Iron Powder and Spellcaster

At a glance, Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk also realized the critical situation.

"Captain Welf!" Lodewijk called out the name of his best centurion without hesitation, "Take your men into the water from the north! Protect the fence!"

The lieutenant who was called out saluted simply, and began to take off his breastplate without saying a word, then his clothes, pants and leather boots, leaving only a helmet. His subordinates did the same.

The nearly naked centurion, leading the nearly naked hundred-man team, strode down the river bank, gritted his teeth with a dagger, climbed up the wooden stakes, flipped over the outside of the fence, and swam straight to the "rebel" boat.

A fierce battle broke out in the water.

The Tiefeng County engineers next to the fence had no time to chop the chains. On the shore, the federal musketeers fired at them, and in the water, the federal soldiers also surrounded them.

Some engineers hurried back to the boats, and several boats also rowed hard towards the horse-blocking piles to meet their comrades.

But more engineers had no time to retreat and could only fight to the death.

So, the naked Senas people were like newborn babies, waving their arms clumsily in the water, slashing, stabbing, crying and shouting at each other.

The blood dyed the river red, but at night, only darkness could be seen.

A federal soldier swam to the stern of a small boat, grabbed the cable hanging in the air, and tried to cut the thick cable with the dagger in his hand.

On the big boat, the sergeant at the helm immediately threw away the rudder, picked up the oar, and smashed it hard at the enemy in the water. With just one strike, the opponent's head was sunken.

As if all the bones in the body were broken in an instant, the body of the federal soldier suddenly became limp, unable to keep balance, and was pushed sideways by the water.

But for some reason, his left hand still tightly grasped the cable, like a bunch of horsetail hanging on the cable, half of his body was above the water and half of his body was under the water.

The sergeant on the longboat gritted his teeth and hit the hand of the federal soldier again, once, twice, three times. He was sure that he had smashed the bones of that hand, but the body of the federal soldier was still hanging on the cable.

Before the sergeant hit the fourth time, another federal soldier jumped out of the water from under the sergeant's feet, grabbed the sergeant's calf, and dragged the sergeant into the river.

The same thing happened around every longboat. The Tiefeng County soldiers on the boat stabbed with spears and hit with oars, desperately attacking the federal people in the water.

The federal soldiers in the water were also trying to drag the "rebel" soldiers on the small boat into the water and kill them.

As soon as a federal soldier put his hand on the side of the boat, four fingers were cut off by a sharp shovel.

A soldier from Tiefeng County had just pierced an enemy's trachea, but was dragged into the river by the dying enemy, and then stabbed to death.

The will of both sides was stronger than the other side expected, and the battle inevitably fell into the most brutal war of attrition.

At the same time, on the river bank, the musketeers of both armies were also firing fiercely to cover their own soldiers.

The musketeers of the Federation fired at the boat, and the musketeers of Tiefeng County fired at the water surface. However, the battle situation was so chaotic that they didn't know whether they hit their comrades or the enemy.

In the water, Captain Welf saw that the "rebels" on the boat resisted fiercely, so he ordered some of his subordinates to continue swimming a distance to the center of the river, away from the boat, to cut the cable where the oars and spears could not touch.

However, the cable was higher from the river surface away from the longboat.

The soldiers of the Federation struggled in the water for several consecutive times, and their fingertips had already touched the cable, but they were just a little short of it.

On the longboat, a sergeant heard the sound of water splashing in the distance. He looked closely and found that the people from the United Province were hanging on the cable in a difficult position, cutting the rope in their hands with a dagger.

"Turn around!" The sergeant shouted at the top of his lungs, "Turn around quickly!"

However, no one could execute his order. Most of the boats in the Tiefeng County Regiment were small fishing boats and sampans, and the people from the United Province easily overturned them.

The few longboats were also entangled by the people from the United Province. The soldiers on the boats were fighting for their lives and had no time to operate the boats.

Seeing this, the sergeant tied a rope to the tail of the spear, stepped on the other end of the rope, held the spear upside down, took a deep breath, bent like a bow, roared, and threw the spear in his hand directly at the people from the United Province in the distance.

This throw was like divine help.

The targeted federal soldier saw the movements of the people on the boat, but he was in the water and had no place to get leverage. He had no time to dodge and could only watch the spear pierce his chest.

The federal soldier was smashed directly into the water. The severe pain made him instinctively grasp the spear shaft in front of his chest, but his strength and his life quickly drained from his body. He was carried by the water and drifted downstream.

On the other side, the sergeant on the boat wanted to drag back the spear, but he was almost pulled into the water. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and let go in time.

But it was precisely because of this that he lost his only weapon.

The federal people in the water also discovered this, and they quickly surrounded them.

The sergeant cursed loudly and wanted to remove a piece of the boat plank, but the boat was built very solidly, and no matter how hard he tried, it didn't move.

Just when the situation became desperate, several shouts suddenly came from a distance, and then the federal people turned around in unison and gave up the siege of the boat.

It turned out that Tamas and Mason on the other side of the river discovered the actions of the federalists and urgently sent a company of reinforcements.

With no boats and no choice but to swim, nearly half of the soldiers either fell behind or were scattered by the current, but half of the company still swam to the east coast to support their comrades in trouble.

With the addition of fresh troops, the main battlefield immediately moved around the boats and sharp wooden piles to the river.

Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk's best centurion and half the main company of the Tiefeng County regiment were fighting in the water.

Now, none of the musketeers on the shore dared to fire into the water, because they could no longer distinguish between ourselves and the enemy.

As a result, the musketeers on both sides turned their guns and pointed them at the local musketeers on the other side of the river.

The firepower received by the New Army positions on the west bank suddenly became ten times more intense than before.

The lead hit the river embankment and parapet, setting off waves of earth.

Due to the rush for work, the pontoon bridge, which had to be lit with a large number of torches, was also given special attention.

From time to time, engineers building bridges were hit by stray bullets. Those who were lucky enough were not hit critically and were immediately carried back to the rear of the river embankment for treatment;

Those who were unlucky just snorted, fell into the river, and disappeared under the waves in a blink of an eye.

The musketeers of the United Provinces also soon discovered that it was impossible to suppress the musketeers on the other side just by shooting aimlessly.

More and more Union Provincial musketeers began to target the "rebel" sappers exposed outside the bunkers.

Geza Adonis saw it and was anxious in his heart.

"Don't you need your baby?" Gesa suppressed his emotions and asked in a tone that would not put pressure on the major.

Seeing the engineers who were brought out by his own hands struggling to construct in a hail of bullets, Mason felt even more heartbroken than Geisa.

But he still shook his head firmly, "It's not the time yet."

On Marget Island, Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk has organized a second wave of commandos.

His best centurions had halted the rebels' destruction of the water fence and disrupted the rebels' movement of boats and sampans to transport subsequent troops.

Now Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk decided to throw his second best centurion into the field.

In proud silence, the heavily armed Union Provincial Sword and Shieldmen rushed down the river bank towards the "rebel" landing site.

Mason keenly captured the enemy commander's movements, and his intuition told him that this was a target worthy of exposing his "treasure".

"Fire!" Mason ordered sharply.

The gunners removed their gun jackets.

The heavy artillery of the New Army, which knew the value of silence better than the standing army of the United Provinces, let out a deafening roar.

[From the perspective of the New Army, a sampan refers to a small boat with a small cabin or even no cabin at all. It relies entirely on its own buoyancy and can carry 1-2 people; a small boat refers to a small fishing boat that can barely accommodate 3-5 people; a large boat refers to a boat that can accommodate 3-5 people. It can accommodate about 10 people, can accommodate two rows of people paddling, and is a transportation boat built according to military specifications]

[To put it another way, a sampan refers to a canoe that can only be used by one fisherman; a small boat refers to a real fishing boat that can be used by two fishermen to cast a net and has enough space to load the catch; a large boat is a larger transportation boat]

[From the perspective of the Southern Front, sampans, small boats, and large boats are all small boats that cannot be put on the stage]

[Thanks to book friends for their collection, reading, subscription, recommendation votes, monthly votes, rewards and comments, thank you all]