"What's going on? Are you withholding military rations? Lilianu turned and questioned one of the Eastern Roman generals who was now managing logistics.

"Withholding military rations? Even if I really deduct it, and there is no caravan in this wilderness, who should I sell it to? ”

The Eastern Roman general was aggrieved, but he couldn't say that the crown prince was an idiot, so he explained: "It's not like this, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, I was forced to do this, we have almost no rear now, and there are not many herdsmen nearby, we have no source of military food, if we don't do this, we can't support it at all, in fact, the implementation of such a rationing system can only last for twenty days at most." The quartermaster lowered his voice and said in a voice that only Lilianu could hear.

"What! You really embezzled military rations! In vain this palace trusts you so much. Unexpectedly, Lilianu shouted, drawing the attention of all the soldiers around her, and then drew her sword and slashed off the stunned quartermaster's head.

"Soldiers, the traitors have been eliminated, and in the future, the military rationing will be the responsibility of the palace itself, and the palace will guarantee that you will be able to eat enough."

"Long live His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!"

The simple-minded soldiers soon believed Her Royal Highness's statement, and cheered one after another, and Her Royal Highness immediately took out the military rations that had been rationed three times before, and stewed a pot of sticky dough porridge for the soldiers again, and the news quickly spread throughout the barracks, and the morale of the soldiers rose a lot.

Looking at the joyful soldiers in front of her, Lilianu smiled at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were very cold, she knew that this was gambling, and put all the chips on the one that could break through and capture Artoria alive in the near future, as long as this strategic goal was achieved, all problems could be solved, if it could not be completed to let the enemy escape, the land of Eastern Europe would not be able to stay, and quickly return to Constantinople to hibernate for a while, anyway, the old man will not die, now he only has such a daughter as himself, and he will never kill himself, Lilianu's smile grew brighter as she figured this out.

The Eastern Roman army changed its tactics and concentrated the most elite hoplites, but instead had them remove their armor, shields and spears, and instead equip them with leather armor, small shields and short swords from the light infantry and convert them into more formidable light infantry.

More than 400 elite light infantry, along with 200 selected javelinmen each carrying four javelins, formed today's offensive sequence, and Lilianu was already a little eager to taste the fruits of victory.

This attack on the Eastern Roman army is still led by javelinmen, more than 100 javelinmen began to climb according to yesterday's tactics, and soon were shot by the Norman light archers to kill a small part, and were hit by stones to lose a small part, only more than 50 people really came up, the Norman hussars remembered the lesson of yesterday, did not wait for the other side to attack and rushed up directly, the Eastern Roman javelinmen fought and retreated, a group of javelinmen below joined the battle, relying on the terrain to throw javelins, the Norman hussars continued to advance down the mountain, and killed this group of javelinmen, Then continue the downward pursuit.

Hundreds of the lightly armoured infantry had risen head-on to engage the Norman hussars, while the other two hundred crawled up with their shields and daggers on both sides of the foothills, along the more difficult hills, before attacking the hussars from both flanks.

"Damn it!"

At such a distance, the bows and arrows and stones on the mountain did not have time to support, and the advantage in the terrain was not obvious, the opponent was three times more numerically than the hussars, and the severely trained gladiatorial slaves were even stronger than the melee hussars in terms of individual combat ability, and the Norman Celtic army was instantly in trouble.

The mountain road is narrow, the only advantage occupied by the Norman hussars is the cooperation between the soldiers, but this advantage can not be exerted now, it was suppressed for a while, but fortunately, the mountain road is narrow, and the light infantry of the other side can not be displayed, one-on-one, although the Norman hussars can not have the upper hand in the fighting, but because of the equipment to take some advantage, so it will not be defeated for a while.

The short swords in the hands of the Eastern Roman light infantry were all shoddy short swords from the earthen workshops of the regional peasant garrisons, and compared with the steel scimitars made by the Norman hussars through the national unified weapons workshop, they were simply scum.

This gap was shown in yesterday's battle, those short swordsmen in the battle with the Norman hussars, and even some people because of too much force, so the short swords were directly broken, but the scimitar in the hands of the Norman hussars did not even have a gap, of course, this is not to say that the scimitar in the hands of the Norman hussars is as iron as mud, the magic of nitpicking, but relative.

The armor worn by the Norman hussars is the kind of composite leather armor, two layers of good cowhide armor are sewn together to protect the entire torso, the legs and hands are bound with leather armor on the outside, and the joints also have special paint, the whole set of armor is very human, each joint is movable, almost does not affect the activities of people, and can provide sufficient defense, the defense of blunt weapons is also first-class, and it also has a good effect on light weapons, such as one-handed swords.

As for the armor of the Eastern Roman light infantry, it was only a single layer, which could only block distant arrows, and even small weapons such as swords were difficult to defend against, and only the torsos had armor, and the limbs were exposed.

The Eastern Roman light infantry slashed with a single sword, and unless they were very forceful, piercing the leather armor and hitting the vital parts, it was impossible to hurt the Norman hussars at all. And the Norman hussars can easily penetrate the opponent's armor with a casual move, and it is very pleasant to cut meat and bones.

However, the number of Norman hussars was too small, only a hundred or dozens of people in total, and only half of them were left in the battle, Artoria watched her soldiers suffer at the mountain pass, but she was afraid that the opponent would have a back-up move, so she did not dare to send troops to help, so she had to order the Norman hussars to fight and retreat, and return to their original positions.

But the trail is not so easy to walk, and even if there are no obstacles, it is difficult to climb it, let alone fight the enemy and retreat as it is now.

The Norman hussars were blocked in a very difficult mountain pass to climb, it was very difficult to climb here, the hussars had to use both hands and feet, and climbed for more than ten seconds in a row, so that more than 70 Norman knights, in the end only climbed up to 20, and the rest were blocked by the Eastern Roman light infantry that exceeded their number several times, and if they continued to climb, the javelinmen in the rear of the enemy army would take the opportunity to throw and attack the hussars from behind, so that the hussars did not dare to continue to climb up, and could only engage the enemy here.

"Go to the rescue!"

Artoria rubbed her headache and ordered, but still walking in front, but she didn't expect to be a little top-heavy and almost fell down, so she had to walk slower, and when she reached the top of the mountain, there were only thirty Norman hussars left.

"Pull those soldiers up! Shoot the archers and finish off the javelinmen. Artoria ordered.

Artoria gave the order like this, and the attitude of being on the front line, so that the Norman hussars who were originally a little flustered reinvigorated, twenty lightly armed archers opened their bows and arrows to shoot collectively, but because of the distance, coupled with the mountainous terrain and dense jungle, the effect was not good, only two standard hands that did not have long eyes, too far forward were hit, one of them seemed to be dead in the middle of the chest, and the other was only shot in the thigh, but the scream was quite loud, but it is estimated that he should not die.

"Damn it!"

This situation made Artoria feel even more headache.

It's like it's about to explode, and there seem to be two things in front of your eyes, and you're in a very bad state, and it's very difficult to even stay on your feet, let alone go into battle to kill the enemy.

Artoria had no choice but to move her body, leaned against a tree trunk without leaving a trace, gritted her teeth and ordered: "Continue to shoot at the enemy's light infantry, and the Norman hussars will all step forward and launch a counterattack." ”

The remaining 100 or so Norman hussars responded with a bang, and the morale of the Norman and Celtic troops was boosted.

On the other hand, some Eastern Roman soldiers who had seen Artoria before also shouted excitedly: "It's Artoria!" The Norman Queen! Grab her and claim the reward. ”

In contrast, the Eastern Roman army was demoralized by the presence of Artoria.

Norman hussars and Eastern Roman temporary light infantry faced off on this narrow field.

Because of the slope of the terrain, the projection support troops on both sides did not have to fear shooting bows and arrows or javelins at the back of their own soldiers, and they could hit the enemy with a slight adjustment of the angle, so that while the two light infantry were bloodied with sabers and short swords, javelins and bows and arrows flew fiercely above their heads.

Both sides tried their best to make their formations more dense, hoping to invest more troops in such a narrow area, because both sides were crowded by people, and even after being killed by the other side, because the formation was too compact, they were squeezed in the middle by the soldiers next to them and could not fall.

Both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses, the battle line at the beginning is very narrow, can only accommodate two or three people through the area, so the Eastern Roman soldiers who have the upper hand in terms of personal bravery have the advantage, but soon Artoria found this, asked the Norman hussars to desperately push the battle line forward, so under the cover of the last round of arrow rain of the archers, several hussars roared down straight over, with their own flesh and blood plus the strength of the fall, so that the opponent's light infantry staggered, However, they themselves were stabbed in the heart by the light infantry, and then the remaining Norman hussars took advantage of the situation to attack, and they were stunned to push the battle line forward by several meters.

Although it was only about three meters extended, it changed the situation of the battle a lot.

The mountain roads were wider and allowed for six to eight soldiers to march side by side, allowing the Norman hussars to demonstrate their greater ability to coordinate and overwhelm the individual superiority of the Eastern Roman army, which was unaware of its position and charged again.

But now the Norman hussars fight in a uniform manner, attacking, defending, and cooperating seamlessly, so that the Eastern Roman light infantry suffers greatly, and the Janissaries born of gladiator slaves fight very well alone, but the squad cooperation is not as strong as the Norman hussars, although there are occasionally multiple gladiator slave fights in the dueling arena, but the number of times is very small, and the slaves will not be allowed to practice in tandem on weekdays, because the slave owners are afraid that these gladiator slaves will take advantage of this to unite and rebel, Although he has the opportunity to practice after joining the army now, how can the Praetorian Guard be able to defeat the hussars produced by the Enides system less than a year after he has been in the army?

The Eastern Roman army charged at this intersection several times in a row, and finally left only a corpse, blood stained the ground, making the ground like mud, and fighting again and again on the corpses of soldiers on both sides, but the disorderly charge of the Eastern Roman soldiers finally failed to break through the defense line set by the hussars.

"Javelinmen!"

Several Eastern Roman officers consulted with each other, intending to repeat the old trick of removing the Eastern Roman light infantry and replacing them with javelinmen men to lure the Norman hussars to attack, and then re-select the battlefield.

The Norman hussars suffered a loss, so naturally it was impossible to do stupid things again, and as soon as the round shield was erected, they tried their best to block and dodge, but they just didn't dare to move forward.

The javelinmen quickly ran out of ammunition, the Norman hussars lost six dead and twelve wounded, and the gap was quickly filled by the soldiers behind, and this round of attacks instead gave the Celtic javelinmen cavalry a round of ammunition, Artoria hurriedly ordered the soldiers to collect the javelins, let the light archers retreat, and replaced the two dozen Celtic light javelin cavalry to step forward, distributing javelins as reinforcement projection troops.

The Eastern Roman light infantry charged several times in a row, the sharpness had already been smoothed, and the next attack was weaker and weaker each time, and even in the last one before the short encounter, they were frightened back by more than a dozen javelins of the opponent, listening to the cheers of the Norman Celts, loud laughter, the Eastern Romans were depressed, and several Eastern Roman officers decided to retreat first and then make plans.

Looking at the Eastern Romans fleeing down the mountain in gray, the Norman Celtic soldiers cheered loudly, and the sound spread far and wide, making Lilianu's face at the foot of the mountain extremely ugly.

"There are six hundred of you! Six hundred! It's more than three times the other party, but it turns out that the other party is driven down like a sheep, waste! Eater! Lilianu scolded those officers!

A group of Eastern Roman soldiers fought for so long, and they didn't hear a good word, but were severely beaten by the crown prince, and suddenly they all shrugged their heads like defeated chickens, and didn't say a word.

Lilianu scolded angrily for a while, the more she thought about it, the more angry she became, and she had a feeling of wanting to vomit blood, so she forcibly held back a mouthful of blood and choked in her throat, coughing for a long time before swallowing it, and a group of Eastern Roman soldiers took advantage of the situation to run away, leaving Lilianu alone, only to feel that the world is so vast, but she is so lonely, and she can't help but have an urge to cry.

"No! Lilianu, you have to hold back, you have to be strong, who is the happiest you cry about? Whether it's the Eastern Roman aristocrats waiting to see your jokes, or the Norman barbarians, and the idiot soldiers, you can't make them complacent, absolutely not. ”

Lilianu cheered herself up like this, and then looked at the day, it was not early, about two o'clock in the afternoon, and the soldiers who did not participate in the attack had already eaten lunch and took a breath.

"The whole army rests, and in the afternoon, the soldiers of the Eastern European coalition army will attack first!"

(End of chapter)