Priests, civilians, and soldiers, they hid in the Saint-Germain Cathedral to enjoy a moment of respite.
They knelt before the cross and prayed to God for salvation. Originally, the grand mass activity could calm people's hearts, but the soldiers who suddenly broke in panicked and explained a cruel fact, and the holy church suddenly exploded.
Archbishop Herribo was immediately in a hurry.
Wearing a high bishop's hat, he scanned the panicked crowd. The oil lamps used for lighting seemed to be infected by the chaos. Countless flames were beating violently, and the drastic changes in light and shadow only intensified the chaos.
"Quiet! Don't panic."
But who can really listen to the archbishop's warning?
Because a fire broke out at the west gate of the city, people who rushed outside the church gradually noticed that something strange was happening in the west of the city.
The weather today is not very good, there are more clouds in the sky.
If the fire lit by the besieging army is strong enough, the sky can be "burned red". However, the structure of the city gate hole limits the intensity of the flames, but it does have some special benefits.
At this moment, Reglaf personally supervises the fire attack behavior of his subordinates.
Beside him, healthy pine warriors were constantly moving.
"Brothers, hurry up! Just put the wood in and retreat."
"Don't be afraid of the pain of being roasted, and don't be afraid of the enemy's counterattack."
He After shouting and shouting, I had to carry the wood myself and rush forward.
Once the oil-rich pine wood catches fire, it takes a lot of water to put it out.
The structure of the gates resembles a charcoal kiln, or in other words, the four gates of Auxerre are relatively deep and narrow. The wooden door of the West Gate is thick and hard, and some weak points are reinforced with iron sheets and bronze rivets.
Even if
a lot of pine wood is put in, there is not enough oxygen to support combustion, and its calorific value cannot reach the level of melting bronze. Chengmen Cave is not a real furnace structure, but the wood in the depths continues to burn, and the core temperature has reached an astonishing level - enough to ceramicize the soil under the city.
The bronze rivets heated up violently, and the city gate body gradually reached the ignition point.
On the west side of the wooden door, its surface gradually began to burn. The back part looked intact, but in fact it was already smoking violently.
Dense smoke billowed from the west gate, and obvious flames shot up into the sky like a small fire dragon.
At first, the defenders of Auxerre did not know how to put out the fire. They arrived late. When the first batch of defenders gathered towards the city wall, the fire at the city gate was already out of control.
The panicked civilians didn't know what to do. They hid everywhere in fear and refused to come out of their houses. The civilians hiding in this way brought many benefits, allowing the soldiers who calmed down and started to fight back to rush to the city wells more calmly and start fetching water from wooden barrels to put out the fire.
After all, there are still a thousand elite soldiers in the city, and the Auxerre garrison itself also has to go out to fight.ability.
However, they had long been frightened by the arrogance of the besieging army. If they could have a decisive battle outside the city, they would have done so.
In fact, Reglaf outside the city wished that all the defenders would come out, so that he would not have to work hard to besiege the city. With a decisive battle outside the city, he could kill the effective strength of the defenders in one fell swoop, and everything after that would be easily solved.
At first, some soldiers carrying buckets hurriedly climbed up the stone wall. As soon as some soldiers stuck their heads out, they were driven back by the blazing smoke. The bucket also overturned, and the soldier lay down and coughed violently, covering his chest.
It was as if the air was burning, and any move to look down above the city gate seemed to be suicide. As long as you took a breath, the hot smoke could burn your lungs.
The lower-ranking officers of the garrison and the knowledgeable people in the army all realized what it meant to let the fire continue to burn.
"Quick! Don't be afraid, just pour the water down."
"Idiots with buckets, don't rush to the city wall, hurry up and cool down the city gate."
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Other junior officers saw the bishop standing in the empty field behind the city gate still wearing a clear high hat. No one would think that the noble lord standing here can improve morale. If the lord has three advantages and two disadvantages, The city collapsed immediately.
"Papa, please don't stay here anymore." A junior officer simply knelt down, hugged Archbishop Hripo's leg and begged with a sad face.
Heribo leaned over and looked at it, and said expressionlessly: "Everyone will go to heaven, why should I be afraid of death as a promoted person? I am standing here, being bewitched by the devil outside the city. A scoundrel, don't even think about breaking the city."
Heribo was so righteous that his presence could not help the defenders at all.
In other words, the defenders themselves were in a hurry. They subconsciously thought of ways to extinguish the fire. However, the unique structure of the door made extinguishing the fire a troublesome task.
The soldiers on the city wall were afraid of being burned. They leaned back on the battlements that were already very hot and threw the bucket back with all their strength. Regardless of whether the bucket of water was effective in extinguishing the fire, the water was poured anyway.
What is the actual situation? Visibility was already very poor at night, but the blazing thick smoke from Chengmen Cave was deadly and also blocked the sight of the defenders, making it difficult to hit the burning point by blindly pouring water.
In fact, even if this bucket of water hits the target, it will be a drop in the bucket for the increasingly prosperous fire. What's more, a bucket of water partially covered the burning core and evaporated in a very short time.
Now it seems that standing behind the city gate and constantly pouring water on the hot and smoking wooden door is the only feasible way. This move is unlikely to put out the fire, but it seems to prevent the wooden door from burning.
The vast majority of soldiers are actually a group of illiterate people with no physical strength, and the lower-level officers are also the same as their own subordinates.
There are also craftsmen in the city, and they are hiding with their families. If there were any masons or potters standing here, they would definitely stop the defenders from their stupid behavior.
Throwing water on a hot, smoking wooden door seems to have cooled down, but it only causes the wooden door to jump repeatedly between the hot and sudden cooling. The continuous changes of thermal expansion and contraction will inevitably make the wooden door extremely crispy.
Even if the wooden door was not burned by the fire inside the city gate, when the burning tree trunks turned into ashes, the black wooden door became shattered at the touch of a touch. When the time comes, the barbarians outside the city will work together to hold a brand new tree trunk and suddenly collide with each other. I am afraid that with just one impact, the wooden door will be shattered into powder, and the consequences will be unimaginable.
Even if it is not splashed on the wooden door, because the wall forming the door opening is gradually becoming hot, splashing water upward will only cause the wall to collapse and crack.
Regraf has never done a fire attack of this level in the past. The action of burning the city gates was all in preparation for the fatal blow of the siege after dawn.
Unexpectedly, the late-night battle turned out like this. The scale was beyond his control.
The west gate was bustling with excitement, and even the Mercian soldiers who were in dire straits were in high spirits.
Bruno, Ariubert, and even
Baron Herbert. The three nobles did not expect that Reglaf would be so crazy. Secondly, they were happy to see the city gate burned. .
Two grain carriages emptied the debris, and a group of strong men carried axes to cut down trees in the nearby forest. Small trees and stripped branches were all transported to the entrance to intensify the flames, and the big trees were being stripped away. The branches were piled behind the wooden cart. The soldiers shouted slogans, and straight pine logs were piled onto the wooden cart. More and more pine logs were piled up, and a four-wheel siege vehicle was being assembled.
No one was busy burying more than 200 of our own soldiers who died in action. The corpses of the enemy soldiers were piled together and ignored.
King Reglaf of Mercia is with his warriors. All warriors from peasant backgrounds feel that they have been respected. Their morale is high. Most of the soldiers can no longer sleep. They As if immune to sleepiness, everyone sat by the campfire and wiped their weapons for the last time, waiting to launch a strong attack after having a meal tomorrow morning.
As if it is an instinct from the genes, the fire itself is exciting. Reglaf is creating a fierce flame, and even hopes that this fire can enter the blast furnace of the Kingdom of Ross, burning the iron ore. Also melts directly.
He ordered the army to continuously add wood, and the defenders behind the city wall also tried their best to cool the city gate.
There is a fire attack on one side and a water attack on the other. The wooden and stone walls sandwiched in between are being destroyed.
In fact, if Reglaf just asked for the fire to continue, without saying whether the city gate itself would burn down, the structure of the wooden beams above the door opening would become very fragile.
Although the four gates of Auxerre were arched in the Roman era, it does not mean that they can stand for thousands of years. It has an arch on the surface, and its interior has begun to be replaced by some wooden beams that were in disrepair.
The wooden beam at the west door is made of solid oak. It will take a long time to ignite it. If it is roasted by a fire of about 700 degrees for threeHours later, it finally began to smolder.
The fire attack continued until midnight, and the troops outside the city were still loading firewood.
Up to now, most of the besieging soldiers still couldn't sleep. Many people simply came to watch the flames, carrying weapons and criticizing the "Fire Dragon".
The wooden beams on the door opening gradually became fragile during the smoldering fire, and they were far from reaching the critical point of disintegration.
Regraf is full of energy this time. He will vent his idleness for more than ten days tonight and just give him another fatal blow tomorrow.
He stood not far from the fire, his back blackened by the flames, and his whole person revealed a terrifying sense of holiness.
Bruno never thought that his brother-in-law could actually play with fire. He walked over energetically, got close to his brother-in-law, and faced the fire and sighed deeply: "It's so crazy, the city walls will be burned."
"You're here." Reglaf said without changing his expression.
"It's here."
"Why aren't you sleeping yet? We will launch a general attack tomorrow morning."
"How can you sleep?" Bruno He smiled and shook his head: "Everyone is still awake, and many people are also staring at the other three gates. I am just worried that the enemy troops cannot hold on, so I simply rush out from the other gates to fight us."
"They dare not," Reglaf asserted.
"There is a possibility, and we cannot take it lightly. Wibert and his heavy infantry are staring at the south gate, and the two infantry flags are staring at the north gate. The east gate faces the river, and they Not to discredit jumping into the river. Huh, I dare say that many people in the city don’t know how to swim.”
Regraf was unmoved and said calmly: “If the sun rises tomorrow. After getting up, the wooden door has not been burned down, and all the wood that is still burning must be removed."
Bruno asked: "In preparation for our siege?"
"Yes. By then we should be able to break through the wooden door in one fell swoop."
"Oh, what if it doesn't succeed?"
"Then just hit it a few more times. We have to catch up before the enemy Break through the damn city of Auxerre before the army arrives." At this point, Reglaf pouted and shook his head: "I should have thought of this way to attack the city. I was too kind in the past."
"Mercy?" Bruno thought it was too ironic when the words came out of this kid's mouth. "Be kind, sometimes it is not a good thing. We may have missed a good opportunity to fight, but fortunately it is not too late to change now. I will tell my people to make preparations. Everyone should try to sleep as much as possible to ensure that they still have strength when they rob tomorrow. ."
Who can really sleep?
This night is destined to be a sleepless night for both offense and defense.
At about three o'clock in the morning, the defenders who were still struggling to support themselves on the city wall gradually felt that something was wrong with the stone slabs under their feet. It could no longer be described as warm.
The defenders still leaned against the blazing battlements and poured water on the flames and smoke behind them without thinking. Anyway, there were wells in the city and there was plenty of water.It won't be used up, but the bucket is limited. In desperation, the wine cellars of Saint-Germain Cathedral were opened on the order of the archbishop.
The sweet bright red wine is known as the "Holy Blood", and all the defenders fighting on the front line drink it. Drinking a large glass of low-alcohol wine does not make you drunk. Instead, it stimulates the spirit of many people. In addition, it is extremely sweet, which replenishes the physical strength of soldiers who constantly repeat heavy physical tasks of fetching and transporting water.
The oak barrels originally containing wine were converted into well water, and then transported to the west gate by wooden carts. The soldiers poured the water and instantly evaporated the steam.
After doing so, the defenders' "cooling operation" seemed to have some effect. However, not only was it not enough to extinguish the fire, it also caused fatal attacks on the hot stone wall.
The walls are rapidly weakening, and the wooden beams on the doorways have begun to burn.
The soldiers standing above the city gate considered that the front wall was heated, and did not care about the gradual heating of the stone slabs under their feet. Where is it just blazing? The wooden beams above the city gate would no longer be able to carry the structure's own weight.
The city of Auxerre was bustling with activity. In the second half of the night, the clouds in the sky finally began to turn red.
At this moment, the straight-line distance between the Ross-Auxerre coalition and the battlefield is more than 20 kilometers. If the army takes the ancient Roman route, it will need to travel more than 30 kilometers. A full-out cavalry assault can arrive within three hours, while infantry carrying a large amount of baggage can continue to march for a whole day.
With such a distance, and there are some hills in the middle, the existence of obstacles obscures the sight of Ross's reinforcements.
Furthermore, the Russian army has been busy marching long distances these days. Although people of this era are very good at walking, the seemingly thin farmers also have amazing endurance. After all, they have consumed a lot of physical strength and the soldiers are full. After drinking enough and sleeping soundly, few people pay attention to the sky in the northwest.
The last mountains obscured the view. Rurik finally recovered the released cavalry and learned about the situation in Auxerre.
He thought that if he set off tomorrow morning
he could basically see the city of Auxerre in the evening, and then meet his son when the sun was about to set.
He subconsciously felt that the boy Reglaf would leave the army outside the city. The boy would do nothing and should wait quietly for his father's arrival after receiving the news from the messenger.
In the early morning of a new day, mist covers the whole world.
After a whole night of toil in the city of Auxerre, the defenders spent a tiring night in fear. The defenders outside the city waited for their eyes and spent a sleepless night.
The defenders felt that the troops outside the city would launch an all-out attack after dawn, and no matter how embarrassed they were, they no longer felt sleepy at all when they thought of this.
Reglaf’s siege army was gearing up. Even if most of the soldiers had actually stayed up all night, they thought that today they should be able to break the city, revenge, make a fortune, and plunder. All kinds of thoughts were intertwined. Everyone waited. The damn wooden door burst into pieces after a night of fire.
Then, suddenly, something unexpected happened.
At dawn, the burning operation continues. When the first ray of dawn appeared in the east, only a violent roar was heard, and Ximen, which was struggling to support itself in the flames, collapsed completely!
The attackers and defenders never thought that the city gate could collapse after a night of smoldering.
The old stone arch structure was partially replaced with oak beams. If it were not severely damaged by external forces, the west gate structure could still survive for hundreds of years. However, it suffered a severe fire.
The upper stone slabs crushed the crumbling wooden beams, and together with the garrison soldiers above who were still insisting on putting out the fire, they fell into the flames of the city gate together with the stone slabs. In an instant, the injured defenders were engulfed in the fire. They screamed and struggled in the fire, and soon there was no movement.
The city gate
The collapse caused a lot of smoke and dust, and a mushroom cloud suddenly rose. The smoke and dust quickly dissipated, and the open fire continued.
Regraf’s eyes were bloodshot after not sleeping all night. He had already checked. The siege vehicle he had prepared was completed and he was just waiting to have breakfast to start breaking the door. Unexpectedly, it was caught in the fire. The west gate collapsed suddenly, and an area was engulfed in flames.
Those stones and rubble did not extinguish the fire. Part of the stone wall collapsed, and a shocking gap appeared in the entire siege. The presence of countless stones immediately made the siege vehicles useless. The fire is still there, and even if the soldiers are organized to charge hard, they are still charging towards the sea of fire.
However, this is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Eat? Let’s wait until the city is broken before we eat it again.
Regraf roared, and then immediately summoned the soldiers around him to attack the city and fight, now!
Thanks to the falling bricks and rubble, the fire is extinguishing at a speed visible to the naked eye. Although the overheated earth was unbearably hot, both the besieging army and the defenders knew that there was a huge gap in the city wall. When the flames extinguished, fierce fighting would break out around this gap.
There are still a thousand armored defenders in Auxerre. Countless people were exhausted from putting out the fire overnight. The thought that if the enemy cannot be prevented from breaking through the gap, all the soldiers and civilians in the city will be killed, fear and anger are intertwined. Together, they began to swarm towards the gap in the west gate.
A large number of militiamen were also gathered. Even if they were only armed with sticks, they had to fight the enemies outside the city for the safety of their families.
On the other side, Reglaf's army began to gather towards the west gate. Defense in other directions became not very important. Only a small number of personnel were required to guard it.
As many as 1,500 soldiers gathered at the west gate one after another. In addition, Vibert of Nantes, with 300 soldiers under his command, each wearing armor, was waiting as a tactical reserve.
In this case, heavy cavalry played almost no role. Beikon and other knights and retinues dismounted one after another, and prepared to fight as heavy infantry after breaking the city.
For the time being, the burning flames isolated the two armies. The fire and thick smoke remained, making it difficult for the two armies to see each other's movements.However, the loud shouts cannot be deceiving. Everyone knows that the other party is actively preparing for a fight. Once the fire is basically extinguished naturally, the battle will begin.
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