At the same time, Aialos also noticed that the attacks of the defenders on the city wall were weakening. Obviously, the Lora warriors who were defending the city wall had never encountered such a siege method. Although they still had the upper hand in the long-range attacks of both sides with the protection of the battlements, the increase in the number of injured also made them feel a lot of pressure.
"The enemy is a little messed up!" He said to Zantiparis, who was also observing the enemy from the rear with a joyful expression.
"This is a good thing. It can reduce the casualties of the soldiers and civilians, but the hardest battle has yet to come," Zantiparis said calmly.
Aialos understood what Zantiparis meant by the hardest battle — it was the face-to-face battle after the hills and walls were closed.
Compared to the bustling battlefield in the south of the city, it was much quieter outside the west wall.
First, a few hundred Campanian light infantrymen carried the arrowheads made by the carpenters of Dionia and braved the long-range attacks of the defenders on the walls to the trench. They opened the brackets behind the arrowheads and made them stand diagonally to provide cover for the light infantrymen. At the same time, they would shoot javelins and arrows through the gaps between the arrowheads to attack the defenders on the walls.
While the defenders were being held back, the Ionian heavy infantry pushed out siege wagons one by one. (The engineers of the Legion of Dionysia instructed the carpenters of Enona and Campania to make these hollow wooden wagons using the wood that the soldiers cut down from the forest.) Just like how the soldiers of the Second Legion did when the Devers led the army to attack Rome, the wooden wagons were connected as they were pushed towards the walls, all the way to the trench.
Not only were the allied soldiers surprised, but the defenders on the walls were also dumbfounded. There was no one on the wooden wagons, and the fired arrows could not ignite them. Meanwhile, the soldiers of Diónia quickly passed the sacks filled with soil in the wagons and quickly filled up the narrow trench in front of them.
Then, one by one, the wooden carts continued to push forward until they reached the city wall. This created two tunnels from the city wall to 40 meters away. The soldiers at the back immediately carried a large log with an iron awl-shaped battering ram. The battering ram was passed around by the soldiers until it reached the bottom of the city wall. Six soldiers carried it and used all their strength to ram it against the city wall.
The hard hammerhead fiercely struck the stone wall that had not been repaired for many years. Stones shattered, mud and soil fell, and the stone wall cracked …
The trembling of the city walls caused the guards on top of the city walls to panic. They increased the intensity of their attacks. Stones and wood were smashed down, oil was poured, and fire arrows were fired …
However, the carriages closest to the city wall were specially made to be exceptionally sturdy. Not only did the craftsmen reinforce the entire frame of the carriages, but they also adopted a herringbone structure on the roof to facilitate unloading. Furthermore, bags of soil soaked in water were tied to the top of the carriages, so they were not easily ignited. Therefore, the soldiers could safely ram against the city wall.
When the siege hammers broke through the outer layer of the stone wall, the rammed earth layer was exposed. The soldiers picked up the pickaxes and shovels and began to dig out the stones around the gap. They expanded the hole in the wall and continued to dig out the rammed earth inside …
The defense of the west and south city walls alone had already put a lot of pressure on Lola's troops, not to mention that the allied forces were also attacking from the east and north. In order to defend the city, the Lola people mobilized all the people in the city who could fight, including the women, to defend the city.
The south city was the fiercest battlefield. The battle lasted for half an hour. The arms of the Diónia light infantry were so sore that they could not lift them up. Their fingers were bleeding from pulling the bows. The heavy infantry that formed the shield wall had more than 300 casualties. The casualties among the civilians were not small either.
However, a turning point finally appeared. The Lola guards had run out of javelins. In just half an hour, they had thrown thousands of javelins. In addition to the javelins that were thrown a few days ago to stop the Diónia people from building the earthen hill, all the javelins in the city had been used up, and the arrows were almost used up.
As for the javelins thrown by the Diónia light infantry, they had specially made spearheads. The iron rods connected to the spearheads were very thin. After hitting hard objects, the rods would bend and could no longer be thrown. However, the iron spearheads at the front of the javelins could be quickly dismantled and replaced with new spearheads on the wooden rods at the back. Then, the javelins could be used again. However, it was obviously impossible for the Lola guards to do so.
Therefore, the defenders could only throw stones and wood at their opponents. Since the shield wall of Diónia was ten meters away from the top of the city wall, the heavy stones could not be thrown over. The ones that could be thrown over were more easily blocked by the long shields. Hence, the threat to the heavy infantry of Diónia was much smaller. Since the shield wall could continue to be stable, the civilians could throw the mud bags more quickly.
Seeing that the valley was gradually filled up, the mud bags had risen to the feet of the heavy infantry of Diónia. They began to move forward carefully with their shields in order to make it easier for the civilians to fill up the pit in front of them.
At this time, Aialos at the bottom of the earthen hill was already gathering the 1,000 Campanian heavy infantry to replace the troops at the top of the hill.
The bugle sounded, and the light infantry of Diónia quickly retreated to the foot of the hill. According to Zantiparis's plan, Aialos led the heavy infantry of Campania into more than a dozen columns and slowly marched up the earthen hill to facilitate the evacuation of the civilians and the heavy infantry of Diónia.
The heavy infantry of Campania wore Corinth helmets and held large copper shields. They had a narrow field of vision and clumsy movements. Climbing the hill was a difficult task for them. Fortunately, the slope of the earthen hill was gentle, so it did not affect their march too much.
Without the assistance of the light infantry, the heavy infantry of Diónia who formed a shield formation on the top of the earthen hill moved closer to the city wall. The attacks became fiercer. Some Lola warriors even climbed over the battlements and jumped onto the earthen hill that had almost been filled up. With spears in their hands, they directly attacked the heavy infantry of Diónia.
During this long period of defending the city, the defenders of Lola had seen clearly that these Diónia soldiers did not carry spears at all because they held shields in both hands. So the Lola warriors stepped on the bumpy dirt bags one step at a time. They directly used their bodies to knock down the shields and even knocked down the enemies. Then, they stabbed the spears in their hands.
The shield wall formed by two rows of heavy infantry of Diónia became fragmented. When the civilians fled in panic, the officers of Diónia shouted, "Do not retreat! Throw away the shield and change it for a dagger!! … "
In fact, there was no need for them to shout. The soldiers had already done so. These reserve soldiers from the Lucanian Mountains had previously endured the enemy's long-range attacks and watched as hundreds of their comrades were killed or injured. Just now, the sudden direct attack of the enemy had caused dozens of casualties … They were all Lucanians who grew up after the establishment of the Kingdom of Diónia. Although the cultural integration of the kingdom had weakened their wildness, military training had taught them teamwork and comradeship. With the anger of avenging their comrades, they held daggers and shields and fought fiercely with the defenders of Lola.
However, the bugle that represented retreat of Diónia was blown at this time.
Although the soldiers were unwilling, they had to obey the order.
The Lola warriors did not continue to chase after them because they saw the "tin cans" coming up, so they ran back and jumped over the city wall.
On this earthen hill that was more than 50 meters wide, the Campanian heavy infantry slowly approached the defenders at the top of the city wall. They gradually formed a dense formation and were only one battlement away from the defenders. Although the spears could easily pierce the enemy, they could not use the charge and ram that the heavy infantry were good at. Hence, their power was greatly reduced. The bugle sounded continuously. The Campanian heavy infantry on the earthen hill, under the leadership of Aialos, began to fight fiercely with the enemy.
To be honest, the Campanians rarely had such a good opportunity to fight face-to-face with the Samonians. That was because the Samonians always used javelins to kill and injure the Campanian soldiers before retreating and luring them to chase after them. In the process of retreating, the Samonians would take advantage of the enemy's slow movement and repeatedly attack with javelins until the enemy's formation was completely chaotic. Then, the armored infantry would break through and completely defeat the enemy.
This was a tried and tested tactic. The continuous failures had terrified the Campanians, so much so that they did not even dare to go out of the city to fight in the field. Today, they finally had the chance to take revenge. The Campanian soldiers roared loudly and stabbed the enemy with their spears.
As the defenders of the city, the Lola defenders certainly could not adopt the guerrilla tactics that worked in the past. They could only face the enemy head-on. They let the armored warriors block the battlement, and the light infantry behind them formed a dense formation in the walkway to fight against the Campanian heavy infantry. In order to be able to fight against the enemy, they also transferred some of the defenders on the west wall because they thought that the battle on the west side was relatively calm. Even if there were not many defenders, they would be able to handle it.
However, shortly after some of the defenders on the west wall were transferred away, there was bad news: there were two collapses on the west wall.
It was all thanks to the Diónia soldiers in the siege wagons. They dug out the stone walls and rammed earth at the bottom of the wall, destroying the foundation of the wall, causing the already unstable wall to collapse due to gravity. The scattered stones even injured a few Diónia soldiers who did not manage to retreat in time.
The loud rumble and the rising morning mist not only shocked the Lola defenders, but also the Campanian soldiers. When they saw the unique, slow way of attacking the city by the Diónia soldiers, they could not help but despise them, thinking that it was time-consuming and laborious. Some soldiers even said disdainfully, "They say that the Diónia are brave in battle, but it seems that they are also afraid of death. They only know how to hide in wooden boxes!"
And now, the tragic fate of the city wall had given them a loud slap in the face. Of course, they did not know that in the various military camps in the Kingdom of Diónia, the soldiers would not only build a section of the city wall to train their ability to build a city, they would also train how to break through the wall in the next training session. Therefore, the Diónia soldiers were not digging randomly, but destroying the structure of the city wall with purpose and efficiency.
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