Augustus Road

"I think I have made the conditions very clear just now. Tell Hitius to surrender with his men as soon as possible, enter the camp and swear allegiance to me, and fight Lepidus to the end. Otherwise, I will seize the throne within three days. Go down to Wagga City. [," Rabinus didn't want to say any more, then he chopped off his hand, formed a dense formation of turtles, and began to approach the city wall.

"We just need to see the envoy's body to give an explanation to everyone in the city." Hitius on the tower hurriedly called someone.

Soon Celeste's body was carried on a scaffold and tied up with ropes so that it could be easily seen by all the guards on one wall.

Sure enough, more and more Hittius party gathered near the tower. This scene satisfied Rabinus. He believed that the more they saw, the greater the impact on the morale of the defenders.

"Look, that is the distinguished envoy who was brutally killed by the enemy. For now, we can only use the most courageous and unyielding battle to sacrifice his heroic spirit. The Hittius Party will never surrender." As a result, beside the ballista on the tower, Hitius, who was standing, shouted to the soldiers, "Let the enemy see our determination!"

As soon as he finished speaking, countless heads were thrown down from the ramparts like raindrops. Labienus was so shocked that he said repeatedly, "They executed all the Numidians and Moors in the city? They are completely crazy, crazy!"

Subsequently, the order to attack the city spread throughout the surrounding camps. Timber in Africa is scarce. Take the area between Wagga City and the Tumul River spanning dozens of miles. This is the only area with streams and rivers in the surrounding area. There are woods, but streams can only supply a small number of people. And the so-called woods. It's just olives and myrtle growing all over the mountains. so. Most of the wood that accompanied Rabinus's camp was transported from Mauritania and Spain, which was extremely precious. The soldiers covered the siege towers and movable shield vehicles with freshly peeled animal skins to prevent the enemy from attacking. Fire attack. However, Hitius did not seem to intend to use rockets - he used the "killer weapon", which was split and transported all the way by packhorse from the port of Hippo, namely the "Masselia Lady Cannon", which fired every half A moment in the day. He roared towards Rabinus's siege tower, and the wooden pole with an iron head could directly penetrate all the siege fortifications with ten inches of wood.

Rabinus could stand directly under the siege tower and see the people, corpses and debris flying in the sky above. If he knew the word "fireworks", he would definitely use this figure of speech to describe the scene he saw in front of him.

What is even more cunning and vicious is that the tail ends of the wooden cannonballs fired by the Hitius Party are also tied with chains with barbs. Once fired, they can be pulled back using the pulley hidden in the city gate. In the process of wrestling, "secondary damage" was caused to Rabinus's siege fortifications.

At this time. Rabinus's men suggested that they could dig a siege trench, use the excavated soil to build a siege slope, and then use wooden wheels or rolling logs to send the moving tower up, push the soldiers to the wall, and interact with the defenders. Engage in hand-to-hand combat.

However, when the matter was carried out in detail, Rabinus discovered that the city of Wagga was surrounded by flat land. Not only was there no available terrain, but most of the ground was made of soft sand, which could not be piled into shape at all. In the end, the soldiers had no choice but to risk their lives. The arrow stones at the head of the city were made of wicker baskets containing baggage, filled with sand and soil, and piled up to form a slope. As a result, Hittius mobilized the entire city's immigrants, demolished all the houses where the Numidians had previously lived, and used the stones obtained to "build up" the enemy's wall by six Roman feet overnight. , forcing Rabinus to continue to pile up the slope.

Rabinus, who had no idea, called the soldiers who chose the front, pushed the "V" shaped shield cart, and approached the city wall densely. When he got under the wall, he raised the shield cart upright, and asked the soldiers to hide underneath and use shovels. He used a pickaxe to pry the roots of the city wall, ready to insert wooden stakes and set them on fire to burn down the barrier. As a result, Hittius was already prepared. He asked the craftsmen in the city to build a huge triangular iron nail, fastened stones on all sides, and tied it with grease, cloth rolls and hay. It penetrated the shield carts and turned them into piles of burning torches. The soldiers inside could not accommodate themselves and ran out one after another, turning them into living targets for the soldiers on the city top.

In this way, the four legions of Rabinus persisted in the siege for a market day, but still made no progress.

"Imitate Caesar's previous experience, cut off all the streams leading to the city and drain them!" The angry Labienus took out a brigade from each of the four legions to act as engineers, and prepared to do the same for two full days. Time is the time to complete it.

But then there was still no sign of surrender in the city - because the Hitius Party had already occupied the core temple, which contained several precious wells, and the gushing groundwater was completely suitable for drinking by humans and horses.

The two sides were in a stalemate like this. Rabinus, who was unwilling to give up, saw that the weather was hot and came up with another way - he threw the rotting corpses of the men and horses he had killed under Suyato City on the wild donkey trebuchet, and whizzed them one by one. After being thrown into the city with a swish, the Hitius Party connected all the hanging curtains in the residences in the city, and used wooden poles to densely line up on the top of the city to block the "corpse shells" that flew over from time to time.

As a result, the strange and miserable scene was that corpses were flying over the city wall. People on the siege side kept dragging the smashed corpses back from under the wall for "reuse", while the defenders at the top of the city kept using forks to throw the corpses over. The corpses were forked and fell into the city. Hittius coerced the residents to pile them up in a corner of the city wall. After they were burned together, they were dug deep and buried.

Even so, the plague still spread. It is not known whether it started in the city or from the siege. The livestock of both sides were the first to be infected and died in large numbers, followed by people...

Soon, Hitis ordered that all the sick people be locked up and burned down, including the houses. In the Labinus camp outside the city, the incineration piles piled high every day were filled with smoke. It was unknown whether it was the bodies of people or cattle and horses that were burned. The entire area around the city of Vaga was a purgatory.

After half a month, the only thought in the minds of the two generals was "hold on".

At this moment, Lepidus' four legions had all arrived in Utica and the old camp of Cornelius. The high priest specially built a command post in the old camp of Cornelius and asked the legion soldiers to build a permanent winter camp along this old site, which could be used as a fleet and supply camp.

Then, the herald brought the news that the Numidian envoy Celeste was killed. Several Utica booksellers also stood in front of the high priest with their hands down. There were several thick rolls of parchment on the table.

"What a pity." Lepidus said solemnly, "It would be great if Celeste could finish these two books himself. Now it has become a fragment." (To be continued...)

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