Eagle Byzantium

Gawain's method of "shortening the siege time" is to use all his strength to capture Marash Castle.

He simply transferred reinforcements to the "Philomelon Brigade" assembled in Caesarea to the current battlefield. In addition, he wrote a brand-new order to recruit the 4,000 miners in the Tronzac area and dig the canal. All the more than 5,000 Crescent laborers in the river were hired - responsible for the manufacture of siege weapons and the construction of the siege line. Nearly 10,000 skilled manpower used various measuring instruments and tools to work around the horse in the next week. Fort Rush to the point of the Feramis River At the fork, a temporary wharf for supply was built, as well as an earth fort gun emplacement that was more than ten kilometers long surrounding the entire castle, and a plank road connecting the two places, which was used to use oxen and mules to pull heavy fire bear cannons. " There is no time for temporary casting There are enough, but the number is not enough, so we directly transport the existing Fire Bear Cannons to the most suitable firing positions and build artillery forts - in three days, I want to see their bombardment achieve results." Standing on the mountain to command! Gawain, who was supervising the overall situation, ordered.

So on the high tower of Marashburg, Feier stood there with a frightened face, looking at the horrific construction below. He could clearly see that on the plank road paved with wooden planks, there were countless mules, horses and The oxen dragged the large bronze artillery over, and then many enemy personnel on the siege of the city were holding curved rulers and wooden poles, seeming to be measuring Measuring the distance and angle of the artillery fire - after several of these strange gunpowder stone cannons were transported to various locations without any obstacles, wooden fences and earthen ramparts were built around them. He stood up and formed protruding "forts", aiming coldly and cruelly at the stone wall at his feet.

There are also some temporarily cast siege cannons, or to be more precise, they are large bronze cannons. They are covered with layers of shells and suspended with wooden frames and ropes, just like the big bells in the church. It seems that It is necessary to directly maintain this posture, load Khitan snow and bombard it with stone bullets.

Many supplies, such as saltpeter and soil, were transported to Tarsus again through the Italian fleet after Gawain almost broke through the treasury.

Feier also saw the other party's magical "lead shot" manufacturing process. Gao Wenfang's craftsman built tall wooden towers next to the forging furnace, then placed the molten lead water in fixed measuring instruments, and then followed the process. It dripped down from the high tower - during the falling process, the molten lead water automatically rolled and condensed into round pellets. Each one rolled all over the ground, and then was swept into a box and prepared for the group of gun soldiers. Used for shooting on the battlefield.

Seeing this, Feier actually felt a great sense of beauty and couldn't help but sigh: How wonderful it was that we established this kind of weapons workshop in Marash!

But this is just conjecture.

Like Gawain, Feir also clearly understood that Marashburg would not be able to hold on no matter what, but the strange thing was that at this moment, he suddenly felt the tragic fate of "the king of subjugation", "Pakade" The father and son, the unscrupulous couple, surrendered first and cut off my path, so the entire independent Armenian country cannot be destroyed without anyone dying for it..."

As a result, Marash continued to resist bravely.

At this time, Gawain received the information that the imperial army had gathered in Amasya City, and the total number had expanded to more than 40,000 people.

Many of them were the Alan cavalry sent by the wife of old General Theodoro from Georgia, and many Russian soldiers eager to get rich also joined them. When their team began to march south, the honor guard and military flags spread for dozens of miles. , the main generals who led the army were naturally Theodoro, Mikhail and Titicius.

Emperor John personally went to Kastamonu City to supervise the battle.

Although it has a large number of people and excellent military quality, the issue of command authority of this army has been very delicate from the moment it was born - including Trabzon's own peasant and soldier divisions, Alan cavalry, Georgian and Russian mercenaries. Soldiers all obey orders The old general Theodorus, who himself also majestically wore a lion's golden crown, wore crimson leather boots and rode on a horse to command the entire army, had already been put on top of the fire when Gawain gave him the crown. The fear and anxiety were thrown away beyond the sky.

As for Taticius, he still commanded more than 10,000 troops who were really obeying the emperor's orders. Five to six thousand of them were the Thessalian new army, following Theodorus' flank. This time, even if he did not agree with the march route, Helpless, because he is directly responsible for John, it is impossible to imitate Philomelon's actions on the battlefield, and he must confront Gawain head-on.

The last one, Mikhail Eustace, is the general with the most complicated position. His direct military strength is actually the original outer palace guard of less than 2,000 people, and he is also secretly trying his best to prevent the bribery of his subordinates. ——The new emperor has been doing this secretly, and now the entire outer palace guard army is almost half and half loyal to him and loyal to the emperor. If he continues to do nothing, he may lose military power after this expedition. In fact, Emperor John continued to keep his position out of consideration for the stability of military morale, otherwise he would have been sent out of work long ago.

Although the new emperor supervising the battle in Castamonu City was inexplicably optimistic about the war situation because of his youth, his most trusted general Titicius was worried in his heart.

Soon, not far from the Sakarya River, the rugged Angra Castle standing on the mountain appeared in front of the Turkic general. "We can only hope that Diognis can take the initiative to surrender to His Majesty the Emperor... ....”

At this moment, in the Fortress of Angras, Diogenes stood in the center of the hall with his head down. Beside him stood the statue of Emperor Alexius, and in front of him were all his former subordinates and soldiers: Gawain gave him the position of the head of the border area, and returned almost all of his more than a thousand former subordinates, and arranged for them to receive benefices and land, so that they could serve as the main force to garrison the castle.

"Everyone knows that I am a pure soldier of the Empire. Although I belong to two hostile nations by blood, I was promoted and favored by the Emperor and was able to serve as a glorious border guard. So no matter what the world will be like in the future, the grace of the Empire and the Emperor must always be remembered in my heart and cannot be betrayed!" The guard was excited, stroking his chest and generously stated to his officers and the Pronia knights in front of him, "Now, all the troops of the Empire have come here. And this is the middle waist gate of Gawain's entire country. As long as this is penetrated, Gawain's elite hinterland will be exposed to the sweep of the army, and the situation he will face while besieging Marash with all his strength will be more dangerous than when he was attacked by pirates in Philomelon. So I ask you, those who are willing to join the Imperial Army under the city, now is the opportunity, please stand up bravely."