Iron Powder and Spellcaster

The shelling of the city walls has not stopped since the day the heavy artillery was deployed. Needless to say, during the day, even at night, the eight artillery groups outside the city would fire several shots at the city wall from time to time.

This constant bombardment, day and night, not only destroyed the city walls, but was also intended to break down the spirit of the defenders and prevent the Tanirians from resting.

The city wall was crumbling, and every shelling could be a signal for the Veneta Army's general attack. The continuous shelling made both civilians and soldiers in the city highly nervous.

But this tactic also had a side effect: almost all of Venetta's caster officers had also suffered from nervous breakdown from the night bombardment.

Since the brain is more active than normal, the caster is more sensitive to the environment. Poor sleep quality was not a personal problem for Winters, it was a problem for all spellcasters.

The sound of cannons that rang out every now and then during the night made the spellcasters in the military camp miserable. In the current Veneta military camp, it is easy to tell which officers are spell casters. You are right to look for those officers with black circles on their heads and bloodshot eyes.

Only Captain Moritz of the Gendarmerie was not affected by the shelling at all. Major Moritz van Nassou drank strong liquor and herbal medicine every night and slept like a dead man. Even if someone shot around him, he would not wake up.

Antonio shook his head when he mentioned Moritz. What he actually said to Winters was: "If Van Nassau had stopped drinking, he would have obtained the rank of lieutenant colonel. If he says so, he will get the baton of general in the future." It’s not difficult…it’s a pity to lose such a character…”

However, Moritz Van Nassou is not Antonio's subordinate. He is an adult with full behavioral capabilities. Antonio has no reason and will not interfere with Moritz's chosen lifestyle.

The constant bombardment caused pain to the casters of Veneta, and even more pain to the defenders and civilians in the tower city.

At the beginning of the battle, the attackers and defenders still retained some virtue and grace. But those things have now dissipated, and the war is taking its worst, bloodiest, and cruelest turn.

The night after the Montagny Guards came out of the city to counterattack and were eventually annihilated.

William Kidd sent a messenger with a handwritten letter, hoping that there would be a one-day truce like the previous time, and that both sides would send people to collect the bodies and bury the dead.

But this time Antonio rejected the defender's request. He replied coldly to the envoy: "If William Kidd really cares about the dignity of the dead, he can open the city and surrender, and then you will no longer have to worry about this problem."

The garrison's envoy left in despair, while the siege continued.

During the day, the Venetians shelled the city walls, filled in the trenches, extended the corridor fortifications all the way to the trenches, and launched a tentative attack on the weakened position.

At night, William Kidd led the defenders to go all out to repair the broken city wall: pouring mortar into the cracks in the wall, and filling the small gaps in the wall with stones, shrubs, soil - whatever was useful.

They imitated the Veneta people and moved barrels filled with soil one by one and placed them at the top of the city to replace the battlements that had been blown to pieces.

The Veneta Army was not idle at night. Eight artillery groups would suddenly launch bombardments on the city wall at night, mainly using light artillery to kill the Tanirians who were desperately repairing the city wall.

Vauban also sent a small group of soldiers into the trench through the triangular fort, and used hook nets to recover precious artillery shells scattered in the trench and at the base of the walls. The continuous bombardment was rapidly consuming the ammunition reserves of the Veneta Army, even under the enemy's nose. The shells also had to be recovered.

After experiencing nine consecutive nights of being awakened by the roar of heavy artillery while half asleep, Winters simply took the initiative to apply for the night guard duty of the cannon.

He currently does not have a formal commissioned position, and is a "brick-type" officer in the army - he is suitable for doing such chores wherever he needs to move.

So the day after the large-scale bombardment began, Winters became the duty officer of the "West-4" artillery group.

The legion headquarters assigned two ten-man teams to each artillery team as night posts. This is the front line and it is impossible to leave too many people.

However, a full brigade was stationed behind the old siege barrier 300 meters away, so that if there were police, they could quickly provide support. The main force in the camp can also arrive quickly.

The mission of the night guard is actually very simple: discover the enemy, sound the alarm, wait for the troops behind to come up, and the mission is completed.

Especially the current battle situation makes Ye Gang's task extremely easy: the Triangular Fort has been captured, and the Tanirians will not be able to quietly use the city gate to attack. If you insist on going out of the city to counterattack, this is the fate of the Montagny Guards.

And Tacheng is a small city. Unlike a giant city like Constantinople, which has a large number of side gates, side gates, and secret doors, it only has this gate next to the triangular fortress.

The Tanirians would have to be stupid enough to make the same mistake as the Montagni Guards.

Therefore, the night post, which has no chance to perform meritorious service, is unanimously considered by the Veneta lieutenants to be the most difficult job. If you do a good job, you will not be considered a meritorious service. If you make a mistake, you will have to go to a military court.

Hearing that Winters offered to replace him, Lieutenant Charles, the former duty officer of the West Fourth Artillery Group, wanted to pick up Winters and call him daddy, and happily completed the handover.

Although it is hard work, since you are here, you have to do it well.

Winters did three things when he arrived.

The first thing is to issue whistles to all the soldiers under your command. Generally speaking, whistles are only issued to officers, so giving whistles to soldiers can easily cause confusion on the battlefield.

But Winters believed that ringing the bell was too slow. If something happened, it would not be as fast as the whistle.

The second thing is to expand the corners of the corridors on the left and right sides of the cannon so that it can accommodate two ten-man teams. Winters placed his two ten-man troops on the left and right sides instead of spreading them all over the corridor.

This is the experience he gained after several night attacks. A single sentry can easily be touched, and multiple light and dark sentries must be deployed.

The third thing is to apply for six hard crossbows. In Winters' view, issuing matchlocks to the night sentries was pure folly and a model of bureaucracy. It is impossible for the sentry to let the match rope burn all night. Even if the sentry is not afraid of death, there is not so much match rope for them to squander.

Instead of scrambling to light a match when he was attacked, it would be better to just use a crossbow and blow the whistle if something happened.

The efficiency of the Veneta army was extremely high. Winters went to the armory in the morning to pick up crossbows and whistles, and the corridor was renovated in the afternoon. At night, Winters, armed with his gun and sword, resumed his night shift for the first time since leaving the military academy.

At midnight, Winters, who was on duty, couldn't help but sigh when he thought that he used to hate being on night duty, but now he had to take the initiative to apply for night duty.

A sudden voice interrupted Winters' thoughts.

"Why are you sighing? Centurion?" Buba, the halberd bearer, didn't know what he was chewing in his mouth. He held the halberd and said vaguely: "My mother said that sighing blows away good luck. , so after sighing, I have to slap the good luck back with my hands."

After saying that, Bubba awkwardly reached out and slapped Winters twice on the nose.

"Presumptuous! What are you doing?!" Elder Taylor was startled and immediately scolded Bubba.

Bubba drew his hand back timidly.

Taylor, who had some frost on his temples, pointed to his head and explained to Winters: "Sir, Bubba has something wrong with his brain. Please don't argue with him."

Winters waved his hand to indicate that it was okay. He smiled and said to Bubba, "I'm not a centurion, Bubba. Do you know how many people are on duty here tonight?"

"There are two ten-man teams." Bubba counted on his fingers for a long time: "Ten...sixteen people?"

"Is it enough for a centurion?"

"not enough."

"Am I a centurion then?"

"That's not..." Bubba said hesitantly: "...Then you are... Captain of the Twenty?"

Bubba's answer made Winters laugh.

"Asshole!" Sergeant Taylor was so angry that he raised his leg and kicked Babu hard on the butt. After kicking him, he raised his hand to hit again. Bubba was so scared that he hugged his head and shrank up.

However, Old Taylor's raised arm did not hit him because Winters reached out and grabbed his wrist.

Sergeant Taylor was surprised to find that the warrant officer, who didn't look very strong, was unexpectedly strong. His arm was grabbed by him as if it were clamped by an iron vise, unable to move.

"I asked him, he did nothing wrong and there is no need for corporal punishment." After saying that, Winters let go of his hand, and Taylor's right arm was free again.

"Isn't his 'disrespectful' words? According to military regulations, he must be whipped three times." Taylor glared at Bubba, lowered his head and said to Warrant Officer Montagne: "But you just don't care."

"He was right, I am indeed the 'Captain of Twenty' now." Winters couldn't help laughing again.

"Uh... you can't say that..." Sergeant Taylor was at a loss for words.

Winters patted Taylor on the arm and smiled: "Montagne, Warrant Officer, Sir, you can call him whatever you think is convenient, I don't care."

"I'm so confused... I'd better call you sir, right?" Bubba, who had caused this little commotion, didn't have the slightest sense of self-consciousness, and said with a silly smile while touching the back of his head.

Captain Taylor was so angry that he glared at Bubba. Bubba lowered his head when he saw Taylor's eyes.

"The food is here! The food is here!" Excited shouts approached from a distance, and the sound of clattering footsteps came from the corridor.

Private Dan ran out of the corridor carrying a small iron pot with both hands and three cloth bags hanging around his neck.

The night guard guarding the cannon has to guard from just dark until dawn, a time span of nearly twelve hours. I have to rest during the day and can't have lunch, so I eat an extra meal at night.

The seven hungry soldiers in the ten-man team quickly took the iron pot from Dan's hand.

Lifting the lid of the pot, there was hot soup inside.

Bubba, whose stomach was growling, didn't even wait for Dan to take the bag off his neck, and he reached into the bag impatiently.

"Wait! Don't touch! Don't take it by mistake!" Dan tightly protected the bag and pushed Bubba away. After he opened the bags and examined them carefully for a while, he handed two of the bags to Bubba: "These are our bread."

Bubba grabbed the bag, pulled out a large brown bread, quickly broke off a piece and stuffed it into his mouth to chew.

This "cake-shaped" bread, which weighs almost a pound, is the staple food of Veneta soldiers. Unlike the dishes and soups made by the soldiers themselves, the bread is baked uniformly by the bakers of the Legion Logistics Office and distributed per head.

The main ingredients of military bread are wheat, barley and rye in equal proportions, and the auxiliary ingredients are salt and water.

Winters tasted the army ration bread and it tasted sour. But in fact, since wheat flour accounts for one-third, it is already a very good food, and only farmers and above can afford it.

Many boys from poor families tasted this bread [Maslin] for the first time when they became soldiers.

The other soldiers also shared a piece of bread each, scooped some soup into their own cups, and ate one bite of soup and one bite of bread.

Dan handed the last bag to Winters: "Sir, this is yours."

"Oh, thank you." Winters took the bag and sat down on a rock like the soldiers around him.

As soon as he sat down, the soldiers of Taylor's Ten fell silent.

Not only did the officer class in the Veneta army eat differently from the soldiers, in fact the officers did not eat with the soldiers at all. There is no unity of officers and soldiers here, only the difference between officers and soldiers.

So when Warrant Officer Montagne sat next to him, the soldiers of Taylor's Ten were all dumbfounded. They looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

"Eat? Why don't you eat?" Winters felt very strange when he saw that everyone was motionless.

The soldiers all looked at Captain Taylor. Old Taylor awkwardly said to Winters: "Uh, you... shouldn't you go to the officers' club for dinner?"

"Officers' club?" Winters said dumbfounded: "There are cannons on the side and the city wall in front. Where is the officers' club here?"

"Then you shouldn't sit and eat with the soldiers." Taylor didn't know what to say: "This... this... this is not good."

"What's wrong?"

"Anyway...it's just not good anyway."

The meaningless answer gave Winters a headache, and he asked directly: "Come on, just tell me, where did the officer in charge of the night guard eat?"

"Centurion Charles always comes back to the camp to have his meals." Sergeant Taylor answered honestly.

"What? Back to the military camp? It's almost two kilometers back and forth..." Winters frowned and asked, "What will happen here when the officer on duty goes back to have a meal?"

"Anyway, Lieutenant Charles is going back to the camp for dinner." Taylor replied matter-of-factly: "Just leave it to us."

Winters understood what was going on and cursed a few times in his mind. Charles may have dared to go AWOL, but Winters had no intention of following suit.

He stretched out his hand to take out his food and said in a relaxed tone: "Lieutenant Charles is diligent, but I am lazy. It is too far to go back, so I am too lazy to go back, so I eat here. You can eat and drink normally. If you feel uncomfortable, just pretend that I don't exist." alright."

Since the duty officer said so, Sergeant Taylor didn't say anything more.

He saluted, sat back in his seat, and began to break the hard bread into pieces and put it in his mouth.

When the other soldiers saw the captain moving, they also continued to chew. They were already extremely hungry.

Winters' bag contained two paper packages. He unwrapped the paper package and found beef wrapped in one - many cows had died from "exhaustion" while moving the cannon.

If animals were not needed to move the cannons in the future, a group of officers could "tire" all the remaining oxen to death at a rate of two per day.

Another paper bag contained bread, not the coarse bread the soldiers ate, but white bread.

Refined white flour can be obtained by removing the bran from the outside of the wheat, grinding it once and sifting it more than three times.

Wheat itself is the best and most expensive grain, and a lot of quality is lost during the refining process, so white bread not only tastes better, it itself has a very strong symbolic meaning.

The movements of Bubba's hands and mouth that were devouring suddenly stopped. He stared closely at the beef and white bread in Warrant Officer Montagne's hand, his Adam's apple flipped up and down, and he swallowed hard.

Other soldiers also saw the beef and white bread in Warrant Officer Montagne's hand. They just took a deep look, then quickly looked away, silently lowering their heads and chewing the thick bread in their mouths harder.

"What are you looking at! Eat your own!" Captain Taylor scolded with a stern face.

After hearing this, Bubba quickly lowered his head, swallowed again, broke off a large piece of the flatbread in his hand and stuffed it into his mouth.

Seeing the scene in front of him, Winters had a little understanding of why Lieutenant Charles wanted to go back to the camp for dinner.

Thirty-one years ago, the coalition forces of the provinces attacked and killed the "butcher" Count Arléans, and the provinces became republics.

Twenty-six years ago, the coalition forces of the republics defeated "Mad" Richard, and the Senas Alliance was established.

The sages proudly declared that "we have to be independent because of such a self-evident truth: As for the rights of 'human beings', one part of the people should not be superior to another part of the people. If anyone thinks that he is better than some people, Noble, then he agrees that he is inferior to other people."

At least that's what Winters learned in history class, and Winters is willing to believe that the martyrs ended the emperor's reign for this noble goal.

But Bubba, who was still giggling just now, now buried his head deeply into his shoulders. What was originally a pleasant meal time has become silent and restrained.

Looking at all this, Winters suddenly felt that the food in his hand was a little hard to swallow.

While Bubba was eating, he secretly looked up at the fine bread and meat in Warrant Officer Montagne's hand. When you look at fine bread and take a bite of coarse bread, you feel as if you are eating the coarse bread as fine bread.

Winters reached out and took Bubba's thick bread. Bubba was startled and froze in place.

"Is it so delicious? Seeing how delicious you eat it makes me want to try it too." Winters broke off half of Bubba's thick bread, broke off most of his own bread and gave it back to Bubba. Ba: "Don't say I'm stealing your bread! I'm exchanging it with you, not stealing it."

It wasn't until Winters thrust the bread into Bubba's hand that he came to his senses. But he was still stunned and kept giggling. But he didn't move his mouth, he just looked at the bread in his hand, and then looked at Captain Taylor.

Sergeant Taylor nodded grimly.

Bubba then hurriedly stuffed the white bread into his mouth as if he had found a treasure, chewing it with joy on his face.

He was so greedy that he stuffed too much bread into his mouth in one breath. He choked and coughed, but he still giggled while coughing.

The thick bread that had been sitting there for a few days immediately sucked all the moisture out of your mouth. Winters smiled bitterly and said, "Are there any extra cups? Give me some soup."

"Use mine." Sergeant Taylor dug out his cup expressionlessly, found a clean handkerchief to wipe it with, filled a cup of hot soup and handed it to Winters.

"The soup isn't free for you, I'll give you the side dishes in exchange." Winters crushed the cooked beef shank in another paper bag vigorously and added it to the soup.

The other soldiers in the ten-man team also froze on the spot, looking at the pot, but no one touched the spoon.

Old Taylor sighed and nodded again.

The other soldiers couldn't wait to serve the soup and scrambled to get the beef out of the pot.

Senior soldiers Dan and Winters, who were in charge of cooking tonight, said: "I have long thought that the rumors were false. I have delivered meals so many times, but no officer has ever said 'thank you' to me except you. You can tell at a glance It’s easy to get along with.”

Winters originally thought that Dan was just here to flatter him, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt wrong: "Huh? Wait, what rumor are you talking about..."

"Nothing, nothing." Dan San smiled and ran away.

Bubba took a big mouthful of broth and said happily: "I have fine bread to eat and broth to drink. I haven't eaten so well for a long time. How good is Chief Montagne? Why did you guys do it before? Want to scare me?"

Sensing another breakthrough, Winters immediately asked Bubba: "What did I scare you for? Tell me carefully."

"Nothing, nothing." Other soldiers quickly stopped between Winters and Bubba. Old Taylor picked up a piece of bread and stuffed it into Bubba's mouth.

It was obviously not a good thing to say, but Winters wanted to hear it even more. He reached out and grabbed Sergeant Taylor: "Don't block his mouth, let him speak."

"...Yes? Why don't you let me say it?" Everyone tried their best to cover Bubba's mouth, but he dodged around just to speak: "Chief Montagne...they said you are particularly cruel and like Cut off your head, call you 'Headhunter'... and call you 'Blood Man', saying you know the wizard's black magic..."

The other soldiers became anxious and tried their best to block Bubba's mouth.

Bubba struggled and said, "...and, there is something else..."

"Okay! Stop!" Winters shouted angrily.

The soldiers of Taylor's Ten were so frightened that they did not dare to move.

"Let him finish." Winters looked at Bubba: "If there is anything else, tell me."

Bubba said with a silly smile: "They said you were very desperate in fighting. The last centurion you led only had four people left alive... They were all lying to me. They all thought I was stupid. In fact, I can Identify who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

You are so good, how could this happen? "

Winters felt a tightness in his chest, and it took him more than ten seconds to calm down. He was too lazy to explain, and he didn't want to explain to the people in front of him.

"Sir, that's not what we meant..." Old Taylor quickly came out to smooth things over.

Winters looked at Sergeant Taylor, then at the other soldiers, and said calmly: "The rumors are indeed true. Only four of my centurions survived. I have chopped off the enemy's heads, and I do know how to be a wizard." of black magic."

The atmosphere dropped to freezing point.

"How could it be? I don't believe it." Buba said naively, "You are a good person."

"Maybe, maybe not. War only requires soldiers who obey orders. Good guys and bad guys have nothing to do with it." Winters felt a little lonely, but quickly returned to his usual demeanor: "Keep eating, the soup is almost cold."

Everyone sat back to eat in silence.

After eating this "main meal", Winters arranged the night patrol for the ten-man team, then left the guard post and went to the position of another ten-man team.

However, Winters felt that before going over, it was best to check the siren placed in front of the gun emplacement.

A few dozen meters away on the east side, fire flashed from time to time. It was the "West-1" artillery group that was firing at night.

Directly ahead in the night, the walls of Tacheng are looming.

Walking under the night sky and gazing at the stars, Winters' steps became lighter. The cool breeze took away the heat of the day, and for the first time since he landed on Red Sulfur Island, he felt a little comfortable.

The first thought that popped into his mind was "I wonder what Anna is doing now? Is she looking at the starry sky like me? What are Kesha and Ella doing?"

The siren was placed not far in front of the gun emplacement, and Winters arrived quickly.

Said to be an alarm, it is actually just a simple trap composed of some thin wires and bells. Simple, but effective, it makes a sound when accidentally touched.

However, Winters searched for a long time and couldn't find the location of the trip wire. He almost thought that he was in the wrong place. However, after comparing the markers, he confirmed that he was not in the wrong place.

Winters' breathing began to quicken involuntarily.

He leaned down on the ground, took out a copper rod, concentrated on using the copper rod as the casting material, and activated the light spell. He did not cast spells with all his strength, but maintained a minimum but not disruptive magic output.

A cold green light emanated from the copper rod. Using the dim light, Winters carefully searched for clues.

Finally, he found the tripwire—a broken tripwire.

Then came the second and third broken trip wires.

Winters methodically put away the copper rod and drew his sidearm.

It has been thirteen hours since I wrote at one o'clock yesterday. I originally wanted to continue writing and finish what happened this night. But I really want to sleep. Now I feel a bit like the severe hypoxia and fatigue I had when crossing the plateau, which leads to tinnitus, slow brain operation, and the feeling of time speeding up (probably I feel that only one minute has passed) , actually it’s been a minute and a half) so let’s just break it at 6642 words.

And I estimate that there will be a record number of typos in this chapter, because when people are tired, they can’t even see the typos in front of their eyes, but I have tried my best to check...

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