Chapter 57: The Siege of Zhivadine

Zhivadin. ()

Uhru looked up at a falcon's battle flag, a symbol of the Vicchian warriors--- falcon on the snowy fields, proud and uncompromising. At this time, if you look at the Swadian camps scattered in the south of the city, you can see that the Swadian lion battle flag is looking at the Eagle of Vekia.

The main banner of the Swadian army was originally lions, but on the banner of this eastern Swadian legion, a scarlet flame burned behind the lions. Ukhru had heard that the flame was a story of the rebirth of the Eastern Legion, a story full of blood, tears and glory for the Swadians, but for Ukhru and the Kujits, it was a constant reminder of their defeat in the battle against Swadia--- and not only that, but it was even more tragic for Ukhru, because he could not even face the flames as a Kujit.

Ukhru and his clan have been expelled.

The past was gone, and now Uhru could only stand on the walls and silently look at the Swadian soldiers.

The Wikiasian engineer was nervously calculating the distance, occasionally manipulating the trebuchet to shoot a few stones to observe the trajectory. The stones that had been left in front of the gates a few days ago had been cleared by the Swadians, but the Vecchians knew everything about the places outside the city. What they have to do now is to make the best use of everything they can.

The Vicians knew how powerful the Swadians were in machine building, and had heard that the Swadians were able to throw a stone the size of a millstone out of the ground and slam it on a stone wall. Moreover, thanks to the improvements of the Swadian engineers, the catapult could be fired three times in a day instead of the previous two, and only sixty men were needed to operate the machine.

Once Ukhru had climbed the walls, he understood why the Wikibian soldiers and engineers were pale: on the outskirts of the camp, the Swadians had gathered around three fortifications, and they looked like they were going to make some kind of machinery.

Soon even the soldiers, who had never seen a siege, saw that the Swadians were setting up a catapult.

The Swadias themselves brought the materials they needed, and the hundreds of pieces were marked and quickly put together as soon as they were needed. Looking at the top of the city wall, it looks like a beautiful toy for children, but the pressure caused by the toy has already made the soldiers around him pray.

Speaking of prayer, Ukhru heard several soldiers talking about the faith. It is said that after the Vycians surrendered to the Swadiaans, they only had to swear to change their faith--- that is--- to change their knowledge of God.

These words Ukhru sounds very funny, for the steppe people, God is the sky, God is the earth, God hides every ear of wheat and every drop of dew, if there is really a God, then he is also the appearance of the next abel. These Wikijans and Swadians are always arguing over what the tall guy in the church should look like.

When he was studying in Swadia, Ukhru knew that the beliefs of the Rhodok and the Swadia were the same, and that the gods of the Vikyans and the Swadians were originally the same, but in the process of slow development, the definitions of the two gods had gradually changed, and the churches on both sides were now even more incompatible.

When an empire at the end of the sea was destroyed by the Salanders, a monk once said, 'I'd rather have an imam's turban than a bishop's white robe.' ’

As for the Nords, it now seems that they were more influenced by the religion of the Swadians. The Nords were more inclined to consider the Swadian God to be orthodox because of their worship of civilization, although the Nords and Vecchians had become close allies after the initial conflict.

But all this has nothing to do with Ukhru. He did not have the strength to exploit this difference in faith to his advantage, which was something that the princes and nobles of Kugit should have considered.

In order to sabotage these trebuchets, the Wikibians sent sneak attack troops.

Their horsemen wrapped their horses' hooves in coarse cloth one hot night, strangled their horses, and prepared to go out of the city to burn the Swadian trebuchets. Unexpectedly, the Swadians expected the Wikiians to come back and attack, and they had already strengthened their defenses, and as soon as these Wikibians were discovered, the Swadian soldiers came out in formation as if they had come out of the ground, and almost instantly surrounded these Wikibian sneak attackers. Astonished, the Wikibians hastily threw out bundles of hay torches, rushed for a while, and retreated without any success, and two of the Kugit soldiers who had gone with them were captured.

The next day, the two soldiers were stripped naked and chained to a pillar outside the city gates.

The Swadians looked at the two men from a short distance, these two men were not injured, but there was no water, no food, they shouted all night for the help of their comrades above the city.

The Swadian crossbowmen were always ready, and if someone came down to rescue the two Kujits, they would be forced back by a rainstorm of crossbows. The Wikibians are in a difficult situation, and if they rescue these two people, the cost may be far greater than the soldiers they rescue, and if they are not rescued, they will continue to lower their morale day and night.

Ukhru suggested rescuing the two soldiers, and the Wikibians put Ukhru in charge of the rescue and gave him several shrewd soldiers.

One night, Ukhru quickly left the city and returned, and before the Wikivians could celebrate, they realized that Ukhru had brought back not two men, but their heads.

Even the fierce Wikibians find this incomprehensible. But the Kugit were silent for a moment and said no more. The two Kugits were already half-dead, and when Ukhru felt hopeless in retrieving them, he ordered his soldiers to send them 'on their way'.

Ukhru knew that the Vicchians were babbling about the barbaric customs of the Kugits behind their backs, but Ukhru felt that it had nothing to do with barbarism. One of the officers even questioned Ukhru's penchant for killing to his face, and Ukhru simply asked him: "What would the Svadias think if we wounded a lot of people and brought them back?" They will think that we will be very threatened, and next time they will tie the soldiers outside, and then wait for us to be shot with a bow ready."

The Vikyans looked at Ukhru with pity: "There are some things that cannot be considered at a cost. With that, the Vekia officer turned and walked away.

The Vekia soldiers left looking at Uhru as if they were looking at something they couldn't understand.

Ukhru looked at the battle flags on the city wall again, the hundreds of bright blue battle flags carrying eagles, guarding the towering walls of Zhivadin.

The Swadian hussars patrolled the city every day, checking every suspicious place. The Swadians also repaired dams that had been damaged by the Wikis, which made the Swadia garrison a little better.

The Blue Glacier to the north of Zhivading is the main source of water in the city, and Swadian soldiers can be found both upstream and downstream, but on the other side of the Blue Glacier, the Wikibians have a firm grip on a series of fortresses, which makes the Wikibians not very worried about the security behind it.

A few days earlier, a team of four hundred Vecchian soldiers had crossed the Bluewater River, their boats landing downstream down the river and being harassed by the Swadiaans. When the Vychian receiving force arrived, the Swadians immediately retreated. A few days later, another Wikibian, a mercenary crossbowman recruited from the North Sea, also entered the city.

Since then, the Svadians have been patrolling to block the banks downstream, and have routed several attacks of the Vikchian cavalry.

Zhivadin was besieged on three sides, leaving only the side near the river to be resupplied every ten days.

There were nearly 3,700 soldiers in the city, including the Vekia Guard, more than 1,600 Iron Shield River cavalry, and a small number of Prairie Wagon troops.

After clearing the lines of communication, the Swadians received two more regiments of recruits from the south.

The first came from the heights of Dehrim, in which there were a large number of archers; The second group, from the Suno, was originally a reserve army established a few years earlier, but soon after the completion of the training, the Kugit were defeated. The soldiers were not disbanded, but continued to train until the outbreak of fighting in Vicchia, when the army moved north. This raises the suspicion that the Swadias were ready to attack the northern kingdom as early as the end of the war against the Kujits.

Prince Frederick's legion was enlarged and became impressive.

A Salander horse merchant brought in six hundred steppe horses from the lower reaches of the country, and the quality of the horses was uneven, most of them were ploughing and pack horses, with only a few war horses. The horses had been ordered by the Vycians last fall, and the Salanders waited for more than a month in the meadows downstream without seeing the Vecchian responders, and in a fit of rage, they drove the horses to the Swadian barracks. The merchant told the Swadiya that if they bought them all, they would get a discounted price.

Prince Frederick himself summoned the merchant and told him that he could not get all the horses, and that he should keep the more than two hundred horses that could fight.

The merchant was heartbroken. Prince Frederick continued: "You can get my protection to look for your business in Eastern Svadia, and I will write you a letter of introduction. Trust me, you can find your customers on every farm in Eastern Swadia. As long as you carry my letters, the soldiers and civilians along the way will not be embarrassed for you. ”

The Salander merchant left the Swadian camp with great gratitude, and then he wrote a letter to someone in Salander in Dehrim. I saw this letter later, and it was written like this.

"Dear Zaitsev: I have already completed the assessment of the war. It will be difficult for the Vecchians to hold the city of Zhivadin, but after the city of Zhivadin, it will be difficult for the Svadians to push further. ”

"Most of the inhabitants of Zhivadin are Swadians, and the Vycians have a different level of soldiers. But beyond this place, to the north is the nest of the Vekians, who can mobilize their inhabitants to fight wherever they want, and every village will have countless Vekian soldiers growing out of the ground like wheat. ”

"The mood of the soldiers of the Svadia was high. I gave a sturdy white horse to an officer named Lagrange, who was kind and talkative. He told me so much information that I didn't dare to take it completely, and I even suspected that he had found out who I was and was misleading me with ulterior motives. When other officers deal with me, they always seem a little embarrassed and very restrained when they speak. Only this Lagrange is willing to talk to me in detail. Did you know? Inside the army I found the coat of arms of Arcadio's family --- a pair of white doves. But I didn't see him, and I heard that Edward was his brother-in-law? Damn, I'm still a relative of his, and I'll have to ask someone to send him a few maids tomorrow, which will help his health. ”

"Unfortunately, I heard that your condition has deteriorated. When I'm done with the horses, I'll go to Nord, where the circus will be waiting for me. I'll see if there's anything worth paying attention to, I'll take a boat back to Salander in Nord, and I'll be back with you in six months at most--- and I'll be with you until the end. Well, although you have been teaching us brothers that etiquette is meaningless, let me say that I am worried about your health. Damn, you old man, I'm so sad for you. ”

"Before I left Salander, the imam talked to me and he said that your body is related to your faith, and he does not know why you should ignore the existence of Allah. Dear old man Zaitsev, Edward and I are Wikiasian children, anyway, that's what you told us, I want to think about it, what do you say? Oh, by the way, 'found Edward by a fly-ridden gutter, and Charlie in an even stinkier gutter next to it', right? Well, the two of us are the stinky knots you picked up from Vikia, but you see, we believe in Allah and feel that our hearts are full, why don't you want to talk to an imam until now? ”

"Okay, I guess you're going to curse again when you see this, so I won't say more. Let's talk about the circus, it's running very well. I'll get back to Salander from time to time, and it's only after I took over your job that I feel that the job is, as you say, 'unusually'. I guess my dear Sultan will be sad when you die, guess what he will say? 'Let us mourn our brother Zaitsev in the Lord's daylight and moonlight'. ”

"Recently there have been a lot of Kujit on the road, and they have all been exiled. Now many Kugit men are holding a bow or carrying a gun and waiting to work in the tavern, some Kugit children have been sold to the slave market, the price is fair, it is estimated that you will go to those slave markets where the trade is booming and the crying is shaking the sky, you will definitely feel more cordial, and the illness will be cured most of the time, right? ”

"Without further ado, I believe in peace. Your faithful son, Charlie. ”

I reckon Charles wrote this letter a few weeks before the Swadians attacked Zhivadin, when Gil was making final preparations in Nord--- and after more than a decade, the double-headed eagle emblem of the Chanda Legion was re-erected.