Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Bud, who rushed to the front line from the refugee camp, came to see Winters immediately: "The Teltown people want to surrender?"

"Yes." Winters bent over the drawing to sketch, picked up the water bag with his left hand and handed it to Bud, and replied without raising his head: "I don't agree."

There is no need for pleasantries and politeness between comrades-in-arms.

Bud took the water bag, took a sip of water, and waited quietly for Winters' next words.

Winters threw away the charcoal and called the messenger to take away the map.

There was no one else in the temporary command post, so he no longer needed to hide his tiredness.

He walked to the bucket in the corner of the tent and washed his face vigorously with cold water: "The fire-warmer said he was willing to return all the plunder and offer three thousand horses, so he stopped fighting - keeping the weapons and flags, and surrendering honorably. Hum, Hud people I’ve started to play this trick too!”

The temporary command post is located on a high ground overlooking the southeast. From here, you can see the third line of defense and the forest beyond.

From time to time, messengers came on horseback, reported to Winters by oral message, and left in a hurry with answers.

"The Tertun people didn't make any moves?" Bard looked down at the map and assessed the situation of the two armies.

Winters shook his head slightly and frowned unconsciously: "There is no movement... so I don't understand what the monkey butt face is doing."

Now the right wing of Teltown has been divided into three parts:

One part was on the west bank of the Bighorn River, having been driven back in a previous battle;

Part of it is on the south bank of Pangtuo River, which is Xia Tiefeng County;

The elite sweat tents were trapped in the Dajiao River, Pangtuo River and the small area surrounded by the third line of defense.

The situation is very good for the Tiefeng County army. As long as they can encircle and annihilate the elite of the Khan tent, the remaining rabble will collapse without a fight.

"Even if a rabbit falls into a trap, it still has to struggle to the death. A monkey's butt face is trapped in a dead place, but it shows weakness." Winters expressed his doubts to Bud: "Suppose the monkey's butt face is in the trap." In my position, do you think he will accept the conditions he offers?"

"No." Bud followed Winters' words and helped Winters clarify his thoughts.

"That is to say." Winters unconsciously fiddled with a knife: "Monkey Butt Face is doing something that he knows will not succeed."

Bud thought for a moment: "Does the person who roasts the fire have another purpose?"

"That must be the case."

"Delaying for time?"

"Why?" Winters vaporized a few drops of water on the table to stimulate his spirit: "The longer time goes by, the higher the wall will be, the deeper the trench will be, and the stronger the defense line faced by the Teltown people will be."

"Perhaps they want to show weakness and paralyze us first, and then use all their strength to penetrate the defense line."

"But in my opinion, with the advantage of the Tertun people's cavalry, it is better to attack quickly and attack before the wall trench system is completed..."

The words stopped suddenly, and Winters fell silent.

After a moment, he spoke softly: "Either the Terdun people are waiting for the reinforcements to join forces inside and outside, and annihilate us here."

Bud didn't answer. He knew he couldn't interrupt Winters at this time.

Winters fell into deep thought. He put his hands on the table and stared at the map: "Reinforcements...reinforcements...if the Teltown people have reinforcements, where will the reinforcements come from? The west bank? The south bank? The north?"

Bud sighed and patted Winters on the shoulder.

Winters came back to his senses and looked at his friend blankly.

"How long have you been without sleep?" Bud asked.

"One day? Two days?" Winters' eyes were bloodshot: "I seem to have taken a nap a few times, I can't remember clearly."

"This won't work." Bard's expression became more serious: "The second commandment is [Be exhausted mentally and physically for the general]."

A smile appeared on Winters' face for the first time, and he answered the next sentence like a code: "[It will ignore the really important things]."

"Go to sleep." Bud handed the coat to Winters: "I'll guard here."

Winters was about to say something, but then thought about it, picked up his coat and walked towards the inner room of the tent.

He made up his mind and said: "In short, we must remain unchanged to cope with all changes. No matter what the Teldu people are doing, as long as the mouth is tight, we will drive the Teldu people out!"

Bud looked at Winters' back and then around the command post, his eyes a little complicated.

This command post only has four tents, which can be described as extremely crude. But at this moment, the orders it issued were regulating the actions of tens of thousands of people, and the decisions it made were related to the life and death of Tiefeng County.

It is no exaggeration to say that these four tents are the brains and core of the Tiefeng County Army.

But it faces a serious manpower shortage: there are countless clerks who can read and write on two hands, and there are no specially trained professional soldiers except Winters and Bud.

The reason why Tiefeng County's army was still able to function normally without major trouble was entirely because everything was stored in Winters' mind and calculated with Winters' brainpower.

"This can't go on like this." Bud suddenly said: "You need an assistant."

"Aren't you here?" Winters unfolded the camp bed and replied slowly.

"Lots of assistants, many, many assistants."

"Yeah." Winters lay down heavily and fell asleep soon.

And Bud picked up paper and pen and started writing a list from memory.

…

Zhongtiefeng County, the third line of defense.

Four sturdy farmers working on a pile driver.

The four people shouted trumpets and turned the wheel. It was already a cold and windy winter, but they were sweating profusely.

A thick rope is wrapped around the shaft of the runner, and a large stone is tied to the other end of the rope. The wheel tightened the rope, and the boulder was slowly pulled up.

After the stone was lifted a certain distance, the farmers broke open the tenons.

The boulder fell suddenly and hit the wooden pile hard.

This process was repeated continuously, and it only took six or seven strokes to drive a four-meter-long log into the ground, leaving only about two meters of wooden piles exposed on the ground.

Once the stakes were driven, the farmers left them alone.

Some other farmers walked over to the pile driver, and a dozen people worked together to move the crude machine two steps.

Then switch to another group of farmers and start driving another stake.

To the southwest, behind a hillside, Tai Chi peered at the simple but efficient machinery in the distance, his face turning blue.

Wherever he looked, at least eight pile drivers were working simultaneously.

The wooden piles were driven down one by one, and a series of "wooden pile walls" spaced about two steps apart had been erected in the valley.

Bard's arrival gave Winters a short rest. At the same time, Taichi led his guards through the forest and approached to explore the enemy's situation.

At a distance of three hundred steps, Tai Chi finally saw clearly how the other party "built the city overnight":

First drive the wooden stakes, and then put something like a willow basket on the wooden stakes;

Take soil in front of the wooden pile and fill it into the willow basket;

One basket is filled with soil, and another new basket is put over it;

Like wooden skewers skewering meat, the wooden stakes are put into six baskets in a row; the first four baskets are first put into place and then filled with soil, and the last two baskets are first filled with soil and then put into place;

The wide gaps between the wooden piles were filled with willow baskets filled with soil, and the two-legged people covered the outside of the wall with floating soil, making it seamless and invisible inside;

Eventually, the earth wall was completed, and the pit dug out from the earth became a trench.

"Do you understand?" Tai Chi asked his son through gritted teeth.

"I understand, the wooden pile is the spine, the willow basket is the ribs, and the soil is the flesh and skin." Taichi's son licked his lips and replied: "If you want to demolish this wall, you can only drag down the wooden pile. Once the wooden pile falls, The wall fell down as well.”

"The wooden pile is at least three steps deep into the ground. How can it be dragged down?" Taichi stared.

Taichi's son also stared, with the same expression as his father: "If one horse can't pull him down, use two horses. If two horses can't pull him down, use four horses."

Tai Chi looked at his son's appearance and sighed bitterly: "I'm afraid the two-legged people are expecting you and me to come like this."

…

The building materials for building walls are nothing more than earth, wood and stone.

For the ages, it is best to use stone, that is, lime mortar or volcanic ash mortar.

But Winters didn't want to build a church. He wanted to build field fortifications, and speed was the key. His only options were earth and wood.

It is easiest to build a wall with wood. The logs are driven into the soil one after another to form a wall.

However, this approach would require hundreds of thousands of lumber, which Winters did not have. His only choice was earth.

The problem with dirt is that it is not firm and can slide.

If you simply pile up the soil, the mound will naturally form a slope. This is the reason for the so-called "six-foot walls, eight-foot trenches at the corners, and the main wall must be seven feet high."

But if the slope is too high, the purpose of blocking the horse will be lost. Therefore, since ancient times, the most critical technology for building walls with earth is to "bind the earth".

Ramming the earth is one solution, but unfortunately it's not fast enough.

Using sheepskin bags and sacks to hold earth to build a wall was the ideal way, but unfortunately Winters lacked both sheepskins and sacks.

If you don’t have anything, you can only make do with simplicity, adapt to local conditions, and use whatever is available.

After thinking hard, Winters found another way and improved the engineering methods used by Lieutenant Colonel Vauban to build the tunnel on Red Sulfur Island.

The corridor of Chisulfur Island is "bounded with cages", while Winters is "bounded with baskets".

Because baskets are not as structurally strong as cages, and they are difficult to stack as neatly as cages.

Therefore, Winters drove an additional wooden stake into the basket structure as the "backbone." It not only increases the strength of the wall, but also secures the earth basket firmly.

With a "wall" of this strength, it may be difficult to withstand artillery fire, but there is no problem in stopping the war horses.

Compared with ordinary earth walls, baskets of earth can make the wall steeper, making it impossible for war horses to find a place to draw strength. And there is no need to choose building materials, mud and gravel can be used.

The construction efficiency is slower than sheepskin bags and linen bags, but much faster than rammed earth, mortar and other methods.

…

When Taichi looked at the wall and sighed, Winters on the other side suddenly woke up from his sleep.

Winters's body suddenly sat up straight. He stared at the tent cloth, motionless.

Bud heard the noise and walked into the inner tent: "What's wrong?"

"A terrible thing." Winters looked at Bud: "I dreamed about it."

Bud was surprised to see cold sweat breaking out on Winters' forehead.

In an instant, Winters was once again the energetic and resolute military tribune he was.

He threw off his coat, jumped up, and shouted outside the tent: "Get your horses ready! Call all company commanders!"

There was a sudden commotion in the small command post.

"What's wrong?" Bud, who had always been calm, was a little surprised when he saw Winters' appearance.

"I may know what the Teltown people are going to do... We need to be quick! We must fight quickly!" Winters held Bard's arm tightly: "Maybe - time is not on our side."

[Late...but still here...(＞人＜;)]

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