A wave of hot breath blew from the opposite side, and Pannoni licked his somewhat dry lips vigorously, and there was a salty smell on his lips, which was the bloodshot breath overflowing from the corners of his chapped mouth.

Opposite Pannone was a troop of Ottomans, whose enemies were struggling to cross a barrier of corpses and scattered rubble, broken walls, and crumbling trenches.

Pannoni turned his head to look around, and he saw that many of his familiar companions were gone, and almost all of those who survived were wounded.

"We're listening to the Earl's orders, aren't we?"

Pannoni asked a companion next to him, panting for breath and stabbing his short arm with his torn clothes.

"At least we have done what the lord commanded," said the Balkan urn, an unusually blushing on his face, pale from excessive bleeding, "so that the Count could not strip us naked and hang us from the tree." ”

Pannoni's mischievous words made Pannone want to laugh, but as soon as his lips tugged, a piercing pain came from his shattered jaw, which made Pannone snort simply.

By order of Alexander, the punishment of the Balkan regiment was given to the whole army before dark yesterday.

Although the near-fatal gap was eventually closed, and the Balkans seized the opportunity to strike a severe blow at the new Ottoman musketeers before withdrawing from their positions, Alexander punished the Balkans severely.

As an officer of the Balkan Regiment, Pannone was flogged, and the entire Balkan Regiment was placed in the most dangerous place on the entire front, the junction between the north and the south flanks in the center of the front, as is customary on the battlefield for punitive troops who commit common crimes.

According to Alexander's speculation, the Ottomans would launch a fierce attack on this area, with a view to cutting off the north-south link of Montina's army.

What's more, once this junction was breached, the Ottomans could calmly launch attacks at will at both ends of the line.

Because of this, according to Alexander's orders, the Balkan regiment was placed in this most dangerous and also most stressful position.

Alexander's judgment was not wrong, or at this point, any commander with a modicum of common sense would have made such a decision.

Xi Sugu decided to use the safest and most direct and effective method to destroy the current enemy.

He chose the direction of the breakthrough of Montina's army from the curved junction facing the north-west end of the front, and with the cooperation of the Anatolian light cavalry, the Ottoman tribal army and the Muserim infantry launched a tidal attack on the opposite Montina position.

Xi Sugu was confident in his army, if the first day of the stalemate was more because he was testing the strength of this army from Western Europe, now he believes that he has mastered the enemy's weakness.

It was clear that the enemy army, which had stubbornly resisted from its position, was indeed brave, but Xi Sugu also discovered the enemy's problem.

These European armies seemed to have a strong desire to fight, or rather a little too strong to blindly retreat, which led Sisugu to believe that if he launched the most fierce attack on one part of the enemy, he would surely be able to attract the enemy elsewhere.

Like the Balkans who had been on the verge of annihilation the day before, Sisougu decided to use the central junction of the Montina army as a bait to not only attract all the nearby Montina troops, but also drag them all into the huge trap that he had carefully arranged.

The Ottoman attack was launched just as the sun was just rising over the top of the bushes.

First of all, the Muserim infantry, an army composed mainly of prisoners of war, became the vanguard of the offensive.

With the cooperation of the Anatolian light cavalry, the Muserim infantry opened a long line and launched an attack on the Montina position.

Fighting alongside the Balkan regiment was the 1st Agri Grange phalanx, the most elite of the Agri musketeers.

This quirky name was not given by Alexander, but by Josha.

Many people thought that the reason why Countess Cosenza gave this phalanx brigade such a name as Grange was only because the first people who followed Alexander out of Agri were from the Grange of the territory.

But only Alexander knew that the reason for the name was to commemorate the beginning of their ambiguity at the Grange of Agri.

The musketeers of the Grange Phalanx were the first veterans to follow Alexander, and almost all of them had fought in Alexander's first battle in the valley of Bruini, and had also taken part in what could be called a difficult ascetic march.

These soldiers experienced the Battle of Pisa, which arguably established Alexander's position in Tuscany and Romagna, the Battle of Oral-Chimonet, and the Battle of Livorno, where Caesar fought for the first time.

Because of this, Alexander had absolute trust in them, and he even believed that even if the rest of the troops were repulsed, his Agri musket regiment would definitely be the last to stand on the battlefield.

So when it came time to select the troops to guard the Central Union with the Balkan regiment, Alexander did not hesitate to place the 1st Phalanx Regiment here.

And he soon found that this arrangement was undoubtedly correct.

From the outset, the Ottomans launched the heaviest assault on the junction of the northern and southern fronts, and the Muserim infantry in the vanguard rushed to the positions of the musketeer regiments without fear.

Although the platoon guns on the opposite side let out a deafening roar, accompanied by thick smoke, there were bullets that slashed at the head and face, but the Muserim infantry rushed forward frantically.

Many of them were immediately knocked down by the men behind them and jumped over with their still twitching bodies, and the living Muserim infantry did not even glance at their fallen comrades, and their eyes were only on the enemy not far in front of them, who were repeating the steps of clearing, loading, aiming, and shooting to the strange rhythm of the drum.

Because just before the battle, they had just received a promise from Sissou that if they could successfully defeat the Montina army at the junction, they would be free!

Nothing was more important to the Muserim infantry than freedom, and they could give everything to gain it, whether it was their own life or that of their comrades.

The result of this desperate frenzied charge was that, at great cost of casualties, the Muserim infantry broke through in a very short time the obstacles that Montina's army had previously dug in front of the front.

For the first time, the Muserim infantry let out a roar of joy, they had seen the enemy's muskets retreating in panic, as if trying to distance themselves from them, but this was completely useless, in the eyes of the Muserim infantry, these armies with only sabers except muskets, and even most of the soldiers did not wear armor, had become a stepping stone to their freedom.

But the sudden roar shattered the imagination of the Muserim infantry.

When they saw the Balkans, wielding weapons of all kinds, most of them the terrifying hand axes of the kind peculiar to the region, roaring towards them through the gaps between the formations of musketeers, the Muserim infantry were only slightly surprised, and then they responded with an equally fierce roar and rushed towards the enemy!

The two sides collided in front of the Montina army's position, the cold weapons became hot in an instant, and the sparks that burst from the collision mixed with the plasma spewed out of the sharp blades tearing apart the human skin, and a brutal hand-to-hand combat began.

The ferocity of Muserim's infantry surprised the Balkans, who had long been aware of the ferocity of the Ottomans, but who surprised them by such an enemy.

And for the Muserim infantry, they were equally surprised and shocked by the fierceness of the Balkans.

As captives and remnants of the vanquished, the Muserim infantry appreciated the invincibility of the Ottoman army more than anyone else, and when they became part of it, they became one of the most elite and murderous of the army, both because of their training and their desire for freedom.

But now these soldiers, who had terrified Europe, found themselves unable to break through the formations that the local farmers had hastily assembled.

They could only watch as the musketeers, dressed in striking dark red uniforms, retreated from the gaps left by the Balkans, and then regrouped a little higher behind.

Muserim's infantry desperately tried to break through the Balkan defenses, but they found that they were standing in front of them like a reef on the coast, and even the rear Facial troops had already rushed up, but the Balkans were still stubbornly in front of them.

Despite the terrible casualties they were taking as they fought, the Balkans refused to take a step back.

The sun had slowly risen, and the land was a place of crisp morning, but the battlefield was filled with terrible scenes of slaughter.

From the very beginning, Sisugu had been paying attention to the direction of the Montina army's north-south alliance, and according to the previous plan, he knew that if he won the battle, it must start with the defeat of the enemy here.

I don't know why, there is still a voice in Xi Sugu's heart that keeps reminding him that if he will fail, the key position must be here.

This strange thought didn't make Xi Sugu feel ridiculous, but made him vigilant.

Xi Sugu never believed that anything impossible would happen on the battlefield, so when this thought popped up in his mind, he felt that there should be something he hadn't thought of yet.

So he's been keeping an eye on what's going on on that field.

The fierce firepower of the Agri Musket Regiment surprised Sisugu at first, he had never seen an army with such fierce firepower except for the new musketeers of the Sultan, although the musketeers of this army may not be comparable to the new army in terms of number and scale, but Sisugu noticed that the enemy's neat and concentrated firepower shooting method, which had obviously been cultivated after countless hard trainings, was not available to the new musketeers.

The kind of shooting can be described as terrifying, especially when the enemy on the opposite side attacks those musketeers in a very dense formation, and the dense barrage of bullets formed by rows of bullets in an instant, can tear a bloody gap in the enemy's ranks without even deliberately aiming.

Xi Sugu's heart tightened at first, and then he finally breathed a sigh of relief, he realized that the enemy should have guessed his intentions, so he should have arranged the most elite troops in this position.

Xi Sugu felt that he could rest assured, his plan was to attract the enemy to this position as much as possible, so the more fierce the fighting here, the easier it would be for his plan to succeed.

The attack of the Muserim infantry was so fierce that they narrowly managed to break through the Balkan line, and the Muserim infantry at the forefront had once again seen the strange musketeers in the deep red uniforms that had inflicted heavy casualties on them.

But in the end, they did not succeed, and the Balkans poured in on them from all sides, which made the Muserim infantry even wonder if all the local farmers had risen up to fight them.

The attack of the Muserim infantry was eventually halted by the Balkan maniacs' counterattack, and when they began to retreat, the Muserim infantry showed their cunning and experienced side.

Their formation seems chaotic, but in fact they roll backwards in a huge hollow circle, so that if the enemy pursues, they only need any part of the pursued troops to appear to be scattered, so that they can take the opportunity to lead the enemy into that hollow trap, and then wait for the pursuers to be completely slaughtered.

When the Muserim infantry retreated, some of the Balkans could not resist the temptation to chase after them.

Pannone was equally moved when he noticed the actions of those men, who looked panicked and fled into the distance, like a large group of fatty hares, as if they could catch them with a single kick by catching them.

The thought made Pannone almost give the order to pursue, but in the end he calmed down, and remembered what Alexander had said to him after he had been whipped down from the tree: "If I could, I would rather let the Genoese or the Pisa defend that position, because they would not give up their position in pursuit of victory, but I decided that you should hold there, because I know that for them the battle is just an order, and for you it is to prove your bravery, so don't let me down, Remember, the only thing that proves you brave is to hold your ground. ”

In the end, Pannone gave the order to attack, and even shouted to try to bring back his companions who had been chased out of position, and when he saw that they had unfortunately fallen into the trap of the enemy and were surrounded on all sides, Pannone turned his back, and his ears kept hearing the last shouts of his distant companions until they were killed in battle, and then he gave the order to the Balkans who were looking in the direction of the enemy formation.

"Hold your ground! The Earl wants us to hold our ground! ”

Sisukgu saw the whole attack of Muserim's infantry clearly, and he also noticed the completely different reactions of the Balkans from the previous day, which made Sisugu take some interest in the Count of Montina, thinking that the Sultan ordered him to capture the Count alive as much as possible, and Sisugu turned back and whispered to the people around him, asking them to convey the Sultan's orders to the various troops.

The first Ottoman assault on Montina's army ended in a retreat, but the calm lasted only a brief moment, and with the sound of a dense hoof, a swift flash of figures poured out from the direction of the Ottoman position.

At about 8 a.m., after a tentative assault by Muserim's infantry and tribal troops, the Anatolian light cavalry finally entered the field.

Looking at the smoke and dust rising in the distance, Alexander also gave an order to the waiting retinue: "Order the left flank of the west to move closer to the center and prepare to defend against a cavalry attack." ”

"My lord, is the right wing in the north also shrinking?" A Genoese officer asked, with some trepidation, that the Genoese had been terrified of the Ottomans by the terrible fighting of the previous day.

"No, the right wing must hold on."

Alexander glanced at the officer, and it occurred to him that if he had two Oflaiyi or two Gompati, he might be less constrained.

Will Pannone be the next Oflaiyi or Gompati? Alexander didn't have much hope for it, but Panoni's ability to resist the temptation to pursue gave him some hope.

The roar of horses' hooves in the distance became more rapid, as if it was about to strike into the heart, reminding Alexander that the battle was still going on.

"The hardest time is coming." Alexander whispered.

At 8 a.m., the Anatolian light cavalry of the Ottoman army launched an attack on the Montina position, and the most brutal and bloody scene of the Battle of the Alger River was staged.

And at this moment, in Bucharest, Tzepes, having finally convinced the last influential figure, the Patriarch of Bucharest, conveyed the order of Princess Sofia Alessandra Valleolo in the name of the Grand Duke of Wallachia.

"With the authority given to me by the princess of Greece, I order, send troops to the Alger River!"