Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 98 Sapper Lieutenant Colonel and Tinker

   It took place on the first day after the small-scale battle for the moat. Both the offensive and defensive sides sent people to collect the corpses, but no action was taken.

   The next day, the defenders sent out to dig trenches.

   It’s just that this time, it’s not in the middle of the night, but in the daytime with great fanfare.

   Apparently the defenders were keenly aware of the Veneta's weakness, with no artillery, too few cannon fodder troops, and a lack of cavalry.

   Therefore, there is no need to hide your ears and steal the bell at night, and the Veneta who work at night can get close by the night.

   Just work during the day, and the guards on the city wall can see the movements of the Veneta people clearly.

   The defenders seemed to spread their thighs and said to the Veneta people: "Come on, come on, don't come."

On the    city walls, the Half Moon Fort and the Triangle Fort, the Union soldiers were waiting in full force, the cannons and muskets had been loaded, the crossbows had been wound, and bundles of arrows were lined up beside the bowmen.

   Obviously, if the Veneta people are willing to risk buckshot and arrows to compete for the moat, the Tacheng defenders are also very happy to exchange.

Layton was so angry that he almost smashed the parapet wall with a slap on the wall of the Vinetta, and he yelled: "[Ambiguous swear words]! He was actually looked down upon by the Tani! Send a brigade over! This time it is not XX Kill them so they don't dare to go out again!"

"If we send troops to kill the people in the moat, I'm afraid it will be what William Kidd wants." Antonio smiled: "Roster [Layton's name], what do you think is in the moat now? people?"

   "Don't beat around the bush! Playing dumb riddles with me every day, it's annoying to go around, talk straight!" Layton didn't answer at all, and gave Antonio a stern look.

Antonio didn't care, obviously he was used to his old classmate's violent temper, he asked himself and answered: "William Kidd will never send his own soldiers out, and the trenches are probably filled with miners who originally lived in Tacheng. If we kill one more miner, he will eat and drink less. If you want to exchange the extra mouth for the lives of our soldiers, William Kidd really made a good deal."

   "What should we do then?" Layton glared again.

  Antonio tapped the wall of the parapet rhythmically with his fingers: "This is a conspiracy. They are dispatched during the day to kill our commandos more efficiently. You can see how far we are from the city wall now."

   "About half a kilometer."

   "This distance is already within the effective range of the artillery, not to mention that the Union's artillery is commanding, why didn't the artillery on the Half Moon Fort and the Triangle Fort bombard us? Why did we just watch us build a siege wall?"

  Layton's nostrils suddenly expanded, and he scolded: "Still playing dumb riddles? You are endless, right?"

   "Think, friend, think. The younger generation is watching, don't be so impatient."

   "Go away."

Seeing that Layton was about to attack, Antonio patted him on the arm and explained: "The gunpowder in the tower city is definitely not enough. So the enemy is waiting for the opportunity to kill our army to the greatest extent, otherwise they would have blasted us with artillery. We have few soldiers, so we cannot waste them. William Kidd has little gunpowder, so we cannot waste it. To do this is nothing more than to lure us closer to the city wall…”

   "Stop talking nonsense and come to the conclusion." Layton said impatiently.

"We don't do what William Kidd wants us to do. We don't have cannons on hand now, and the enemy has little gunpowder, so it's not bad." Antonio patted the dust on his hands: "There's no need to send troops to kill those in the moat. Miners, who were forced to work out of the city after the First World War last night, no one will work hard. And these miners who resent the federation may be of great use to us.”

  Layton's eyes stared like bulls: "Then let's just watch the Tanies strengthen the city's defense?"

"Since William Kidd can send people to dig trenches, we can also do civil work." Antonio said in a relaxed tone: "Whatever the enemy does, we will do it, and we will never follow their plan anyway. Let's see Who is afraid of who?"

   In the afternoon of that day, when the defenders who had been guarding the city wall for the morning began to tire, the fortress of the Veneta people a few hundred meters away began to approach the city wall.

  The Union soldiers standing guard at the Triangle Fort noticed the strangeness of the enemy on the opposite side, and hurriedly called their superiors. After several layers of reports, the top commander of the Tacheng defenders, William Kidd, came to the triangular fort in front of the city gate - this is the position closest to the Veneta people's fortress.

   After careful observation for a while, Captain Kidd finally understood what Veneta was doing. He slapped the earth wall of the Triangle Fort with a slap in the face, and yelled, "[Pirate's most vulgar swear words]!"

   In the position facing the city gate and the triangular fort, the Veneta people made an opening in the fortress wall, and were building a corridor inclined at a 45-degree angle to the line connecting the city gate-triangular fort-opening.

   This is also the reason why the first sentinel to find it reported that "the enemy's earthen wall is approaching us".

   On the Tacheng side, the Tanilians are digging trenches in full swing.

   However, outside the city, the Veneta people are also in full swing to build the wall.

  The most advantageous defensive condition of Tacheng is not the city wall, but the foundation. The whole city sits on a large mass of volcanic rock, and the soil created by the weathering of the rock is blown lower by strong sea breezes.

   So the soil layer around the city is extremely thin, even so thin that it is impossible to cultivate, and beneath the soil layer is hard volcanic rock. The siege side can neither dig trenches close to the city wall, nor use tunnel blasting to destroy the city wall.

  The siege troops had to pass through the hard open field in front of the city wall. In the process, they would be completely exposed to the long-range firepower of the defenders, and were killed by bouncing shells and flying lead and arrows.

   However, people are forced to come up with any solution.

Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Vauban, a engineer who was transferred to the Road Construction Countermeasures Headquarters, was called back to the front line of the siege before the chair was hot. An alternative: since you can't dig trenches, build walls and make trenches in the ground.

   In simple terms, it is to build corridors on both sides of the wall. Although this is far more laborious than digging trenches, it is the only way at present.

   Layton listened to Vauban's plan, and immediately made the decision: just do it!

  In the eyes of Roster Leighton, "It is better to think about advancing than to stop." It is better to do something than to watch the enemy dig trenches.

   However, the operability of this brain-beating plan is extremely poor, and a lot of engineering problems have arisen after it is implemented.

   First of all, this is to build a tunnel under the eyelids of the enemy. The enemy may tolerate the Veneta army in the half-kilometer outer city, but it will never tolerate the Veneta army continuing to build corridors close to the city.

  There is a natural barrier to dig trenches to block direct fire, but building walls is not enough, and the construction efficiency of rammed earth walls is too slow.

   While being bombarded by the enemy, while ramming the earth with a pier, no one has such a tenacious nerve.

  Thanks to Vauban's urgency, he got inspiration from the engineering technology of dam building and invented an innovative way of building walls temporarily.

Lieutenant Colonel Vauban used local materials to weave a roughly cylindrical cage from the dense vines and flexible branches in the woods on the island. First, put large pieces of gravel into the cage, then fill the gaps with small pieces of gravel, and finally use The soil is compacted.

   Lay the cage flat on the ground, layer by layer, and you can quickly build a temporary wall.

  The length of the cage is the thickness of the wall, and the wall constructed by a one-meter-long cage is enough to withstand the fire of muskets and light artillery.

  Although the walls of this shoddy structure will definitely collapse over time, no one expects them to stand on the ground forever, and it is enough to last until the end of the siege battle.

   In order to allow soldiers to construct more safely, Lieutenant Colonel Vauban invented a "moving wall".

   is to fill the farm cart with dirt and push it to the front of the construction site to block the axle to form a temporary shelter wall.

   This kind of moving wall is not only used to block the enemy's artillery shells, but also to block the enemy's field of vision. The sappers quickly build a tunnel with a cage of earth and stone behind the wall.

   After the tunnel at the current location is repaired, the cart will continue to push forward, and then continue to work at the next location.

  When William Kidd saw what the Venetas were doing, he immediately ordered the bombardment of the Veneta fortifications that were extending toward Tower City.

  The fortifications of the Veneta people are only about 500 meters away from the city wall, and even a three-pound or four-pound light artillery can be approximately accurate at this distance.

  The four-pounder on the triangular fort opened fire first, and the four-pound iron ball flew parabolically over the head of the Veneta and landed far behind the wall, hitting nothing but the air and the ground.

  The gunner immediately adjusted the wooden wedge at the rear of the barrel. After reloading, the four-pounder roared for the second time.

   This time, the cannonball directly hit the four-wheeled cart full of dirt, and the iron cannonball smashed the board of the car, sinking deep into the soil.

   The body of the cart trembled, and the axle and spokes made a groaning strain under the impact of the huge force. The spokes of one of the wheels could not bear it and broke.

The    four-wheeled cart fell to one corner, the other end was raised high, and the soil spilled out... But that's all, the Veneta people dragged the cart away and pushed another one up.

  The gunner adjusted the angle again. This time, the shells flew under the body of the four-wheeled cart. In theory, it should be able to kill the Veneta behind several cars.

   However, the enemy, like a bloodless stone, did not waver at all, and continued to build the corridor.

  William Kidd threw a punch on the dirt wall of the Triangle Fort.

  After one shot, two consecutive effective hits were made. The skill and luck of the gunner are beyond doubt. However, the Veneta seems... not painful.

  William Kidd ordered the use of eight-pounder guns, but the first two hits seemed to have exhausted luck. The eight-pounder can fire either too low or too high.

   An eight-pounder shell directly hit the cart, but it didn't cause any trouble to the Veneta.

   Seeing that the Veneta man corridor had been repaired for a certain distance, William Kidd turned to order the eight-pounder to bombard the walls on both sides of the repaired corridor.

   However, the effect of shooting at the wall of the tunnel is even less ideal, because Lieutenant Colonel Vauban deliberately made the tunnel turn left and right, approaching the city wall like a snake.

   Although this increased the amount of work, it also prevented the artillery on the city wall from shooting directly into the tunnel.

   The eight-pounder guns placed on the triangular fort could only bombard the walls of the tunnel at a large angle, and all of them were bounced off by the walls.

  William Kidd went to Half Moon Fort on the east side of the city wall again. The artillery of Half Moon Fort was farther away from the corridor, but the angle of incidence between the ballistic and the wall was larger.

   Sure enough, shooting from Banyuebao towards the corridor, the hit rate is even worse. William Kidd was heartbroken with gunpowder, and prayed that the next shot would hit the wall of the corridor directly.

  Finally, an eight-pound iron ball slid in the air in a graceful arc and slammed into the side wall of the tunnel.

The huge impact of the    artillery shell directly knocked off a large piece of the side wall, and the defenders who had been suppressed for a long time on the city wall suddenly burst into cheers.

   But they couldn't laugh immediately, because the Venetas brought out more cages full of earth and stones, and quickly repaired the broken walls.

   In desperation, William Kidd stopped the shelling, he could not waste gunpowder on the earth wall hundreds of meters away from the shelling.

On the side of the Veneta people, Major General Layton laughed and patted Vauban on the shoulder: "It's gold that will shine sooner or later. With your professional ability, a lieutenant colonel of a reserve army engineer has obviously wronged you. Work hard, Take down Tacheng and I will mention you as a colonel!"

"The further the corridor is repaired and the closer it is to the city wall, the more difficult it will be to build it." Lieutenant Colonel Vauban shook his head with a wry smile and said, "I am a tinker. If there is a problem, I will find a way to fix it. I just hope If you can't go ahead and repair it in the future, just don't send me to the Military Law Office."

"Each mile you advance your tunnel can reduce many casualties in the subsequent battle." Antonio said mildly: "We know the difficulty of this plan, and we will do our best. After the war, General Layton and I Jointly ask for credit for you."

Second Lieutenant of Engineer Otto Skorzeny hurried over and saluted the three senior officers before reporting anxiously: "Sir, our walls seem to be built too high. I observed the lowest cage. I can't bear the earth and stone on it, it's about to be crushed!"

Vauban, Antonio, and Layton immediately rushed to the location of the dangerous wall found by Lieutenant Otto. Lieutenant Colonel Vauban carefully observed the test and confirmed: "It really doesn't work, there are too many heavy objects on it, and the cages on the bottom I can't stand it anymore."

  Antonio asked: "How about tearing down a few layers and letting the soldiers bend over to move?"

   "The height of the wall is calculated by me. If the wall becomes shorter, the corner will not be able to cover the corridor well." Lieutenant Colonel Vauban explained helplessly.

   "Then what do you say?" Layton asked impatiently.

Vauban thought for a while in silence, and then said slowly: "I see no signs of breaking the third layer below, which means that removing the two-layer cage can ensure the stability of the wall structure. Remove the two-layer cage from the top of the wall. After the basket, a shallow trench with two layers of baskets is dug between the walls, which is equivalent to increasing the height of the wall in disguise. At the same time, the excavated earth and stone can also be used to build the wall, saving the time of carrying the earth and stone from the rear, killing two birds with one stone. "

  Layton was overjoyed when he heard Vauban's approach, his face quickly turned from cloudy to sunny, and he happily punched Lieutenant Colonel Vauban on the shoulder: "You are a little quick-witted."

Lieutenant Colonel Vauban, a thin-statured engineer, was stunned by the punch of Leighton, who was big and three. He said bitterly, "Don't rush to praise me first, if you dig trenches, water will accumulate once it rains. Digging trenches on the rocks is not only time-consuming, but it is also difficult for the water to seep in like in the soil... There is no way to do this, I think it is better to pray that it will not rain first.”

  Antonio and Layton were dumbfounded.

  …

When the officers on the front line of Tacheng were busy with civil work, outside a village in the interior of Chisulfur Island, Andre roared angrily: "These XX tricksters! Tricksters! Tricksters! I'm going to kill you today. They! I'll kill anyone who doesn't build the road! I'll see who doesn't dare to go!"

   Thanks to the book friends who have voted for the recommendation before, thanks to the screams of the witches, justice and purity are koalas, and Tianshui has beautiful women's recommendation votes, thank you all.

   I tried to draw a sketch of the siege of Tacheng simply by hand, and posted it in this chapter.

   (end of this chapter)