Rome Must Fall

The scene was like a shepherd driving a flock of sheep. Although the number of Segestica warriors was far greater than that of the team led by Pequot, they were already overwhelmed by fear and had no courage to resist. They followed the crowd in panic and rushed towards the army of Desitiate.

"Segestica people, think about your great leader Andres, show your courage, and fight back! Kill the enemies behind you, they are so few, they are not your opponents!..." Temagis, who was at a loss for a moment, was so anxious that he rode his horse to the front of the fleeing soldiers and shouted urgently.

His guards rushed over and dragged him away from danger in time.

"Damn it! Damn the Segestica people! Damn it..." Seeing victory was about to be achieved, he did not expect such a big accident to happen. Seeing the defeated soldiers rushing to their front and then pushing their own soldiers like crazy... Desitiate's phalanx began to become disordered... Temagis felt a tightness in his chest. He could not bear to watch it anymore and turned his horse to run forward. He wanted to withdraw enough people from the front fighting team as soon as possible to calm down this ridiculous chaos.

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On the wooden wall of the village, Anlotas stared at the battlefield. It stands to reason that the arrival of reinforcements has relieved the village's predicament. As the leader, he should be happy, but his expression now is wooden.

"Leader, should we send out soldiers to help them kill the enemy as soon as possible?" His subordinates asked eagerly.

"Idiot! Don't you see that the enemy has been surrounded? The team we sent out may not even get close to the enemy. How can we help?" Anlotas scolded.

"It seems that the enemy will be eliminated soon. Should we prepare to welcome them into the village?" someone else asked.

"With so many of them coming, how can our village accommodate them? Aren't the military camps built by the Nix people still there? Let them live there when the time comes, so as not to disrupt the lives of the tribe members!" Anlotas said unhappily.

The people around saw that the leader was in a bad mood and did not dare to say anything more.

Anlotas was indeed resentful. He had sent messengers to Kabudes for help many times in the past few days, but he never received a response. He and his tribe members were frightened for so long. Now the enemy is about to withdraw, and the reinforcements have just arrived. What's the use!

It seems that Kabudes still has a grudge against me, which is why he delayed sending reinforcements for so long. In this case, I don't need to show my goodwill to him anymore. I still have to unite with Pricas in the future... Anlotas was thinking with a serious expression.

"Oh my God, look! Enemy reinforcements!" someone suddenly shouted.

Amid the panic shouts of the people around him, Anlotas came to his senses and looked west with everyone. He saw a long dragon that could not be seen at the end, moving towards this side extremely quickly along the river bank road...

"Quick! Go and inform Kabudes! Tell him that the enemy reinforcements are coming, and let him be careful!" Anlotas hurriedly told his men to report the news. Although he had a grudge against Kabudes, he did not want to see the coalition fail, otherwise his tribe would be finished.

In fact, the coalition scout had discovered the enemy before, but when he rushed back to report, he found that the battlefield was in chaos and could not find the leader for a while, so he had to report to Terles first. After all, there were few cavalrymen and they attacked alone. Terles was followed by a flag bearer so that he could command his men to charge at any time, so it was easier to identify.

It took Terles some time to gather his cavalry. The vanguard of Nix's reinforcements had bypassed the village and was heading towards the battlefield. Perhaps they saw the cavalry in front of them, so they quickly stopped advancing and began to reorganize.

Terles saw from a distance that the enemy in front of him had no armor, no big shield, and only had a short stick-like weapon in his hand... He had led the cavalry to attack Aulus's team several times before, but because of its tight defense, he did not achieve much results, but lost some of his men. At this moment, seeing that the enemy's reinforcements were so poorly equipped, how could he miss this great opportunity to annihilate the enemy? He immediately issued an order to attack.

The vanguard of the Nix reinforcements was the crossbowmen. They played an important role in the battle on the east bank of the Corana River, and no one was killed or injured. After the battle, they took the initiative to clean up the battlefield, picked up and repaired some crossbow arrows.

Early the next morning, Maximus led part of the army to quickly return to the rescue, and the crossbowmen were one of them. Because the crossbowmen were light and marched faster than other teams, they became the vanguard.

Of course, this was also because Maximus learned from the crew that the enemy had begun to fight with the Fourth Legion (because the Pannonian coalition's scouts were powerful, Nix could only let the ships explore the battle situation in the river), so he dared to let the crossbowmen take the lead.

Although the captain of the crossbowmen, Valerius, was already out of breath, he always maintained a high degree of vigilance. When he found that there were enemy cavalry gathering in the distance ahead, he issued the order of "stop advancing and line up on the spot" without hesitation.

The crossbowmen quickly arranged themselves into two horizontal rows and began to prepare for shooting. Although they had been running all the way and consumed a lot of physical strength, their speed in drawing the bow and loading the arrows did not decrease at all. This was because some of them had discovered a trick to pulling the bowstring in the previous battle, which could save a lot of energy: that is, to place the crossbow vertically on the ground, lightly step on the back of the bow with both feet, pull the bowstring with both hands, and use the strength of the waist and back to make it easier to string the bowstring.

After Valerius knew about it, he immediately promoted it to the entire team. The soldiers quickly mastered this simple and easy-to-learn winding method, which is now in use.

They quickly loaded their arrows. The soldiers in the front row held their bows flat and ready to shoot, while the soldiers in the back row held crossbows and were ready to hand them forward at any time.

This time, Terles did not use a column charge, but adopted a fan-shaped array, preparing to push forward and defeat the enemy's vanguard in one fell swoop.

When they were about 100 meters away, the speed of the war horse had already picked up. Terles, who was charging ahead, looked at the enemy's loose horizontal formation and the crude weapons and equipment in front of him, and remembered the frustration he suffered when he attacked the enemy's tight shield formation before. He took a sharp breath, raised his sword high, and roared sternly: "Kill!"

Looking at the menacing enemy cavalry, the crossbowmen did not panic. In previous battles, they had easily defeated many more cavalry than this.

After judging that the enemy cavalry was within a hundred meters of distance, Valerius waved the red flag. This was not a misjudgment due to panic, but because he was experienced in combat and believed that based on the enemy's cavalry's forward speed, the launch should be just right at this time, and perhaps it would give the soldiers one more round of shooting time.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." The arrows were like flying locusts, and in an instant people screamed and horses neighed. The Daixi Tiatai cavalry who was rushing at the front fell to the ground, and its attack speed slowed down.

When the cavalry at the back bypassed the fallen comrades in front and continued to charge forward, another round of crossbows was fired, and another group of cavalry fell...

After two rounds of crossbows, the formation of the Desitiatai cavalry had become sparse. Terles was always at the forefront, and his speed did not slow down. It was not because he was lucky. He also received an arrow, but as a tribe The leader wore an iron helmet and armor and rode the best war horse. Although the arrow that hit his chest was blocked by the chest armor, the strong momentum almost killed him. The cavalrymen who continued to fall on both sides made him even more frustrated. His heart was like a knife, he endured the severe pain, his bloodshot eyes glared at the enemy in front, and his left hand kept shaking the reins...

Closer... closer... He could clearly see the faces of the enemies in front of him, and their faces showed panic, and they even turned around...

Don't try to escape! I will kill all of you to sacrifice your blood to my men! ...Telles clenched the sword in his hand and roared again.

At this moment, he saw the enemy in front of him turn around again, and three or four arrows shot at him at the same time. In an instant, the war horse under his crotch screamed and suddenly fell forward. Before he could react, he was thrown out by the strong inertia. He heard a "crack" sound and hit the ground head first, and he was immediately unconscious... …

The Nyx crossbowmen fired three rounds of arrows, and almost half of the Desitiatai cavalry fell during the charge, and their commander, the prestigious and courageous Terles, also fell to the ground. The heavy casualties frightened the remaining cavalry, and they began to hesitate...

Seeing this, Valerius immediately ordered: "The crossbowmen advance in formation and fire freely!"

The crossbowmen took the initiative to move forward and close the distance with the cavalry. After firing their crossbows and shooting down several more cavalrymen, the Daixitiatai cavalrymen who had lost their command were so frightened that they retreated one after another, leaving behind their wounded and dead companions and soldiers. The war horse fell to the ground whining...

The crossbowmen turned and headed straight for the enemy infantry, which was besieging the flanks of the Aulus phalanx.

Valerius separated a hundred men to guard the enemy cavalry who were watching from a distance, and divided the remaining 500 crossbowmen into two teams. After approaching the enemy infantry array for 80 meters, he began to fire arrows.

Some warriors at the rear of the Daisitiatai spear formation had already discovered the approaching enemy. Their loud shouts could not affect the entire team that was fighting with all their strength. However, they themselves could not leave the formation and could only turn around and face the incoming enemy. , put up the shield and prepare for defense.

In the battle on the east bank of the Korana River, it has been proved that this simple wooden shield cannot stop the powerful crossbow arrows. After one round of shooting, more than a hundred people fell, and after another round of shooting, more than a hundred people fell... densely The array made the Daisi Tiatai light infantry the best living target, and almost all the arrows were harvested.

After three rounds of shooting, the casualties of more than 400 Daixi Tiatai warriors had severely damaged the entire infantry array on the offensive flank.

Some soldiers were not willing to be passively beaten like this, and took the lead to turn around and attack the Nix crossbowmen. Other companions followed suit. The spear formation collapsed, and the threat to the flanks of the Aulus phalanx was naturally gone...