Altik knew that it was inevitable that the enemy would attack the city from outside. However, he did not expect Ziyad to act so soon. During the day, he had observed carefully with his binoculars. There were a large number of semi-finished siege weapons in the enemy's camp. This meant that the enemy would take some time to build the siege weapons and would not act soon. However, he did not expect that the enemy would suddenly launch a large-scale attack.
There were still two to four hours before dawn. However, Altik was no longer sleepy. He quickly got up and put on his clothes. Surrounded by guards, he headed to his official residence.
The large-scale attack of the enemy had alarmed all the high-ranking officials in Maia City. They all got up and ran to their posts. After all, once the city was breached, death would be waiting for them. The main problem was that their wealth would be completely gone. That was the worst thing.
"My Lord, the enemy's main force has been deployed. They have surrounded us. There are siege weapons on all sides. It seems that Ziyad wants to storm the city!"
"My Lord, according to past experience, the enemy will definitely attack after dawn. That is, it will take about four hours."
"My Lord, our soldiers are ready. We will definitely be able to crush the enemy's siege."
"The soldiers in the city can reinforce in all directions at any time. My Lord, please rest assured."
The group of subordinates said all at once.
Altik looked at the crowd and said, "I really did not expect Ziyad to attack so soon. Their siege weapons have not been completed yet, but they can't wait to attack. This means that they must have a reason to attack the city as soon as possible. Perhaps it is Mansur's order, or perhaps they are running out of food. No matter what the situation is, it is not a bad thing for us. As long as we can hold on for a certain amount of time, Ziyad will definitely retreat. If their soldiers are hungry and have no strength, our soldiers will rush over to reinforce them. Everyone, please try to encourage the soldiers and let them defend with all their might."
"Don't worry, City Lord. Our soldiers train day and night. Although they can't fight in the wild, they are more than enough to defend the city. There are enough reserve soldiers in the city to defend the city."
"Castellan, let's show Ziyad our might!"
His subordinates said.
Altik nodded. Looking at everyone, he asked, "Have you figured out the enemy's situation? How many soldiers are there in each direction? How many weapons are there?"
"Mayor, it's too dark. I can't see clearly at all. I can only see roughly. There are a lot of soldiers in all directions. The north gate is where the enemy's main force is. It's also the closest to the enemy camp."
The subordinate said.
Altik nodded and said, "Alright, let the soldiers in the city prepare for battle and be ready to reinforce the city walls at any time. Out of the five thousand soldiers who are building the equipment, take out two thousand to reinforce the north gate. The pressure there is the greatest and we need more soldiers."
Before the battle started, Altik didn't want to use his ten thousand elite soldiers. These soldiers were stationed in the center of the city. Even if the enemy attacked from all sides, they couldn't hurt them.
Of course, these soldiers had made great contributions in the previous battle to defend the city. It was they who trapped the enemy forces that came out of the tunnel, which allowed them to annihilate three thousand of the enemy's elites.
These elite soldiers were the backbone of Artek's defense of Maia City. The reason why he did not use these elite soldiers at the beginning of the battle was because he wanted to preserve this elite force. At the most critical later stage, he let these fresh soldiers join the defense of the city so that the city could be firmly defended. If all of these elite soldiers were sent out to defend the city, once all of them were lost, the soldiers and civilians of the city would lose their confidence in defending the city.
For example, although the soldiers who were defending the city were facing heavy casualties, they wouldn't be nervous when they thought about the ten thousand elite reinforcements in the city. They believed that these reinforcements could come at any time. However, if all the elite soldiers were sent to the city, once the elite soldiers were all killed, the temporary reinforcements would completely collapse in confidence. Once the morale of the soldiers was slackened, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The daily operations of the city required a lot of manpower. Therefore, when there was a shortage of manpower, they wouldn't rashly mobilize the able-bodied citizens. They would only be mobilized when the defense of the city suffered heavy casualties and lacked manpower.
The city gate had been blocked for a long time. There was enough food and water in the city, but not enough vegetables and fruits. Fortunately, the city was relatively large and there was a lot of empty land. All kinds of vegetables had been planted there, barely enough to meet the needs of the city. In addition, there were also a lot of dried vegetables stored in the city. Although these dried vegetables weren't as nutritious as fresh vegetables, it was better to eat vegetables than nothing. The human body needed the nutrients of vegetables, so they couldn't not eat vegetables.
Maia City was located in the middle of a desert. The surface was sand, but there could be rivers and even underground water in the desert. A desert wasn't necessarily full of sand. Oases and rivers could exist, so there was nothing strange about this.
There was a small river flowing through Maia City, so irrigation wasn't a problem. However, due to the size of the city, it was impossible to grow food on a large scale. They could only grow vegetables on a small scale.
Soon, the subordinates went to different city gates to command the defense of the city to resist the upcoming siege.
The area of Maia City was very large, but the length of each city wall was only seven to eight miles. Based on the calculation that each soldier would defend four meters of the city wall, only one thousand soldiers would be enough. With three thousand soldiers defending together, they could achieve one soldier for every one meter of the city wall. The defensive strength of the city could be said to be quite strong.
Of course, if a fight really broke out, they wouldn't deploy like this. Otherwise, they would easily suffer heavy losses in the first round of the enemy's attack. Moreover, these soldiers and horses were responsible for defending the city gate and the barbican in addition to defending the city wall. These places required soldiers, so the actual number of soldiers deployed on the city wall was less.
In order to reduce casualties as much as possible, not all of the soldiers defending the city wall were on the city wall. Some of them stayed below the city wall, ready to reinforce at any time. The specific situation depended on how fierce the attack of the attacking side was. If the attacking side was extremely fierce, more soldiers would need to go up the city wall. If the attacking side was more aggressive, more soldiers would need to go up the city wall. However, if the attacking side was attacking with catapults and arrows, there wouldn't be many soldiers left on the city wall.
For example, in the wars of the later generations, when the enemy was launching a large-scale artillery attack, the defending side's soldiers should hide as much as possible to preserve their strength. When the enemy's artillery attack ended and the infantry charged, they should come out to fight. This was the lesson learned with blood.
Although there was no threat of artillery in ancient wars, catapults and arrows could be considered as a low-level version of artillery. The lethality was still considerable. Therefore, it was necessary to hide.
The soldiers guarding each city gate were ordered to send a thousand soldiers to defend the city wall. The remaining soldiers stayed below the city wall, ready to reinforce at any time.
As they didn't expect the enemy to attack the city so quickly, the defensive materials prepared on the city wall weren't enough. After all, some things couldn't be placed on the city wall. If they were exposed to the sun and rain, they would easily rot. Therefore, when necessary, they needed to be placed in a position to avoid the sun. At this moment, the enemy troops were about to attack the city. Therefore, a large number of materials placed below the city wall had to be transported up the city wall.
Other than the five hundred soldiers on night duty who were temporarily resting, the rest of the soldiers who woke up early were all busy. Some of them were monitoring the enemy on the city wall, while the rest were transporting materials to make the final preparations for battle.
Because there were no night vision devices in ancient times, it was very difficult for both the attackers and the defenders to adapt to fighting at night because nothing could be seen at night. However, when necessary, they could still fight at night. Once the war reached its climax, everything was no longer a problem.
The siege army outside the city was ready to attack Maia City at any time. Ziyad had also arrived at the commanding position. Because he had been attacked by the Tang dynasty's artillery before, Ziyad chose a safer position to watch the battle from outside the firing range of the artillery. In this way, even the most powerful artillery of the Tang dynasty couldn't do anything to him.
"General, it's almost dawn. It's almost time to attack."
When the dawn had just appeared in the east, a subordinate asked Ziyad for instructions.
Ziyad looked at Maia City, which was a few miles ahead. He nodded and ordered, "Blow the horn immediately. Get ready to attack."
"Woo woo woo …"
Soon, hundreds of soldiers blew the horn at the same time. The sound was so loud that it could be heard even from the other side of the city.
"Attack."
The bugle horn sounded, and the first wave of soldiers began to attack. The soldiers from the various city gates also began to attack. They relied on their siege weapons to slowly push forward. The mobile catapults also began to advance, and they immediately launched large amounts of rocks and fireballs to attack the defending soldiers.
Because of the large number of siege weapons, the morale of the attacking soldiers was very high. The catapults also attacked fiercely. In front of the catapults, there were also catapults to protect them from the ballistae.
The overwhelming attack put a lot of pressure on the defenders. However, the city's defense was very tight and there were enough soldiers and horses. Therefore, even in the face of such great pressure, the defenders didn't panic. They defended with all their strength and didn't show any signs of fear.
The large number of stones and fireballs caused some losses to the defenders. Some of the defensive weapons were smashed by the stones. However, the defenders counterattacked calmly. A large number of ballistae and catapults also caused a lot of damage to the attackers. Although the attackers were protected by the shield carts, they weren't omnipotent. There were always places where the shield carts couldn't cover. Moreover, the stones thrown from the city varied in size. The shield carts couldn't block the particularly large stones.
Therefore, at the beginning of the battle, both sides attacked with stones and fireballs. The first thing to do was to raise the morale of the troops under their command.
Under the cover of the catapults, the attacking troops gradually approached the city wall. At the front of the troops were the commoners pushing the shield carts. These were the commoners who had been kidnapped. They didn't come willingly. They were forced. However, in order to live, they had to work hard. Otherwise, the archers behind them would kill them.
These shield carts had four wheels and were relatively large. The front, side, and top of the carts were covered with thick armor. The front and top of the carts were especially effective in blocking stone attacks.
However, there was a small section at the bottom of the front that didn't have any armor. However, the crossbows on the city wall couldn't attack the commoners pushing the carts through the gap at the bottom. After all, arrows couldn't bend, and neither could stones. This gap was very useful. When the carts were close to the trench, the carts would stop. The commoners pushing the carts would take out the tools in the carts and throw the dirt behind them and under their feet into the trench. Step by step, the trench was filled up.
Of course, they could also transport sandbags from the rear. In short, the trench had to be filled up. Otherwise, the other large siege weapons wouldn't be able to pass through, let alone attack the city. Relying on the catapults alone wouldn't be able to break through the city's defenses.
Behind the shield carts were a small number of archers. At the position of the trench, they were already very close to the city wall. Therefore, they were completely within the attacking range of the defenders. At the same time, the defenders were also within the attacking range of the defenders.
The defending soldiers could rely on the protection of the parapets to shoot the archers outside the city. The archers outside the city could also use the protection of the shield carts to shoot arrows at the city wall.
Because both sides had defensive cover, most of the arrows didn't have the effect of killing the enemy. Less than one percent of the arrows were lucky enough to hit the soldiers. Even so, they might not be able to take the lives of the soldiers. Perhaps, they would only injure the soldiers.
Therefore, in this situation, although the attacks of both sides were extremely fierce and the battle was difficult to distinguish, the actual casualties weren't many. More of the losses were in various equipment and damaged weapons, such as stones, arrows, fireballs, and some destroyed equipment.
However, apart from the fireballs, there were still a considerable number of rocks and arrows. The rocks and arrows thrown by the city walls would land on the attacking side, while the rocks and arrows thrown by the attacking side would land inside and outside the city walls. These things could be used a second time, so they could be thrown back at the attacking side.
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