Chapter 688: Defending the City (V)

Albert drives the war spear in his hand through the neck of a heavy-armored soldier, he flicks his wrist. The spear blade sweeps sideways out of the man's neck and knocks down the shield-bearing enemy beside him. Albert has no time to finish the man off. He draws the short sword at his waist and throws it, nailing a crossbowman several meters away.

But in that brief delay, an enemy wielding a heavy sword chops at him.

Albert raises his war spear and blocks the blade, but his opponent's martial skill isn't bad.

The other man doesn't wait for the force of the chop to fade. He turns the sword edge sideways, follows the force, and slides it toward Albert's hand while stepping forward to close in.

Now, Albert doesn't choose to retreat. Instead, he also charges forward. His hand no longer grips the spear shaft. As if pushing against a pillar, he raises the war spear vertically in front of himself.

After the two collide, Albert's strength wins out. He knocks the enemy back several steps, then takes the chance to draw the longsword at his waist.

Before the other man can steady his footing, Albert swings his sword and charges again.

Now, fighting is everywhere along the entire wall. The corpses of both sides have already covered this whole stretch of wall.

In several places, heaps of corpses have even formed. Those are breach points that have changed hands again and again.

On this two-kilometer-long wall, there are more than ten breach points, and over a thousand people are fighting for their lives on this stretch of wall.

From time to time, someone falls from the wall. Some even tumble down while tangled together with another person.

At this point, the warriors on both sides are now completely blood-drunk.

The fighting soldiers have turned into a chaotic melee. Occasionally, heavy ballista bolts shoot through, and stones from trebuchets fall.

The army below is also loosing arrows indiscriminately toward the top of the wall.

Death can come at any moment.

Death itself seems to be joyfully absorbing the breath of life here.

The battle continues until dusk. In the end, the attacking soldiers still fail to secure a foothold and are driven down from the wall.

An entire afternoon of bitter fighting leaves few people on this wall still standing.

Medics check the fallen soldiers one by one. As long as someone still has a breath left, whether ally or enemy, they are all sent to the field hospital behind the lines.

The mule carts that have been waiting below the wall carry the wounded away again and again.

The stone roads in the city are stained red by the blood flowing from the carts. Under the glow of the setting sun, they shine with a strange golden light.

Albert leans against a corner on the wall. Beside him stand the two great banners on the wall.

One is the golden lion banner of the Rhine family. The other is Peace Haven's blood-red banner bearing Henwell's personal crest.

Originally, as the warband commander of the mercenary guards, Albert didn't need to fight personally.

Each of the two walls under attack has a thousand-man team defending it. That doesn't even include the crossbowmen on the archery platforms or the soldiers operating the other city-defense equipment.

If fully spread out, they could place one soldier every two meters.

But city defense is obviously not standing guard. To strike from above, force has to be concentrated.

Every twenty-some meters, there is a ten-man squad, and that squad is responsible for defending that section of wall.

After the enemy attack begins, they also need to adjust and move their positions at all times.

They focus their defense to deal with the sections of wall where siege ladders and wheeled siege ladders have been set. Generally speaking, one siege ladder requires one squad to defend.

Wheeled siege ladders are more troublesome. Generally, three squads are needed at minimum.

Originally, they could continuously maintain the advantage of outnumbering the enemy at the point of contact while striking from above.

Even if the other side has more people, it is hard for them to effectively bring that numerical advantage to bear.

But as the battle continues, the defenders also consume a lot of stamina.

The left wall is the first to have a problem. One mercenary guard squad suffers a mental collapse and begins to rout, dragging several nearby squads along with it.

This creates a gap in the defense more than one hundred meters long on the wall.

The attackers' battlefield commander keenly seizes this opportunity and immediately adjusts the direction of attack.

By the time Albert orders the reserve battalion beside him to send two hundred-man teams to seal that section of the line, several siege ladders are already hooked onto the top of the wall.

In just a few minutes, dozens of enemy soldiers have climbed onto the wall.

Worse, before the two hundred-man teams can drive them down, two wheeled siege-ladder carts set themselves against the wall.

More than a hundred attackers rush onto the wall. While guarding the landing point, they begin pushing out to both sides, trying to seize more footholds.

Seeing that things are going badly, Albert immediately sends three more reserve hundred-man teams to support them.

But the enemy has already destroyed and occupied two archery platforms, expanding the gap to more than two hundred meters.

A full five wheeled siege-ladder carts are set in this area, and more than ten siege ladders are fixed to the top of the wall.

Dozens more enemy soldiers climb onto the wall carrying rope ladders on their backs and begin tying and securing them.

Seeing the situation worsen, Albert can only add another four hundred-man teams as support.

Eighty percent of a thousand-man battalion's reserves have all been pushed to the front.

This can't entirely be blamed on Albert using piecemeal commitment. After all, the space on top of the wall is limited.

If too many people are thrown in at once, the arcing arrows from below and the stones from the trebuchets will have a greater chance of killing the defending soldiers.

The idea is good, but Albert has overlooked the fact that this is a vital city-defense battle.

Preventing the enemy from establishing a foothold is the tactical core of city defense.

Albert worries too much about his subordinates' casualties, and because of that, he loses the best opportunity.

At the beginning, he should have directly sent half of the reserves in one wave and driven the enemy down.

But Albert shouldn't be judged too harshly for this. After all, he isn't a professional officer. He is only a member of the caravan guard force.

Although he also received military training in Peace Haven, his time there was limited, and it doesn't compare to those professional officers from the Military Academy.

In particular, the focus of the combat command he studied is different. Most of it concerns small-scale skirmishes.

The largest-scale combat command knowledge he possesses is only at the thousand-man team level.

As for the military knowledge of warband commanders and legion commanders, and even knowledge of city assaults and defenses, he only touched on them a little. They were basically elective lessons.

Most importantly, he has never commanded so many people before.

Not to mention that most of the troops under him now are mercenary guards, not Peace Haven's military forces.

This makes many of the tactics he learned hard to use effectively.

Fortunately, after most of the reserves are committed, these soldiers from Peace Haven, who have received at least one year of formal military training, completely retake control of the wall in only half an hour.

Unlike the brave fighting style of the mercenary guards, Peace Haven soldiers prefer formation attacks.

Under normal circumstances, Peace Haven's army likes using the three-stage assault tactic in small and mid-sized battles.

Take one squad as an example. In this environment, three soldiers shoot arrows or bolts to force the enemies in front of them into disorder.

Then the three strongest soldiers charge forward fiercely with shields in hand and slam into the enemy.

When the enemy's front line is struck and their bodies are unsteady, the shield-bearers open an attack passage and retreat to cover the archers and crossbowmen.

Three spearmen then follow the charge and stab at the enemy.

When the spearmen complete one round of attacks, withdraw their spears, and retreat, the crossbowmen have already drawn and loaded again, launching another round of covering fire.

After the spearmen withdraw and the crossbowmen finish firing, the shield-bearers charge and slam forward again.

This repeats again and again, constantly striking the enemy formation.

Up to now, even soldiers from ace legions have not been able to withstand three rounds of impact.

Of course, this requires excellent coordination, as well as the squad leader's ability to command and adapt on the spot.