On the last day of December, a rare heavy snowfall hit the land of Nanriku, which was supposed to be mild and rainy, and it was unusually cold. 77dus

Even colder than this weather is the hearts of the Lombards of Solburg, and their frozen bodies.

A week earlier, the enemy army outside the city had burned their firewood, and what had been unsightly suddenly became important war materials in the city, and the Lombards had to cut the firewood used to make fires for heating and hide in the same cold stone huts to escape the bitter cold.

The morale of the Lombard defenders was low, as was the morale of the Eastern Legion, which was the initiator. The Lombards inside the city were short of firewood, and the eastern legions outside the city were in dire need of food.

Because on the night of the burning of the firewood in Thorburg, the Lombards actually took advantage of the excitement and vigilance of the people outside the city to send an elite team to sneak out in the dark and sneak attack the grain and grass of the eastern army with fire oil.

The Eastern Army had expected the enemy to counterattack, but in any case could not have imagined that the Lombards' retaliation would be so swift and unprepared.

It was difficult to extinguish the grain and grass that had been poured with fire oil, and the Lombards did not hesitate to stop the soldiers who were fighting the fire, and by the time the legionnaires killed the Lombard sneak attackers, most of the grain and grass had already been burned.

The Eastern Corps blew up.

The garrison besieged the city, led by grain and grass. Once there is no sufficient food and grass to maintain, no matter how elite the army is, it will not be able to support it.

In order to stabilize the morale of the army, the commander of the legion, Viscount Geoffrey, immediately sent a baggage team back to Aosta City with a large amount of money to raise grain and grass.

If it weren't for this blizzard, maybe the crisis could have been successfully overcome, but after a blizzard, the baggage line of the Eastern Army was completely blocked, and even if the baggage team could raise enough food and grass to carry the baggage, it would not be possible for them to be transported to the outside of Solburg City smoothly before the snow melted.

The snow outside the tent was knee-high, but there were still goose feathers of snow floating in the sky, looking at the sky that had not cleared up at all, Viscount Geoffrey was anxious, but there was nothing he could do.

"Commander, the food for the army is less than six days, and the soldiers' rations must be reduced again, so I propose that the two meals a day be changed to one meal a day, and the wheat paste should be thinner, and the rye bread should be mixed with some bark and grass roots, so that it may last for ten days and a half months, and perhaps when the snow melts, the baggage team will be able to rush from Aosta City with the grain and grass." In the military tent, the adjutant of the Legion, who was in charge of the management of the Legion's baggage, asked Viscount Geoffrey for instructions to cut some of the soldiers' already unfed share of the military rations.

"Didn't you ask you to lead your troops to the manor villages around Solburg and search again, why is there only six days of grain and grass left?" Jeffrey stroked his forehead with his right hand, and his face was sad.

"My lord, the manor villages around Solburg have been looted by the Lombards long before we arrived, not to mention the food, even the tattered clothes have been burned by the Lombards." The adjutant remembered that the surrounding manor villages had been looted and slaughtered, and he was in a bitter stomach.

"The armies of the friendly countries in the east~ can you lend us some food?"

"I personally went to find the Viscount of Berrion with your private message, but their situation is not good, our side is still besieging the city, the soldiers are fighting less, and the food consumption is a little slow. There are daily battles on their side, and the soldiers have the strength to fight without enough food, and now that the blizzard has blocked the road, the friendly armies are still with nowhere to supply food and grass. However, Viscount Berion still promised to support us with 2,000 pounds of military rations, but the snow has been thicker in the past two days, and we can't transport it for a while~"

"If the carriage can't come, won't you send soldiers over to carry it? Two thousand pounds of grain can last three or five days. In addition, they sent orders to the troops of the Eastern Legion stationed in the other three castle fortresses, asking them to transfer five days' worth of rations for each of the besieging troops of Solburg, and to send people to transport them as soon as the snow cleared. ”

"My lord, I'm afraid~"

"I'm afraid of what?"

"The other three places are also difficult to supply food and grass, and there are also Provençal friendly armies in those castle fortresses, our defenders may be willing to grit their teeth and pull out some food from their mouths and send it over, but those Provencal defenders~~~"

"I know this, this is not an emergency~ Tell the friendly army of Provence, just say that these grains are borrowed, once our baggage team transports grain south, I will immediately send someone to return it. That's it, hurry up and do it. ”

"Yes, my lord." The adjutant walked out of the tent of the Chinese command camp with a bitter face......

After the adjutant left, Viscount Geoffrey continued to stand at the door of the tent and watched the snow outside, when suddenly he turned his head to the chief of the guard who was following him and asked, "What has that Art been doing lately?" Now that the snow is closed, it is impossible for the Lombards in Vilno to go north to rescue Solburg, and there is no need to send so many people to guard the periphery. Why hasn't he returned to camp yet? ”

"This~ I don't know, I've already given him an order to go back to the camp for a period of time to repair, and then go back to the periphery after the snow melts. But Sir Art said that he must stay on the periphery and keep the army safe. The chief guard replied.

"That's what he said?"

"Well, that's what you said?"

"What else can I say? At this time, once we return to the camp, we will not have to hand over all the food we carry with the army! The Legion's grain and grass have been attacked, and now they have been blocked by heavy snow, and I am afraid that in a few days they will not even be able to drink clear soup and wheat cereal. ”

At this time, in the garrison camp of the southern outpost of Solburg, Art was eating freshly minced meat porridge and soaked rye bread with Odogangus and several other henchmen officers around the brazier in the tent.

"My lord, they deserve it, you have warned the Lombards that they may go out of the city at any time to take revenge, and everyone will value you, who can blame you? Only themselves can be blamed. Otto puffed out his cheeks and was indignant.

Angus put down the rye bread in his hand and replied, "That being said, we are a team of the Eastern Legion after all, and if the Eastern Legion can't attack Thorburg for a long time, we will also have to be trapped here, and we will be starving and freezing for a long time."

Art poured the last mouthful of wheat cereal into his mouth, put down the wooden bowl and sighed, and said slowly: "Yes, Sergeant Major is right, now we are in the Legion, and we are as proud as the Legion. We didn't come here from far away Burgundy to starve in the snow. Completing the mission of the regiment as soon as possible and returning home with military merits is what everyone is looking forward to. ”

"My lord, do you have any plans?" Otto asked, looking up.

"Have you figured out a good way to break the city???" Otto hurriedly asked.

Art smiled bitterly, "So many excellent commanders of the legion have come up with a way not to break the city, what strategy can I have to break the city quickly." ”

The excited expressions of the Otto people disappeared.

"But I've thought of a way to solve the Legion's immediate needs."

"You mean to raise much-needed food for the Legion?" Angus guessed one or two.

"I guess the Legion Baggage Team has done a pretty good job of raising food. At the beginning of December, the Duchy of Burgundy sent 600,000 pounds of military rations to Provence, and the eastern front, which was a key theater of operations, distributed 200,000 pounds, of which 120,000 pounds were hoarded in the city of Aosta. ”

"The difficulty facing the corps now is not that it can't raise food, but how to get it to the battlefield of Solburg as soon as possible."

"But what can we do? Heavy snow closed the road, and the wagons carrying grain could not carry their loads in the knee-deep snow. Otto said.

"It's true that a normal carriage can't move through the snow, but there is a kind of cart that can." Art said mysteriously.

Art didn't reveal the answer to the crowd, and asked Felix to call Roger, a mercenary who had come down from the mountains.

"Roger, tell me about the kind of wagon you mountain people use in winter." Art said to Roger, who walked into the tent.

"My lord, that kind of carriage can be called a sleigh, or it can be called a sleigh......"

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Chapter 198: A Difficult Siege