Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Athens has been declining for hundreds of years. Culturally, it is still a central city and its economic status is also acceptable, but militarily, it is not very impressive. At least in the last one or two hundred years, Orville can't remember any beautiful wars fought by the people here.

At this point, Orville was still a little hesitant: "If the troops are divided into two groups and the distance is too far, it is easy for the other side to seize the opportunity to besiege."

Trajan asked back: "Don't you trust your soldiers? The Greeks are just a bunch of rabble. A reorganized legion can deal with at least 20,000 Greeks at the same time. If the two legions act together, the other side may not win even if they come out in full force, not to mention that the other side can't come out in full force at all. Mithridates needs to defend a lot of positions."

In fact, he understood this point as well as Trajan, but Orville's psychological pressure is a bit high now. He can't make mistakes that will lead to a complete loss, so his strategy and tactics inevitably tend to be overly conservative.

After thinking it over again and again, Orville gritted his teeth and made up his mind: "Let's do it"

——

After officially arriving in the city of Phaselis, Orville divided his troops into two groups. He took two legions and followed the navy to Athens by sea. Along the way, he had to capture the severely damaged and chaotic Rhodes. The remaining three legions were in charge of Trajan and Lucius, and the Egyptian legion was also left in place. Orville appointed Trajan as the temporary commander, and the order was naturally accepted.

After arriving at Rhodes by boat, Orville and others found that the situation there had changed dramatically. The reinforcements sent by Vespa had arrived. The first target they chose was the isolated Rhodes. They thought they would encounter a fierce battle, but they happened to run into Rhodes, which had just been attacked. They were landed by a large-scale navy. The will of the Rhodes army to resist was immediately lost, and the reinforcements occupied the island almost without bloodshed.

Knowing that Orville's next plan was to land directly on Athens on the Antica Peninsula, the naval commander felt that this was somewhat risky, but considering the current situation, he didn't say much and agreed to help Orville escort.

In this way, the navy, which was even larger after the merger, landed in Athens, and Orville began the offensive and defensive battle with the Athenian defenders.

Athens has a city wall, but the wall system is very old, and it can even be traced back to the Peloponnesian War. It is definitely not good enough to face the current Romans. It can only be said that it is barely OK.

Due to the naval advantage, Orville was not in a hurry to attack the city. After landing, he first built a camp. After waiting for two days to ensure that the camp was completely stable and impregnable, he ordered the army to start the siege.

There is actually not much to describe about the siege process, because Orville has experienced similar sieges many times, and this time is no exception. It is nothing more than the same steps-battering hammer, siege tower and earth embankment.

For the lower walls of Athens, there is no need for siege earth embankments. The need can basically be solved by using wooden bunkers with mud. Soldiers can directly use catapults and crossbows to shoot at the city.

The first to make progress was the battering ram. The sturdy goat-head hammer broke the structure of the city wall. The Romans held up their shields, resisted the enemy's shooting, and used pickaxes, chisels and hammers to remove the bricks and stones of the city wall piece by piece. This process was not even very difficult.

After the key bricks and stones were removed, the battering ram hit the city wall again, and the city wall collapsed. The legion soldiers filed in and began to fight hand-to-hand with the Athenian city defense army with uneven training levels. The result was disastrous for the Athenians.

The first battalion, which was carefully trained by Orwell, took the lead. These soldiers wore two layers of armor - lath armor on the outside and a solid chain mail on the inside, and there were many reinforcements to enhance their defense. This made these soldiers almost like walking iron cans. Facing the city defense army that did not prepare weapons such as war hammers and halberds, these people were almost impossible to kill.

In the narrow terrain of the city, these heavy infantry formed a square formation, rotated, and slowly and unstoppably advanced forward. After seeing that the other side tried to resist in vain, Orville persuaded them to surrender in time, guaranteeing that the surrendered city would not be looted, no casual killings would be made, and the mastermind was Mithridates, etc.

The general situation was gone, and there was actually no great meaning in the future to resist stubbornly. Many people actually did not have the courage to resist to death, so their choice was obvious: five days after the siege began, Athens announced its surrender and was brought back into the rule of the Roman Empire.

——

After breaking the city, Orville spent two days to clarify the situation in Athens.

The first thing was to protect important books and scholars. He did not want the incident of the Library of Alexandria to happen again (although the fire in the Library of Alexandria was also related to him). Then, the rebels who performed particularly well were captured and prepared to be transported to Rome to await the emperor's decision. What followed was a simple inventory of losses, disbanding the Athenian city defense forces and supplying materials, etc.

After completing a series of necessary tasks, Orville left a legion in Athens to block the Antik Peninsula, and he took the remaining legion to cooperate with the navy to recapture the Peloponnese Peninsula.

There were remnants of the Greek governor on the peninsula, and Orville cooperated with these people to recapture the land smoothly. Then Orville did not rush north to cooperate with the Danube Legion, but instead remained silent.

He always seeks to be cautious in fighting. After the navy transported several brigades from mainland Italy, he handed over the local security work to these people, and then he felt relieved to take his army north to deal with Mithridates.

The other side did not choose to fight a decisive battle with the Danube Legion outside the Byzantine city. Instead, they took the initiative to withdraw from the Byzantine city. Seeing this, the Danube Legion wanted to take advantage of the situation to pursue them. Mithridates led his army to retreat until the other side suspected a fraud and dared not move forward.

At this time, Mithridates did not take the opportunity to withdraw. Instead, he came up and began to send a large number of small teams to harass the Romans, making the two legions unable to sleep and eat. After a long time, there were really considerable losses.

It seems to be the common solution of these rebels. Facing the Romans, they all chose to avoid a head-on decisive battle and instead adopted a kind of sticky candy tactic, mainly to annoy the Romans to death.

It has to be said that this tactic is definitely useful in most of the time. Not everyone has the military ability of Aurelian to do bold and skilled things. Most commanders will only be cautious and continue to waste time with the opponent, with both sides competing with each other's strength.