A loud trumpet sounded, and the massive siege of Ancona finally began on the ninetieth day after the siege.

In the early morning glow, 50,000 Roman and Gallic soldiers flocked to the Italian seaside city of Ancona, with a population of only 20,000. Blood-stained horses rushed around the city, the solid "tortoiseshell array" advanced slowly, and the rain of arrows and stone projectiles were thrown everywhere like doomsday flames......

"Defend the gates! Rome will win! ”

Octavian stood above the city gates, waving his sword and shouting, his emaciated body covered with dirt and blood-stained face, and Octavian had never been seen like this. However, this is today's Octavian, who has reached a desperate situation and can only fight bloodily.

The soldiers around them protected their commander. The legionnaires on the tower, skilled cao, made scorpion cannons and threw shells at the Roman Gallic legionnaires approaching the tower.

A rain of arrows flew overhead, occasionally shooting down the soldiers on the tower, and blood and stumps and severed arms fell from the sky, which was extremely tragic.

The inhabitants of the city also took up arms, and they used rudimentary iron swords and spears as weapons to block every street and alley of the city, fighting bloody battles with the Northern Legions. The Gallic legionnaire ruthlessly sent short swords and javelins into every enemy, whether he was a veteran of the Thirteenth Legion or a resident of the city.

Blood lay all over the streets and alleys, and the warriors marched on the blood of the enemy, paying a heavy price for every house and high point captured.

The "tortoiseshell formation" composed of shields advanced slowly, and as soon as they walked out of an alley, the enemy's arrows rained down. "Steady!" Crane hid in the shield wall and ordered the soldiers to lower their center of gravity and move on, and the arrow struck above the shield, immediately making a ding-dong sound.

"Steady!"

Raining arrows hit the wall of the hundreds, and then it was the turn of the archers on the rooftops of the opposite house to reload the arrows, and Crane took advantage of the time gap to order the centuriens to start a counterattack!

Commanding the most elite hundred-man squad in all of Rome, "Now, counterattack!" Crane gave the order, and everyone replaced their shields, and then a sharp Roman legionary heavy javelin was thrown out of the phalanx. In an instant, a terrible shout rang out from the roof in front of him, and more than a dozen archers defending the city were hit and fell down in pain.

"Forward!"

Immediately, the hundred-man team formed a dense shield wall again and advanced towards the dilapidated apartment in front of them. They were going to take over the house and kill the rebels inside.

The street fighting was so fierce that Octavian's men and soldiers of the Thirteenth Legion occupied every house in the city to resist the invasion of a large number of Apis, while the Gallic Legion, the Eleventh Legion and other legionnaires under Apis searched each house from house to house, and searched the rebels one by one, and hand-to-hand combat in the room and the cattle pen was naturally indispensable. Everyone was slaughtering like crazy, and the whole city was in flames and arrows were flying.

"The town hall has fallen, Caesar, we must withdraw to the port!"

The captain of his escort told Octavian that Flevinus and Masinus did not know where they had gone, and Octavian turned to see that Ancona was burning, sparks were coming out of the streets, thick smoke was billowing over the city, and the dead soldiers were lying on the towers, their eyes were empty, and their wounds were still oozing blood. Outside the city, there was a Roman army like a black sea, so vast that there was no end in sight, and Octavian lamented that Apis had really exhausted his efforts to annihilate himself.

"No, don't withdraw to the port, withdraw to the Kalos Hill, and hold the high ground!"

With bandages around his legs, Octavian said with pain and pain.

A group of soldiers, though reluctant to carry out Octavian's orders, faithfully protected Octavian as he moved to the top of the hill. Octavian knew that there was no point in retreating to the port, the eastern coast was Greece, Macedonia, that was Antony's territory, Antony and Apis had made an alliance, retreating from the territory of one beast to the territory of another, there was no difference, it was better to hold on to the high ground, and still get the last shred of dignity.

Several guards of the Guard were in front of Octavian, opening the path of blood for the leader. When the soldiers of the Gallic Legion rushed up from the alley, Octavian's servants stabbed open the lower abdomen with short swords, disemboweling and disemboweling, and blood and intestines flowed out. The soldiers of the convoy, who had not yet retreated, were assassinated in the middle by the Roman soldiers of Apis, and four or five legionnaires surrounded one of Octavian's guards, and the sharp daggers pierced the skin and stabbed the internal organs until the blood was splattered, and the dead guards lay on the ground, in a pool of their own blood, their bodies were full of holes, and soon they were out of breath. Wounds and blood, once a symbol of Octavian's bravery to the people, now seem to be a burden, worthless, meaningless.

By dusk, almost the entire city had fallen. The smell of blood and burnt corrosion in the air was the smell of burnt houses and corrals, and almost every step of the way was the corpses of soldiers, including the inhabitants of the city, who had been slaughtered in battle...... Octavian fled with the last few hundred loyal soldiers to the top of the hill, where there was nothing, no water, no food, nothing but the last dignity.

At the end of the battle, Apis entered the city, and then ordered the soldiers who had not participated in the battle during the day to drag all the corpses in the city together and pile them up and burn them. In the summer, corpses are prone to decay in the heat, and Appis didn't want any outbreaks to spread within the Legion. Of course, since most of the dead were Romans, Apis had the priests of the city attend the cremation ceremony and presided over the ceremony. It also counts as giving them a simple funeral. The slaves then began to clean the streets to remove the thick smell of blood.

The legions surrounded the high ground where Octavian was located, and the flickering fire on the top of the hill could be faintly seen. At night, sitting under the ruins of the city of Ancona, Appis reminisced with emotion about the past years. At that time, when I first met Octavian, I used to worship the first emperor of the Roman Empire, the great Augustus, who was as cold and full of wisdom, arrogant and generous, as described in history. And now, the object of worship in the past has been entangled and struggled with himself for many years, and has finally been defeated by himself and trampled under his feet. There are only two giants left in the vast empire, and it is like an epic, full of blood and tears.