The enemy army outside the city attacked the city, it was inevitable to happen, this Altic knew very well in his heart, but he didn't expect Ziyad to start so soon, during the day, he carefully observed with a telescope, there are a large number of half-finished siege equipment in the enemy camp, which shows that the process of the enemy army building siege equipment will last for a certain amount of time, and it will not start the operation soon, but he did not expect that the enemy army suddenly launched a large-scale operation.

It was still an hour or two before dawn, but Artik was no longer sleepy, and he hurriedly got up and dressed, and walked towards his mansion surrounded by a kind of guard.

The large-scale action of the enemy army alarmed all the high-ranking officials in the city of Maia, and they all got up and ran to their respective posts, after all, once the city was breached, what awaited them was a dead end, and the main problem was that their glory and wealth were completely gone, which was the worst.

"City Lord, the main force of the enemy army has been dispatched to surround us, and there are siege machines on all sides, it seems that Qi Yad is going to attack it!"

"City Lord, based on past experience, the enemy army will definitely attack after dawn, that is, an hour or two."

"City Lord, the soldiers of our army will be able to crush the enemy's siege operations."

"The soldiers and horses in the city can reinforce from all directions at any time, please rest assured."

A group of subordinates said gossipingly.

Artik looked at everyone and said: "I really didn't expect that Ziyad would attack so quickly, and they couldn't wait to launch an attack before the siege equipment was finished, which shows that they must have a reason to attack the city as soon as possible, maybe it was Mansour's order, or they were about to run 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 time, Ziyad will definitely retreat, if their soldiers are hungry and have no strength, Our soldiers and horses from all cities will come to reinforce you, so try to encourage the soldiers to defend with all their might, and you must hold the city. ”

"City lord, please rest assured, our soldiers train day and night, although they can't fight in the field, but they are still more than enough to defend the city, and there are enough reserve soldiers in the city to defend the city."

"City Lord, let Qi Yade see how powerful we are!"

The subordinates said.

Artik nodded, looked at everyone, and asked, "Have you figured out the situation of the enemy army, how many soldiers and horses are there in each direction, and how many equipment are there?" ”

"City Lord, it's too dark, I can't see it clearly at all, I can only see a rough idea, there are a lot of soldiers and horses in all directions, the direction of the north gate is the main force of the enemy, and it is also the closest to the enemy camp."

The subordinate said.

Artik nodded and said: "Okay, let the soldiers and horses in the city be ready for battle, ready to reinforce the various city walls at any time, build five thousand soldiers with equipment, and draw out two thousand men and horses to reinforce the direction of the north gate, where the pressure is the greatest, and more soldiers are needed." ”

Before the battle began, Artik was reluctant to use his most elite 10,000 soldiers and horses, which were stationed in the middle of the city, and even if the enemy attacked them from all sides, they would not be harmed.

Of course, these soldiers and horses made great contributions in the last battle to defend the city, that is, they trapped the enemy troops who came out of the tunnel, and only then did they achieve the result of annihilating the elite of 3,000 enemy troops.

These elite soldiers and horses are the backing of Artik to defend the city of Maia, in the beginning of the hardest battle to defend the city, he did not use these elite soldiers and horses, that is, to preserve this elite force intact, and in the most critical later stage, let these new forces join the battle of defending the city, so as to firmly hold the city, if all these elite soldiers and horses are scattered out to defend the city at once, once the elite is lost, the entire city of the army and people will lose confidence.

For example, the soldiers and horses who are defending the city, although they are facing huge casualties, but when they think that there are still 10,000 elite reinforcements in the city, they will not be nervous, and believe that these reinforcements can be reinforced at any time, and if all the elite soldiers and horses go to the city, once the elite is lost, the temporarily recruited reserve force will completely collapse in confidence, and once the military morale is formed, the consequences will be unimaginable.

The daily operation of the city requires a lot of manpower, so when there is not a shortage of personnel, the people in the prime of life will not be hastily mobilized, and they will only be used when the defenders in the city have suffered heavy casualties and the manpower is insufficient.

The city gate has been blocked for a long time, the food and water sources in the city are enough, but the supply of vegetables and fruits is not so sufficient, fortunately, the area of the city is relatively large, there are a lot of open land, there are all kinds of vegetables planted on it, barely able to maintain the demand in the city, in addition, the city also reserves a lot of dried vegetables, although the nutrition of these dried vegetables is not as good as fresh vegetables, but there are vegetables to eat is better than no bite, the human body needs the nutrition of vegetables, can not eat vegetables.

The city of Maia is located in the desert, the surface is full of sand, but there can be rivers in the desert, and even underground water, the desert is not necessarily all sand, oases and rivers can exist, this is not unusual.

There is a small river in the city of Maia, so irrigation is not a problem, but because of the size of the city, it is impossible to grow food on a large scale, and only a small scale of vegetables.

Soon, the men went to different gates to command the defenders of the gates against the impending siege.

The area of Maia City is very large, but the length of each wall is only seven or eight miles away, according to the calculation of each soldier defending four meters of the city wall, only a thousand soldiers are enough, and three thousand troops defend together, you can achieve more than one soldier defending every meter, and the defense force can be described as quite powerful.

Of course, if you really fight, you will definitely not be deployed like this, otherwise it will be easy to lose a lot in the first round of enemy attacks, and besides, in addition to defending the city wall, these soldiers and horses are also responsible for the defense of the city gate and the urn city, and these places need soldiers, so there are fewer soldiers actually applied to the city wall.

In order to reduce casualties as much as possible, the defending soldiers are not all on the wall, and some soldiers stay under the city, ready to reinforce at any time, depending on how fierce the attacker's attack is, if the attacker is extremely fierce, the defending soldiers will have to go to the city more, and if the attacker attacks more with catapults and arrow rain, and there is no large-scale attack by soldiers, then there should not be too many soldiers left on the city wall.

For example, in the wars of later generations, when the enemy bombarded on a large scale, the soldiers on the defending side should dodge as much as possible in order to preserve their own vitality, and then come out to fight when the enemy shelling is over and the infantry is attacking, which is a lesson summed up with blood.

Although there was no threat of artillery fire in ancient wars, the attacks of catapults and arrow rain can also be called low-profile artillery fire, and the lethality is still considerable, so it is still necessary to dodge.

The guards of each city gate sent a thousand soldiers to defend the city wall first, and the rest of the soldiers were under the city, and they could come up with reinforcements at any time.

Because I didn't expect the enemy to attack the city so quickly, the defensive materials prepared on the city wall were not enough, after all, some things are inconvenient to put on the city wall, and if they are exposed to the sun and rain, it is easy to become rotten, so when necessary, it needs to be placed in a position to avoid light, and at this moment, the enemy soldiers and horses are about to attack the city, so a large number of materials placed under the city must be transported to the city wall.

Except for the 500 soldiers on duty at night, the rest of the soldiers who got up early were all busy, some of them were monitoring the enemy on the city walls, and the rest were carrying the materials for defending the city and making final preparations.

Because there were no night vision devices in ancient times, night battles were very difficult for both offensive and defensive sides to adapt, because they couldn't see anything at night, but when necessary, they could fight at night, and once the war was fought to the point where it was inextricable, everything was not a problem.

The siege army outside the city is ready, ready to attack Maia City at any time, and Qi Yad has also arrived at the command position, because he has been attacked by Datang's artillery before, so, this time Qi Yad chose a safer position, fighting outside the range of artillery, so, even if it is the most powerful artillery in Datang, there is no way to take him.

"General, it's almost dawn, and it's almost time to attack."

When Dongfang was just showing the whiteness of the fish's belly, one of his subordinates asked Qiyad for instructions.

Ziyad looked at the city of Maia, which was a few miles ahead, nodded, and ordered: "Immediately blow the horn and prepare to attack." ”

"Woo woo woo ......"

Soon, hundreds of soldiers blew their horns at the same time, so loud that they could be heard even from the other side of the city.

"Attack."

The horn of the storm sounded the command, the first soldiers began to attack, and the soldiers in the direction of the various gates launched an attack at the same time, they relied on the siege equipment, little by little, and the mobile catapults also began to advance, and immediately fired a large number of stones and fireballs to attack the soldiers on the defending side.

Because of the large number of siege engines built, the morale of the soldiers on the attacking side was very high, and the catapults attacked fiercely, and in front of the catapults, there were also arrow carts as cover to avoid being attacked by the crossbows of the defensive beds.

The overwhelming attack put great pressure on the defending side, but the defense of the city was very tight, and there were enough soldiers and horses on the defensive, so even in the face of such huge pressure, the defending soldiers did not panic, and they went all out to defend and did not show timidity.

The attack of a large number of stones and fireballs has caused some losses to the defending side, and some of the defensive equipment has been smashed by stones, but the defending soldiers are not in a hurry to counterattack, a large number of bed crossbows and stone throwing attacks, which also caused a lot of damage to the attacking side's soldiers and horses, although the attacking side has a shield car to cover, but this is not omnipotent, there are always places where the shield car can not cover, and the stones thrown in the city are large and small, and the particularly large stones are not able to resist the shield car.

Always, at the beginning of the battle, both sides are attacked with stones and fireballs, first to create momentum and raise the morale of the army under their command.

Under the cover of the catapult attack, the soldiers and horses of the attacking side are gradually approaching the city wall, and at the front of the line are the common people pushing the shield carts, these are the people who have been plundered, and they are not willing to die, they are forced, but in order to be able to live, they must also perform hard, otherwise, the crossbowmen who follow them will kill them.

These shield cars have four wheels, are relatively tall, and have heavy armor on the front, sides, and top, especially on the front and top, which are effective against stone attacks.

But there is a small section at the bottom of the front that is unarmoured, but the bow and crossbow of the city wall cannot attack the people of the cart through the gap at the bottom, after all, the bow and arrow will not bend, and neither can the stone, this gap is very useful, when it is close to the trench, the vehicle will stop, and the people of the cart will take off the tools brought in the vehicle, dig out the soil behind them and under their feet and throw it into the trench, so as to fill the trench step by step.

Of course, sandbags can also be transported from the rear, in short, the trench must be filled, otherwise, the rest of the various large siege equipment will not be able to pass, let alone siege the city, relying only on catapult attacks, it is definitely impossible to break through the city defenses.

Behind the shield cart were a small number of crossbowmen, and when they reached the position of the trench, they were already very close to the city wall, so they were completely within the range of the defending soldiers, and similarly, the defending soldiers and horses were also in the range of being attacked.

The defending soldiers can rely on the protection of the female wall to shoot the crossbowmen outside the city, and the crossbowmen outside the city can also use the protection of the shield car to release arrows on the city.

Since both the attacker and the defender have defensive cover, the vast majority of arrows fail to kill and injure the enemy, and less than one percent of the arrows are very lucky to hit the soldier's body, and even then, it may not be able to take the soldier's life, or maybe just injure the soldier.

Therefore, in this case, although the attacks of both the offensive and defensive sides were extremely fierce, and the battle was inseparable, the actual casualties were not much, and the losses were more due to various equipment and attrition weapons, such as stones and arrows, as well as fireballs, and partially destroyed equipment.

But in addition to the real loss of fireballs, stones and arrows are still considerable, the stones and arrows thrown on the city wall will fall on the attacker's position, and the stones and arrows thrown by the attacker will fall inside and outside the city wall, and these things can be used twice, and then thrown back.

This is the advantage of the cold weapon era, stones and arrows can be used many times, while the bullets and shells of later generations are not, the bullets are disposable, and the shells will be blown to pieces.