Herald of Steel

Chapter 703 Fourth Month Against Thesalie

After Philips managed to inveigle and gain the support of two of the strongest nobles, the rest of the things were easy.

The decision was very quickly made to send the ten thousand men as soon as possible to aid Lord Ponticus. 

And then to speed up the process even more, the plan was modified slightly in regards to the type of the men sent.

Meaning the force would also have men from other nobles to make the numbers, rather than the previous decision to send from only Mithriditus's and Lord Theony's numbers.

With so many nobles giving each of the men they had right on hand, reaching the ten thousand number would certainly be much faster.

As for the problem of supplies- well that was easy, once the boats dropped the soldiers off, they could return to the capital to pick up the goods and then make the trip again.

It was not like Lord Ponticus needed those boats for anything.

The whole thing would at most three to four weeks.

And Lord Ponticus certainly had enough food to feed an extra ten thousand mouths for a month.

"Your Majesty. We will see it within the month done as instructed," Hence the court unanimously declared

While Perseus, seeing how his son was able to subdue and convince the nobles, felt a surge of pride.

It was the pride of a successful father.

He felt he was really blessed with a good son.

And was convinced that it was the correct decision to hand over much of the realm's everyday ruling to his successor.

Philips was like a fish in the water here.

So with the courts all agreed, Perseus announced this, 

"Good. Then I will name Lord Theony commander of the lead ten thousand men."

"While Philips can go with the supplies and the rest of the men!"

Perseus had favored Mithriditus by taking the man with him to Zanzan.

And now he had favored Lord Theony to do this, thus balancing the playing field.

While Crown Prince Philips was given the relatively safe task of delivering supplies, as well as the chance to rake up some military credit from inside the best fort Tibias had to offer.

The seriousness and speed with which Tibias responded was very good news for Lord Ponticus and quite bad news for Alexander.

If the garrison was allowed to rise from thirty to fifty thousand, then even with all the walls, the catapults, the fires, and siege towers, the soldiers might still not be able to take the walls, being either blockaded at all the choke points with too many enemy soldiers to break through, or worse, simply being annihilated on the walls through sheer number and unable to make even a beach head there.

So the name of the game was speed.

And it was a game that had started ticking without Alexander even being aware.

He was still leisurely waiting for his ramp to be completed, and his military engineers to finish the three siege towers he would be using during the assault.

The fourth month of the siege hence rolled over just like that, with both sides practicing the same tactic, but each side fully aware that a conclusion was nearing soon, and very soon.

And as July ended and August entered its first day, Alexander was finally invited to come to see the completed second phase of his siege.

The ditch which was an ever present fixture of the city was by now gone, replaced by a smooth, almost flat like terrace.

The tens of thousands of men and even women really did a good job.

Then there were three huge ramps, or more appropriately reverse ramps leading right next to the walls, built using stone, timber, and the earth that was dug up during the construction of the new wall that stood in front of the city.

And lastly, there was the centerpiece of it all, the pièce de résistance- The Seige Towers.

Made of a combination of wood and iron, each of these behemoths were more than 12 meters tall and almost as wide, thus weighing several tons.

It stood on solid cast iron wheels that were manufactured in Zanzan and transported here by six strong oxen on a special cart because regular wooden ones were simply too weak to carry such heavy loads.

These wheels were also wrapped in a mesh of rubber and line fabric, making this certainly the world's first known use of rubber tyred wheels. 

Which also meant that the tower could go over the inherently rough, hilly terrain a lot smoother.

But then the question arose who would make it go?

And the answer was each of these behemoths required more than a hundred men to pull it.

As to why animals like horses or oxen were not used, well, they were certainly an option.

But Alexander preferred to use men for he knew as the siege towers would be pulled closer and closer to the walls, they would be increasingly attacked by the defenders.

And it was much easier to maintain discipline among men than beasts when placed under such a hostile environment

The chances of animals refusing to obey commanders when struck by arrows, hit by stones, or burned by scalding oil and then simply breaking free of their bonds and causing a stampede were too high to risk using them.

And speaking of burning, Alexander also made sure to coat his siege towers with thick sheets of rubber to prevent the defenders from using burning oil and fire arrows to set the entire thing on fire. as so many times it had been done before, like when the Byzantines did it to the Ottoman siege towers during the battle of Constantinople.

Now, to prevent that unfortunate reality from occurring and dying by being burned to death, the attackers would usually cover their towers with thick, wet, animal hide, and iron or bronze plates to hide the flammable wood underneath.

But the natural rubber which Alexander was using, consisted of latex and was much more fire retardant than the primitively processed rubber regularly used, as the latter was made of organic compounds such as long chains of collagen fibers and proteins.

Hence Alexander's choice of the material, and when he tested it back home, he found the stuff to be indeed so much more difficult to get burning.

And even if did, it had great trouble spreading, as rubber was just a bad source of fuel for the fire and really did not want the flames to propagate. 

Hence naturally, it was used to cover every possible part of the tower.

But then the question rose, who was all this 'armor' supposed to protect?

Or more specifically, how many? 

Well each one of these gigantic structures could carry around one hundred men, so three towers combined were supposed to place three hundred men directly onto the first wall, who could then work to make a beachhead on the walls, thus allowing reinforcements to get up through these safe points, using either ladders or even the siege towers themselves.

And as Alexander reviewed these magnificent beasts, built on the ramp themselves, he certainly felt confident of his chances to take the city.

Because as Alexander had observed in the last four months, though Thesalies was indeed a double walled city, it was not the concentric circle kind of city he envisioned, where each of the walls had its own towers, gates, and defense mechanism.

No, Thesalie's defensive walls were more suited to be called one gigantic wall with two parts.

There was the outer part, which was much thicker, and stronger, but also shorter.

While right behind it, with around 10 to 15 meters of gap, stood a much higher, but thinner and weaker wall.

These two walls were connected via a series of passages, able to reinforce each other, as well as retreat to the other if the need arose.

The intention behind the design seemed to be that the melee troops would be on the first, outer wall, engaging in close quarters hand to and physically repelling the enemy, while archers shot arrows and threw stones from the higher secondary wall to assist them.

And if the first defense fell, the soldiers could use the interconnected passages to take new positions on the second walls.

And while they retreated, they could block off the many built in choke points with either men to hold those points, or close the doors, or simply jam it with junk like large, heavy, furniture, stone, wagons, whatever they had at hand, so that the enemy could not easily pursue them.

All while from above the defenders could rail down incessant arrow fire to prevent the enemy from setting up a foothold there.

It was quite a good design. 

A very good design in fact.

But it might not be good enough to stop Alexander.

Because he did not plan to pursue the men up the second wall and consequently be stuck on the first wall enduring arrow fire.

No, after driving off the defenders from the first wall, Alexander wished to tear a section of the first wall down, possibly by digging underneath its foundation and then setting it on fire.

And then have his siege towers roll down to the second wall just as the first wall to repeat the process.

Simple, but certainly effective.

"We will attack tomorrow!" Hence as soon as the inspection was finished, Alexander declared so loudly.

He did not want to waste an hour more than it was necessary.