The two armies began to come into contact......

In the previous rain of bows and arrows, the Swiss lost about 100 people, but such losses were completely painless for the Swiss.

The Swiss were in groups of 300 or 500 people, arranged in rectangular phalanxes, and several small phalanxes formed a large phalanx, and in this way, dozens of phalanxes formed a diamond-shaped formation, thicker in the middle and thinner on the wings.

When the enemy was engaged, the Swiss did not charge.

Because the spears in their hands are two meters and four meters long, they are not suitable for charging, in fact they don't even need to charge, because they have a better way to kill.

The mountainous terrain was not suitable for cavalry deployment, so the Italian heavy cavalry actually dismounted to fight, so that Venice had 5,500 hoplites, all equipped with plate chain composite armor, plus the 3,500 projectile infantry, that is, in fact, Venice had 9,000 heavily armed armored infantry, and this terrible armoring rate seemed to the European Catholic kingdoms, which was simply incredible!

Duke Charles, who stood on the top of the hill and looked down, was also very surprised by this, he also saw such a scene for the first time, Italy was not Norman, nor Eastern Roman, did not have as much arable land and population as Norman or Eastern Rome, and did not have a vast territory, but Venice surpassed these two powerful kingdoms in terms of equipment, which was the miracle created by the economic strength, navigation and commerce that the Venice city-state was proud of.

However, in the era of cold weapons, equipment is certainly a part of the embodiment of strength, but what is more important than equipment, and even more important than the so-called training degree and the so-called degree of organization, is morale.

The Venetians are rich! So the Venetians are afraid of death!

Or it is precisely because of the wealth of the Venetians that the Venetians are afraid of death.

As the saying goes, the biggest tragedy in the world is that people die, and the money has not been spent.

Although it is impossible for the Venetians to hear such words, but the reason is the same, what they have at home is real estate, goods, wives and children, business and merchant ships, if they die, these will not be cheaper for others?

So definitely not to die! In the face of the phalanx of Swiss pikemen, who were extremely hated of the rich, the Venetians were timid when they saw the terrifying Swiss who were dressed in tatters, but whose eyes revealed greed and desire.

Seeing that his army was cowardly before fighting, the commander of the Venetian army, Dandoro Jr., was extremely anxious, but there was nothing he could do, this guy was good at naval warfare, he started running ships at the age of fourteen, and now he has experienced decades of wind and waves, commanding the navy to fight like an arm, even better than Andrew, the governor of Genoa, but he is very bitter for the army, and he is not as good as Andrew, if it weren't for the fact that there is no one under the old Dandoro, he would not have rushed ducks to the shelves and sent his son out of the horse, after all, if Dandoro Jr. hangs up, The Dandoro family is on the verge of extinction.

The fact that there are no subordinates here does not mean that the Republic of Venice does not have army generals who can fight well, but that these army generals who can fight well are not reliable, because they are all Catholics.

Soldier! They only know one thing about the psychological struggles and struggles that old Dandoro went through to convert to Orthodox Christianity and defect to the Eastern Roman Empire.

"It's really embarrassing, the old bastards are all seventy or eighty, why don't they die?"

Therefore, old Dandoro was very sure that if these fellows were allowed to take control of the army, needless to say, they would guess with their toes, they would have cut themselves down first, and then declared that Venice had been converted to Catholicism, and then declared that everything that set foot on Venetian territory was an enemy, and ordered all the armies of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Norman Kingdom to leave, or else they would go to war with them.

And then there was no then......

At least Venice didn't have then......

Dandoro has been following his father for so long, and he has also learned a lot of political intrigues and other things, and he understands his father's meaning somewhat, and at the same time, the natural blood relationship also makes little Dandoro unable to make the decision to betray his father.

Although it is not certain whether Dandoro Jr. will win, he can at least be sure that he will not betray him, and this is a reason for the old Dandoro to decide his son to go on the expedition as the commander of the Venetian army.

But no!

If Randy knew little Dandoro's attribute panel at this time, he could see that this guy only had one qualified general, a military academy born, two positive attributes, and only a pitiful two command points, and he was a real rookie-level general, not at all the opponent of Duke Charlie, who could fight well.

Duke Charles' stunt Death Assault can increase the attack frequency and attack power, and this powerful and practical stunt also makes the attack power of Swiss mercenaries a notch higher.

The soldiers of both sides met on a mountainous terrain.

The Venetians occupied several successive hills, hoping to take advantage of their superiority, but because the Venetians were so afraid of death that they did not dare to charge, they were completely unable to shake the formation of the Swiss pikemen.

With the advantage of super long spears, the Swiss pikemen could calmly assassinate the opponent with their spears outside the range of the Venetians' attacks.

"Damn! Damn it! Advance! Advance! Venetian! Think about the consequences of failure, behind you is Venice, your wives and children, what will be the consequences after the city of Venice is broken, do you still need me to teach you? ”

Seeing that his soldiers were wearing heavy armor but dodging, Xiao Dandoro almost vomited blood in anger, pulled out his long sword and waved it into the sky, shouting at the same time.

Inspired by this, and imagining the miserable state of affairs after the fall of the city, the Venetians finally mustered up the courage to force the Swiss mercenaries out of the guns of their heavy armor and enter the combat radius.

But before these Venetian hoplites had time to be happy, they saw the Swiss holding halberds opposite, their hands raised high and falling violently, the Venetian hoplites were shocked, and hurriedly raised their shields to block, only to hear a click, so that the Swiss halberd, which was full of strength, directly cut the shield with the skin and iron edge in half.

Immediately before the Venetian hoplites could react, they raised their halberds and cut off their heads and faces, directly cutting off the heads of the Venetian hoplites, taking away a layer of scalp by the way, and the halberd blade was embedded in the skull, cutting the bridge of the nose in half.

"Ah!!!h

The Venetian hoplites let out an inhuman scream and fell to the ground, clutching their heads.

With pikemen as the backbone, supplemented by halberders to increase their lethality for melee combat, the Swiss phalanx really lived up to its name, and had an overwhelming advantage over the Venetians with absolute combat effectiveness.

Right wing! The Venetians looked even more dangerous than the Romans on frontal combat.

Frontal Battlefield ......

Success, like a rainstorm, the Roman heavy infantry was finally able to enjoy the benefits of the large shield, and in the front, the Eastern Roman heavy infantry who were fighting the two-handed warriors with their axes and the professional Viking soldiers with their tomahawks were in charge, and the Eastern Roman soldiers in the rear rows had to raise their shields high above their heads to resist the hail of longbow projectiles.

Rao is so, there are still a lot of Eastern Roman heavy infantry were killed by longbows and arrows, like hail as powerful arrows, crackling on the shield, although the Eastern Roman shield has a certain arc, the surface is also coated with paint, can largely bounce the arrows away, but in such a rainstorm attack, it is difficult for the heavy infantry to raise the shield well, after a period of time will feel extremely sore wrists.

As long as one of them is not raised properly, the shield is slightly bent, and it will be shot by the long arrow that leaks in, and it will be killed, and there will be a gap in the defense line, and the holes will become more and more and bigger little by little.

It's just that Randy is very heartbroken, these arrows are all money!

The arrows that the longbowmen brushed, the feathered arrows that were shot, the worn bowstrings, were all money, and even if some of the arrows could be recovered after the war, it would not be cost-effective, and the longbowmen were actually a very expensive class, although they were really very useful.

Randy was very distressed about money, but the Eastern Roman commander was heartbroken, and the Eastern Roman army under his command was only 23,400 people left, under such a rain of arrows and such a strong Viking warrior, the Eastern Roman army was defeated and retreated, and the entire battlefield was covered with the corpses of the Eastern Roman heavy infantry.

The sun was already setting in the west, and the time was about four o'clock in the afternoon......

Randy had already rotated the Norman front twice, and the Eastern Roman legions suppressed by the new new force were defeated one after another, and after wasting more than 200,000 arrows, the longbowmen's energy and ammunition were all successful, and the Norman army lost the support of long-range forces, which also gave the Eastern Roman legions, which were already exhausted, a little buffer.

As long as you hold out for another two hours, it will be dark after two hours, and when the time comes, you will retreat at night, and you won't lose too many men and horses.

That's what Epirus, the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Roman legions, thinks, in fact, this guy doesn't have much energy to focus on the battlefield, according to Epirus's idea, anyway, now the defeat is certain, and it is irretrievable no matter what, in this case, it is better to put his energy elsewhere.

For example, how to escape his own emperor, and the reproach of the imperial senate!

If the 30,000 troops led by him are now a little more than 20,000 to surrender to the Normans, then the other party will give him a duke title anyway, right? Although the barbarians are treated a little worse, it is better than dying themselves.

After making such a decision, I still need to convert to Catholicism, but this is not a problem, Catholic Orthodox Christianity or anything does not care at all, anyway, they all believe in God.

Epirus's heart shook and he made up his mind to surrender.

But he didn't know that Randy cared a lot about the title or something, from the time he became the king to the present, the highest title of canonization was only an earl, which was mostly out of comfort and reward, and it was just a compensation to the original commander of the fleet, Field Marshal Carter, after splitting the kingdom fleet into four parts.

In addition to this, several other legion commanders ......

Anderson, Aven, Hans, James, John, all were viscounts.

The three newly recruited admirals are all viscounts!

After that, there is the head of his bodyguards, the captain of the Black Knights, Alpha, is a baron, and the newly recruited hussar general Saito is also a baron.

In this way, after Randy became the king, he only canonized one earl, five viscounts, and two barons, so that there were eight nobles of all sizes, and none of the big nobles with the title of duke, and Randy never thought of canonization, at most, when the kingdom turned into an empire, and then divide the princes and uncles into a good division, and each title was divided into first, second, and third classes, so that the nobles who were addicted to upgrading could be happy.

Does this mean that there are only a few nobles under Randy's command?

Of course not! Northwest Britain is not counted for the time being, Finland, which is actually more like a vassal state, is also excluded, and there are actually many nobles in the Norman kingdom, but they are all outside the management of the kingdom and do not have much influence on the politics of the kingdom.

Scandinavia, whether it was the Norwegian nobles who first subdued Randy, or the only Swedish nobles who Randy generously forgiven, they were all transferred to the remote inland areas specially prepared by Randy, and the real fortress area was transferred to Randy.

Most of these nobles were counts, viscounts, and such small nobles, and their fiefs were not large, and it was more appropriate to be landlords than nobles.

The strength of the English aristocracy was greatly damaged after being purged by Randy repeatedly, and the big duke nobles were almost purged, leaving only two or three kittens and dogs, and the situation was even worse than Scandinavia!

Normandy, the French aristocracy suffered the baptism of the Norman-French war!

Some of them were beheaded by the then Legion Commander Lu Fus, Guan Yu for the crime of collaborating with the enemy!

The other part was really fornicating with the enemy, and they were also beheaded.

There were no fornicators left, and many were beheaded by France.

In this way, the Normandy aristocracy also suffered heavy losses and collapsed.

The situation in Eastern Europe is even worse!

Among the Teutonic knights, the big knights of the fief were basically cut down by the United Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and the remaining small knights were incorporated into the Norman Royal Knights and enjoyed the treatment of royal knights, as well as the knightly territories of the royal knights, who received monthly salaries, so there was basically no so-called nobles.

Speaking of Livonia, Prussia, and these two territories are almost all professional bureaucratic systems composed of elected officials, and the land basically belongs to the state, coupled with Randy's large amount of capital supply, it is the fastest growing territory in the entire Norman kingdom.

However, the gradual influx of nomadic tribes in recent times has changed this peaceful state.

The chiefs and elders of the nomadic tribes, who had a great deal of autonomy.

It interfered with the bureaucracy of the Norman Kingdom to a certain extent, but Randy still needed to rely on them to provide him with hussars, so Randy only turned a blind eye to these arrogant and domineering guys.

In fact, what bothered Randy the most was the territory that Novgorod ceded and was named Neo-Scandinavia, except for a small part of these territories that have development value outside the Arctic Circle, the rest of the places are bitter cold lands, plus the nobles here are very weak, so they seem to be quite well-behaved, or cowardly abide by Randy's decrees, so Randy has no reason to deal with them.

With the gradual invasion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow to the north, maybe these guys will make a move, but I don't know how many people will take the initiative to jump out and let Randy cut it at that time?

(End of chapter)