Iron Powder and Spellcaster

The barbarians were mad—the Platians were sure of it.

Terdun's troops no longer distinguished between a main attack and a feint attack, and surrounded the bridgehead on three sides and fought hard.

More than twenty thousand troops took turns to go into battle, and the barbarian chief personally led the guards to supervise the battle.

The fleeing Hedians were shot dead by random arrows before they could take more than a few steps.

Going forward means death, and going back means death. The barbarian also became red-eyed.

Before the horse-rejecting stakes in the front were cleared, the people behind carried crudely made wooden ladders and tried to rush through the fort wall.

Initially they tried to fill the ditch with soil, but that was too slow.

So the barbarians simply pushed the human and horse corpses directly into the trench, and tied wooden ladders with shields to form a bridge.

After all, this is just a temporary fortress, with insufficient wall height and insufficient trench depth.

Relying on the tactic of stacking corpses, the Hurds quickly filled in the "road", and then the ladder was set up on the fort wall.

With enemies on three sides, the pressure on the Palatine army suddenly increased.

It was only thanks to the four centurions who took turns leading troops out of the fort to counterattack, killing the enemies under the walls, and braving the rain of arrows to clean up the corpses and sand in the trenches, that Hurd's army failed to enter the city.

The results were remarkable, but the cost was equally huge, because the Hittites would never miss the opportunity to fight the Platons at close range.

On each sortie, more than a fifth of the men never returned, and as many were wounded.

Among the four centurions, Winters and Bard lost the honors one after another. If they weren't wearing heavy armor, they would have died so many times.

Second Lieutenant Sanu - Winters' fellow Marine - was knocked unconscious by a hammer blow to the head. His men struggled to get the unconscious second lieutenant back, but Sanu had lost the ability to fight.

Lieutenant Otiba was unfortunately shot through his left armpit by an arrow. Before he could be sent to Father Carman for treatment, the lieutenant died.

Two out of five lieutenants in the fortress were gone. Only the artillery officer Mason remained in the safest place and was carefully protected.

At this moment, Mason is the most valuable human resource in this fortress.

On the four-cornered bastion and the triangular bastion in front of the gate, the sound of gunfire never stopped for a moment.

The Musketeer's face and hands were covered in black ash, as if he had just crawled out of a coal pile.

The propellant prepared in advance has been used up, and the amount of gunpowder poured into the barrel now depends on the musketeer's touch.

As a result, accidents are inevitable.

During the battle, muskets exploded one after another, and the unfortunate musketeers were directly killed by fragments of the burst barrels.

Those who were lucky enough to survive had their faces and hands blown to pieces.

Soldiers became increasingly fearful of muskets.

The screams of their comrades were still echoing in their ears, making them afraid to take aim carefully. More and more musketeers fired their guns randomly and were done.

Winters was so distraught that he simply removed the twenty most skilled musketeers and asked them to be responsible for preparing propellant for others.

Because the lead bullets were all used up early, a strange scene appeared on the battlefield: the guns in the front were firing continuously, while the people behind were busy melting lead to cast bullets and loading gunpowder.

So much so that the lead was still warm when it was handed over to the musketeers.

And because of the lack of wooden tubes, the gunpowder was hurriedly packed with papyrus and sent to the fort wall.

In order to save trouble, one of the musketeers ignored the order to reuse the paper package because the paper was limited. He tore a small slit in the paper package with his teeth and poured gunpowder into the barrel.

According to the shooting process, the lead bullet should be wrapped with linen pieces and fed into the gun chamber.

However, in order to save trouble, the musketeer immediately wrapped the lead bullet in paper and stabbed it into the barrel of the gun.

This saves time on cutting cloth.

With two small improvements, the reloading speed of the musket has been significantly improved.

Seeing that it was quick and easy, the musketeer's fellow soldier Pao Ze also learned from the same example.

Later, more and more Musketeers began to follow suit.

At the rear, they found that the paper containing gunpowder was getting less and less, so they quickly reported to Second Lieutenant Montagne.

When he learned that someone had deliberately destroyed the paper package, Winters, who was sewing the wound, was furious. He grabbed his saber and strode straight to the wall.

The needle and thread used to sew the wound were still hanging on his leg, dangling back and forth.

"Needle! Sir! Don't step on the needle!" The military doctor chased after him in panic, but he couldn't catch up with the centurion.

The furious Lieutenant Montagne just wanted to see which bastard dared to destroy the "ordnance" and then deal with him personally.

But when Winters saw the filling process of this [paper package medicine], his anger disappeared in an instant.

Soon, Winters found the Musketeer who first invented this process.

The frightened Musketeer was brought to the "Blood Wolf" - he didn't know the name of the centurion in front of him, he only knew this nickname.

The Musketeer originally thought that he was dead, and no matter how lucky he was, he would not be able to escape a whip, but the atmosphere seemed to be different from what he imagined.

The musketeer lowered his head uneasily and quietly looked at the blood wolf with his peripheral vision.

The blood wolf sat on an empty gunpowder barrel, his left leg resting on another gunpowder barrel, and the barber was sewing up the arrow wound on his leg.

"Excuse me, what's your name?" the other party said.

Compared to the various rumors the Musketeers had heard, the Blood Wolf's voice was unexpectedly gentle.

But the Musketeer still couldn't help but shuddered: "Niemi."

"You're not from Wolf Town, are you?" Xue Lang took a breath, and the stitches were obviously very painful: "I can name the people from Wolf Town."

"no."

"You're not in my hundred-man team either, right? I can almost call all my people."

"No." Niemi felt that his life should have been saved: "I am in Chief Otiba's Centurion."

"Oh." Xue Lang looked a little sad, and he asked again: "Were you the first to tear up the paper bag and use the paper bag as a bullet holder?"

Niemi's heart suddenly tightened. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said hesitantly: "Sir, I...I don't know either..."

Seeing the other party's helpless look, Winters guessed that he had found the wrong person.

"You did a good job. I called you here to reward you." He said he wanted to reward you, but Winters searched all over his body and couldn't find any money.

However, the words had already been spoken, and he was really embarrassed to say, "I didn't bring any money today, I will give it to you later."

Looking around, Winters had an idea and grabbed the saber and handed it to Niemi.

Seeing Xue Lang reaching out to touch the knife, Niemi was frightened, and then he realized that Xue Lang was about to hand the saber to him.

"No, no, no." Niemi stepped back and waved her hands desperately.

"What can't you ask for?" Winters explained: "The scabbard is inlaid with gold, and the sword itself is also a good sword. I didn't bring any money today, so I will pledge this saber to you first. When the battle is over, you Come to me with it. If I die, you can keep this knife. I won’t let you suffer, what do you think?”

"No, I don't dare to ask for it! I don't dare to ask for this."

"Debts must be mortgaged. It's a matter of course. Take it." Winters handed the saber to Niemi: "Take your comrades with you and teach the other musketeers. I'll get some more for you. Here comes the paper."

…

"What do you want to do?" Father Carman held the folio, looked at Winters warily, and stepped back: "Don't come over."

"Temporarily requisitioned." Winters pressed forward step by step and promised firmly: "When I return to Plato, I will buy another copy and return it to you."

"This is a folio!" Kaman was furious - this was the first time that the young priest was angry at Winters.

[Note: A folio is an entire sheet of paper cut into two pieces and bound into a book, which is equivalent to what we call quarto. Usually the most important documents]

"The folio is great! Lots of paper and good quality."

"Are you crazy? This is a scripture! Your soldiers dare to stuff the pages of the scripture into the barrel of a gun?"

"It doesn't matter, they won't know it's a scripture if you don't tell them." Winters replied seriously: "They can't read."

"Don't take this book, it's a manuscript." Kaman retreated to the corner of the tent, with no way out. He begged, "I'll find other books for you, and I'll give them all to you. This folio is for you." I stayed."

"Give me the scriptures too?"

"The scriptures are also given to you."

Winters thought for a moment and nodded: "Okay...but if necessary, I will come back to get it again."

…

Just as Winters was frantically searching for papers again, Mason on the rampart discovered a serious problem.

Prior to this, Mason's greatest fear was the exploding cannon.

The blast of a musket can only kill one or two people, but the blast of a cannon can clear out all the people on the triangular fort.

Therefore, Mason strictly controlled the firing frequency of the cannon, personally supervised the cooling process, and weighed all propellant powder himself.

But now the bigger problem than exploding the chamber is gunpowder.

Gunpowder was being used up faster than Mason had expected, and the reserves were dwindling almost visibly.

There were not enough artillery shells. The solid shells had been used up long ago and there was no time to recover them.

Nowadays, lead is used as shotgun, which is not only wasteful, but also leads to lead leakage.

If we continue at this rate, the bridgehead will run out of gunpowder before it gets dark.

Without gunpowder, the Hittites could kill the Platoans just by relying on their numbers.

At this point, the war has become almost a personal grudge. No one cared about the original reason. Both sides only wanted one thing: to kill each other completely.

The small fortress of Jashka was like a magnet, firmly attracting thousands of Hurd cavalry.

The Terdun tribe's will was astonishingly tenacious, and they attacked the bridgehead one after another.

The horses were pulled out, the trenches were filled, the breastworks were all lost, and the ladders were able to be erected on the fort walls.

And Mason has no doubt they can sustain this offensive into the sunset.

Several officers who were still capable of action held an emergency meeting and came to only one conclusion: "The plan must be changed."

The back door of the bridgehead opened quietly, and a Dussac Qingqiu galloped out and headed straight to the south bank of the North Confluence River.

When the light cavalry returned, he was accompanied by a cavalry team led by Andrea Cellini, each carrying two barrels of gunpowder on his horse.

Among the nearly a hundred cavalrymen, there was a veteran wearing ordinary soldier armor, but his temples were gray.

As soon as the veteran entered the fort, he went straight to the brigade headquarters located on the south wall of the fort.

When entering the brigade headquarters, the veteran yelled angrily: "Jessica! You are so capable!"

The one-eyed lieutenant colonel jumped out of his chair reflexively.

General Sackler has arrived.

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