Warlord: King of All Clans

During this month, Hard Beowulf often came to drink with Leo.

In the past, Grand Duke Frovald was very strict and made Hard very annoyed. Now that the Grand Duke is not around, he is the oldest among the five uncles in the coalition. Except for Fabti and Knight Baro, everyone has to call him uncle.

Although he is the commander of Beowulf's legion, he is actually not in charge of the legion. Instead, he is the deputy commander. Even if he is drunk to death, no one will care about him. As long as he can rush to the front when the battle breaks out, it will be fine.

Few people could refuse Hard's invitation.

Leo attended two banquets and then cried out that he couldn't stand it anymore.

Beowulf's army maintained a strong northern barbaric style and was nicknamed the "Wildfolk Army".

During the month they defended the city, they plundered a large amount of property and people in the surrounding area. Most of the spoils were sent back in the logistics convoys, while the beautiful women were left in the barracks to reward the soldiers.

Every banquet was a carnival without limits. Every time, at least twenty young women who were abducted were carried out as corpses.

At every banquet, there would be competitions in eating raw meat, drinking strong liquor, and duels among legionnaires to liven up the atmosphere, and casualties were inevitable.

A month later, the casualties in the battle with the enemy were only in the single digits, but the duel in the military camp resulted in hundreds of casualties.

They are true northerners, warm and hospitable, but also barbaric and disorderly.

This is their cultural tradition, and Leo has no way of persuading them, so he can only keep his distance.

Grant had long regarded the territory of Clemens as his own earldom and was very dissatisfied with Hard's actions, which almost led to a conflict.

Hermann's army consisted of three thousand foreigners, who were equally difficult to control. Of course they were dissatisfied when they saw the barbarians next door going out to plunder every day.

Count Hermann could not suppress the resentment and could only acquiesce. In a blink of an eye, two small towns under the jurisdiction of Clemens were slaughtered and several prosperous knight territories were razed to the ground.

As for Fabti's Kurolov Legion, he simply did not put in any effort and let Locke lead his troops to guard the northern shore, while he returned to the newly occupied city of Tiamous and brought it under effective rule.

This "brainless reckless man" shouts the loudest and speaks the stupidest, but he is proficient in military affairs, civil affairs, and aristocratic communication.

In such an atmosphere, the alliance would be dissolved if the siege lasted even two months longer, let alone a year.

The five fully-strength legions, each fighting on their own, cannot exert even half of their combat effectiveness.

Every time he spent one more day with his allies, Leo realized more deeply the necessity of centralization.

Grant was also somewhat dissatisfied with Leo's performance during this period.

River Bend is famous for its craftsmanship. Grant has been to River Bend twice and knows well how skilled the craftsmen are.

But in a month, Leo didn't even build a catapult, and only helped build some siege towers and siege chariots.

The so-called siege vehicle is an upgraded version of the siege baffle, which is equivalent to a wooden tank. Soldiers can hide inside the chariot and push the four-wheeled chariot close to the city wall, and shoot at the defenders through the shooting holes.

Apart from large catapults and high-level spells, few weapons could penetrate a half-foot-thick wooden wall and injure the soldiers hiding inside.

In Grant's tent, while no one else was around, Grant complained to Leo in a low voice, "Leo, I can accept that others are unwilling to contribute, but why are you pretending to be so? I have already agreed that the River Bend Legion will only be responsible for building siege equipment and will not participate in the siege. What else do you want?"

The new army in Hewan began to lighten their equipment, and few soldiers wore heavy armor anymore. However, in order to protect themselves from swords and stray arrows, the musketeers still wore chain mail and iron helmets, and Basarov's musketeer regiment was still equipped with crossbowmen and giant shields.

The members of Marvin's artillery regiment have completely left the era of cold weapons and do not participate in close combat, so they all wear military uniforms made of thick cloth, and only the captains wear armor.

Leo told his allies that his firearms unit was a long-range unit that could provide long-range suppression, but could not attack the city.

Leo laughed and said, "Who said I didn't make it? I just put it on the boat and didn't take it down."

Grant had also visited Rio's muskets and artillery, and knew how powerful they were. Hearing this, he was very interested, "Oh? Any new weapons?"

"You will know when we attack the city tomorrow."

The next day, the hatch of a cement barge that had been anchored at the shore was opened, and three strange huge artillery vehicles were slowly pushed out by dozens of militiamen.

The barrels of these three cannons are shorter than those of the Wanfuchang, but their caliber is more than twice as large.

RiverBend’s new artillery piece – City Breaker No. 1!

This is actually a medieval siege mortar with a short and thick barrel, which greatly increases the caliber at the expense of range.

With the refinery, the quality of cast iron in Hewan has greatly improved, and it has also unlocked large-scale casting technology.

In the past, the only cannon that the Hewan gunners could cast was the Thousand Man Cannon. If it was larger, the quality of the cast iron barrel could not be guaranteed.

The large-caliber Ten Thousand Cannon also requires Morse or Virgil to lead a team of River Bay mages to provide additional alchemical assistance.

Now the refined molten iron flows directly out of the refining furnace. The size of the cannon can be cast according to the size of the iron mold.

This is equivalent to using modern iron smelting technology to cast medieval cannons, which reduces the difficulty tenfold.

Each of the city breakers weighed more than ten tons. In order to prevent them from sinking into the mud, the artillerymen even laid wooden tracks in advance so that the city breakers could get close to the walls of Clemens.

Behind them, a group of ogre artillerymen with devilish muscles, excitedly holding stone bullets that were as heavy as themselves, staggered behind the human artillerymen.

Further back were the solid iron bullets cast by the River Bend gunsmiths. These iron bullets were four times heavier than stone bullets and required a trailer to move.

Grant, who followed on horseback, had no knowledge of firearms and had no intuitive understanding of the city-breaking cannon, but when he saw the ammunition, he knew how powerful it was.

The counterweight catapults built by other legions could also deliver stone balls weighing hundreds of pounds to the top of the city walls of Clemens.

But the heavier the stone ball, the shorter its range, and the easier it is to be destroyed by the defenders' trebuchets and spells.

However, the stone balls were too light to pose any threat to the city walls, and did not even consume much magic power of the defensive array.

Now the cannons at Hewan actually want to load hundreds of pounds of stone balls and hundreds of pounds of iron balls and bombard the city walls from a distance of thousands of yards?

Grant expressed his doubts. The three cannons had no enchanting arrays drawn on them and no magical power added to them. They were just ordinary alchemical creations. How could they have such power?

Leo smiled but said nothing. They dared to drag them out for actual combat, which meant they must have been tested many times.

This was a siege mortar that he had his artillery team develop specifically for the medieval city walls in order to capture the city of Arbroath.

However, Godwin simply abandoned the city and handed over Arbroath to others, so now Grant got the city.

By the time the city breakers reached their positions, legions from other directions had already begun attacking the city.

Grant's side was the main attack direction, while Leo's River Bend Legion served as his long-range projection force.

After a while of operation by the artillerymen, the city destroyer was finally loaded and ignited.