Amidst the rhythmic pounding of the battering ram, Aegon suddenly found the answer to a question that had previously puzzled him—in terms of defensibility, the Bloody Gate was ultimately inferior to Sword Gate. Sword Gate overlooked the passage into Shu from a commanding height; from ancient times to the present, no attacking force had ever been able to bring such a massive battering ram to the foot of Sword Gate.
Could this subtle difference change the final outcome of the war?
Oil barrels crashed down in front of and behind the siege engine, ignited by either a fuse or rockets, and a large ball of fire erupted, completely engulfing the head of the battering ram. soldiers splashed by the burning oil screamed and ran away from the protection of the shields and planks. The lucky ones could roll on the ground a few times to extinguish the flames and then return to the protection of the siege engine, while the unlucky ones were directly hit and killed by the defenders' stones and arrows—and then the defenders who showed their heads were shot by the thousands of archers waiting in formation a hundred meters away.
Every minute, every second, people were injured or died.
"Thump"—"Thump"—
The front end of the siege engine's battering ram was completely engulfed in flames, but a thick layer of special material, soaked in water to be fire-retardant, covered the siege engine's body and slowed the spread of the fire. This allowed the soldiers in the rear part of the siege engine to continue pushing the battering ram together, buying a little more time for a few more attempts. But as more oil barrels fell, soon, this siege engine would be 廢.
Aegon didn't want to continue watching. Today's assault attempt would most likely end with the destruction of that siege engine. So far, the total casualties on both sides caused by this war might have just barely reached triple digits. Compared to the total participating force of over a hundred thousand, a casualty rate of one-thousandth was truly insignificant and not worth mentioning, but the soldiers currently trapped in blood and fire at the pass would certainly not agree with this view.
The narrowness of the battlefield determined the scale of the battle and also meant that casualties could not rise quickly. However, the intensity of the fighting in the small space beneath the Bloody Gate and on the battlements was no less than any bloody battle from ancient times to the present. Every person was the center of their own world. How could one ignore these soldiers fighting desperately on the front lines, treating them as just a "1" in the number one hundred thousand?
In the eyes of children, war was a distant story; in the eyes of teenagers, war was supreme glory; but Aegon was already an adult. Being on the battlefield, listening to the groans and screams of the injured soldiers, he felt for the first time so clearly: fighting, it really wasn't anything fun.
...
This war was not caused by Aegon, but it was indeed inseparable from him. He turned his head and left the front lines to return to the camp, but just then, the surroundings suddenly erupted in deafening cheers and shouts, as if the sky had turned upside down. Aegon turned back in alarm and immediately discovered the reason for the shouts of the watching soldiers: the head of the battering ram, wrapped in raging flames, had actually broken through the outer gate of the Bloody Gate and was stuck in the gateway!
What, it's broken just like that?
Was it that the battering tactic under the "fire suppression" of the arrows and stone projectiles arranged by Robert this time was too advanced, or were the other armies that had attacked this pass over the past thousand years too weak?
Accompanied by earth-shattering cheers, a cavalry force wearing House Baratheon colors also decisively charged out from the formation, heading straight for the already breached Bloody Gate. As long as they could hold the ground they had gained and prevent the defenders from sealing the gate again, this dangerous pass, which had never been breached for a thousand years, was about to be breached by the great King Robert!
But faster than this group of cavalry were the soldiers surrounding the siege engine, pushing it and the battering ram. Before the flames completely consumed the siege engine, they pushed it away from the already opened gateway and were the first to rush into the gateway.
Who wouldn't want to claim the merit of breaching the city? If done well, being knighted and becoming a noble, even benefiting one's descendants, was possible!
***
Too fake. After preparing for so long, it ended after just one battle? What about the saying about one man holding off ten thousand? What about the dangerous pass that had never been breached for a thousand years? Aegon felt a bit slapped in the face, but more than that, he felt relieved. Regardless, the sooner the war ended, the fewer casualties there would be, which was certainly not a bad thing.
But just when everyone was smiling wryly at this month-long preparation and half-day battle farce, the situation reversed again. The allied soldiers who had rushed into the gateway rushed out again after only about ten seconds, enduring the defenders' continuous falling stones and arrows, shouting something as they ran back to the allied formation as if their lives depended on it. Many were injured and killed along the way, and they also drove back the detachment of Crownlands cavalry that had charged out.
With the offensive stalled, the archer and crossbow units responsible for fire support soon withdrew under orders. The attack from the trebuchet positions also stopped, and the siege equipment was pulled back out of the enemy's weapon range. Except for the siege engine still burning fiercely beneath the Bloody Gate, this first wave of attack was over. The words shouted by the siege survivors quickly reached Aegon through word of mouth:
The Bloody Gate defenders had actually completely sealed the gate with earth and stones!
This move could truly be described as pulling the rug out from under them. After the first wave of attack was repulsed, the second wave was slow to organize. It seemed that this news brought considerable surprise to Robert and the other army Commanders. Until new countermeasures were devised, Aegon estimated that no new battles would occur.
...
After a slight twist and turn, things finally returned to normal. The dangerous pass of the Bloody Gate was indeed not so easy to breach. Aegon turned and left the front lines, heading towards his small tent deep within the allied military camp.
While called a military camp, it was actually more like a city built of tents—if you only looked at the population density, it was a large city that ranked among the top in all of Westeros. The only difference from a normal city was that most of the residents here were soldiers and nobles.
To ensure that so many people could live well, the merchants who followed also set up businesses in the area between the six large military camps where the Six Kingdoms were stationed separately. And the services the businessmen could provide, well, you couldn't think of anything you couldn't buy with money: inns, restaurants, brothels, bathhouses... Although at a glance it was just a pile of tents, the functions available were complete and comprehensive. It was almost as if the commercial street of King's Landing had been moved outside the entrance to the Vale and transferred into tents, only the service was slightly worse, and the prices had been adjusted accordingly.
Logically, allowing a military camp to have such a lively atmosphere was something that the command layer should absolutely not tolerate, but the current reality was: the main force of the rebels was blocked inside the Vale of Arryn behind the Bloody Gate, and the fiefs and castles of all the families outside the Vale of Arryn who participated in this rebellion had been controlled and surrounded by troops loyal to Robert. In addition, the vigilance and reconnaissance work around the periphery of the military camp had never relaxed—the warrior King, who was born a Commander, had not given the enemy any chance to turn the tables: unless there was internal strife, this military camp simply could not be attacked.
Perhaps I should also set up a temporary Night's Watch office here to join the fun?
The Chief Logistics Officer considered this matter quite seriously, and then his gaze was quickly drawn to a group of people in front: a tent was crowded with soldiers from the Six Kingdoms, wearing different colored uniforms. They were making a lot of noise, seemingly scrambling for some kind of goods being sold by the owner of that tent.
Aegon became curious, but he was now a person with status and subordinates, so he could naturally be lazy about certain things: "Casey, go over there and see what they are snatching?"
The boy obediently ran over, squeezing into the crowd like an eel, and then emerged half a minute later, running back to Aegon with a mix of excitement and strange expressions: "Lord, it's books, the books we printed!"
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