The camp of the Third Legion was quiet in the dead of night, only the bonfires lit up the sparks around the camp, and the patrols of the Legion remained on guard, the sound of neat footsteps and the sound of armor clashing echoed in the night sky.

Theodosius, who had not yet slept in the main tent, had beheaded dozens of ruffians during the day to shake the disobedient men of the army, but the Bulgarians had not yet appeared, which made him uneasy.

Theodosius was not as blindly optimistic as the soldiers, believing that the Bulgarians would not appear, but that they were just lurkers like wolves waiting to hunt, so Theodosius ordered his soldiers to sleep in armor.

Theodosius strode out of the tent, and he walked in the camp with only two guards, for the army did not advance further to Staraya Zagora by daylight events, but camped directly on the spot in this small village, and now most of the camp protruded outside the village, and only the heavy grain and grass were placed in the village.

Theodosius came to the camp gate and looked into the distance, the vast sky was only dotted with stars, and a round of waning moon frost white sprinkled dappled light.

Suddenly, Theodosius seemed to see a shadow in the distance and something wriggling, he almost thought it was his own delusion, and then looked at those black shadows that seemed to be getting bigger and closer, Theodosius's expression moved, and he thought of something, he leaned down and fell on the ground, and listened to it again and again.

"Enemy attack! There is an enemy attack! Come and defend against the enemy! ”

The legion commander who stood up turned around and roared, and the soldiers around him were a little confused, what happened to the general?

"What are you doing? Don't call someone to defend the camp gate yet! ”

Theodosius saw that his guards and the soldiers guarding the camp gate were stunned and looked at him in a daze, and suddenly he was angry, and the rumbling of horses' hooves had already sounded in the distance, and the shouts were also heard from the sky, and all the soldiers in the camp had already gotten up and began to prepare their weapons because of Theodosius's order.

After a while, Theodosius's personal guards arrived first, and more than a thousand crossbowmen from the front battalion also reached the gate, Theodosius felt much more settled in his heart, and now he only needed to survive the first wave of enemy attacks and wait for the troops of each battalion to assemble.

……

……

……

The moonlight was hazy on this day, it was dark and ignorant, the light could not shine on every inch of the earth, a place where wild grasses grew luxuriantly, the breeze blew through to reveal a military formation, the aura of slaughter was pervasive, and the soldiers were ready to go.

"Kaloyan, you see if it's almost time for us to attack!"

Ivanko was already a little impatient, how could the Bulgarians have let the Roman legions go so far into the hinterland since the uprising, if they couldn't destroy this Roman army, they wouldn't be killed by their hometown fathers and elders when they returned.

"Wait, we waited for the Greeks to sleep, and when the Greeks were defenseless, we rushed in and set fire to slaughter, and drove them into the Maricha like a flock!"

Kaloyan was a veteran who was well versed in the art of war and understood the weaknesses of human habits, and he envisaged that as long as this raid was half successful, the army in the rear would attack at dawn tomorrow and strangle all the Greeks at once.

When the waning moon was shrouded in a dark cloud, leaving only the Roman legionary garrison ahead of it dimly lit, a light in the darkness that would guide us Bulgarians to victory, Kaloyan silently drew a cross.

"Attack with all your troops!"

Kaloyan drew his sword, his horse leaped to his feet, neighing, and the army boiled, they had waited for this opportunity for too long, they were about to suffocate the people, and now they wanted to drink the blood of the Romans with their swords in their hands.

Billowing smoke and dust were trampled by horses' hooves, trumpets sounded in the sky, the earth trembled, the Bulgarians prepared for blood-stained battlefields, and the swords of the knights were unsheathed.

Suddenly, the Roman legion garrison on the opposite side also thundered and the trumpets sounded, and the lights of the entire camp gradually brightened, and the Romans discovered that they had raided!

"Kaloyan, what are we going to do? The Greeks are ready, shall we still rush to camp? ”

Ivanko felt something bad and hesitated, he wanted to get an idea from Kaloyan, maybe it was too late to retreat.

"No, the enemy didn't find out about us a long time ago to attack, but it was detected a little earlier, I led a large army to attack the camp gate, Ivanko, you led the team to attack from the west!"

Kaloyan knew that the time had come for life and death, and that a single error of judgment could bury these folks from all over Bulgaria.

After just a slight mutter, Kaloyan gritted his teeth and gave the order to continue advancing, and now the retreat will inevitably cause a great loss of morale, and will expose the actual combat strength of his side, and then be chased and killed by the tail of the Greeks, one bad is the annihilation of the whole army.

"Onward! Kill it! For freedom! ”

The shouting Kaloyan gave the Bulgarians infinite courage, and they scrambled to advance their horses, and when they were only five hundred paces from the camp, they could already see the crossbowmen of the Roman legions in the distance by the light of the fire, loaded with arrows and aimed at them.

……

……

……

"Shoot"! ”

With Theodosius's order, the rain of arrows instantly formed a black curtain and rushed towards the Bulgarian knights, and the mournful roar of the war horse filled the ears for a while.

"The second team stepped forward and shot!"

Theodosius stood at the gate of the camp with his sword in hand, his upright posture stood like an iron tower, even if his ears were full of curses from the Bulgarians on the verge of death, the general was unmoved, Theodosius only waved lightly, and his command was sure that his subordinates gradually settled down.

The Bulgarians were stopped, the smell of blood at the gates of the camp made people vomit, and the horses and their masters were scattered all over the field.

The commander of the Bulgarians, Kaloyan, saw that his subordinates did not kill a bloody road, but were killed at the gate of the enemy's camp under the fire of crossbow arrows, a trace of blood spilled from the corner of Kaloyan's mouth, his mistake in today's decision-making buried many Bulgarians, how could he go back to see his hometown father!

"Follow me! For freedom! Freedom or death! ”

Kaloyan's lead charge inspired a group of brave warriors to follow their commander in a last-ditch fight, but when the overwhelming rain of arrows came to his face, Kaloyan was thrown dozens of paces away by his own horse that had been hit by a dozen arrows.

Two of Kaloyan's attendants tried to drag their general back to the rear, but the burst of crossbow arrows immediately pierced their bodies, and the attendants fell to Kaloyan's body and did not move.

In the end, the body of the Bulgarian commander who had fallen in front of him was gradually buried, and blood flowed from his mouth, and the commander passed away with only one sentence:

"Bulgarians! Fight! ”

With the death of the Bulgarian commander-in-chief, the rebels' offensive at the main camp gate gradually weakened, and finally soon became a plate of sand, and when it was found that it was no longer possible to inflict damage on the Roman legions, the Bulgarians abandoned the corpse of their own general and fled in all directions.