Outside the east gate of Xilotepec City, Xiulote in the army carefully observed the width, thickness, and materials of the city wall, and concluded seriously. After the last conversation, Xiulote's stressed heart finally felt comfortable.
The distance between him and Avitsotl has also become much closer.
"Of course! If Xilotepec was easy to fight and was so close to us, it would have been destroyed by a crusade decades ago, and it wouldn't be able to wait until today."
Avitsotl spoke with a smile. He liked to stay with Shulot, who had no sense of danger, which made him feel a rare kind of relaxation.
"After all these years of fighting, what can be left in the north of the alliance are all hard-handed stones!..."
"Avit, have you noticed the section of the city wall?"
Shulot concentrated his attention and continued to study seriously.
"It's a polymer of stones and clay. It's not loose at all after being washed away by the rain?"
"Oh, that should be a binder mixed with corn mortar and lime."
Hearing this, Avitt also became more serious.
"I remember, when I was supervising the craftsmen to add to the pyramid, I saw them using it. This kind of mortar needs to be made from grain, which is very expensive!"
"Corn mortar? If so, it is similar to glutinous rice mortar, and much harder than Sanhe soil... It is impossible to dig the city foundation under the current situation."
"What is glutinous rice? Digging the city foundation?"
Hearing this, Avitt asked with a smile.
"Xulot, why do you have such an interesting idea? Do you want to use a stone ax to cut through a city wall that is nearly ten steps wide?"
Xiulote was speechless for a moment and shook his head. The Aztecs now had neither iron pickaxes nor copper pickaxes, only perishable stone and wooden tools on hand.
"Then how do our alliance's legions usually attack a city?"
Shulot pondered for a while and asked Avitt beside him.
"God bless you! If the city wall is not high, the warriors will ask the levies to pile dirt under the city, and then charge directly up. For example, some small towns of the Miztecs in the south are easy to defeat."
Avitt looked leisurely, recalling the past battlefields.
"As for the current situation, where the city wall is too high and thick, we usually don't attack directly, but just siege the city! Cut off water, food, and salt. After a few months of siege, the city will surrender."
"Avit, our army is ten times that of the city! We can just build a ladder and climb up like ants to attack the city."
"Ha! Using ladders to storm, the losses are too great. In the storm, the village militia only consumes firewood, which is almost useless. Their morale is too low, it is difficult to climb up and break through the defense line of the Otomi warriors. In the words of the alliance warriors
, the casualties would be too great. In the face of stones or javelins falling from the city head, a powerful eagle warrior is almost as fragile as an ordinary village soldier. Moreover, the opponent's strong men can also help defend the city. When defending the city
Can be used as half a samurai."
"Don't we have a legion of senior warriors? This kind of elite infantry can fight to the death at the top of the city... Two thousand Jaguars and Eagles, together with six thousand senior warriors, have invaded the city! The militia on the city must have
If you can't resist it, at most a thousand people will be killed, and then you can break the city!"
Hearing these words, Avitt turned his head and looked at Shulot with incredible eyes.
"Xulot, are you crazy? Are you using jaguars and eagle warriors to attack the city? They are all military nobles, the core of the alliance to suppress the states! This is not the same country as Tlaxcala or the Tarasco people.
The war is just a succession war to force tribute. If hundreds of military nobles die in this kind of city-state crusade, then the king should stop fighting and prepare to go back and quell the rebellion!"
Hearing this, Hulot lowered his head and thought for a while. If the King of Poland killed five hundred noble knights in a battle against the Crimean Tatars... well, pretend I didn't think about it.
The wind blew and the battlefield was noisy. Shulot continued to look at the city wall, and the surrounding warriors began to howl loudly to intimidate the enemies in the city. They hit their shields with war clubs, making a fierce banging sound. The levies in the rear
They also began to shout loudly, with murderous intent. Not far away, the head of Suiqiu City was panicked for a while. Then, the defenders slowly stabilized under the pressure of noble warriors and priests.
In this medieval battlefield with no artillery, no turrets, no catapults, and even no long-range suppression by excellent archers, the attackers needed to unilaterally withstand the unbridled firepower from the city. Therefore, attacking a fortified city became a task.
An extremely difficult thing.
Relying on village warriors with low morale and insufficient training, it is almost impossible to storm a large city-state guarded by tens of thousands of people. The elite city-state warriors are the core of the alliance's strength and cannot be consumed at will in such a tribute war.
All in all, the most common method is a long siege.
"Xulot, do you have any other ideas?"
Avitt turned his head. There was nothing interesting to see on the battlefield. He looked curiously at Shulot, this young nephew who often had "wonderful thoughts" or "random thoughts".
"Well...the land here is soft and there are not many rocks. Maybe we can dig a tunnel and break into the city directly?"
"Dig a tunnel? You mean, dig a road underground and cross the city wall? Well, it sounds feasible!"
Avitt simulated the excavation scene in his mind.
"How deep should we dig? How wide should the passage be? How to determine the direction underground? How long can we dig with a stone shovel in a day? How to avoid being discovered by the other party?..."
"Um..."
Shulot thought for a while and determined that he had not read a book with specific instructions on how to dig a siege tunnel. He was silent for a while and said softly.
"We can try the specific details... or we can ask a miner."
"Ha ha!"
Avitt smiled and hid this suggestion in his mind for the time being. His expression began to look a little serious.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Then what else can you do?"
"Well... maybe, we can design a simple catapult! The range only needs to exceed the bow and arrow at the top of the city. The catapult can throw stones weighing several kilograms and hit the city wall directly!"
Shulot pondered for a moment and quickly remembered the most classic catapult.
"Oh? Catapult... I know how to throw stones. What is a catapult?"
"The car is..."
Hearing this, Shulot was speechless, and it was hard to describe for a moment.
"A car is a load-bearing device with two or four wheels that can be pushed or pulled."
"So what is a wheel?"
"..."
This time, Shulot had a headache. He pulled his hair and explained the shape and use of the wheel with words and gestures.
Soon, Avitt reacted first.
"Oh! It turns out to be that kind of toy made by the Mayans! I saw it in the market in the capital. This kind of wheeled cart can be pushed and played in the square under the big temple. But if you go out of the city, there are everywhere
How can mountains, trees, or wheeled vehicles compare to the speed of humans?"
"No! Avitt, if we have enough metal tools, we can cut down the trees and build stone roads between the mountains and the forest. Then, relying on wheeled carts, city-states can travel quickly. And with this
With fast transportation, the frontier effectively ruled by the alliance can be expanded to the Huastec, Miztec, and even further Zapotec!"
"Well, it's a good idea! Roads can indeed expand the territory of the alliance's stable rule. But, you said 'fast'... pushing a wheeled cart by hand, apart from being able to transport more things, no one should be able to run faster!"
Indeed, there are no camels in Central America yet. Maybe we can send people to North America to tame bison, or get alpacas from South America to pull carts? Shulot thought silently, his thoughts drifting into the distance, with an unknown yearning.
"Haha! Don't think too far ahead. Xiulote, how should the catapult be designed?"
Avitt is an extremely pragmatic person. He smiled and turned the topic back to the siege.
"Well...let me try to draw a picture."
Shulot found a branch, squatted on the wet soil, and wrote and drew. Avitt stood beside him, watching patiently. One was wearing a Tengu priest robe, the other was wearing a Sunstone commander's cloak, and the two
The high-ranking nobles were studying the siege equipment by themselves. The warriors walking around did not disturb them.
"It's definitely impossible to get a complex return cannon. The Romans seemed to have a torsion trebuchet? Torsion, torsion, it sounds like it requires beef tendons or elastic ropes. We don't have it, and we can't get it."
"I'm looking for the original one, well, the original one, Cao Cao's trebuchet of the Three Kingdoms. I remember seeing it in the old Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It should be a center bracket with a rotatable lever on it, and the short-headed man pulls it with a rope.
The top of the long head throws stones..."
Shulot thought hard for a long time and finally drew the simplest human-powered artillery cart. Unfortunately, he had read so many time-travel novels before and never really studied the structure of the trebuchet.
.
Avitt looked at the abstract shapes on the ground, pondered them carefully, and simulated them in his mind.
"The short head drives the long head, and the long head launches stones. It seems to be feasible! This process is a bit like a sling, which also rotates to throw stones."
"Xulot, it takes several years of training to ensure the accuracy of the sling. Then how can you ensure the accuracy of the catapult?"
"Well... the shape should be fixed, and then the configuration should be fixed."
Hulot recalled the simple description in the novel.
"But we still have to try how to do the specific details! Why not ask some carpenters?"
The two were discussing passionately when they saw the city gate in front of them suddenly opened and an Otomi priest wearing a feather crown walked out. He looked solemn, held a scepter high, and wore a rare black and white cloak. Among the tens of thousands of warriors in the city-state,
Under his gaze, he walked slowly towards the camp from Suiqiu City.