Chapter 278 Marching towards the territory of Segestica

"Roar!!! Roar!!! Roar!!!..." The soldiers roared in unison.

Maximus turned his head and asked Casinosinos: "In which direction is the main camp of Segestica?"

Casinosinos hesitated for a moment, and under the sharp gaze of Maximus, he raised his hand with a complicated expression and whispered: "Over there..."

Maximus immediately waved his hand in the direction of his finger: "Forward!"

The soldiers stepped forward, and their formation gradually unfolded during the rapid march. Because the fields had been harvested, there was no obstacle on the flat land except the village, so nearly 6,000 soldiers of the First Legion advanced forward with a frontal formation of more than a mile...

"Ding! Ding! Ding!..." The soldiers of Linkou Village desperately rang the alarm bell.

The people of Segestica, who were closer to the Nix army, also soon discovered the abnormality in the southwest and shouted in panic: "The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming!!..."

Thus, the peaceful scene was broken. The herdsmen drove their sheep and ran desperately, the farmers whipped the oxen and ran desperately, some pedestrians held children, some drove carts, men shouted, women shouted, children cried, cattle and sheep made noises... one led ten, ten led a hundred, a hundred led a thousand... Like a snowball, Segestica people kept running out of various villages with packages on their backs and joined the fleeing crowd.

No tribe or village urgently summoned warriors to resist.

On the one hand, the wide front array deployed by the Nix army was like a long iron wall, which put great psychological pressure on the Segestica people, and the Segestica tribe suffered a series of defeats and could not summon enough young and strong tribesmen to resist in a short time;

On the other hand, these villages on the plains had no wooden walls.

During the reign of the Skodishchi, in order to facilitate their rule and prevent the Pannoni from rebelling, the Skodishchi ordered all Pannoni villages not to build walls. Decades later, when the Pannoni became independent, the tribes like Segestica not only had no external threat, but also attacked Ardiy and occupied an absolute advantage. There was no danger in the villages, and the tribesmen naturally did not want to waste materials and energy to build wooden walls in the villages.

Although the army suffered a disastrous defeat and Andres died of illness, which made the tribesmen panic, an armistice agreement was signed soon. Driven by decades of inertia, the Segestica tribesmen still did not build wooden walls, resulting in villages being exposed to the Nix's front.

The people in the villages of Segestica had no courage or ability to resist the invasion of the enemy. The only way was to escape.

And most people fled in the same direction - the main village of Segestica.

As the power center of the Segestica tribe and the seat of the chieftain, the main village of Segestica certainly has wooden walls, because it was built by the Skodischi people as a military stronghold to rule this area and suppress the rebellion of the Segestica people, and its defense facilities are naturally not bad. After the Segestica people occupied it, they only maintained the entire main village for more than ten years without making much change.

Usually, when the tribes of Segestica encounter troubles, they will go to the main village to ask the chieftain for help. Now facing life and death dangers, the tribesmen naturally want to escape into the main village for shelter.

So, the people of Segestica gradually gathered into a huge flow of people in their escape and rushed to the main village of Segestica.

The Nix army maintained a steady marching speed, neither desperately chasing the Segestica people who were very close, nor taking the lost cattle and sheep who did not know how to dodge desperately, nor entering the village to rummage through the boxes and cabinets and take away the property of the Segestica people...

Under the strict order of Maximus and the leadership of the legion commander Carminus, they followed the flow of people in front, moving forward, forward, and moving forward non-stop...

When the setting sun hung on the top of the mountain, the sunset glow appeared on the horizon, and a sparkling river in the distance came into Maximus's sight.

"The Sava River is coming soon..." The reminder from Cassinos next to him cheered Maximus up, and soon his expression became solemn, because he saw countless sails rowing to the opposite bank...

"Carminus, you immediately send two brigades to rush to the two sides of the river bank of the village in front, and collect all the boats you can see along the river bank. Go! Go!"

"Yes, leader!" Carminus turned around to execute the order.

"Hagux, your cavalry is fast, send them all out and try to grab as many ships as possible!" Maximus immediately gave an order to the cavalry captain.

Originally, Hagux's cavalry had only about ten people because of the lack of war horses, but more than 20 intact war horses were seized in the previous battle on the banks of the Korana River. After obtaining Maximus's consent, he quickly assigned his old subordinates, increasing the cavalry to 30 people at once (in fact, war horses were also seized in the encirclement and annihilation battle on the Kupa River, but they were not assigned to the cavalry in time). In addition to the cavalry who served as messengers for various teams and villages, there were 20 cavalry who followed Maximus into the Sava River Plain.

After receiving Maximus' order, Hagux left two cavalrymen as messengers and led the other men to rush towards the river bank.

Maximus turned his eyes to the front, and a wooden village stood on the river in the distance. That was the main village of Segestica.

The main fort of Segestica is somewhat different from the main fort of Ardi. Although both are built on the riverside, it spans both sides of the river, with the east bank as the main bank and the west bank as the auxiliary bank, connected by a floating bridge in the middle.

At this moment, the village on the west bank was already in a state of turmoil. The fleeing people not only blocked the three entrances to the north, west and south, but also surrounded the entire west village.

The warriors in the village had just learned the news that "the enemy was coming", and the tribal leader responsible for guarding the west village was shocked and at a loss for a while. But soon the fleeing people came, and the warriors could not keep their own people out. However, as more and more people fled... blocking all the entrances and exits, making it impossible for all the village gates to be closed, the warriors regretted it too late.

"Carminus, the task of conquering this village is left to you." Maximus said calmly.

"Yes, chief!" Carminus saluted excitedly, but he did not issue an attack order immediately. Instead, he made an attack deployment after careful observation: three teams of 500 people were divided to attack the three gates in the north, west and south respectively, and more than 2,000 soldiers besieged the three walls in the north, west and south...

Although the Third Legion came in a hurry and did not bring siege equipment, and did not even make the simplest ladder, Carminus found that the village in front had no trenches dug and no stakes set up. The wall was at most three meters high, and the attackers could go straight to the wall. While the defenders were distracted by the fleeing people, they could let the soldiers set up a crossbow team under the cover of the crossbow team. Human wall, climbing over the wooden wall...

After the attack order was issued, the long "iron wall" soon split into six columns and rushed towards the western village of Segestica from all directions...

The terrified people of Segestica, who had gathered in front of the village, were completely furious...

In fact, yesterday, Pekot led his troops to hide in the dense forest and then raided the Segestica army that was wading across the river, causing its defeat. Some of the defeated soldiers escaped the pursuit of the Nix soldiers. Because the enemy was blocking them in front, they did not dare to return to the battlefield, but fled back to their homes. This is why the news of "Segestica's army failed again" spread in the territory, and the people began to panic.

Fortunately, the tribal leaders and patriarchs who stayed in the territory comforted them and told them: The Segestica army was only auxiliary, and the armies of the four large tribes of Brochi, Mazii, Disione, and Peruste were the main force of the attack. The coalition they formed was not something that the Nix people could stop.

The panic of the people was eliminated, and the only thing left was worry, whether there were any relatives of theirs among the casualties of the Segestica warriors in the Nix raid.

Most of the remaining Segestica nobles believed that the powerful Pannonian tribal coalition would win the final victory, and they could remain calm about the failure of their own tribal army, but another piece of news brought back by the defeated soldiers made them feel uneasy: Kabudes might have died in the Kupa River!

The happiest person about this was Pricas, who realized that the opportunity for Andres' son to regain the position of the chief had come. At the same time, he became more vigilant about the war in the south. After all, he had participated in the swamp battle and knew the strength of the Nix.

He sent his confidants to keep an eye on the movements in the west. Therefore, in the main camp of Segestica, he was the first tribal leader to learn about the invasion of the territory by the Nix army. Feeling the urgency of the situation, he immediately summoned some trusted people in the main camp and went to meet the tribal elders appointed by Kabudes to stay in the main camp of Segestica before he led his army away, under the pretext of "urgent matters need to be discussed". He took the opportunity to knock him out and imprisoned him.

However, in order to prevent accidents after he left, the cautious Kabudes also made some arrangements in the main camp. In order to eliminate these backhands and completely control the entire East Camp, Pricas took advantage of the chaos in the East Camp caused by the news of the invasion of the Nix army and took actions one after another to capture and imprison Kabudes' confidants one by one, and finally controlled the entire East Camp.

But at this time, the cries for help coming from the West Village became clearer and more shrill. The fleeing people rushed to the floating bridge, pushing and shoving each other, completely disregarding the friendship of their compatriots. People kept falling into the river... The order in the West Village had been completely out of control because the Knyx people had attacked the city.