Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-fifth: Each Comes Out of a Stratagem (Repair)
What the leader of the Yongye Army can do now is to further downplay the role of the Crocodile Tribe in the defense of Brother Port, and then negotiate with Nidia, Weber, Bishop and other relatively rational elders to encourage them to increase their support against the Crocodile Tribe's army.
Take control.
Instead of excluding them from some important military meetings, we actively invite them to participate so that they can have a clearer understanding of the entire situation. The frequency of the previous irrational behavior will be much reduced.
The problem exposed by the Kingsley family is also obvious, that is, the serious lack of long-range attacks.
The long-range attacks of both sides are not at the same level at all.
The range of the Andis longbow itself is astonishing. Now that it is condescending, it has different levels of bonuses. The arrows flying out of the more than ten-meter-high arrow tower can easily shoot to 500 meters away.
The archers of the Kingsley family had no way to press forward and provide remote suppression support. The entire siege force was directly exposed to the rain of arrows, and they could really shoot as they wanted.
Akmesser is a veteran in the army, so it is impossible that he does not know the consequences of suppressing long-range attacks.
It's definitely not just a matter of casualties, but also a blow to one's own morale.
Facing the overwhelming rain of arrows, many heavy armored infantrymen, even though they were wearing heavy armor, knew that they could not cause much damage to themselves, still fought in two groups. It was difficult to muster the courage to charge, let alone those with thin armor.
Cannon fodder.
Including those mercenaries who are willing to sacrifice their lives for money.
They are not fools. They can risk their lives for the bounty, but that is only if there is hope of getting the bounty. Only fools will rush forward if it is a fatal situation like before.
Compared to the cannon fodder of the Crocodile Tribe, the mercenaries faced a more ferocious rain of arrows, and the reason why they only lost less than 3,000 people was because they saw that the momentum was not right, so they hid behind and paddled.
For them, the Kingsley family cannot drive them away like cannon fodder of the Crocodile tribe. Until there is no corresponding solution, there is no hope that they can continue to charge bravely.
This is the biggest drawback of using mercenaries.
It's not that the Kingsley family didn't build siege equipment, but the surrounding trees were completely destroyed by the Yongye Army. Not to mention the tall trees, even the shrubs were uprooted by them.
The nearest deforestation areas are dozens of kilometers away.
Moreover, the trees produced in the Swamp of Despair are usually relatively low and have loose wood. Most of the trees that can be built are small siege machines and large siege machines. They are picky and picky, and not many of them have been built so far.
Akmesser now holds it in his hands like a treasure and is reluctant to use it on these cannon fodder.
"Pile up the earth and attack the city!" Some smart people in the Kingsley family's Eastern Army came up with new methods to deal with this situation.
"That's the only way." Akmesser nodded and agreed to this plan.
Pile earth to attack the city.
As the name suggests, the soil is piled into mounds until it reaches the bottom of the city wall. After exceeding the city wall, the siege soldiers rush along the slope of the mound to the top of the city wall.
It goes without saying much about the advantages and disadvantages.
Once successful, if a gap is opened in the city wall, a large number of soldiers will pour in, and the rest will be an out-and-out hand-to-hand fight. If the defenders cannot hold it back, the city will be broken.
The disadvantage is that this is an out-and-out stupid method, which requires a lot of time, manpower, and material resources.
Especially when facing a castle with natural dangers or a small-scale siege, this trick is not useful at all.
The Kingsley family has no better solution now.
The feasibility of this stupid method is actually relatively high.
After all, the natural danger that Brother Port relies on is water.
Although Ashan does not say that the five elements are in conflict with each other, there is a theory that the elements are in conflict with each other.
Regardless of the five elements or elements, earth is absolutely inferior to water.
What's more, the Kingsley family now has a large number of idle manpower, and indeed has the innate conditions to implement this method.
Whether it was due to the paralysis of the Yongye military leader or the preparation of a multi-pronged approach, the Kingsley family began to pile up soil and attack the city before waiting for the cold winter to come.
During this period, the Kingsley family successively drove away cannon fodder and organized several exploratory attacks.
However, the purpose of these tentative attacks was not to try to fill in the moat of Brother Port, but to test the maximum range of Andis's longbow.
Then set up temporary defense tools to prepare for the siege.
Even if you plan to use a stupid method, you have to start from the closest point with the weakest firepower. At this time, you can save any effort you can.
Akmesser had prepared not one, but as many as eight points for mounding earth to attack the city.
There were tens of thousands of people at each point, and the soil was piled up non-stop for 25 hours. The mounds of more than ten meters long began to spread towards Brother City little by little.
The Andis Longbow, which had repeatedly performed extraordinary feats in the Eternal Night Army, was a little helpless this time.
Once the mound is formed, there will be a large natural blind spot for bows and arrows, making it impossible to do anything whether it is horizontal shooting or projectile shooting.
Furthermore, the Kingsley family was fully prepared to defend against arrows this time. They used logs to build fortifications. If the mound was pushed forward a little, the fortifications would be pushed forward a little to provide cover for those who were mounding the earth.
It is true that the trees produced in the swamp are not very hard, but the quantity can make up for the defects in quality.
No matter how powerful the Andis Longbow is, it cannot change the fact that it is a bow and arrow. Its power is limited after all, and it cannot have the same penetrating ability as a siege crossbow.
Besides, facing a log wall dozens of centimeters thick, not even a siege crossbow can do anything.
Although the Kingsley family does not care about the life and death of these cannon fodders, it is still possible to reduce the possibility of their death as much as possible. After all, the number of cannon fodders is also limited, so use as much as you can.
You have a good plan, I have a wall ladder.
The leader of the Yongye Army was not helpless against the Kingsley family's pile of earth to attack the city.
Brother Port not only has a large number of Andis longbowmen, but also a large number of defensive equipment.
Influenced by Sean, the leader of the Yongye Army paid great attention to the research of siege equipment from the beginning, especially the attached engineer regiment, which took tower defense tactics to the extreme.
Since Brother Port's geographical location is so important, this tactic was naturally used to its extreme.
The hundreds of tower trebuchets are the best proof.
The true official name of the Tower Catapult is the Sky Catapult.
As you can tell from the name, the Yongye Army Leader already has a relatively clear hierarchy in terms of catapults.
However, in order to make it easy to remember, the leader of the Yongye Army did not give them too complicated names. They named them after easy-to-understand small, medium and large trebuchets. Only the unconventional super giant Yunxiao trebuchet has its own
name.
The number of trebuchets placed on and inside the walls of Brother City is mind-boggling.
The reason why it was not used before was because the longbowmen alone were enough and it was not worth wasting the extra firepower.
Andis's longbow was unable to do anything, so it was their turn to show off.
After the calibration test, rocks ranging from a dozen kilograms to dozens of kilograms hit the Kingsley family's defenses with a sharp roar.
The earth and rocks broke apart, and pieces of wood flew everywhere.
Once it collapses accidentally, you may die.
The catapult led by the Yongye Army is extremely accurate. Once calibrated, it can hit the same target with a diameter of more than three meters in one out of ten.
The problem is not the catapult, but the catapult.
These stones are not randomly picked up, but are fired in the furnace cellar. Their shapes and weights have corresponding standards and are almost the same.
After the throw is made, the instability factors are reduced a lot, and the accuracy is naturally greatly improved.
The density of bombing is also terrifying and frightening.
Under the continuous bombing, no matter how strong the defense facilities are, they will be smashed at some point.
What's more, the crude defensive shield wall made by the Kingsley family at the beginning was very ordinary. The strongest one made for the first time could not withstand two hours. This was the correct time for the catapult of the Yongye Army at the beginning.
included.
Although it was continuously thickened after subsequent repairs and repairs, it was difficult for it to withstand four hours.
No living person will suffocate to death.
Soon the Kingsley family adjusted their strategy.
The fortifications are no longer placed in the open, but placed inside the earthen walls.
in other words.
The Kingsley family used various support pillars to build a tunnel, then kept burying soil outside the tunnel, and pushed forward bit by bit towards Brother Port.
Although this is a little troublesome and will greatly limit the accumulation speed of the earth wall, it is more safe. The thick soil layer outside is the best protective layer.
Even those thrown by large catapults, the impact of stone projectiles weighing forty to fifty kilograms on them is quite limited.
The only thing that can pose a threat to it is the Sky Catapult.
This kind of super giant catapult requires half a centenarian to operate at the same time every time it is loaded. Both the throwing distance and the lethality are far beyond ordinary people's imagination. Let's not talk about anything else, just the roar of its winch rotation.
The loud noise makes people's scalp numb.
The shortcomings of the Yunxiao Catapult are also obvious, that is, loading the bomb is very troublesome and requires specially trained professionals to operate it. Being able to launch one in seven or eight minutes is already the limit of what can be accomplished.
Therefore, of course they cannot test the firing angle like other trebuchets and trebuchets.
The leader of the Yongye Army has already thought of this problem in advance.
Each Sky Catapult has several attached catapults in different directions.
Not only do these attached catapults look like scaled-down versions of them, many of their attack routes are on a straight line. Even if they are not on a straight line, they have been positioned through special mathematical calculations and can overlap.
When the Yunxiao catapults changed their attack direction, they had already completed the corresponding calibration and test firing work.
Of course in data theory.
However, these data theories have also been rigorously calculated by Yongye Army leaders. They cannot be said to be 100% accurate. Even if there is an error, it will not be too large. Coupled with the instability of the catapult itself, this error sometimes leads to misunderstandings.
Accidentally hit the target directly.
Everything is possible.
Sometimes things just work out that way.
Not to mention the shock when a boulder weighing more than 100 kilograms fell from the sky.
Even a solid ground can create a big crater.
Not to mention the tunnel, which is buried under a mound of soil and is full of weight and pressure.
Once hit directly above, the tunnel collapse is inevitable, and the tragedy can be imagined. It is not just a matter of being buried alive. If you are unlucky, you may even be shocked to death.
Now every time they hear the whistling sound of catapults throwing huge rocks from the sky, the Kingsley family soldiers' legs tremble and they dare not drill into the narrow tunnel, fearing that once they go in, they will not be able to get out.
This situation changed greatly after the reinforcements from the Kingsley family arrived.
Most of them are miners who have just been pulled out of the mines. Not only are they professionals in digging holes, but most of them are numb to life and death.
Even in Sean's previous life, who had a concept of safe production, mining, especially mining deep underground and regular mines with corresponding safety measures, had a very high risk factor.
Not to mention those black mines where safety measures are not in place. Every year, countless people are buried in the pitch-black underground forever.
In the black mine in Sean's previous life, no matter how poor the safety measures were, some basic investments were still made.
Most of the excavation conditions in the Kingsley family mines are not comparable to the black mines in Sean's previous life.
Not only is the awareness of production safety weak and the investment cost is high, but the most important thing is that the corresponding technology is not up to standard.
Not to mention anything else, just because the mine is dug deep and there is a steady stream of groundwater, it is a big problem that is difficult to solve, and it is one of the main culprits causing mine collapses.
To put it bluntly, the gold coins of the Kingsley family are all stained with blood, the blood of those mining slaves.
After struggling on the verge of death for a long time, I gradually became numb.
The earth-pile tunnel that passed through their hands has become much stronger. Even if it is hit from the front by a catapult from the sky, it can withstand two more blows.
It's not that they have the ability to turn decay into magic, but that they know how to make the tunnel stronger, which is just to make it narrower and have more parallel tunnels.
Furthermore, there are only a few Yunxiao catapults that can directly attack outside the city walls of Brother Port. Even if they can turn around, the leader of Yongye Army will not do this.
After all, they exist for the Danube River deployment.
The fleet of the Commons family is still watching eagerly on the Danube River.
If the leader of the Yongye Army changes the direction of all the Yunxiao catapults, it will really be what they want. Even if they do not launch a sneak attack on Brother Port, once they pass through, the military supplies of the leader of the Yongye Army will be blocked from upstream.
If you have thousands of defenders, they will all become rootless duckweeds.
At that time, we faced not only the danger of temporarily destroying the city, but also the danger of the entire army being annihilated. Naturally, the leader of the Yongye Army would not do such a stupid thing.
In the battle of wits and courage between the Yongye Army leader and the Kingsley family, time passed at a slow and irreversible speed.
Not only is the weather getting colder, but the chances of rivers freezing are increasing.
One of the great killing moves in the moat has been half used. The Swamp War Crocodile is becoming less and less active. It rarely stays in the water and spends most of its time lying on the bank to bask in the sun and absorb heat.
Although the Swamp War Crocodile has evolved somewhat differently from its congeners, its nature as a cold-blooded animal will not change. Being afraid of the cold is a common problem among them.
In order to prevent them from being lost in vain, the leader of the Yongye Army could only gather them back.
Without the protection of the river, they would not be able to withstand the indiscriminate bombardment of the Kingsley family's siege engines.
After three or four months of preparation, the Kingsley family's siege equipment was gradually prepared.
Compared to the Yong Ye Army Leader, their siege equipment is between small and medium-sized. These things eat a lot of wood, especially solid wood.
Compared to the Eternal Night Army Leader who sits on the 800-mile Andes Mountains, the Kingsley family is simply incomparable in this aspect.
Naturally, Akmesser did not dare to push these siege equipment towards Brother Port easily.
Once they appear, they will inevitably be targeted by the Yongye military leader, but with their range, there is no way to touch the walls of Brother Port.
The Kingsley family can only find another way.
The most helpless, clumsy, but also quite useful trick.
Heaps of earth into mounds.
Install these siege equipment on the mound and use the height to make up for the lack of range.
In order to make up for the gap in technology and raw materials, the Kingsley family piled mounds outside Brothers Port, none of which was lower than twenty meters.
One can imagine how large the project volume will be.
In the later period, when the Kingsley family planned to pile up earth and siege the city, they no longer prepared to push it directly under the city wall of Brother Port, but concentrated on piling up the earth mounds needed for these siege equipment.
Because the previous workload of piling up earth to attack the city was too heavy, even if they now have more than 200,000 manpower, it would take at least a year to push them under the walls of Brother Port according to the current progress.
Another concept of strength in numbers is the heavy pressure on logistical supply, especially since the Kingsley family's current supply line is so long.
Even the wealthy Kingsley family can no longer afford it.
The wealth of the Kingsley family was not brought by strong winds, but accumulated bit by bit.
What's more, this kind of wealth still has water.
When they leave this impression on others, it must be because they spend money like water and their usual style of doing things is like spending a lot of money.
To a certain extent, this has become a golden sign for them. With this golden sign, the Kingsley family will gain a lot of convenience.
But maintaining this golden sign requires money.
Moreover, the Lancelot royal family has been trying to choke them with food, so they must first be exploited by them.
In the past ten years, the Carter military leaders have not been quiet.
Not to mention anything else, the rise of the slave rebel army led by Man Yu and the Yong Ye army had already caused an indirect impact on them in the early stage, putting their mining slaves in a state of tension.
Insufficient mine slaves naturally means a decrease in output and the amount of money in your pocket will naturally decrease.
After the remnants of the slave rebel army broke into the territory of the Carter Army, they caused even more trouble. Although they did not provoke a full-scale unrest, there were many incidents of inducing the mining slaves to defect, and they were suppressed by the Kingsley family.
It also costs money to encircle and suppress the remnants of the slave rebel army, right?
To put it bluntly, war is about military supplies and money.
You won't feel anything for a while, but if you bleed for a long time, it will be serious.
Not to mention that the Kingsley family launched a full-scale invasion of the Swamp of Despair without any chance to recuperate.
In the past two years, money has been spent like water. If you list it all, it is a terrifying figure.