Eagle Byzantium

At this point, Constantine Bertin and fifteen thousand Serbian soldiers were trapped in the narrow area between the two castles of "Bojana-Sofia", unable to advance or retreat.

"At the end of autumn, I will be able to achieve a great victory over the Serbs and return to the imperial capital in triumph to reunite with you and your children." After Gawain sent this text message back to Constantinople, he ordered the attack on Lesvorno in front of him. The fortress launched a general attack.

Then the leading soldiers selected from the three brigades on the front swarmed forward with woolen shields, light horses, rafts and wooden houses, braving the rain of muskets and arrows from the city head to build the first blockade, and then all the chariots advanced together. , after arriving at the blockade, they reinforced their garrison, and used the muskets and light artillery hidden in the carriages to repel the Serbian soldiers who attacked from various strongholds outside the city.

In the next step, the emperor gathered a total of twenty-four long perfume bottle artillery pieces, plus eight fire bear cannons, and four large Plani trebuchets erected in depth, and pushed them to the city barrier of Lesvorno Fortress, in order to The fortifications and chariots were covered by a single line of artillery forts, which continued to bombard the city walls.

The sound of artillery fire was endless. In addition to igniting, loading, and filling the rationed Khitan snow bags, the gunners of the artillery regiment also carried wooden barrels - which contained fruit vinegar, and kept pouring them into the hot barrels. above, arousing bursts of fierce green smoke, used to cool down and prevent the chamber from exploding.

The shells hit the horizontal wall of the Lesvorno Pass in turn like rain. Serbian soldiers were constantly falling to death from the shelling at the city head. Broken corpses and blood-stained bricks fell. The walls were erected behind the city. Many soldiers on the scaffolding had to risk their lives to repair the crumbling walls.

The artillery battle lasted for a long time, and Bourdin sadly discovered that the cannons he bought from Ragusa were not as advanced as Gawain's new artillery team. Gawain now has a complete set of technical manufacturing, research and development, and external logistics support systems, while Ragusa is just imitating the early type of his artillery.

The cannon brought by Bourdin is still fixed on the mount. Although it can be tilted, the angle is severely limited. In addition, his soldiers and workers did not take it into consideration when building the walls of Lesvorno. Problems with artillery firing and artillery defense: The city wall is now high, and cannons cannot be set up on it, otherwise the wall will collapse after a few hits.

Gawain's cannon improved the Khitan Snow, using the wet sieving method to obtain more powerful and safer granular gunpowder, and using bronze to make the outer wall of the barrel almost as thick as the muzzle, making it almost impossible to explode the barrel. And with the new gun wedge and trolley adjustment, the muzzle angle can be tilted very well - high tilt can increase the range and destroy the battlement towers, while low tilt can even be "upturned", that is, placed on the head of the fortress, it can be lowered Shoot at enemies approaching the city wall.

The emperor spent a lot of money to fire dozens of artillery salvos, making the Lesvorno Fortress vulnerable to a heavy attack in about two days.

At the same time, the emperor's troops also spread their wings, and continuously sent out elite skirmishers to occupy the hills on the side of the fortress, making a gesture of cutting off Bertin's retreat to Fort Sophia.

Over there, after Branas and Mero joined forces, they also built a ring siege position to attack Fort Boyana day and night.

It was at this time that Bodin's fear really came to his heart, and he now knew that his wife had also been captured, and the royal capital of Ohrid had also fallen into the hands of the enemy. In the camp, Zupan nobles were constantly fleeing or surrendering to the enemy, and the situation was getting worse day by day. So the Great King sent an envoy to the emperor's camp for the first time to beg for peace, saying that he was "willing to give up the crown of the Great King and the Bulgarian Tsar, willing to give up the entire Sava region, and only asked for the land of Za'tar, and then willing to recognize the Roman Emperor Stephen Gawain’s suzerainty will never be betrayed.”

But Gawain's answer to the envoy was: "You don't need to go back to Za'tar to retire. I have ordered people to clean up an unused monastery in the imperial capital. Bodin can stay there after surrendering and never come back." In addition, the emperor also Dadu said that he had also found a monastery in the Black Sea and Anatolia where Bertin's wife and children could live separately.

It means that if you try to escape, your wife and children will be executed if you escape.

In fact, Bertin rebelled once before, and after being defeated by Alexios, he went to Constantinople in person to apologize. But Alexios was not determined to resolve the rebellion in Serbia once and for all, and also wanted to rely on winning over the local nobles to resist the infiltration of Hungary and the Normans, so he put Bertin back.

Because in Alexios's heart, he will always look at and solve problems according to the old routine.

But Gawain is different, completely different. He now knew that no matter in Serbia, Za'atar, Dalmatia or the Bulgar region, there were great lords who imitated the Eastern Roman palace system and established their own team, and a Bulgarian priest also declared, "There are three kinds of worlds in our world." Writing, Latin, Greek, and Slavic writing, I do not think the latter is inferior to the first two, and I even think it is an honor to use it.”

Since it has its own palace, its own ruling order, and its own written language, it means that a new nation here is rising independently. Even if many Slavic tribes such as Megilin are still eager to be loyal to Constantinople, But the reason why people like Burdine are able to achieve success is because there is rich soil for rebellion in the place where they live, and they have to "eliminate the roots."

What Gawain has to do is to kill all these ethnic groups that may become independent.

He had to do this, just like he could not forgive Venice, because now he is the emperor of Rome, and he must have his own standpoint when thinking about interests.

The envoy reported back to Constantine Bertin the emperor's frightening and discouraging reply.

Berdin completely lost the courage to continue resisting, and he fell into deep despair.

The next day, Gawain's blockade was extended again, and the soldiers began to dig heavy trenches, approaching the foundation of Leswono's walls, preparing to dig new earth ramparts to serve the powerful indirect mortars. And between the hills and the car city behind the blockade, the emperor personally rode to the front line for inspection, and the imperial double-headed eagle flag rose slowly amid huge cheers, with the embroidered gold on the edge of the flag dazzling and invincible.

As a result, Berdin fled that night, and the hills around Leswono were full of Serbian defeated soldiers running towards Sofia Castle.

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The soldiers of the Red Hand Brigade immediately broke through the barriers and occupied the entire fortress of Leswono. The emperor selected several teams of cavalry to chase and intercept, killing and capturing countless local Zupans. Many local famous families were destroyed on this miserable night. Fathers, sons and brothers were killed at the same time. Several valleys were filled with once glorious corpses.

After escaping back to Sophia Castle, Constantine Bertin did not dare to stay for long, because he was afraid that Gawain's army would catch up and completely trap him to death, so he ran towards the city of Nis like a stray dog.

Soon, Gawain took Sophia, and Branas and Melo captured Boyana.