At that time, at the beginning, the envoy of the other party thought that the Norman emperor had seen the mistake and just wanted to open his mouth to warn, but the well-trained guard knight covered his mouth with one hand and dragged him outside.

"That man slandered me, but I'm not a tyrant with a grudge - pull it down, just a few hundred lashes. Egil shook his hand and commanded lightly.

So, three days later, on April 9, 1008, in the vast plain about thirty kilometers from Bologna, the soldiers of the Norman coalition were almost resting. The preparatory work - the artillery, the fortifications, and the watchtower for Egil and the other monarchs and nobles to watch the military situation - were all in place. Looking at the twelve-pounder guns that have been cast in the recent past, which have reached sixty, as well as hundreds of mortars, Egil seems to understand a little why the other party wants to take the initiative to attack.

"In contemporary warfare, the side with the farther coverage of the firepower should gain the initiative. His enemies will be forced to move forward under the cover of fire, forced to attack. Even if he is the weaker party, he can only do so. And when he was not even capable of attacking, the outcome of the war was already decided—write down this passage, and write down my biography, as well as my living notes, and the chronicles of the Norman Empire!" said Egil, standing on the watchtower and looking into the distance, to the clerk at his side, Talleyrand.

"Yes, my lord. The corners of the clerk's mouth twitched, but he was still completely unable to question what Egil had said, and after remembering it well, he saluted and ran down the steps of the watchtower.

Egil's side has artillery, and it is a large artillery that can calmly attack where the opponent has no defense. With such a powerful weapon, Egil will be the one to defend calmly. His enemies, on the other hand, would be forced to attack the fortified positions laid out by Egil with weak forces. This is how this war went. The Norman engineers planted a stake in front of their artillery, and a trench half a meter wide and three meters deep was dug one meter in front of the pile. In this way, the opposing cavalry rushed over, jumped over the trench, and hit the stake of the horse-resisting building. Needless to say, such a result can be imagined.

On that day, the main army of 100,000 Normans dispatched 50,000. The front is lined up with 10,000 men of the new army, and two rows of five columns of ultra-long guns are arranged in a standard phalanx. In the middle of each regiment of the new army were interspersed with a total of 4,000 heavy crossbowmen and 1,000 Praetorian musketeers. Behind the two rows of phalanxes of spears were the Normans' proud 6,000 longbowmen, including 500 Sherwood marksmen. The longbowmen were arranged in a long, narrow array, each carrying three pots, for a total of sixty feathered arrows. They placed the quiver on the ground, where they could draw the arrow.

Behind them was a huge phalanx of Praetorian Guard soldiers. They were arranged in a completely defensive formation to defend the towering and fortified watchtower in their middle and the Norman emperor above it. On either side of this large phalanx were large numbers of Norman infantry, small phalanxes of Norman assault infantry in units of 1,000 men. Their bearers held aloft flags marked with Roman numerals, representing the number of their thousands, so that the emperor could give orders to send them into battle at any time. These infantry formed the Norman army and were the backbone and rearguard of the coalition forces.

On either side of this huge phalanx, of 80,000 men, were the great Norman knights and the brave hussars. ...,

The heavy cavalry moved closer to the Norman army. Egil inspected the terrain three days before the battle. Feeling that his right flank was more empty and flatter, suitable for cavalry charges, he deployed 1,500 Norman royal knights and two Norman knights in a team of 1,000 men on the right flank. Combined with the 350 Field Order heavy cavalry deployed in these thousand-man teams, the number of elite heavy cavalry on the right flank reached nearly 4,000. On the left flank, Egil also placed a squad of 1,000 Norman knights, as well as a hundred heavy cavalry of the Field Order.

On the other side of the hoplites were the more numerous Hussars of the Norman army.

The 1st Hussar Corps, and the 2nd Hussar Corps under the command of General Qi Teng were on the left and right flanks. And the tens of thousands of elite Hungarian rangers were reinforced on the left flank, along with the 1st Hussar Corps. The Hussar Corps under the Emperor, as well as the hussars attached to several other local garrison corps, as well as the irregular cavalry provided by many other countries, were strengthened to the right flank, along with the Second Hussar Corps. This left and left Egil's left flank and right flank with about fifteen thousand elite hussars.

The hussars were also in a phalanx of thousands—I mean the Normans, and the Hungarians, and the light cavalry of other nations, were still scattered in a scattered form.

Because the scale of this campaign is too large. So, Egil delegated command of the hussars on both wings. It was handed over to Attila and Ziten. Allow them to make their own judgments. It was decided how to proceed - of course, this was to be attacked only after Egil had given the order to counterattack.

This is the lineup of armies deployed on the front by the Norman Empire, with a total number of more than two hundred thousand. And on the two flanks of the battlefield, on the left flank were the 50,000-strong armies of Hesse, Bavaria and Milan. On the right flank, there were forty thousand troops of Brandenburg, Austria and Venice. This was the force that Egil used in this campaign, and it was not enough to occupy the plain on the front, but also the woods, hills, and some streams on both sides. The three days were not only for the Coalition soldiers to recuperate, but also for them to have enough time to be transferred by Egil to where they were supposed to be.

Several other local legions, as well as the reserve militia mobilized from the local area, as well as a small number of wandering knights and mercenaries who spontaneously joined Egil's camp, are still in the camp more than a dozen kilometers away, and have not joined the battlefield. The number of these soldiers exceeded fifty thousand. At the time of necessity (though Egil found it unthinkable and unimaginable), he could be mobilized to join the battlefield

In this battle, as in previous coalition operations, Egil had full command of only the frontal battlefield, and belonged to the 100,000 troops of the Norman Empire. And in the armies on both flanks, although he also has the right to command, he can only order the commanders of those countries to attack, defend, advance, and retreat. And how to act depends on the monarch of other countries, or the commander of the army, to grasp and control.

"200,000 troops. Speaking of which, it's quite a lot. "Egil stood on the watchtower and looked down, only to see the spear like an iron forest, the axe like a mountain, and the army was in order, as far as the eye could see. I couldn't help but say something like this. Beside him, the knights of the Guards held their horns in one hand and the hilts of their swords in the other, waiting to convey the Emperor's orders—Egir's command now had three hundred knights of the Guards, divided into three hundreds, one of whom was in the center and the other two were on two wings, and they communicated with each other with the sound of horns and communicated the entire battlefield. so that Egil could take command and give orders.

On the opposite side of Egil, the 80,000-strong army belonging to the Holy See was now also in formation, forming a standard three-lane array on the southern front of the plain in the middle of the battlefield, under the command of Commander Harold. Although their movements were equally neat, they were better than any other nation in the coalition except the Normans. But compared to the coalition forces that were two or three times more than them, divided into three arrays, it looked a little pitiful. ...,

Judging from the comparison of the forces of the two sides, the Norman army has an absolute advantage. And from the two sides - I mean the Norman Emperor Egier and the Holy See commander Harold, their records are compared. The Norman Emperor was a famous general, while Harold was just an unknown person. Neither anyone would be optimistic about this poor fellow. Even in some local underground casinos, the opening bet bets on the win or loss of this battle. The odds for both sides are one to one hundred and fifty. Even with such exaggerated odds, few fools would bet on the side of the Holy See. And the gangsters who opened the market (many of them were peripheral connections to Norman spy organizations) were also very distressed by the fact that there were too few people to bet. In this way, even with such exaggerated odds, you can't make a lot of money in this game......

Of course, none of this is the point. The point is the mentality of the soldiers on both sides, and the soldiers on both sides think the same thing. The Norman army was convinced of victory, and on the side of the Holy See, there were many devout soldiers ready to die. [Important*to* provide]

Because the armies of both sides had already prepared three days before the start of the battle, the battle began very early - at nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops of the other side, the Holy See, began to move, Egil gave an order, and on the frontal battlefield, one hundred and sixty artillery pieces opened fire one after another, firing powerful cannonballs at the Holy See army!!

"Speed up!" the first cavalry column will charge!" as Egil had said before. When the smoke of gunfire, loud noises, and unbearable lethality raged in the Papal army's formation, taking a large number of lives, leaving stumps and broken arms scattered, corpses and broken equipment all over the ground, the opponent could no longer bear it anymore and could only attack as soon as possible. Under Harold's command, the first column, a total of 1,000 horses dressed in plate chain composite armor, riding horses equipped with chain mail, and elite heavy cavalry armed with heavy cavalry spears roared angrily and rushed towards the Norman army!

"It's like bullying a child. Egil sighed, and General Basumi, who was on the front line, also raised the command knife in his hand and roared angrily: "Artillery for shotguns! Heavy crossbow fire, musket ready!"