Iron Powder and Spellcaster

[Jiang'an Fort/Knight's Castle]

The smoke finally dissipated, and with it, the "rebels" disappeared.

Inside the Knight's Castle, the frightened soldiers of the Federation still held their weapons tightly, and dared not make a sound while standing at the firing position, peeking at the world outside the battlements.

They used all their strength to open their eyes, as if by doing so, they could see through the night of Palatus.

But everything was in vain, the darkness around the fortress was bottomless and insurmountable.

Without time to breathe, after the "rebels" retreated, the commander of the Knight's Castle, Daley Brand, immediately began to count casualties and ammunition.

As a self-proclaimed Federation living in the center of the narrow land between the two mountains, whenever mentioning Palatus people, they always spit out a word in a contemptuous tone-"border people".

And just now, the Federation soldiers in the Knight's Castle really experienced the ferocity of the "border people".

The four-meter-span trench was not wide enough for the Palatians, and the "rebels" actually put up long ladders and rushed directly over.

If it weren't for the limited load-bearing capacity of the ladders, I'm afraid the "rebel" cavalry would have followed and killed into the Knight's Castle.

Daley Brand was very lucky: most of the "rebels" did not carry ladders, but some kind of log-like objects;

Most of the "rebels" did not engage in hand-to-hand combat, but relied on the bunkers built with "log sections" to continue shooting at the Knight's Castle.

The rebels' "climbing the city" behavior did not seem to be a tactic planned in advance, but more like a heroic act of individual soldiers.

After the cannons on the side of the fort wall began to roar, the rebel soldiers who fired across the trenches also quickly retreated and disappeared under the night.

In the end, Captain Daley Brand's troops relied on their numerical advantage to surround and kill a small number of "rebels" who rushed into the fort, pushed the long ladders down the trenches, and temporarily defended the Knight's Castle.

Despite this, there was still a wailing in the fortress.

The lightly wounded soldiers screamed and the seriously wounded rolled on the ground. The new recruits who had never seen so much blood looked dazed and at a loss.

Like his subordinates, Daley Brand also experienced actual combat for the first time. As his tense spirit relaxed, he also felt a sense of fear.

But the training and teaching that Captain Brand had received since childhood finally played a role.

Daley Brand quickly got into the situation, while organizing the evacuation of the wounded, he sent a messenger to the headquarters again.

But this time it was not to ask for help, but to explain the situation.

After regaining the ability to think, Captain Brand also vaguely felt that the enemy's surprise attack on the Knight's Castle was very much like a feint.

Because the "rebels" did not invest enough troops, their attitude was not firm, and their willingness to bear casualties was very low, the cannons on the triangular fort just turned around, and the rebels immediately chose to retreat, not giving the defenders' artillery a chance to exert their power.

Thinking of this, Captain Daley Brand was very regretful.

Just now, because the noise made by the "rebels" during the charge was too terrifying, he was anxious and ordered all three illuminating rockets on the launcher to be fired.

The Knights' Castle only had three illuminating rockets in total, and expensive alchemical products like illuminating rockets were always distributed "individually", and one could only be used to get another one.

So Captain Brand now had no usable illuminating rockets.

If the "rebels" were not feinting tonight, then Daley Brand needed to find other means of illumination to deal with the next round of offensive by the rebels.

If the "rebels" were really feinting tonight, then Captain Brand would face a more severe test - he would have to submit a report to explain why three precious illuminating rockets were used up in one go.

After weighing the pros and cons, Daley Brand decided to take a risk.

He ordered the drawbridge on the side of the castle wall facing the Ash Stream River to be lowered, and he selected a group of reliable and brave soldiers, who carried axes, lamp oil and fire, and quietly sneaked out of the Knights' Castle from the "back" of the rebels' attack direction.

…

Due to the construction period, the scale of the Knights' Castle is not large, and it is a bit crowded for a hundred-man team to be stationed there.

In appearance, it is roughly square, with a bastion on each of the four corners of the main structure, and a triangular castle was built in the west and south.

As for the north and east sides, the walls on both sides face the Ash Stream River and the Castle of the Kings, so no time was wasted on the triangular castle.

The junction of water and soil is the easiest to be breached - the people of the Federation know this very well, so there is a Knights' Castle located on the river bank.

…

After arriving at the other side of the trench, Daley Brand did not rush to light the lamp, but walked along the dead road and carefully moved to the southwest, which was the direction where the "rebels" launched the attack.

Just after turning the corner in the northwest direction, Brand's boots touched something soft and hard after a few steps.

Looking closely in the faint starlight, Daley Brand suddenly found that there was a headless corpse under his feet.

The corpse was obviously not wearing the clothes of a soldier, so Brand guessed the identity of the other party.

Daley Brand took off his helmet and stared at his preparatory school classmate who died in a miserable state for a long time without saying a word.

"Be careful," he put on his helmet again and passed the message behind him, "Don't step on Warrant Officer Marlowe."

A faint rustling sound came from behind, and the soldiers whispered the order.

But the hidden road was too narrow, only one person could pass through, and two people had to walk sideways to cross, and it was impossible not to step on Chris Marlowe's body.

"Damn the dead road, it should be widened by half a meter," Daley Brand thought bitterly, "And this dike, can the cavalry rush directly up? How did Lieutenant Colonel Montecuccoli design it?"

Seeing the captain in a dilemma, the sergeant following Brand whispered: "Sir, otherwise... put the warrant officer in the trench first? Then bury him after dawn."

Brand made up his mind and simply stood up and shouted to the main fort: "Sergeant Longdelai! Lower the drawbridge!"

There was a commotion behind the fort wall, and someone tremblingly stuck half of his head out of the shooting port.

"What are you looking at?" Daley Brand shouted angrily, "Light the brazier! Lower the drawbridge!"

The Knight's Castle was finally lit up by the fire. Previously, in order to avoid indicating the target for the enemy's guns and artillery, there was only minimal lighting inside the fort.

After a while, a simple drawbridge swayed down from the fort wall.

Brand ordered his men to carry Chris Marlowe's body back to the Knight's Castle. After lighting the brazier, another body in the trench was revealed.

So Brand ordered his men to go down to the trench and pick up the musketeer's body and Chris Marlowe's head.

Since his whereabouts had been exposed, Daley Brand was too lazy to hide anymore. He simply lit a torch and moved openly.

Brand first climbed out of the dead man's path and came to the embankment.

When he got closer, he found that the "log piles" that the "rebels" carried to the trench were not wood at all, but bundles of straw.

It seems that the smoke released by the rebels before the attack was also made of wet straw.

Brand couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief - at least it was not alchemical smoke.

He was just curious, where did the rebels get so many logs? Did they all come from the rear? That would be too expensive.

You know, Minister Cornelius destroyed the forests within a radius of dozens of miles in a net-like manner.

Later, the people of the Federation were too lazy to cut down the trees directly, but set fire first, and then cut away the unburned wood after the fire was extinguished, saving the time of cutting branches.

Minister Cornelius also sent people to burn the easily accessible combustible materials such as wheat straw.

However, the winter wheat harvest season has just ended, and the rural areas of Palato are full of wheat straw, and the farmers are very resistant to the behavior of the Federation, so it is normal for the "rebels" to get some wheat straw.

However, "wheat straw can't stop lead bullets, let alone artillery shells," Daley Brand thought contemptuously, "No wonder the rebels ran away as soon as the artillery was fired."

He kicked the rebels' bunkers - the rebels used wheat straw, which saved him trouble.

Captain Brand originally thought that the rebels brought up logs, and he specially brought an axe and lamp oil.

Since it was wheat straw, it was simple.

Throwing the torch upward, the bunker of the "rebels" immediately caught fire, instantly dispelling the darkness and illuminating the dike as bright as day.

"Let's go," Captain Brand clapped his hands, "Let's go to the sentry post."

Considering the possible attack direction of the enemy, when planning the hidden road, Lieutenant Colonel Montecuccoli deliberately widened the southwest corner and set up a sentry post there as the forefront of the entire defensive position.

The lieutenant colonel's judgment was very accurate. The rebels' offensive tonight was launched from the southwest.

In the sentry post in the southwest, Captain Brand saw a scene that gave him nightmares, and his good mood of burning the "rebels" bunker disappeared in an instant.

Chris Marlowe's body was sad to see, and the tragic death of the sentinels was more than sad to see - half of the brave subordinates specially selected by Captain Brand vomited all the food they ate at night.

Three sentinels, all died in the dike.

The "rebels" horses were too fast, and they had no time to retreat to the main fort;

The "rebels" knives were faster than the horses, and none of the three sentinels had a complete body.

One sentinel was almost split in half diagonally, from the collarbone to the waist and abdomen, with only a small piece of meat left. All the internal organs were exposed to the air, and the slippery intestines flowed all over the ground like fat maggots.

Another sentinel's left arm was missing, leaving only the shoulder. At the cross section of the flesh and blood, the white bone stumps and pink bone marrow were clearly visible.

The sentinel who lost his arm crawled a distance in the causeway before he died. Not only his nails, but also his mouth was full of dirty mud. The living people present could not imagine what kind of pain would make a dying person stuff dirt into his mouth.

Daly Brand once sketched the appearance of the "Civil War" in his mind-probably every federal soldier imagined the scene of realizing the will of Marshal Ned Smith and making the Union great again.

Of course, he also thought about bloodshed and sacrifice - how could there be no deaths in war?

But until this moment, when he saw the mutilated bodies of his subordinates with his own eyes, he realized how pale his fantasy was.

Daley Brand now truly realized that war is an extremely cruel atrocity.

At the same time, he realized that the Palatians had adapted to this cruelty earlier than the United Provinces.

The Palatians would never be soft-hearted, because for them, the civil war had already begun.

Daley Brand lowered his head and silently mourned his dead subordinates.

But the battle will continue, and he cannot refuse.

He only prayed for one thing now, that when death comes to him, it will be fast and good.

——

[Old Town]

[Old Castle]

The longer Jason Cornelius stayed in the old castle, the more he admired the unique vision of the ancestors of Plato.

The location of the old castle, which is the real "Kings Castle", is perfect. It is high above the city, easy to defend and difficult to attack. It is simply a natural artillery.

Unfortunately, as the city grows, it is completely wrapped in residential areas and almost loses its function of resisting foreign enemies.

Fortunately, the old castle is still the highest and best place in the city, so Jason Cornelius not only set up the command post here, but also arranged an observation post on the top floor of the old duke's coronation church.

At this moment, Cornelius is in the observation post.

Looking down from his position, the scenery on both sides of the Ten Arrow River is in full view.

Looking west, although there are some lights on the Knight Castle, the sound of gunfire has stopped - Cornelius is not surprised by this.

The problem is that the sound of gunfire in the direction of Margit Island in the south has also stopped.

And the Bishop's Castle on the island is dark and dead silent.

On the bell tower of the monastery behind the Bishop's Castle, someone could vaguely be seen using a red light, desperately sending a distress signal to the observation post.

Cornelius retracted his gaze and looked at the floating bridge between the new city and the old city.

There is no permanent bridge on the Ten Arrow River, only a floating bridge.

The people of the Kings Castle call it the Wild Goose Bridge, because wild geese come in spring and leave in autumn, and the floating bridge of the Kings Castle is only accessible in spring and summer. In winter, the river begins to freeze and it has to be dismantled.

At this moment, the Wild Goose Bridge is brightly lit, and Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk's men are boarding the ship.

But William Lodewijk's voice sounded behind Cornelius: "I don't quite understand, why me?"

"When," Cornelius asked without turning his head, "did the soldiers of the Federation start asking 'why me' before carrying out the mission?"

"What I want to ask is," Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk's tone was very stiff, "when did you start to trust me?"

Cornelius turned around and bowed politely: "I have always trusted you, Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk."

William Lodewijk sneered.

"As for why I sent you to retake Margit Island, it's actually very simple," Cornelius spread his hands and admitted frankly, "Because my people can't do it."

Cornelius commented mercilessly: "No matter how glamorous it looks, new recruits are still new recruits. The new recruits of the Southern Front can still play a role by guarding behind the fortress wall, firing guns and cannons. But taking the initiative to attack? The Palatians can defeat them with a charge."

Cornelius looked at Lodwijk: "So, your standing army is the only one that can complete the mission, which is why you are sent to Margit Island."

Lodwijk looked at Cornelius for a moment, said "I understand", then raised his hand to salute, turned around and was about to leave.

"Lieutenant Colonel, please stay." Cornelius called Lodwijk from behind.

Lodwijk looked back at Cornelius in confusion.

"You don't belong here," Cornelius said calmly, "You and I both know this. You are in the Castle of the Kings not because you are incompetent, but because you are too capable. Because someone made a mess and had to send you to make up for it. You should have had your own place in the Western Front, instead of being with a group of losers in the Southern Front and carrying out a life-threatening mission."

"What's the point of saying this now?" Lodewijk frowned.

"I want to tell you," Cornelius said calmly, "If we can survive this siege, I will make sure that you get a place in the Western Front again. I have the ability, you don't have to doubt it."

William Lodewijk frowned even more, and he curled his lips, "General, if you just won some respect from me, now you have wasted it."

After that, Lodewijk turned around and left without saluting.

——

[Margit Island]

[Bishop Castle]

"These bastards from the Federation," a soldier reported to the lieutenant angrily and anxiously, "nailed all the cannons while running."

Looking at the boat coming towards him from downstream, the lieutenant said softly, "Then, we have to fight without cannons."

[The bridge between the east and west cities of the Castle of the Kings appeared once in the previous article. At that time, it was called the Crow Bridge. I mentioned Matthias Korwin's name because Korwin is a crow]

[However, considering the characteristics of the floating bridge, it is more appropriate to call it the Wild Goose Bridge]

[The previous article has also been modified]