. They were rushing toward the charging enemy at high speed like hungry wolves. The soldiers pounced.
"boom!"
"when!"
"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!"
A knight raised his iris shield, and a pebble hit his shield. He felt that his hand was about to fall apart.
Just when he was lucky to have escaped, another pebble hit his Norman helmet. The strong Norman helmet made a sweet sound and was directly smashed into a big dent. The knight was also knocked to the ground, and a line was formed by it. Streams of blood surged from his Norman helmet.
A mercenary wearing a thick armor and a padded leather armor was hit in the chest by a pebble. While charging, he was tossed and fell to the ground. He couldn't breathe at all. The red blood couldn't stop flowing from his throat. Overflow.
He could not have imagined that he, who had killed so many civilians, businessmen, robbers, and soldiers, would be killed by a pebble half the size of a fist.
An unlucky black-bearded freeman soldier raised his old wooden shield in the "pebble rain". Unexpectedly, the pebbles smashed the wooden shield and hit him in the face.
Although the wooden shield buffered part of the power of the pebbles and could not prevent him from being killed by the stones, the black-bearded soldier who endured the extreme pain and rolled on the ground holding his face thought that it would be better to let him die directly. What kind of sin did you commit to deserve such pain?
The serf soldiers without any protection were the worst. The sound of broken bones was endless, and flowers made of blood bloomed everywhere. Brains were scattered on the grass like dandelions growing wildly on the grass in spring.
Every serf soldier who was hit, whether on his limbs or vital parts of his body, basically lost his ability to fight.
Suddenly, there were more than a dozen corpses in different postures and wounded people groaning in pain in the open space.
Their blood is flowing and sprinkled on the grass or farmland that has been cultivated. The flowers and plants that will grow vigorously in the coming year will thank them.
"Thank God, we finally entered the blind spot of the trebuchet!" Kunir's soldiers breathed a sigh of relief. At this time, their only remaining siege tower also entered a position one hundred meters away from the village wall.
"Slingers, shoot!"
Simon did not intend to give any chance of respite to the enemies who were approaching the village wall and entering the blind spot of the trebuchet turret. To be kind to the enemy was to be cruel to yourself.
Dense stones were thrown out from behind the wall of Verde Village. The sound of the shield being hit by the stones, the muffled sound of the stone hitting the human body, and the sharp screams of the person being hit were heard again at this time. There were sounds on the battlefield.
The slingers' accuracy was poor, and they could not see the enemy behind the village wall, so they could only use a dense saturation attack to throw stones outside the village wall with slings.
Therefore, the soldiers outside the wall who were hit by the stones thrown by the slingers were really unlucky. Even Baron Quinnier, who was riding at the front, was almost hit by the stones.
"Everyone, disperse!!!" Baron Quinnier quickly asked the soldiers to spread out to reduce the possibility of being hit.
The soldiers in the open space quickly widened the distance between each other upon command, and the situation was indeed much better than before. In fact, the distance between the soldiers was already relatively wide just now, and now it is even wider.
"Fire arrows, attack the siege tower!!!" Bill saw the enemy siege tower entering a position sixty meters away from the village wall, and loudly gave orders to the surviving archers on the wall.
The archers lowered their heads and drew fire arrows from the quivers at their feet. The arrowhead of the fire arrow was hollow and had been stuffed with linen soaked in grease.
The archers put the nocks on their bowstrings and put the arrowheads into the brazier nearby. When he took it out again, the arrow burst into flames.
"Whoosh~whoosh~whoosh..."
The fiery red arrows were like locusts on fire, flying towards the clumsily moving siege tower.
"Damn it, they still have fire arrows!" Baron Quinnier was really shocked and angry.
He and his engineer Master Carlo have attacked many castles, but this is the first one as difficult as Verde Village. Not to mention, this seems to be just their outer village wall. There is also a wooden castle with a somewhat weird exterior shape on the hill.
He had never seen a noble build a trebuchet turret on the outer wall of his wooden castle. In this era when castles were just emerging, he had only seen defenses like this on the ancient walls of large towns left over from the Roman period.
Few ordinary castles could withstand the dual attack of his siege engines and siege towers, let alone the use of trebuchets to destroy his siege engines a hundred meters away.
He always felt that there was something indescribably weird about this Verde Village. Is this really a land blessed by God? Wait, that damn Fox who has been encouraging him to attack Verde Village has an ulterior motive and is colluding with the people inside the wall? He actually allowed his army to suffer such a big loss just to chew on this hard bone covered with thorns!
"I'll come and take care of you after I finish this battle!" Baron Quinnier glanced coldly at Fox, who was still lingering outside the bow and arrow range of the village wall on his pony.
However, for Baron Quinir, at least the situation has not reached its worst yet - the fire arrows cannot ignite the hides and shields on the front of the siege tower.
Shields and hides will not ignite easily unless the number of archers in Verde Village increases fivefold.
The fire arrows fired at the siege tower one after another only ignited a small half of the area of some shields, or caused the animal hides to burn black, smoke, and emit an unpleasant smell.
This is still far from making the entire siege tower ignite with raging fire and turn into a large burning pillar of fire.
"Archers, shoot the enemy's unarmored targets!!!"
Bill saw that the effect of the fire arrow attack was not satisfactory, and after asking Simon for instructions, he issued new instructions to the archers.
Now, the poor serf soldiers outside the village wall began to suffer again. The archers of Verde Village, who hunted in the forest almost every day, just changed their hunting place today - hunting behind the stacks of the village wall.
One by one, the "prey" without shields and wearing thin clothes ran forward about thirty meters outside the village wall. For the archers, this was easier than hunting hare or deer.
The archers in Kunir behind the shield in the open space also discovered that the cunning archers on the wall had begun to become as slippery as loaches - they basically shot an arrow now, then changed to another crenel and shot another arrow, and there was no pattern at all. Word.
"Asphalt, bring up the asphalt!" Simon turned around and shouted to the two young men standing by the asphalt cauldron under the village wall.
The two young men quickly lifted up the wooden buckets at their feet, each scooped out two full buckets of hot asphalt, and then carefully climbed the stairs onto the village wall.
"Two idiots, carry the asphalt over there, to the place where the enemy's siege tower is about to climb the wall!" Simon saw the somewhat dull young man carrying the asphalt up and running straight towards him. He couldn't help but point angrily. shouted from the other side of the village wall.
At this time, the enemy's siege tower had advanced to a position thirty meters away from the village wall. Two groups of free soldiers holding shields and ladders filed out from behind the siege tower, facing the rain of arrows and rushing towards the nearby village wall.
Soon, they became the primary targets of archers. However, most of the arrows were blocked by the shields in their hands.
The freedmen soldiers carrying ladders arrived at the base of the village wall and began to set up ladders on both sides of the siege tower where they were about to climb the wall, attacking the village wall first.
"Everyone cease fire, cease fire! Light the cup!"
Simon and Fatty carried their swords and walked towards the crenel where the enemy had set up a ladder. As they walked, they gave orders to the militiamen nearby.
The archers replaced their fire arrows, while the militia soldiers picked up the small clay pots that had been prepared from their feet. The small clay pot was filled with animal and vegetable oils mixed with asphalt, and a piece of cloth soaked in oil was plugged into the mouth of the bottle.
The militiamen lit the linen cloth on the mouth of the clay pot next to the brazier, picked up a few barrels of asphalt that had just been lifted up from under the village wall, and everything was ready.
"Bastards, please watch a fireworks show for free, and then enjoy a barbecue feast." Simon held the lit cup and taunted loudly toward the outside of the wall.
