So, after the troops dealt with the bodies, Sitalses.
He ordered people to mobilize more than a dozen mobile crossbows.
It was placed fifty meters inside the city gate.
These crossbows are machines that fire giant crossbow arrows, and they were specially designed by Hilde. They are different from the light scorpion crossbows commonly used in the Greek world. They are a kind of movable crossbow that is larger than the bed crossbow and requires dozens of people to operate. Sitalses had tested this kind of crossbow before. A crossbow arrow can be fired more than a thousand meters away. Moreover, ordinary mud-brick houses cannot withstand this kind of crossbow arrows at all, and can directly destroy the house.
Such a huge crossbow arrow.
That should be enough for the King of Thrace to have a taste.
But, apart from this, Sitalces was helpless.
All we can do is pray that Hilde comes back soon.
When night falls.
There was almost dead silence in the Thracian camp.
The soldiers lowered their heads deeply, not daring to say a word, because in front of them, there were already many headless corpses lying in all directions. The commander in charge of the siege and the hunter who took the initiative to escape from the city wall all had their heads crushed by the Thracian king. The Thracian king's anger was visible to the naked eye. The veins on his strong body were very obvious, and it looked very scary through the torch.
These soldiers are now extremely frightened.
If we continue the attack tomorrow, they will be the ones to die.
If the Thracian king gets angry, they will die too.
They were in fear, but they did not have the courage to resist the Thracian king.
Because attacking the city still gives a glimmer of hope, but resisting the King of Thracian means death.
"You said... there is a moat behind the city wall?"
"Yes..." The officer knelt on the ground and said tremblingly, "There is a moat. We, we can't pass it."
Chapter 7, Chapter 10, Before the Final Battle
At this time, the officer finally seized the opportunity to cry.
"The whole area between the two city walls is a moat, with no flat ground for us to stand on! The water is also very deep, and the soldiers sank immediately after falling in. We couldn't see them at all. So many of our bodies fell in, but we still couldn't fill up the moat!" The officer lowered his head deeply when he said this, and didn't dare to raise it at all. "So, we really tried our best, but there was really nothing we could do!"
"..."
The Thracian king simply stared grimly at the city of Byzantium.
Now, both attacks were fruitless.
Even the enemy's second city wall was not touched.
If an ordinary commander had faced such a result, he would have simply turned around and attacked other cities.
However, the current situation is that the Thracian king has lost more than 10,000 soldiers in two attacks, with heavy casualties and low morale. Almost all of the elite hunters have died in battle and have little combat power. In this case, if the Thracian king does not continue to attack the city, but turns back to Thrace, he is likely to run into Hilde's main force.
The Thracian King didn't know how many troops Hilde had.
But if you think about it carefully, there should be about 20,000 to 30,000 people.
If we retreat at this time, not only will our previous strategic intentions be ruined, but we will also not be able to go back.
So the Thracian king made up his mind.
"We can't... continue to waste time like this."
The Thracian king stood up.
"All troops, rest for a day, and continue the attack during the day the day after tomorrow. I will open the city gate myself."
"His Majesty!"
"After conquering Byzantium, kill everyone in the city without leaving a single one alive."
"Yes! Your Majesty!"
Looking at the Byzantine city in the distance.
The anger on the Thracian king's face grew stronger.
Originally, it was thought that this surprise attack would definitely leave the Byzantine Empire helpless and completely destroy its resistance. However, it was unexpected that the enemy's city defense system was so terrible. The Byzantine city defense system, built with the efforts of the whole country, made the elite Thracian troops hit a steel plate. The Thracians, lacking heavy siege weapons, obviously could not completely capture the city wall.
In fact, even with heavy weapons, facing the outstanding construction engineering capabilities of Hilde and the Byzantine city, it would take a lot of effort to take down the Byzantine city. The walls of the Byzantine city were not built with rammed earth or marble, which was the mainstream in Greece. Instead, they used hard and easy-to-produce blue bricks. The use of bricks allowed the city walls to be transformed in various ways according to the needs of the designers. Facilities such as shooting platforms, watchtowers, and defense towers could be built.
At the same time, another most important thing is cement.
Natural limestone can be found everywhere on this side of the Mediterranean, but the first use of limestone in history was in the Roman era, when the Romans mixed limestone with volcanic ash to reinforce Roman brick houses.
However, the ancient Greek era was hundreds of years earlier than the Roman era, and the Greeks at that time did not master the technology of making cement from limestone. However, Hilde brought both brick-making technology and cement technology to the Byzantine Kingdom. All buildings were made of bricks and cement, which greatly improved the stability and durability of the buildings. The walls built in this way were almost indestructible. In addition, the Byzantine city's almost unique strategic location, surrounded by water on three sides and facing land on one side, made it a place that was easy to defend and difficult to attack.
To capture the city of Byzantium.
We must control the waterways and surround them on land.
Only then can we win.
The Thracians didn't even have a navy.
Not to mention taking the city of Byzantium.
The Byzantines were also quite confident about this.
The next day, the sluice gates on both sides of the moat were closed, blocking the main locations of yesterday's battle. The human-powered waterwheels were working overtime to pump out the water in the moat. Sitalses sent out scouts and found that the Thracians were resting today and had no plans to attack, so they could now clean up the moat.
There were at least 6,000 corpses soaking in the moat.
The Byzantine moat is a particularly interesting design.
There is a river in Byzantium, which mainly provides drinking water for the Byzantines. It is called the Lycos River. In order to ensure that the river can pass through the moat and the water of the Lycos River will not be polluted by the water flow of the moat, the moat passing through the Lycos was specially raised when designing the city wall, so that the Lycos can pass under the moat. The cement waterproof layer in the middle can effectively ensure that the seawater in the moat enters the Lycos River.
Not to mention that there are springs in the city of Byzantium.
Now, after draining the water from the moat at the battle site, the soldiers entered the moat through the gate inside the moat. There were almost all corpses inside. Now, what the Byzantine soldiers had to do was to move all the corpses out before they rotted. And there happened to be special secret doors and secret passages under the city wall, with tracks laid inside. Wooden carts could quickly transport corpses into the city, and then through the tracks inside the city to the port and throw them into the sea to feed the fish.
Thousands of people are busy.
The bodies of these Thracians were quickly cleared away.
In fact, this job is not interesting at all.
Because the Thracians were really poor.
Nothing valuable could be found on these guys, and their weapons were all crude iron. Although these weapons would be recycled and re-smelted into molten iron to make new weapons, there was no profit in that. The armor on the hunters was heavy and smelly, but they still had to be removed, after all, bronze was a relatively precious resource. Under the command of Sitalses, the bodies in the river were quickly cleaned up to prevent the bodies from silting up in the river and blocking the moat.
After a busy day, the bottom of the moat was much cleaner.
And Sitalces walked under the moat.
He reached out his hand and picked up a silver coin.
The silver coin had a hole drilled in it and was strung together with a rope.
I guess they thought it looked nice and planned to use it as jewelry.
When Sitalces saw this, he felt a little uncomfortable. The main reason was that this situation occurred because Thrace no longer used currency. Most of the silver coins were looted by the King of Thrace. Seeing this, Sitalces felt a sense of sadness.
Chapter 1 of the eighth chapter: The Trap of Byzantium
After the bodies were cleaned up.
The sluice gates were reopened and seawater was allowed to flow in.
If these Thracians continued to fight for a while longer, they should be able to fill the moat with corpses. But that would be meaningless. After all, no one in the Greek world currently has the ability to fill the moat with tens of thousands of corpses. Even if there is such a capability, there won't be such a foolish monarch.
After making all the preparations, Sitalses actually knew very well what would happen if the Thracians continued to attack next.
The King of Thrace is definitely going to take action.
So he ordered his troops to prepare for defense immediately.
The Thracian King was a hero, and Sitalces knew better than anyone how terrible this was. Just like Hilde, she had super strength that surpassed that of mortals, and so did the Thracian King. If he personally prepared to attack the city, then the Byzantine city would definitely face great danger. Therefore, Sitalces had to be prepared.
In this anxious waiting.
Time passed quickly and it was the next day.
As the sun gradually rose, Sitalses stood on the city wall.
At this time, he could see that the Thracians had already dismantled their camp and were ready for a final fight. Sitalces's guess was not wrong. Sure enough, the Thracian king planned to take the remaining Thracian soldiers and fight to the death. Faced with such a situation, Sitalces did not panic. He had already made a very careful plan.
The centurion under his command said to all the soldiers: "Today, the commander of Thrace, the King of Thrace, will personally participate in the siege! He is born with supernatural powers and is invulnerable to swords and spears, so you must not fight him directly! The King of Thrace will definitely try to break through the city gate directly, so today, we should not raise the drawbridge on the moat! After the King of Thrace enters the city, the drawbridge will be raised to block the enemy's soldiers, and our crossbows will be inside the city to directly deal with this guy."
"Yes!"
"Today! As long as we win! We will win completely!"
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Now, the morale of the Byzantine army is high.
Seeing this scene, Sitalses nodded with satisfaction.
"My lord, the preparations are complete."
"Very good... I, I will wait for him at the city gate, at the entrance, and you, you will be in charge of the city wall."
"Yes!"
The centurion drew his sword and climbed up the city wall.
Sitalses picked up his shield and sword. This sword was specially made for Sitalses by Hilde because he could not use spears or other weapons. Sitalses was not reassured. He wanted to kill the Thracian king himself when the ballista controlled him, to avenge the deaths of so many people in Thrace.
"The enemy is coming!"
At this time, the watchtower on the city wall blew the warning horn.
Sitalses looked at the city gate and took a deep breath.
Come, King of Thracian!
In the Thracian army, these soldiers did not rush to the front, they hid far away, fearing that they would be attacked by the ballista or catapult. Instead, the one walking in the front was the leader of the Thracians, the Thracian king.
"Is that a giant?"
“It’s too big…”
The Byzantine soldiers' eyes popped out.
If the Thracians were the size of ordinary people, then the Thracian king standing next to the Thracian soldiers was as tall as three people. When he walked on the road, it would give people a feeling that the earth was shaking. Soon, the Thracian king had walked into the attack range of the crossbows, and the stone crossbows arranged on the city walls fired at the Thracian king.
The round stone projectiles were fired directly, but since the Thracian king was alone, the accuracy of the crossbow was much lower. At this time, the Thracian king suddenly began to accelerate violently, like a wild bull ready to go, and rushed towards the gate of the Byzantine city.
"Oops!"
When the centurion saw this, he immediately said to the soldiers at the city gate:
"Get away!"
boom--! ! !
A loud noise came from the city gate.
The gate of Byzantium was a very solid wooden gate, and it was difficult for ordinary siege vehicles to knock it open. However, the Thracian king, like a cannonball, hit the gate with a huge force. After the huge gate was hit suddenly, the bolt at the gate broke immediately, and then the gate of Byzantium was directly knocked open.
After the Thracian king broke through the city gate, the scene in front of him made him breathe hard. Because in front of him was the lowered drawbridge, and the Byzantine city was completely exposed in front of him. From here, the Thracian army would ruthlessly slaughter all the Byzantines. So, the Thracian king turned around and made a deafening voice like lightning: "The city gate is open! Everyone, follow me and charge--!!!"
After saying that.
The Thracian king rushed straight in.
When the Thracian king crossed the suspension bridge and arrived in the city of Thrace.
At this time, the suspension bridge was suddenly pulled up.
With the piercing sound of the iron chain, the drawbridge was slowly lifted. The Thracian king did not notice any of this at all. His mind was completely focused on the prosperous Byzantine city in front of him. So many Thracians died, but in the end, the city was still captured like this. The Thracian king could not help but burst into laughter, and then strode into the city of Byzantine.
When the huge figure of the Thracian King appeared at the city gate.
Sitalses' heart almost jumped into his throat.
Now is the most tense time.
So he immediately gave the order: "Release!!!"
More than a dozen crossbows that were already aimed at the city gate fired at the same time. The arrows of these crossbows were specially made steel arrows with many barbs, which could penetrate even the city wall. These crossbow arrows were directly shot at the Thracian king with the prepared ropes. The Thracian king did not react for a while. He probably thought that there might be no weapon in the world that could hurt him. By the time he reacted, more than a dozen crossbow arrows had penetrated his body.
These huge steel crossbow arrows, like hooks, tightly hooked his limbs and body.
