Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 344 Raid
Rhodes Island was silent in the early morning. The dim sunlight still shone on the sea, and the thick fog made it seem dead silent.

A small longship broke through the fog and hit the coastline of Rhode Island. After the first longship came the second, third, and fourth longships. One after another, more than a dozen small boats landed on the island without anyone knowing.

The leader was not Ivar but Cuchulainn, and the first leaders to jump off the longboats were also leaders—Astolfo, Ivar, Constantine, the gifted men sent by the Nubians to help, and the gifted men in the Syrian provincial legion.
At first glance, almost half of the leaders are extremely powerful and talented. Orville has invested all the talents he can mobilize in this raid to deal a fatal blow to Rhodes Island.

Not only the talented ones, but the rest of the crew members are also mostly elite warriors selected from the best, proficient in all necessary combat skills. Fighting one against three or even one against five in unarmored hand-to-hand combat is just the basic skill. It can be said that they are the death squad that Orville has spent a lot of effort to select.

He dragged the ship ashore with ease and hid it in the woods. Cu Chulainn dealt with the few patrolling guards around him by himself. Then, a group of more than a hundred people, carrying bottles and jars on their backs, quietly came to the naval port of Rhodes.

The Greeks had not produced many gifted people since the Heroic Age, and the population of Rhodes was not very dense, so there were only one or two combat-type gifted people on the island, and their strength was very mediocre. Such precious characters would certainly not be allowed to patrol, so the team with overwhelming combat power easily sneaked into the naval port.

They removed the wax seals or wooden corks from the bottles and poured the thick black liquid inside onto the boat or wooden boards at the port. They moved very quickly and completed the task in about ten minutes.

This was a gift that Orville brought back when he fought the Nabataeans. The asphalt from the coast of the Red Sea was mixed with grease, sulfur, naphtha and other things. It can be said that this was the prototype of a simplified version of Greek fire, and it was very flammable.

Cu Chulainn made a gesture to the people around him, and they tactfully left the scene, leaving Cu Chulainn alone with a torch in his hand to set fire to the naval port.

The entire naval port was engulfed in flames in a short period of time. The flames rising into the sky naturally alarmed the soldiers patrolling nearby. They woke up the sleeping Rhodes Island, and then the soldiers and some residents on the island began to put out the fire in a hurry.

Cu Chulainn was silently observing these people's behavior in the dark. When he felt that people were gathering and the time was almost up, his muscles began to swell and twitch uncontrollably. His eyes sometimes sunken deeply into his sockets and sometimes bulged out of them, and his joints twisted and trembled abnormally. The intense transformation process lasted for about two minutes, and Cu Chulainn once again turned into the kind of crazy behemoth in the myth.

He squeezed out indistinguishable syllables and howled as he rushed towards the crowd who were trying to put out the fire. It was a complete massacre for the unprepared crowd to encounter such a nearly mythical monster. He set off a bloody storm among the crowd.

Constantine watched from afar the slaughter of Cu Chulainn, with a flash of fear and dread in his eyes. He quickly came to his senses and called out to others: "Let's continue. The armory should be in the south. The island is so small, it's not hard to find." While the local soldiers were busy dealing with Cu Chulainn, Constantine, who was more familiar with the terrain, led his men to set fire to the armory, military camps and other places. Ivar had originally suggested burning residential areas and granaries, but was rejected by Constantine. Ivar knew that the other party had different ideas from him, so he didn't insist, and the group then started the next task - raiding the government of Rhodes.

But this time they came up empty-handed, with no one in the government courtyard. Perhaps the intention of this diversion was too obvious, and they had already evacuated early.

However, everyone was already satisfied with today's results, and they hurried back to meet Cu Chulainn.

Of course, Cu Chulainn in his frenzied state would not recognize any of his relatives, but they were outnumbered and forcibly held down the already exhausted opponent and put him into the water. After he had calmed down and returned to his original state due to the low temperature of the sea water and the choking, Astolfo carried Cu Chulainn and quickly evacuated.

Everyone left the scene in the fog which had not yet completely dissipated. Constantine went to Athens by himself and separated from the main force, while the rest of the people took a small boat back to the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor. The city was still in the hands of the Romans, perhaps due to the social activities that Cleopatra had previously done here.
-
There was a delay in regional communication, and Orville learned the news two days later. He must have been in a good mood about this - Rhodes Island's navy was severely damaged, and its army and infrastructure were also in tatters. This was definitely good news for them, because Rhodes Island could be said to be offline from then on and could not pose a threat to the Romans.

Orville is now located in Phaselis (Antalya in later generations, roughly 200 kilometers east of Rhodes). Most of the cities in Asia Minor along the Mediterranean coast are still in the hands of the Romans. He did not encounter any battles worth mentioning along the way, only countless harassment and small-scale encounters. Military staff estimated that Mithridates had at most 30,000 to 40,000 people, and their quality was uneven, which was not very comparable to the five legions on Orville's side. The opponent's main force is still staying in mainland Greece to recruit soldiers, and they should not travel a long distance to seek a decisive battle at this time, so as long as they do not split their troops, they will be safe.

Now Orville should consider how to get to the Greek mainland. The journey ahead is just as difficult or even more difficult. If the legionnaires want to walk there, it will take a lot of time, and it doesn't seem to be necessary now.

The emperor also ordered the Danube Legion to move south. The opposing commander also noticed that Byzantium was resisting Mithridates' offensive, so he consciously moved closer to the opponent's position. At present, the progress seems to be encouraging, and they will be able to meet up with the opponent soon.

The staff officers were fiddling with the map, marking various information and estimated troop strength data on it. Orville glanced at Trajan, who remained silent, and asked him, "What suggestions do you have?"

Trajan answered honestly: "Divide the troops into two groups. One group will capture Smyrna and other cities in Asia Minor, and the other group will take advantage of the fact that the enemy's troops are in the north and cannot come back to help to land in important cities such as Athens. I think that since the Rhodesian navy is now seriously damaged, we should be able to solve the problem with our own naval forces. You have been to that place before, and it is no longer hundreds of years ago."

(End of this chapter)