Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War

Since that day, the two sides have fought many times in succession. Generally speaking, the Romans have a slight advantage, but they also suffered a lot of losses.

In any case, Tia finally built a stable and safe camp on the surrounding mountains, with towers, walls and gullies. After launching several completely failed night attacks, the rebels realized that the Romans were more vigilant than they thought, so they did not waste manpower.

It is not time to respond yet, but Tia is making preparations.

She ordered people to level all obstacles before the city wall, that is, all the surrounding gardens, olive groves, vineyards and gullies. Only with a wide field of vision can they not be afraid of being ambushed again. She wants to level all the land around the city.

This is a time-consuming job, but they have plenty of time. This time they learned from previous experience. Only one or two large teams of thousands of people took off their armor and went to work on the ground, and someone was fully armed and watching beside them. The ballista and catapults were all placed in the open, a bright deterrent.

With this kind of precaution, the rest of the things went much more smoothly. The land preparation work was carried out in an orderly manner, and the defenders in the city could only stare blankly.

While they were busy with this work, an accident happened in the city.

Some people were driven out of the city without weapons in their hands, but the people on the city wall raised their protective gear and waved to the Romans.

The Romans who were preparing the land not far away realized that this might be their opportunity. There was a riot in the city, and this small section of the city wall was captured by the moderates.

Valerian, who served as Orwell's adjutant, quickly suggested: "We should organize people to go over and seize the city wall immediately, so that their first line of defense will be lost."

The auxiliary army recruited by Orwell originally had about 3,000 people, and now 2,000 people have been divided into various legions. After all, the Roman army is not an independent combat unit, they are more of an auxiliary to the regular army.

Tia gave him another brigade of Roman legionnaires and asked him to take these people as a guard to watch the civil engineering brothers below and prevent them from being hurt.

Orville shook his head: "Just let everyone stay at their posts. This is a trap. There is no need to go through it."

Valerian was puzzled: "Why are you so sure? This is an opportunity. We must give it a try. Besides, aren't there moderate people in the city who are biased towards us? It may not be a trap."

"Put yourself in their shoes. If you were the garrison, would you let the army that you knew was biased towards the Romans come to defend the city? They may be short-sighted and cruel, but they are definitely not brainless."

Although the organization of this city is extremely chaotic, they basically have an irreconcilable hatred with the Romans.

From the perspective of ethnicity, the Romans conquered them and made them pay various taxes. The Roman governor persecuted the locals more than once.

From the perspective of class, the Romans and Greeks occupied a relatively superior position. The local merchants and nobles were also supported by the Romans to oppress the local civilians.

From the perspective of faith, they could not tolerate this sacred city being occupied by the Romans.

Trinity, so in Orville's view, the local people's resistance should not be called rebellion, but uprising is more appropriate. It's just that these leaders of the uprising didn't have enough ideological awareness, and it turned into a farce in the end.

Regardless of their ideological awareness, they were unshakable in their hostility to the Romans. It would be strange if the city was so easily surrendered.

Valerian could understand Orville after thinking carefully, so although he still had some ideas, he still chose to obey orders and informed the Roman army not to act rashly.

The two brigades digging below didn't think so. They felt that Orville was a foreigner after all, and they didn't want the Roman army to capture the city ideologically, so they took the initiative to lead people to move closer to the tower.

As expected, the fugitives who were driven out attacked them with daggers hidden under their clothes, and the defenders on the city wall also threw stones and javelins at them. For a time, these Romans who didn't obey orders suffered heavy losses.

They turned around and ran towards the position. Fortunately, the Romans in charge of guarding were not in chaos. They repelled the scattered pursuers, but the defenders on the city wall cheered and waved their weapons at the legions below, laughing at the stupidity of the Romans.

——

After returning to the camp, Tia scolded the two captains at the collective meeting.

"Those people in the city are at the end of their rope. Every step they take is carefully thought out and judged. They are carefully planning their strategies and carefully organizing every raid, so they can occasionally succeed."

She stared at these disobedient officers angrily: "However, although we often win because of strict discipline and obedience to command, you people actually do the opposite and suffer damage due to lack of discipline, which makes the entire army humiliated. Have you been hollowed out by luxury and enjoyment in the Eastern Province, and only think about speculation and self-interest in your mind?!"

The two captains lowered their heads and did not dare to refute. They really took it for granted and felt that Orville did not know how to fight and had a confrontational mentality.

Tia was not angry because "Orville" was ignored, but because the "superior's" orders were ignored, which is a taboo in the army and is absolutely intolerable.

She stared at the two captains and said in a stiff tone: "You two, take all the centurions to eat barley in the past week. Remember this and don't do it again. If there is a next time, everyone remember that which unit disobeys orders again will be killed by eleven strokes. I am very disappointed with your cowardice and lack of discipline.

No matter how small and despicable the enemy is, you can despise them, but you must also treat them as fugitives fighting for survival. They will find ways to survive. This is a battlefield, not a place for you to go out and get experience!"

Barley is what the Roman army livestock eat. It is a symbolic punishment to make them realize that they have made mistakes.

Eleven strokes means that one lucky soldier is selected from every ten people, and he is stoned to death or beaten to death with sticks by his colleagues to deter the army. It was a very severe and uncommon punishment in ancient times.

Seeing how angry Tiya was, no one suspected that she was joking, because Tiya had already shown with her actions that she was a brave warrior who led by example, and such a person would definitely not tolerate any cowardice or disobedience from her subordinates.

Tiya also calmed down a bit, sat back in her seat, sighed and said, "The on-duty brigade should stay alert and not let the other side seize the opportunity. If there is any problem, please report it at any time. The rest of the brigade should have a good rest and gather their strength to prepare for future wars. That's all for today, let's disperse."