Rome must fall.

Chapter 387 Broken City
Maximus knew of at least three types of catapults: one was a device that launched stones through a torque device, of which the crossbow was a typical example; one was a device that launched stones through elastic materials, such as a huge wooden bow arm pulling the bowstring, of which Cao Cao's thunderbolt chariot in the Battle of Guandu was a typical example; and another was a device that launched stones through the action of a lever, mainly referring to the counterweight catapult.

Maximus chose the counterweight catapult because it was the most powerful of all catapults. There were many records in the history of his previous life about using it to break through thick stone walls. Moreover, its production was not too complicated. Considering that the only thing being attacked was the wooden wall and that his side had the advantage, the enemy would not dare to come out for a field battle. Therefore, he also reduced the size of the catapult, simplified some of the additional devices, and used more human traction...

At the end of the previous year, he handed the drawings of the counterweight catapult to engineer Spukara, asking him to organize craftsmen to start trial production. During this period, he took his servants to inspect it several times. Only after the machine was thoroughly perfected and demonstrated its powerful performance, did the craftsmen of the Ministry of Works start mass production last summer. However, it was still kept secret from the outside world. Only the chief officers of the Ministry of War, the corps commanders, and the captains secretly went to the weapons testing ground to witness its power. Therefore, before the start of this war, not only the Brochi people were unaware of it, but ordinary Nyx soldiers were also kept in the dark.

After the war broke out, the engineering team loaded all the parts of the counterweight catapult onto the ship and transported it here, so it only took one day yesterday to completely assemble it in the temporary camp so that it could be used in time today.

Look at these stunned Nyx soldiers behind him. They are also shocked by the powerful force of the counterweight catapult, and their morale is getting higher and higher.

The entire southeast wooden wall was shaking non-stop amid the roar. After a while, a section of the wooden wall collapsed, and after a while, a tower collapsed...

The Nix soldiers occasionally cheered thunderously, but took no other action.

However, some of the Brochi warriors could not endure this hellish torture and risked rushing out of the village in an attempt to destroy these terrible machines.

Unfortunately, they had buried many traps in front of the camp, and only one road leading to the gate was safe. When they rushed out along this road, the fully armed Nix soldiers rushed to the catapults to form a shield wall to block the enemy first, and then the crossbowmen rushed up from both wings and fired crossbow arrows at the enemy in the middle...

The Brochi warriors left behind hundreds of corpses and fled back to the village in a panic, never daring to take any more risks.

The catapults' attacks continued, and they did not stop even after the Brochi warriors had completely evacuated the village wall. The long period of throwing caused a certain amount of accumulated damage to the catapults themselves, with wooden poles breaking, wheels falling off, and bases falling apart.

When the southeast gate and the wooden walls on both sides were broken and collapsed, the originally six-meter-high and solid southeast wooden wall was left with only a row of uneven wood stumps, like a harvested wheat field.

Finally, the huge and terrifying machine stopped swinging its wooden arms, and the terrifying roar died away, but none of the Brochi warriors dared to return to the ruins of the wooden wall.

At this time, the Nix army made new movements: dozens of wooden wagons were pushed to the front through the passage in the army formation. They were lined up in a row, with less than three or four people's width between them, passing through the catapults and slowly moving towards the stockade...

Following behind these wagons were not only the laborers responsible for pushing the wagons, but also the Knicks baggage workers holding shovels, rammers and other tools.

The Nix infantry and crossbowmen followed behind them as protection.

About fifty meters away from the village wall, the vans stopped moving.

It turned out that the boxcar was full of soil. The baggage workers used shovels to pull the soil from the car, spread it on the ground in a thick layer, and then compacted it with a pestle...

The place where they were standing was exactly the farthest distance that the Brochi harpooneers could throw while standing on the wooden wall, but now the wooden wall was destroyed, they could only stand inside the village and stare helplessly, without being able to do anything.

The baggage workers focused on laying thick soil and compacting the ground. Although the progress was slow, no one in the entire team was harmed during the advance, and the traps that the Brochi people had painstakingly set were wasted.

Carts carried soil back and forth, and the restructured ground continued to extend towards the village... When the team was less than thirty meters away from the village wall, Elyx began to urge the javelin throwers to return to the ruins of the wooden wall and throw javelins at the enemy to prevent them from continuing to destroy the traps.

However, the Nyx army was well prepared. The Nyx crossbowmen following the baggage train bared their fangs. As soon as the Brochi javelin throwers reached the ruins of the wooden wall and had not yet raised their arms, they fired the loaded crossbow arrows.

The crossbow has a range of more than 80 meters, and 20 to 30 meters is its optimal killing range. The Brochi javelin throwers had no armor, and now there was no wooden wall as a barrier, so they fell down in an instant, and the survivors were so scared that they rolled and crawled back. Nix's crossbowmen were powerful, and Elyx knew it well. Four years ago, in the battle of the Korana River, Nix's crossbowmen showed their prowess, causing the Brochi army to be defeated. At that time, he almost died in the chaos of the army. He finally escaped into the wilderness and mountains, and slept in the open for several days before he was rescued by the tribesmen who came out to search and rescue and returned to the territory. He also fell seriously ill because of it...

But Elyx could not watch the Nyx destroy all the defensive facilities in front of the village, allowing his army to easily break into the village unhindered, so he gave orders again: let the soldiers form a shield formation on the ruins of the village wall to defend against the enemy's crossbowmen's shooting, and the javelin throwers hide behind the shield formation, throwing javelins to attack the Nyx on the ground.

After suffering a severe blow from the Nyx crossbowmen in the last war, Bricks began to learn lessons and improve the protective equipment of the warriors. Mainly, they no longer used simple and thin round wooden shields, but learned from the Nyx, concentrating manpower and material resources to make large square shields, and also used multiple layers of wood to glue them together. The thickness of the square shield increased greatly, and of course the weight also increased several times, making the light infantry lose their flexibility and become slow, but even when facing close-range throws from javelin throwers, they had a certain degree of defense with the new shields.

But when the Brochi warriors formed a shield formation on the ruins of the village wall and the javelin throwers hid behind them, Nix's catapult swung its huge arms again, and stones whizzed past the baggage carriers and hit the ruins of the village wall.

Accompanied by screams, the Brochi warriors scattered.

The Nixen's catapults began to move slowly forward, firing a stone from time to time, forcing the frightened Brochi warriors to flee deeper into the village, away from the ruins of the village wall.

In this way, it was easier for the Nix baggage personnel to remove the traps in front of the village, level the land, and finally fill the trenches. From then on, it became a smooth road for the Nix army to attack Simbel Isbad from the southeast.

The bugle sounded again, and the Knicks' huge army finally began to advance. The soldiers who had rested for most of the day not only did not show any signs of slackness, but their morale was high. They even hoped that the enemy's resistance could be stronger, so that they might get more military merit.

When the Knyx soldiers crossed the trench and stepped over the ruins of the village wall, the warriors led by Elyx rushed up again, intercepted the Knyx army, and prevented them from continuing to advance into the village.

The southeast wall of Simbei Isbad was only a mile long. Eryx deployed more than 3,000 soldiers and some civilians at a time, which was enough to block the Nyx on the ruins of the wooden wall and prevent them from taking advantage of their large number of soldiers. Moreover, as the two sides fought together, the Nyx's terrible weapons dared not throw stones anymore.

This was Elyx's plan. Although he knew that the Nix soldiers were powerful and had an advantage in field battles, Simbei Isbad was now facing a life-and-death situation, and the Brochi warriors had no choice but to fight to the death to save their homes.

But just as the two sides were fighting fiercely, four huge tower-like machines were pushed to the front of the trench. Teams of crossbowmen climbed up to the top floor along the wooden ladders, drew their bows and loaded arrows, and shot downwards.

The two sides were fighting, and the counterweight catapults did not dare to fire stones to avoid accidentally injuring their own soldiers. However, when the wooden wall was destroyed, the four-meter-high siege vehicle, which Maximus called a "well fence", stood out on the battlefield. The crossbowmen standing on the top could accurately shoot the Brochi warriors in the battle. No matter how thick their square shields were, they could not defend against the bottom. One by one, they were shot in the head, shoulder and neck and fell down...

The Brochi warriors, whose morale was already low, did not hold out for long before they began to flee...

Simbei Isbad had only two gates. With the southeast side occupied by the enemy, the people and the defeated soldiers mixed together and fled out of the southwest gate in panic. However, the Nix army that had landed here before had already lined up and were waiting. Their mission was not to attack the city, but to ensure that the people of Simbei Isbad were captured in one fell swoop.

When Maximus saw the Nix army pouring into the village like a tide, he knew that the battle was over. The next step was to take in the defeated soldiers, clean up the battlefield, seize food supplies, appease the people of Brochi, and take over the entire village...

Not only will the army move in, but officials from various departments and temple priests who come on board the ship will also perform their duties according to the pre-planned plan.

Four years ago, the Nix tribe conquered Segestica by using both military and political means. After several years of careful preparation, the Nix tribe has trained more administrative officials with rich experience and has more means of conquest. I believe that this time the conquest of Brochi will be smoother.

Maximus was full of confidence. He did not follow the army into the stockade. Instead, he turned his horse around and returned to the temporary camp. When he came to a military tent, he happened to meet the army doctor coming out of the tent.

(End of this chapter)