In late January, the hilly area in southeastern Provence enters the coldest season of the year.
The Lombards finally couldn't hold on any longer.
Not only because the firewood in Solburg has been exhausted and even the wooden houses in the city have been demolished and used as firewood, but also because the defenders outside the city have received relatively sufficient food supplies.
Since the first batch of 6,500 pounds of emergency rations was transported to the garrison camp of the Eastern Army, the city of Aosta overcame the obstruction of the snow and used sleighs to transport several batches of food supplies to the outside of Salburg. The Eastern Army had relatively sufficient material support and gained the upper hand in the confrontation with the Lombards.
Viscount Geoffrey's wish to spend the winter in the city of Wilno has come to nothing. Since it is impossible to go south to attack Wilno before spring comes, he simply spends the winter with the Lombards outside Sauerburg. At least the Eastern Army besieging the city has food supplies and sufficient firewood, and will not endure the risk of freezing and starvation.
The people besieging the city are not in a hurry, but the people defending the city can't sit still.
Since January, the Lombards in Sauerburg have gone out of the city three times to harass the Eastern Army. However, the Eastern Army has more soldiers, and the Lombards have not been able to take advantage of several sneak attacks.
In Solburg City, the cold weather has claimed the lives of more than 20 people. There is an extreme shortage of firewood in the city. The defenders have used all the wooden sticks that can be found in the city to make fires for cooking. The attic and bell tower of the church in the north of the city have been demolished to split firewood. The wooden fence that is the third line of defense of Sauerburg has also been secretly removed by Lombard soldiers who were crazy about the cold and used it as heating fuel.
The Lombard soldiers had to rack their brains every day to get firewood to turn the mountains of grain in the warehouse into cooked food that could satisfy the soldiers' hunger.
The most pitiable ones are the wounded soldiers. Ordinary soldiers can ignore the reprimands of the officers and tear down walls and fences to get some firewood to keep warm. But these wounded soldiers can only lie in the freezing stone houses to endure the severe cold. There is a severe shortage of firewood in the city, and there is not much cooked food that can be made. The only hot soup and porridge were snatched up by the strong soldiers. When it was the turn of the wounded soldiers, they could only drink a sip of cold clear soup and wheat paste...
The Lombard garrison commanders fell into the most heated quarrel since they defended the city. During these short months of struggling to defend the city, the Lombards gradually divided into three camps.
The majority of the people are the breakout faction. They are the backbone of the Lombard army, and they have some soldiers who have maintained their fighting power. They believe that defending the city will lead to death, so it is better to break out with elite soldiers while they still have breath. Even if they temporarily lose Solburg, as long as they preserve their strength, they can regain it sooner or later in the future. However, they believe that even if they abandon the city, they cannot leave empty-handed. They must bring some enemy heads back to Wilno. Only in this way can they offset the sin of losing the city as much as possible.
Those with higher military positions are the defenders. Most of them were leading barons and flag knights. These people believed that abandoning the city and running away was disrespectful to their dignity, and they were likely to face severe punishment from the court after abandoning the city. Moreover, they had learned through the carrier pigeons flying from the city of Wilno that the situation around Solburg was not as severe as the enemy said, and the city of Wilno had informed them that they would send troops to relieve the siege after the winter, so they were firmly determined to defend Solburg. Anyway, as high-ranking nobles, they don't have to worry about not having cooked food to fill their stomachs and charcoal fire to keep warm.
The weakest group is the capitulation faction. Most of them were Lombard civilian mercenaries, who worked tirelessly to plunder the wealth and great ideals of Provence from all over the Principality of Lombardy. As the third class of people after slave labor, they enjoyed the hardest battles and the cheapest rewards. They must be at the front when attacking a city, and they must stand at the top when defending a city. When it comes time to divide the spoils, they will be at the back, with the most wounded soldiers and the least profit.
Since the firewood in the city was burned, these civilian mercenaries have rarely been able to enjoy the warmth brought by the campfire. The only preferential treatment in the city has been usurped by the elites of the noble masters. They can only get some leftovers from the "master soldiers". Faced with the cold air that invaded their bone marrow and their empty stomachs, and looking at their fallen comrades around them, these people neither wanted to break out of the city to fight, nor did they want to hold on to the dead city and wait for death. They wanted to rush out of the city immediately, kneel on the ground and kowtow to the enemy soldiers outside the city, and then take the freshly roasted wild boar legs from the enemy soldiers with drooling saliva and bite and swallow them desperately... However, these people did not dare to speak out their feelings.
Two factions are fighting for a view, and the coldest January has passed just like that.
In early February, the Lombard garrison commanders in Sauerburg finally came to a conclusion - neither to hold on to the isolated city nor to forcibly break through, but to abandon the city and return south after negotiating with the enemy.
The Lombards really couldn't hold on any longer. The soldiers in the city had already begun to mutiny. If they continued to hold on, they would not need the enemy to attack the city. They would kill all their own people.
Viscount von Bilen, who has always been full of tricks, has no choice but to compromise.
So on the first Friday in February, the commander of the Eastern Army, Jeffrey, received a letter from the city. In the letter, the commander of the Saulburg garrison, Viscount von Bilen, claimed that the firewood in Saulburg had been exhausted and they could no longer cook and heat, so they were willing to abandon the city...
…
The eastern legion garrison command camp outside Beicheng.
Jeffrey stood up, wrapped himself in a bearskin cloak, and asked the adjutant of the legion who came in to report: "Abandon the city? The Lombards only said they abandoned the city, not surrender?"
"Yes, Lord Commander, the Lombards only said in their letter that they were abandoning the city, and did not mention a word of surrender." The adjutant presented the letter to Viscount Jeffrey with both hands.
Jeffrey took the letter and studied it carefully for a while, with a look of relief as if a heavy stone had fallen to the ground. "It's better to abandon the city! If the Lombards claim to surrender, I'm really worried that there is fraud. But the Lombards are extremely cunning, I We must not be careless and order all soldiers in the legion to be on guard to prevent the Lombards from attacking the camp."
"Yes! But legion commander, should we send someone to talk to the Lombards about abandoning the city and taking over the defense?"
“No, no, we won’t enter the city. Let the Lombard garrison send people out of the city to talk this time.” Jeffrey thought of the capitulation secretary who was killed when he first arrived at Saurburg.
The Lombards agreed to Viscount Geoffrey's request and sent a leading baron with a few followers out of the north city of Sauerburg and came to the open space between the two opposing camps to discuss abandoning the city and taking over the defense.
Him The Lombards proposed that the garrison commander, Viscount von Bilen, would lead his troops to withdraw from the southern city of Saulburg. The garrison in the city was willing to leave gold and silver treasures worth 150,000 pfennigs as money to buy the way, and left a dozen wounded soldiers to be killed by the Eastern Army to take the credit.
In exchange, the Eastern Army must lift the siege of the southern city, allow the Lombards to safely retreat south to the city of Verno, and promise not to pursue the Lombards returning south.
Jeffrey basically agreed to the Lombards' request, but he raised the price of the road to 300,000 pfennigs, and increased the number of wounded soldiers left to thirty.
In the end, after a whole afternoon of negotiations, the two armies finally basically reached a consensus - the Lombards left the 250,000 pfennigs looted gold and silver treasures and twenty "incurable" wounded soldiers in exchange for an unimpeded road back south.
It would be a long night, and the Lombards decided to withdraw from Solburg after breakfast on the second morning after the negotiation...
………
However, in the Lord's Hall of Solburg City, several major commanders of the Lombard garrison were planning a conspiracy in the secret room.
The change of events came from the fact that when it was getting dark in the evening, a team of several hundred people from the Eastern Legion outside the North City quietly left the camp and disappeared into the night.
Of course, the men of the Eastern Legion walked in a concealed manner, but the Lombards on sentry outside the city were still keenly aware that the number of bonfires lit in the camp outside the city was reduced by nearly half tonight. The sentry commander reported this news to the garrison commander.
This sudden news made the cunning Sauerburg garrison commander von Bilen immediately decide to abandon the original plan to abandon the city.
In the secret room, Viscount von Bilen's fine plate armor glowed blackly under the candlelight, and his falcon-like eyes were set in deep-set eye sockets. His thin body gave him an extraordinarily calm feeling. He knocked on the wooden table in front of him and said in a deep voice: "Everyone, based on the number of bonfires in the enemy camp outside the North City, it has been determined that half of the soldiers have left the camp tonight. If my guess is correct, the enemy troops who left the camp should have set up an ambush waiting for us somewhere on our way back south."
They have agreed to take our money to let us leave, but they actually want to ambush us. If you ask me, we should not hold on. We will tear down all the wooden fences in the inner city and use them as firewood.
"Hold on for more than ten days? What to do after ten days? The enemy already knows that we can't hold on any longer. If we miss this opportunity, the enemy will no longer allow us to leave the city smoothly. Are you going to wait for all our soldiers to mutiny? Being able to leave safely is God's blessing on us again." A surrender officer retorted.
"Sir, there is no need to be afraid of their ambush. Anyway, we can't survive if we hold on, so we just have to fight with those bastards. There will always be someone who can break out." A breakout party expressed his opinion.
Then you and I started to quarrel with each other.
"Shut up and think about it with your pig brains. Isn't there a better plan?" Feng Bilen chuckled, and everyone in the room fell silent instantly.
“Sir, do you have a better idea?” an officer asked.
Fon Bilen squinted his eyes and analyzed: "Since the enemy army outside the city quietly transferred the main force to the south to set up an ambush, there must be only a small number of soldiers, handymen and civilians accompanying the army in their camp. In other words, the enemy camp does not have enough troops now~ "
"But, could it be that the sentry saw it wrong, or that there were not many bonfires burning in the enemy camp tonight, or that it was a trap set by the enemy?" Conspiracies and tricks are used a lot, and the Lombards always like to guess whether there is a trap in the enemy's behavior.
"I am also a little worried about the enemy's intentions. Judging from the various tricks the enemy has used against us since the siege, we cannot rule out that there is a conspiracy." Von Bilen also had some difficulties.
"No matter what, this is an excellent fighter opportunity that cannot be missed."
“Send the order to make a fire and cook two hours earlier than usual tomorrow, so that the soldiers can eat and drink enough, polish their weapons and armor, and be ready at any time.” Von Bilen ordered to the deputy commander.
"Tomorrow morning we will observe the smoke rising from breakfast in the enemy camp outside the city and reconfirm the number of enemy troops. If the enemy camp is really empty, we will rush out from the north gate, sneak attack the enemy camp, rob the firewood supplies and quickly return to Solburg. With the firewood supplies, we can continue to hold on and wait for reinforcements."
"Yes!!!" All the officers were very excited.
………
South of Sauerburg, the outpost was stationed in the barracks. A messenger came to Art's camp with a letter from the commander of the legion, Viscount Jeffrey.
"What? The commander of the army is going to set up an ambush on the Lombards' way back south?" Art asked in surprise. This news was too sudden.
"Where did the Lombards come from? Why do we have no news at all?" Art asked.
The messenger briefly told Art that the Lombards planned to abandon the city and return south today and that Viscount Jeffrey had carefully set up an ambush.
"The Lombards couldn't hold on anymore." The Lombards were relieved to be able to evacuate Art.
Just after he breathed a sigh of relief, Art suddenly felt that something was wrong. He held his head and thought for a long time, then raised his head in surprise and asked: "How many people did the legion commander take away? How many soldiers are left in the camp?"
"The commander of the legion was also worried about the Lombards being deceitful, so for the sake of safety, he only took the first company, the crossbow team and a small number of cavalry, more than 300 people, to set up an ambush in the south. There were still nearly 400 people left in the camp, plus the transport troops, merchants and civilians accompanying the army, a total of about 600 people." The messenger replied.
"It is precisely because of the lack of manpower that the legion commander ordered you to take the outpost to the preset location to participate in the ambush." The orderer added.
"Were you discovered by the Lombards when you left?" Art was still worried. He always felt that the Lombards were not so easily deceived.
"Probably not. We left the camp in the dark when it was getting dark, and the Lombards couldn't see it." The messenger replied.
"Hmm~" Art touched his chin in thought.
“Odo Angus, if you were Lombards, would you have noticed the troops lurking outside the city?” Art asked the two officers beside him.
"Sir, the legion commander quietly led his troops out of the camp at night, and walked around the dense forest. The defenders in the city no longer have outposts, so they should not be discovered." Odo replied.
"Sergeant, what do you think?" Art turned his eyes to Angus.
Angus frowned and thought for a while, then replied: "I don't think so, unless~"
"Unless what?"
h "Unless the enemy is sensitive and meticulous enough to detect unusual behavior in the camp, such as being too quiet or suddenly increasing perimeter security."
"No, the commander of the army ordered everything in the camp to remain as usual, and did not increase the alert." The messenger replied.
At suddenly had a flash of inspiration and asked urgently: "Did the legion commander allow the usual number of bonfires to be raised in the camp?"
h The messenger suddenly woke up and said, "No, the legion commander is not safe." For this matter, the Lombards had too little time to abandon the city. The legion commander was in a hurry to arrange the ambush and did not have time to consider this detail."
"Other army commanders may not care about such details, but that old guy von Bilen might."
"Wouldn't it be impossible to implement the army commander's ambush plan?"
“What I’m worried about now is not the legion commander’s ambush plan, I’m worried about the safety of the legion’s camp!” Art was a little anxious.
“No, the commander of the legion has left more than 400 people in the camp. Even if the Lombards attack the camp, they will not be able to take advantage.”
“The elite of the legion has been transferred. If the enemy dies, The result is unpredictable. You report to the commander of the army immediately and ask him to lead his troops back to the camp. The ambush of the Lombards returning from the south will only add glory to the military merits. If the Lombards counterattack and attack the camp, it will be in vain."
"Lord Art, are you going to set up an ambush?"
"I won't go, I will lead the outpost back to the camp immediately."
"Odo, Sergeant Major, order the outpost to prepare weapons and armor immediately and set off immediately!"
…………