Chapter Thirty-Two: Offense and Defense

  (Second update)

  The city has fallen.

  The final blow, the tree trunk used as a battering ram crashed into the loosened gate, sending the soldiers behind it flying two steps back. The battering ram slowly moved away, and Count Raiseth's army prepared to charge.

  The soldiers who had been knocked down got up and voluntarily went around the rear of the troops from both sides. When the miscellaneous soldiers outside the city rushed into the city gate, they saw neat rows and standing long guns.

  "Kill!" The infantry of Count Duras shouted in unison, and surprisingly, they actually managed to scare the enemy back a few steps.

  Although the momentum was strong, relying solely on momentum would not bring victory. The frightened soldiers and peasant soldiers came to their senses and charged forward again. They approached the long guns, but began to hesitate and dared not move forward, only using their weapons to randomly strike at the gun tips, trying to open up a path for themselves.

  The long guns moved. In the midst of the shouting in Ruhr, the front row of riflemen withdrew and stabbed their weapons, leaving a dozen lives behind in an instant. The people in front fell down, and those behind surged forward again, with another dozen corpses lying before the gun array.

  The peasants were terrified, they had never seen lives disappear so quickly. The mercenaries who fought for themselves were also terrified, there was no place on the battlefield for them to turn around, they did not want to leave their precious lives in such a meaningless place, they did not want their unpaid wages to become their consolation, and maybe they would not even get it. Only the army under Count Lajos, who was mixed among the crowd, still maintained high morale. They shouted and kicked forward, driving everyone to charge forward, facing death bravely with long spears.

  In the chaos, Earl Dallas's long gun team was still harvesting lives very efficiently. Anyone who dared to enter the range of the long guns would receive their enthusiastic welcome. Gradually, in front of the long guns, a thick layer of corpses piled up, and behind the corpses, Count Lycoris' army retreated slowly with their backs facing the enemy. No matter how much the soldiers were scolded, they did not want to use their flesh and blood to feed those cold steel thorns again.

  The city gate was at a stalemate, the smell of blood filled the air, making the temporarily recruited civilians even more terrified.

  From the perspective of Count Ratzel, the attack was going smoothly. Those Wolf Mercenaries had suppressed the archers on the city walls and his own army had easily opened the gates. With so many troops at the gate, even if they were pigs, they should have been able to trample the entire city, let alone a group of soldiers? Although there were some unrefined farmers inside, with so many mercenaries around, victory was assured.

  It seems that the money I spent on myself is not wasted at all.

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  The distinguishing feature of the House of Lannister was its parsimony. So twenty years ago, Lord Tywin could extort five thousand gold coins from the defeated old Lannister - he would rather save them for ransom than take out these money to arm his own army.

  The current Count Raiseth and his father are of the same character, only with a vendetta to bear and some money that must be spent. However, the people of House Raiseth are who they are, and cannot be judged by ordinary standards. He did not train a stronger army, nor did he recruit powerful helpers. The old Count Raiseth felt heartbroken after returning home, his mind filled with despair, and could only comfort his wounded soul by collecting more taxes and hoarding gold coins to forget the humiliating past. In short, everything is as it was, only hatred is hard to quell.

  This hateful education continued to the next generation, and the current Earl of Laissez looked at the full warehouse of gold left by his father, and the thought of revenge was unstoppable, like a raging flame, wanting to burn the entire world.

  In the hometown of Jony, in the state of Yan during the late Warring States period, Prince Dan of Yan wanted to cause trouble for the King of Qin. He wanted to stop the invasion of Qin and defeat them, so he spent a large sum of money to find Jing Ke, an assassin, to kill the King of Qin. This is the story of Jing Ke's attempt to assassinate the King of Qin that has been widely spread.

  But look at Prince Dan's behavior, he has a lot of money to buy assassins but doesn't go to practice military affairs, I really don't know how to evaluate him.

  Xiao Laizi is just such a person.

  He spent twice the commission to hire the Wolf Mercenary Corps, he paid a high fee to employ hundreds of idle mercenaries, and he spent a large sum of money to... cough, no, to show his piety. The only thing that didn't change was that he didn't spend a single copper coin to expand his own army. After Old Man Qi came back, he recruited three hundred people again, feeling that it was enough to maintain order and was satisfied. Little Rascal Qisi was indeed following the family tradition.

  Let's go back to the battlefield.

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  A group of people were blocking the city gate, looking very powerful and overbearing, but after such a long time, why was there no progress at all? Count Raisis gradually felt that something was wrong.

  At this time, the crossbow arrows of the Wild Wolf Mercenary Group had been almost consumed, and the originally violent attack gradually slowed down. The bowmen on the city wall felt this point. Eisatis counted the rhythm of the crossbow bolts entering the city wall, suddenly stood up, bent his bow and shot. The feather arrow cut through the air, nailed into the eye socket of one of the Wild Wolf's crossbowmen, taking him flying backwards, causing a small chaos in the shooter's formation.

  Under the leadership of Aisathis, the bowmen who had been squatting behind the city wall with a stomach full of grievances all stood up and began to turn their depression into sharp arrows, shooting at the enemies who had always suppressed them with crossbow arrows. Although the wolves' equipment was very good, the marksmanship of the Tabri City Defense Army was not particularly magical, but the arrow rain caused by more than 200 bowmen still caused objective harm to the wolves without any cover.

  The miscellaneous soldiers were still blocked at the door and did not move.

  A strange horn sounded from the direction of Count Ratzis. As he looked around, a large man wearing the uniform of the Wolf Mercenary Corps was blowing the horn with all his might. Upon hearing the sound, the mercenaries who were exchanging fire with the defenders on the castle wall almost simultaneously took down their shields from behind and held them in front of them. Then they slung their crossbows over their backs, drew out the long swords at their waists, and slowly retreated while dragging the bodies of their fallen comrades along.

  The miscellaneous soldiers at the city gate didn't know what was happening, and when they heard the horn sound, the people on the periphery looked back one after another. They saw that the mercenary group of wild wolves was gradually retreating. When they were wondering, a rain of arrows suddenly fell from above. It turned out that the bowmen on the city wall had seen that those troublesome enemies were now tightly protected, and the arrows shot out could not cause any harm to them. So they shifted their target to the noisy infantry of Laissez at the foot of the city.

  In the era of cold weapons, war was fought with morale. At this time, comrades retreated, and there were arrows on their heads to greet them. In a chaotic situation, timid people had already started running wildly backwards. The soldiers in the crowd chopped several hysterical escapees, but triggered even greater chaos. More and more people began to try to escape. They squeezed open the comrades behind them, opening up roads that went against the tide of people. Some ferocious mercenaries even used their swords to clear a path, killing anyone who stood in front of them.

  The people on the city wall also discovered this problem. Without the threat of long-range attacks from under the city, they became more and more daring. Some skilled shooters began to carefully aim at the soldiers maintaining order. Even Nicholas, who had not acted before, joined in. With just two well-placed oil slicks, the chaos below reached its peak.

  Flight was like a highly contagious disease, its spread only in an instant. What was originally just sporadic escape is now indeed a large-scale rout. The musketeers' phalanx in the city did not idle either, they slowly opened the city gate under Rouru's command, harvesting lives that fell to the ground along the way. After chasing out for about thirty meters, Rouru cautiously let the troops return to the city.

  At this point, the outcome of the siege was already decided. Earl Raiseth lost the first battle in the most unattractive way possible. Two thousand attacked one thousand and caused a large-scale rout; after today, he would be infamous.

  Joni was always on standby at the side of the Gunman formation, and he was very excited to face a human army for the first time. Unfortunately, Count Raisis' troops did not give him a chance to make a move. This made him very disappointed.

  After the war, the bodies were counted, and there were more than 200 corpses under the city gate. Only over 50 people died from gunshot wounds, including those who were killed during the pursuit. As for the others, they were stabbed or shot with arrows, trampled to death, and died in various ways. Earl Darius lost 20 soldiers who served as crossbowmen and 30 archers.

  The first battle was at Tabriz, and it ended in a great victory.

  On the other hand, Raisis's expression was quite unsightly. He looked at the young man beside him. The young man wore a black uniform with a wild wolf emblem, looking like he was only sixteen or seventeen years old, with a hint of viciousness in his eyes.

  "Please be at ease, Earl. Everything is under control."