The rainy season leaves on an inconspicuous night. The next morning, when the sun broke through the darkness and the sky became clear again, people cheered enthusiastically.
The siege camp soon began to get busy, and the warriors were finally able to take out the moldy clothes to dry. Also drying are piles of slightly moldy tortillas at the entrance of the warehouse.
On the hills not far away, the majestic warriors were sitting cross-legged among the lush grass. While enjoying the comfortable sunshine, they looked at the wooden boards in their hands with a sad face, and followed Shulot to learn the terrible "words" with difficulty. ".
Looking at the number of people on the grass, Shulot sighed slightly.
He said to Bertard next to him: "During this period, the food supply in the camp is not sufficient, and coupled with the rain, it seems that many warriors are sick in bed."
Bertard nodded: "In the camp directly under the royal family, there are two to three hundred warriors who fell ill due to acclimatization. The other two camps will only be worse. Fortunately, only two of the warriors who followed were sick. It is estimated that It was moldy tortillas.”
Xiulote nodded, and then looked worriedly into the distance. There was the camp of the city-state warriors. His father led the Teotihuacan legion there, and he didn't know what the situation was.
"The priest indeed has divine revelation. The ritual of boiling water and drinking it is indeed effective." Bertard said to Xuellot with admiration.
Shulot smiled helplessly. At first, he told the warriors who followed him to boil the drinking water before drinking it to reduce diseases during the rainy season.
But in this era, without metal tools, woodcutting and making fire were indeed very hard jobs. The samurai were not willing to spend hours just to drink some hot water.
In the end, he could only tell his followers under the guise of mythology: "Shulotel, the god of death, has the duty to protect the sun, and will be lenient to those who use flames to pray." Then he reluctantly carried out the habit of drinking boiled water.
"The rainy season is finally over. From now on, the transportation and loss of food will be greatly improved, and everyone can eat tortillas as much as they want." Xuelote smiled, encouraging his followers who continued to study despite the food in front of them. "Come on, keep studying, you are all the pillars of the country!"
However, the arrival of the dry season did not make everything better. Normal grain transportation only lasted for less than two weeks. In late November, news of attacks on grain transport teams came repeatedly.
Avitt and Xullot sat cross-legged opposite each other in the hut, and Bertard sat behind Xullot.
"Two days ago, a 100-person grain transport team was attacked. Of the 100 militiamen, not a single person escaped." Avit said with a serious face: "All the militiamen's clothes were stripped off. They should belong to Otomi. Mountain people.”
"This is the second time this week. Last time, the heads of the militiamen were beheaded and piled up into a demonstration pyramid. The clothes on their bodies were kept intact. They should be Otomi's warrior team." The calm Berta De added.
"It seems that a large number of Otomi people have sneaked into the forest behind us." Xiulote nodded. "Does the camp have enough food reserves?"
"The food in the camp can last for three months, based on normal consumption." Avitt smiled slightly, "The food situation is not urgent yet. It is impossible to maintain the existence of large troops in the mountains and forests for a long time. A small group of Otto The Mi people can only interfere with food transportation, but with their current capabilities, they cannot cut off our food transportation channels for the time being."
Xiulote nodded. The rear troops of more than 100,000 people still effectively maintained the logistics supply line of 70,000 elite troops.
"But this is a very bad omen. Where do these attackers come from?" Shulot asked seriously.
"Most of the warriors and almost all the militiamen should come from Guamare and Parmus. The scouts found that villages in this area have recently been recruited." Avitt has recently been in charge of the intelligence work of the army, and the security work is still done by the trustee. Turk concurrently serves.
"And a small number of warriors may come from Te Caicos in the further west and the mountains near Coahuila in the north. Although the Otomi city-states there are weak and remote, they can still send warrior squads of hundreds of people."
Thurot nodded, Tecaikos was more than a month away from Otopan to the west. Further west is the territory of the Tesk people, and the Tarascans are conquering there at this time.
And Coahuila is nearly two months north of Otopan's journey. It is full of desolate Gobi and barren plateaus. It is home to a semi-nomadic people called the Chichimecs. It is almost the edge of the Mesoamerican world. . Further north from Coahuila is the Texas prairie where bison can be caught.
"Besieged the city for more than two months, the Otomi people in various places finally responded." Then, Shulot asked, "Does the commander-in-chief have any plan to deal with it?"
"It's more than two weeks' journey from the city of Hilotepec to Otopan. The 40,000 militiamen camped in the middle can be used to maintain logistics and transportation, but their combat effectiveness is not enough for fighting. Totec is ready to mobilize from both ends. Two thousand warriors were divided into forty squads of one hundred men to search for the attackers."
Shulot thought for a while, then raised his head and said to Bertard beside him: "Bertard, can you lead a team of twenty people to participate in the battle to search for the Otomi team? We have to control it. The specific situation of the Otomi people fighting in the mountains. Be careful in the battle and collect more information."
Bertard bowed his head quietly and saluted: "I am happy to fight for you, leave it to me!"
So, the brutal strangulation in the forest soon began. Most of the samurai teams returned in vain in the search, but once a small number of samurai teams encountered them, they would fight to the death in the forest. In the dark forest, where the bodies of warriors and militiamen lay under the tall pine trees, they were no longer different. The blood moistens the soft soil, allowing plants to grow more lushly.
In a month of attacks and hunts in the mountains, more than a dozen Jaguar warriors were wounded, more than 400 warriors were killed, and 500 to 600 were injured. The Otomi casualties were only twice that, and most of them It's the militia.
The losses in such a forest attack were equivalent to a large-scale battle, and King Tisok was both angry and disturbed. The anger of the Mexican warriors was burning, most of it was directed at the enemy, and a small part was reserved for the king.
When Xiulote saw Bertard again, this jaguar-strength warrior still had a calm expression, but there was a bandage mark on his shoulder.
Xiulote was a little surprised. If Totec was not counted, Bertard and Orosh were almost the two most powerful warriors he had ever seen. He was nervously concerned about his number one warrior.
"It's nothing serious. I was just attacked by an Otomi hunter with a single bow. I have already applied the powder." Bertard shook his head. "The situation is not optimistic. The mountains and forests have given the Otomi people a lot of help." .”
"Otomi militiamen and hunters will set different traps, such as a dug pit with sharp sticks inserted below, branches set up as supports above, and then covered with shallow soil and turf. Once a person steps on it , if the weight exceeds, the branches will break, and the Mexican warriors will fall, injuring their legs and feet, or even die on the spot."
"There is also a kind of fork made of wooden spikes, which is hidden in leaves and grass. One end is connected with a rope to a curved large branch or small tree. Then the Otomi people will lure the warriors to pursue them. Once the warriors touch the ground Once the rope is pulled, the mechanism is triggered, and then the branch rebounds with the fork, like a full-force blow from a jaguar, which is so powerful that it can pierce the human body and leather armor."
"In comparison, I would rather meet the warriors of Otomi." Bertard said frankly, "The militia of Otomi can be used as half warriors in the mountains and forests, and a few hunters are as terrifying as jaguar warriors. "
"The mountains and forests broke up our powerful formation. The heavy obsidian war clubs consumed too much physical strength, and the militiamen's stone spears seemed flexible. Various traps can ignore the protection of leather armor and smooth out the gap in martial arts. Familiarity with the terrain still requires It allows the Otomi people to retain more energy and look for a more suitable time."
Bertard finally concluded: "We can no longer waste time with the Otomi in the mountains and forests. The sacrificial sacrifices of the warriors are too cheap. As long as we go to the plains for large-scale frontal combat, a Mexica warrior group can easily defeat five times the enemy." Otomi militia, and the casualties are ten times less than those in the mountains."
Xiuluo nodded, realizing that the army had actually fallen into the most primitive guerrilla warfare.
This kind of mountain guerrilla warfare will weaken the combat effectiveness of elite enemy forces and at the same time give mountain people who are familiar with the terrain a great combat effectiveness bonus, just like the historically difficult Swiss mountain people and South African Boers. Guerrilla warfare allows a weak party to achieve a balanced casualty ratio with an opponent whose combat capabilities are disparate.
"The location of the war must change," Shullot agreed.
The two of them were seriously analyzing tactics when they saw Avitt approaching in a hurry.
He stretched out his hand, grabbed Xilote naturally, and then said with a smile: "The king has convened a meeting, let's go there quickly."
