Chapter 263 Landing Operation

A week of drifting and doing nothing made Luca feel quite decadent. Whenever he asked when he would arrive, the answer he got was always "soon". The time represented by the word "soon" is always very strange. Sometimes it can be as long as a month or even longer, and sometimes it can be as short as just over an hour. All of them can be described as "soon", it depends on how the person who said it defines the time of this word.

In the morning, the horn in the sky interrupted the quiet movement of the warships, and also woke up Luga who was still sleeping.

"Land! Land! Africa! Africa!"

The sailors outside the cabin shouted and desperately struck the copper bells tied to the masts, trying to wake up all the sleeping people, whether they were generals or soldiers.

Luca didn't have time to put on his necessary equipment. He just put on his coat and walked out of the cabin. As soon as he got on the deck, Luca was stunned by the scene in front of him.

The sailors were busy on the deck, moving back and forth. They looked chaotic, like a group of ants, working and constantly feeding information back to the fleet behind them. Soon, the entire combined fleet of more than a thousand warships slowed down and confronted the Vandals on the opposite shore.

The walls of Carthage were full of wood, which was specially reinforced by the Vandals. Not only the walls, but also the long temporary defense line made of soil and wood on the coast outside the city. The Carthage dock was too far away to see what was there, but the Vandals had prepared for so long that it was impossible for such a huge omission to occur.

"The Vandals are not unprepared. At least they don't think they are lambs to be slaughtered and don't resist." Hermanus said as he walked behind Luca. Facing the temporary defense system that stretched for miles, Hermanus couldn't help but shook his head and said, "I'm afraid 20,000 people are still not enough. Sir, we still have room for recovery. Whether to change the strategy or continue to implement the existing strategy is entirely up to you."

"Are Lord Areobinders and Lord Anrasis in place?" Luca asked Hermanus while standing at the bow and looking at the long line of defense.

"They are already on the vanguard's ships," Hermanus said, sneezing loudly.

"Your Excellency, please go to bed." Lu Jia patted his shoulder with a smile and said, "It's all up to us at this time. It's not a good thing to drag down your Excellency's health."

"Meet the enemy! Meet the enemy! Meet the enemy!"

While they were talking, an emergency suddenly came from the west. Luga hurriedly turned his head and saw hundreds of ships with sails hoisted on the western sea level at the end of the dense crowd.

"Bingo! Looks like we have a new playmate." Hermanus also saw it. He smiled, shook off his previous decadent look, turned back and called out to the cabin: "Belia, Belia! My dear son, we have something to do!"

Soon, Beliaru was seen running out in a hurry, putting on his armor as he ran. He was so panicked, as if he had encountered something big, or like a hungry wolf seeing a big piece of fat meat.

"It seems we can't retreat!" Luca looked at the warships approaching in the distance, and he knew without a doubt that they belonged to the Vandals. "Sir Hermanus."

"What do you want, sir?" Hermanus stepped forward and asked.

"Take Belia with you and use your years of marine experience to teach those lawless Vandals a lesson!" Luca's eyes were cold. After giving the instructions, he turned back to look at the coastline in front of him and muttered, "Let's see how these veterans of the Eastern Empire handle such a battle!"

"Just watch me!" Belia was naturally overjoyed to finally have a chance to show off his skills. He looked as happy as a three-year-old child, and he grabbed his father Hermanus' arm and shouted, "Father, what are you still waiting for? The Vandals are right in front of us, we should not wait any longer, turn the ship around and attack them!"

Luca changed to another warship, and Hermanus commanded his flagship and nearly 600 warships behind him to change direction under the call of war and sail towards the Vandals who were gradually approaching on the sea level.

A large number of Vandals were surging back and forth on the defensive fortifications on the coastline. A war was imminent, and no one, from officers to soldiers, dared to be careless.

"Oil drum! Oil drum!"

The catapults were deployed on the warships in the rear, and the operators were pushing the burning oil barrels onto the catapults under orders.

"put!"

At the command, there was a "click" sound, and dozens of oil barrels dragged black and pungent smoke through the air and landed on the beach and the Vandal's defense line. There was flammable boiling oil inside, and the burst of the oil barrel was like an exploding incendiary bomb, instantly knocking over several people, and even the neatly arranged wood was blown away, and a raging fire ignited in the exploded place. Many unlucky people covered in fire ran out screaming, rolling on the beach, trying to extinguish the flames that were peeling off their skin and biting their bones. But the second round began again, and more and more defense lines were hit by oil barrels. The Vandals lacked long-range strike weapons such as slingshots, so they had no power to fight back in front of the Roman oil barrels.

"Troops, landing troops!"

“Woo, woo…”

The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!

At the command of the horn, the first row of warships stopped at a distance of 50 meters from the beach, and they lowered small boats one after another. This was arranged by Luca in advance because Luca was afraid that such a landing operation would result in mistakes like the one he made in Syracuse.

Soon, the first group of soldiers were dispersed into hundreds of small boats, with twenty soldiers on each boat. They maneuvered the boats and rowed hard towards the coast.

"Get in the water when we get close to the beach. We will form a tortoise-shell formation on the beach and advance slowly." The hot-tempered brave general Anlasis is the commander of the first array. He not only has a bad temper, but is also famous for his courage in battle. He stood alone at the bow facing the Vandal's defense line, shouting orders to the small boats around him and cheering for the soldiers behind him! "As long as we push over, we can tear them apart! The Vandals are just a bunch of lazy bugs. They can't even hold their swords steadily, and they are so fat that they have trouble escaping! But you have to be careful. If you don't have enough strength, you really can't cut through their flesh! Then go and listen to their wailing in pain, that's what we deserve!"

"Kill them!" The soldiers held their swords and spears tightly in their hands, slapped their shields and cheered loudly. Their morale was high, and they were worthy of being a team led by warriors.

But are the Vandals really as vulnerable as they imagined? Not only Anlasis, but even Luca, who was watching on the warship in the rear, was waiting to see what would happen!

(End of this chapter)