"Order the artillery, concentrate on bombarding the fortresses and towers of the eastern wall!"

After the order was delivered, William began to give orders to his artillerymen.

The concentrated use of artillery was one of the principles of artillery tactics, and the eastern city wall that William aimed at this time was officially one of the key objectives of the siege.

The city of Milan is backed by the Alps, and the east, west, and south sides are vulnerable to enemy attacks, so the defense facilities in these three directions are the most and the most solid, its walls are tall and tortuous, more than ten meters high, more than eight meters wide, it is one of the highest city walls except for the city of Rome at that time, in addition, next to the city wall is dozens of tall towers, these towers are twenty or thirty meters high, divided into several layers, and there are countless shooting holes on the four walls to make the crossbowmen stationed in the towers be effectively protected, This allows crossbowmen to calmly and condescendingly aim at enemies below the walls.

These designs were quite incomprehensible to the army at this time, and even with sufficient siege towers, ladders, and trebuchets, it was impossible to shake the city of Milan.

William, however, had the means to restrain these fortifications - siege artillery and giant trebuchets, twelve- and twenty-pound long-barreled siege guns and giant counterweight trebuchets were not as powerful as ordinary trebuchets and ballistas, and it was only a matter of time before they could be blasted apart by a few hits into these masonry towers and walls.

Of course, because of the low hit rate of artillery and giant trebuchets, it became necessary to fire with fire.

When William was in charge of the storming of the eastern walls of Milan, in the west and south of Milan, the rumbling cannons and the projectiles of trebuchets were also recalled, although the artillery and trebuchets attached to these two legions were few in number and weak, but the momentum caused by them was not weaker than that of the east of Milan, which was bombarded by William's concentrated fire.

For a while, the generals in Milan couldn't tell which direction the Normans chose as the main target, and they only felt that the Normans were shouting and killing everywhere.

"Soldiers! The glory of conquering the city of Milan will belong to our Second Legion! Attack with me! Rodrigo laughed, drew his sword, and shouted loudly at the soldiers behind him.

"Hooray! Banzai! ”

"Kill! Kill! ”

The Second Legion, from the Earl Commander to the knights and soldiers, all shouted excitedly.

At this time, the morale of the soldiers of the Second Legion was at its peak, and they were slowly advancing towards the eastern wall of Milan with more than 20 assembled giant siege towers, and the artillery and equipment corps of the legion also began to fire cannonballs and throw stone projectiles to cover the advance of the siege towers.

The sky was full of hurried shadows, among which with a dull whistling sound were the cannonballs fired from William's siege artillery group, which flew straight at the middle gate, and smashed the gate tower and the surrounding wall towers, while those with crisper sounds were the regiment's nine-pounder and six-pounder guns, which were mainly designed to kill and wound the Italian militia stationed on the city walls, in order to disrupt the enemy counterattack.

However, even so, the walls of Milan were still able to organize more effective counterattacks, either using ballistas and trebuchets on the walls and behind the walls to bombard the slow-moving siege towers, or organizing crossbowmen to snipe the Norman soldiers approaching the walls, which caused great trouble for the soldiers of the Second Legion who were approaching the walls.

Fortunately, after a short period of blows, they finally came within the range of the Norman longbowmen.

I saw thousands of Norman longbowmen, with the help of the militia, erect rows of arrows made of tree trunks to guard against crossbow arrows fired from the city walls.

Because the Norman longbowmen fired much faster than the Milanese crossbowmen, and they were not inferior to each other in range and power, after a few rounds of arrows, the Milanese crossbowmen were suppressed by the Norman crossbowmen.

"Victory! Win! ”

The Norman soldiers, who were pushing the siege towers and siege carts under the city, saw that the arrows on the city wall were suppressed by the rain of arrows from their own longbowmen, and then they burst into cheers and their steps quickened a little.

At this time, the more than 20 siege towers of the Second Army had narrowed the distance between them and the city wall to less than 80 meters, and the soldiers in the siege towers could even observe the appearance of enemy soldiers through the gaps.

"Shoot! Shoot! ”

On the siege towers, the command to shoot countless shots sounded, and then countless crossbowmen suddenly appeared on the top of the siege towers, relying on the cover of the siege towers, with the advantage of height, to carry out wave after wave of blows to the soldiers stationed on the city walls.

The closer he got to the walls, the greater the threat to the siege towers, not only from the trebuchets and ballistae placed on and behind the walls, but also from the rockets fired by the crossbowmen in the towers, and the boiling hot oil poured on the walls.

"Drop the drawbridge, drop the drawbridge! Soldiers! Get ready to hit the city! ”

The valiant Duke Rodrigo was on the front line and shouted orders in front of the battle.

Duke Rodrigo's order was conveyed by the heralds one by one, and with the wave of the two red and blue flags, the siege tower, which had been advancing slowly, suddenly increased its speed, and quickly approached the city wall at the last ten meters.

Bang dang... Bang dang... Bang dang...

Countless huge rumbling sounds sounded, this was the sound of the suspension bridge hanging on the siege tower, the soldiers on the siege tower cut the rope that pulled the suspension bridge, and the originally vertical suspension bridge fell quickly, and smashed on the city wall with a bang.

Because the height of the siege tower is generally higher than the city wall, so at this time, the soldiers on the siege tower became a condescending sprint when attacking the city wall, along the wide drawbridge, the brave Norman knights with swords and shields rushed to the city wall, and the Norman soldiers behind them were not to be outdone, each holding a short blade and rushing down.

The Norman knights were known for their bravery and good fighting, they did not dare to say that one enemy was a hundred, but one was not a problem for ten, not to mention that the opponents were these Italian militiamen and mercenaries who did not have a high will to fight, and soon under the leadership of the Norman knights, the soldiers of the Second Legion quickly gained a firm foothold on the city walls.

After the soldiers of the Second Legion rushed into the city walls, they were confronted by enemies from all sides, but they were not afraid, they raised the banner of the Second Legion, firmly held the stronghold they occupied, and waited for a steady stream of reinforcements to come.