Iron Powder and Spellcaster

[early morning]

[On the walls of the castles of kings]

"A stone, if thrown with enough force, can knock down an enemy."

Jason Cornelius stood at the head of the Castle of Kings, bent down to pick up a stone that was piled behind the parapet and used to hit people, and said without looking back:

"However, no matter how strong a person is, if he is asked to keep throwing stones, he will sometimes be unable to lift his arms. Twenty yuan, thirty yuan, if you use a sling, a hundred yuan, but no matter what In this way, human physical strength is limited.

“Although if you give him some time to rest, he will be full of energy, but in most cases, the battle will be over within an hour or even a few minutes.

"You may have read some records of battles that lasted for several days, but if you extract the actual fighting time of the entire battle, you will find that even if the battle lasted for several days, the actual fighting part also took place in minutes. and hour count.

"Because once the battle gets heated, the winner will be determined immediately."

Cornelis turned to look at his entourage and said earnestly: "So when you find that the battle situation is getting hotter, what you have to do is continue to persevere."

…

Around the commander-in-chief of the Southern Front, a small group of people followed step by step.

The age of this group of people varies, the oldest is at least forty years old, and the youngest is in his early twenties at most.

If there is anything they have in common, it is that everyone is wearing a brand-new officer uniform, but there is no military demeanor in their movements.

However, this cannot be entirely blamed on them, because strictly speaking, they are "new recruits".

Among them, some bought positions and joined the army after the Bloody Night at the Kings Castle, some were temporarily recruited after the tragic defeat in River Valley Village, and some were recruited urgently after the Southern Front landed;

Some people were originally peace officers, some were originally potters, and some were still studying...

However, it is these "new recruits" officers who shoulder the important responsibility of commanding the local militia forces in the King's Castle.

Because in addition to "not receiving formal military training and education," they have one thing in common - they all have a close relationship with Grover Magnus.

In other words, these commissioned officers are the most reliable people that the venerable Grand Speaker can find.

In the current situation, nothing is more important to the Grand Speaker than reliability.

…

Hearing the commander's words, a timid voice floated out from the ranks of commissioned officers: "Excuse me, Your Excellency, when will the battle become intense?"

A group of commissioned officers collectively turned their attention to a young man behind the crowd, making the latter want to find a crack in the ground and crawl into the city wall.

Cornelius tapped the battlement with the stone in his hand, and the commissioned officers immediately turned their attention back to the commander.

"When you want to run away," Cornelius said calmly, "that's when the battle heats up."

The accompanying commissioned officers laughed dryly, but looking at the commander's face, it didn't seem like he was joking, so the laughter stopped abruptly.

"Your question is very good," Cornelis simply praised, and then placed the stone in his hand on the wall. "Speaking of the stone, it is the same stone. You don't need to throw it vigorously, it just falls from the city wall." Throw it up and down, and if you're lucky, you can knock down an enemy.

"And throwing stones from the city wall, even women and children, can last for several hours."

Cornelis nodded slightly, "Gentlemen, please imagine the actual situation on the battlefield: smoke, gunfire, and chaos. It is difficult to accurately throw a stone to kill the enemy. Phase." In comparison, throwing stones down from the city wall is extremely easy.”

"The same stone is thrown to kill the enemy," Cornelis asked the commissioned officers. "What's the difference between the two methods? Why is one difficult and the other easy?"

The commissioned officers looked at each other, not because the question was difficult, but because it was too easy.

"One is throwing it from the ground?" It seemed that it was because he had been encouraged just now, or the timid voice had the courage to answer, "One is throwing it from a high place?"

After hearing this nonsense answer, all the commissioned officers were speechless.

Unexpectedly, the commander asked seriously, "Why can stones be thrown down from a high place?"

"Because..." The owner of the timid voice suddenly became the focus of everyone's attention again. He was sweating profusely and answered bravely, "Because someone moved the stone to a higher place."

Some of the commissioned officers laughed out loud.

However, Cornelis looked at the young man for a moment and suddenly clapped his hands softly, "Gentlemen, this young gentleman has just stated the core purpose of all fortress defense tactics - to move the stones to higher places in advance. Please give him a round of applause." "

The commissioned officers followed suit and clapped for no apparent reason.

"What's your name?" Cornelius asked.

"Misha," the young man whispered, "Grony Misha."

"Mr. Groene," Cornelis nodded, "I remember your name."

The commissioned officers applauded again, but everyone was not jealous of Xiao Misha. After all, it was not necessarily a good thing for the commander to remember his name at this time.

"'Move the stone to a higher place in advance.' Please remember, gentlemen, this is the point of defending the city," Cornelis explained as clearly as possible. "It's easy to throw stones down from the city wall because you are on the ground." When carrying the stones up the city wall, I was already tired in advance.

"In fact, the effort required to move a stone from the ground to the city wall is not necessarily less than throwing a stone to kill the enemy.

"But throwing stones to kill the enemy uses the power in your body, and your physical strength is limited.

"Moving the stone to the city wall is equivalent to storing power in the stone in advance.

"The more stones that are moved onto the city wall, the more power is stored, and the more power can be released in battle."

"This is the core of defensive warfare. Gentlemen, move the stones to a higher place in advance, that is-" Cornelis paused, "Gather up momentum."

All the commissioned officers were confused, and many of them understood the word "stone".

"Stones are just a metaphor, gentlemen," Cornelis patted the battlements beside him. "Preparing stones is to build momentum, collecting gunpowder is to build momentum, storing food is to build momentum, building forts and digging trenches are also to build momentum. "

He said in a loud voice:

“It takes years of training before a soldier can accurately throw rocks on the battlefield.

“Standing on the city wall, even a stone thrown by a child would be equally fatal.

“On the unsheltered plains, only the bravest spearmen can face the charge of the cavalry.

"Standing in the bastion, even a new soldier entering battle for the first time can easily shoot down a veteran who has experienced many battles.

“Recruits and children can also kill the enemy, not because they are more powerful than the enemy, but because they have already ‘carried stones up the city wall’ before the battle took place.

"That's why we people from the Piedmont always say, 'One more shovel of soil dug before war means one less drop of blood shed during war]."

"Gentlemen, can you understand now why we have to rush to repair these fortifications?" Cornelis raised his finger and pointed to the trenches, fortresses and another trench under the city. "These are all 'stones that were moved up the city wall in advance'. It is the potential energy we have accumulated in advance, just waiting to be released.

"If the rebels want to attack the new city, they have to step into the battlefield we have prepared. For every shovel of soil we dig, they have to fill it with a pool of blood.

"As long as we can make every grain of gunpowder, every bullet, every trench, and every fortress function as it should, the rebels will shed their blood under the castles of the kings, and victory will belong to us. "

The commissioned officers applauded enthusiastically again.

“Digging trenches and moving stones are neither honorable nor glorious. However, it is these neglected hard work that enable the weak to defeat the strong, the new soldiers to defeat the veterans, and the oppressed civilians to win. Defeated the mighty emperor.

“Gentlemen, this is ‘gathering momentum’,” Jason Cornelis showed a friendly smile. “Gentlemen, I have taught you all the supreme secrets of the military doctrine of the United Provinces Army.”

The commander's smile was contagious, and all the commissioned officers laughed too.

However, it was that timid voice again that broke the harmonious atmosphere.

"Your Excellency," Misha from behind the crowd asked again. He pointed at the enemy fortifications outside the city and summoned up his courage. "Excuse me, are the rebels... also 'gaining momentum'?"

The smiles of the commissioned officers instantly froze on their faces.

…

After Jason Cornelis received the report of the appearance of the Winged Lion's flag, for three days in a row, the "rebels" were building construction under the castle walls of the kings.

In just one day, the rebels built a series of small fortresses around the new city, surrounding the city walls meticulously.

The defenders on the city wall did not know the official names given by the "rebels" to these equidistant and continuous earthen fences. However, in the early morning of the next day, a local militiaman who had just changed the guard said, "When did these old fence posts appear outside?" "After the exclamation, "Fence Post", this extremely vivid nickname, quickly eliminated other names and became the only name used by the defenders for the work of the "rebels".

And everyone who hears this nickname will quickly appreciate the true subtlety of this nickname, because it is not only a description of the current situation, but also a prediction of the future:

Once the stakes are driven, will the fence be far away?

As expected, the "rebels'" enthusiasm for carving the earth did not diminish with the completion of the fortress complex, but instead grew stronger.

At the same time that the "fence piles" were being formed, the "rebels" were non-stop engaged in the project of digging communication trenches between the various forts.

According to the local militia, a weasel that had been hungry for three days and three nights was not as energetic as the "new settler" digging the soil outside the King's Castle.

Even more at a loss than the local militiamen were the federal provincial officers of the Southern Front.

Since the Union Provincial Army has been famous for its skills in soil work since its establishment, it is always rolling in the mud, so it is ridiculed as a "mud bum".

Now, seeing the "rebels" frantically digging trenches outside the city, the officers of the Southern Front were confused for a while, not sure which side of the city or outside the city were the real people of the United Provinces.

Moreover, with "fence posts" serving as points of support at the front, the "rebels" began to boldly put non-military personnel into the works.

When the earth fence was being built, only little blue figures could be seen on the "Rebels" construction site.

When the communication trench was dug, a large number of gray figures suddenly appeared in the defenders' field of vision.

The Southern Front Army had almost figured out that the "rebels" also chose blue as the main color of their uniforms.

Although the blue actually observed on the "rebel" soldiers was colorful, it was obvious that the "rebels" had tried to unify the uniforms.

And those gray figures wearing undyed coarse cloth clothes - or even without shirts - from a distance were obviously farmers recruited from nearby.

The people in the city still didn't know how the "rebels" found those farmers who ran faster than rabbits and made them work for them.

They only knew that with the help of the "little gray man", in less than two days, the "little blue man" dug a trench parallel to the city wall, connecting various small fortresses, and extending from the bank of the Jinliu River to the bank of the Shijian River.

And they also used the soil dug out of the trench to build a steep earth wall behind the trench.

The prophecy of the "fence stake" came true.

From the river bank to the river bank, the "rebels" used an artificial geographical barrier to completely isolate Zhuwangbao from Xilin Province.

After realizing this, the morale of the defenders inevitably became depressed, and the atmosphere in the city became more depressing invisibly.

The more the rebels worked outside the city, the more nervous the defenders became inside the city.

After all, being besieged and being "besieged" literally are two different things.

The memories of the past were awakened, and a new round of food rush broke out in Zhuwangbao almost immediately.

Now, no one knows when this siege will end. Even the citizens who were originally prepared for the difficulty and length of the siege began to doubt whether their previous ideas were too optimistic.

All the expectations of Zhuwangbao people for the future are falling in the worst direction.

Thanks to the flour transported by the Southern Front Army, the price of food in Zhuwangbao did not rise to the sky;

It was also thanks to the porridge stalls opened by the Southern Front Army that no one starved to death in Zhuwangbao.

However, Jason Cornelius was not a saint—of course, he never claimed to be one.

So, taking advantage of the collective panic of the citizens of the Fortress of the Kings, Cornelius instructed the military police of the headquarters to publicly search the major grain stores and grain merchants' houses in the city, and detained the major grain merchants on the charge of "hoarding and driving up grain prices", and confiscated all the stocks in the latter's warehouses.

After this operation, Jason Cornelius eliminated the local grain merchants who pretended to obey but actually disobeyed, and placed the flour supply of the Fortress of the Kings under the management of the Southern Front Army. He also boosted the morale of the militia defending the city and won the unanimous applause of the middle and lower-class citizens of the Fortress of the Kings.

After temporarily solving the problem of food rationing, Jason Cornelius began to transfer part of the defense zone to the local militia.

So, he personally brought a group of commissioned officers to the new city for "inspection" early in the morning.

...

Hearing Misha's question, the commissioned officers present all shrank their necks unconsciously.

Although Brigadier General Jason Cornelius was usually polite to commissioned officers, many commissioned officers, especially those who were a little older, had already seen clearly from the former's thundering methods of catching all the local grain merchants in one fell swoop that the commander of the Southern Front was not easy to get along with.

The commissioned officers thought that the commander was humiliated and would be furious, or at least walk away in anger.

But they never thought that when they heard Xiao Misha's question, Jason Cornelius's face showed an unprecedented sincere smile, first a smile, then a smile, and finally a loud laugh.

"Yes, the rebels are also gathering momentum," Cornelius, who had laughed enough, said with a relieved look, "So, they have learned some real skills in the Land Academy, don't you think?"

However, what Cornelius and the commissioned officers present did not know was that at the same time, outside the city, facing their position.

Richard Mason was also teaching the students of the "Second School".

[Thanks to the book friend [Cat towel wash face and go out to beg for food], thank you very much]

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