Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 552 Siege (Part 4)

[Jiang'an Fort/Knight's Castle]
The smoke eventually dissipated, and along with it disappeared the figures of the "rebels."

Inside Knightsburg, the still-shaken soldiers from the United Provinces gripped their weapons tightly, holding their firing positions with barely daring to utter a sound, peering at the world beyond the crenellations.

They strained their eyes as if they could see through Plato's night.

However, all efforts were in vain; the darkness surrounding the fortress was bottomless and insurmountable.

Without a moment to catch his breath, after the "rebels" retreated, Knightsburg's commander, Daly Brand, immediately began to tally the casualties and count the ammunition.

They consider themselves people from the United Provinces, living in the narrow valley between the two mountains. Whenever they mention the Parat people, they always utter a single word with a contemptuous tone: "border people."

Just now, the soldiers from the United Provinces inside Knightsburg experienced firsthand the ferocity of the "border people."

The four-meter-wide trench was not wide enough for the Parat people, and the "rebels" used long ladders to charge straight through it.

If the ladders hadn't had limited load-bearing capacity, the "rebel" cavalry would probably have followed them into Knightsburg.

Daly Brand was thankful that most of the "rebels" were carrying something like log stumps, not ladders.
The vast majority of the "rebels" did not engage in hand-to-hand combat, but instead relied on the cover constructed from "logs" to continuously fire at Knightsburg.

The rebels' "climbing" of the city walls did not seem to be a pre-planned tactic, but rather a heroic act by individual soldiers.

As the cannons on the side walls began to roar, the rebel soldiers who had been firing across the trenches quickly retreated and disappeared into the night.

Ultimately, Captain Daly Brand's troops, with their numerical advantage, surrounded and killed the small number of "rebels" who had stormed into the castle, pushed the ladders down the trench, and temporarily held Knightsburg.

Nevertheless, the fortress was filled with wailing.

The lightly wounded were shouting and yelling, while the seriously wounded were rolling on the ground. The new recruits, who had never seen so much blood before, were dazed and at a loss.

Like his men, Daly Brand was experiencing combat for the first time. As his tense nerves relaxed, he also felt a lingering fear.

However, the training and education Captain Brand received since childhood ultimately proved effective.

Daly Brand quickly got to the situation, organizing the evacuation of the wounded while sending messengers back to command.

However, this time it wasn't a request for help, but rather an explanation of the situation.

After regaining his ability to think, Captain Brand also vaguely sensed that the enemy's surprise attack on Knightsburg was very much like a feint.

Because the "rebels" did not commit enough troops, their attitude was not resolute, and they had little willingness to suffer casualties, the rebels immediately chose to retreat as soon as the cannons on the triangular bunker turned around, not giving the defenders' artillery a chance to exert their power.

Thinking about this, Captain Daly Brand felt very regretful.

Just now, because the noise of the "rebels" charging was so frightening, he got anxious and ordered all three illumination rockets on the launch pad to be fired.

Knightsburg only has three illumination rockets in total, and expensive alchemical products like illumination rockets are always issued individually; you can only get another one after you've used one.

So Captain Brand now has no usable illumination rockets left.

If tonight's attack by the "rebels" is not a feint, then Daly Brand needs to find other means of lighting to deal with the next wave of rebel attacks.

If tonight's "rebel" attack is indeed a feint, then Captain Brand will face an even tougher test—he will have to submit a report explaining why he used up three precious illumination rockets in one go.

After much deliberation, Daly Brand decided to take a risk.

He ordered the drawbridge on the side of the fortress facing the Jinliu River to be lowered, and a group of reliable and daring soldiers, carrying axes, lamp oil, and tinder, quietly slipped out of Knights Castle from the "back" of the rebels' attack direction.

……

Due to time constraints, Knightsburg is not very large; even a hundred-man squad would feel cramped inside.

In terms of appearance, it is roughly square, with a bastion at each of the four corners of the main structure, and a triangular bastion added to the west and south.

As for the north and east sides, these two walls face the Jinliu River and the Kings' Fortress, so no time was wasted on the triangular fortress.

The place where water and soil meet is the easiest place to be breached—the people of the United Provinces knew this all too well, which is why Knightsburg was built on the riverbank.

……

After reaching the other side of the trench, Daly Brand did not rush to light a lamp. Instead, he carefully made his way southwest along the Dead Man's Road, the direction from which the "rebels" would launch their attack.

Just after turning the northwest corner, and after taking only a few steps, Brand's boots bumped into something that was both soft and hard.

By the faint starlight, Daley Brand stared in disbelief and discovered that he was standing on a headless corpse.

The body was clearly not dressed in soldiers' clothes, which led Brand to guess the person's identity with a high degree of accuracy.

Daly Brand removed his helmet and stared at his tragically dead classmate from prep school, speechless for a long time.

“Watch out,” he said, putting his helmet back on and relaying the message behind him, “Don’t step on Warrant Officer Marlowe.”

A soft rustling sound came from behind them, and the soldiers whispered the order down their throats.

However, the hidden path was too narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass at a time. If two people passed each other, they would have to walk sideways, making it impossible not to step on Chris Marlowe's body.

“That damned dead man’s path should have been half a meter wider,” Daly Brand thought bitterly. “And this sloping causeway, how could cavalry charge right up it? What was Lieutenant Colonel Montecouccoli thinking when he designed it?”

Seeing the captain in a dilemma, the sergeant following Brand whispered a suggestion: "Sir, how about... we put the warrant officer in the trench first? We can collect him after dawn."

Brand made a snap decision, straightened up, and shouted toward the main castle, "Sergeant Lundley! Lower the drawbridge!"

A commotion broke out behind the fortress wall, and someone cautiously poked half their head out from the firing port.

"What are you looking at?" Daly Brand roared. "Light the braziers! Lower the drawbridge!"

Knightsburg was finally lit up by fire. Previously, in order to avoid pointing out targets for the enemy's guns and cannons, the interior of the fortress had only minimal lighting.

After a while, a simple drawbridge swayed and descended from the fortress wall.

Brand ordered his men to carry Chris Marlowe's body back to Knightsburg. After they lit a fire, another body in the trench was revealed.

Brand then ordered his men down into the trench to retrieve the musketeer's body and Chris Marlowe's head.

Now that his whereabouts had been exposed, Daly Brand was too lazy to hide anymore. He simply lit a torch and acted openly.

Brand first climbed out of the Dead Man's Path and came to the sloping embankment.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the "logs" the "rebels" had carried to the trenches were not wood at all, but bundles of wheat straw.

It's likely that the smoke released by the rebels before the attack was created using wet wheat straw.

Brand breathed a sigh of relief—at least it wasn't alchemical smoke.

He had just been wondering where the rebels got so many logs. Were they all transported from the rear? That would have been far too expensive.

It's important to know that Secretary Cornelius had the forests within a radius of dozens of miles completely destroyed. Later on, the people of the United Provinces became too lazy to cut down trees directly, so they would first set them on fire, and then cut down the smoldering wood after the fire was extinguished, saving them the time of trimming branches.

Minister Cornelius also ordered that wheat straw, an easily accessible combustible material, be burned completely.

However, the winter wheat harvest season had just ended, and the rural areas of Palatour were full of straw. Moreover, the farmers were very resistant to the actions of the United Provincemen, so it was normal for the "rebels" to be able to get some straw.

However, "straw can't stop lead bullets, much less can it stop cannonballs," Daly Brand thought dismissively. "No wonder the rebels all ran away as soon as the cannons fired."

He kicked the rebel bunker—the rebels used straw, which saved him some trouble.

Captain Brand had assumed the rebels were carrying logs, so he brought an axe and lamp oil with him.

Since it's wheat straw, that makes things simple.

With a torch thrown upwards, the "rebels'" bunkers immediately burst into flames, instantly dispelling the darkness and illuminating the embankment as if it were daytime.

“Let’s go,” Captain Brand clapped his hands, “to check out the outpost.”

Taking into account the enemy's possible direction of attack, Lieutenant Colonel Montecochli deliberately widened the southwest corner when planning the concealed route and set up an outpost there as the forefront of the entire defensive position.

The lieutenant colonel's judgment was accurate; the rebels' offensive tonight was indeed launched from the southwest.

Meanwhile, at the outpost to the southwest, Captain Brand witnessed a scene that would haunt his nightmares, instantly shattering his good mood of burning down the "rebel" bunkers.

Chris Marlowe's body was a sad sight, but the gruesome deaths of the sentries were even more so—half of Captain Brand's specially selected, daring men vomited up everything they had eaten that evening.

All three sentries died in the causeway.

The rebels' horses were too fast; they simply didn't have time to retreat back to the main fortress.
The rebels' knives were faster than horses; none of the three sentries' bodies were intact.

A sentry was almost cleaved in two diagonally, with only a small piece of flesh connecting him from his collarbone to his abdomen. His internal organs were all exposed to the air, and his slippery intestines spilled out onto the ground like obese maggots.

Another sentry's left arm was missing, leaving only his shoulder; at the cut surface of the flesh, the white bone fragments and pink marrow were clearly visible.

The sentry who had lost his arm crawled a distance along the causeway before dying. Not only were his fingernails full, but his mouth was also filled with filthy mud. The living people present could not imagine what kind of pain would make a dying man stuff dirt into his mouth.

Daly Brand had once envisioned what the "Civil War" would look like—a vision that probably every soldier in the Union had imagined fulfilling Marshal Ned Smith's legacy and making the Union great again.

Of course he had thought about bloodshed and sacrifice—how could there be no deaths in a war?
But it wasn't until this moment, when he saw the mutilated corpses of his men, that he realized how utterly futile his fantasies had been.

Daly Brand now truly realizes that war is an incredibly cruel atrocity.

At the same time, he realized that the Paratites had adapted to this cruelty earlier than the people of the United Provinces.

The Paratites will show no mercy, for for them, civil war has already begun.

Daly Brand lowered his head, silently mourning his fallen subordinate.

But the battle will continue, and he has no choice but to continue.

He now prays for only one thing: that when death comes upon him, it will be quick and peaceful.
-
[Old Town]
[Old Castle]
The longer Jason Cornelius stayed at the old castle, the more he admired the unique vision of the Plato ancestors.

The Old Castle—the true "Kings Castle"—is situated in a perfect location, high above the ground, easy to defend and difficult to attack; it is practically a natural fortress.

Unfortunately, as the city grew, it was completely enclosed by residential areas and almost lost its ability to defend against external enemies.

Fortunately, the old castle remains the highest point in the city with the best view, so Jason Cornelis not only set up his command post there, but also set up an observation post on the top floor of the old Duke's coronation church.

At this very moment, Cornelius is in the observation post.

From his vantage point, he could see the entire landscape on both sides of the Ten Arrows River.

Looking west, there were still some lights on Knightsburg, but the gunfire had stopped—a fact that did not surprise Cornelius.

The problem is that the gunfire from the direction of Margit Island to the south has also stopped.

Moreover, the bishop's castle on the island was pitch black and deathly silent.

However, on the bell tower of the monastery behind the bishop's castle, one could vaguely see someone using red lights, desperately sending distress signals to the observation post.

Cornelius turned his gaze to the pontoon bridge between the new and old towns.

There are no permanent bridges across the Ten Arrows River, only pontoon bridges.

The people of Zhuwangbao call it the Wild Goose Bridge because wild geese come in spring and leave in autumn, and the pontoon bridge in Zhuwangbao can only be crossed in spring and summer. When winter comes, the river begins to freeze and it has to be dismantled.

At this moment, the Dayan Bridge was brightly lit, and Lieutenant Colonel Lordwijk's men were boarding the ship.

But William Lordweck's voice rang out behind Cornelius: "I don't quite understand, why me?"

“When did,” Cornelius retorted without turning his head, “begin to ask ‘Why me?’ before going on a mission?”

“What I want to ask is,” Lieutenant Colonel Lordwijk said curtly, “when did you start trusting me?”

Cornelius turned around and gave a polite bow: "I have always trusted you, Lieutenant Colonel Lordwijk."

William Lordwick gave a cold laugh.

“As for why I sent you to retake Margit Island, it’s actually quite simple,” Cornelius spread his hands and frankly admitted, “because my men couldn’t do it.”

Cornelius commented ruthlessly: "No matter how splendid they look, a recruit is still a recruit. The recruits of the Southern Army can play a role by guarding behind the fortress walls, firing guns and cannons. But as for launching an offensive? A single charge from the Paratists could rout them."

Cornelius looked at Lordwick: "So, your standing army is the only force capable of completing the mission, which is why you were sent to Margit Island."

Lordwick and Cornelius looked at each other for a moment, then Lordwick said, "I understand," raised his hand in salute, and turned to leave.

“Lieutenant Colonel, please wait.” Cornelius called out to Lordweck from behind.

Lordwick turned back to Cornelius in confusion.

“You don’t belong here,” Cornelius said calmly. “You and I both know that. You’re here in Kingsburg not because you’re incompetent, but because you’re too capable. Someone messed up and had to send you to fix it. You should have had a place in the Western Army, not in the Southern Army with a bunch of losers, carrying out missions with a high risk of death.”

“What’s the point of saying all this now?” Lordwijk frowned.

“I’m telling you,” Cornelius said calmly, “if we survive this siege, I will make sure you regain your place in the Western Front. I have that ability, and you need not doubt it.”

William Lordwick's brow furrowed further, and he curled his lip. "General, if you've just earned some respect from me, you've now wasted it."

After saying that, Lordweck didn't salute and turned to leave.
-
Margit Island
[Bishop's Castle]
“Those provincial bastards,” a soldier reported to the lieutenant, both angry and anxious, “dammed all the cannons while they were running away.”

Looking at the small boat approaching from downstream, the lieutenant said softly, "Well, we'll have to fight without cannons."

[The bridge between the east and west cities of Kingsburg, which appeared once before, was then called Raven Bridge, a reference to Matthias Korwin, since Korwin is the name of a raven.]
However, considering the characteristics of a pontoon bridge, calling it the Wild Goose Bridge would be more appropriate.
[The previous text has also been revised.]