Three Kingdoms Eschatology

Under such circumstances, it was only natural for them to be crushed by the sudden and violent attack of the opponent's iron cavalry.I saw the rushing iron cavalry crowding down the rebel soldiers in rows like a tide, and then trampled over them, and the cavalry spears that stabbed out from time to time pierced the bodies of one rebel soldier after another.

It didn't take a moment for the rebel army on the left to be defeated first, and then before the cavalry rushed to the right, the rebel army on the right had already dispersed on its own.John didn't have time to care about these defeated enemy soldiers, and shouted loudly: "Quick, do your best to prevent the enemy from building the pontoon bridge."

His soldiers hurriedly found their individual crossbow guns, and hurriedly filled the last few rounds of crossbow guns on their bodies into the magazines.Then, regardless of their formation, they swarmed to the edge of the beach, rushed into the knee-deep water, and fired dense salvos at the pontoon bridge.

This time the enemy army obviously learned the lesson from last time, and prepared scull shields made of thick planks. These scull shields were covered at the front end of the pontoon bridge, covering up the rebel soldiers who were working later.With the sound of ding ding dong dong, the scull shield was nailed full of crossbow guns, but it failed to stop the pontoon bridge from continuing to extend to the coast of Apennines.

John shouted again: "Save the arrows of the crossbow guns, spread them to both sides, wait for them to approach before shooting! Everyone in my centurion follow me, and get ready to rush directly to the pontoon bridge!"

The soldiers then waded and moved to both sides under his order, trying to bypass the cover of the opponent's oar shield.But John himself wanted to fight desperately, and rushed directly to the pontoon bridge without causing a lot of damage to the opponent.

At this moment, John heard the soldiers on both wings shouting: "A ship is coming! A ship is coming!" John glanced left and right, and suddenly became desperate.Nearly ten ships of various sizes appeared on the left and right sides of the floating bridge.Those ships were miscellaneous, of all types, and at first glance they were not warships of our side or friendly forces.Although Fang Gan Ning's fleet also has ships transformed from fishing boats and merchant ships, they are all painted uniformly.There are also sails with a unified eagle pattern.This was not the case with these ships, so they must be the same enemy ships that were found earlier to smuggle enemy soldiers across the sea.

The crossbow spears of John's soldiers are almost exhausted, the Greek fire is almost exhausted, and the officers and soldiers are almost exhausted physically.The opponent used the scull shield to cover again, and now there are ships to help.John knew that there was absolutely no chance of winning in this situation.

With a desperate expression on his face, he shouted: "Brothers, even if you lose your life here today, you must complete the military order." However, now he is the only one left with a high fighting spirit, and the rest of the soldiers are obviously showing timidity. Yi, hesitated and dared not go forward.Some even started to retreat in small steps.

At the critical moment, John heard a muffled bang, followed by several consecutive splashes of water.He saw with his own eyes that the hull of an enemy ship seemed to be pushed violently by a giant, it almost capsized and then shook violently.Columns of water several feet high rose up on the surface of the water.

He looked into the distance again, and he was overjoyed that his Gan Ning fleet had finally arrived at the battlefield at this critical moment.John understood that there was no need for his subordinates to make unnecessary sacrifices, so he ordered repeatedly: "Our fleet is here! Hurry up, retreat to the shore. We don't need to fight any more, the pontoon bridge will be handed over to our navy!"

On the water on both sides of the pontoon, the ships of the two sides fought fiercely.Feng Yujun's semi-submersible boats surfaced one after another, setting up ballistas on the deck.Their galley battleships were on a rampage, like a tiger entering a flock of sheep, smashing a miscellaneous enemy ship to pieces.

The rebel ships were no match for Gan Ning's fleet in terms of quantity or quality, so the water battle lasted less than an hour, and most of the rebel ships were sunk and destroyed.Gan Ning on the flagship ordered a small number of ships to pursue, but the rest of the warships concentrated their firepower on the pontoon bridge.

The fireball dragged its trailing smoke across the strait in an arc-shaped trajectory, and ran towards the pontoon bridge.Most of them fell into the sea, raising a cloud of mist and spray, but a small part fell on the planks of the pontoon deck, setting up clusters of flames.The enemy soldiers on the floating bridge receded towards the shore again like the tide.There were more and more flames on the bridge surface, and finally they converged into one piece, and the entire pontoon bridge was burned into a sea of ​​flames.A few hours later, when the flames were extinguished, only a fragmented black wreck remained on the water surface, scattered away by the wind and waves...

Chapter 1047 Give me freedom or give me death

When the Strait of Messina was completely calm, Feng Yujun's main force also reached the beach.

John raised his hands to Feng Yu, and then replied: "General, my subordinates have completed the task of sniping the enemy's main forces across the sea. The fly in the ointment is that a small number of enemy troops crossed the strait by boat in an attempt to occupy the beachhead. We repelled them in the end. However, they did not return to Sicily because their retreat was cut off. Instead, they scattered to the hinterland of the Apennines. The subordinates have sent a small force to hunt them down!"

Feng Yu asked in a slightly surprised tone, "How many are there?"

"They started with 2000 people, but after this battle, there were less than 500 left."

Feng Yu nodded and then ordered: "Send my military order to gather all the cavalry to search and hunt them down. In addition, send messengers to nearby towns and inform the local governors to be more careful to guard against these people making trouble."

Douglas, who had been promoted to the head of the Second Legion, asked suspiciously: "General, there are less than 500 people. Do we have to waste energy to deal with them?"

Feng Yu snorted coldly and said: "Such a slave riot is like wildfire in the wasteland. As long as there is a spark that doesn't go out, it may cause a prairie fire. These hundreds of people can't make a big wave by themselves, but they are likely to spark a fire." The slaves also rebelled in the Apennines. So they had to be completely wiped out. If you know the details of the Third Slave War hundreds of years ago, you know what I mean."

Douglas nodded thoughtfully. Of course he knew that the third slave war was the slave rebellion led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus 300 years ago.

At that time, there were only more than [-] people who followed Spartacus in the rebellion.But later they gathered an army of more than [-].Spartak's slave rebels swept almost the entire Apennine Peninsula.In the end, the Roman Republic at that time had to mobilize two-thirds of the country's forces to counter the rebellion, and finally blocked Spartacus with superior forces on the other side of the Strait of Messina, which is where Feng Yujun is now.The rebel army was unable to cross the sea, and the Roman army gradually closed the encirclement and finally wiped them out.

After all, he asked John again: "They had 2000 people at the beginning, but did they retreat when they reached less than 500?"

John replied: "They didn't intend to retreat when they suffered more than half of the casualties. It wasn't until I summoned the cavalry that was ambushing in the valley that I defeated them."

"Then how many prisoners did you take?"

John froze for a moment before replying: "General, these people are very tenacious in fighting. The few prisoners we captured were all seriously injured, and now they are all dead from their injuries. So we didn't have a single prisoner .”

At this time, Feng Yu's eyes had already swept over the corpses of the slave rebels all over the floor, and found that their armor and weapons were very simple, not to mention compared with Feng Yu's army, even compared with the equipment of other regular Roman legions. Far from it.However, it was such a force that almost broke John's line of defense, and almost made Feng Yu's plan to fight on the island come to naught.

Feng Yu bowed his head and pondered for a few seconds before ordering: "Let Gan Ning cross two thousand soldiers and horses to occupy the beach opposite Messina first. Then let the heavy soldiers start building the pontoon bridge. We are going to enter Sicily!"

Feng Yujun's heavy soldiers immediately built a simple pier on the beach, and the long trestle bridge extended more than [-] meters into the sea.The cavalry began to form a neat queue on the beach waiting to cross the sea.Those refitted fishing boats and merchant ships in Gan Ning's fleet began to approach the trestle.But those galley warships and semi-submersible ships are still patrolling back and forth on the sea.On the other side, a large number of supply troops have begun to lay pontoon bridges on the sea.

Dozens of boats went back and forth to cross the sea one by one of the nearly 2000 people gathered on the beach.Feng Yu originally thought that the enemy troops on the other side would fight back against his soldiers who crossed the sea, and a fierce battle would break out on the other side.However, contrary to his expectations, this did not happen.It seems that the enemy forces on the island do not seem to have the idea of ​​​​repelling the enemy off the island.

These made Feng Yu nervous, because he didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in the other party's gourd.Now he knows very little about the slave rebels in Sicily.He only knew that the other party was poorly equipped and looked like a mob, but they were brave men with high morale and never surrendered.

Feng Yu's heavy soldiers built the bridge obviously faster than the slave rebels. In the evening, the other end of the pontoon bridge was on the beach land on the opposite bank.At this time, the war cavalry who were sent out to chase the remnants also returned one after another.As Feng Yu expected, they brought back many heads, but very few captives.

More than [-] prisoners were escorted to Feng Yu, and he wanted to interrogate them himself.Feng Yu scanned their faces one by one with his eyes, and found that these captives were of all races, including blacks, northern barbarians, Thracians, Mesopotamians, and some even had typical Latin human physiological characteristics.In addition, they are all very young, and it seems that most of them are underage.

After being swept by Feng Yu's stern gaze, many people showed a little timidity, and lowered their heads slightly, not daring to look at Feng Yu.However, there were also a few severely injured teenagers with deep resentment in their eyes, staring at Feng Yu with red eyes.

Feng Yu raised his head indifferently, and asked three questions slowly: "Who is your leader? How many soldiers and horses do you have? Why did you rebel."

Unexpectedly, no one opened his mouth to answer his question, and the dozens of prisoners present remained silent.

After a long time, a young prisoner yelled loudly with a modified tone: "Roman dogs, we will not answer your questions. But tell you why we rebelled and killed you Roman dogs. That is no freedom or give up die!"

A soldier beside Feng Yu went up angrily and raised his horsewhip, whipping the young man seven or eight times in one breath.The boy's body was already stained with blood, and his clothes were already in tatters.Being pulled, the skirt of the clothes suddenly shattered into pieces and fell to the ground.The boy's bare skin was also drawn out with bloody mouths.

The soldier twitched and said, "If you are not honest, I will skin you alive and constrict your tendons!"

Bonnie beside Feng Yu couldn't bear to close her eyes.Feng Yu made a gesture and said "stop", which made the soldier stop torturing.

At this time, Dian Qing who was beside Feng Yu asked, "Did this young man insult the lord? So you want to beat him?"

Feng Yu said with a chuckle: "He said that the reason for their rebellion is freedom or death."

Dian Qing tilted his head and asked in doubt: "What? What is freedom?"

Chapter 1048 Hannibal and Spartacus

When Dian Qing asked Feng Yu, he was taken aback for a moment.He just remembered that although the word "freedom" appeared in Chinese in this era, it didn't mean that, and it was a rare word.In order to express my ideas, I used words from my previous life in modern Chinese, so it is no wonder that Dianqing asked this question.

Feng Yu had no choice but to explain to Dian Qing: "Freedom is... not to be enslaved by others."

Dian Qing suddenly realized: "Oh, what they mean is that they would rather die than be enslaved. I thought their slogan for rebellion was generals and princes, and they would rather be kind."

Douglas said from the side: "General, they don't want to open their mouths. It seems that we have to use torture to pry their mouths open."

Feng Yu shook his head indifferently and said, "Torture alone won't work, it's more important to cooperate with psychological attack. Take them down and interrogate them one by one. We will definitely get the information we want."

When these prisoners were taken down, Feng Yu confessed to the soldiers in charge of the execution: "If you want to use torture later, you must pay attention to the weight, and don't kill them or maim them."

The effect of the separate interrogation was really good. Under the intimidation and lure of Feng Yu's soldiers, most of these prisoners in their early teens answered Feng Yu's questions and explained the situation.

Only then did Feng Yu know that their chief was Hannibal, and their second chief was Spartacus.But this Hannibal is definitely not the same as the famous general Hannibal of Carthage 500 years ago.Spartacus certainly wasn't the slave rebel leader he was 300 years ago.

It’s not even a coincidence that the two names were new names given to themselves by the two slave rebel leaders from Carthage and Thrace respectively.This is naturally to use the fame of the ancients to promote his own prestige.But it was not one of the two who started the incident, but someone else.Moreover, it wasn't just this rebel army that started the incident, but four or five rebel army rebelled one after another.It was only later that these rebel groups were wiped out and joined together, and finally only this group remained, and the leader of the rebel army who started the uprising also died on the battlefield.

However, the rebel army integrated by Hannibal and Spartacus swept almost the entire island of Sicily.Their troops quickly expanded to more than 5 soldiers and horses, and then captured the last official fortress in Sicily--Palermo.

Hearing this, Douglas couldn't help taking a breath. More than 5 soldiers and horses!And Feng Yu's side plus the two auxiliary legions that are not used for regular combat only have more than 1 soldiers and horses.He hastily advised Feng Yu: "General, the disparity between the enemy and our troops is too great. I think we should wait for other counter-insurgency troops to come before we enter Sicily. Now we only need to guard the strait so that the rebel slaves cannot escape to the island. Just off the island."

According to common sense, Douglas's suggestion is perfect.But Feng Yu had his own ideas. Instead of responding directly to Douglas, he asked the captives in front of him: "You have gathered more than 5 soldiers and horses. How are these more than 5 soldiers and horses distributed? What is the source of their food?" Where is it from?"

The terrified thin prisoner of war responded quickly: "I... I don't know about this, I just remember to follow the leader above, and go wherever the above said. The more people left in our team, the more people there were. Sometimes after fighting with the official army, the number may decrease, but it will soon be replenished by new recruits. In this way, when we started to attack Palermo, I found that the surrounding soldiers and horses were already crowded. Boundless. As a result, when we were resting in the camp, we found out that we had more than 5 soldiers and horses, all of whom were newly joined slaves. As for food and grass... I didn’t see anyone who specialized in transporting food from a certain place. I saw carts transporting grain with the army, that is to say, the grain was brought with the army. Wherever we go, the first thing we do is to search for grain from the grain depot, and the second thing is to liberate the slaves, and then encourage them to join us The rebel army. The third thing is that except for the free people, the rest of the Romans will be killed, whether they are ordinary people with only Roman citizenship or bureaucratic nobles."

Hearing this, Feng Yu smiled at Douglas: "This group of people is indeed a rabble. Although they swept across the peninsula, they still fought in the form of bandits. Don't say that they only have more than 5 people, even if they have 50 people. I am so confident that I will completely wipe them out."

Feng Yu paused when he said this, and then changed his tone and said: "We can't let them come to their senses and establish a solid base or even a country in Sicily. So now we have to enter Sicily as soon as possible to force them to maintain That rogue state."

After all, Feng Yu said to the generals standing around him: "The generals obey the order. John, you are still leading two brigades and a cavalry detachment to guard the Strait of Messina. You must not let an enemy soldier pass by. The sea. Gan Ning’s five galley warships will patrol the strait to cooperate with you. In addition, the guards of our army on the other side will also cooperate with you.”

John raised his hand and said, "Accept the order."

"Douglas, after crossing the sea, you will also lead two brigades, a cavalry detachment, and two brigades of auxiliary corps, with a total of about 500 people. Guard the bridgehead of the pontoon on the other side. In addition to guarding the bridgehead, keep our army's The way back is to cooperate with John to prevent the enemy from crossing the sea."

"Order"

"After the rest followed me across the sea, they advanced along the north coast of Sicily towards the port of Palermo. The goal of the first phase of the battle is to capture the port of Palermo."

As soon as Feng Yu said this, many people immediately objected.Douglas first said: "General, after the division of troops, you don't have many people left, only about 7000 people, and most of them are soldiers from the auxiliary corps. And you are facing more than 5 rebels. This How do you fight the battle. Even if you can win consecutive battles, but you only have 7000 people, you can't divide your troops to occupy the territory. Sicily is so big, they have enough room to maneuver, so you can't eliminate them all the time, and you will eventually wear yourself out .And they don't know how to defend, you don't know when an enemy army of thousands will suddenly appear behind you and surround your lone army."

Feng Yu smiled and said: "The commander of the army is very right, but you have not considered two points. Gan Ning's remaining ships will accompany me, which is the main reason for me to march along the coast. The second Although Sicily is vast and there is enough room for the rebels to move, but because they didn't deploy properly, they had to move with all the food and grass, so they didn't have enough time to move."

Chapter 1049

Sicily is shaped like an upside-down triangle.The Strait of Messina is formed by the upper right corner of this triangle and a headland extending from the Apennine Peninsula.The terrain of Sicily is high in the east and low in the west.Mountains, hills, and plains each account for one-third.The mountains are mostly concentrated on this corner where the Strait of Messina is located.

So when Feng Yu's army came to the beach on the other side through the pontoon bridge, they were confronted with lofty mountains.Fortunately, Feng Yu did not intend to cross this mountainous area and enter the hinterland of Sicily—the center of the triangle, but approached Palermo in the west along the upper side of the triangle, which is the northern coastline of Sicily.

Not long after Feng Yu's main force left the beach where the pontoon bridge was located, a few people hidden in the bushes on the top of a nearby hill poked their heads out, looking at the beach below the mountain and pointing with their fingers.

The leader of these people is Spartacus, the second leader of the slave rebel army.He has been a slave since he was a child, and he doesn't know who his parents are.After the incident, the old name given by the Roman slave owner was no longer used.Because he is a Thracian, he used the name of Spartacus, the slave leader who was also a Thracian hundreds of years ago.The great master Hannibal was in the same situation as him, and he also used the name of Hannibal, the famous general of the Phoenicians of the same family.

A confidant next to Spartacus said with a smile on his face: "General, you see, their strength is actually much smaller than we imagined. Your plan will definitely be effective in one fell swoop!"

Spartacus also nodded with joy on his face, and then said after pondering for a few more breaths: "Pass me the military order, and let the generals and leaders follow the plan!"

Three days ago, the leaders of the slave rebel army were preparing to move to the Apennine Peninsula.According to Hannibal's instructions, Spartacus led an army of more than [-] troops to prepare to go forward and cross the Strait of Messina first.Unexpectedly, Feng Yujun rushed out from the middle of the strait and stood guard on the other side of the strait. Not only did Spartacus fail to cross the strait, but he lost his troops.This annoyed him.

Later, when he saw Feng Yujun's land and water main force attacking together, he didn't dare to confront the opponent head-on.He intends to turn offense into defense and prevent the opponent from landing in Sicily.But when he saw that Feng Yujun was also building a pontoon bridge in the Strait of Messina, a bold idea emerged from his mind—that is, simply let the opponent's troops come over, and then take advantage of the opponent's main force to leave and approach the hinterland of Sicily. The army ambushing in the valley rushed out again, and captured the opponent's pontoon bridge in one fell swoop.In this way, our own side not only opened the passage to the Apennine Peninsula, but also cut off the return route of the enemy's main force, making it a lone army, which will definitely collapse without a fight in the end.

So he let his troops hide in the valley first, and waited for the arrival of the fighter.Now that he saw Feng Yu actually chose to march along the coast, he couldn't help but be overjoyed.You must know that the road along the coast looks flat, but it is a natural pocket.According to the trend of the mountain shape, there is a road section that is more than two hundred miles long, with cliffs on one side and the sea on the other.Therefore, walking on this road can only advance or retreat, and there is no mountain pass to get out.

He thought to himself that if he could block the enemy's army from head to toe, the opponent would have mountains on his left and the sea on his right, and the enemy's front and back would be the turtle in his urn.Unbelievable strikes cannot annihilate them.

Spartacus made up his mind, and sent a messenger to Hannibal who was still stationed in Palermo, asking him to lead his troops to intercept the trail in front of the cliff and coast in advance.Then, Spartacus raised his hand to the air and said: "Pass my military order, the whole army will attack, and the enemy's pontoon must be taken down in the shortest possible time!" The sound began to whine in the valley woodland...

At almost the same moment, on the northern shore of Sicily, tens of miles away.Feng Yu, who was leading the army forward, suddenly reined in the horse's reins and said, "Send the order, the whole army stops advancing!" Dian Qing beside him was very puzzled by Feng Yu's decision, but still ordered the soldiers to convey the military order to all the ministries.

After the five-six-mile-long brigade stopped, Feng Yu issued a military order loudly: "Order, the whole army's rear army will change to the front army, and the front army will change to the rear army. March to the position where we started!"

Dian Qing couldn't bear it any longer and said, "My lord, let's give up our original plan and not recover Palermo along the coast?"

Feng Yu smiled slightly and said: "Of course not. It's just that I expected that the previous enemy army might be ambushing in the mountains near Messina. Once our main force leaves, they will dispatch to seize our pontoon bridge and cut off our rear. road."

Simmons on the other side also questioned: "How did the general predict this?"

Feng Yu replied indifferently: "I'm not 100% sure that they will do this, but I think that if it were me, I would definitely do it. We suddenly killed the soldiers and horses, and it would delay a day or so, but it doesn't matter, the traitor The army has such an extra day, and it is still too late to adjust the defense and deployment. But if I guess right, then we can beat them once. The ratio of risk to benefit is clear at a glance, so if we want to know the date, we must fight first Let's talk about the pole."

After Feng Yu finished speaking, six or seven thousand infantrymen had all turned around and rushed to the original road.

On the beach of Messina, soldiers of Feng Yujun held individual ballistas, held their breath, or lay or crouched behind small sand dunes or low sand walls piled up artificially.Their large shield with two pointed feet along the lower edge was inserted into the sand, and a folded shelf behind the shield was opened and supported on the ground.

In front of them, shouts erupted all over the mountains from the majestic mountains, densely packed rebel slave soldiers emerged from various valleys, ravines, and dense forests, and appeared on a flat beach less than two miles wide.

Douglas also crouched behind the forefront sand wall shield, staring at the roaring enemy army without blinking.The line of defense he deployed looked disorganized, but it was roughly in the shape of a crescent, covering the sandy beach where the pontoon bridge head was behind them.

This formation was not created by Douglas, but taught by Feng Yu.Because Feng Yujun's main weapon, the individual ballista, is a quasi-long-range weapon, their tactical thinking has begun to break away from the limitations of the cold weapon era.

The slave rebels were getting closer and closer to Feng Yujun's position.After more than a hundred steps, the arrows shot by the scorpion crossbow began to fly one after another. At fifty steps, many people had already lifted their javelins over their shoulders and were ready to throw them. .With a slight muffled pop, a javelin hit the shield in front of Douglas, but due to the distance, the power was lost, and it failed to pierce the shield.Douglas still squatted there indifferently...

Chapter 1050 The Price of Freedom

On the beach of Messina, when the enemy army was only thirty steps away from our position, Douglas just yelled: "Fight!"

Feng Yujun's soldiers, who had already made up their shooting rounds, raised their bodies in turn like undulating waves behind the sand dunes, sand walls and large shields, firing the individual crossbow guns that had already been equipped with crossbow guns intensively wave after wave. go.

The powerful crossbow spears whizzed past the crowd of rebels, and the latter fell down one after another like crop fields hit by hail, and became extremely sparse in an instant.The survivors also struggled to throw away the javelin that was carried over their shoulders. A Feng Yujun soldier had just pulled the hanging knife when he was pierced through the chest by an enemy javelin.And the crossbow he just shot also shot through the head of a rebel soldier. The javelin in the latter's hand was only thrown halfway, but after his body fell to the ground, the javelin pierced into a comrade in front. the back of the chest.

The people on Feng Yujun's side, every time they fired a crossbow spear, they crouched behind the cover and fired the crossbow spear up and down.But the rebels did not have this condition.In this way, when the two sides threw each other, the casualties of the rebel army were far greater than those of Feng Yujun.Especially the Death Squad who took the lead in the charge, only two or three of the ten remained.

Spartacus, who was supervising the battle in the rear, was taken aback. He thought that the extremely powerful and fast-firing crossbow used by the opponent was only equipped by the opponent's elite troops, but now it seems that the opponent Common equipment for infantry.Fortunately, he was prepared.Seeing that the people in front were being harvested like straw, the slave rebels who followed behind the assault squad hurriedly set up the prepared scull shields and slowly moved forward.

The crossbow spear shot on the scull shield, making a dull sound, but there was no possibility of penetrating through the thick wood.Douglas yelled, "Stop shooting, don't waste the crossbows. Ready the crossbows!"

Feng Yu left Douglas with five ordinary ballistas, which had already been loaded with projectiles and pushed out from behind several sand dunes.A few stone bullets flew towards the scull shields at close range almost in a straight line.Amidst the loud noise, several of the scull shields were shattered and opened holes as big as washbasins.One of the stone bullets passing through the shield also blasted the head of a rebel without a trace.

But the offensive torrent of the rebels paused for a few seconds, and then it began to surge forward again.Someone even used a scorpion crossbow to shoot arrows non-stop towards Feng Yujun from the pierced gap.

At this time, the forefront of the rebel army, that is, those scull shields, were less than twenty steps away from Feng Yujun's line.Douglas roared nervously: "Fire bombs, get on fire bombs, we must push them back!"

Five catapults had just been loaded with another round of strings, and they were loaded with Greek kerosene bombs one after another. Twenty or thirty portable catapults were also loaded with smaller explosive bombs.Dozens of fireballs of different sizes soared into the air, crossed a high-angle parabola in the air, and fell into the crowd of rebel soldiers.

Fire oil splashed and flames rose.Countless slave soldiers of the rebel army were engulfed in flames, and they rolled on the ground screaming and wailing.However, the surviving rebel fighters were not afraid, but their fighting spirit was even higher.They put down the dilapidated scull shields, and launched a final charge against the enemy with a chorus of shouts.

Knowing that it was impossible to use the individual ballista now, Douglas shouted loudly. "Hold sword and shield, ready to fight!"

Following his order, Feng Yujun's soldiers threw away their individual crossbows one after another, picked up the large shield that had been stuck in the sand, and at the same time drew out the daggers around their waists and gathered into formation as quickly as possible.

As soon as they formed their formation, the crowd of rebels slapped on their shield wall, and the two sides immediately fought with spears and swords across the shield wall, and fought hand-to-hand.

The individual combat power of Feng Yujun's soldiers is obviously higher by a head, but the morale and fighting spirit of those rebel soldiers are much higher than Feng Yujun's soldiers. One of them died in battle, and someone will step on the former's body without hesitation later. filled this position.Feng Yujun's soldiers felt that no matter how hard they tried, the opponent's soldiers seemed to be in an endless stream, and they couldn't kill them no matter how hard they tried.

John on the other side of the strait saw the tense battle situation and wanted to mobilize some of his soldiers to cross the sea to support him, but he also thought of Feng Yu's confession that what he had to do was to prevent the rebels from crossing the Strait of Messina under any circumstances.He had no choice but to stomp his feet and grit his teeth to endure.

At the beach position at the end of the pontoon bridge, Douglas's defense line was obviously about to lose its hold and loosened.Many soldiers retreated involuntarily with their legs.Although Douglas took the lead in fighting desperately and shouting loudly to cheer up his soldiers, after more than an hour of fierce fighting, his line of defense shrank and became smaller and smaller, and was finally suppressed to the center of the pontoon bridge. Within a range of less than fifty steps.If the enemy can advance more than a dozen steps, they can throw various fire starters on the pontoon bridge deck and burn the pontoon bridge.

The several galley warships that stayed in the Strait of Messina also began to attack the rebels.However, the few ballistas erected on their decks have very limited effect on the rebel fighters who are not afraid of death.It was nothing more than the raging flames that rose into the sky and engulfed a few lives.

Douglas has never seen such a fearless army in his life, and he, who was confident in completing the mission, began to despair.At this critical moment, there were bursts of urgent horns sounding from behind the charging rebel army, and these rebel soldiers stopped as if possessed by a demon, and then turned their heads and ran away.

Then Douglas noticed that there seemed to be commotion behind them, and the screams and wailings continued to sound.He swept his eyes to the two sides again, only to find that the main force brought by Feng Yu had miraculously returned along the mountain root by the coast, and went straight to the enemy's rear.

The rebels who were caught off guard fell one after another under the intensive crossbow salvo and cavalry charge.In just a moment, Feng Yujun pierced through the rebel attacking formation from the side and back, and blocked the entrances of several valleys, cutting off the way back for the rebel soldiers on the beach.

Spartacus on the top of the mountain saw all this and stomped his feet angrily.In the end, he said helplessly: "The order, the whole army retreats!"

A lieutenant next to him exclaimed: "Second General, we still have at least two or three thousand brothers on the beach, should we leave them alone?"