Even for the Mongolians, the heavy arrows carried by mounted archers weren’t many, as they would affect cavalry combat.
Seeing the Barbarian Race’s camp in motion, with several units marked by two-star silver-grey symbols appearing, along with the Barbarian Priest following behind, Duncan immediately led the others to run away.
This was a battle they couldn’t win.
Those two-star elite units of the Barbarian Race were noble warriors, all clad in uniform heavy armor. Their war bows couldn’t penetrate the defenses, only inflicting light injuries. It would take many arrows to kill one, and they still had to guard against any trump cards they might have.
The reconnaissance cavalry detachment promptly retreated, and on the way back, the way others looked at Duncan changed.
Reverence was almost written across their faces. In these war-torn times, a man’s prowess not only attracted women but also more men.
"How do we fight this wave?"
"Relying on the few hundred remnants temporarily conscripted by the Duke of Dingtiger?"
The Duke of Dingtiger had started enlisting farmers as soldiers.
Anyone who has played Total War knows what kind of combat strength farmers have; thousands can be easily overrun.
In a frontal collision, the farmer army would all raise the white flag.
Looking at the somewhat panicked soldiers on the city walls, Duncan’s expression became heavy. Not even the Crow Queen Triss’s magic could influence a war of this scale. Moreover, the last time the Crow Queen Triss went berserk had a cost, and she used an extremely rare ancient Roman sacrificial stone.
This bottom-of-the-box item wasn’t worth wasting here.
The city walls were being fortified.
The castles of the current era were essentially Roman military fortresses, incomparable to medieval fortresses. The walls weren’t high or strong enough. Although it was a city siege battle and there was a certain advantage in terrain, the overall military proficiency between the enemy and us was vastly different.
The Barbarian Race, constantly at war, plundered within the empire, and even engaged with the Huns. Their combat experience was exceedingly rich, and adult men were well-trained infantry.
A hundred of them wiping out a mixed company of a thousand farmers wasn’t an exaggeration.
Just as Duncan was deep in thought, suddenly he saw the Britons pushing out an old siege weapon. It seemed to be left behind when the Roman legions withdrew. Dust coated its surface, but fortunately, it could still be used.
Can I use this thing? Does it adapt to my calibration support?
An idea instantly formed in Duncan’s mind.
He rode straight into town and went to the location where the ballista was set up. In a God’s-eye view, when he controlled the ballista ahead, a crosshair for aiming assistance gradually appeared.
The aiming crosshair could indeed be used to operate the ballista!
Duncan calculated the distance and signaled to others around him to assist. He then aimed the ballista roughly five hundred meters away.
A spear-like sharp arrow pierced through the air and hit exactly where Duncan aimed, with an error of no more than one meter.
Most of the spear had stabbed into the earth.
The power was formidable!
If fired on the battlefield, it could probably penetrate a human body directly.
Although the ballista was invented by the Greeks, it was enhanced by the Romans. At the peak of the empire, a regular legion of 5,000 men was equipped with 50 ballistae.
At that time, they had even incapacitated the Parthian Empire’s armored cavalry, the top heavy cavalry of that era, belonging to the first-tier armored knights.
Even a light ballista could pierce both man and horse. If it fired stone balls, they could directly crush and launch bodies.
However, the apparent disadvantage of the ballista was its slowness — slow to move, set up, and fire. Everything was slow; to unleash its power required tactical prowess and a bit of luck.
The Mongolian commander Mengge being killed by a catapult was an accident. Such occurrences were rare in history.
"I probably know what to rely on for a comeback!"
Duncan fell into thought: "Now it depends on whether the enemy will give this chance."
Their only chance to turn the tables was to shoot the enemy’s king dead.
Duncan estimated he only had one shot at this. Once exposed, it would be difficult to find another chance. With the ballista’s slow firing speed, the person would have already run out of range.
Not to mention a two-star gold leader unit, even a three-star Demon Hunter might die instantly.
The only flaw was that controlling a ballista was much harder than drawing a bow and shooting. Even Duncan could make errors, and moving targets were even harder to grasp, relying only on temporary feel.
The Kingdom of Kent had just been established recently, and internally it wasn’t very stable. The Barbarian king urgently needed a major victory to maintain his ruling prestige.
King Uther was stronger, so the Duke of Dingtiger became the soft target.
The Barbarians weren’t fools; they picked the soft ones to squeeze.
The Seven Kingdoms Era on Great Britain began with the establishment of the Kingdom of Kent. It was the prototype for the Seven Kingdoms in the TV series "Song of Ice and Fire: Game of Thrones" (The Song of Kill and Stuff).
These seven countries were respectively established by the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles.
All together, they formed England, with about 130,000 square kilometers of land, roughly the size of Fujian Province.
To Duncan, Britain could only be considered a novice village.
Because there wasn’t such a powerful force that could readily field tens of thousands of regular troops, nor would they encounter the main forces of the Grassland Hungarians, getting shot into a hedgehog directly by the enemy.
Here was a local war.
The Saxons attempted to invade Gaul but couldn’t defeat the Franks. So the defeated went to sea.
"I wonder if I can find an English longbow?"
Currently, Duncan couldn’t find a legendary quality war bow. The English longbow was invented years later.
If he had a longbow in hand, shooting down heavy cavalry would be much easier.
Without a bow now, he could only fire the cannon.
The ballista would do.
Duncan gradually became familiar with operating the ballista and started seeking the feel. The ballista’s aiming crosshair had more deviation due to its long range and other wind direction interference, probably requiring a bit of luck.
PS: Happy New Year to everyone, and may all things go as you wish. Here’s an additional Chapter, 5,000 words.