Chapter 32: The Long Night
Through vague perception, Wang Jun determined that these Celts were preparing to attack, and that they had prepared a lot of "advanced weapons"; It seems that during the two hours of the truce, the Celtics were busy.
The sonorous and powerful sound of the harp suddenly appeared in the air above the silent battlefield; With the sound of the piano, a group of murderous Celtic warriors strode towards the Roman camp.
The Celtics don't like shields, they prefer direct offense, but that doesn't mean they won't use them.
For nearly two hours, the Celtic fighters did a great deal of preparation; Now some of them carried improvised shields made of branches, cloth, and animal skins, while others gathered together of dozens of people carrying a huge rectangular wooden raft; In Wang's perception, there were more than fifty of these huge wooden rafts that could be used as wooden bridges in the southern area of the camp alone, and in the first battle, the enemy in the south had only brought four.
The sound of the piano grew more and more intense, and the Celtic warriors began to trot; The second round of the Celtic coalition offensive officially began.
"Ten wooden bridges over every 100 meters of trenches? It seems that the wise man who claims to be Irish has come to the scene. Wang Jun muttered in his heart, he had a general understanding of the situation in Ireland through the surrendered Celts, and in order to ensure the authenticity of the information, Wang Jun naturally used hypnotic tricks.
Mental activity is mental activity, Wang Jun's hand movement is not slow, and the special longbow has begun to carry out the work of naming the enemy; The darkness affected everyone's eyesight, even if Wang Jun's eyesight surpassed that of ordinary people, he could only put the enemy into 150 meters, and the heavy arrows were wound, one arrow at a time; Although it sometimes deviates from the vital position, it is not missed, and the long-range combat skill has reached the level of rough passing, which is still quite powerful.
The best craftsmen in Britain personally built two special longbows for Wang Jun, using high-quality yew wood as the main material of the bow, and spent a lot of time "taming", and the bowstring with sheep intestines as the main material was also strengthened; The bow is 1.73 meters long, just the same height as Wang Jun, with a full bow opening of 88 centimeters, a full bow pull of 100 kilograms (normal 50 kilograms and above), and a maximum range of 600 meters when using flying arrows (360 meters normally; 300 meters to maintain effective lethality). The craftsmen also prepared a large number of arrows for the king's army, divided into two categories: flying arrows and heavy arrows, both of which were conical iron arrows; Wang Jun has a quiver hanging on his waist, but that's to make a look, the space ring in his left hand now has 4320 cubic meters of space, and he can be loaded with a lot of arrows if he gives a little position.
Historically, English longbowmen were famous all over the world, but they were not widely promoted in Europe, one because the training was too difficult; The second is because the so-called "chivalry" on the European continent is somewhat similar to the current Celts, who like to fight face-to-face. However, if it had not been for the arrival of the king's army, this world would not have been able to form a longbow army in the second century AD; It was nearly 800 years before the formation of the English longbowmen was born, and by the time they became famous in Europe, it was only in the 15th century.
It is not as accurate as the king's army, which can stand on the battlements with a bull's nose, and the infantry archers and crossbowmen who stand between the inner and outer battlements can only shoot blindly, but they rely on numbers and do the work of covering the blow.
Relatively speaking, when playing covering strikes, the infantry archers are much more powerful than the infantry crossbowmen; The range is longer and the rate of fire is super high, reaching an average of 15 arrows in a minute, and according to the calculation of a large group of infantry archers, they can throw 9,000 arrows in a minute! The crossbowmen, on the other hand, can only shoot 4 in a minute, which is still the result of Wang Jun's improved bow and crossbow.
It's not so easy to just train a qualified foot archer, the standard of qualification: during the day, shoot at a humanoid target at a distance of 200 meters, and you know how difficult it is to think about it with your toes; The infantry archers formed by the Fourth Army Corps are actually made according to the English longbowmen in memory, and they have been trained until now, and there is no problem with the range and rate of fire, but they can carry out precision strikes at a distance of 200 meters, which is the so-called qualified, and there are less than 10 soldiers!
Flexible, compact, and highly accurate, the bow and crossbow are more suitable for short-range combat, with a high rate of fire and long range, while the longbow is suitable for long-range combat.
Under Alex's command, the infantry archers began to shoot again in a covering manner; However, unlike the first battle, this time the infantry archers replaced the heavy arrows, gave up the cooperation with the hoplites, and let go of the speed and fire; The enemy is focused on defense, and naturally there is no interest in carrying out long-range strikes that they are not good at in the first place.
The crossbowmen, on the other hand, were replaced with heavy crossbow arrows, and all of them were sent by Alex to the battlements to assist the hoplites. After the replacement of heavy crossbow arrows, the range of the bow and crossbow has been further reduced, and it is no longer suitable for long-range coverage strikes, but the straight line shooting within a few tens of meters is still quite sharp; The heavy bolts combined with the javelins thrown by the hoplites on the battlements were absolutely staggering in their lethality at close range.
The miscellaneous soldiers, who were hiding in the battlements, were also ordered to replace their more lethal heavy crossbow arrows; The improvised shields that the Celts improvised were used against the sophisticated long-range weapons of the Roman army, and the result......
Equipped with a conical metal arrow, the body of the arrow is made of ash wood heavy arrows, more than 200 meters away can also shoot through the chain mail, and close to 50 meters, the best armor in the Roman legion, is also an arrow to wear.
Poor Celtic warriors, where is the armor?
Many of the soldiers did not even have metal weapons, thick wooden sticks, sharpened wooden sticks were basic equipment, and arrows were basically all wood; short axes with wooden handles, large axes with long handles, which were the weapons of elite warriors; Two-handed big sword, you are not the second, third, or fourth generation of tribal leaders, don't even think about it.
Wearing rudimentary "shields", the Celtic warriors flocked to the battle, perhaps trying to win the battle in one fell swoop, and the coalition forces threw more than 5,000 men on each side of the Roman camp in four directions, south, east, west, and north. The dense crowd encountered a dense rain of arrows, and the casualties of the Celtic warriors increased at a high rate every second; At a distance of more than 200 meters, the dense number of Celtic warriors strode forward at first, and then trotted and gradually accelerated, and it took about 90 seconds to reach the edge of the trench, plus the huge wooden platoon to build a bridge, in fact, it took 106 seconds for the soldiers in the front row to reach the outside of the Roman camp.
In 106 seconds, the infantry archers can shoot 26 heavy arrows!
A brigade has 600 infantry archers, which is 15,600 heavy arrows!
106 seconds is enough for Wang Jun to complete the roll call of up to 42 Celtic soldiers with his perverted high-speed precision aim. (A good archer can shoot at 12 shots per minute, and the king is twice as fast.) )
Although Wang Jun's arrows did not fail, his 42 arrows were insignificant in the storm of arrow feathers formed by 15,600 heavy arrows.
The Celtic warriors who participated in the battle for the first time realized at this time that the previous defeat was not that the fighters who participated in the first attack were not good, but that the enemy's sharp and dense arrow rain was terrible!
The Celtic warriors who participated in the battle for the second time found that this time the Romans' arrow rain was more dense, and the lethality of the arrows was even more terrifying!
Compared to the first battle, the infantry archers increased the rate of fire from 4 to 15 arrows per minute at full speed, and even without the participation of the same number of crossbowmen, the number of arrows falling in the sky was twice as high as in the first battle. For the archers, the last battle was just a warm-up.
The high-speed heavy arrows, carrying huge kinetic energy, roared towards the dense crowd; Clusters of blood were stirred up, and one by one the "shields" were pierced, and even those Celtic warriors with huge wooden rows were pierced by heavy arrows that broke through the gaps in the wood.
The fireballs and giant crossbow bolts in the camp also added a lot of casualties to the attacking Celtic warriors; This time, there were many people, and even the bed crossbow, which had almost no gain in the last battle, also harvested the lives of many Celtic warriors.
"Bang bang!" A series of wooden rows fell on the ground, and a huge sound stretched the long trench, and after paying a heavy price, the second wave of attack finally reached a **, except for a few wooden rows that were scattered by giant crossbow arrows or ignited by fireballs, dozens of huge wooden rows were safely erected on the trench up to 5 meters wide.
Celtic warriors can finally rush through the trench again!
**Unfold in this instant.
On the outer battlements, under the outer battlements, thousands of crossbow arrows were fired in waves; On the battlements, long javelins shot out in arcs; On the open ground between the inner and outer battlements, the infantry archers increased their elevation angles and continued to rain arrows without stopping.
When the erected wooden raft fell on the trench, the part of the Celtic warriors who had relied on the huge wooden raft to resist the rain of arrows instantly lost their defenses and were directly exposed to the rain of arrows; Legend has it that weapons can be wielded to the point of waterfall, and Celtic warriors fall on wooden rafts in pieces.
Fortunately, the so-called rain of arrows is not rain after all, or the number of crossbowmen and archers in the hands of the king army is still too small, or the number of troops invested by the coalition army this time is huge, in short, the red-eyed Celtic warriors stepped on the bodies of their companions, and rushed to the bottom of the outer battlements one after another; As long as the body climbed up near the two shooting holes, the safety of the Celtic warrior was greatly improved.
In fact, as long as the Celtic warriors rushed through the trenches, the heavy arrows of the foot archers decided not to fall on their heads; At this time, the Celtic warriors only had to face the blows of javelins and crossbow arrows.
Wang Jun didn't want his own people to kill his own people by mistake, when the camp was first built, all the long-range weapons in the army were calibrated and fired at various angles; The worst foot archers, who can shoot at such a large elevation angle, shoot arrows in the area outside the trench, and the chance of hitting the trench is almost zero, let alone the interval of more than 6 meters from the inner edge of the trench to the battlement; On the other hand, without javelins and crossbows, the Celtic warriors would have been safe as long as they could stand on the outer edge of the trench.
The second battle has been fought from the beginning to the present, and although the Celtic warriors have already died, it actually only took a little more than 2 minutes before and after.
The brief and brutal battle situation was both expected and unexpected for the tribal leaders.
It is said that it is expected because when Dukaru proposed the plan, he mentioned this possibility and prepared a backup plan;
It was unexpected, because the chiefs of the tribes, except Dukaru, thought in their hearts that this backup plan was superfluous; In the eyes of these tribal leaders, only 8,000 people were sent up in the first battle, and the preparation was really insufficient, so if you lose, you will lose! But this time, the surname took 20,000 soldiers at a time, and it took nearly 2 hours to defend so many Dongdong surnames, there is no reason why it can't be defeated.
Unexpected or unexpected, although the attacking troops did suffer a bit too much damage, they had already attacked under the Roman battlements; So, let's do it according to Dukaru's backup plan!
The backup plan in Dukaru's plan is actually simple, that is, when the Romans and the attacking warriors are intertwined, the coalition forces will press on all fronts!
This method is definitely not the so-called "magic stroke", but it is better than simple and practical.
For the outnumbered Celtic army, choosing the Romans to attack the foot of the battlements was a simple, reliable, effective and easy way to charge.
In the first attack, more than 4,000 fighters were lost; In the second attack, 20,000 warriors were dispatched; Now, the remaining 40,000 warriors rushed up to the Roman camp with a shout; Around the outer battlements of the camp, the tragic offensive and defensive battles are in full swing...... It's just that the tragic ones are basically Celtic fighters.
Wang Jun is shooting one arrow at a time, estimating that this battle can be won with small casualties, but he did not expect that the Celtic coalition army will decisively seize the opportunity to launch a general attack regardless of casualties; More than 40,000 people charged with great momentum, and the Celtic warriors who were still desperately under the battlements all climbed up frantically as if they had been beaten with chicken blood; For a time, there was a situation of hand-to-hand combat on many battlements, and the crossbowmen sent to the battlements had no time to shoot under the battlements, and instead cooperated with the hoplites to eliminate the enemies who jumped on the battlements.
"You're a lot of people! Dukaru, my sister in the sea of fire! ”
Wang Junzheng's good mood disappeared at once, and he immediately gave the order to set fire to the trench.
One by one, the torches flew into the trench, and in less than 2 minutes, the trench that surrounded the camp for more than 2 kilometers ignited a huge flame, and the fire oil and a large number of sharp wooden piles at the bottom of the ditch burned not only fast, but also fierce; The wooden platoons built by the Celtic soldiers with their lives quickly fell into the sea of fire, and they could no longer pass, and the Celtic allied forward that the whole army pressed on was now able to rush to the outer edge of the trench; Looking at the sea of fire up to 5 meters wide, the faces of the Celtic warriors who were blocked on the outside of the trench were all full of unwillingness, and the Celtic warriors on the inside of the trench had a trace of despair on their faces in addition to unwillingness.
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