Shield.

It is one of the most commonly seen pieces of armor. Throughout the war of mankind, the life under the protection of the shield far exceeds the armor, armor and other armor. This is not to say that the shield is good for defense, the main thing is that the shield is simple to make, and any soldier or mercenary can have it as long as he wants. It is impossible for most empires to equip every soldier with a good set of armor, even leather armor, and it is much easier to equip a shield.

The most basic shield is like a wooden lid - even inferior to the lid in terms of materials. The diameter is 30~40 cm, and the thickness of the shield is between 2~5 cm depending on the wood. The dumbest apprentice carpenter can make 20 carpenters a day. Such a shield, at a distance of 80 meters, is able to effectively defend against shots from an angular bow. Of course, this kind of ugliness is mostly seen in peasant uprisings, and the regular empire will not take it out to make people laugh.

The most rudimentary shields used by the regular army, whether they are square or round in shape, or even in a peculiar shape, must have one characteristic -- composite. The effect of the shield against the bow and arrow after the combination of different materials and densities is obviously better than that of the shield of the same texture, and the effect of the defense knight submachine gun is not much worse. The more common is the iron, wood, leather three-layer composite, with iron as the surface, wood as the bone, leather as the lining; the better large shield, is the steel, wood composite; there are some special races like to use pure steel shield, this kind of guy is too heavy for human soldiers, even the human heavy infantry is difficult to carry a large shield of more than 80 pounds forward, therefore, the general heavy shield is made of steel, wood, steel, leather four layers of composite, more than twice as light, the effect is also good.

Shields range in size from 30 cm to 150 cm, and in some large fortresses there are even giant shields of more than 2 meters, which can even be used against catapults.

- Chapter 84 of "Chi Yizi Dun Said" On January 2, the summer of the 6th year of the siege and warm-up magic calendar, His Excellency Chi Aotian, who was canonized as the Grand Duke of Huayu, did not seem to have happened at all, not only did he not show a trace of a smile on his face, but he did not even have the humility that the nobles should have when accepting the canonization. What's even more strange is that despite having the right to canonize many nobles in the territory, and even though there are many officers from the two major systems of the Little Mercenary Regiment and the Black Dragon Knights who heard the reward, His Excellency Chi Aotian doesn't seem to have any intention of rewarding at all. Coldly nodded to Count Ming Yang, signaling what he had heard, and then turned around and returned to the big tent, and many officers were stunned for a moment before returning to the big tent under the leadership of Ta Yang and others to continue the previous meeting. And Lord Mingyang, the envoy from Lindu, was simply left to dry.

In later generations, there are two different speculations about Chi Aotian's approach. Most of the tendencies, at this time, the Northern Expeditionary Army is facing a strong enemy, and it is not good to give the title of nobility to anyone in battle, rather than this, it is better to drag out the suspense for a longer time, so that many officers and even the allies have a hope, who has the most outstanding achievements in the siege, then who will be rewarded deservedly. There are facts to prove this understanding. There are also some later scholars who believe that Chi Aotian is quite bad at the outside world, and it is impossible for him to make a proper decision on these rewards at the time, perhaps, he will entrust this matter to others, and in fact, Su Wen played a similar role in the canonization after the city was broken. In addition to these two mainstream views, there is also a voice: Chi Aotian went north and didn't think of any fame and fortune at all, just like Amy shirked many thrones, Chi Aotian was not interested in any hereditary renoduction of the Grand Duke at all.

It is interesting to note that after the meeting was dismissed, Tayan secretly patted the shoulders of several mid-ranking officers, including those from friendly forces, and said something very interesting: "Work hard, Your Excellency is very optimistic about you." ”

In later studies, all scholars have a fairly unanimous opinion on this, and according to Tayan's previous performance, this time, in order to inspire the soldiers, he "falsely preached the holy decree".

The first half of the Second Battle of Rhodes was a completely formulaic siege process, in which there was nothing surprising about each step, and it was completely expected by the officers of both sides.

After four days of on-the-spot plunder, the Black Dragon Knights have greatly enriched their war resources compared to before. As soon as the sky dawned, hundreds of simple small catapults had been erected in front of Rhodes City, and behind the catapults, there was a large area of black pressing carts, which looked no less than 100.

To the surprise of Chi Aotian and the others, I don't know when the city wall of Rhodes was full of tall steppe elf archers. Qing Luo frowned and muttered twice with the deputy captain, and came to Chi Aotian's side: "Deputy Leader, the position of the Prairie Elf Alliance has always been neutral, but they often become mercenaries of various countries or mercenary groups. Their elder group is not completely subordinate to Her Majesty the Queen, so ......" The meaning of Qingluo's unfinished words was already very clear. Chi Aotian has long seen the magic skills of the grassland elves, whether it is Xilin Island or Broken Ice Port, the grassland elves are the most eye-catching group on the battlefield, in these two wars, although this group is only more than 100 people, but the role played is definitely not this number. At a glance, the steppe elves on the city wall will not be less than 1,000 people, and it is estimated that they entered the city at night, and this sudden weight is even heavier than the two dragon knights.

"Yes. Chi Aotian didn't waste a word, he didn't even want to nod his head, and then waved at Su Wen beside him.

"Catapult ready!"

"Yes, Your Excellency. Su Wen immediately took his personal guards to the back of the allies to supervise the battle.

More than a dozen allied officers held high the banner and rushed out with catapults, and all the allied troops subordinate to them rushed up - now the total number of Allied troops fighting with the Northern Expeditionary Corps has reached 20,000, of which more than half have experienced four or five small-scale battles, several major officers already have the title of Imperial Sir, and more than 200 people have the title of Imperial Life Knight, and as for the money, a lot of money has been sprinkled.

Money, women, status, no regime, no one can expect the ordinary peasants in their own realm to resist the temptations of these three things, after all, no one can raise the consciousness of the peasants to the level of saints.

The more than 5,000 allied troops of the left army were divided into two parts, and most of them raised their shields to form a shield array - thousands of swordsmen's special round shields with a diameter of 70 centimeters were neatly arranged one by one, and they were composed of three shields in height, and the shields were staggered, directly protecting to a height of 1.9 meters, and in the transverse, each row was at least 300 shields, and the spacing between each row was 5 meters. Such a shield array, even with a bow and arrow fired from the back, is difficult to inflict too much damage.

The remaining 2,000 or so Allied troops ran to the catapult with their heads bowed, and grunted, with 20 or so men in charge of one catapult, and pushed the chariot into the shield array.

All this, already practiced once last night, and even a makeshift army could easily do it well.

"Prepare to rush the car, ladder!"

"Don't worry. Tayan flicked a black and red bean through the air and slid it away, smirking and striding with four lizardman guards to the enveloped inhabitants.

Ta Yang smiled with a smile and shook the tinkling money bag with one hand, and danced the snowy scimitar with the other: "Residents, in front of you is the evil sweat and blood mercenary group, it is they who forced everyone to come here, it is them, wielding their sabers and hacking countless residents to death, I declare, the first person to rush to the head of the city, 1000 bounty coins, the first team to break through the city gate, 1000 gold coins, every enemy killed, according to the enemy's head, receive 10 gold coins!" Below, teams 1 to 20, each team is responsible for one rush, and teams 21 to 41, each team is responsible for three ladders. Charge after hearing the drums, those who are cowardly and those who retreat from the battle will be executed on the spot!"

The old priest also deliberately used two spells: amplification and fear. Fear technique, originally a unique skill of a sacred mage, used strong mental pressure to force opponents, especially beasts, to flee in panic during the war, but I didn't expect it to be used by the old priest to learn and use it here, coupled with the lizardmen who kept spitting out red tongues behind them, the innocent and plundered residents of the city were so frightened that their legs and feet were unstable, and the crying sound continued to sound in the crowd. Tayan ignored it at all, and turned to beckon the Overseer to come and oversee it.

"Catapult, forward. The brown flag quickly rose to the top.

The shield soldiers moved forward in small steps, and the catapult rumbled forward wrapped in the shield array, and the people behind followed closely with the cart full of stones.

Many officers of the Black Dragon Knights frowned slightly, after all, it is not a regular army, and it is not even good to walk a shield array, and more than 30% of the shield array has been relaxed.

Looking at the slowly moving catapult, the huge city wall seems to be silent, the steppe elves standing in the first row occasionally stretch out their hands to measure the distance, for ordinary grassland elves, after blessing the wind magic, the range can reach 600 meters, but, unless forced to do so, no one will do this, once the magic is blessed, the wind elves will continue to echo the wind in the sky, this is not at all controllable by the archer, the accuracy of the arrow suddenly dropped significantly, and the arrow blessed with the wind magic can be shot close to a circle of 10 meters can already be regarded as a super archer。

400 m ...... This is already close to the range of the steppe elves.

"Ready—" The elven captain on the rampart commanded loudly, and the handsome elves pulled their brown arrow feathers out of their quiver pouches and scattered them in front of them.

"Vulture swordsmen, vulture archers take to the skies!" Chi Aotian squinted his eyes and measured the distance, watching the neat and uniform movements of the elves on the city wall, the young general had to put the two troops that were originally prepared as reserves into the battlefield in advance to contain the enemy's godlike archers.

The black two-winged rattlesnake flag and the cyan two-winged rattlesnake flag were lifted into the air at the same time. Except for the vulture knights in the garrison, the rest of the knights rode the wind under the leadership of Qingluo and Chang Qing.

Qingluo was quite familiar with the range of the steppe elves, and loudly ordered the knights around him to rise upward, all the way to the height of more than 600 meters.

A pale green arrow shot out from the city wall, cutting an almost straight arrow path, and the body of a young soldier in the middle of the shield suddenly froze, and he stood for a moment, his mouth spurting blood, and fell to the ground. This long arrow opened the second offensive and defensive battle of Rhodes City.

"Shoot!" on the walls and in the sky, the order was issued at the same time.

300 meters, the brown arrow feathers pulled out faint shadows in the air, and pounced on the shield array, and the first row of shield arrays collapsed in an instant - the human soldiers could not imagine that at such a distance, the arrows could actually shoot into the gap between the shields.

The peasants who had just joined the army were immediately blinded, especially the allies in the first row, who threw down their shields in a panic and rushed towards the second row of shields like chickens without ass, and the catapults between the shields were knocked down by the third wave of arrows that followed.

"Those who escape from the battle, execute on the spot!" Su Wen was dressed in heavy armor, and galloped with his guards cursing loudly, the old soldier didn't care about the sharp bow and arrow screaming from the armor, and the moon washing scimitar in his hand was waved continuously, more than a dozen deserters were cut to the ground, and the surging blood stained the silver armor blood red.

"The first shield array is incorporated into the second shield array, catapults, shoot wolf smoke!"

Under the rain of arrows, the young peasant soldier panicked and poured the black wolf smoke into his pocket, put a large stone in it to weigh the weight, and then put it in the bowl of the catapult and sprinkled it with spontaneous combustion powder.

Boom...... Boom...... Boom...... Nearly 100 catapults shot out the pockets of smoke in turn, this simple catapult did not have a fixed range, and the weight of the stones was uneven, the wolf smoke was near and far, the farthest had already shot into the city, the nearest was only 150 meters. After each catapult fired five rounds in a row, smoke rose in front of the city walls. These wolf smoke temporarily collected from the homes of village and town residents must not have undergone special treatment, it is full of toxicity, and the stench stimulates the sense of smell and the eyes at the same time, and the southeast wind is blowing in the spring on the Eminole continent, and a coughing sound suddenly sounded on the city wall. "Ahh

Originally, the prairie elves were all masters of wind magic, and 1000 prairie elves joined forces to release wind magic, at least they could prevent the wolf smoke from spreading upward, but unfortunately, the vulture knights had already begun to shoot arrows downward, and at a height of 600 meters, the forest elves had no way to maintain the accuracy they should have, not to mention that there was still wolf smoke below, and the elves all changed to horned bows and arrows, scattering them at will towards the city wall.

The walls were already in chaos, and the steppe elves, recognizing the sound of the wind, leaped to dodge the arrows that fell vertically.

"Quick! overboard!" shouted the Grand Duke of the Iron Hand, standing on the highest arrow tower.

The people inside the city wall ran up the road with the prepared cold water under the rain of arrows, and buckets of water poured down the city wall, and the black wolf smoke under the city wall was pressed down by the water.

"Prairie Archers, Target Sky Knights, Shoot!Swordsman Battalion, Rockets!Targets, Catapults, Shoot!"

Pale blue light glittered on the tail of the feathered arrows, and the wind elves danced in the sky, and a dense rain of arrows pounced on the vulture knight.

"Flash!" the Vulture Knight pulled his mount and flew in the direction of the rain of arrows.

Strike...... There were still more than a dozen knights who couldn't dodge and miss, but fortunately, at such a height, the vultures were not seriously injured, fluttering their wings, and the birds of prey fell towards the formation. Several of the elves blessed themselves and their companions with levitation in mid-air.

Denser rockets fell from the sky with a whistling hot wind, and the wooden shields were instantly poured with fire oil, and the shield arrays in the first few rows immediately dispersed, and the rows of catapults ignited a raging fire. In the fire, almost all of the shields collapsed.

The sound of the horn sounded in the main formation of the Black Dragon Knights, and two consecutive gate flags were raised, "Retreat!" The allied officers who rushed to the front line immediately commanded the allies to retreat, and the people who were coerced behind the shield array were also pulled back by the rope.

In the first wave of the second Rhodes City offensive and defensive battle, the Khan Bloody Iron Cavalry Mercenary Regiment only killed more than 40 people, was shot and burned, and more than 100 people were burned by shooting, and more than 1,000 Black Dragon Knight Expeditionary Force were killed and more than 30 catapults were destroyed, and they won a complete victory.