At the same time, of course, on the fronts of the chariot and the camp, the soldiers of the Guardians hurried to their respective posts to guard against a possible attack by the Emperor or Brenus. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

But the Emperor did not do so, and he did not seem to have any intention of entering the camp of Brenus, but began to set up camp on his own, like Gawain.

Alexios was a shrewd man, and his camping abandoned the tradition of "Byzantine camp cities" and imitated Gawain's chariots.

The emperor carried more chariots, all of them in a simple style without carriages, but they all advanced to the front, and then the soldiers and pack beasts were called to dig and carry dirt to bury the wheels, and to stuff the chariots with forks and antlers between the chariots, and to have the Cumans and Pechenegs armed with bows and arrows to stand guard behind them—and about two days later, the half-moon barricade, which stretched nearly three guru, was completed before Gawain's eyes.

Alexios then handed over the camp to the two newly promoted officers of the guard, and he himself entered the camp of Brenus with the royal camp, and declared that "I do not have to be present on the battlefield for General Xhosa, but have gone to Afyon to transport food and straw for me and my army." ”

After a word, Xhosa could only hand over all the seals, papers, and officials and staff, and obediently ran back to Afyon.

Then the Emperor combined his own military strength, plus the strength of Brainus, Xhosa, and Raymond, and he had 52,000 soldiers (78,000 to defend against Theodoro), and at least 44,000 men were available on the front line, excluding the old and weak. The Emperor was very pleased to have such strength, and when he learned that Gawain's strength on the opposite side was only about 14,000 men, he gave an order, "Our army has an absolute advantage in Firomeron, and sends soldiers to stretch out my 'left arm' - to constantly build a barrier to prolong the siege, to divide Gawain from the city of Iconium, to oppress him on this side, to hold on to it if Gawain comes to attack, to force him back, and if Gawain is to defend it, to block him with all his might." Repair and defend at the same time, and combine war and repair! ”

In the days that followed, in the Emperor's huge chariot fortification, in the second hour of each morning, 2,000 lightly armed archers and 500 immortal armourers would pour out to form a formation in the area facing the front of Gawain's chariot fortress, followed by 400 Cuman cavalry on the left and right flanks to press the position, and finally 300 Pronian hoplites and 800 hoplites to serve as the second line of preparation.

Under the cover of this group of soldiers, the emperor sent 4,000 infantry and servants in turn, and began to pull more wagons along the axis of north-east, and then dug the moats, and cut down many miscellaneous trees around them, and lined them up in wooden fences, so as to quickly "expand and extend" his own chariots, which the emperor had requisitioned from his own territory and ordered the cities of Philadofiam, Atalia, and Afyon to process and produce them at great expense.

Within a day, the Emperor's barricade had "grown" three-quarters of a guli, like a giant beast stretching out its tentacles, stretching out into the area between Gawain's position and the city of Ikonium.

"Oh, my father-in-law is really flexible, I misunderstood him a little before." Seeing that the emperor's chariot base and banner miraculously stood on the makeshift watchout tower like a stretched centipede, Gao Wen had a tone of admiration.

"The Emperor is going to cut us off for Ikonium, and once this barricade reaches there, the Emperor will build a new camp at the end of the line, which will be connected to the road formed by the barricade of the Brenus camp, and send a large number of cavalry to it, so that our grain routes to Iconium and Miliosepharon will be threatened." ”

"Oh?" Gawain put his hand on his chin and beard, looking at the dense formation of the emperor directly opposite, as well as the fortifications being built in full swing, "How to break it?" ”

As a result, before he could think about it for a while, Gawain suddenly saw that in the formation of the emperor's thousands of elite soldiers, several black dots suddenly rose, spinning rapidly in the air, getting bigger and bigger.

"The enemy's trebuchets!" Exclamations rang out, and Gawain and his generals rushed out of the watchtower, and then there were several loud noises that pierced through the wood, and the watchtower was smashed in half, and the fallen wood fell to Gawain, who was coughing on the ground, and Dim and Muzafiadin were dead in front of him.

The rest of the bullets were thrown into the fortifications, killing four Janissaries and breaking a leg by jumping from the watchtower.

"Hooray, hooray!" In the midst of the Emperor's army, the soldiers shouted in unison—behind their two wings of cavalry, four stone throwers were quickly erected, two on the left and two on the left, with long and narrow elastic swing arms up and down, plus five rope buckles for pulling, which were collectively pulled and fired by the gunners, and every cheer, a wave of stone projectiles was thrown, and the arc of the road was drawn in the air.

Among them, a few hollow lead pellets were also shot into Gawain's position, and when they were broken, they were full of letters of surrender written in Greek, German, and Oyvin, calling on all the soldiers of the Tarsus side to understand the general situation, "Opposite you, is the invincible Roman Emperor and his 80,000 elite army, and there is no future for resistance, and Iconium, Seleucia, and Tarsus as the abysses and lairs of sin will be completely destroyed......"

In the lower part of each letter of persuasion, a hideous wooden donkey with sharp thorns on the saddle is also depicted in simple pastel colors, and the words "Stephen. Gawain will be nailed here to receive his coronation, which is his throne, and the crown is iron, branded red with fire. ”

Gao Wen, who was a little embarrassed, was furious, "The enemy's stone bullets are definitely not as far as the stone throwers of our Guardian Army, set up a large prani cannon behind the barricade to counterattack, and push all the Persian perfume bottles here, and give them some power tomorrow!" ”

Soon, in the darkness of the night, hundreds of craftsmen of the two brigades also set up two counterweight "big plani cannons" with all their might, and set up about 30 perfume bottles and light cannons of the whole army behind the carriages and earthen basket walls, marked the approximate firing range, and quietly waited for the sun to rise in the coming day.

The next day, sure enough, the emperor's camp once again poured out the same formation as yesterday, and they all stood opposite the Gawain fortress, showing off their might, and began to set up the stone throwing machine again.

Just when the emperor's craftsmen began to erect the horizontal axis, a sharp whistling sound exploded in the air, and they watched as the thicker and darker huge stone pills were thrown up on the top of the Gawain barrier, getting bigger and bigger, among the soldiers hiding and screaming everywhere, the craftsmen couldn't care about and couldn't protect the stone throwers, they scattered and hugged their heads and rats, and with a few loud noises, the stone pills shot out accurately from the big Prani cannon smashed huge dust on the ground, and instantly blasted the two half-built stone throwers on the emperor's side into powder, The other trebuchet brackets were also discarded, and the formation was chaotic. (To be continued.) )