Chapter 171 Forming a Formation to Meet the Enemy

At dawn, the scouts who went out brought back intelligence that a large force of Hurd's cavalry was approaching.

At the same time as the information that "a large group of Hart cavalry was approaching" was sent to the main camp, there was a request for help from the camp on the north bank.

The outpost battle has begun, and the leadership of Plato's army is divided.

Some people want to call off the siege and prepare to meet the enemy's reinforcements; others want to launch a general offensive and be sure to break the city before the reinforcements arrive; others bring up old matters again and believe that the opportunity to attack Bianli has been lost, and they should withdraw their troops before making plans.

At the impromptu meeting, Colonel Laszlo, the chief captain of the Fifth Army, roared with red eyes: "You can fight with just one breath! The city is now in a state of overwhelming power! Evacuate? Tell me how to evacuate? If you evacuate, you may never be able to enter again." Now! If the barbarians in the city take advantage of the situation and force them out again, it will be a repeat of the Battle of Draigelbe!"

Not to be outdone, Cavalry Colonel Haugwitz yelled: "If you don't knock out the reinforcements, what's the use of taking Bianli? If you don't take Bianli and are outflanked from behind, the whole army is in danger of destruction! Knock out the reinforcements, and Bianli will be defeated." Li will be ours sooner or later. If we can't defeat the reinforcements, we'll be done with it! It's that simple!"

"Fuck you!"

"I will fight with you!"

"What's the noise!?" Major General Arpad overturned the table and smashed the exquisite porcelain bottle to pieces.

The two people who were about to perform a full martial arts show immediately fell silent.

After General János suffered a stroke, there was no one in the Palatine army who could make the final decision.

The former retreating faction has now become the siege faction, and the former siege faction has now become the reinforcement faction.

Just like an iceberg with only a small part floating on the water, the dispute between Laszlo and Haugwitz is a battle of strategy, a battle of routes, and a battle between the infantry faction and the cavalry faction.

When General János is in charge of the entire army, competition can be presented in a healthy situation. For the Admiral is the sect of all factions, and his prestige and wisdom are sufficient to subdue them all.

But when a general becomes incapacitated, conflicts that have been covered up in the past will immediately intensify.

"The worst strategy is to have no strategy. If we fight over and over again, we might as well stick our necks out and be chopped down by the barbarians!" Brigadier General Sackler said coldly: "Major General Arpad and I have already made up our minds."

…

At dawn, the sky is getting brighter.

The battle for the Western Acropolis has been decided. The barbarians were defeated, and the Platuan soldiers poured into the city walls one after another.

Desperate, the Hurds began to set fire to the city.

The weather was dry in winter, and the city was full of thatched wooden houses. Almost instantly, the Western Acropolis was transformed into a sea of ​​flames.

The low clouds were burned red by the fire, eclipsing even the morning glow.

The wind helped the fire spread rapidly toward the outer wall, and the Platuan troops who had invaded the Acropolis had no choice but to withdraw outside the city.

The fire temporarily separated the two sides. The Palatine army controlled the outer city wall, but the main city was still firmly in the hands of the Hittites.

The messenger from the legion headquarters spent a lot of effort to find Balazs, the chief centurion of the Sixth Legion in the city.

"Withdraw? Tell me again! Withdraw?" Captain Balazs' eyes looked as if he was about to kill someone in the next second.

He firmly grasped the messenger's shoulder, his fingers digging into the flesh of the other person's shoulder.

The poor messenger's legs were a little weak. He stumbled and repeated the command: "Order your troops to break away from the battle, gather their troops, retreat to the attack position, and regroup and stand by."

Captain Balazs ripped off his helmet and smashed it to the ground.

Because the wind was blowing from the northwest, there was still a small area in the northwest corner of the Acropolis that the fire had not spread to.

Balazs is leading people to build an isolation zone, using rafters to build a simple battering ram, and will attack the main city gate only when the fire weakens.

The military order was like a mountain. The captain looked at the shadowy inner wall behind the fire and smoke, and weakly uttered one word: "Retreat."

…

Winters had just entered the Western Acropolis when the Centurions of Balazs received the order to retreat.

He jumped on his horse and rushed into the gap in the city wall, and the scorching heat wave immediately hit his face.

The city was filled with a burning smell. Qiang Yun shook his head in displeasure. The horse didn't like this place at all.

From time to time, horrifying screams could be heard behind the billowing smoke, indicating that people were being burned alive.

"Have you seen Lieutenant Mason?" Winters asked whenever he met someone: "Where is Lieutenant Mason?"

The five infantry brigades responsible for the early siege were retreating. The soldiers were like a school of sardines, everyone blindly following the others out.

Several centurions were leading people to break down the city wall to prevent the Hittites from reoccupying the acropolis.

But after more soldiers walked out of the city wall, they just collapsed on the ground and gasped for air, unable to even lift their arms.

Although the siege was called off, the results could not be thrown away. A fully formed brigade is marching towards the Acropolis, and their orders are to repel any enemy who attempts to retake the outer city wall.

Winters, who was walking against the crowd, asked all the way, shouting through a loudspeaker.

"At this!"

"here!"

Winters raised his head following the sound, and Lieutenant Mason on the wall was waving vigorously.

He ran up the city wall, and the lieutenant in front of him was leading a few subordinates to lift a bronze cannon.

"Stop moving! Come with me!"

After hearing this, several people threw down their cannons.

Mason wiped the cigarette ashes on his face and asked anxiously: "Why are they all retreating? I heard that reinforcements from the Hud people are coming? Too many to count?"

"Who said that?" Winters raised his eyebrows.

"That's what everyone is saying!"

"There are Hed people coming from the north, but they are not countless... We will talk about it when we get back!"

"What about this thing?" Mason pointed to the cannon at his feet.

"Throw this away! Can you still throw it away?"

…

When Winters and Mason rushed back to the base camp, the Jessica Brigade was gathering.

In the camp designated for the militia auxiliary troops, the captain of ten was shouting and cursing one after another.

One of the points of rapid formation is that everyone must know where they stand, and the Platuan militia clearly didn't know that.

Seeing that the two centurions had just returned to the team, Lieutenant Colonel Jessica was a little unhappy: "What did they do?"

"If Montagne hadn't come looking for me, I wouldn't have known there was an emergency gathering." Lieutenant Mason couldn't help but asked the lieutenant colonel: "Sir, how many Hurds are here?"

"I don't know yet." Jessica's expression was stern: "Let your people prepare first."

In last night's siege, the Jessica Brigade did not directly participate in the battle. Half of Winters' men were on guard duty in the trenches, and the other half were on standby in the camp.

The militiamen in the camp were assembled quickly, but it took some time to assemble the militiamen on duty.

Fortunately, Winters' captains were powerful enough that he didn't need to do everything himself.

Most of the militiamen couldn't hide their panic, which made Winters lucky that he still had some "veterans" who had seen blood to serve as the backbone.

Mason, who hurried back, found the lieutenant colonel for instructions, and hurriedly left with more men and carriages to move the artillery.

Lieutenant Bader, who was in charge of the ordnance, began to issue weapons, armor and ammunition to the militia.

The Jashka Brigade captured more than a hundred pieces of Hedzha armor along the way. They were usually kept and repaired by the brigade's arsenal, and now they were all distributed to Winters' spearmen.

Some temporary armors modified from Hurd horse armor were also issued. It was Blacksmith Balian's idea to change the horse armor into human armor.

[Note: Hed horse armor and human armor use the same armor plates]

As a result of being replenished and strengthened, the strength of the Jessica Brigade has reached eight centurions - two more than the full force.

Therefore, the lieutenant colonel readjusted the organization and changed each hundred-man team from "flower team" to "pure team".

[Note: A flower team is a hundred-man team with mixed weapons, and a pure team is a hundred-man team with a single weapon]

Nowadays, the composition of Jessica's brigade is complex, with Winters' two teams of spearmen and halberdiers being the most reliable, followed by Andre's two teams of musketeers and crossbowmen.

The subordinates of Winters and Andre were mainly the old members of the brigade and the newly added militiamen.

The men of Lieutenant Bader and Lieutenant Mason were a mixed bag in comparison: convicts, merchants forcibly recruited into the army, remnants of other militia groups... there were everyone there.

To a certain extent, Bud and Mason lead these "rabble" precisely because they are the only ones who can lead these "rabble".

The Dussac riders were personally led by Lieutenant Colonel Jashka.

Winters walked through the ranks, inspecting weapons and armor one by one.

Half of his subordinates were wearing Plato half-body armor, and the other half were wearing Hedezha armor. They looked very strange at first glance, and it was even hard to tell which side of the soldiers they were from.

"What kind of penetration method is this?" Winters stopped in front of an armored spearman.

He was anxious, and his words were inevitably full of anger: "Why tie the rope and leave it outside?"

The spearman shrank his neck when he heard this.

"Your name is Ish?" Winters remembered the spearman's name: "Is that you?"

Ishi from Ganshui Town nodded quickly. He stretched out his hand to pull off the rope, but his movements were so clumsy that he could not reach the end of the rope.

Winters became impatient, untied the spearman's arm armor, and quickly tied it on: "Follow my binding method! Put all the knots in it!"

By the time Ish came to his senses, the ensign had already walked to the others.

Ish wanted to speak out several times, but he just licked his lips and never said "thank you" in the end.

"Commander Ten, listen up! Check the armor of your comrades in the same tent!" Winters, who was checking in the queue, loudly ordered: "Two of you help each other put it on!"

The ten captains immediately began to take action. Compared with the hurried militiamen, these old men who followed Winters were more calm.

Charles and Heinrich ran to Winters holding the centurion's armor: "Hurry up and grab the armor too!"

Finding an empty space, Winters stood up, and Charles and Heinrich began to help him put on the three-quarter armor.

Andre and Bud came over to meet Winters.

"Do you know how many Herds came?" Andre frowned and asked, "What caused such a big battle?"

Winters shook his head.

Bud gestured toward the center of the camp and said calmly: "Everyone is moving."

Suddenly, there was an invisible violent vibration in the air - the rumble of horse hooves trampling the earth, very close by.

Everyone was shocked, and some militiamen were so frightened that their weapons dropped to the ground.

"Come so fast?" Andre's eyes widened.

Winters pursed his lips and listened, and quickly breathed a sigh of relief: "It's not the Herds coming, it's the cavalry from the camp who are heading out, maybe sending out reconnaissance cavalry."

"No, it's not a scout." Bard counted his pulse: "How can there be so many scouts?"

The three lieutenants climbed up to a nearby guard tower, where they had a panoramic view of the military camp.

In the cavalry camp located at the other end of the camp, the horses' hooves raised smoke and dust that covered the sky.

At least four squadrons of cavalry have left camp, and more are gearing up.

Andre squinted his eyes to identify it carefully, and suddenly exclaimed: "Almost all the light cavalry are dispatched!"

Outside the camp gate, a long smoke trail was extending to the north.

A green-helmeted messenger galloped towards the militia station, carrying a formal enemy report to the Jashka Brigade:

A large group of Herd cavalry was approaching from the north, and the scouts were driven back by the enemy's light cavalry. The specific strength of the troops could not be determined, but it was estimated that there were thousands of cavalry.

The messenger also brought an order to the Jessica Brigade:

Head to North Bridge immediately to reinforce and defend the bridgehead camp.

…

The siege was suddenly stopped, and all kinds of rumors spread like wildfire. The middle- and lower-level officers and soldiers were panicked for a while.

However, the chain of command of the Plato Army was still functioning normally, and the legion headquarters issued orders one after another in an orderly manner, as if they had anticipated this situation.

In this case, orders are the ballast of military morale, and being able to execute orders mechanically makes people feel at ease.

A sense of honor stirs in the hearts of the Plato soldiers. They have defeated more with less time and time again. They are the shield of the alliance and the iron army that is invincible and invincible.

Like a ferocious beast turning its head, the army began to adjust its center of gravity and prepare to meet the enemy.

The reserve troops that were not engaged in combat changed direction, and the five brigades that were already engaged in combat retreated and regrouped.

More scouts rushed to the wilderness, and this time they would not be easily driven away again.

The hussars and chasseurs rushed out to support the camp on the north bank.

Brigadier General Sackler found Arpad who was putting on his armor: "I don't think it's feasible to just send the light cavalry to the North Village."

"I know, I'll take the heavy cavalry." Arpad took a swig of strong wine and stuffed the flat silver flask into his breastplate.

The Major General's face was slightly red due to the accelerated blood flow. If it weren't for the wrinkles and whitening of his temples, it would be hard to imagine that the Plato man in front of him was over fifty years old.

Two infantry brigades set up camp on the north bank of the confluence river. They were placed there to block the entry and exit from the north of Bianli City.

Now faced with enemy reinforcements, they bore the brunt of the attack.

"If it's just to deal with the Hed vanguard, the light cavalry is enough." Szekler paused: "But if it is to prevent reinforcements from entering the city, or to prevent the Chihe tribe from breaking out, the Beizhai needs to be strengthened. There is now The most important thing is that someone has to be in charge.”

"Huh?" Arpad raised his eyebrows.

"I will take people there." Szekler said with a stern expression: "I will take the reserve team that has not been used to attack the city to the North Stronghold. Before, we only had to prevent the Herds from coming out, but now we have to prevent the enemies from entering, so the South Stronghold also needs to be reinforced. Let that boy from Jashka dig the blockades, his people are good at it."

Arpad laughed loudly: "Then it's my turn to take people to Beizhai. You have always been in charge of the central army. The main camp can't do without you."

"No, that was before anything happened to General Janos." Szekler's eyes were glaring: "You are now the person with the highest rank and the leader of an army. You can no longer rush out and kill according to your temper. The Herds are all cavalry. , tactically they have the initiative. But they have to relieve Bianli and are strategically passive. Our army’s fighter planes all lie in this..."

…

…

The west wind roared, and the clouds covered the sun.

Three thousand Plato soldiers crossed the wooden bridge and marched towards Beizhai.

The sound of seismic hoofbeats came from the north. A scout waved his helmet and ran towards Brigadier General Sackler.

His mouth was open, but his cry was completely muffled by the sound of hooves.

On the ridge of the hillside behind the scout cavalry, a figure of Hurd Cavalry suddenly appeared, then two, ten, a hundred...

Countless Herd cavalry leaped out from the reverse slope and roared towards the Platuan queue.

"Surround the site for reinforcements?" Brigadier General Sackler sneered.

Bugles are blowing and war drums are beating.

In front of the Herd barbarians who were all over the mountains and plains, six infantry brigades completed a series of complex formation changes.

With their backs to the confluence river, the Platuan soldiers formed a formation to meet the enemy.

"I'm in the formation!" Sackler stood on the horse with his halberd raised high, and his voice was conveyed to everyone through the amplification of the caster: "If I take a step back - chop off my head!"

The soldiers all stared at the general's helmet, and there was a dead silence at first.

"Long live!" someone suddenly shouted.

"Long live!" More and more people joined in shouting.

"Long live!" Everyone's voices merged into one voice: "Long live!"

With the deafening roar of the mountain, Szekely jumped off his horse and strode into the square formation.

I tried flashback last night, but at the end of the writing, I still felt that the main story was better, so I ended up telling the main story according to time. I was planning to finish one chapter, but I didn’t finish it (face covering) and continued with the next chapter.

There is a map in this chapter. In the description of this chapter, if readers do not see it, it means that I have not finished the drawing. Please come back to it later.

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