Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 350 Que Yue Formation

In the mountainous areas of Asia Minor, a large cavalry unit is marching.

The young Frankish prince observed everything around him with curiosity. He was surrounded by hundreds of Frankish knights in armor. They were now in Asia Minor, walking on the land of the Kingdom of Pontus.

After he advised King Charles, King Charles did not retreat in the face of difficulties, but instead became more motivated and ordered a considerable number of cavalry troops to go to Pontus. Instead of taking the traditional route, they relied on the power of the Scythians to go downstream along the dense water network, and after reaching the coast of the Black Sea, they quietly took a boat to Sinope.

There were more than 1,000 of them, which was not a lot even if they were cavalry. It was just a token of affection, and Mithridates understood this very well. He only asked them to follow the army and did not give any strong orders. The prince was the commander of the Frankish army, and King Charles wanted him to exercise and gain experience. This time he was just a nominal commander, and the actual combat was in the charge of others.

In fact, he felt that he was already capable of commanding the army in person. The Roman Trajan, who was slightly younger than him, was already the commander of a legion. However, this was his father's idea and there was nothing much to say. He looked at the cavalry troops around him with some boredom.

The Scythians were not a particularly powerful nomadic people. Mithridates had to work hard to get two or three thousand people here. Together with the scattered troops, there were 5,000 cavalry here. The quality was uneven, and the equipment level was worrying, but cavalry was cavalry after all, an expensive, highly mobile and powerful branch of the army.

So after learning that the Roman commander was heading west alone, the Scythian chief was very confident. He also knew that the Romans were powerful and difficult to deal with, but in his opinion, when the numbers were similar, the cavalry would definitely be stronger than the infantry, no matter how exaggerated the gap in training, equipment and fighting willpower between the two sides was.

In the prince's opinion, self-confidence is a good thing, especially when fighting against the Romans, but self-confidence should not be excessive and evolve into arrogance. The chief in front of him has this tendency.

Mithridates' order was to harass, but he was a bit self-willed and always wanted to find an opportunity to confront the Romans head-on and solve the problem once and for all.

This is understandable. After all, he felt that they were riding on four-legged creatures, and even if they couldn't defeat them, they could at least run away. This meant that they were invincible, and a slight collision would not cause much damage.

As Auver's army moved further away from the Roman camp near Sinope, the chieftain grew bolder and began to make more frequent raids, which eventually turned into a battle, with the Romans forming up at the water's edge to meet the Scythian army head-on.

They formed their battle array along a river. The first row was not composed of infantrymen but a large number of unloaded horse-drawn carriages - these carriages had thick wooden boards and shields on one side for protection, and brackets on the other side that could be embedded in the ground to stabilize the body of the carriage. The Romans stood on these vehicles in groups of three or five, on guard.

The carriages extended from the left side of the formation to the right side, forming the skeleton of the position, arranged in a semi-moon-shaped arc. Behind the carriages were various soldiers in order - some holding javelins, some holding spears, some holding bows and arrows, and some operating small scorpion crossbows. It looked like a very complete formation, but neither the chief nor the prince had ever seen anything like it.

The prince discussed quietly with his men: "Is this a new tactic invented by the Romans?"

"It should be about the same. The enemy commander is the Governor of Egypt, Orville Flavius, the adopted son of the Roman Emperor. He has always been fond of applying new technologies, and his results have been both praised and criticized. I personally think they are pretty good."

"Then wait and see." The prince simply responded, and then turned his attention back to the battlefield. The chieftain also showed a certain degree of caution in the face of something he had never seen before, but he did not understand the tricks. After hesitating, he still thought that he could not retreat at this time. He began to order the army to launch an attack and attack the Roman defense positions.

Then, as expected, they hit a wall.

The Scythian cavalry lacked impact power, and their main means were archery and harassment. Even Orville's armored impact cavalry with tall horses could not overturn a specially reinforced carriage with five or six people standing on it. The cavalry could only rush to the bottom of the position and then began to hesitate.

Some people rode on horses and tried to kill the enemies standing on the chariots, but their mounts were killed by spears stabbing from all directions, and then they were killed by javelins or arrows shot out.

Some people simply chose to dismount and try to crawl in, but were killed with daggers by the legionnaires who were ready to go. They were completely scattered when it came to fighting on foot, and their equipment was not as good as that of the legionnaires who were wrapped in one or even two layers of armor. The result was self-evident.

After failing in close combat, these people retreated on their own initiative without any orders from their chieftains and began to try to harass the Romans with bows and arrows, just as the Parthians had done to Crassus's army in the Battle of Carrhae.

But Orville was not Crassus. His army had considerable long-range power and was well prepared.

Most of the Scythian arrows hit the wall or shield on the outer side of the chariot, not causing much effective damage. Even the arrows that fell inside the army formation did not have an ideal killing effect. The armor rate of the Orwellian army was quite high, and it was difficult to be effective relying solely on small-pound cavalry bows.

At this time, the Romans did not just sit there and take the beating. They drew their bows and arrows and shot at the outside world with bows or crossbows.

Leaving aside the auxiliary soldiers, Orville's legionnaires are equipped with strong bows and crossbows, which have much stronger poundage and performance than the ordinary bows and arrows of the Scythians. Although mounted archery has advantages such as flexibility and strong mobility, it is used on horseback after all, and the poundage cannot be too high to make it difficult to pull the bow open, and is inherently inferior in performance to infantry bows of the same level.

The Scythians could shoot at the Romans, and the Romans could also attack the Scythians, and even shoot more accurately and more powerfully.

Obviously, the Scythians had no chariot protection, nor were they wearing heavy armor, so the Roman bows and javelins caused them considerable trouble.

Not only that, Orville deployed a considerable number of scorpion crossbows behind the army. These heavy machines were efficiently operated and fired with the cooperation of several auxiliary soldiers and legionnaires. They had satisfactory accuracy, and each round of scorpion crossbow volleys could cause considerable casualties to the Scythians.

After a long siege without success and with heavy losses on their side, the Scythian chieftain's face was becoming increasingly grim.

(End of this chapter)