Published at 25th of January 2024 8:20 pm

Chapter 874: Attacking Nola (II)

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Meanwhile, Aeoles began noticing the weakening of the defender's attack, showing that the Nolan defenders were new to such a way of sieging a city. Even though the Samnites still had a slight upper hand in the battle of long-range attacks due to the protection of the battlements, the number of their casualties was increasing, which put a great deal of pressure on them.

“The enemy became disorganised!” Aeoles said cheerfully to Xanticles, who was also in the rear and observing the enemy situation.

“While this is a good thing that reduces our military and civilian casualties, the most challenging part of the war has yet to start,” Xanticles said calmly.

Aeoles understood what Xanticles meant – the clash once the earthen rampart and the city wall neared each other.

In contrast to the hustle and bustle of the southern battlefield, the western wall is much quieter.

First, the several hundred Campanian light infantry arrived at the trench equipped with arrow-blocking plates crafted by Theonian craftsmen to withstand the long-range attacks of the city's defenders. Then, they opened the brackets behind the plates and positioned them diagonally to provide shelter for the light infantry while also allowing them to occasionally fireback javelins and arrows at the defenders from the gaps between.

While they held the defenders in check, the Theonian heavy infantry pushed out the siege weapon (the Theonian legion engineers instructed the craftsmen of Irna and Campania to make these hollowed wagons out of the wood that the soldiers had cut down from the mountains and forests). Following what the soldiers of the Second Legion had done earlier when Davos besieged Rome, they pieced together wooden wagons and pushed their way up to reach the front of the trench.

Not only were their allies surprised, but the defenders atop the city wall were also dumbfounded as they could only see box wagons but no people in sight, and they couldn't even ignite them with their flaming arrows. Meanwhile, the soldiers of Theonia quickly passed sacks filled with soil inside the carriage to fill the narrow trench in front of them.

Then, one after another, they pushed the box wagons until they reached the wall, allowing them to form two passages from the wall to forty metres away. Immediately, soldiers at the rear carried large logs with an iron conical battering ram set in the front end of the log. They passed the battering ram from soldier to soldier until it reached the bottom of the wall. Then, six soldiers carried the battering ram on their shoulders and began using it to strike against the wall.

The hard conical ram fiercely hit the dilapidated stone wall, causing the stones to break and the binder to fall off, resulting in a crack appearing on the wall…

When the defenders felt a vibration from the city wall, it heightened their panic and made them intensify their attack of dropping stones, wooden blocks, oils, and shooting flaming arrows.

Unfortunately for them, the few box wagons closest to the city wall were made exceptionally sturdy, with the craftsmen reinforcing the entire frame and adopting a herringbone structure on the roof to disperse impact easily. In addition, they tied soaked bags filled with soil so the enemy couldn’t set it aflame, allowing the soldiers to attack the city wall safely.

When the battering ram broke through the outer stone wall and exposed the compacted layer of earth inside, the soldiers picked up their pickaxes and shovels, removed the stones around the gap to expand the hole in the wall, and continuously excavated the compacted earth inside…

The enemy's offence on the western and southern city walls has already placed tremendous pressure on the defenders in Nola, who are already low in numbers. Yet the allied forces also launched attacks on the eastern and northern sides, forcing the people of Nola to mobilise all their able-bodied people, including women.

However, the southern city wall remained the most intense battlefield. After half an hour of fighting, the Theonian light infantries’ arms were too sore even to lift it; their fingers were bleeding from drawing their bows. The heavy infantry forming the shield walls had suffered over three hundred casualties, with the casualties among the civilians equally high.

But then came a turning point: the Nolan defenders ran out of javelins. In just half an hour, they threw thousands of javelins, plus the javelins they shot a few days ago to prevent the Theonians from building the earthen rampart, now resulting in them using up all their javelins, with the arrows almost depleted also.

As for using the javelins thrown by the Theonian light infantry? The Theonians had specially made their javelins so that the rod that connected the shaft and the spearhead was so thin that it would bend and could no longer be used after hitting a hard object. However, the Theonians can quickly remove the spearhead and place a new spearhead at the bottom of the shaft, which is obviously impossible for the Nolan defenders to do.

In the end, the defenders could only throw stones and wood at their opponents. Unfortunately, with the Theonian shield ten metres away from the wall, they could not throw the too-heavy stones. In contrast, those they could throw over it were more likely to be blocked by the long shields and were much less of a threat to the Theonian heavy infantry, resulting in the shield wall remaining firm and allowing the civilians to throw the sacks much more quickly.

As they quickly filled up the ‘valley’, the sacks had already reached the feet of the Theonian heavy infantry, who began carefully moving forward with their shields up so the people behind could fill the deeper recesses.

At this moment, Aeoles was already gathering more than a thousand Campanian heavy infantry to replace the army at the rampart.

Then, once the salpinx sounded, the Theonian light infantry quickly withdrew to the foot of the rampart. Then, according to Xanticles' plan, Aeoles would lead the Campanian heavy infantry to form more than a dozen columns that were spaced apart and slowly marched up the earthen rampart so that the civilians and the Theonian heavy infantry could evacuate quickly.

The Campanian heavy infantry, wearing Corinthian helmets and holding a large copper shield, had a narrow field of view and unsteady movements that made it difficult for them to climb the rampart. Fortunately for them, the earthen rampart had a gentle slope and didn't significantly impact their march.

Meanwhile, the Theonian heavy infantry formed a shield formation atop the rampart and began moving towards the city wall. But without the assistance of the light infantry, they suffered more fierce attacks, with some Nolan defenders even climbing over the wall and jumping onto the almost nearing earthen rampart while holding their spears and launching a direct assault on the Theonian heavy infantry.

During this long defensive battle, the Nolan defenders noticed that the Theonian soldiers didn't carry any spears as they all wielded two shields. Thus, once the Nolan warriors stepped on the uneven earthen rampart, they directly used their bodies to smash through the long shields, even knocking down the enemies and then thrusting their spears.

The shield wall formed by two columns of Theonian heavy infantry began to fall apart, causing the civilians to panic and flee downwards. However, the Theonian officers started shouting, “Do not retreat! Throw away your long shield and change it for a short sword!!…”

In fact, the officers didn't need to shout as the soldiers were already executing it. These reserve soldiers from the Lucanian mountains were previously subjected to the enemy's long-range attacks and could only watch as hundreds of their comrades suffered casualties, with the enemy's sudden direct assault causing dozens of casualties… As they are all Lucanians who grew up after the establishment of the Kingdom of Theonia, and although the kingdom's cultural integration has weakened their wildness, the military training taught them teamwork and camaraderie. So, with the fury of vengeance, they wielded their short swords and long shields to fight fiercely against the Nolan defenders.

But they suddenly heard the salpinx signalling the retreat at this time.

Despite their reluctance, the soldiers could only obey orders.

Meanwhile, the Nolan defenders didn't continue to chase after them because they saw the ‘tin cans’ advancing towards them, causing them to run back and climb the city wall.

On this earthen rampart that was more than fifty metres wide, the Campanian heavy infantry slowly approached the defenders atop the city wall and gradually went into formation with them, and the defenders were only separated by the battlements. Although they could easily stab the enemy with their spears, they couldn't use the charge and impact they were good at, resulting in their power weakening quite a lot. Suddenly, the sound of attack was blown continuously, and the Campanian heavy infantry on the earthen rampart began to fight the enemy fiercely under the leadership of Aeoles.

Despite the Campanians and the Samnites engaging in battles in recent years, they only had a few good opportunities to fight a direct clash because the Samnite warriors would always throw their javelins to kill the Campanian soldiers first, then retreat to lure them into pursuit. Then, during the retreat, they would use the enemy's slow mobility to repeatedly throw javelins until the opponent's formation became disorganised, where they would then send armoured warriors to charge towards them and ultimately defeat the enemy.

This set of tactics had been repeatedly tried and tested, and the successive defeats had made the Campanians tremble, rendering them afraid to even go out of the city to fight. But today, they finally have a chance to avenge this humiliation. The Campanian soldiers shouted loudly and fiercely as they pierced the enemy with their spears.

Meanwhile, the Nolan defenders couldn't adopt the previously effective guerrilla tactics and could only face the enemy head-on. Thus, they had the warriors in armour to stand in the battlements and block the enemy. Behind them were the light infantries to form a dense formation in the passageway to counter the Campanian heavy infantry. Furthermore, they also drew in some of the defenders from the western wall to fight the enemy as they thought the fighting on the western side was less intense and that they could cope even with fewer defenders.

But shortly after they transferred some of the defenders of the western wall, terrible news came out as two sections of the western wall collapsed.

That was due to the Theonian soldiers in the box wagon who had removed the stones and rammed earth at the bottom of the city wall, damaging the foundation of the wall and causing the already weak wall to collapse due to gravity, with the scattered stones even injuring several Theonian soldiers who failed to retreat in time.

The loud rumbling sound and the rising dust in the air not only shocked the Nolan defenders but also made the Campanian soldiers look dumbfounded as they looked down at the Theonians upon seeing how their unique and slow way of attacking the city wall hadn't had any result for such a long time, thinking that it was both time-consuming and laborious. The soldiers even said disdainfully, “I heard the braveness of the Theonians in battle, but it seems they also feared death and knew only to hide in those wooden boxes!”

But the current disastrous state of the city wall had given them a resounding slap in the face. They naturally don't know that in the various military camps within the Kingdom of Theonia, not only would the soldiers actually build walls to practice their construction ability, but they would also practice how to break through this section of the wall in their following training session, so the Theonian soldiers weren't just randomly digging around, but they were destroying the wall's structure purposefully and efficiently.

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