Noon the next day.
The Anglo-Saxons had just woken up, and the Vikings and Gauls arrived as scheduled.
The three leaders had a big argument under the city walls, providing Grand Duke Andrei with an amusing spectacle. Immediately after, the three Barbarian leaders seemed to reach some agreement, and then the Barbarians, like ants, began building ladders and then attacked the city.
"Ha." Grand Duke Andrei sat by the city gate, watching groups of disorganized Barbarians rush up, and simply sneered, raising his left hand.
"Swish, swish, swish." Three rows of arrows directly pinned the charging Gauls to the mud. They wailed, bled out, and died. They discovered for the first time that being too strong could also be too tragic; they couldn't die quickly. From above, the power of the bow, the strength of the arm, plus gravity, made them watch helplessly as blood flowed out of the gashes made by the three-edged arrows. That kind of terror, watching their life force drain away, was more than ordinary people could bear.
Many died not from blood loss, but from fright.
"No retreat!" Brown was seething with anger. The other two forced him to have the Anglo-Saxons lead the charge, with a very good reason: they had marched all morning to get here, while the Anglo-Saxons had slept until morning, so their energy and stamina were abundant. With the two factions pressuring them, Brown had no choice.
This time, the three hundred men were just a probe, but they were permanently left at the foot of the wall by the arrow rain without even probing what the enemy had.
The enemy archers stood in a line, too many to count. Facing so many archers, the sixty-degree slope made it difficult for the Anglo-Saxons to advance.
"Send another five hundred men." No one dared to approach Brown, whose face was icy cold and radiating killing intent.
"Yes." A captain below responded, and then men from two ships charged up, one hand holding their battle-axes, the other carrying ladders. They rushed towards the city walls again.
After another three volleys, this time the enemy was not repelled.
"Again..." Grand Duke Andrei's hand dropped, stifling the messenger's words in his throat.
"No rush, haven't you noticed? Their 'path'... is very narrow!" Grand Duke Andrei sneered, watching them just barely get their ladders onto the city wall, then slowly and laboriously climb up to the top with their heavy bodies.
"Ha ha ha..." They let out mocking laughter, simply because the Anglo-Saxons were so ridiculous. Watching them cautiously climb onto the ladders like clumsy ducks was utterly hilarious.
"Front three rows! Precise free fire." Andre raised his hand and shouted. The Anglo-Saxons, with nowhere to hide in mid-air, were simply live targets. If not now, when?
Suddenly, arrows rained down. The more than ten Anglo-Saxons on the ladders had nowhere to hide. In that instant, at least fifty men were shot dead, and countless more fell to their deaths from panic. Because there was no signal to retreat—no, rather, the Anglo-Saxons had no habit of retreating—all five hundred of these men died at the foot of the city wall.
Brown was furious to the extreme, but found no outlet for his anger.
"Send men from three more ships!" Brown roared. Each ship held about three hundred men, so three ships meant roughly a thousand men.
Swish, swish, swish, this time the Anglo-Saxons, carrying over fifty ladders, finally made it to the top of the city wall. Unfortunately, the enemy seemed to be toying with them, merely using long spears to poke the Anglo-Saxons off the ladders one by one. Watching the enemy slaughter them like sheep, with at least five or six Dragon Scale Spears stabbing from all directions every time an Anglo-Saxon reached the top of the wall, the horrific scene of their massacre made Brown's head explode with rage.
"Send men from ten more ships." The cold Brown was unapproachable even by his subordinates, who simply responded.
Three thousand men once again fell forever beneath the walls of Red Leaf Ridge. The soldiers merely had to nock, aim, shoot, and then stab the exhausted Anglo-Saxons who managed to reach the top of the wall.
A total of five thousand Anglo-Saxons were annihilated.
"Haha, are these the Barbarians? I can take on ten of them!" a young Red Leaf Ridge militiaman, who had just been promoted, laughed, holding his Dragon Scale Spear.
"Kid, don't get cocky. Without a natural barrier, do you really think your strength and explosiveness can match those Barbarians?" The captain tapped his head, then affectionately stroked his Dragon Scale Spear, which remained unstained by blood despite having killed over ten people: "This really is a good spear, so sharp and powerful, truly worthy of being dragon scales."
The captain was an old soldier and a knowledgeable man; he naturally understood the quality of a spear. A spear's quality depends on its length, sharpness, toughness, and sturdiness—none can be lacking. For a Dragon Scale Spear, one person simply holds the dragon scale, and another holds a small whetstone. After rapid rotation and grinding back and forth, it becomes very sharp. Ordinary people and women can handle this. Ordinary steel, on the other hand, is made by adding coal to molten iron to increase its strength, then casting it. It has fine scale patterns for better grip and ventilation.
Thousands of such spears could be produced in a day. There were a total of seventy-seven thousand seven hundred seventy-seven dragon scales. Each long spear had a number inscribed on its shaft and was registered. Anyone who lost such a spear would face not a light punishment, but the grave crime of treason for leaking state secrets. Kailar's Pricilla had been gone for a long time, and the so-called [Devouring] punishment was now a mere formality, but hanging and beheading had not been abolished. Camelot, founded on knights, held the six knightly virtues in high esteem, and thus detested criminals. Thieves were punished by having their hands cut off, rapists by castration, robbers by beheading, and rebels by hanging their entire family.
Rebellion, regardless of the era, was the most serious and cruel punishment.
And the more than five thousand large Anglo-Saxon men were enough to allow tens of thousands of militiamen to get some blood on their hands, transforming them from greenhorns who would vomit at the sight of dead bodies, blood, and guts into ordinary warriors.
That's right, in Kailar's plan, these fifty thousand young men would be a very important force in the future! Plus the sixty thousand infantry guarding the borders, a total of one hundred thousand infantry, and one hundred thousand knights—as a seed, it's just barely enough!