The pre-war negotiations between the two sides were nothing more than a rush of formality. There was no consensus. It was more of a ritual that sounded the horn for the final Ottoman siege of Athens.

"Concentrate the soldiers around the siege weapons. Try to delay their approach to the walls as long as possible! "Publius's plan was to use the walls of the inner city of Athens to delay as much time as possible, and to put the last gamble on the only mountain road in the hills of Akropolis.

Soon, the vanguard of the Ottomans launched the first tentative assault on the walls. Karacha commanded the army with poise and timing, and was also comfortable with the use of reserve legions. His composure led directly to an unprecedented rout for the Varna crusade.

And in response to this, Publius will definitely not press all the hole cards in this round of attacks.

"The bow crossbow fires three rounds of alternating salvos, leaving a five-second gap for each salvo to save ammunition!"

A three-column salvo is a common tactic used against a massive siege, increasing the range of the attack by sacrificing the intensity of the strike. It was an effective way to hinder the enemy's attack, and in doing so, Publius was buying time for the musketeers to reload.

The number of muskets is quite limited, so reload time is even more important. The Athenian city defense had some Venetian musketeers, and even so, in order to effectively inflict damage, each attack had to give the group at least a minute to reload.

It sounds rather short, but in such a siege, a minute, was enough for the Ottomans to rush under the walls.

But these soldiers were not what Publius was most worried about. The condescending terrain of the inner city of Athens allowed him to clearly see in the distance, the soldiers formed by the Ottoman transporting catapults had slowly arrived in the central square of Athens. It was far beyond the reach of all firearms and muskets, but it was easy to throw boulders into the city.

"If we can't destroy these things, we'll probably have to finish our walls without a single round of rubble-throwing......" Publius muttered to himself anxiously, half-leaning against the wall.

There were only a few dozen war horses in the acropolis, and there were not even cavalry in the strict sense of the word. Add to that the fact that Karacha will definitely place heavy troops around the catapult camp, and this is an unsolvable problem.

"General Publius, right! Their people are coming from the right! ”

The inner wall was the opposite of the new sunken bastion wall, and the convex structure made it difficult for Publius, as a commander, to observe the entire battle situation from all angles, even if he stood in the middle of the wall. However, the streets of Athens were so intricate that the Ottomans could easily avoid some areas of intense fire and attack from the blind spots of the imperial defenders.

"Don't move the musket squad for the time being, take three hundred infantry, and go to the right with me!" Publius was well aware of the vagaries of Karacha's troops, and of course he would not let Karacha lead him by the nose, but when he arrived on the right with hundreds of city defenders, the Ottoman siege ladder was firmly erected on the wall. There were even people who stormed the city walls.

This almost meant that the walls had collapsed by the time the Ottomans and the Empire opened their first faces, but Publius simply didn't have time to think. If the gap was enlarged by the Ottomans, they would only pour into the walls even more frantically. According to the plan, no matter how fragile the walls were, they would at least hold out until late afternoon, so as to give the Roman soldiers in Athens a chance to see the sunrise the next day. Therefore, he could only expel the Ottomans from the city walls first.

"General Publius!"

All the soldiers, without any orders, were led by Publius into the Ottoman crowd. Seeing the reinforcements coming, the city defense army on the right that had been retreating was also demoralized, and they re-grasped their weapons.

It was only a split second that Publius understood why the wall on the right had fallen so quickly.

Whether it was the armor under the pirate robe, or the posture of using weapons, the truth had already been laid out in front of him - this group of people was not pirates, nor were they ordinary Ottoman soldiers, this was the Sultan Guards who had been put to death in the first place, and Muhammad miraculously brought out of Edirne!

It was only a fight with one of them, and the weapon was only a brief contact, and the pain from the tiger's mouth was already clear to Publius, and Karacha, or Muhammad, had made a bloody contribution to this battle.

Even without this group of guards, the city of Athens would have died a lifetime. And their appearance undoubtedly sealed the lid on this coffin.

"Let half of the musket squad come to support immediately! Also, let the rest immediately go to the left wall and stand by. Since Karacha brought the Guards Corps, he would not put all his eggs in one basket. At last...... There is no need to save ammunition anymore. Reload your shot as fast as possible. Publius gave orders to his soldiers as fast as he could, and then quickly entered the battle group.

"Send the infidels to hell!"

When it comes to martial arts, Publius isn't even a match for the average Sultan guard. But the defensive line, which he personally commanded, finally began to counterattack in the true sense of the word.

Every slash from the Sultan's guards that seemed to split the mountain and rocks made him feel overwhelming, but Publius fought back again and again. And every battle cry he uttered seemed to motivate the soldiers, and until reinforcements from the musket squad arrived, the city defenders forcibly stopped the offensive of the Sultan guards under the city walls.

But relying on muskets, the Sultan's guards left only a few dozen corpses on the city walls and left unharmed, and the losses of the city defense army reached more than 100 people on this line of siege alone. And this was under the condition that the empire had a topographical advantage.

It was hard for Publius to imagine what would happen if the battle dragged on......

……

"Your Majesty! You should take refuge in the Acropolis first! Once the Ottomans' catapults are assembled, they are within range, and no one can guarantee your absolute safety! Eventually, Morey spoke, he needed to keep John safe, but now standing on the walls was no different from being sent to death.

"Morey, if it were my father, we would have the walls of Theodosius at our feet, do you think my father would leave the front line and huddle in the palace?" There was not much fear in John's eyes.

If two years ago he was still frightened by everything in his previous life, now, his bloodline has truly been connected to this thousand-year-old empire.

"For the sake of Valleologo...... For the ...... of Rome"