Unknown Knight

It is not in line with Ailen's character to choose to do nothing. Thanks to his efforts over the years, the city defense of Talboliya has reached a terrifying level.

Today, Tarbolya is divided into two cities, the inner and outer cities, plus the final main castle, with as many as three lines of defense. The city defense relies on the mountain terrain and has been reinforced for a long time, so its defense capability far exceeds that of ordinary castles.

Especially for the first and second lines of defense, Airen also ordered his men to flatten the mounds next to the two lines of defense, and using the height of the mounds, he set up two defense platforms on top of the mounds, which could not only dispatch archers for long-range attacks, but also place heavy city defense equipment such as crossbows and catapults.

Although the manufacturing technology of Airen's city defense equipment is extremely poor, and its accuracy and range are far inferior to those produced in Aix County, its high position not only makes it easier to launch, but also greatly enhances the range. The two defense platforms are like two sharp horns, greatly enhancing the overall defense capability.

In addition, Airen also built several grain storage warehouses in the city. He converted nearly half of the fiscal surplus in recent years into grain storage. Even if Fort Talboliya was besieged, there would still be no worries about food and drink for a year or two.

With strong city defenses and sufficient food reserves, Airen is confident that he can protect his family business. If the war drags on for too long, Aix, who has come from afar, will surely retreat.

At worst, he could just bow down and pay tribute to Aix to show his submission, giving the prince a way out, and in the end he might be able to keep his territory.

For this reason, he had previously refused to respond to Eden's call for him and refused to participate in the defense of Tiha City, in order to draw a clear line with Eden and not fill his gaps in vain, and to leave room for maneuver in future negotiations with Aix.

This idea is not completely ridiculous. Ailen had been traveling in the mainland in his early years and had seen many such examples. Many separatist lords with strong independence were established in this way.

This is also the reason why every lord in this era would spend his hard-earned gold coins on his own castle. Otherwise, why would those lords spend time, effort and money to build castles in dangerous places?

Many things can only be realized through personal experience and seeing. If Ailen had participated in the war in Rivadin City that day, he would have reshaped his cognition and no longer had such naive ideas.

The judgment he made based on his own knowledge could not be said to be completely wrong, but this narrow-minded judgment would never make him believe that a catapult could bring down a solid city wall. Although Airen had heard about the incident in Zhiwadin City, he just thought that Aix was lucky. Perhaps a section of the city wall of Zhiwadin was in disrepair and was easily destroyed by Aix's catapult. It was purely a case of a blind cat catching a dead mouse.

Besides, he had personally tested the performance of the catapult, and it was not powerful enough to bring down the city walls. With the inherent knowledge formed by these personal experiences, Airen had enough confidence to rely on the dangerous walls of Talboliya to challenge Aix.

In fact, there is another main reason, which is the ridiculous self-esteem of men. Thinking back to the time when the two met for the first time near the village of Biglen, when the aristocratic Airen faced the somewhat awkward Aix, Airen had established a certain psychological advantage over Aix.

In addition to the matter of Yamila, if Old John had not been on high alert and deliberately kept his distance, and had not taken the initiative to make an excuse to part ways with Airen's bounty hunter team the next day, if the caravan had been entangled with them for a few more days, Yamila might have been abducted by Airen at that time, and there would have been no chance for Aix later.

Whenever he thought of Yamila being killed by Aix, Airen felt crazy. Over the years, he could always see a hint of sadness in Yamila's eyes and eyebrows, which made him feel even worse. He was full of anger towards Aix and had to find an opportunity to battle with him.

It just puts Yamila, who is in the middle, in a difficult position. She is not the heroine in Qiong Yao's novels who can say "want" and "require" to two men at the same time. She can only keep persuading Airen, hoping that he can run away with her and not meet the two kings of Aix.

But it would have been better if she didn't persuade him. Instead, this persuasion made Ailen more determined to follow the Tao, and he secretly felt a strong desire to compete with Aix. This was a matter of a man's dignity.

This day soon arrived. Aix personally led an army of 1,500 people and arrived in Talboria in just half a day from Fort Ripollette.

Airen implemented a policy of clearing the countryside and evacuating the two villages at the foot of the mountain, including the people and supplies, into the castle on the mountain. Aix took the opportunity to station his troops in the two villages. The two villages already had walls and watchtowers built around them, which saved a lot of effort.

After a night of assembly, twenty catapults and three ramming vehicles were assembled. Aix did not bring a siege tower this time. He was familiar with the terrain of Talboliya. Not only were the city walls built on a slope, but there were also trenches with wooden spikes outside the walls. The siege tower might fall down before it could be pushed to the edge of the wall.

To break through this place, one can either use catapults to destroy the city walls or use battering rams to break through the gates. There is no better way. Fortunately, Aix is ​​quite confident in the territory's siege equipment.

After everything was ready, Aix decided to start with a wave of fierce oil to let the country guys in the castle see his anger.

After several rounds of kerosene, the bell tower, arrow tower, catapult, crossbow, homemade kerosene, etc. on the city wall were all ignited. The fire burned so fiercely that it was so hot that people could not stand on the top of the city wall.

The fire continued to burn for more than two hours before it gradually went out, and at the same time, the resistance of the soldiers on the city wall was also extinguished. Just before that, they were still laughing at the catapults that were trembling up the slope. Some people even opened a bet to bet on how many of the twenty catapults would overturn due to the slope.

As a result, they themselves became the object of ridicule. The flaming oil that hit them head-on not only burned more than a dozen people to death and injured more than twenty people, but also made the rest of the soldiers defending the city covered in dust and dirt. Everyone's cheeks were red from the high temperature. At first glance, they looked like a group of clowns with blush and makeup on. It was very funny.

Climbing up the still warm city wall, Ailen's heart turned cold. Although he had no idea before, he now deeply understood that just a few rounds of fire oil attacks could cause such a horrific effect.

Moreover, the incendiary oil fired by the catapults seemed to have eyes, setting fire to the catapults, crossbows, and all the buildings with flammable wood on the city walls.

The defense equipment on the city wall only launched two rounds of long-range attacks, and did not cause any damage to the twenty catapults before they were accurately hit and burned. Those were the defense equipment that he had spent a lot of money and several years to configure! In just a short while, they were all gone. You can imagine how Aileyen felt at the moment.