Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

To be specific, this should be considered Trajan's first battle in a sense. Before, he was just doing some relatively safe work such as guarding and messengering on the battlefield (although it was not that safe). This was his first time to seriously fight against other gifted people and fight to the death with them.

In terms of the results, Trajan did a pretty good job. He did not hurt himself, assisted Stilicho to successfully suppress the other gifted person, and created an opportunity for Stilicho when the other party knew that he was defeated and was ready to retreat, so that Stilicho successfully killed the other party with one sword.

On the other side, Ivar was not as strong as his potential competitor [Walker] Rollo. His personal combat power was only at the upper-middle level. He was okay against ordinary soldiers. When facing other gifted people, especially when the other party was also strong, he could only fight evenly. When the other party saw that the situation was not good, he did not risk chasing him and let the other party board the ship to evacuate. Orville could understand this very well, so he did not blame the other party for not doing his job well. He knew the ability of his men and actually never asked the other party to kill the general on the battlefield.

But the other side's retreat does not mean that all other soldiers can also evacuate. Most of the soldiers were left on the island. If they did not have time to evacuate, they would either be killed on the spot or captured by Orwell.

There are about three to five hundred prisoners. At present, Orwell's army can still keep them under control, but there are differences within Orwell on how to deal with these captured soldiers.

His food reserves are still good. If the residents of the town under the city live or die, it can probably last for more than two months. During this period, even if the reaction of the central government of Rome is slow, the decision should be made, but the prerequisite is that the number of people will not increase.

If the other side attacks Orwell every time, there will be hundreds of more people on his side. In a few days, the number of people on his side may double. Whether they can keep them under control at that time will be put aside first, and the food pressure will be very high.

So it is obvious that no one wants to keep so many prisoners. The problem now is how to deal with them-kill them on the spot or let them go.

On this issue, there are two factions in the interior, and Orwell listened to the arguments of both sides and finally decided to let them go.

The other side was fighting at home, and killing a few thousand more people on Orville's side would not have any effect in reality. Instead, it would arouse strong resistance from the locals, which was not worth the loss.

Orville did not negotiate with the other side, but directly loaded them onto the boat and let them row to the other side. Even if the other side saw that Orville's military rations were not enough, they had no choice but to take them. They could not just throw the prisoners back rudely.

…………

After this little episode, the battle continued.

After finding that the traditional method had not made any progress, the commander of the other side quickly changed his strategy.

In the fifth day of the attack and defense drill, the Greeks on the other side used something like a siege tower - about seven or eight meters high and just over three meters wide, like a moving wall. The soldiers pushed this equipment slowly forward, trying to move forward and break through the embankment.

Obviously this was specially customized. Orville had no good way to deal with this heavy equipment. He could only choose to step back first, put the other side near the exit of the embankment, and then use rockets and asphalt to try to ignite the other side's siege tower.

This is the method that Orville learned from the Palphian rebels, but with some modifications. The soldiers poured asphalt on the siege tower, and then the special arrows that burned red at high temperature would completely ignite the flammable asphalt.

This kind of siege weapon will be fireproofed. A thick layer of mud is specially applied on the surface of the wood, and then soldiers behind it scoop water with buckets. The fireproof performance was already good at that time. However, it was a wooden structure after all. With the persistent efforts of the Roman soldiers, the siege tower finally caught fire.

The opponent still showed good organization at this time, and quickly withdrew the burning siege tower. The ships that were ready around quickly approached the causeway, and the ships approached the embankment, and the soldiers boarded the ship and retreated directly.

After the siege tower burned out, the soldiers pushed up a brand new siege tower and started the attack again.

Obviously, the opponent was sure that Orville didn't have much asphalt and special rockets. They were right about this. Even if they didn't organize a new landing battle, those siege towers alone gave Orville a headache.

After several rounds of attack and defense, the Roman army had to withdraw from the causeway, and the Egyptian soldiers poured into Soros Island. They thought that the subsequent attack and defense would be smoother, but they were still extremely difficult.

The resistance on the causeway was at best a way to buy time, and Orville also prepared a complete defensive fortification in the back.

The terrain on the island was rugged, and he built layers of stone walls on all the passages to block the enemy, and also demolished all the houses on the road that could be used for cover, and used them as materials to build stone walls.

These two or three meters high stone walls posed a great obstacle to the attackers. Orville's long-range firepower was stronger than theirs. In addition to conventional weapons such as spears and slings, there were also a large number of bows and arrows or crossbows. The soldiers relied on the stone walls to defend layer by layer, and the soldiers who landed on the island suffered heavy casualties.

It was already late at that time, and the attackers did not want to fight Orville in the field under such circumstances. After taking down two stone walls, they chose to stop and withdraw, and began to urgently build fortifications at the end of the causeway to resist a possible night attack from Orville at night, so as to avoid wasting today's results.

When it was night, Orville did charge the position as they thought, but failed to achieve results. The two sides fell into a very anxious melee. After realizing that the other side had a firm will to fight and was well trained, Orville did not attack desperately, but just let the army retreat to the defense line and wait.

He also asked a small group of elite soldiers with a dozen people to disperse and attack the other side's soldiers on duty with bows and arrows or javelins in the night. The Egyptian side also responded quickly. The small teams of both sides often fought five or six times a night.

Overall, the Romans still had a certain advantage, but it was far from the point of crushing. It was a bit of a loss to exchange losses with the other side, but there was no way. Orville did not want to retreat back to the fortress so quickly and completely lose the only remaining initiative.

Orville was not in a hurry either. He relied on the layers of defense networks and various traps scattered around the islands to inflict casualties on the Egyptian army. Instead, the Egyptian army's attack seemed more and more impetuous, and it was obvious that the quality of the opponent's army was also declining. From the initial guards, they quickly turned back into ordinary soldiers, which made their attack even more difficult. Under the frequent harassment of the Roman army, they could only maintain the results of the battle, and the speed of advancement could not be expected at all.