The Venetians did not think that it was difficult to occupy Pisa, at least not until it was bombarded suddenly.

The danger they consider is always when the Vatican will find out what happened in Pisa and send troops to support Pisa, and what will happen if Florence does not intervene unexpectedly as they expected.

Because of this, the Venetians provided their mercenaries with an additional group of brave and loyal sword and shield soldiers, and in their minds, if the two city-states really sent troops to intervene, then the Venetians occupying Pisa only needed to be able to effectively defend the city, which would be a great gain.

While using Pisa as the southern line to encircle the new castle of Montina from the north to the south, the Venetians actually had an attempt to use Pisa as a way to attract Vatican troops if they could, and in this regard, they actually had the same idea as Alexander.

When the Venetian plan came to be understood, Alexandria was to use pizza to attract troops from Venice.

"When the Venetians find that Pisa will not only not be successfully captured, but may even have lost an army of 2,000 men in vain, will Pisa become another Montina in their minds?"

Of course, Alexander didn't say this idea, he knew that it was already a miracle for the Pisians to be able to hold the city at this time, and if he told them that he was actually going to use Pisa as a bait to attract more enemy troops, Alexander was afraid that they might simply open the city and surrender because they were afraid.

The pungent sour smell of medicine in the air whetted his appetite, but Alexander took a deep breath, knowing that he would have to smell it for a long time.

The sudden artillery salvo did not do much damage to the Venetians, except for a few cannons that directly hit the advancing team, more cannonballs just fell to the ground and raised a large cloud of dirt and dust, as the roar cleared, it could be seen that the Venetians seemed to be frightened, and their horizontal column hesitated behind the trench, but even so, the Venetians, who fluctuated back and forth like a crumpled water wave with a stone, only stopped for a moment, and then began to move forward in another fierce drum beat.

"A brave army must be able to stand still in the midst of a rain of enemy arrows and shells, face these dangers, and when the trumpet of advance is heard, it must be able to keep up without personal timidity disturbing the whole formation."

Looking at the Venetians below, Alexander suddenly remembered such a sentence that seemed quite familiar, and then he remembered that this sentence was exactly what Machiavelli had said in his "On the Art of War".

"Stand still and face the danger." Alexander repeated the words softly, and shook his head gently as he looked at the Venetian, who was slowly but unusually determined, as he walked through the trench.

By this time, he thought that Gompati was really a genius.

Perhaps I could ask this man to build me a new castle in Montina, the thought crossed Alexander's mind.

The trenches, which were not deep, but which were crisscrossed by them, were a great threat to an army that had spread out in a horizontal formation, and which had to maintain as much formation as possible, was on full display at this time.

When the first row of soldiers finally staggered over the dirt slope of the trench, the next few rows of soldiers were still trying to get past as quickly as possible while maintaining formation, then the second and third rows.

The mercenary captain was standing on the edge of the ditch above the trench, and the black burn marks on his face looked terrifying, and his completely swollen eyelids bulged high, completely enveloping the whole eye, and looked like a peach with rotten skin.

But at this time, he didn't care about the injury on his face, his eyes were fixed on the distant city wall, and his mouth was silently counting.

Years of combat experience allowed him to roughly guess the size of the enemy's artillery from the sound of the cannon and the projected shells, although it is not very clear, but the captain has guessed that this should be the kind of artillery with a small caliber, this kind of artillery is often mounted in fortresses or warships, if the gunners who use these guns are experts, then these big guys will obviously pose a great threat, the mercenary captain secretly prayed in his heart not to be so unlucky, Because he had experienced the terrible experience of an entire company being shelled continuously in an undefended clearing, it made him swear that he would never encounter it again in his life.

The captain quickly read the numbers in his mouth, but he did not wait for the second round of fire, and while thanking God for arranging a group of crappy gunners for Pisa, he endured the pain on his face and shouted for the team to cross the trench as soon as possible.

"Quick! Hurry up! While their artillery hasn't fired yet! The captain's shouts even drowned out the fierce beat of the drummer on the other side of the line, and he ran along the edge of the line waving his command staff, and kept looking back at the city of Pisa as he struck it headlessly against the soldiers' helmets.

"What happened?" Alexander on the city wall was also a little surprised, although he knew that most of these gunners were not qualified at all, but at this time he only needed to let those cannons fire for as long as he could deter the enemy.

"My lord, it's not a big problem, it's just that this cannon seems to be a bit troublesome." One of the nearest gunners shouted and kept busy.

The cannon was not improvised, scavenged from a storehouse, but had been placed in the city, and according to Gompati, it was this cannon that "fired the first shot to overthrow the Republic......

Gompati didn't know that his statement made Alexander's heart very entangled for a while, because how it sounded like he was an anti-decadent restorationist.

But this cannon can't shoot, so what about the others?

Alexander was about to ask, but when he saw that the gunners of the other guns were gathered around the old gunner and watched the weighing, measuring, and loading the propellant, he realized that in this era, the gunner profession is really not something ordinary people can do.

"You don't want to be in charge of just one piece of artillery," Alexander immediately ordered, "give the cannon to someone else, and you will be in charge of distributing the propellant." As he spoke, he looked up at the Venetians outside the city, who had gradually recovered from the previous bombardment and were quickly crossing the front trench, "I want you to be able to shoot as soon as possible, do you hear, the Venetians don't wait for shells, old man!" ”

Another line of soldiers crossed the trench, and the captain finally had a slightly comforting smile on his face, but the pain in his cheeks also made his eyes glow with joy, and he tore a small flask from his belt and gritted his teeth, and all of them fell to his face, and the sting of his heart made him let out a violent cry of pain.

He looked back and saw that there was not much more in the queue behind him.

The Venetians, who had planned to have only five rows of deep queues, had to narrow the front because of the unexpected appearance of the trench, but even so, more than half of the entire queue had already crossed the trench by this time, and it only took a moment for them to advance towards the hastily piled low wall beneath the wall not far away.

It was then that the captain heard the last thing he wanted to hear.

After a long silence, the cannon on the rampart roared again.

The dull whistling sound of stone bullets rubbing against the air thundered over the battlefield, and many people involuntarily bent slightly and raised their heads to look at the sky, and then looked back with the trail of smoke overhead.

A loud muffled "boom" came from the back of the line, and those at the front could also feel the violent tremor on the ground in an instant, and the panic of the people behind pushing forward and crowding, followed by a chilling scream and cry.

Large expanses of blown dirt were lifted up into the air, and then smashed down to the ground and crackled on people's helmets, some unlucky eggs were directly smashed by the stones and knocked the helmets into the air, and then the people who were smashed to the point of breaking their heads and bleeding screamed on their heads and faces covered with blood.

The captain was dragged out of the trench by his men, and a cannonball fired from the far side passed through the 5th row of the queue of the team, and after smashing half of the drummer who was beating the drum vigorously, the cannonball rolled all the way through the crowd and ploughed a human ** gully, and then smashed a soldier backwards and flew out, and after falling into the trench with the captain, he rolled on the ground with the flesh hanging on it and stopped.

The soldier who blocked the fatal blow for the captain was knocked to pieces in the chest, but it was this last barrier that kept the captain's name, and when his men pulled him out of the dead, the captain just kept shaking his head, and his helmet didn't know where it fell, but it was obviously not knocked unconscious, so he immediately ordered the team to move forward as soon as he woke up.

"Leave the others alone, move forward, hurry up, stay here and wait for death!"

The captain roared loudly, and when he saw the slightly hesitant look of his subordinates, he first lowered his head to find his command staff, and after finding nothing, he simply pulled out his sword and threatened the person in front of him: "If you hear it, don't stop, keep going!" ”

The captain's anger clearly overshadowed the fear of the enemy's artillery, and although the drummer was killed, some people left to raise the guiding flag, and under the banner, the Venetians desperately rushed to the other side of the trench.

This caused many of the people behind to push forward without even caring about the crowd, and the shouts spread along the edge of the trench.

Seeing this scene, Alexander suddenly sighed softly.

"My lord, what's wrong?"

A pisan man asked a little strangely, two shelling in a row had made the pisan man who was still worried already show an excited look, but now Alexander seemed to be slightly disappointed and made him feel strange.

"If we have enough of them, now is the time to attack the Venetians." Gompati, who was standing nearby, explained in a low voice, and like Alexander, he did not show a happy look on his face, but on the contrary, there was a faint hint of apprehension, "But now the Venetians would rather cross the trenches than under the shelling, and when their troops are fully over, then the real battle will begin." ”

Looking at Gompati, Alexander nodded slightly, he felt that this captain of the city defense was not wrong, at least much better than those Pisan nobles who were completely laymen, but even if he could see the enemy's purpose, he couldn't stop it, which made Alexander only sigh softly.

"They will attack immediately, and once they get into the dead end of artillery fire, there will be a big threat to us." Gompati looked outside and whispered that the walls of Pisa were not very high, or that the city could not be called walls at all compared to those real castle fortresses.

"Hopefully, these sailors we've spent a lot of money on are really useful."

Alexander could only say this at this time, although he had noticed that there were many characters who did not seem to be good among the sailors who claimed to be in peace, but this was a real battlefield after all, and it was not uncommon for a guy who could shed blood on the streets and in taverns to become a coward when he arrived on the battlefield.

The Venetians on the opposite side could already be faintly heard giving orders one after another, and with a few drum beats, the Venetians began to advance rapidly towards the low wall under the city walls.

Pieces of spears swayed in the smoke of gunpowder, and someone rode a war horse in front of the team at a rapid gallop, while shouting to pass on orders, and it was already possible to faintly see the shining armor on the sword and shield soldiers walking in the front and the round edges of the shiny shields in their hands.

The Pisa, who had just been excited, began to feel uneasy, and they looked at Alexander and Gompati for instructions or some kind of comforting promise from them, but they saw the solemnity on their faces.

"My lord, do you think we can stop it?" Although he knew that this question was a bit redundant, Gompati felt that there was no need to hide anything at this time, and he asked in a low voice, "I beg your pardon, if it really doesn't work, I don't want to fall into the hands of the Venetians with this city, maybe then they will release all the guys in the bell tower and let them continue to be tribunes, if that happens, I will be miserable." ”

Alexander's heart moved, he didn't expect this mercenary to have such a clever mind.

He knew that what Gompati said was not necessarily unreasonable, assuming that if Pisa was indeed occupied, the Venetians would probably prop up their puppets in Pisa, and that the newly overthrown republican government was the best tool, and only needed to agree to restore their status, believing that those Pisans would be happy to cooperate.

"Wait, maybe there will be a miracle, but if you don't feel good, you can leave."

At this time, Alexander did not want to perfunctory this man with empty promises, because war is obviously not supported by empty slogans and so-called beliefs.

In fact, Alexander also regretted it a little at this time, if he knew that the Venetians were going to attack Pisa, he would not have stayed here.

"I asked you to send out those people, do they know how to get there?" Alexander asked in a low voice whether all his hopes were now pinned on whether the mercenaries and sailors would be able to withstand the Venetian attack, and the messengers sent by Gompati to ask for help.

"Some of those people are regular business visitors to Rome, some are residents of the neighborhood, and they know the area very well." Gompati nodded slightly, then he stared at Alexander and asked, "But will there really be reinforcements?" ”

"Yes."

Alexander affirmed that he knew that Gompati had to be confident enough at this time, otherwise if the captain of the city's defense collapsed first, the next result for the city of Pisa would only be self-defeating.

Alexander did not say a word: "Although it is reinforcements, it may be only Pisa and Lucrezia who will be rescued." ”

Alexander had wondered who had followed them from the Abbey of St. Teresa, but he knew that he would not have any good feelings for him.

"I have a lot of enemies."

Alexander's heart flickered, and then his eyes turned to the Venetian opposite.

The sound of the war drums reminded him again, and Alexander's face couldn't help but become solemn.

The offensive and defensive battle of Pisa, this is the real beginning.