Iron Powder and Spellcasters

  Chapter 96 City Defense in Old Times

"According to the local people we found, the city walls of Tacheng are already years old. The exact construction time is unknown, but at least the building was fifty years ago - this was the earliest residence of the Duke of Red Iwo Island. After the Federation seized power It was gradually abandoned until it was refurbished two years ago, but there were no major changes."

  The atmosphere in the military tent in the temporary camp was very depressing. Most of the senior officers were smoking cigarettes and listening to the report of the head of the intelligence department without saying a word.

The officer who was speaking turned a page in the small book in his hand, licked his lips and continued: "The main body of the city wall is not lime mortar, but volcanic ash concrete, which is the material of the dome of St. Mark's Cathedral. It is obtained by mixing volcanic ash with lime and sea water. The outer wall is made of volcanic rock mined from a nearby quarry. Simply put, the main body of the city wall is a large stone, and the outside is covered with a layer of stone.”

   One of the school officials scolded in a low voice, and the expressions of the others were also a little ugly. The officers who can hold meetings here have at least fourteen years of military experience. The stronger the city wall, the greater the price the attackers need to pay.

Seeing that everyone was in a bad mood, the person in charge of the intelligence department quickly continued to explain the disadvantages of the city wall: "However, the biggest problem with the city defense system in Tacheng is that it is too old, it belongs to the city defense system that has been eliminated, and it still relies on high defense. Beneath the high walls are earth slopes to deal with the ladders.

  Because the stone city wall is expensive, the main body of the Tacheng city wall is thin and only two meters wide, making it difficult to arrange artillery. Two years ago, Tani also realized a problem in the renovation, but it did not make a major change. It just added a protruding half-moon fort on the east and west walls to set up side-firing artillery. "

The person in charge of the intelligence department took a breath, and turned the page again in the small book in his hand: "Because it is difficult to excavate, there is no trench in Tacheng. After the Union troops fled into Tacheng, they thought about trying to dig one temporarily, but they couldn't dig one. They gave up when they reached 1.5 meters. But they used the excavated earth and stone to build another parapet under the city wall, and covered the city gate with a temporary rammed-earth triangular fort..."

   "It's a bit tricky. William Kidd is just a mere pirate, I'm afraid he doesn't have the ability. Who is the person who is really guarding the city?" Antonio interrupted the head of the intelligence department of the Third Army.

  The director of the intelligence department saw sweat on his forehead all of a sudden, he didn't dare to refute, he could only say: "...this, we don't know for the time being."

   "I don't need to talk about the issue of city defense, everyone can understand it. Tell me some other more important information." Antonio continued to ask: "Is there a source of water in the city? How many civilians? How about the food?"

  The officers were a little shaken when they heard Antonio's question. Obviously, since Major General Serbia Ti began to ask these questions, it means that he has begun to think about a long-term siege instead of a storm.

The director of the intelligence department hurriedly flipped through the small book again: "The civilians in Tacheng are mainly sulphur miners and their families, with less than 300 households. The Federation did not set up a granary in Tacheng, so there should only be grain stored in the homes of the sulphur miners. And the food they have collected from nearby villages these days. There are no wells in the city, and the city mainly relies on streams that flow down from the mountains. There are two or three cisterns. There is a crater lake on it. But the water there is bitter because it is too close to the sulfur mines.”

  Antonio held his forehead and instructed: "Send a few people into the mountains to find out how many streams there are and whether they can find a way to cut them off."

   The director of the intelligence department quickly said yes.

The air in the    Military Council became dull again.

  Layton couldn't hold back, slapped his thigh and scolded: "[military swear words]! [military swear words]! These tani guys stole everything from us! [military swear words]!"

   Layton's words sounded a bit nonsensical, but they were exactly what the officers had in mind.

The   Republics have been on the defensive since they broke away from the Empire. Although the Empire was defeated, it still retains its strength far stronger than the Senas Alliance.

  Although the War of Sovereignty between the Empire and the Republics was over, no swords were fired, and the bilateral relationship became increasingly close after Henry III succeeded to the throne.

   However, strategic pressure is strategic pressure. On the other side of the Shady Mountains is the most powerful empire on this continent, even if it is friendly, it is still a huge threat.

   Therefore, the strategic thinking of the armies of the Republics is based on defensive counterattacks, which is also a successful experience in sovereign warfare. Deplete the strength and morale of the invaders with fortified towns and cities, and then let the field troops find opportunities to fight.

  In the strategic thinking of the alliance, there is no fortress that cannot be fallen. As long as it causes enough damage and buys enough time before it falls, the fortress has completed its strategic purpose.

  Tani people in Tacheng obviously hold this purpose. It was an isolated city doomed to fall—two legions of ten thousand men besieged a small town defended by less than three thousand men, and the defenders had no support.

   Under normal circumstances, in the face of this doomed battle, the defenders would have surrendered long ago. At most, some quid pro quo, such as allowing the defenders to leave with arms, is negotiated. However, the defenders of the Federation simply refused to surrender, and they didn't even have the slightest intention to negotiate.

The   Tani behind the city walls were aware of the weaknesses of the military systems of the Republics: the political system determined that Veneta could not mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops at any cost like the feudal monarchs.

   When there is no war, Veneta has only a total of 6,000 standing troops. In order to save money, it has to be stationed in various cities, because supplies can be provided by the stationed cities.

   So Antonio and Layton couldn't possibly waste Veneta's elites under the city walls of Tower City, but they couldn't leave a Union army behind them waiting for an opportunity.

   That's why Layton scolds Tani for stealing his own stuff. This is an era in which "tactical attack overwhelms defense, and strategic defense overwhelms attack". If your own magic weapon of victory is used by others to deal with you, no one will be angry.

   However, this is also impossible, because human beings are slow to learn other things, but they learn the fastest in the matter of war.

  The barbarians on the frontiers of the empire may not be able to learn poetry and songs, but when they see iron tools, trebuchets, gunpowder, and cannons, they can immediately absorb and digest them.

   This is also the reason why "barbarians" can conquer "civilization" again and again, because in this era, the military technology of "barbarian tribes" is not behind that of "civilized kingdoms", and it is even better in mobilization ability.

   A little off topic, back to the Tacheng offensive and defensive battle.

   All the officers thought about it, but there was no good way.

   In fact, everyone knows the best way, that is, don’t attack, and surround yourself. The Tacheng defenders were less than 3,000 people, and they were too frightened to take the initiative to go out of the city for a decisive battle.

   Therefore, as long as one legion is left besieged here in the Legion of Great Veneta and Legion of San Marco, it can wait for the defenders to surrender themselves when they run out of food.

  If the defenders don’t come out, then everyone will sit and fight. Anyway, the Veneta people have the entire Red Illusion Island as a supply area, and they can accompany the Tanigos to the end of the world.

   It would be better if the defenders dared to go out into the city to fight in the field. A full army of more than 5,000 people beats your 3,000-strong army of miscellaneous cards.

   Another legion can be freed from the siege and continue to attack the other main islands of Tanilla.

   This plan is well known to everyone, good or bad, but the question is... Who stays? Who is leaving?

  Who would want to stay and besiege the city? Who knows how much food the Tanirians in the city have on their hands? Richard IV was besieged for two years but failed to attack the city of Guitu. If the luck is a little worse, I am afraid that when the war is over, the legions who stay here will still be staring at the Tanee in the city.

  The soldiers may be happy, but none of the officers here are happy.

  There is no war, officers can only rely on seniority if they want to be promoted. The military system of the Senas Alliance caused the officers not only to have seniority, but also to wait for vacancies.

  The officers who can sit on the military account unless they have a wealthy family or their father-in-law's family are wealthy, otherwise they are all "begging a second lieutenant, a poor lieutenant, a captain squeezing money, and finally a major" all the way through.

   After finally getting the chance to fight, which officer would be willing to waste time here? Who doesn't want to go further?

  Beyond this small and hard tower city, the problems of the Veneta army's command system are highlighted.

   From the point of view of rationality, of course, the reserve army should be besieged here, and the elite standing army should leave the Red Sulphur Island and continue to siege the city.

   But the problem is that Serbia is a major general, and Layton is also a major general. Moreover, even if the former rank can overwhelm the latter, he cannot command the latter.

  The military system of the Republic of Veneta determines the independence of the legions, because each legion is directly under the military committee, and the legion commander is only responsible to the thirteen-member council. Even if a second lieutenant was placed in the position of the commander of the Legion of San Marco, he could not reject Antonio's orders.

  This structure avoids the formation of a large group within the army, and ensures that the government commands the army, rather than the army kidnapping the government, so that the Veneta government avoids going astray in the inter-provincial republic.

   Moreover, if it is a local battle, there is no problem that the legions are independently commanded by the Council of Thirteen. However, the problem now is: there is a sea between the two legions and Hailan City. If they want to communicate with the Council of Thirteen, they have to send a ship to cross the ocean to return to Hailan, and then cross the ocean to return to Scarlet Sulphur Island.

   Even if the wind is smooth, it will take three weeks to talk about it again and again. If the luck is almost always against the wind, it is not impossible to get the news of Hailan City after a month. If the luck is too bad and the communication ship sent out sinks, I am afraid that the two legions are waiting for a reply here, and Hailan still knows nothing about the situation on the Red Sulphur Island.

   Besides, it would take three weeks to get the news of the Council of Thirteen if everything went well, so it might be better to just storm it. If the siege goes well, it might take a week to take Tacheng.

  The senior officers in the military account are all clear about the current situation, but they are not able to intervene in the question of whether to go and attack, and who will go and who will stay.

   Decision-making can only be made by two legion commanders, and no one else is eligible to participate—of course, theoretically, there is one other person who is eligible, and that is another thirteen-member council member sent by Hailan City.

   The general who came to Red Iwo Island by the supply fleet was originally at the request of Rear Admiral Antonio and Vice Admiral Nareshaw as the third member of the Provisional Military Committee of the Revenge Fleet.

   But by coincidence, another Vice Admiral came... No matter how high the rank of the Navy is, they have no say in the military affairs of the Army.

  Antonio proposed to set up a joint command to avoid this kind of internal friction between the army and the navy, but who would have thought that the cooperation between the third army and the navy would be smooth, but problems occurred within the army first.

   So in the end, the two commanders had to reach a consensus, and the officers were waiting for the final decision of the two major generals.

   Major General Layton would obviously not be willing to stay and guard. After sitting on the bench for many years, he finally took command of the army again.

   And even if Antonio agreed to stay and besiege Tower City, the officers of the Great Veneta Legion would not be convinced.

   Winters contacted the Da Vineta Corps through Calman's smuggling channel. In other words, the credit for conquering the Red Sulphur Port should have belonged to the Third Corps.

  However, in order to ensure victory, Antonio decided that the Third Army would continue to feint the north coast to attract the enemy's main force, and handed over the task of attacking the port of Red Sulphur to the newly arrived San Marco Army.

   In other words, this credit was given by Antonio to the Legion of San Marco. The officers of the Great Veneta were full of resentment, which was suppressed by Antonio's prestige. The words "forbearance for the country and compromise" are really unconvincing to the officers who dreamed of meritorious promotion.

   Besides, they have already endured it once, why can't the Legion of San Marco endure it once? The officer corps of Da Vineta firmly believed in private that all of them should be left by the "reserves", who would rather climb the city wall than be responsible for the siege of Tacheng.

   "How about drawing lots? Or half of the family stay..." Just when a school official was thinking about it, Antonio directly announced the meeting.

   At noon that day, Antonio, Layton, and Nareshaw, as well as Vice Admiral Compton, who had just arrived from Hailan, had a closed-door meeting among the four supreme commanders of the army and navy.

  The clerk was not allowed to enter the tent, so no one knew what kind of conversation the four had.

   In the afternoon of the same day, Andre broke into Winters' tent excitedly and shook Winters, who was taking a nap, to wake up.

  Winters, who was always very angry when he got up, took a lot of effort to resist the urge to swear: "Why?"

"Come on!" Andre shouted excitedly: "The director asked the two of us to follow the engineer officer to build the road! Finally, we don't have to do paperwork anymore! Copy! Copy! Copy! I've been writing for the past few days. I know the letters..."

   "Ah!? Road building?"

   It is more expensive to tear down and rebuild than to build a new stove. After the artillery is installed, the old city defense structure needs to be renovated on a large scale. However, in order to save money, most of the urban defense renovation projects in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were repaired on the original basis. For example, the city defense renovations of Rhodes Island and Famagusta were all changes to the original medieval city walls. In 1472, the northern Italian city of Imola simply wrapped the original medieval square tower with a huge round tower, forming a funny nesting doll structure. After all, in the age of the gold and silver standard, public spending budgets were always tight.

   In addition, pozzolan concrete is also a real technology.

   Thanks to the book friends who have voted for the recommendation before, thanks to Clafford Lawrence, writersblock, the same week with the world, book friends 20181013204343295, Yuan Hongjian, Ami, justice and purity are the recommendation votes of koala, thank you all.

   (end of this chapter)