Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 162 Riverside Camp

   Hearing that General Yanos was dead, Winters' fists clenched unconsciously.

The one-eyed lieutenant colonel was unmoved. He sneered and asked, "You called me out just to say this?"

"Hand over the baggage you are carrying, and I will allow you to leave with your flags and weapons." The Hurd repeated the conditions, looking confident: "Anyway, you are still alive, it's not too bad, isn't it? "

   "Okay." The lieutenant colonel replied calmly: "You wait for me to go back and think about it."

  The Heard smiled, with contempt in his politeness: "Your Excellency, there is no point in procrastinating. No one will come to save you, and my kindness and generosity are also limited."

   "Is there anything else?" The lieutenant colonel asked casually, picking off the blood stains in his fingernails.

   "Can you know your honorable name?"

   "John Jessica."

   "I am Alaric, and I am Haugkota, the commander in your mouth."

   "Good luck meeting."

   "I am also honored to play against your Excellency."

  Lieutenant Colonel Jesska had a negative attitude, and the negotiation ended quickly.

After getting up from the bear skin, Alaric said coldly: "Sir, as we were talking, the sand was falling from the hourglass. There is not much time left for you."

  …

   On the way back to the main camp, Lieutenant Colonel Jesska asked abruptly, "Lieutenant Montagne, what do you think?"

   Winters told the truth: "If we hand over the baggage, they will really let us go? I don't know. But we should be prepared."

   "You're thinking wrong." Lieutenant Colonel Jesska said disdainfully: "The Hurds are so awesome, why don't they come and beat us directly?"

   "They probably just want things..." Winters raised his eyebrows: "Well, is it possible?"

   "Just what you think. Do you think I'm in a hurry, or are they more anxious?"

  The second lieutenant thought about it carefully: "It seems that the Hurd is more anxious."

   "That's right, I think he was so anxious that he was about to pee his pants! How dare he ask us to surrender?"

   Lieutenant was confused: "But he didn't say..."

   "You believe him when he says it?" Lieutenant Colonel Jessica laughed: "I also said I was his father!"

   Winters recalled the look and manners of the Hurd, and couldn't help but be a little annoyed: "That guy, doesn't he change his face and lie to us?"

   "It's not surprising to use any tricks to fight. Don't think that the Hurd people are simple, and the barbarians are the most cunning." The lieutenant colonel instructed casually: "Don't spread the words of the Hurd people, and if you ask, say they are here to persuade them to surrender."

  …

   The beacon has been lit, and the messenger for help also crossed the bridge early.

   The first thing Lieutenant Colonel Jesska did when he returned to the camp was to interrogate the prisoners, while Winters returned to the team and led everyone to reinforce the fortifications.

  Palatu people, regardless of their status, are all working hard.

  The camp is backed by a big river. Originally, there were trenches and earth walls, but the walls were not high and the trenches were not deep.

   But with only a few hundred people in the camp, they couldn’t dig much earth if they were exhausted.

   After a discussion with several officers, they simply did not work on the wall, but instead did some immediate work.

   So everyone is desperately raising the shooting tower, scavenging the wood in the camp, and sharpening it to act as a horse.

   When Winters returned to the team, he saw Andre, Bud and a few others around.

   "What is this doing?" asked Lieutenant Montagne.

  Andre raised his hand and threw a musket to Winters: "Look at this."

   Winters caught it: "What's wrong?"

   This is an ordinary musket with a long wooden handle and a short iron tube as the launching device.

   Winters saw a clue: a long dagger inserted into the barrel, turning the musket into a short spear.

   "It's interesting." Winters got serious.

The   dagger was so tightly packed that it took some effort for him to pull it out. When he held it in his hand, he realized that the workmanship of the dagger was particularly crude, it was an iron bar sandwiched between two pieces of cork.

   "This gadget saved our lives today." Bud patted the young man beside him: "Baronne, tell Lieutenant Montagne."

  Barona was very nervous and stumbled when speaking: "This knife is used by hunters in my hometown to fight wild boars. Sometimes wild boars don't die if they are shot, and hunters put the dagger into the gun and use it as a spear."

   Winters put the dagger back into the musket and tried a few thrusts.

Bud explained: "There are many merchants in the convoy who only have hook guns. I thought this thing might come in handy, so I asked the blacksmith to make dozens of them. Originally, after the musket was fired, it was a mallet, but with this thing, it can be used as a hammer. The short spear is used, but today I gave the Hurds a little surprise."

   "Bud and I are working on it." Andre added: "If every musketeer has a bayonet, maybe it can replace the lancer."

   Winters smiled, handed the musket back to Baronne, shook his head and said, "No way."

"why?"

  Winters, who was born in Bike, reminded the two Riders at the same time: "How light is the arquebus? How heavy is the arquebus?"

"What's the meaning?"

   "The arquebus is heavy. It is 15 pounds light, and it can weigh 30 pounds. It needs a bracket for shooting. How can it be used as a short spear? The weight of the spear is only five to ten pounds."

  Andre refused to accept it, and tried it with an arquebus, but stopped talking.

   Facts speak louder than words, the arquebus is too bulky, the center of gravity is not suitable for fighting, and the attack range is short.

  Although it is held with both hands, it cannot send the rod like a flower spear. The actual attack distance is similar to that of a one-handed spear, only the arm plus half a gun.

   Inserting a dagger into a heavy arquebus as a short spear is better than hitting someone with the **** upside down.

Winters rubbed the wound with salt: "Besides, the spear is at least two meters five. How long does it take to insert a dagger into a musket? The role of the lancer is to protect the shooter from the impact of the cavalry. Using a short spear to deal with the lancer is a natural disadvantage. ."

   "Then this thing is useless?" Andre asked reluctantly.

"It's hard to say." Winters thought about it and said, "If the weight of the musket can be reduced to less than ten pounds, this thing will be very useful. In addition, the musketeer must dare to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Otherwise, I would rather use a halberd. and spear to protect the shooter."

  Andre couldn't help shouting: "Isn't it enough to make a musket within ten pounds?"

Winters said helplessly: "It's not as simple as you said! If you want to reduce the weight of the musket, you have to use a lighter barrel. The barrel is light, the wall is thin, you are not afraid of blowing the chamber? Or reduce the charge, That's not powerful enough."

   "It comes down to it." He concluded: "Better iron is needed."

  …

   Midnight, the moon is dark, but the sky is full of stars.

   Only the sentinels have not rested, and the others in the riverside camp have fallen asleep.

  Two silent figures led the horse and sneaked out of the north gate of the camp.

  The man bit the stick and immediately got the iron chew. Winters followed closely behind Lieutenant Colonel Jesska, communicating with each other by hand gestures.

Lieutenant Colonel    insisted on not bringing guards. According to his statement, the more people there are, the easier it is to get out of the basket.

  The two officers left the barracks without a sound, and those who didn't know why probably thought they were going to run away.

  The night was quiet, only the chirping of insects, even the slightest noise would radiate far away.

   All the metal objects on Winters and Qiangyun were wrapped in cloth, as was the lieutenant colonel. The two did not ride horses, but walked slowly, holding the reins.

  After the negotiation, Heard's detective roamed around the riverside camp to spy on the truth.

   The Hurd's pony is agile, quick and good at jumping. Hit with muskets and bows and crossbows, but you can't hit. Send cavalry to fight, the other side beat the horse and ran.

   Repeatedly, this made the people of Plato very annoying.

   Winters had another problem with his rifled gun, the rifling was leaded, and he lost his aim. Fortunately, Berian said he could solve it, and it has now been handed over to the blacksmith for repair.

  The ancient law said: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

   Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, the lieutenant colonel brought Lieutenant Montagne to prepare for an approaching reconnaissance.

  According to the lieutenant colonel, the reason why I only brought Winters is because he has a good horse and because he is not night blind.

There was only a hill between the   Hard camp and the Palatine camp.

  Jesska and Winters have been touching the top of the hillside, which is already within the patrol range of Heard's Sentinel.

   Down the hillside, the camp of the Hurds is brightly lit, and I don’t know what to do.

   "My eyesight is gone." The lieutenant colonel who was lying on the ground whispered, "Come and count how many campfires they have."

   Winters, who was also lying on the ground, covered his left eye, and put his other hand in front of his right, trying to recognize the fire in the distance.

  Jesska whispered to the second lieutenant: "The Hurds sent troops, a team of ten soldiers. If it is really a thousand troops, at least there must be fifty campfires."

   "Captain, I've counted to eighty!" Winters replied in a low voice.

   "Did you count?"

   "It's ninety now."

   "[Vulgar language related to sheep]" Lieutenant Colonel Jesska suddenly scolded: "Won't the Wanfu team come out on the grassland again?"

"What's the meaning?"

   "Go, a sentry is coming!" The lieutenant colonel got up, grabbed the second lieutenant's clothes and dragged it back.

   "Wait." Winters remained motionless, his eyes fixed on the camp in the distance. He also suddenly cursed: "[A vulgar language about the sailor's mother]! The Hurds are building siege equipment!"

   "Stop talking nonsense, let's go."

  The two jumped on the war horses, let go of their hooves and ran towards the camp.

   Hurd's sentry noticed something was different, and after chasing for a while, he found that he couldn't catch up, so he didn't follow.

  Jesska, who returned to the main camp, asked the second lieutenant, "At the beginning we met that group of Hurds, how many horses were there?"

   "Nearly a hundred."

   "Where did you meet the group outside the camp?"

   "About two hundred."

"understand?"

   Winters shook his head sharply: "I don't understand."

"The Hurds don't pay attention to the full load." Lieutenant Colonel Jesska said with a gloomy expression: "A Tulu may actually only have thirty or forty cavalry. A nominal thousand-hunter team can actually have six hundred cavalry, even if it is rich. But The teams of Tulu we encountered were all full. This Hauge looks likely to be full as well."

"so?"

"The Hurds are nomadic in the family unit. There are few people that can be supported by the pasture. If there are too many males, the family will be divided, and so is the tribe. Few tribes can take out thousands of soldiers to go out to fight. If it weren't for our bad luck At the extreme, when you bump into a big tribe that is coming out of its nest, that is someone who is giving orders to the tribes." Jesska gritted his teeth and said, "The last person with such prestige... was Que Yehan, thirty years ago."

   Thirty years ago, Winters was not born, and he was not from Paratus. Winters could not feel the same way about the state of Lieutenant Colonel Jesska.

   He is now more concerned about the immediate crisis: "Forget about Que Yehan, sir! The Hurds are building siege equipment, that's what kills you!"

   Several figures can be quoted: Brown Bess of the classic musket, 9 jins; medium formal, 8 jins; 38 large covers, 8 jins. The arquebuses of Winters' era, often weighing a dozen, twenty or even thirty pounds, were extremely cumbersome.

   In the era of muskets, there were already prototypes of bayonets, but they have not been widely used. In war, human beings learn the fastest. The prototype of the bayonet has no large-scale application, not because the ancients were stupid, it is really not easy to use.

   The material base determines the technological building. In the final analysis, the material is not enough, and everything is a castle in the air.

   Winters is in a transition period. When this book started, many things had not yet appeared. By the end of this book, many things will be generalized. It's a very interesting place to be in a time of great change.

   Thanks to the book friends who voted for the recommendation before;

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   (end of this chapter)