Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 205 Act 1

   After twelve days of temptation and harassment, the battle on the banks of the Styx River entered the most critical moment almost as soon as it started.

   It seems that the white lion pushed the Platoons into a corner, but in fact the Platoons also choked the white lion.

   There is a big river in front and chasing soldiers in the back. There is no way to go to heaven and no door to enter the earth. No matter who judges, the army of Palato is completely finished.

   Hunger and despair would be enough to overwhelm the Louhed without their hands.

   But who would have thought that the Paratus people would have built a bridge over the Styx.

  The Hurds are not animals that drink blood. They have seen bridges and have their own bridges.

   But over a vast and sacred river like Curvallea, a bridge was conjured with unstoppable momentum—this completely refreshed the cognition of the Hurds.

   Once the Palatines were formed to reach the other side, nothing could stop them from going home.

  Then the price paid by the white lion, the Chihe people and even the Heder tribes is equivalent to a handful of flying ashes.

   So the determination of the White Lion to destroy the Paratus was as firm as the determination of the Paratus to return home.

  The people of Paratus seek to live from the dead, forcing the white lion to sink the boat.

  Colonel Hogwitz said that "barbarians have no boats, they can make two rafts in the sky", and he was only half right.

  The barbarians do not have boats, but cats have cat lanes, dogs have dog lanes, and the Hurds also have a unique tool for crossing the river—leather rafts.

   Peel off the whole cowhide and sheepskin, blow in the air, and tie the openings to form a natural air bag. The air bag is tied to the wooden frame to form a raft.

  It is best to use old cowhide or old sheepskin for the skin. The older the teeth of the cow and sheep, the thicker the skin. The most difficult part is peeling the skin, even if there is a small break, the whole skin will be invalid.

  The peeled skin has to be depilated, oiled, and exposed to the sun to make a "leather tire".

  The preservation of leather tires is more troublesome. It is necessary to prevent corrosion, prevent drying and cracking, dry it, and apply water and oil.

   It is precisely because of the simple structure that the requirements for craftsmanship are higher.

  Since three years ago, the white lion has been secretly preparing the raft. Today, there are more than 3,000 sheepskin tires in reserve.

   Sackler was right, even though he thought he had overestimated the White Lion, he actually underestimated his opponent.

  If there is no bridge, the white lion can continue to pursue even if a small number of people can be brought to the east bank of the Styx only by the capacity of the ship.

   But with the bridge, the situation is completely different. The capacity of the bridge is far better than that of the ship, and the Hurds can't even "beat the enemy halfway".

   If the Palatu army is allowed to cross the river, even if it reaches the East Bank, the Heds will not be able to help them.

  The white lion must destroy the bridge, or else all his efforts will be lost.

   So the White Lion has also come to an end - although most of the Palatine officers don't realize this for a while, but they will soon.

  Hogwitz looked down on the raft, which was tied into a raft with twelve sheepskin tires, and was not overloaded with three or four people.

   But what about a hundred sheepskin tires? A thousand sheepskin tires?

  The bridges of the Platoons are very imaginative, but the imagination...the Heard barbarians have it too.

  If anyone thinks that the White Lion is counting on driftwood to break down the bridge piles, they really underestimate him.

   Drift wood is only used to remove the Dragon Slaying Sword. Now that the last barrier has been broken, the next is the fire ship.

  Two thousand sheepskin tires were tied into two giant rafts, carrying all the kindling that the Hurds could collect, and slammed into the bridge with an indomitable momentum.

  The giant rafts are like castles on the water, and even the piling boats are extremely small in front of them.

  Either the Paratus people die, or the Hurd people die in vain, and the white lion's shot is a throw of the universe.

   There was no need for Sackler's orders, every drummer in Palato was playing hard.

  The paddler on the boat used the strength of milk to drive the boat to approach the "fire raft" rapidly.

  The boat threw the hook line, trying to drag the raft away.

   But there are also barbarian archers and paddlers on the raft, and the iron hook was cut off by the machete just after hanging on the raft.

  A brave Platonic soldier jumped onto the raft, and three sharp scimitars swung at him, cutting him down in the blink of an eye.

   But he also bought time for his comrades, and the other three Plato soldiers jumped on the raft at the opportunity.

  The platoons with oars and the barbarians with machetes fought on the rickety raft, the musketeers on the boat and the archers on the raft shot against their foreheads.

   Both sides have been red-eyed. At this moment, it is either your death or my death, there is no reason at all.

   Only by fighting for your life can you have a chance of survival.

The    machete leaves horrific wounds on the unarmoured Platonic soldiers.

   As long as a barbarian in armor is beaten into the water, he will sink to the bottom in an instant, and he will not even have a chance to struggle.

   The musketeers on the shore finally arrived. The lead does not discriminate between enemy and foe, and slaps the people on the raft head to head, only to hear people screaming in the dark.

   "Stop hitting! Hit your own people!" The people on the boat shouted hoarsely.

   But those on the shore ignored it and continued to fire deadly platoons of guns at the raft.

   These two giant rafts were so huge that it was meaningless to hit them with lead, and even puncturing one or two sheepskin tires would not sink them at all.

   On the raft, half of the Heds and the Paratus were trying their best to kill each other, while the other half of the Heards and Paratus were paddling in different directions.

   The screams, roars and screams of the two languages ​​mixed into a sound, like a painful beast screaming in the dark.

  Draw a circle with the bridge as the center and a radius of one kilometer. There are at least tens of thousands of Hedians and Paratus within this range.

   But the real battlefield is actually only the size of two giant rafts and twelve small boats.

  Winning—if there is such a thing—is all about fighting on the water.

  Water, this seemingly harmless substance to humans and animals, has turned into a moat at this moment.

   Whether it is the Paratus people or the Hed people on the other side, as long as they stand on the shore, they can only watch everything happen.

  Two armies that have never paid attention to water battles are now deciding the outcome by water battles. There is nothing more absurd, ridiculous, and heartfelt feeling of powerlessness than this.

   Both sides have lost control of the raft, but that's exactly what the White Lion wants.

   The Hurds didn't need to control the rafts at all, just let them go downstream.

   In the desperate sight of the Platoons, the two water castles sailed unstoppably towards the bridge.

   "Boom!"

  Because of the desperate efforts of the Plato soldiers, the barbarians on the first raft didn't even have time to set fire, so they slammed into the bridge piles.

  The bridge stood tremblingly like an old man with a heavy load, and even withstood the impact.

   At the same time, the Palatine sappers were racing against time to demolish the bridge, desperately slashing the way they had built with their axe.

   The viper stings his hand, and the strong man relieves his wrist. Only by giving up part of the bridge can he keep the remaining bridge.

  The second giant raft, which was burning, crashed into the previous giant raft, and several bridge piles were uprooted in an instant.

  The people still on the bridge staggered, and one engineer was even thrown off the bridge.

The    bridge actually held up again, the bridge piles facing the impact had already left the river bed, and the other bridge piles were also skewed.

   is like pulling the roots of a plant out of the soil. Half of the roots have been torn off, but the remaining half of the roots are stubbornly holding on to the soil and will not let go.

  The two giant rafts have been engulfed by the flames, the flames are spreading towards the bridge, and the engineers who demolished the bridge fled.

  Colonel Laszlo ignored the obstacles of others and jumped on the already inclined bridge.

  Everyone was running towards the shore, only Laszlo went against the flow of people to the bridge.

   He picked up the axe of the drowning sapper and slashed the bridge heavily.

  The fleeing sappers also returned one by one, picking up their axes and following Laszlo to destroy the bridge.

   The sappers slashed and roared, as if to drive all fear out of their chests in this way.

  When the last rigid connection was severed, the approximately 40-meter-long bridge body—the part that was struck and burned—was detached from the bridge and was pushed downstream by the flaming raft.

   It was like a child leaving its mother, and many who were present swear by it, they heard a sigh from the bridge.

  While the Paratus tried desperately to save their bridge, the White Lions attacked the camps in the South and North Highlands.

The cavalry unit led by    Arpad also encountered an unknown number of enemy troops, and the two sides fought in the dark night. Rifle to lance, knife to knife.

  The white lion has set off a stormy sea, and the quietest place turned out to be the bridge forest camp where Winters was.

   [Thanks to book lovers for reading, subscribing, recommending tickets, monthly tickets, tips and comments, thank you all. I'm too sleepy, please wait until I wake up to type out the detailed list of thanks, sorry. ]

   [During the Anti-Japanese War, Lanzhou raft Wang Xinchen used sheepskin rafts to transport fuel oil to Chongqing. A total of 2,000 sheepskin tires were used to make 5 giant leather rafts, carrying 300 tons of gasoline. Later generations called it the "skin raft warship"]

   [I did some calculations, not counting the weight of people and wooden rafts, 300 tons of gasoline were distributed to 2,000 sheepskin tires, and the average displacement of each sheepskin tire was 150 kilograms. I don't know how big the sheepskin tire is, but the visual inspection should be more than 150L, ​​and the displacement of 300 tons should be theoretically achievable. ]

   [The plight of the white lion is not the load-bearing capacity of the sheepskin raft, but that he cannot find 300 tons of firelight.

   Nearby woods, large and small, were burned to the ground by Arpad. There was really nothing to put on the raft, so the White Lion had to put a lot of earth and rocks on the raft to increase the impact (inertia) of the raft.

   And mostly stones, not much soil. Because the white lion doesn't have a shovel... Yes, dear book friends, you read that right, the white lion is not a "shovel dancing class".

   Don't underestimate the shovel. Compared with the large number of Plato troops equipped with shovels, the Hurds lacked such engineering equipment.

   Compared with other tribes, the Chihe Department actually has a lot of tools such as shovels. However, they were all stored in Bianli and burned clean by a fire. As a result, the white lion still has a few axes in his hand, but none of the shovels (exaggerated)]

   (end of this chapter)