On the morning of the second day, the siege battle of the Western Frontier Army came as expected.
Arthur stood behind the crenel and watched the nearly 10,000 lion soldiers forming their formation in front of the main entrance.
It cannot be said that they are all Lion soldiers. At the front of the attacking team, there are river farmers wearing gray cloth.
Behind them are lion-shaped half-helmets, crimson robes, black ring armor and other standard infantry phalanxes for the Western Army.
At the end, there are more than 6,000 Lannister cavalry regiments, of which more than 4,000 are heavy cavalry with men, horses and armor.
A dozen enlarged versions of trebuchets were slowly pushed to the front of the formation, followed closely by ten lengthened ladders. The giant siege ram that could be pushed by fifty or sixty people even attracted many first and second battalions.
Soldier's attention.
Bill, the leader of the King's Landing mercenaries, sighed: "This is more than double the size of the last time. It looks really scary."
There are not many mercenaries under him, only in their early nineties, so they have been sent to maintain order among the civilians.
Bill himself volunteered to defend the city.
"But it can't open the main gate." The serious Dickon shook his head, "To be honest, I used to think that there were 20,000 Lannister troops, and two or three thousand people couldn't defend Harrenhal."
"But after seeing how strong the two gates are, I have to admit that except for flying dragons coming from the sky, Harrenhal will never be captured by outsiders."
"That's right." Arthur thought of Storm's End Castle in the Usurper's War. "The Duke of Mace in the Reach led an army of 60,000 to besiege Storm's End Castle for half a year. In addition to starving the people inside,
, nothing was accomplished.”
Storm's End is also a well-known strong castle in the Seven Kingdoms. In recent wars, there has been no record of being captured by heavy troops.
Similar to Storm's End, which faces the sea on one side, Harrenhal faces the lake on the other.
Therefore, the siege battles of the two are similar.
On the city wall above the main entrance, eight trebuchets are neatly placed.
Originally, there were twenty trebuchets placed here, but the He'an family only maintained some of them, so only eight of them can be used.
The rest were moved away to make room for the soldiers to stay.
More than a thousand New Army soldiers were scattered on this section of the city wall, nervously waiting for the upcoming battle.
Not long after, an enlarged version of the enemy's counterweight trebuchet was placed and preliminary testing began.
The four Western soldiers stepped on the wheel hard, causing the counterweight box to rise and the end of the traction arm to fall.
After the arm was thrown to the end, a Western Soldier first placed the latch, and then a large stone that required two soldiers to hold together was placed in the throwing bag, and the traction rope was removed.
After all the preparations were completed, a man who looked like an army officer lit the stone, causing a circle of flame to ignite on its surface, and then removed the bolt.
Immediately, the gravitational potential energy accumulated in the counterweight box was released extremely quickly, the throwing arm several meters long rotated rapidly, and the throwing bag wrapped with stones was thrown high.
After swinging more than half a circle, the burning stone broke away from the throwing bag, drew an extremely perfect parabola, and hit the city wall below the main entrance hard.
Boom.
Just like a small earthquake, the New Army soldiers on the entire city wall felt obvious vibrations.
"This thing is too big." Someone stuck his head out of the city wall to look at the fallen stones, and couldn't help but sigh.
Although there are trebuchets on the city wall, they are very small and have a much shorter range.
Bill turned to Arthur beside him and said with some confusion: "Sir, I seem to see that the top of the projectile is a little higher than us."
The highest point of the stone projectile trajectory is higher than the city wall, so as long as the position of the trebuchet is adjusted, it can always hit the city wall.
"That's it." The serious Dickon had a look of confusion on his face, "This requires our soldiers to hide under the crenellations, otherwise one stone can take away the lives of several people."
Arthur nodded, summoned the messenger, and asked all the new army soldiers to squat down and wait for the enemy to climb up the ladder before looking out.
At the same time, he also asked the soldiers of the third battalion on standby on the first floor to prepare to put out the fire. Although there were not many wooden things in Harrenhal, there were still some.
Being hit by such a projectile coated with oil can easily cause a fire.
After the first attempt failed, the trebuchet was pushed forward a lot by the soldiers from the west.
This time, the stone hit somewhere in the Burning King Tower behind Arthur, and with some shaken gravel, the burning stone fell to the ground on the first floor.
Arthur and the commander of the first battalion, Jordan, rushed over to take a look. Fortunately, no one was hit.
"Put out the fire on that stone. We'll need it later." Arthur shouted to the soldiers below.
This is really a good thing.
With Arthur's strength, it would be perfect to throw it up and hit the Western soldiers climbing the ladder.
Maybe the ladder can be broken down in one fell swoop, and the siege may be stopped by then.
After two more adjustments, the trebuchets of the Western Frontier Army were finally in place.
"Get down, everyone get down." Dickon directed the new soldiers on the wall.
In the last test, the burning stone accurately fell on the city wall. Although no one was killed, the vibration from under the feet and the burning stone ball still caused a lot of panic.
After all, these new soldiers were farmers farming the land a month or two ago.
A few minutes later, the new soldiers and Arthur and others in their early 1,000s realized the fear of being dominated by the trebuchet.
Every minute, one or two flaming projectiles fell on the city wall, several times smashing the crenelations and seriously injuring soldiers lying nearby.
Although it only injured a dozen people, it still made Arthur feel distressed for a while.
To make matters worse, the trebuchets on the city wall also became a key target for the enemy.
After thirty or forty projectiles were fired continuously, all the trebuchets on the city wall were smashed to pieces.
Now the soldiers of the Western Region have no worries when charging. After all, the range of arrows is much smaller than that of trebuchets.
"There are top bachelors in the Western Army. They can enlarge the original small trebuchet and build it in just a few days. They are really capable." He sighed.
"The Lannister family has gold, so they can naturally recruit capable bachelors, and there should be more than one. With Tywin's generosity, he can afford to support a heavy cavalry regiment of five thousand people. A regiment of bachelors is nothing." Mercenary.
Bill said.
This is indeed the truth.
The place where cavalry costs more than infantry is the horses. Most of the horses used for riding do not eat only low-calorie grass, but grass mixed with high-calorie grains.
Horses have large appetites and take a long time to eat. In order to save time during war, war horses are often fed grain mixed with fodder.
So this is why there is barely enough food in peacetime, but there are all kinds of food shortages in times of war.
Because horses also need to eat some food.
The Lannister family under Tywin can afford seven to eight thousand cavalry in peacetime, including nearly five thousand heavy cavalry, which shows that it is the most wealthy family in Westeros.
As for a bachelor's degree, it's quite expensive.
The Li De family, the lord of Greywater Hope in the north, is a great earl family, but they can't afford to raise a bachelor. You know how expensive it is to raise a bachelor.
In the future, I will also recruit a few bachelors and take them with me as consultants, Arthur thought to himself.
He picked from memory, and the only two bachelors who satisfied him were Samwell, Dickon's fat brother, and Qyburn.
The former should be investigating the disappearance of Benjen Stark, the chief ranger of the Night's Watch, north of the Great Wall. The latter should be...
According to the original work, Qyburn went north in the early stages of the War of the Five Kings, preparing to join the Night's Watch. However, he met the Blood Troupe, a group of mercenaries with a poor reputation, so he joined them.
Just because Arthur hired the Blood Troupe and consumed almost all of it, Cobain's life trajectory has most likely changed.
Now it is estimated that he should be among the Northern Border Army heading south.
After all, a single bachelor who can cure diseases is quite popular.
He wondered whether he should find someone to bring Cobain over. But he didn't have anyone reliable, so he gave up this idea for the time being.
As Arthur thought about it, the Western Army in front of the main gate of Harrenhal finally stopped throwing stones. Then, two to three thousand civilians with only weapons, led by thousands of people and ten pushed elongated ladders, rushed over.
.
At the same time, the heavier siege engines also slowly started to move.
After the Western Frontier Army rushed within the shooting range, some of the new soldiers on the city wall also began to bend their bows and shoot arrows.
It's just that there aren't many bows and arrows, and the lion soldiers below all hold up small bucklers with one hand, so they can't shoot anyone to death.
The people who were hit by arrows were the civilians who were being coerced.
"Stop shooting arrows, leave some for An Gai." Arthur ordered.
An Gai was slightly injured in the robbery camp. He has been resting for the past few days and has not participated in the battle.
The Western Army rushed to the bottom of the city wall, began to adjust the height of the ladder, and put the ladder head on the crenel.
Then, with the trapped Hejian civilians in front and the Lion Clan soldiers behind, thousands of people climbed up the ladders one after another, and the hard attack on Harrenhal began.
"The first person to rush to the city wall will be rewarded with a thousand gold dragons, and the person who kills Arthur Bracken will be rewarded with 10,000 gold dragons." The Shi family officer supervising the battle shouted.
Arthur, who had moved a stone pellet, walked to the head of a ladder and threw it down the ladder.
"Surrender without killing." This was his reply to everyone who was still climbing the ladder.
