Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 171 Shadow Commander

   Fate torments both sides in a comical way.

   Once upon a time, the city wall was the only way for farming civilization to defend against barbarians, but now it has become a nomadic tribe hiding behind a high wall.

The   The Paratus fought hard, and on the fourth day of the siege, they barely filled the double-layered moat outside the southern wall.

   On the fifth day of the battle, a group broke through to the south wall bastion. Using the chariot as a cover, the sappers began to excavate the wall to prepare for blasting.

  The most brutal battle of the siege so far broke out.

  The Heards on the bastion poured boiling water and boiling oil out of the wall like madness, and kept going.

  The main city gate and the three side gates opened with a bang, and a steady stream of Heard's armored elites counterattacked. Some brave people even jumped off the city head and jumped into the crowd to chop wildly.

The arrows above the head are like hail, oil is like rain, and a few steps away are comrades-in-arms and brute soldiers who are fighting, screaming, howling, and the sound of weapons piercing into the flesh. .

   In the context of Veneta and the province, the "frontier people" - the Monta and the Paratus are synonymous with rudeness and barbarism.

   But the bravery and ferocity displayed by the Plato soldiers and their enemies still impressed Winters.

  The **** battle also made the scalps of Winters' auxiliary soldiers and civilians numb, so that they complained much less when they were working.

  Although the siege was not going well, Winters' excavation project was progressing well.

   He has successfully pushed the trenches to within 200 meters of the city wall. Several trenches are even less than 50 meters away from the city wall. The voices of the Hed people in the city can be heard clearly in the trenches.

  These trenches greatly shortened the attack distance of the troops, and now the Palatine soldiers can safely reach the vicinity of the city wall through the trenches before launching the assault.

  When retreating, you can also retreat to the nearest trench and move to the rear.

   Originally, according to Winters' estimation, the Hurds would attack when the trenches crossed the center line.

   So Winters carefully prepared countermeasures. He had five of his most elite ten-man teams on guard, arranged sentries, arranged horns and evacuation channels around the trenches, and so on.

   But the wink was thrown at the blind man, and the Hurd people's counterattack never appeared.

   This made Winters even more convinced that although the Hurds had well-planned city defenses and strong will, they lacked actual experience in besieging cities.

  Bianli City is first-class in terms of site selection and design. It is obviously made by their own hands. However, the current defenders in the city are fighting by instinct.

   Their attention was focused on the competition under the city walls, and it is likely that even if the Hurd people found that the trench was gradually approaching, they would not be able to deal with it.

   Or the defenders thought that the battle at the wall was more important, so they ignored the trenches for a while.

   No matter what the Hurds think, one side's mistake is the other side's opportunity. Since the Hurds despised the trenches, Winters sped up the excavation.

   On the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege battle, the Palatine sappers finally arranged the explosives, and the mud-covered sapper captain Andreo personally lit the lead.

   Seeing that the Paratus people were scattered, the Hurds, who realized that something was wrong, attacked again, but were desperately blocked by Captain Andreo.

  The wire hissed into the soil, and everyone around the wall couldn't help holding their breaths, waiting for the loud noise.

  Andreo even closed his eyes because he was so close to the blasting point that he thought it was impossible to survive.

   But no one heard the loud noise, the explosion sounded like a muffled fart.

  The gunpowder smoke dissipated, and there was a large hole in the wall. The city wall stood silently in place, as if nothing had happened.

  The wall-digging and blasting tactics that the Paratus had high hopes for were not successful, and several hundred kilograms of black powder were set off like fireworks.

  …

  The fifth day of the siege, it was night.

   The lieutenant was writing something on a piece of parchment when Lieutenant Colonel Jesska lifted the curtains of the tent of the second lieutenant Montagne.

   Seeing the lieutenant colonel coming in, Winters subconsciously blocked the parchment with the map and stood up to salute.

  Jesska took everything in his eyes, he stood at the door of the tent, his tone was as cold as usual: "Sackler wants to see you."

   "General Sackler?" Winters was taken aback.

  Jesska nodded slightly.

   "I'll pack up and go." Winters took out the parchment full of writing from under the map, folded it in half twice, and put it in a small square wooden box.

When Lieutenant    opened the wooden box, Jesska saw that there were stacks of folded parchment in the box, neatly packed.

   Winters followed the lieutenant colonel, and the two walked to the headquarters in the center of the barracks.

   "The Sacklers are nice, don't be nervous," said Lieutenant Colonel Jesska.

   Winters nodded yes.

   "Maybe he wants to ask you about tactics. You can answer whatever he asks. Sackler likes people who can get to the point. It's better to cut down on nonsense and be concise."

   "Thank you sir."

Lieutenant Colonel    snorted lightly, seemingly indifferent to the "thank you".

   After walking for a while in silence, Jesska suddenly asked, "What were you writing just now? Of course...it's fine if you don't want to say it."

   "Write a letter to the family."

   "Family." The one-eyed lieutenant colonel chewed on the word: "This ghost place, even if I write it, I can't send it."

   "Can't send, but write anyway."

   Lieutenant Colonel hummed again.

  In a large tent, Winters met Brigadier General Sackler.

   The style inside the tent is shabby compared to the size of the tent itself. A bed, a desk, a hanger, that's all.

General    Sackler sat on the pony, with a bench in front of him. It appears that he is using the bench as a dining table and eating dinner.

   On the bench was a plate with some goo.

When    Winters entered the tent, Brigadier General Sackler was holding a pickled cucumber in his left hand and eating bread with his right hand.

   Just looking at this appearance, he doesn't look like a general with a heavy army in his hands, but a farmer who has just returned home from work in the field.

  Plateau officers generally talk about pomp and circumstance and pursue luxurious things: embroidered gold waistbands, silk horse coats, jeweled swords, a complete set of ceramic tableware…

  Especially the cavalry officers, they are very beautiful at all times, even a little too fancy.

The caustic Veneta critics summed up this tendency: "The Platonic always lived in scarcity, so for the Platonic, who rarely had enough of anything, 'enough' meant more than More than anyone else."

   Just for a second, Winters had a perceptual judgment about Sackler: if this is not a saint, it is a pseudo-person, and in short, not an ordinary person.

The Brigadier General    was very accommodating: "Gentlemen, find a place to sit by yourself."

   said he was looking for a place to sit, but there was not even a spare bench in the tent.

   Lieutenant Colonel Jesska sat down on the brigadier general's bed unceremoniously. And the second lieutenant didn't stand or sit, but in the end, he still stood up.

   "I brought the people." Jesska pouted: "He is Winters Montagne, and he brought people to dig those trenches."

   Winters originally thought that the lieutenant colonel was only lukewarm to his subordinates, but he didn't expect that he and the brigadier general had the same tone.

   Sackler took a bite of the bread and looked at Winters: "Lieutenant Montagne?"

   "Yes." Winters drew his boots closer together.

   "I know you are wronged, you can't go home, it is we who are sorry for you." Brigadier General Sackler said sincerely: "I promise you that when this battle is over, I will immediately arrange for you to return to Veneta."

   Winters had a bad feeling: "Thank you General."

   "What do you think of this siege?"

   "Our army will win!"

   "Then how long do you think it will take to take the city of the Hurds?"

   Winters wondered in his heart, he wanted to reason with the general, how could it be safe to fight?

   But when the other party asked, he had to simply answer: "I don't know!"

   Sackler and Lieutenant Colonel Jesska looked at each other with a wry smile: "If you dare to say it, you can just take it as a guess."

   "It's as short as two or three days. It's hard to say if it's longer, it depends on the reserves of the Hurds."

   "Two or three days?"

   "Maybe I can go to the city tomorrow."

   "But today our army was defeated badly."

"The siege is not about winning or losing in one day." Winters couldn't help but said: "Today has proved that wall-digging and blasting tactics are feasible. The gunpowder must have bottomed out. Without the artillery, the Hurds have nothing to do with the carriage."

After   , Winters paused and added: "Of course, the blasting method has to be improved."

   "How to improve?"

   "Strengthen the seal. It's better to blast it with a tunnel, isn't it still digging a tunnel?"

   "I haven't dug under the city wall yet."

   "The key is to attack the morale of the Hurd people. If the Hurd people don't lose their morale, even if they break the outer wall, there will be an inner wall behind. If the inner wall is broken, they will have to fight for houses."

Sackler smiled and shook his head: "Do you know who the Hedman guarding the city is? It's the tribe of the barbarian Yassin, his relatives, direct descendants, and guards. As long as Yassin doesn't die, the Hedman in the city will not die. De Man will not give up resistance."

   Winters suddenly realized that with the hatred between the Paratus and the Hurds, it would be difficult to dismantle the enemy's morale by ordinary methods.

   Sackler continued to ask: "You should have met those Heard raiders who crossed the Styx to the east?"

"Yes."

   "Do you know who those Hurds are?"

   "I don't know." For those who don't know the wasteland, the Hurds are the Hurds, and so is Winters.

"Those are Naiman made up of more than 20 large and small tribes, but there is not a single person from the Chihe tribe." Sackler said with emotion: "Don't underestimate the barbarian Yaxin! We hooked up, but let other tribes go to Palatu to loot and eat fat. We gnawed the bones and gave the meat to others. With this kind of tolerance, if we don’t put him to death in this city today, then we will not be able to kill him in the future. There will be no peace in the Palatine frontier for twenty years."

   Winters was fascinated. At first, the battle for him was nothing more than "Platoons against the Hurds".

   But as he got more and more involved, he discovered that the deep logic of this war was far more than the simple "frontier people and barbarians".

   This is a "sweeping hole in the plow court".

   Winters was still thinking about it, Brigadier General Sackler said in a deep voice: "Second Lieutenant Montagne."

"Yes"

   The Brigadier General said amazingly: "If you are in charge of the overall planning, how long will it take you to win Bian Li?"

   Winters didn't react for a while.

   Brigadier General Sackler said it again.

   "Next year," Winters replied.

   Winters saw a slight difference: the brigadier general had gone to the hospital a little too sick.

   In this siege, Winters actually commanded nearly 1,200 auxiliary soldiers and civilians.

   This is the first time he has been responsible for so many people, and it has already made him a little overwhelmed.

   And Winters knew very well in his heart that he could dispatch thousands of people because the commander of the auxiliary troops was his Veneta at the same time, and the second lieutenants of Veneta were in the same breath, and everyone was not disgusted to listen to his words.

   And the civilian husband naturally obeys the authority of the officer, so there is no need to worry about it.

   "If I co-ordinate." Winters repeated seriously: "Next year. No one will listen to me, just wait for the Hurds to starve to death."

Brigadier General    Sackler understood what the second lieutenant meant, he explained: "Of course you don't need to go to the table, you can serve in the Legion Headquarters. The order is issued in the name of me and Arpad, and will not make you a target."

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Winters asked back, "Even if you let me go, it's just the old three - excavation, blasting, and shelling. We can already see signs of victory today. As long as you have patience, Bianli City will sooner or later. It's from Plato."

   "No!" Sackler's eyes were bright and serious: "It must be fast! The sooner the better!"

  …

  …

   That night, the Palatine army entered the trench position and advanced overnight.

   The next day, the Palatine army once again blasted the southern bastion wall.

   This time, the sappers used a new digging method, instead of going straight, they dug out a corner hole. Although more work, the sealing effect is better.

  The sappers in the army also improved the containers for gunpowder. Before, in order to facilitate handling, the gunpowder in divided barrels was fed into the blasthole. The powder keg detonated in turn, dispersing the power.

   This time, only a "coffin" filled with gunpowder was used. The coffin was bound with iron rings and sealed with asphalt inside and outside.

   The second explosion, the explosion is no longer a dull fart.

  The corner of the southern bastion was directly blown up, and the sound of the explosion even frightened the warhorses of the camp. Dirt and broken wood flew up to dozens of meters in the air, and it was like a mud rain outside the city.

   As soon as the southern bastion was blown up, the newly formed grenadier brigade of the Palatine Army rushed into the breach.

   Following Winters' suggestion, Sackler selected tall, strong, and valiant soldiers from the Fifth and Sixth Corps, equipped with half-armor, full-coverage helmets, melee weapons, and iron bombs, specially designed to break through gaps.

Although the   iron bomb is heavy, it does wonders for tough battles.

   The Hurds fought back desperately, and the Palatine army advanced three times and retreated three times, and finally firmly occupied a corner of the bastion.

   At this time, it was impossible for the Hurds to repel the Paratus, because while the two sides were still seeing the gap, Winters had already led someone to get through the last section between the gap and the trench.

The   Plateau army could continue to support the gap through the trenches.

   The sky was getting dark, and the exhausted Platoons and Hedds could do nothing. Both sides died down, licked their wounds, and the battle came to an end.

   However, in the dead of night, people, livestock and poultry within a radius of more than ten kilometers were awakened by another loud noise.

   This time, it was a tunnel blasting that was almost unlimited by the amount of charge, and the entire North Fortress of the Western Acropolis flew into the sky.

  The Hurd people in the city even thought it was an earthquake, and fled in all directions in a panic.

  The two infantry battalions of the Palatine Army, which had been prepared for a long time, took advantage of the situation to attack the gap in the northern bastion.

   From late night to dawn, the Bianlixi Acropolis was conquered, and the Hurds fled to the main city for refuge.

   The platoon army on the south and north banks also took advantage of the situation to cross the river and set up a cloud ladder to attack the east acropolis.

  When the sun rose from the horizon, Winters stood on the sentry tower and looked at Bian Li, and the four-quadrant flag of Plato had been planted all over the west city.

  Andre was beaming beside Winters.

   Lieutenants Veneta have heard it—the battle is over to go home, and victory is within reach.

   "Vulnerable, vulnerable!" Andre laughed and patted Winters on the shoulder.

"The battle hasn't been won yet, don't be in a hurry to celebrate." Winters also showed a smile, and he reached out to call the messenger: "Go to Brigadier General Sackler. Lieutenant Mason has collected the shells of the Hurds. Let Lieutenant Mason went forward with the cannonballs, turned the Hurd cannons, and blasted open the gates of the main city."

  The messenger climbed down the outpost tower and ran quickly to the legion headquarters.

   Winters has an unprecedented sense of satisfaction. The army is at his disposal like chess pieces. He can make plans without restrictions, and then watch the implementation of the plan. Nothing excites him more than this.

  Even if he was just a strategist, he found that all this still gave him an illusion of omnipotence, and he couldn't help asking himself: "This is power? Dangerous and intoxicating."

   In the morning light, one group after another of soldiers left the attack position and drove towards Bianli City.

   Winters reached out and touched the locket: "The hearts of the Hurds have been shaken, maybe they can really go down in a battle."

   Behind him, out of sight of him, a rider rushed straight into the gate of the barracks. The guards immediately blocked it, and the rider fell off his horse, shouting and crawling to the legion headquarters.

   Five minutes later, Winters received a note.

   The joy on his face gradually dissipated, and the wrinkles on his forehead began to emerge little by little.

   "What's wrong?" Andre noticed something strange.

   In the field of vision, the Palatine squadrons who were marching towards Bianli turned their direction one by one, and the messengers with green helmets and feathers rode their horses to the west acropolis.

   Winters raised the note in his hand and looked very calm: "The reinforcements of the Hurds are here."

   [Winters' illusion is actually the illusion of the military staff, the illusion of the graduates of the old Japanese mainland university. Winters and the other Lieutenants Veneta did a staff job. They make plans, Sackler and Alpad make decisions. However, there is no such military post in this era, so this chapter is called "Shadow Commander"]

   Sorry for being late, mainly because it is not good to break the chapter in front, so I wrote the last one and then sent it.

   There may be a little bit of abuse, but I only discovered it after I wrote it. The FLAG is full...but surely Winters can go back to Veneta, tomorrow or in the future.

   Thanks to the book friends who voted for the recommendation before and the book friends who voted for the recommendation today, thank you, bow;

   Thanks to the book friend Hei Cha, Lihua Kongxiang, the designer of the Master Tower, cclihua, book friend 121219172307533 for their rewards, thank you all;

   Thanks to the book friends Juger, [book friends with Russian names], Falling Leaves and Flying Flowers, Desperately 620, AyaCrystal, Wangan Butcher Dicos, iRuin, Three Points Blue, Windbreaker 4000, TheRedButton, Book Friends 20200227214355974 for monthly tickets, thank you all;

   Thanks again to the book friends who voted for the recommendation, thank you all.

   (end of this chapter)