The Glory of the Seven Gods of Ice and Fire

Chapter 125 Robert’s Big Toy
Volantis is the earliest colony established by the Valyrian Free Fortress. It has a long history and is powerful. It is known as the "eldest daughter of Valyria", "Queen of the Rhoyne" and "Mistress of the Summer Sea". ".

Moreover, it was once the most populous city-state in the entire known world, with a population of over one million. Now, although the population continues to decline, there are still more than 700,000 people living in this giant city.

However, when the expeditionary army of Westeros entered the outskirts of Volantis, they saw a scene that made every warrior angry.

The slave owners of Volantis set up a "forest" of gallows on the road leading to the city, where countless slaves were hanged, issuing a silent provocation to the people of Westeros.

There is no doubt that Robert was also angered by Volantis's behavior, but behind the emotion, Robert was worried. In such a forest of gallows, there may be tens of thousands of slaves hanged. Volantis is so unreasonable. Cherish their slaves, I'm afraid... this city is not that easy to fight.

After ordering the soldiers to clean up the corpses, the army passed through the "forest" and actually came under the walls of Volantis. The sheer size of Volantis impressed everyone who saw the city for the first time. Marvel, it spans the vast River Lorne, and there is a long bridge on the River Lorne, one of the "Nine Wonders of the World". The city is like a mountain-like monster lying there.

After being amazed by the size of the city, Robert developed an extremely strong desire to conquer. If he could capture the city, he would become the greatest monarch in Westeros. Therefore, Robert began to conquer the city non-stop. surrounded.

Because the city is so huge, just repairing the fortifications surrounding the city wall took a lot of effort. While the siege camp was being built, Robert was constantly receiving information from inside and outside Volantis. As more and more information was obtained, the confidence in Robert's face began to fade.

In Robert's plan, slaves will still play a key role in the battle to conquer Volantis. Volantis has five times as many slaves as free people, which is more than any free trade city-state.

However, Volantis drove out a hundred thousand slaves directly from the city, and these slaves were all subjected to the punishment of cutting their hands and feet. Moreover, according to these slaves, Volantis's tiger-robed army, mercenaries and militia had already Guard the streets of Volantis.

There was no suspense in the battle. The shirtless centaurs faced off against the heavily armed Westeros knights. The result was self-evident, and Robert also knew why so many centaurs went south - the Dothraki Grass Sea. The melee reached another peak, and the losers who emerged from it had to flee south in large numbers in order to avoid being wiped out by the victors.

After learning the lessons of the failed siege, Robert ordered his Myrish scholars to work with the city's maesters to design a weapon that would allow them to successfully break through the walls of Volantis.

As for the siege, it did not go so smoothly. The siege equipment that took a lot of time to build did not have a very good effect. The Volantis were very determined to defend and had many defensive equipment. Even if Robert used weapons like It was the continuous ant attack on the city like Myr, and in the end it was just a pile of corpses thrown under the walls of Volantis.

After Robert settled under the walls of Volantis for a month, extremely bad news suddenly came from the north. That is, the centaurs were moving south on a large scale, and a large number of Dothraki tribes suddenly came madly. Robert He had to personally lead the knights north to fight against these horse boys.

Moreover, as the troops sent to sweep the towns of Volantis returned, they also brought bad news. Volantis abandoned all towns except its own city, and the tiger-robed troops stationed in them had They all entered the city of Volantis. As for these Volantis towns, they surrendered very simply - of course, there was no food at all, and they were all taken away by the Volantis.

After this series of events, the siege of Volantis has become completely long-term. Everyone who holds the hope of returning home in a few months has given up their thoughts. It is also due to the long-term siege that the life of the siege camp is inevitable. Transformed, countless slaves and merchants who had lost their livelihoods due to the siege of Volantis were entrenched next to the army and served the army.

However, even though he had such a huge army at hand, the supply of so many people was also a huge problem. On the one hand, Robert set about restoring production, and on the other hand, he tried his best to transfer supplies from the Third Daughter Kingdom and the north. Due to Volanti After the defeat of the Sri Lankan fleet, the Westeros fleet now controls the ocean and can easily transport food, but Robert still felt that it was not enough, and then he even opened up the Rhoyne River route to transport supplies from the north to the south. As for the issue of passing through the Heartbreak Territory, Robert asked the Dornish people to do these things specifically, especially those orphans of the Greenblood River. Aren't they rich in Rhoynar blood? That's the right thing to do.

Such a large number of people eat an astronomical amount of food every day. When the centaurs attack on a large scale from the north, or Volantis gathers the Slaver's Bay fleet to attack, the food in the military camp will be greatly affected. Many People even went hungry, and some warriors who came to the East with dreams of getting rich had their wallets drained out of them.

However, this did not dampen Robert's determination. He had 200,000 men and more slaves than this. He was very confident in taking Volantis.

Scholars from the East and the West naturally did not dare to neglect and immediately started designing. You must know that when the king gave them an order, he was not in a good temper. It did not take them long and they did come up with a design drawing. Robert was immediately attracted by it. I was attracted by what was depicted on the design drawings. Regardless of the long construction period, I ordered the construction of five of them at the same time.

Under such circumstances, Robert had to stop the attack and let the army rest. However, although the army rested, the city wall still could not be breached. After being troubled for several months, King Robert also came up with new tactics.

After receiving this information, Robert gave up all thoughts of a quick victory. The opponent he was going to face this time would be willing to cut off a strong man's wrist, which also meant that the siege around this city would be very long.

In this way, around the city wall of Volantis, the attackers began to build various siege equipment, but Volantis would not let them be so comfortable.

This news made Robert couldn't stop scolding his mother. Although the centaurs' combat effectiveness was rubbish, fighting against these rubbish would consume and involve too much of his energy, which would undoubtedly greatly affect the siege.

However, these dissatisfactions were overshadowed by the wealth of breaking Volantis. As long as Volantis is broken, there will be anything, so every soldier is looking forward to the completion of the king's siege engine.

As for Volantis, this city is not troubled by much food. In addition to its own huge food reserves, more importantly, the Volantis fleet is still there. They are currently anchored in Slaver's Bay and will forcefully break through the continent every time they return. The blockade of the Stroh fleet sent a large amount of food into Volantis.

Although the Westeros fleet under the command of Stannis also sank many enemy ships, the problem is that the city-states of Slaver's Bay have begun to spend money on the siege of Volantis, and there are those who "monopolize things" Qarth also joined the battle at this time - of course on the side of the slavers. The free trade cities in the north also worked hard to mobilize manpower and food southward without affecting their own defenses. They even did not hesitate to cross the Sea of ​​Grass and come under Volantis, break the siege and send reinforcements and food into the city.

With Volantis as the center, this siege has turned into a super war with almost the entire continent as the front. The battle thousands of miles away from the core of the battlefield can even affect the situation in Volantis.

After a full year of siege, King Robert's siege engines were finally completed, and five "city breaker" appeared in front of everyone.

To put it bluntly, "City Breaker" is actually a giant siege tower equipped with dense Myr ballistae. It has a huge square base. The tower is more than 40 meters high and has a total of nine floors. In order to protect it from fire attacks, the three sides facing the enemy were covered with iron plates. There are several huge casters at the bottom, and the surface is still covered with iron plates. The opening and closing of the tower's muzzle is controlled by a mechanical device. The inward side is covered with leather and wool, which can slow down the impact of projectile weapons. Transportation between floors is achieved by two ladders.

The movement of this giant equipment is carried out in a relay manner by 400 specially selected strong men. With some pushing inside the tower and others pushing behind it, the massive artifact could move smoothly in any direction.

When the five huge "city breaker" slowly drove towards the city wall, the cheers of the besiegers almost shook the heaven and the earth. This was a great siege tower that was taller than the opposite city wall.

"Finally the moment has come."

Standing in the trench, surrounded by countless princes and nobles, Robert watched the densely packed ballistae on the "city breaker" project firepower condescendingly on the Volantis city wall. He said with great excitement, the city breaker looked like, It's right in front of you.

Around Volantis, the defenders built a large number of trenches. The reason for this is also very simple, because the number of ballistae and trebuchets in the city is also very large, and the range is still long. After learning a lot of lessons, the scholars of Myr Under the suggestion, everyone dug trenches.

The counterweighted trebuchets kept throwing stones into the city, but from time to time, trebuchets were destroyed. Smashing trebuchets against each other has become a daily routine in Volantis, and it is indispensable at this time.

However, despite all precautions, the Volantis succeeded in knocking off some of the iron plates on the face of a "citybreaker", and when the tower was in real danger of being burned, Robert could only order that the tower should be burned down. It withdraws from the fight.

However, after repelling one, there are still four more.

"City Breakers", as their name suggests, exist to break the city. Under the attack of these mobile towers, the defenders in many places were forced to withdraw from the city wall, because as long as they stood on the city wall, they would immediately be destroyed. It will be beaten to pieces by the continuously fired ballistae.

Under such circumstances, Robert immediately ordered the ordinary siege towers and siege vehicles to start taking action. Watching the troops rushing towards the city wall, Robert felt extremely proud in his heart. He couldn't help but think of the Lannister who had previously asked Lannister to go and occupy Los Angeles. Regarding the Golden Fields by the En River, at that time he still felt that he was a little too forward-thinking, but now it seems that it was too right.

Robert has already thought of his strategy after taking Volantis, which is to go north along the Lorne River to destroy the Free Trade City-states in the north and make all nine Free Trade City-states surrender to Baratheon's stag. after.

He, Robert Baratheon, will become the greatest Westeros after the Conqueror. Ha, those Targaryen dragons still rely on those evil dragons, and he relies on his hands. War hammer and powerful army!
The more Robert thought about it, the happier he became. When he saw the Westeros people finally rushing to the city wall and setting up the flag of Westeros, he was even happier. This was the first time they had fought in such a long time. The scale rushed to the city wall.

More and more Westeros people rushed to the city wall, and the flags of Volantis fell one after another. Finally, the moment Robert was looking forward to happened, that is, the city gate was blocked by the Westeros people. After taking control, the city gate suddenly opened in front of everyone.

Robert jumped out of the trench. This made everyone behind him dumbfounded, but they quickly followed him. Everyone knew what Robert was going to do. Next, everyone got on their horses. The knights were already waiting for this moment. After waiting for a long time, they rushed to the city gate.

On the way to the city gate, they encountered the concentrated fire of the Volantis, with crossbows and stones constantly hitting the queue, but everyone still moved forward firmly, because as long as they entered the city gate, victory would belong to them.

Robert quickly arrived at the city gate, but the scene that happened in front of him made him uneasy - because he did not see the intercepting troops that should be at the city gate, this made Robert think twice, so he slowed down his horse. , which also made the entire team slow down.

The knights then rushed into the city gate smoothly and did not see an enemy blocking them on the road. However, as they entered some of the city, many spear throwers and archers appeared on the surrounding houses to attack the Westerners. , the knights wanted to deal with these people, but suddenly found that the entrances and windows of the houses had been blocked, and many houses were connected by roadblocks.

Robert led his army to rush left and right on the streets of Volantis, but no matter how they walked, they were under attack from the Volantis, and from time to time, they would encounter blocked streets.

After being turned around several times by roadblocks, Robert somewhat figured out what Volantis was up to. Although he couldn't see the overall situation clearly, he had been beaten along the way and felt confident.

This was not something that could be solved by a knight's charge. Robert thought that the longer he stayed now, the greater the losses would be. Then he ordered a retreat without hesitation. He had to reimagine the next battle situation.

(End of this chapter)