CHAPTER 398: CHAPTER 277 MARCHING INTO THE SEGESTICA TERRITORY

"Roar! Roar! Roar!..." the soldiers shouted in unison.

Maximus turned his head to ask Casinos, "In which direction is the Segestica Main Camp?"

Casinos hesitated for a moment, and under Maximus’s sharp gaze, he raised his hand with a complex expression and said softly, "Over there..."

Maximus immediately waved his hand forcefully in the direction he pointed: "Advance!"

The soldiers stepped forward, and as they moved quickly, their formation gradually opened. Since the fields had already been harvested, the flat land had no obstacles except for villages, so the First Legion, consisting of nearly six thousand soldiers, advanced in a formation more than a mile wide...

"Clang! Clang! Clang!..." The soldiers of Lin Kou Village frantically struck the alarm bell.

The Segestica citizens, who were closer to the Nix Army, quickly noticed the anomaly to the southwest and shouted in panic, "The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming!!..."

Thus, the peaceful scene was shattered. Shepherds hurriedly ran with their flocks, farmers whipped oxen to run desperately, and pedestrians, some holding children, others driving carriages, shouted while men cried, women screamed, children wailed, and cattle and sheep bellowed... one carrying ten, ten carrying a hundred, a hundred carrying a thousand... like a snowball, continuously, Segestica citizens from various villages ran out with bundles, joining the flow of refugees.

No tribe or village urgently gathered warriors for resistance.

On one hand, this was because the wide-front formation of the Nix Army advanced like a long iron wall, imposing great psychological pressure on the Segestica people. The Segestica Tribe, after suffering repeated defeats, was unable to gather enough young and strong tribesmen for defense in a short time;

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

During the rule of the Skodisqi people, to facilitate control and prevent Pannonian resistance, they ordered that no Pannonian village should build walls. Decades passed, and after gaining independence, the Pannonians, like the Segestica Tribe, faced no external threats, instead attacking Alde and holding a distinct advantage. There was no danger in the villages, and the tribesmen naturally didn’t want to waste resources and energy to build village walls.

Although later the army suffered a disastrous defeat and Andres died of illness, causing panic among the tribesmen, a ceasefire agreement was soon reached. Under the inertia of decades, the Segestica Tribe still didn’t build wooden walls, leaving each village exposed to the Nix’s soldiers’ spearheads.

The Segestica villagers had neither the courage nor the capability to resist the invading enemy, with the only option being to flee.

Moreover, most people fled in the same direction — the Segestica Main Camp.

As the power center of the Segestica Tribe and the Great Chief’s seat, the Segestica Main Camp naturally had walls, as it was built by the Skodisqi as the military center for ruling this area and suppressing Segestica rebellions. Its defensive facilities were fairly good. After the Segestica people occupied it, they merely maintained it over the past decade, without making major changes.

When Segestica tribes faced trouble, they usually went to the Main Camp for Great Chief’s assistance, and now, facing life-and-death danger, the tribesmen naturally wanted to flee into the Main Camp for protection.

Thus, as they escaped, the Segestica citizens gradually formed a massive stream of people, rushing towards the Segestica Main Camp.

The Nix Army maintained a steady marching pace, neither frantically pursuing the nearby Segestica citizens nor grabbing the lost cattle and sheep that didn’t know to hide, nor did they raid villages to ransack Segestica citizens’ valuables...

Under Maximus’s strict orders and led by Legion Commander Camillus, they closely followed the crowd ahead, advancing, advancing, never stopping...

As the sunset hung over the mountain peaks and the evening glow appeared at the horizon, a shimmering large river in the distance caught Maximus’s eye.

"The Sava River is near..." Casinos’s reminder beside him revitalized Maximus, whose expression soon turned grave as he saw numerous sails heading to the opposite bank...

"Camillus, immediately dispatch two large units to rush to the riverbanks on either side of the forward village and confiscate all the visible boats along the riverbanks. Hurry, go quickly!"

"Yes, Chief!" Camillus turned to execute the order.

"Hagux, your cavalry is fast; send them all out to seize as many boats as possible!" Maximus immediately issued orders to the Cavalry Captain.

Originally, Hagux’s cavalry team, due to a lack of horses, had only about ten men, but in the previous battle on the Kolana Riverbank, they captured over 20 intact horses. After gaining Maximus’s approval, horses were quickly distributed among his old subordinates, suddenly increasing the cavalry team to 30 men (actually, there were horses captured in the Kupa River encirclement battle too, but they hadn’t been assigned to the cavalry yet). Excluding cavalry serving as messengers for various units and villages, 20 cavalrymen followed Maximus into the Sava River Plain.

Following Maximus’s command, Hagux left behind two cavalrymen as messengers and led the others rushing towards the riverbank.

Maximus turned his gaze directly ahead, where a wooden fortress stood on the riverside, the Segestica Main Camp.

The Segestica Main Camp differed somewhat from Alde’s Main Camp. Although both were built along riverbanks, it straddled both sides of the river, with the east bank being the primary side and the west bank secondary, connected by a floating bridge.

At this moment, the west bank of the village was already boiling over, as escaping people not only tightly blocked the north, west, and south entrances but also heavily surrounded the entire West Village.

The warriors inside had just learned of "the enemy’s coming," and the tribal leader responsible for guarding the West Village was at a loss after the initial shock. However, with the influx of fleeing civilians, the warriors couldn’t possibly refuse entry to their own tribesmen. As more and more refugees crowded in, blocking all entrances and exits and making it impossible to close the gates, it was too late for the warriors to regret.

"Camillus, the task of capturing this fort rests with you," Maximus said calmly.

"Yes, Chief!" Camillus, thrilled, saluted, yet he didn’t immediately issue an attack order but carefully observed before deploying for the attack: splitting into three groups of 500 each to assault the north, west, and south gates, and over 2000 soldiers besieging the north, west, and south walls...

Though the Third Legion had arrived in haste without bringing siege weapons or even the simplest ladders, Camillus observed that the fort ahead had no ditches dug or caltrops set up, and the walls were at most three meters high. The attackers could approach directly to the walls, seizing the moment while the defenders were distracted by their own fleeing people, allowing soldiers under the covering fire of crossbow units to form human walls and climb over the wooden walls...

Once the attack order was given, the originally long "iron wall" quickly divided into six columns, charging directly towards the Segestica Western Village from all directions...

The already tightly packed and terrified Segestica citizens before the village were now completely in chaos...

In fact, yesterday, Pequot, leading his team hidden in the dense forest, subsequently ambushed the Segestica Army wading across the river, causing their defeat. Some of the routed soldiers escaped the pursuit of Nix Soldiers, and since the enemy was blocking the way, they didn’t dare return to the battlefield and fled back home, thus spreading the news of the "Segestica Army’s defeat" throughout the territory, causing the populace to panic.

Fortunately, the tribal leaders and clan chiefs remaining on the territory provided reassurance, telling them that the Segestica Army was just auxiliary, and that the troops from the Brochi, Mazi, Disone, and Perustai—the four major tribes—were the main forces of the attack. The coalition army they formed couldn’t be stopped by the Nix people.

The populace, thus reassured, was no longer panicked, only worried whether their relatives were among the Segestica Warriors killed or injured in the Nix people’s raid.

Most of the Segestica nobles left behind believed that the powerful Pannonian tribal coalition would ultimately prevail and could calmly handle the defeat of their tribal army. However, another piece of news returned by the routed soldiers stirred their hearts: that Cabdes might have perished at the Kupa River!

The happiest about this was Pulikas. He realized that the opportunity had come for Andres’s son to reclaim the position of Great Chief, simultaneously raising his alertness towards the southern battles, knowing well how formidable the Nix people were from participating in the marsh battle.

He sent his trusted aides to keep a close watch on movements to the west, thus in the Segestica Main Camp, he was the first tribal leader to learn of the Nix Army’s invasion. Feeling the urgency of the situation, he immediately gathered some trustworthy hands in the main camp and, under the guise of a "highly important matter requiring discussion," sought to meet with the tribal elder responsible for the Segestica Main Camp, appointed by Cabdes before leading the army away, taking advantage of the unpreparedness to knock him unconscious and imprison him.

However, the cautious Cabdes had made some arrangements in the main camp to prevent accidents after his departure. To eliminate these backups and gain complete control over the entire East Village, Pulikas, amidst the chaos caused by the news of the Nix Army’s invasion, took actions one after another to arrest and confine Cabdes’s confidants, finally gaining control over the entire East Village.

But at this time, the cries for help and wailing from the West Village became clearer and more desperate as the fleeing populace rushed onto the floating bridge, frantically pushing and shoving each other, completely disregarding their compatriots in distress, with people constantly falling into the river... The order in the West Village was entirely lost because the Nix had breached the city.