Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 299 Trapped Beast

   Bud, who rushed to the front line from the refugee camp, came to see Winters for the first time: "The Teltown people want to surrender?"

   "Yes." Winters leaned over to sketch on the drawing, picked up the water bladder in his left hand and handed it to Bud, and replied without looking up: "I don't agree."

  There is no need for greetings and courtesies among comrades.

  Bud took the water bag, took a sip of clean water, and waited quietly for Winters to write.

   Winters threw away the charcoal and called for a messenger to take the map.

   There is no one else in the temporary command post, so he no longer needs to hide his tiredness.

He walked to the bucket in the corner of the tent and washed his face vigorously with cold water: "The fire roaster said that he was willing to return all the loot, offered three thousand horses, and then stopped the army - keep the weapons, the flag, and surrender with dignity. Well, the Hurds also Start playing this set!"

  The temporary command post is located on a high ground overlooking the southeast, from which you can see the third line of defense and the forest beyond.

   From time to time, a messenger would come on horseback, report to Winters by word of mouth, and leave in a hurry with the answer.

   "The Teltown people didn't move?" Bud overlooked the map and judged the situation of the two armies.

  Winters shook his head slightly, his eyebrows wrinkled unconsciously: "No movement... So I don't understand what the monkey's **** face is doing."

   Now the Torretown right has been divided into three parts:

   part on the west bank of the Big Horn, repelled in previous battles;

   Part of it is on the south bank of the Pangtuo River, that is, Xiatiefeng County;

The elites of the   Khan account were trapped in the Dajiao River, the Pantuo River and the square inch of the besieged city by the third line of defense.

  The situation is very good for the Tiefeng Army. As long as the elites can be surrounded and wiped out, the remaining rabble will be defeated without a fight.

"Even if the rabbit falls into the trap, it has to struggle to the death. The monkey's butt-face is trapped in the dead place, but please show weakness." Winters expressed his doubts to Bud: "Suppose the monkey's butt-face is in the In my position, do you think he will accept his offer?"

   "No." Bud said following Winters' words, helping Winters to clarify his thoughts.

   "That is to say." Winters fiddled with a knife unconsciously: "The monkey's **** face is doing something he knows will not succeed."

  Bud thought for a while: "The fire roaster has another purpose?"

   "It must be so."

   "Procrastination?"

   "Why?" Winters vaporized a few drops of water on the tabletop to stimulate his spirits: "The longer the time goes on, the higher the wall and the deeper the trench, and the stronger the line of defense facing the people of Teltown."

   "Perhaps he wanted to show weakness and paralyze us first, and then use all his strength to penetrate the defense line."

   "But in my opinion, with the advantages of the cavalry of the Teldun people, it is better to fight fast and attack before the wall and trench system is fully constructed..."

The    voice came to an abrupt end, and Winters was abruptly silent.

   After a while, he said softly: "Or, the Teltown people are waiting for reinforcements to cooperate with each other and annihilate us here."

  Bud didn't answer, he knew he couldn't interrupt Winters at this time.

   Winters pondered hard. He put his hands on the table and stared at the map: "Reinforcement...reinforcement...if the Teltown people have reinforcements, where will the reinforcements come from? West Bank? South Bank? North?"

  Bud sighed and patted Winters on the shoulder.

   Winters came back to his senses and stared blankly at his friend.

   "How long has it been since you slept?" Bud asked.

   "One day? Two days?" Winters' eyes were bloodshot: "It seems that I took a few naps, I can't remember."

   "This can't be done." Bud's expression became more serious: "The second commandment, [for the general to be exhausted and exhausted]."

   Winters smiled for the first time, and answered the next sentence like a code: "[It will ignore the really important things]."

   "Go to sleep." Bud handed Winters the coat: "I'm guarding here."

   Winters was about to say something, but after thinking about it, he picked up his coat and walked into the tent.

   He made up his mind and said, "In short, stay the same. No matter what the **** the Teltown people are up to, as long as the opening is closed, drive the Teltown people out!"

  Bud looked at Winters' back and looked around at the command post, his eyes were a little complicated.

  This command post has only four tents, which is extremely rudimentary. But at this moment, the orders it issued dispatched the actions of tens of thousands of people, and the decisions it made were related to the life and death of Tiefeng County.

   It is no exaggeration to say that these four tents are the brain and core of the Tiefeng Army.

   But it faced a serious shortage of manpower: clerks who could read and write could count on two hands, and there were no professionally trained soldiers except Winters and Budd.

   The reason why the Iron Peak County army is still functioning normally and there is no major trouble is entirely because everything is installed in Winters' mind, and he is calculating with Winters' brain power.

   "It can't go on like this." Bud said suddenly: "You need an assistant."

   "Didn't you come?" Winters answered slowly, unfolding the camp bed.

   "Many assistants, many, many assistants."

   "Yeah." Winters lay down heavily, and soon fell asleep.

   And Bud picked up a pen and paper and started writing a list from memory.

  …

   Central Tiefeng County, the third line of defense.

   Four burly farmers are using a pile driver.

   The four of them shouted their horns and turned the wheel. It was a cold and windy winter, but they were sweating profusely.

  A thick rope is wound around the shaft of the runner, and a large rock is tied to the other end of the rope. The runner tightened the rope, and the stone was slowly pulled up.

  After the stone was lifted some distance, the farmers broke the tenon.

   The boulder fell violently, hitting the stake heavily.

   This process was repeated continuously. It only took six or seven strokes to drive a four-meter-long log into the ground, and only about two meters of wooden stakes were exposed on the ground.

  The stake is ready, and the farmers leave it alone.

   Some other farmers walked up to the pile driver, and a dozen people worked together to move the humble machine two steps.

   Then switch to another group of farmers and start driving another stake.

   To the southwest, behind a hillside, Tai Chi peeped at the simple but efficient machinery in the distance, his face turning blue.

   As far as he could see, at least eight pile drivers were working at the same time.

   The wooden stakes were driven down one by one, and a series of "pillar walls" with a spacing of about two steps had been erected in the valley.

The arrival of   Bud gave Winters a short rest. At the same time, Tai Chi led his guards through the forest and approached to investigate the enemy.

   At a distance of 300 steps, Tai Chi finally saw how the other party "built a city overnight":

   First hit the stake, and then put something like a willow basket on the stake;

   Take soil from the front of the stake and fill it in the willow basket;

   One basket is filled with soil, and another new basket is put on;

   is like stringing meat with wooden skewers, the stakes are covered with six baskets in a row; the first four baskets are covered first and then filled with soil, and the last two baskets are filled with soil and then covered;

  The wide space between the wooden piles is filled with willow baskets filled with soil, and the two-legged man then covers the floating soil outside the wall to make it seamless, and the mystery inside cannot be seen;

  In the end, the earth wall was completed, and the pit dug out of the earth became a trench.

   "Do you understand?" Tai Chi asked his son through gritted teeth.

"Understood, the wooden stake is the backbone, the willow basket is the rib, and the soil is flesh and blood." Tai Chi's son licked his lips and replied, "To demolish the wall, the only way is to drag the stake down. Once the stake falls, The wall also fell."

   "The stake is at least three steps deep into the ground, how can it be dragged down?" Tai Chi's eyes widened.

  Tai Chi's son also widened his eyes, and his expression was exactly the same as his father's: "If a horse can't be pulled down, use two horses, and if two horses can't be pulled down, use four horses."

  Tai Chi looked at his son's appearance and sighed bitterly: "I'm afraid that two-legged people are expecting you and me to come like this."

  …

  The building materials for building walls are nothing more than earth, wood and stone.

  For generations, it is best to use stone, either lime mortar or pozzolanic mortar.

   But Winters didn't want to build a church, he wanted to build field fortifications, and speed was the key. His only options were earth and wood.

  Wood is the easiest way to build a wall. Logs are driven into the soil one by one to form a wall.

   Yet this method requires hundreds of thousands of wood, which Winters does not have. His choice was only soil.

The problem with    mud is that it is not firm and slips.

   If you just pile up the soil, the mound will naturally form a slope. This is the reason for the so-called "eight-foot trench at the corner of six feet, and the front wall should be seven feet high".

   It’s just that if the **** is too large, it will lose the meaning of blocking the horse. Therefore, since ancient times, the most critical technique for building walls with soil is "bundling the soil".

   Rammed earth is one way, but unfortunately it is not fast enough.

  It would be ideal to fill the walls with sheepskins and sacks. Unfortunately, Winters lacked both sheepskins and sacks.

  There is nothing, so we can only make simple things out of the rudimentary, adapt measures to local conditions, and use what is useful.

   After thinking hard, Winters found another way and improved the engineering method of Lieutenant Colonel Vauban to build the tunnel on the Red Sulphur Island.

   Red sulfur island corridor is "to bind the soil with a cage", and Winters "to bind the soil with a basket".

  Because the structural strength of the basket is not as strong as that of the cage, and it is difficult to stack neatly like a cage.

   So Winters drove an additional wooden stake as the "backbone" on top of the basket structure. It not only increases the strength of the wall, but also can firmly fix the earth basket.

   With a "wall" of this strength, it may be difficult for a strongman to resist artillery fire, but there is no problem in stopping the warhorse.

  Compared with ordinary earthen walls, the use of baskets to tie the earth can make the wall steeper, so that the horses cannot even find a place to borrow. And don't choose building materials, mud and gravel can be used.

   The construction efficiency is slower than that of sheepskin bags and burlap bags, but far faster than rammed earth and mortar.

  …

   When Tai Chi looked at the wall and sighed, Winters on the other side suddenly woke up from his sleep.

   Winters' body suddenly sat up straight, he stared blankly at the tent's veil, not moving.

  Bud heard the sound and walked into the inner tent: "What's wrong?"

   "A terrible thing." Winters looked at Bud: "I dreamed."

  Bud was surprised to see the cold sweat on Winters' forehead.

  In an instant, Winters was back to being a vigorous and resolute military tribune.

   He threw off his coat, jumped up, and shouted at the outside of the tent: "Prepare your horses! Summon all company commanders!"

   There was a commotion at the small command post.

   "What's the matter?" Bud, who has always been calm, was a little surprised when he saw Winters' appearance.

   "I may know what the Teltown people are going to do... Be quick! We must fight quickly!" Winters clenched Bud's arm tightly: "Perhaps—time is not on our side."

   [Late...but still here...(>people<;)]

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

   (end of this chapter)