Dionysus could never do without two things: the silver shield, and wine, which went well with his name, which was the reverence of Dionysus, and the Greek name of a rotten street.As the captain of the Greek mercenaries, Dionysus wore a reflective Thracian bronze helmet, and held a large round shield three feet in diameter, a spear in the other, and a short sword pinned to his waist.His chest and abdomen were covered in heavy armor, a metal or leather battle skirt that was spread out below his waist, and his legs were covered with shimbling shins.In the past, this was the standard equipment of Macedonian hoplites, but now only a few people can have it, and more than 300 soldiers mostly wear Scythian-style scale armor, and even unarmoured, with sandals on their feet, distributed on the western wall of Dawan, vigilant for every move of the Han army outside the city.The only thing they insisted on inheriting was the silver-plated shields that had been passed down from generation to generation, some dim and some bright, and the number of people could only make up one-tenth of a small phalanx, but when raised and stood in a row, it was still a whole.Known as the "Last of the Silver Shields", this group is said to have been a veteran of Alexander's expedition to Persia, south to Egypt and east to India.And after the death of the Emperor, the Silver Shield veterans participated in the Second Diadochi War, and once rushed their opponents on the battlefield of Persia, Antigonus's cubs roared: "Foolish boys, do you dare to do anything to those fathers who conquered the world with Alexander?
”The answer is dare.Even if the other party's morale was greatly reduced by this sentence, even if the Silver Shield veterans who were over fifty or sixty years old had amazing combat effectiveness, they still lost the war.There is also a legend that the Silver Shield veterans voluntarily betrayed their commanders for the spoils of war that had been plundered by the enemy, and the wealth they had accumulated over the course of thirty years of war.In the eyes of the Silver Shield veterans, money is more precious to them than the ethereal royal family and the dead Alexander the Great.Whatever the facts, after the war they were sent by Antigonus to the eastern border of Alahorsiana in southeastern Afghanistan to fend for themselves on a dangerous mission against the barbarians.By the time of the Fourth War of the Diadochi, Seleucus, who had taken control of Persia, had re-established the name of the Silver Shield, but it was already a postpostor, a descendant of the true Silver Shield veteran, who remained in the east forever in Bactria, which had become independent.It wasn't until Bactria was invaded by the Da Yue clan and the Cypriots that this group came to Dawan with some Greek descendants to ask for shelter.Here, they regained their ancestors' shields, became mercenaries, and showed their skills when Li Guangli attacked Wan forty years ago, helping Dawan defend the inner city."
It's the same this time."
Dionysus boasted to his father-in-law, King Dawan, that they did possess a powerful weapon to defend the city.It wasn't ballistas, this group of Greek descendants had been away from their homeland for too long, and their clothing and food had been assimilated with the natives of Bactria since the Bactrian era, and even the language and words had begun to differ from those of the Diadochi.After the fall of Great Xia, more than 100 years of displacement caused them to lose more things, historical details were gradually forgotten, and even the belief in the Greek gods was abandoned, and the technology was even more degraded.But there are a few simpler torsion catapults, but they are much more crude and degraded than they were more than two hundred years ago.Unlike the "flying stone" principle, a lever-fired stone weapon invented by the Central Plains during the Warring States period, the Greek catapult used the torsion of a giant tendon noose that spiraled and tightly coiled.The small catapult was placed on the western wall of Dawan, watched by the Silver Shield soldiers, and next to it were stone projectiles the size of an adult's fist.When the Han army sent soldiers to test, four young soldiers on each side of the trebuchet twisted the rod arm, so that the noose was tightly twisted together, until the rod arm was almost pulled to the level of the ground, and the other person immediately put the stone projectile in the "spoon" at the top of the rod, and when the winch rope was released suddenly, the rod arm was released, bounced upward, and threw the stone projectile from the grenadier belt!
Dionysus watched the stone projectile go away, theoretically, the range of the trebuchet was more than that of the bow and arrow, and the farthest distance could throw the stone projectile of half a Tarent ancient Greek weight unit, about 26 kilograms, 200 yards 1 yard 0.9144 meters away, if you concentrate the target in the crowd, even if you wear an iron arm, it is enough to smash the enemy's head into bloom.Although the catapult was thrown into the air, the Han people still retreated, and Ren Hong was only testing the type and range of the enemy's weapons to defend the city.In the past month, the Han army has not attacked the city, only cut off the canal and surrounded it, but there are wells in Guishan City, and it has rained again, so saving a little can also meet the needs.What made Dionysus concerned was that the Han army outside the city had been building some kind of siege weapons three hundred yards away, and the Han soldiers ran to the woods a few miles away to cut wood, and also brought stout oak from the foothills of the mountains dozens of miles away.The size of the machine was so important that Dionysus frowned at the old man who had fought in the war forty years ago.According to their descriptions, the Han army also used weapons similar to stone-throwing vehicles at that time, but they relied on manpower to throw stones, which required dozens or hundreds of people to pull at a time, and the tips attached to the crossbar were not far longer than the torque in the city.The main siege weapons of the Han people are unprecedented in the West, the huge belly bow with a very long range, which is the name of the crossbow by the Greeks, although their range is not as good as that of the ballista, but they can also be deeply rooted in the city wall, and are used as a ladder to climb by the Han people, and the silver shield can not withstand a blow.However, because of the straight trajectory of the crossbow shot, although it can make the people at the head of the city lie on the ground and dare not move, it is not much of a threat to those hiding behind the city walls.Dionysus felt a little more confident in his heart, until the fortieth day of the siege, and with the efforts of countless carpenters, sawyers, blacksmiths, ropeweavers, and quarrymen, they were actually jade diggers in Khotan, and they were brought to Dawan to do similar work.Ten astonishing trebuchets stood outside Dawan City, hundreds of stone bullets the size of a human head placed on the side.This trebuchet is very different from the one in Dionysus's hand, the bracket is like the foot of the giant Goliath, the thick main beam looks like the mast of a giant ship, and most peculiarly, there is a strange large wooden box under the main beam, into which the Han craftsmen are loading things that are actually iron and lead.The Han soldiers drove oxen, mules, pack horses, and manpower, shouting trumpets to pull trebuchets.As its main beam sank a little, Dionysus's heart sank as he nervously told the Silver Shield soldiers to evacuate the city.But the first test firing of the Han people did not go well, as Han let go, the large box under the main beam swayed violently, and the stone bullet was thrown high, but it fell less than twenty yards, almost crushing the Han craftsman to death."
Hahahaha."
This made the Dawan people and Greeks in Guishan City laugh out loud.But soon they couldn't laugh, and the ten trebuchets were tested one after another, and at first none of them worked very well, and none of the stone projectiles exceeded two hundred yards, and as the craftsmen adjusted the angle and details of each trebuchet, the stone projectiles they threw farther and farther away, slowly approaching the perfect distance they had tested in the Central Plains.Two hundred and forty yards, two hundred and fifty yards, a stone bullet smashed into the moat of Guishan City, splashing a huge splash, so that the people at the head of the city took a bath.The other crossed the river and landed on the embankment, and the force of great force made it sink deep into it, and the depth made you breathe cold.In the afternoon, the counterweight trebuchet, which had been debugged for half a day, finally delivered the first stone bullet to the city wall of Guishan!
The head-sized stone slammed into the rammed earth wall, but it didn't crack, but the people on it still felt a thunderclap and a violent shaking, and the Dawans and Greeks were either so frightened that they fell to the ground, or slipped down the wall and ran with their heads in their hands.Who can withstand this?
All afternoon, ten counterweight trebuchets were constantly firing at Guishan City, like ten tireless Rhode Island stone throwers, each throwing was like a faint thunder in the distance.Like all trebuchets, their aim is very touching, like swinging a stick to smash a fly, and any place where a hussar can point his fingers, such as a gate, will never hit.But when faced with a target the size of a city, no matter where it hits, it is a success.The female wall of the rammed earth wall was smashed and shattered by flying stones, and one was connected to the rammed earth wall, and the iconic wooden tower of the Greeks was directly shattered, and the two Dawan archers inside were killed, and the houses in the outer city of Dawan were also damaged, and the boulders broke the courtyard wall, smashed through the roof, and the rubble was splashed everywhere.And what about the torsional trebuchet that Dionysus was so proud of?
In front of their peers, whose range and strength far exceeded their own, they completely lost their effect, and the Han did not attack, but only used counterweight trebuchets to reduce the dimensionality of the strike.One of them was also hit by a lucky flying stone, and no matter how fine the parts on it were and how clever the torsion, they were smashed to pieces.The city walls still trembled from time to time, as if they would collapse at any moment, and the Dawan people in the range had run away, and they all crowded into the stone inner city, begging the king of Dawan to open the door and let them in, so as not to encounter flying disasters.Although there were not many people who were directly killed, the Han army threw not only stones, but also fear!
The Dawan people have been greatly shocked and deeply feel that this battle is completely different from forty years ago.Dionysus saw fear and fear in the eyes of his subordinates, and in the face of such an enemy, the silver shield passed down for generations could not protect them at all.His lieutenant even leaned over from the inside of the city walls and whispered to Dionysus: "It's time to consider the price offered by the Sogdians!"
”Dionysus was silent and did not answer, his wife was the daughter of the king of Dawan, and he did not want to choose that path unless he had to.At this moment, the Han army's stone-throwing paused, and the Dawan archers on the city wall let out a long-lost cheer.Dionysus marched through the devastated streets with three hundred silver shields, ascended to the top of the city, and saw something that pleased and hoped for the people of Dawan.Further west of the Han camp in the west of Dawan City, a huge nomadic army has reached the basin, and the wolf smoke of the Han scouts is rising high, and the eagle feathers of the Xiongnu are fluttering in the distance!
With the Kangju people, there are at least 40,000 horsemen.At this time, it was the height of summer in May, and when the trebuchets suspended their bombardment, the cicadas inside and outside the city sounded again, which was obviously very noisy, but the Dawan people felt that it was rare quiet.Ren Hong saw in the clairvoyant mirror that he had been waiting for a long time to arrive, so he handed over the task of attacking Guishan City to Zheng Ji and more than 10,000 Du Hu Army, Taoyu Gong, and the soldiers of the Western Regions City, and transmitted the signal to the combat troops commanded by Xin Qingji and others, and 15,000 Han soldiers lined up and turned to face the west."
The cicadas are coming!"
PS: Chapter 2 is before 0:00.