Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Fate tortured both parties in a funny way.

Once upon a time, city walls were the only way for farming civilizations to resist barbarians, but now they have become a trap for nomadic tribes hiding behind high walls.

The Platuan people fought very hard. On the fourth day of the siege, they barely managed to fill in the double-layered trench outside the south wall.

On the fifth day of the battle, a large group broke through to the south wall of the bastion. Using the truck as a cover, the engineers began to dig into the wall and prepare for blasting.

The most brutal battle of the siege thus far broke out.

The Hurds on the bastion frantically poured boiling water and boiling oil over the wall without stopping.

The main city gate and three side gates suddenly opened, and a steady stream of Herd's elite armored soldiers came out to counterattack. Some brave men were not afraid of the dead and even jumped off the city wall, jumping into the crowd and slashing wildly.

The arrows above their heads were like hail, and the oil was like rain. A few steps away were their comrades and barbarians who were fighting. The screams, howls, and the sounds of weapons piercing flesh were endless. In this environment, the Plato engineers gritted their teeth and dug into the wall. .

In the context of Veneta and the United Provinces, the "frontier people"-the Montans and Platos are synonymous with rudeness and barbarism.

But Winters was still greatly moved by the bravery and ferocity displayed by the Plato soldiers and their enemies.

The bloody battle also numbed the scalps of Winters' auxiliary soldiers and civilians, so that they complained much less while working.

Although the siege was not going well, Winters' excavation project was progressing well.

He has successfully pushed the trenches to within two hundred meters of the city wall. Some trenches are even less than fifty meters away from the city wall. The voices of the Heds on the city can be heard clearly in the trenches.

These trenches greatly shortened the offensive distance of the troops. Now the Plato soldiers could safely reach the city wall through the trenches before launching an assault.

When retreating, you can also retreat to the nearest trench and then move to the rear.

Originally, according to Winters' estimate, the Hurds would launch an attack when the trenches crossed the center line.

So Winters carefully prepared countermeasures. He put his five most elite ten-man teams on guard, arranged sentries, arranged charging angles and evacuation passages throughout the trenches, and so on.

But the charming eyes were thrown to the blind man, and the Hittite's counterattack never appeared.

This made Winters even more convinced that although the Herds had well-planned city defense and were tenacious enough, they lacked actual experience in sieges.

Bianli City is first-class in terms of location and design, and it is obviously made by an expert. However, the defenders in the city are currently fighting based on instinct.

Their attention was focused on the battle under the city wall. It is possible that even if the Hurds noticed that the trench was approaching, they would not be able to spare their energy to deal with it.

Or the defenders believed that the battle beside the wall was more important, so they temporarily ignored the trenches.

Regardless of what the Hurds think, one side's mistakes are the other's opportunities. Since the Hurds despised the trenches, Winters dug in faster.

On the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, the Palato engineers finally arranged the explosives, and Andreo, the engineer captain covered in mud, lit the fuse himself.

Seeing the Platoans scattering one after another, the Hedians, realizing that something was wrong, attacked again, but were blocked by Captain Andreio and his men with all their might.

The wire hissed and burned into the soil, and everyone beside the wall held their breath involuntarily, waiting for the shocking sound.

Andreio even closed his eyes because he was too close to the explosion point and thought he had no chance of surviving.

However, no one heard the loud noise, and the explosion sounded like a muffled fart.

When the smoke cleared, a big hole appeared in the wall. The city wall stood silently, as if nothing had happened.

The wall-digging and blasting tactics that the Platuan people had high hopes for failed, and hundreds of kilograms of black powder were set off like fireworks.

…

On the fifth day of the siege, night fell.

When Lieutenant Colonel Jessica opened the curtain of Ensign Montagne's tent, the ensign was writing something on a piece of parchment.

Seeing the lieutenant colonel coming in, Winters subconsciously blocked the parchment with a map and stood up to salute.

Jessica saw everything. He stood at the door of the tent, his tone as cold as ever: "Sekler wants to see you."

"General Sackler?" Winters was stunned.

Jessica nodded slightly.

"I'll pack it up and go." Winters pulled out the parchment covered with writing from under the map, folded it twice, and put it into a small square wooden box.

When the ensign opened the wooden box, Jessica saw stacks of parchment folded in half, packed neatly.

Winters followed the lieutenant colonel, and the two of them walked towards the headquarters in the center of the barracks.

"Szekler is a nice guy, don't be nervous," Lieutenant Colonel Jessica said.

Winters nodded in agreement.

"Maybe he wants to ask you about tactics. Just answer whatever he asks. Sackler likes people who can grasp the key points. It's best to talk less nonsense and be concise."

"Thank you, sir."

The lieutenant colonel snorted slightly, seemingly indifferent to the "thank you".

After walking in silence for a while, Jessica suddenly asked: "What were you writing just now? Of course... you don't have to say it if you don't want to."

"Write letters to your family."

"Family." The one-eyed lieutenant colonel chewed on this word: "This is a damn place where I can't even send it out even if I write it."

"I can't send it, but I still write it."

The Lieutenant Colonel snorted again.

In a spacious tent, Winters met Brigadier General Sackler.

The style inside the tent is shabby compared to the size of the tent itself. A bed, a desk, a clothes rack, that's all.

General Szekely sat on a pony with a bench in front of him. It seemed that he was eating dinner using the bench as a dining table.

There was a plate on the bench with some paste in it.

When Winters entered the tent, Brigadier General Sackler was holding a pickle in his left hand and eating bread with his right hand.

Just looking at his appearance, he didn't look like a general with a heavy army at all, but more like a farmer who had just returned home from working in the fields.

Plato officers generally care about ostentation and pursue luxurious things: gold-embroidered waistbands, silk horse clothes, jeweled swords, complete sets of ceramic tableware...

Especially the cavalry officers, who are always dressed beautifully, even a little too showy.

Regarding this tendency, a mean Veneta critic summed it up this way: "The Platons always live in scarcity, so for the Platons who rarely have enough things, 'enough' means more than More than anyone else.”

In just one second, Winters made a perceptual judgment about Sackler: If this is not a saint, then he is a fake person. In short, he is not an ordinary person.

The brigadier general was very accommodating: "Gentlemen, find a place to sit by yourselves."

They said they were looking for a place to sit, but there wasn't even an extra bench in the tent.

Lieutenant Colonel Jessica sat down on the Brigadier's bed without ceremony. The second lieutenant was neither standing nor sitting, but in the end he stood still.

"I brought the man." Jessica pursed her lips: "He is Winters Montagne, and he led his men to dig those trenches."

Winters originally thought that the lieutenant colonel was only lukewarm to his subordinates, but he did not expect that he would also speak with the brigadier general in the same tone.

Sackler took a bite of bread and looked at Winters: "Second Lieutenant Montagne?"

"Yes." Winters drew his boots closer.

"I know you are wronged. You can't go home. We are sorry for you." Brigadier General Sackler said sincerely: "I promise you that when this battle is over, I will immediately arrange for you to return to Veneta."

Winters had a bad feeling: "Thank you, General."

"What do you think of this siege?"

"Our army will win!"

"Then how long do you think it will take to capture the Hed's city?"

Winters felt strange in his heart. He wanted to reason with the general. How could a war be accurate?

But when the other party asked, he had to simply answer: "I don't know!"

Sackler and Lieutenant Colonel Jessica looked at each other and smiled bitterly: "You can just say it as a guess."

"It can take as short as two or three days. It's hard to say how long it will take. It depends on the reserves of the Hed people."

"Two or three days?"

"Maybe we can go to the city tomorrow."

"But our army was defeated miserably today."

"Sieging a city is not about winning or losing in one day." Winters couldn't help but say: "Today proved that the tactics of wall-digging and blasting are feasible. The Herd's artillery fired less and less in the past few days, and their The gunpowder must have bottomed out. Without the artillery, the Huds have nothing to do with their carts."

After speaking, Winters paused and added: "Of course, the blasting method must be improved."

"How to improve?"

"Strengthen the seal. It's best to use tunnel blasting, aren't you still digging tunnels?"

"We haven't dug under the city wall yet."

"The key is to destroy the morale of the Hurds. If the morale of the Hurds does not drop, even if the outer wall is breached, there will still be an inner wall behind. If the inner wall is breached, there will still be a fight for the house."

Szekler smiled and shook his head: "Do you know who the Hedmans guarding the city are? They are the tribesmen of the barbarian chief Yasin, his relatives, direct descendants, and guards. As long as Yasin does not die, the Hedmans in the city will Deman will not give up resistance."

Winters suddenly realized that with the hatred between the Platons and the Heds, it would be difficult to disintegrate the enemy's morale through ordinary methods.

Sackler continued to ask: "You should have met those Hurd raiders who crossed the River Styx eastward, right?"

"yes."

"Do you know who those Hurds are?"

"I don't know." To those who don't know the wasteland, a Hurd is a Hurd, and that's the case with Winters.

"Those are Naiman tribes made up of more than 20 large and small tribes, but there is not a single person from the Chihe tribe in them." Sekler said with emotion: "Don't underestimate Yasin, a barbarian! He led his tribe to We hooked him, but let other tribes go to Plato to plunder and eat the fat meat. He gnawed the bones and gave the meat to others. With this kind of magnanimity, if he is not killed in this earth city today, he will be killed in the future. There will be no peace in the Plato borderland for twenty years."

Winters listened with rapt attention. In the beginning, this battle was just "Plathians versus Hittites" to him.

But as he became more involved, he discovered that the underlying logic of this war was far more than just "border citizens fighting against barbarians."

This is a "ploughing the court and sweeping the hole".

Winters was still thinking wildly, Brigadier General Sackler said thoughtfully: "Second Lieutenant Montagne."

"yes"

The brigadier general made a surprising statement: "If you were solely responsible for the overall planning, how long would it take for you to capture Bianli?"

Winters didn't react for a moment.

Brigadier General Sackler said it again.

"Next year," Winters replied.

Winters saw something strange: the brigadier general was already a little sick and rushed to the doctor.

In this siege, Winters actually commanded nearly 1,200 auxiliary soldiers and civilians.

This was the first time he was responsible for so many people, and it already made him a little anxious.

Moreover, Winters knew very well that he was able to dispatch thousands of men because the commander of the auxiliary troops was his Veneta contemporaries. The Veneta lieutenants were on the same page, and no one was averse to listening to him.

Civilians naturally obey the authority of officers and do not need to worry too much.

"If I coordinate." Winters repeated the answer seriously: "Next year. No one will listen to me. They can only wait for the Hedians to starve to death."

Brigadier General Sackler understood what the second lieutenant meant. He explained: "Of course you don't need to come to the table. You can serve at the regiment headquarters. The order is issued in my name and Arpad's name, and you will not be a target."

"Why are you so impatient?" Winters asked back: "Even if I were to go up, it would only be the third step - digging, blasting, and shelling. Today we can already see signs of victory. As long as we have patience, Bianli City Sooner or later it belongs to Plato.”

"No!" Sackler's eyes were bright and his expression was serious: "You must be fast! The faster, the better!"

…

…

That night, the Palatine army entered the trench position and dug forward overnight.

The next day, the Palatine army once again blasted the southern bastion wall.

This time the engineers used a new digging method. Instead of going straight, they dug out an angled cavity. Although it takes more work, the sealing effect is better.

The engineers and craftsmen in the army also improved the containers for gunpowder. In the past, in order to facilitate transportation, barrels of gunpowder were fed into the blastholes. The powder barrels detonated one after another, spreading the power.

This time, only a "coffin" filled with gunpowder was used. The coffin was sealed with an iron ring and sealed with asphalt on the inside and outside.

The second explosion was no longer a muffled fart.

A corner of the southern bastion was directly blown down, and the explosion even frightened the war horses in the camp. Mud and debris flew dozens of meters into the air, and it was like a mud rain fell inside and outside the city.

As soon as the southern bastion was blown open, the newly formed grenadier brigade of the Palatine Army rushed into the gap.

Following Winters' suggestion, Sackler selected tall, strong, and physically strong brave soldiers from the Fifth and Sixth Legions, equipped with half-body armor, full-coverage helmets, melee weapons, and iron bombs specifically for breaking through gaps.

Although the iron bomb is heavy, it is indeed miraculous in attacking tough battles.

The Hedians fought back desperately, and the Platuan army advanced three times and retreated three times, and finally firmly occupied a corner of the bastion.

At this time, it was impossible for the Heds to drive back the Platoans, because while the two sides were still fighting over the gap, Winters had already led people to open up the last section between the gap and the trench position.

The Palatine army can continuously support the gap through trenches.

The sky was getting dark, and the exhausted Platons and Hedians were unable to do anything to the other. Both sides stopped fighting and licked their wounds, and the battle came to an end.

However, in the dead of night, people, livestock and poultry within a radius of more than ten kilometers were awakened by another loud noise.

This time it was a tunnel blast with almost no limit on the amount of explosives, and the entire northern bastion of the Western Acropolis flew into the sky.

The Hud people in the city even thought it was an earthquake and fled in panic.

The two infantry brigades of the Palatine Army, which had been well prepared, took advantage of the situation to attack the gap in the northern bastion.

From late night melee to dawn, the western acropolis was captured, and the Hittites fled into the main city for refuge.

The Palatine armies on the south and north banks also took advantage of the situation to cross the river and set up ladders to attack the Eastern Acropolis.

When the sun rose from the horizon, Winters stood on the guard tower and looked at the border. Plato's four-quadrant flag had been planted all over the West City.

Next to Winters, Andre was beaming.

The Veneta lieutenants have heard it - they can go home after this battle, and victory is within their reach.

"Vulnerable, vulnerable!" Andre laughed loudly and patted Winters on the shoulder.

"The battle hasn't been won yet, don't be in a hurry to celebrate." Winters also showed a smile, and he reached out to call the messenger: "Go to Brigadier General Sackler. Lieutenant Mason has collected Hurd artillery shells. Let's go. Lieutenant Mason went to the front with the cannonballs, turned the Hed's cannon, and blasted open the main city gate."

The messenger climbed down from the sentry tower and ran quickly to the legion headquarters.

Winters had an unprecedented sense of satisfaction. The army was at his disposal like chess pieces. He could formulate plans without restrictions and then watch the plans be implemented. Nothing excited him more than this.

Even though he was just an assistant making suggestions, he found that all this still gave him the illusion of omnipotence. He couldn't help but ask himself: "Is this power? It's dangerous and intoxicating."

In the morning light, groups of soldiers left their attack positions and drove towards Bianli City.

Winters reached out and touched the locket: "The morale of the Hud people has been shaken. Maybe they can really defeat them in one battle."

Behind him, out of sight, a rider rushed straight through the barracks gate. The guards immediately stopped him, and the rider fell off his horse, yelling and rolling and crawling towards the legion headquarters.

Five minutes later, Winters received a note.

The joy on his face gradually dissipated, and the wrinkles on his forehead began to appear little by little.

"What's wrong?" Andre noticed something strange.

In the field of vision, the Palatine phalanx, which was marching towards the border with neat steps, changed directions one after another, and the messengers with green helmets and feathers rode towards the Western Acropolis.

Winters raised the note in his hand and said with an unusually calm expression: "The Hud reinforcements are coming."

[Winters’s delusion is actually the delusion of the military staff and the graduates of the old Japanese mainland. Winters and other Veneta lieutenants served as staff officers. They make plans, Sackler and Arpad decide. However, in this era there is no military position such as staff officer, so this chapter is called "Shadow Commander\