Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 51 General Attack
Tia also relaxed restrictions on captured gang members, allowing soldiers to crucify them at will.

The Roman soldiers might have sympathized with the civilians here because they were so miserable, but they really had no good feelings towards the gang members who were the instigators and had fought with them for so long.

They gave full play to human artistic talent and developed the traditional Roman art of crucifixion to a new level. They were keen on nailing people into all kinds of strange postures and then having fun with it.

If it was before this war, Orville might have frowned and stepped forward to stop it, but now Orville was almost numb. A real war would make people lose their humanity, and Orville felt that he was in this state.

In his previous life, he would have considered many of his suggestions and decisions to be absurd or even cruel, but now they were choices he had to make. If he didn't do so, more people would die.

He sighed and asked his lieutenant Valerian: "How long have we been fighting here?"

"If we count from mid-March, it's now early June, about two months."

"After the war, I will definitely give myself a long vacation, otherwise I feel like I'm going to lose my mind..."

"We all do, sir. I can't wait to get home. I miss the wine and bread of my hometown. If you want to come back to Rome, I'd like to entertain you. I'm not bragging, but Rome has many enjoyable lives that the people of Palphi don't have."

After all, they ate and lived together, and Orville didn't have any of the bad habits of the Palphians, so the two sides got along very well. He was promoted here in Orville, from a centurion to the chief centurion of the brigade, not to mention that Orville had changed his last name, so he was considered a royal relative.

"Let's discuss this later. If I go to Rome, I will contact you as soon as possible."

Orville had no doubt that the other party's reception was very good. He had already found out Valerian's background and found that he was indeed from a slave merchant family and his family business was very successful.

The other party's surname was Capua, and there was a story behind this place. The place where Spartacus rebelled was Capua. Orville didn't have the courage to ask. He was really curious whether Valerian's ancestors were the slave traders who trained Spartacus.

After chatting with Valerian for a while, it was almost time for their subordinates to take turns to launch the attack. Valerian put on his helmet and began to direct the soldiers to work.

The two sides are now competing in endurance. The Roman army cut down trees from more than ten kilometers away and dragged them over, and built earthen embankments under the defense of the defenders' projectile weapons. The Roman legionnaires operated scorpion crossbows or catapults to suppress the city walls with firepower, and a part of their people were assigned to manufacture and maintain these sophisticated siege weapons.

It seems that Luo Xiejun's work is more dangerous and tiring, but in the end, the legionnaires will have to fight with others at close range in the siege, so both sides are actually unsafe and are under tremendous pressure.

The war was not easy for the Romans at this point. The Parvi people knew clearly that they were fighting for survival and freedom. If the Romans wanted to maintain their morale, they needed discipline, money and a sense of honor, the latter of which undoubtedly cost a much greater price.

The Romans were beginning to feel a little overwhelmed by the stalemate. Tia executed many deserters, gave many speeches, and personally distributed salaries and bonuses several times. Only through these high-intensity activities could the morale of the entire army be barely maintained.

But fortunately, everything is almost over now.
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After the earthen embankment and siege platform were built, Tia tried to chisel down the outer wall of the temple, but found that the stones there were so large and laid so neatly and tightly that they could not be knocked down even with a battering ram.

Finally, Tia decided to change her approach and launch a general attack from three directions to prevent any more trouble. She didn't want to delay any longer. A small number of soldiers went to the third wall through the passage on the Antony Wall, pretending to capture the city area first and then trap the defenders in the temple.

After the guards' attention was attracted, another small group of soldiers with a large number of torches began to feint an attack on Herod's palace west of the holy city. The time of the attack was chosen at night, as the darkness and panic would cause them to misjudge the number of attacking troops.

Once the city is in complete chaos, they will launch a general attack on the temple.

The attack plan was perfectly executed. The defenders in the city were stretched to their limits and had no strength to cope with such a large-scale attack. In the slightly chaotic organization, a flaw was discovered by Tia.

First, the auxiliary army wrapped the red-hot arrows with cloth soaked in grease, and then shot the rockets into the temple, igniting the wooden buildings inside the temple. Then a large number of legionnaires began to climb the city walls with ladders, and Tia personally led the most elite soldiers to attack from the main gate.

The gate had been damaged by the fire in the previous fire, and now it was simply blocked with stones and wood, which could not stop the soldiers for long.

Knowing that tonight might be the last battle, the defenders in the city put up a brave resistance, but under the all-out attack of the Romans, they very slowly and reluctantly began to retreat. During this time, they kept turning around and launching small-scale counterattacks, but in the end they were forced from the outer courtyard of the temple into the inner courtyard of the temple.

The Romans had no scruples and broke open the gate of the inner courtyard of the temple, then began hand-to-hand combat with the remaining defenders inside, and the battle was still fierce.

Orville also appeared on the battlefield with the army, but he was not there to command the battle.

Beside him were the tribune Nicanor and several tall and strong-looking warriors. These were the "special forces" that he had carefully selected from the legion and asked Tia for.

"Please start taking action, the sooner the better."

Nicanor was still a little hesitant: "Are you really sure? This temple has hundreds of years of history and is a holy place for this nation."

He was the local tribune and had lived here longer. He knew what the temple meant to the people here and that the king was nothing compared to the temple.

"I know better than you that it took 639 years and 45 days from the time Haggai rebuilt the Second Temple in the second year of Cyrus' reign. But I think human life is more important. If we burn down the sanctuary, the morale of the rebels will collapse, and we will win the war, and fewer people will die in the city.

If they are really so pious to God, they should care for the world as God said. Do you see anything that can be called love in this city? So let the temple disappear along with the sin. Even if it burns down, a new one can be built. People are dead, they are dead. "

Orville's words convinced Nicanor, who nodded heavily, then left Orville and began to climb the wall with several warriors using grappling hooks.

(End of this chapter)