Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

The scouts could only watch helplessly as hundreds of infantrymen were annihilated by the enemy, and then hung far behind them, watching their next move.

Fortunately, the Germans did not seem to intend to attack the Romans' well-prepared positions in one go. They only intended to regain some ground during the water confrontation. After achieving this goal, they were ready to stop while they were ahead and return to the camp with their soldiers.

In their view, these scouts were not worth worrying about. After they crossed the river, they would definitely not dare to chase them forward. The biggest shortcoming of the Romans was that they did not have a decent cavalry unit, and they suffered a lot when fighting against the German cavalry. This has become a consensus.

As they expected, the auxiliary scout cavalry hired by the Romans did not follow too far. After the Germans crossed the river, they could only retreat in disappointment without further pursuit.

The German commander therefore relaxed his vigilance and ordered the soldiers to switch to the marching formation and prepare to go home.

But just as they were about to withdraw to the camp for repairs, they passed through a forest, and suddenly a large group of Celtic light infantry rushed out of the forest. They had blue tattoos, shouted various battle slogans, and attacked the Germans like a tide.

The Germans were completely unprepared for this, and they still maintained a long snake formation in the marching state. This situation was extremely unfavorable to them. They were attacked in the middle of the march and were cut off.

Having a formation and not having a formation are completely different things. When a well-trained army is suddenly attacked, it may be able to rely on basic qualities to quickly unite around the grassroots officers and form a small-scale infantry line to resist the enemy. Obviously, the military literacy of the Germans is not that high. They were dispersed and cut into countless small groups by this wave of soldiers, and could only rely on instinct and subconsciously hug the surrounding soldiers to fight stubbornly.

In this way, they could not resist for long and were quickly wiped out by the Celts. The remaining small number of Germans had lost their will to fight and surrendered to the Celts. However, these Celts did not accept prisoners in principle. Most of the prisoners were killed on the spot, leaving only a small number of people alive.

As the commander of this battle, Boudica silently observed everything behind the scenes - Orville could probably guess that the other side would try to escalate the war situation after getting angry, and he was ready to deal with it.

While the Germans were acting, Boudica quietly led people from the other end of the river, ambushed in this area in advance, and launched a surprise attack when the Germans relaxed their vigilance. The effect was quite good, and they won a great victory.

Although they lost about a hundred auxiliary troops responsible for fetching water and Roman legionnaires, the results were also very good. Boudica roughly counted the results of the battle. At least six or seven hundred Germans were killed by the Celts on the battlefield, and hundreds of people were captured, which was a great loss.

The Germans were basically picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelons. Even if they had more people, they would definitely lose a lot in this exchange.

And the key issue was not this. At the same time, Orville was crossing the Blode River with a large army and heading straight for the town of Hastings.

He had already prepared a plan for the attack and had been waiting for the opponent to lose patience and take action. Now was the right time. He didn't want to drag it on any longer, so he chose to fight the opponent directly at this moment.

Many cavalrymen in the German army attacked by the Celts took the opportunity to escape. They hurriedly informed the Germans in the camp, and the opponent hastily gathered troops to go out of the city to meet the enemy.

They did not choose to defend the city. On the one hand, they had more powerful cavalry and the advantage of mobile power. Giving up this point would be tying their own hands. On the other hand, the town of Hastings did not have any sophisticated city defense system, so it was more practical to choose to go out of the city to meet the enemy.

They felt that although they were inferior in quality, they still had a nearly double advantage in numbers, not to mention the cavalry units that were several levels stronger, so they might not suffer a loss in a real fight.

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The main forces of both sides were fully mobilized and assembled on the slope northwest of Hastings to confront each other. Orwell's marching speed was faster, so he occupied the upper level of the slope, which made the German army on the opposite side a little bit of a dilemma.

They couldn't just stay in a stalemate, but attacking the hillside would be a bit disadvantageous, and it would not be so easy to retreat directly.

First of all, any experienced general should know that fighting is also a competition of each side's confidence in victory. If the commander on his side is afraid before the battle, then there is actually no need to fight this battle. The people below will lose their hearts, and the soldiers will lose confidence in winning the battle, and the result will be disastrous.

Now Harold Godwinson has actually been trapped. Once the army is assembled, it cannot retreat at will. Once the army's morale and combat confidence are lost, it will be difficult to regain them in the short term.

Let's not talk about this problem first. How to "retreat in an orderly manner" without turning into a rout is a very technical thing. The enemy is watching from the opposite side and may launch an attack at any time. At this time, if the formation of the Germans is a little careless, the result will be disastrous.

The Germans' army is still the most unreliable coalition. If the coalition has a very strong leader, everything will be fine. There will be no big problem in leadership and command. But the three parties here are frankly unwilling to obey each other.

The Anglo-Saxons were the local natives, with the largest number of people and a nominal combat commander, so they were certainly unwilling to be inferior to others; the Vikings felt that they could kill all the local natives, but they had to cooperate with the locals because of the threat of the Romans. They would definitely not obey the command and dispatch of the local nobles. The fact that they obeyed a little was the result of Ivar's efforts to mediate; as for the Franks, although they had the smallest number of people, they were all the noblest cavalry and had the support of a big country. They were arrogant and did not want to be inferior to others.

The three parties were not in harmony, but there was no problem with chaotic command and low efficiency.

This kind of army structure was very easy to be seized by weaknesses and defeated one by one. At that time, although Harold had not read the art of war (Sun Tzu's Art of War), the scene could still be imagined.

When the friendly army is in trouble, it is as still as a mountain. Retreat and turn, it is as fast as the wind.

As for the last two sentences, attacking cities and plundering land, it is as slow as a forest. Harassing the people, invading like fire. Whether it can be demonstrated depends on the situation. In short, Harold is not optimistic about retreating at all.

In this case, there was actually only one choice before him from the very beginning - to attack the Roman legion position head-on.