Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 178 Three Chances
The situation took a dramatic turn for the worse, leaving everyone stunned.

The Heds suffered a crushing defeat; the routed soldiers, having failed in their siege, turned back and routed Teldun's central army.

Winters looked out as tens of thousands of cavalrymen trampled each other and scattered like birds and beasts, never expecting that victory would come so suddenly.

Since Andrei was not currently in the fortress, Lieutenant Colonel Jessica ordered Pierre to lead the Dussac light cavalry to follow the enemy and conduct reconnaissance.

Soon, Mr. Michel, who had been promoted to temporary sergeant, brought back intelligence: the barbarian flags were in disarray, the army was in complete disarray, and they were fleeing westward in a chaotic manner.

With the battle outcome clear, the Parat people, relieved of a great burden, cheered and jumped for joy; some rough men even wiped away tears. The more oppressed they were when surrounded by the Hed barbarians, the more excited they became at this moment.

Winters had no time to celebrate; he was busy summoning the deputies for questioning.

A messenger found him—Lieutenant Colonel Jessica wanted all officers to come to a meeting.

Upon arriving at the small prefab building that served as the battalion's command post, he discovered that in addition to Jessica, Bud, and Mason, the attendees included two centurions who were originally stationed there: Lieutenant Ottiba [from Paratu] and Second Lieutenant Sanu [from Veneta].

Winters winked at Sanu, then dragged over a chair and sat down.

The atmosphere was very relaxed. Who would have thought that the seemingly formidable Teldun tribe would turn out to be so useless?

"Not to us! Not to us! Glory to your name, Lord!"

The sound of singing drifted into the house; the Paratites were chanting hymns in unison.

The fact that so many enemies were defeated at such a low cost can only be explained as a miracle by believers.

“If the Heds want to run, let them run.” Once everyone was present, Jessica got straight to the point: “Don’t chase them, continue to reinforce the fortifications.”

Winters was initially puzzled: Hart's army had been routed, and they should have pursued them relentlessly, not giving them a chance to regroup.

But Lieutenant Colonel Jessica wouldn't make baseless accusations...

After a moment's thought, Winters figured things out and chuckled, "You mean... the Hurds are feigning defeat?"

The smiles on the other officers' faces vanished quickly, their expressions turned serious, and they involuntarily leaned forward.

"Feigning defeat to lure the defenders away from the fortified city in pursuit, then gathering them up for an encirclement and annihilation. This is a common tactic of the Hed." Jessica pointed at Lieutenant Ottiba and asked, "Are you a Paratul?"

Ottiba was a little confused: "Uh? Yes, my home is in Kingsburg."

"Then you should know how the last Grand Duke died."

"I heard the teacher mention it... but it was when I was in elementary school."

Jessica pointed to a few Venetas beside her: "Tell them."

Lieutenant Ottiba scratched his head and stood up, giving a brief account of this well-known story among the Paratist soldiers.

The story is simple: it was another year of great disaster, and the Heds launched a massive eastward invasion, burning, killing, and looting along the way, eventually reaching the walls of Kingsburg.

The Fortress of Kings, built over a dozen generations of Grand Dukes Palatine, was impregnable. The barbarians, unable to breach its defenses and embroiled in infighting over spoils, ultimately fled in disarray.

Seeing this, Grand Duke Bello IV of Plato immediately led his troops to attack, and the two sides chased each other for three days and three nights.

Finally, at the mouth of the Karga River, the Palatu army, having underestimated their enemy and lost all its fighting spirit, ran headlong into the counterattack of the Hed army.

When the massacre ended, the Karga River was filled with the corpses of the Parat people.

From then on, the Parat people stopped eating the fish from the Karja River, because those fish had eaten the flesh of the Parat people.

……

To add a point, this battle had a far-reaching impact: the Grand Duke and seven counts were killed, leading to the complete extinction of the Hetumoger family's paternal line.

Plato's crown went through many hands before finally ending up in the hands of Richard IV, the cousin of Bello IV, who was not yet known as the Mad King at that time.

Richard IV, who was rife with periodic financial ruin, saw the Kingdom of Galloping Horses as a treasure. He treated the Kingdom of Galloping Horses as a money bag, ruthlessly withdrawing more than 250,000 ducats every year.

As wealth continued to flow out, Plato began a steady decline.

With the border defenses no longer able to hold, the various tribes of Hart raided Palatine year after year, a campaign known as "the autumn harvest raids."

The emperor ignored and paid no attention to this.

From nobles to commoners, discontent and resentment towards Richard IV grew daily in the duchy. Beneath the surface of loyalty, undercurrents surged.

As a result, when the citizens of the foothills rose up in rebellion, Palatine, who should have been an absolute royalist, not only failed to suppress the rebellion but also became a source of soldiers for the "rebels."

A large number of lower-ranking nobles in Palatine changed their names and joined the Allied forces, launching a rebellion at their own expense.

Throughout the early, middle, and late stages of the Sovereignty War, the Allied forces relied on the Paratus to carry their cavalry units.

Ned Smith discovered that there were many strange warriors in the army with bad names, who claimed to be from the foothills, but spoke with a highland accent.

These people brought their own warhorses, weapons, and armor to join the army. They disliked obeying orders and especially disrespected commanders with civilian backgrounds.

However, they were all highly skilled in martial arts, and they did not run away even without military pay. When they fought, they were fearless and selfless, as if they had an irreconcilable hatred for the people of the empire.

It was precisely because of its outstanding contributions during the Sovereign Wars that the Republic of Palatine was able to enjoy a political status within the Union comparable to that of the United Provinces and Venetia.

If Berlo IV had lived to see the outbreak of the Sovereign War, he would certainly have sent troops to help his cousin suppress the rebellion, even just to avoid getting himself into trouble.

Caught between two attacks, the newly established federal republican government was destined to be swiftly crushed.

If the United Provinces can't even hold out in the early stages, then they won't be able to wait for the Venetians to join the war.

But history has no ifs. Who could have imagined that a young man's rash decision would ultimately lead to the birth of five republics and a "great" alliance?

……

Let's return to this meeting.

Ottiba shrugged, indicating that he was finished.

Mason hesitated and asked, "If the Hurds were just feigning surrender, isn't that going too far? They've lost quite a few men!"

"Whether it's a real defeat or a feigned one, the point is this: 'Even a fierce tiger doesn't come down from the mountain!'" Jessica paused for a moment, looked around at the five lieutenants, and said, word by word, "We hold this bridge, and the initiative is in our hands. If he attacks, we'll kill him; if he runs, we won't chase him. We'll remain still and not give the Heds any opportunity to take advantage."

The lieutenant colonel's words made sense, and the five lieutenant officers naturally had no objections.

He was also somewhat uneasy about Winters leaving the fortress to pursue them.

However, the "tiger doesn't come down the mountain" strategy left Winters with a slight regret, as he had originally planned to take advantage of the Heds' defeat to retrieve the golden statue used for the sacrificial ceremony.

In retrospect, it seems safer to keep the Jin people buried in the ground.

Now that the internal consensus had been reached, the JASKA squadron immediately took action.

Bard led his men to continue widening and deepening the trenches, and to reinforce them with barricades;
Ottiba and Sanu led their men to reinforce and raise the fort walls;
Mason was rather unlucky. The lieutenant colonel was still angry about him leading the wrong way, so he punished him by making him clean up the battlefield, retrieve shells, and drag away the bodies.

Weapons, armor, leather robes, cloth clothes, boots, ornaments... anything valuable and useful is recycled.

The dead Hud people were stripped naked and thrown directly into the river, leaving them completely naked, empty, and clean.

Except for sending a small number of Dusak light cavalry to scout the enemy situation, no troops were allowed to leave the camp.

Lieutenant Colonel Jessica bluntly revealed his intentions to the Heds: whatever schemes and tricks you have, I won't even glance at them. After all, with every second that passes, you'll be adding more lives to this bridgehead.

While the other lieutenants were busy with construction, Winters was busy with mental preparation.

He gathered the musketeers responsible for rotating firing together and began calling out their names according to the slip of paper:
"John from Wolftown!"

"Ryan of the Valley of Light!"

"..."

In the entire fortress, there were very few literate people.

This made Winters realize the importance of widespread education. If the clerks could read, they could record things themselves, and Winters would only need to compile the records.

But all his deputies were illiterate, and Winters had to copy the list himself.

This is why he divided the musketeers into ten squads, because people have ten fingers. The centurion who supervised the musketeers was illiterate and could only remember people by their fingers.

One by one, the musketeers whose names were called stepped forward. Nearly 340 musketeers and crossbowmen participated in the rotation of fire, but Winters only called out 33 names.

Not knowing what the centurion was up to, the thirty-three musketeers stood in a row, feeling uneasy.

“These people!” Winters paused deliberately, emphasizing his announcement: “They are the ones who can fire a shot in every single round of the six and a half alternating firing! Well done!”

"A prize!" Winters waved his hand.

Charles and Heinrich carried in a bag of rustling silver coins and distributed them from one end of a row to the other, three coins to each person.

Winters then led the crowd in applause, and many of the six-shot musketeers blushed with embarrassment, their eyes only daring to stare at the tips of their shoes.

Then came fifty five-shot musketeers, each with a small silver coin, without any cheers.

The third batch consisted of seventy-eight four-shot musketeers. There were no bonuses, nor applause or cheers.

“The rest of you!” Winters slapped the note, staring at the remaining half of the musketeers on the open ground. “Six rounds of fire, and you’ve only managed three shots at most. Some didn’t even fire a single one!”

In the center of the open space, there was a deathly silence. Many musketeers hung their heads in shame.

"Look at me! Don't bow your heads!" Winters hardened his heart and roared, his icy voice amplified by magic echoing throughout the fortress: "To punish without warning is cruelty! So now I'm going to reason with you. Every volley you fire less might mean one less enemy killed. Every enemy killed less might mean one more comrade lost. We're all born of parents; if you kill someone, you'll pay with your life!"

The entire fortress was now completely silent, even the spearmen who had no involvement were listening intently.

“Some of you might think this is unfair. I fired one less shot? How could one more person die?” Winters held up three fingers: “Three times! So I’m giving you three chances. Three battles. If you can’t even manage one proper volley, then you deserve to die! The gallows await you!”

Everyone couldn't help but look at the makeshift gallows at the edge of the open space, the noose swaying in the wind, awaiting the killing.

Winters shouted, "Get the gun!"

Charles handed a matchlock musket to Winters.

"I'll fire six shots. If it doesn't go off after three, I'll put the noose around my own neck!"

Charles set up six Herd helmets twenty paces away from Winters.

Under the watchful eyes of all the Paratians, Winters skillfully loaded, aimed, fired, and reloaded.

Six rounds of fire, all six shots rang out, and six Hed's iron helmets were knocked off.

At first, the people of Palatine were all silent, but when Winters knocked off the second helmet, some began to cheer.

After that, every time Winters knocked off an iron helmet, the Paratians cheered in unison, each cheer louder than the last.

When the sixth helmet was knocked away, the cheers reached their peak, and even the one-eyed colonel watching from a distance was applauding.

After firing six shots, Winters casually tossed the gun aside. Charles caught it steadily, his palms clapping red from the effort.

Six shots rang out, all six hit their mark, and no one dared to disagree.

"I will never force you to do what I cannot do. If I can do it, you can do it too." The power of magic caused Winters' voice to suppress the cheers of the crowd.

His gaze swept over each musketeer in the open space: "Remember, you only have three chances. And you—you've already wasted one!"

According to the military law of Qi Jiguang's army, let alone three times, if a gun failed to fire even once in actual combat, the captain would cut off the gunner's ear, and the earless gunner would be beheaded immediately after the battle. If a centurion was present, the beheading could be carried out on the spot. Winters' men were all militiamen who had just been introduced to this tactic, so he relaxed the restrictions slightly.

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(End of this chapter)