Thinking of this, he took a deep breath to calm himself down, and after a quick calculation in his mind, he said in a deep voice: "The elevation angle remains the same, the gun body is deflected to the left by one degree, the firing range is reduced by one block, and the original live ammunition weight is still used." ”

The gunner immediately did the same.

"Launch!"

The stone bullets whizzed away, and then one after another flew out of the city......

But more stone bullets flew in from outside the city, "Boom! Rumble! Rumble! The ......" was mixed with exclamations and screams. One of the stone bullets landed near the ballista where Kurdorod was, and the stone chips were scattered in all directions with an alarming sound. Kurdorod was unmoved, and after this period of training, he was no longer a scholar (a nickname given to him by the legionnaires), but a qualified soldier.

Syracuse's siege tower is far from comparable to the one used by Dionia in his previous attack on Knappetia, it is 20 meters long, 10 meters wide, and 12 meters high, with a trapezoidal shape and a total of seven floors. On the top floor is a ring-shaped wooden vertebral disc, which contains five archers who can condescendingly release arrows at the head of the city; There is also a battering ram hanging on the lowest floor, which can directly hit the city wall; The penultimate floor is almost as high as the city wall, and the drawbridge can be lowered to allow the soldiers who enter the tower to rush to the top of the city; The penultimate floor, slightly below the head of the city, houses another terrible weapon invented by the Syracuses, the belly bow...... As such, this is a super siege tower that requires hundreds of people to push it hard behind and on both sides of the tower.

Dionia's stone projectiles kept falling around it, splashing mud flowers one after another, splashing mud mixed with rain and hitting people, causing pain. The death of those who were hit by the stone bullets was even more terrifying, scaring the surrounding soldiers into dodging. In the case of dense siege soldiers advancing under the city, only a large area was vacated near the siege tower.

Of course, the commander of the siege tower also felt a little dangerous, and he urged the laborers behind the tower to push the siege tower to speed up, as long as they reached the city wall, nothing could threaten the siege tower.

At this time, the outer plank of the penultimate layer of the siege tower had been opened, revealing the two belly bows, which were similar to ballistas, except that the device used for firing was a huge bow that was fixed to the launcher flat. The operator turned the pulley vigorously, pulled the thick bowstring apart and fixed it, and put in an iron arrow that was also huge.

The distance of 30 meters was easy to aim for, and the belly archer on the right even aimed his iron arrow at the general with the colorful tassel on the helmet on the top of the city.

"Whew!! ......" With the sound of a huge bowstring, the iron arrow flashed with a screeching sound, and flew to the head of the city.

When Ascamas was "opening the window" in the siege tower, his years of battlefield experience made him feel uneasy, so he subconsciously sat down on the battlements, and heard two terrible screams, behind him were holding a round shield to block the soldiers from the earthen ramparts and siege tower bow and arrow attacks were pierced through the chest by iron arrows, and the strong kinetic energy also penetrated the soldiers behind him at the same time, and finally nailed to the wall behind him, while another iron arrow shot through three people at a time, and the surrounding soldiers, including Askamas, all showed horror when they saw this.

The giant siege tower of Syracuse, which played a key role in the capture of the Carthaginian city of Motia in Sicily, revealed its hideous face, like a giant beast, slowly approaching the city walls, closer and closer, closer and closer, and the soldiers defending the city were panicked......

At this critical moment, a black dot flew across the city wall like a meteor, and hit the arrow tower on the top floor of the siege tower with strong kinetic energy. With a bang, the hard, thick plank easily broke a hole, and the scattered sawdust pierced the faces and bodies of the Syracuse archers in the arrow tower like steel needles, causing them to let out a terrible scream. But this was not the end, as the stone projectile that fell into the tower fell down the wooden ladder and landed on the feet of a soldier on the penultimate floor of the siege tower, who was winding the belly bow, and he let out a scream that caused panic among the other soldiers and delayed the firing of the belly bow.

"Hit! Hit! Our ballista hit!! ......" the defenders of the city cheered, as if they had won the whole victory, and used such an act to dispel the fear in their hearts.

Astamas sighed in his heart: the stone projectiles of the ballista were a drop in the bucket compared to the huge siege towers, and they were not enough to cause great damage to it.

As soon as Ascamas finished sighing, he saw one stone bullet after another fly towards the siege tower.

As the soldiers sighed that they had not hit, and some even began to pray to Apollo, their prayers seemed to work.

A stone projectile flew from the side and hit the side of the middle of the siege tower, causing the enemy to exclaim.

Then another stone bullet flew impartially into the layer where the baffle was being lifted and ready to be fired, and the belly bow was brittle, and various parts and sawdust flew in the narrow space, in exchange for the screams of the soldiers and the splashing of blood.

Then another stone projectile smashed through the lower part of the siege tower.

Despite the cheers of the defenders, the siege tower, which had been pierced by several large holes in the stone projectiles, was still slowly approaching the city wall, but in the process of moving, the tower began to shake, and the loose wooden planks continued to fall down, so that the laborers who were struggling to push it scattered in panic, and the siege tower began to collapse from top to bottom......

On the earthen ramparts outside the city, Dionysius looked at this scene with a grim face, and he knew that although under his own supervision, Fasipesas concentrated nearly 10,000 people, stepped up the construction of engineering towers under the command of engineers, and built three in a few days, but it was too hasty, so that the siege towers were not too strong, and the violent impact of stone bullets must have destroyed the internal structure of the siege towers......

"Look, sir! That engineering tower has crossed the moat! Damocles shouted excitedly to distract Dionysius.

"Our battering ram has reached the city, and I think the walls of Crotone will tremble under its impact!" Not to be outdone, another subordinate said.

Indeed, the walls of Crotone were littered with ant-attached Syracuse soldiers, who attracted most of the attacks from the defenders, causing siege towers, battering rams, and rammers (i.e., wooden wheels that had previously tamped the moat, and when they reached the city, the occupants of the carts could use tools such as pickaxes to dig up and loosen the hardest crust of the wall, the stones, causing the walls to collapse,...... These large siege engines reached the city relatively smoothly. A siege tower being knocked down will not affect the outcome of the battle at all. And once these siege engines are used together, the walls of Crotone will be in big trouble.

But Dionysius looked up worriedly, and the clouds in the sky were getting thicker and thicker, and the rain was getting heavier and heavier, so that he could hardly open his eyes: if the rain continued like this, it would be ......

As if in response to his concerns, "Click!! …… Rumble!!! ......" A dazzling light flashed in the sky, followed by rumbling thunder, which overshadowed all the noise on the battlefield and startled the many soldiers on both sides, who looked up at the sky.

The wind is strong......

The rain was heavier and soon turned into a downpour......

Lightning, thunder, strong winds, and torrential rain have become the protagonists of this world.

The soldiers no longer fought, but cowered and hid under the city walls or in the towers, because just now a lightning bolt that ran through the heavens and the earth struck the ground, and it actually split a huge siege tower in half!

Those who saw this terrible scene were stunned.

This is Zeus, the god-king, wrath! The soldiers on both sides trembled in their hearts and began to pray to Zeus.

"My lord, it's too dangerous here, let's go down quickly!" The retinue came to persuade Dionysius.

Dionysius looked ahead with great reluctance, but the rain was too dense, and the field of vision was all white......

He reluctantly ordered: retreat immediately!

In such extremely bad weather, the sound of the military horn could not be transmitted at all, but fortunately, the soldiers of Syracuse did not need to give orders at all, and they had already consciously retreated. And the Crotone did not dare to go out of the city in such terrible weather to pursue. A large-scale siege battle had just begun, and it was aborted by the intervention of nature......

Dionysius had just gotten down the ramparts, and the ramparts that had taken thousands of people two days to erect were slowly collapsing down under the fierce washing of the rain, and he cursed helplessly: "Count the Crotone people lucky!" ”

"It looks like Zeus is blessing them this time." One of the attendants said casually.

Dionysius immediately glared at him fiercely: "Shut your mouth!" This has nothing to do with Zeus, it's just a coincidence. ”

At the head of the city, Ascamas was praying to Zeus devoutly.

There are not many rainy days in the winter in Crotone, and it can be said that today's heavy rain is rare in recent years, so the people of Crotone believe that it is the blessing of the gods, although it is being washed away by the wind and rain, but everyone's morale has been boosted.

……………………………………

The war between Syracuse and the Southern Italian Alliance was always under the attention of many powers because it was related to the hegemony of the Greek city-states in the western Mediterranean.

Needless to say, Carthage hated Syracuse, who had been fighting with him for a hundred years. However, the plight of reality made the Carthaginian Senate reject Dionia's request for an alliance, of course, they hoped that the army of Syracuse would suffer setbacks and even heavy losses in the war of Greater Greece, but the news came that the Syracuse people were victorious, and even Crotone and Dionysia were in danger under the fierce attack of the army led by Dionysius, and the Carthaginians were even more afraid of the strength of Syracuse.

Margo, who was in charge of the defense in Sicily, wrote several letters to the Senate asking for instructions from launching a small attack on the allies of Syracuse, in order to divert Syracuse's attention from Syracuse, to slow down Dionysius' attack to the north, and to prevent him from consolidating a more powerful Syracuse after his conquest of Greater Greece.

The Senate, headed by Hanno, rejected his proposal. In order to prevent him from coming in chaos, the Senate also sent a special inspector to Lilispleen to supervise the movement of the Sicilian army.

……………………………………

The Carthaginian Senate watched with concern the progress of the war in Greater Greece, while the Corinthian offensive and defensive battles continued in the Peloponnese.

However, in ill health, Agosilaus returned to Sparta and handed over the command of the Spartan coalition in Corinth to Praxitas, the uncle of Agosipolis, another new king of Sparta, who also remained in Corinth.