The second round of attack began with the long trumpet sound of the enemy's rear line. It was Odo who was responsible for commanding the second round of defensive battle in Tal Fort. As the defender, the disparity between the enemy and our forces was less than three times, and the enemy did not have sufficient pre-war preparations, and even lacked siege equipment. Such a castle offensive and defensive battle is more powerful than the defender, so Odo, who is familiar with the defense system of Tal Fort, should be able to cope with this attack.
However, judging from the enemy's status and the current time, Baron Jeffery obviously wanted to capture the outer wall in one fell swoop during the second siege, so Art no longer watched with arms folded. He led two teams as reserve forces to sharpen their spears and swords in the inner fort, preparing to join the defensive battle at any time.
On the outer wall of Tarburg, Odo deployed at least two more people to defend several places where the enemy's wooden ladders might appear. Once the location of the enemy's climb was determined, the guards at the surrounding crenellations would also rush to help. Three or five of the laborers and serfs who had been hiding under the outer wall were also selected to go up to the aisle fighting position and throw stones.
The steps of the enemy's second wave of siege were similar to the first wave of trial attacks. The first attack was a dozen archers in the rear firing several rounds of light arrows from a distance, trying to disrupt the order of the defenders behind the crenellations of the outer wall. But this time Odo learned a lesson. When a round of light arrows flew over, the soldier responsible for holding the shield held a shield in each hand and put it on the heads of himself and the combat soldiers in time, and the crossbowmen in the arrow tower also followed a few rounds. Under the guidance of a commander (a sentinel rider) with better shooting skills, he adjusted the shooting angle. The light arrow shot this time was obviously much further than the last time. Although it was not accurate, it could float steadily to the enemy archer's head. Although such an unequal shot would not cause substantial casualties to the enemy archer, the gap between the condescending downward shot and the downward upward shot put the enemy archer at a disadvantage in several rounds of shooting.
However, a skilled archery knight who was responsible for commanding the archers of the enemy also adjusted the archers' attack strategy in time. He dispersed the fifteen archers to five or six positions at tricky angles. These positions are closer to the Tal Fort and are more convenient for shooting the defenders on the fort wall, but they are the dead spots for shooting from the arrow towers on the fort wall. With the shooting skills of the archers in the towers at such a scattered range and tricky angles, it is easy to imagine how difficult it is to hit the enemy archers below the city. Therefore, when the enemy archers dispersed, the crossbowmen in the arrow towers on the outer wall simply stopped shooting and left the arrows behind. To the enemy soldiers who are about to board the city...
"Baron Jeffery has issued an order. All soldiers who climb the fort wall will be rewarded with fifty pfennigs; whoever kills an enemy will be rewarded with a hundred pfennigs; and the team that takes the lead in capturing the outer wall will be rewarded with a thousand pfennigs!" Under the slope in front of the gate of Talburg Castle, a knight in blue robes stood on horseback and yelled at the attacking soldiers at the top of his lungs.
The charm of money is eternal. When the enemy soldiers under the wall of Talburg heard the "scent" of silver coins coming from behind, they were instantly excited as if they had taken strong medicine. They kept roaring the trumpet sound in their mouths, and the pace of carrying shields and ladders became much faster.
On the outer wall of Tal Fort, Kazak was raising his rifle bow under the cover of a shield by the soldiers beside him and shooting at the scattered archers below the city. After suffering several rounds of downward fire from the arrow towers on both sides, these guys scattered and shot at the defenders on the wall. Kazak was one of the team commanders with better shooting skills. He had already aimed at an enemy archer who was more than 60 steps away on the left side of the main entrance of the outer wall. This guy always hid in the arrow tower and shot an arrow at the outer wall from time to time. One of the soldiers on the wall had already been shot in the head. If it were not for luck that he was protected by an iron helmet, the guard would definitely be shot dead on the spot.
Kazak leaned his head slightly against the crenel and glanced at the enemy archer. He saw that the bow in this guy's hand was aiming at a soldier on Kazak's right side, and the bowstring of the rifle bow had already begun to be pulled. Without hesitation, Kazak picked up the rifle bow in his hand and pulled out a heavy diamond-headed arrow, put it on the bowstring and began to draw the string. The enemy archer did not notice an arrow protruding from the crenellation on the fort wall, and just focused on aiming at the neck of a guard on the top of the city. Just when the enemy archer had fully drawn the bowstring and was about to go, unexpectedly, a heavy arrow suddenly shot from the crenel on the other side of the fort wall. Before the enemy archer could close his bow to avoid it, the heavy diamond-headed arrow flew out and bit the enemy archer's right arm. The huge momentum pushed the guy to the ground...
As soon as Kazak put down his rifle, a wooden ladder was set up on the crenellation of the outer wall in front of him, and then Odo's roar of "getting ready for battle" came from the side.
Hashkazak threw down his rifle bow and said to the soldiers around him: "Everyone is ready to fight! Fork-clapping pole!"
After saying that, he led the covering soldiers beside him to move the fork-and-clapping pole on the ground, trying to work together to put it on the fork-clapping pole. The wooden ladder at the top of the wall was pushed down, but the enemy's improved wooden ladder had a smaller inclination angle and was more solid and difficult to overturn. Even after several attempts, the wooden ladder could not be overturned. At this time, two enemy soldiers on the wooden ladder wearing leather armor and holding round shields and long swords had already boarded the wooden ladder and began to climb towards the top of the wall.
"Spear! Shield formation!" Odo's roar sounded.
Following Odo's order, the soldiers from all over the crenellations of the outer wall gathered at the place where the four wooden ladders built the wall. Basically, at every place where the enemy soldiers boarded the city, there were five defenders waiting in formation on the left and right sides of the crenellations.
As the latest team commander, Tuba has the youngest qualifications and a mediocre record, but his abilities are relatively balanced. In the first wave of exploratory attacks, only the section of the wall he was responsible for did not allow the enemy soldiers to get close to the wall from beginning to end.
"Extend the spear out of the crenel and sweep across it!" Tuba commanded the soldiers beside him to extend a ten-foot spear directly out of the crenel.
The enemy soldier who climbed up with a shield was about to approach the crenel. He was about to raise his round shield to block the spear tip coming from the front. Unexpectedly, the spear on the opposite side did not intend to stab straight at all. Instead, it feinted and then swept horizontally. The enemy soldier protected it. From the front, the spear was swept from the right side. The soldiers on the wooden ladder were not prepared for the attack from the flank. They were hit hard on the right side and their steps were unsteady. They were directly photographed off the wooden ladder and fell to the foot of the fort wall and lost their lives...
In the arrow tower on the left wing of Tarburg, four crossbowmen aimed at the enemy soldiers who were ascending the city on a wooden ladder near the arrow tower. Under the order of a temporary crossbowman who was in charge, four light arrows were shot at the enemy soldier in such a short time. The distance, such a large target, and four arrows aimed at the same time, after four "boom" sounds, the enemy soldier was hit by two arrows and fell off the wooden ladder to his death. The four crossbowmen began to focus on the enemy soldier who was leading on the other wooden ladder.
This is Art's improved shooting method based on his experience in the first round of attacks. The archers in the arrow tower are not very good at shooting. If each person is responsible for a target, none of them may be able to hit it. However, if four people aim at a target at the same time and focus on shooting, it will be difficult to miss even one shot at such a short distance. After adopting this mass shooting tactic, the arrow towers on both sides of the outer wall had already killed and wounded at least four enemy soldiers in just half a bowl of soup after the enemy troops boarded the city...
After a brief massacre, the most brutal confrontation in front of the outer wall of Tal Fort began. Although the defenders used spears and forks to prevent enemy soldiers from ascending the city, these elite armored infantrymen continued to jump onto the fort wall with the help of money and the cover of armor and shields.
However, the defenders still had the advantage. There were four or five soldiers with shields and spears (swords) stationed at each crenel where the wooden stairs to the city were. The defenders guarding the crenellations either formed a shield formation in groups of three, or alternately covered the attack in groups of two. As long as an enemy soldier jumps down the wooden ladder from the crenel, he will immediately face the attacks of four or five long (short) spears or swords at the same time. He can defend the upper part but expose the lower part. He can avoid the short spear thrust from the left wing but is hit by the long sword slashed from the right wing. In addition, there are three brave commanders, Odo, Kazak and Tuba, who personally wield swords and slash. The enemy soldiers who jump up the fort wall will basically not survive more than three or five rounds before being killed.
Paters, the leader of the first group of the third team, was one of the earliest patrol soldiers. He was originally a manor guard who fled from Provence. After joining Art's team, he made many military exploits and was promoted to the leader of the combat team and occasionally served as the temporary commander of the third team.
Pats led two peasant soldiers who were temporarily formed into a group to defend the left wing of a wooden ladder at the right end of the fort wall. When a giant man wearing heavy armor and holding a hammer jumped on the top of the wall, he withstood the short spears thrust by Pats and his men four times. The leather armor on his body was wrapped with a thick iron plate. The spearhead was just a hollow mark, and the broadsword was just a white strip. The heavy hammer in the giant man's hand was swinging around without any rules, but with his brute force, the giant man had already smashed the arm of a right-wing defender.
Seeing that another enemy soldier on the wooden ladder behind the giant man was about to board the city, Pats ignored the giant man's spinning and swinging heavy hammer. Under the cover of the short spears and shields of the soldiers beside him, he squatted down, rolled on the walkway, and touched the giant man's arm. At his feet, the giant man saw Pats rolling over. He swung away the spearhead that was stabbed on the left with a hammer, and hit Pats directly with the hammer. Pats kicked his legs and rolled down behind the giant man, throwing away the weapon in his hand. He hugged the waist of the giant man tightly with both hands, and then kicked hard with his right foot towards the wall. The giant man just lost his balance due to the heavy hammer hitting the air. Suddenly, he was pushed hard from behind, and the whole person was pushed directly to the edge of the aisle. The giant man tried his best to stabilize his body. He was about to use his hands to hit Pats who was holding his waist. Pats had no intention of letting go. Instead, he continued to exert force with his feet. He hugged the giant man tightly and fell down the aisle together. With a "plop", he fell heavily on the stone slab on the inside of the outer wall...
Outside Tarburg, Baron Jeffery, who was standing behind the siege army, saw that although his most elite infantry had been lost on the wall, they had almost established a foothold on the wall, so Baron Jeffery decisively ordered the remaining Twenty elite infantrymen and ten dismounted cavalry (knights) led the armed peasant soldiers and selected working farmers in the first round of attacks and rushed forward, trying to expand the hole opened by the elite infantry until they occupied the outer wall. Even Baron Jeffery himself rode a war horse and rushed forward with his own bodyguards, constantly firing arrows at the fort wall.
There were loud shouts outside the fort, and Art in the inner fort received an alarm of a large-scale enemy attack from the soldiers on the tower. He had a premonition that this was Baron Jeffrey's last desperate attack.
"The two reserve teams all went to the outer wall to fight"
"The trebuchet is temporarily unavailable. Let the slingers bring weapons as a preparation team ready to fight on the wall at any time."
? "Blow the horn and let the waiting platform start harassing the enemy's flanks!"
? Art drew out the knight's sword at his waist and led the soldiers on standby in the inner fort out of the inner fort and onto the outer wall of the tower.
The forty enemy elite infantrymen who first climbed onto the outer wall had already lost more than twenty people, and the dominant defenders also paid the price of three deaths and five serious injuries.
Just when the two reserve teams climbed onto the outer wall, a crenel had already been captured by the enemy. One of the five defenders defending the crenel was killed and two were injured. The remaining two defenders were beaten back by three enemy troops who stood still. Several other crenels were also in danger due to the enemy's massive attack. However, this crisis situation was obviously improved after Art joined with the soldiers from the reserve team.
At's shoulder injury has not healed and he cannot draw his bow and shoot arrows, so he rushed to the top of the wall and used the knight's sword in his hand to slash at the enemy soldiers who kept jumping up the wall...
Left side of the outer wall Several defenders on the three sides on the back and right saw that the fighting in front of the fort wall was too fierce, and no one had attacked these three sides due to the terrain, so they left one guard on each side of the fort wall to watch, and the remaining six people rushed to the front with swords and spears to support the defenders.
The front of the outer wall of Tal Fort was once in a stalemate, because both the offensive and defensive sides were constantly adding support. The attackers were trapped at the wooden ladders and crenels, and the defenders could not drive all the enemy soldiers who boarded the wall off the wall for a while.
Bas, who was watching anxiously in the right wing, was already on fire. The enemy's second round of attack on the Tal Fort suddenly increased several times. It seemed that the enemy was about to gain a foothold at the top of the outer wall. If the enemy's backup troops followed the gap at the top of the wall and tore apart the defenders' defense line, then the defense of the Tal Fort would fall into an absolutely passive situation.
Just when the deadlock could not be broken for a while, three short horn blasts sounded in Talburg.
Basi in Hou Taizhong was relieved, took a sharp breath, and shouted loudly: "Archer, aim at the enemy's flank and empty a quiver for me!"
The crossbowmen in Hou Taizhong all have two sheepskin quivers hanging on their waists. Each quiver contains twenty-five light arrows with flat heads and five heavy arrows with diamond heads. These crossbowmen can discharge up to thirty light and heavy arrows at a time. If they use more, they will not be able to draw the bowstring.
When rounds of arrows flew from the flanking towers, the enemy camp under the city began to fluctuate violently. The enemy soldiers who were close to the giant shield with a wooden roof immediately hid under the giant shield. However, those peasant soldiers and a small number of infantry who did not squeeze into the giant shield and had no shields were in dire straits. On the one hand, they had to avoid the arrows continuously shot from the arrow towers on the outer wall of the Tal Fort, and on the other hand, they had to withstand the life-threatening blades shot down from the flanking towers. The most important thing is that the enemy soldiers who were following up on reinforcements hid in the giant shields under the city. The number of enemy soldiers climbing up the ladder dropped sharply. The enemy soldiers who climbed up the city without any backup soon could not withstand the closely coordinated formation of the defenders. After three more soldiers were killed, the enemy troops who had almost established themselves on the wall finally collapsed, began to retreat back to the wooden ladder, and evacuated hastily from the wooden ladder...
"Woo~~~"
Baron Jeffery, who was supervising the battle at the rear, looked at the retreating soldiers on the wall, turned his head to look at the sun gradually setting on the hills in the west, cursed and ordered his men to blow the retreat horn symbolically...
… ………
Matt stood on the outer wall of Tal Fort holding a bloody knight’s sword. Listening to the horns of the enemy and the cheers and shouts around him, and looking at the setting sun in the west, he knew that Tal Fort had truly survived a disaster~