The siege of the brothers Ademar and Godfrey needed bridges to transport supplies, as did the Normans of St. Paul's Gate, so Gawain, on the other side of the river, generously undertook the construction of another bridge.

However, after consulting with his brother Peter, he was not prepared to use an unstable ship as a "pier", but ordered the engineer Samuelfa to design the new wooden bridge, which was built quickly but strongly.

The defenders of the city were already impressed by the spectacular cavalry guard, but when they saw that in the area where the "Romanian" camp was connected to the Orontes River, countless soldiers and servants had brought in the felled timber and began to erect two twelve-foot-high, rotating cranes, even the Saracen engineer, who was the most skilled mechanic in the city, was dumbfounded, "Is this the science left over from the Roman Empire?" ”

Following the experience of the siege of Nicaea, the craftsmen and servants marked the numbers of the felled trees according to the depth of the water in the different sections measured by Samuelfa in advance, and then sawed them according to their different lengths, and made them into wooden stakes two feet thick, and each two were tightly tied together with ropes, and after the unification of weights and measures, this became very easy and fast.

Then all the lower ends were sharpened so that they could be inserted into the riverbed, and at the marvel of the defenders of Antioch and the onlookers, on the vast Orontes River, the crane cleverly lifted the stakes (it had a retractable boom, controlled by pulleys) and suspended them from the anchor-fixing boats in the appointed places, and then the craftsmen, carrying piling hammers and other instruments, took the stakes down, one after the other, every three annas, but not vertically, but diagonally in the direction of the river. As clumps of muddy sand continued to rise. Two days later, a row of wooden piles came from one end of the river to the other end of St. Paul's Gate.

Almost at the same time, another crane did the same, and another row of diagonal piles was laid parallel to the river about fifty-five feet from the row of stakes upstream, but the difference was that. The direction of this row of stakes is countercurrent.

When this step was completed, the craftsmen boldly stood on it, looked at it from a high place, as if hanging over the raging water, and drove in long wooden beams between the three feet of each of the two rows of stakes, and supported them with two poles, one mile and one away, at the outer stall. The faster the water flows, the stronger the bridge's piles become.

On the sixth day, the craftsmen began to lay planks on the long beams erected between the feet of two rows of wooden piles.

On the seventh day, when God had finished creating the world and rested, four horsemen in armor and horses in horse coats carried their own banners. It represents two infantry brigades and two cavalry companies under Gawain. Stepping on the sonorous sound of horses' hooves, as if showing off, side by side from this end of the bridge, straight to the other side.

"Hooray! The Three Saints guide the all-powerful strong! "The whole camp on the other side of the river erupted in loud cheers from the infantry and cavalry, including many pilgrims who had come to watch. On the edge of the pheasant moat of the Acropolis, Yaji saw this scene. Xi Yang, clutching his chest, turned around a little sullenly, constantly shaking his head and sighing. Slowly walked back into his hall.

Gawain stood on the embankment of the river bank with the wind on the high embankment of the river, holding a helmet with red hand feathers, one hand on his waist, wearing armor, and the soldiers around him kept raising their spears and shouting, "Is the city of Antioch doing nothing?" Seeing that our army built two bridges and transported countless siege materials and equipment to the positions under the city? ”

"Honorable Grand Duke, Aggie. The number of Xiyang is exhausted! "Beside him, Wesat. Merlot replied, pointing to the towering acropolis and mountains surrounded by rivers.

"No, maybe the real decisive battle is coming!" Gawain touched his chin with his fingers and laughed, "Everyone then stick to the camp, no matter what the situation is, don't back down - also, order the Geemagis Brigade to rush here and take charge of guarding the flanks of the camp." ”

At nightfall, in the "altar tent", a bloody corpse was brought, almost causing Ademar to faint to death, the owner of this corpse was from Tulle, a pious and virtuous deacon of the church, named Louis, and a friend of Ademar who was very valued and admired, and his ribs were deeply cut, but the fatal was in the neck, where was a powerful arrow, the blood had been bruised, and the shaft of the arrow was encased, forming a terrible and shocking wound, "The chief deacon with three hundred believers, In order to stock up on the siege equipment, he went to the mountains south of the city to cut wood, but he encountered the Turks, probably from behind the city. Several of the people who fled back wept and feared and reported to the priesthood.

"How many are there?"

"Maybe dozens, maybe hundreds of them suddenly appeared from behind the mountains, shooting arrows everywhere, taking the lives of our companions, and then we could only keep running away, ignoring a few Turks wrapped in black turbans, their horses were so fast that the chief deacon could not escape, and was cut by their swords and fell to the ground, when I hid behind the bushes, I saw that the deacon was covered in blood, struggling and trying to crawl, but another Turk arrived on horseback and shot him with one arrow"

"Go and tell Venerable Hugh that the siege there is under his jurisdiction, and why is it that Deacon Louis, who is only a few galleys away from his camp, has been subjected to such a murderous ambush?" Ademar was furious.

The next day, Hugh's report was stuffed into a leather cylinder and delivered to the priesthood by his fastest horse, and Hugh's justification was as follows:

In the last few days, the ferocious attacks of the Turkic pagans in the south and east of the city have become more and more intense, and the blockade fortress guarded by Vallo, the general counsellor of the royal palace, has been attacked thirteen times in one day, all night;

From this, can it be judged that the infidels will soon launch a large-scale raid in the south of the city? According to the confessions of the enemy soldiers who had escaped from the city and joined us, Yaggi had arranged for all four of his most trusted emirs to be placed in the towers south of the city, which seemed to be more in line with the contemptible inference.

In any case, the whole article evades the responsibility for the tragic death of Chief Deacon Louis, and downplays it as "a victim that must inevitably appear in passing under the possible large-scale offensive of the Turks".

In addition, Hugh reminded him if he could draw some of his forces to strengthen his position in defense of Yaji. Siyan?

Ademar, who was not very familiar with military affairs, called Stephen of Blois, but the military general of the Council of Cardinals also gave an ambiguous answer, "Tell Hugh to be on guard and not send reinforcements for the time being, but for security reasons, it is more secure that our grain line will be changed to a detour from the iron bridge to Port Saint-Simon." (To be continued.) )