Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 559 Siege (XI)

[early morning]
[On the walls of Zhuwangbao]
"A stone, if thrown with enough force, can knock down an enemy."

Jason Cornelius stood atop the walls of Kingsburg Castle, bent down to pick up a stone stacked behind the breastwork, intended for use as a weapon, and said without turning his head:
"However, even the strongest person will eventually reach a point where they can't lift their arm if they keep throwing stones. Twenty stones, thirty stones, or a hundred stones if a sling is used, but no matter what, a person's physical strength is limited."

"Although he can be full of energy again after being given some time to rest, in most cases, the battle will end within an hour or even a few minutes."

"You may have read records of battles that lasted for several days, but if you extract the actual time of fighting in the whole battle, you will find that even in battles that last for several days, the actual fighting is still counted in minutes and hours."

"Because once the battle reaches its climax, the outcome will be decided immediately."

Cornelius turned to his entourage and said earnestly, "So when you find the battle becoming increasingly intense, what you need to do is continue to persevere."

……

A small group of people followed closely around the Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Army.

The group of people varied in age, with the oldest being at least forty and the youngest no more than twenty.

If they had anything in common, it was that each of them was wearing a brand-new officer's uniform, but they lacked any military bearing in their mannerisms.

However, we can't entirely blame them, because strictly speaking, they were "new recruits" to begin with.

Among them, some bought their way into the army after the bloody night at Zhuwangbao, some were temporarily recruited after the disastrous defeat at Hegu Village, and some were urgently enlisted after the Southern Front Army landed.
Some were originally sheriffs, some were originally potters, and some were originally still students...

However, it was these "new recruit" officers who shouldered the important responsibility of commanding the local militia forces of Zhuwangbao.

Besides the fact that they had not received formal military training and education, they also had one thing in common—they all had close ties with Grove Magnus.

In other words, these appointed officers were the most reliable people His Excellency the Grand Speaker could find.

In the current situation, nothing is more important to the Grand Speaker than reliability.

……

Upon hearing the commander's words, a timid voice floated out from the ranks of appointed officers: "May I ask, Your Excellency, when will the battle reach its climax?"

All the appointed officers turned their gaze to a young man at the back of the crowd, making the latter wish he could disappear into the city wall.

Cornelius tapped the battlement lightly with the stone in his hand, and the commissioned officers immediately turned their gaze back to the commander.

“When you want to run away,” Cornelius said calmly, “that’s when the battle reaches its climax.”

The accompanying commissioned officers let out a dry laugh, but judging from the commander's expression, it seemed they weren't joking, so the laughter stopped abruptly.

“Your question is very good,” Cornelius said simply, then placed the stone in his hand on the crenellation. “Back to the stone, the same stone, without throwing it hard, just dropping it from the wall, can knock down an enemy if you’re lucky.”

“And stones could be thrown down from the city walls, even by women and children, for hours on end.”

Cornelius nodded slightly. "Gentlemen, please imagine the actual situation on the battlefield: amidst the smoke and the roar of guns, in the midst of chaos, accurately throwing a stone to kill the enemy is virtually impossible. In comparison, throwing a stone down from the city wall is as easy as it gets."

"It's the same stone, the same method of throwing stones to kill the enemy," Cornelius asked the commissioned officers, "What's the difference between the two methods? Why is one difficult and the other easy?"

The appointed officers looked at each other, not because the question was difficult, but because it was too simple.

"One is to throw it from flat ground?" Perhaps encouraged by her earlier reaction, the timid voice emboldened to answer, "The other is to throw it from a height?"

Hearing this nonsensical answer, the appointed officers were speechless.

Unexpectedly, the commander asked with a serious expression, "Why can stones be thrown down from a height?"

"Because..." The owner of the timid voice suddenly became the focus of everyone's attention again. He was sweating profusely and answered with a forced smile, "Because someone moved the stone to a higher place."

Some of the appointed officers laughed out loud.

However, Cornelius sized up the young man for a moment, then suddenly clapped his hands lightly. "Gentlemen, this young gentleman has just stated the core principle of all fortress defense tactics—moving the stones to higher ground in advance. Let's give him a round of applause."

The appointed officers, bewildered, joined in the applause.

"What's your name?" Cornelius asked.

“Misha,” the young man answered softly, “Gronnie Misha.”

“Mr. Groni,” Cornelius nodded, “I’ve got your name.”

The appointed officers applauded again. They weren't jealous of Xiao Misha, since being remembered by the commander at this time wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"'Move the stones to higher ground beforehand,' please remember, gentlemen, this is the key to siege warfare," Cornelius explained as simply as possible. "It's easy to throw stones down from the city wall because you've already worked hard while carrying the stones up the wall."

"In fact, the effort required to move a stone from the ground to the city wall is not necessarily less than that required to throw a stone to kill the enemy."

"But throwing stones to kill enemies uses the power within your body, and your physical strength is limited."

"Moving stones onto the city wall is equivalent to storing power in the stones beforehand."

"The more stones you carry up the city wall, the more power you store, and the more power you can unleash in battle."

“This is the core of defensive warfare, gentlemen: move the stones to higher ground in advance, that is—” Cornelius paused, “to build up momentum.”

The appointed officers were completely bewildered, and many of them only understood one word: "stone".

“The stone is just a metaphor, gentlemen,” Cornelius patted the battlements beside him. “Preparing boulders is building up strength, collecting gunpowder is building up strength, storing grain is building up strength, and building fortresses and digging trenches are also building up strength.”

He said in a booming voice:

"It takes years of training for a soldier to be able to throw a stone accurately on the battlefield."

“Standing on the city wall, even a stone thrown by a child can be deadly.”

"On the open plains, only the bravest spearmen can face the charge of the iron cavalry."

"Standing in the bastion, even a new recruit going into battle for the first time can easily shoot down a seasoned veteran."

“New recruits and children can kill the enemy, not because they are stronger than the enemy, but because they have already ‘lifted stones onto the city walls’ long before the battle begins.”

"That's why we people from the foothills always say, 'Dig one more shovel of soil before the battle, and shed one less drop of blood during the battle.'"

"Gentlemen, now you understand why we rushed to build these fortifications, don't you?" Cornelius pointed to the trenches, fortresses, and another trench below the city. "These are 'stones moved to the walls in advance,' the potential energy we've accumulated, just waiting to be released. If the rebels want to attack the new city, they will have to step into our pre-planned battlefield. Every shovel of earth we dig will be replaced by a pool of blood."

"As long as we can make every gunpowder, every bullet, every trench, and every fortress play their proper role, the rebels will bleed to death beneath the walls of Kingsburg, and victory will surely belong to us."

The appointed officers applauded enthusiastically once again.

"Digging trenches and moving stones are neither respectable nor glorious tasks, but it is precisely these neglected and arduous labors that enable the weak to defeat the strong, the new recruits to defeat the veterans, and the oppressed commoners to defeat the arrogant emperors."

"Gentlemen, this is 'building momentum'," Jason Cornelius said with a friendly smile. "Gentlemen, I have imparted to you the highest secrets of the United Provinces Army's military doctrine."

The commander's smile was so infectious that all the commissioned officers smiled along with him.

However, it was that timid voice again that broke the harmonious atmosphere.

“Your Excellency,” Misha asked again from the back of the crowd, pointing towards the enemy fortifications outside the city, and mustering his courage, “may I ask you, are the rebels… also ‘building up their strength’?”

The smiles on the appointed officers' faces froze instantly.

……

After Jason Cornelius received reports of the appearance of the Winged Lion banner, the "rebels" carried out extensive construction work outside Kingsburg for three consecutive days.

In just one day, the rebels built a series of small fortresses around the new city, effectively surrounding the city walls.

The defenders on the city wall were unaware of the "rebels'" official name for these equidistant, continuous earthen walls. However, the next morning, when a newly relieved local militiaman exclaimed, "When did all these fence posts appear outside?" the incredibly descriptive nickname "fence posts" quickly disappeared, becoming the only name the defenders used for the "rebels'" creations.

Moreover, everyone who hears this nickname quickly grasps its true brilliance, because it not only describes the current situation but also contains a prediction of the future:
Once the stakes are in place, how far away can the fence be?

As expected, the "rebels'" enthusiasm for carving the earth did not diminish with the completion of the fortress complex; on the contrary, it grew even stronger.

At the same time that the "fence stakes" were being completed, the "rebels" immediately began digging trenches between the various fortresses.

According to the local militia, even the weasels that had been starving for three days and three nights digging at the base of the chicken coop walls didn't have the same energy as the "newly reclaimed landmen" digging in the soil outside Zhuwangbao City.

Even more bewildered than the local militia were the officers of the Southern Front Army from the United Provinces.

Because the United Provinces Army has been known since its inception for its earthwork skills, always rolling around in the mud, it was ridiculed as "mud bastards".

Now, seeing the "rebels" digging trenches like madmen outside the city, the officers of the Southern Army were momentarily confused, unsure whether the people inside or outside the city were the real United Provinces.

Moreover, with the "fence stakes" serving as support points on the front lines, the "rebels" began to boldly deploy non-military personnel into the project.

When the earthen wall was being built, all that could be seen on the "rebel" construction site were small blue figures.

When the trenches were being dug, a large number of gray figures suddenly appeared in the defenders' field of vision.

The Southern Army had pretty much figured out that the "rebels" also chose blue as the main color of their uniforms.

Although the blue actually observed on the "rebel" soldiers was a mottled mix of colors, it was clear that the "rebels" had made an attempt at uniformity.

Those figures, dressed in undyed coarse cloth—or even shirtless—looking gray from a distance, were clearly farmers recruited from the vicinity.

The people in the city still do not know how the "rebels" found those farmers who could run faster than rabbits and made them work for them.

All they knew was that, with the help of the "little gray men," in less than two days, the "little blue men" had dug a trench parallel to the city wall, connecting the various small fortresses, and extending from the banks of the Jinliu River all the way to the banks of the Shijian River.

Furthermore, they used the soil dug from the trench to build a steep earthen wall behind the trench.

The prophecy of "fence stakes" has come true.

From the riverbank to the riverbank, the "rebels" used an artificial geographical barrier to completely isolate Zhuwangbao from Xilin Province.

Realizing this, the morale of the defending troops inevitably plummeted, and the atmosphere in the city became even more oppressive.

The more enthusiastically the rebels worked outside the city, the more tense and uneasy the defending troops became inside.

After all, being besieged is not the same as being "besieged" in the literal sense.

Old memories were awakened, and a new wave of food-buying frenzy erupted almost immediately in Kingsburg.

Now, no one knows when this siege will end. Even citizens who were mentally prepared for the difficulty and length of the siege are beginning to doubt whether their previous ideas were too optimistic.

The expectations of all the people of Kingsburg for the future are heading in the worst possible direction.

It was only thanks to the flour transported by the Southern Army that the price of grain in Zhuwangbao did not skyrocket.
It was also thanks to the soup kitchens set up by the Southern Army that no one starved to death in the Fort of Kings.

However, Jason Cornelius was not a saint—and of course, he never called himself one.

Therefore, taking advantage of the panic among the citizens of Kingsburg, Cornelius instructed the military police to openly search the major grain stores and the residences of grain merchants in the city. He detained the grain merchants on charges of "hoarding and price gouging" and confiscated all the goods in their warehouses.

Through this series of actions, Jason Cornelius eliminated the disloyal local grain merchants, placed the flour supply of Kingsburg entirely under the control of the Southern Army, boosted the morale of the defending militia, and won unanimous praise from the lower and middle-class citizens of Kingsburg.

After temporarily resolving the food rationing issue, Jason Cornelius began to transfer part of the defense zone to the local militia.

That's why he personally led a group of commissioned officers to "inspect" the new city early in the morning.

……

Upon hearing Misha's question, the commissioned officers present unconsciously shrank their necks.

Although Brigadier General Jason Cornelis was generally polite to commissioned officers, many commissioned officers—especially the older ones—had come to realize, from his ruthless methods of wiping out local grain merchants, that the Commander of the Southern Army was not easy to get along with at all.

The appointed officers had expected that their commander, having been humiliated, would be furious, or at least storm off.

Unexpectedly, upon hearing Xiaomisha's question, Jason Cornelis revealed an unprecedentedly genuine smile, first a slight smile, then a pouty smile, and finally a loud laugh.

“That’s right, the rebels are also gathering strength,” Cornelius said with a satisfied expression after laughing enough. “So, they did learn some real skills at the Army Academy, don’t you think?”

However, Cornelius and the commissioned officers present were unaware that at the same time, outside the city, directly opposite their location...

Richard Mason was also teaching students at the "Second School".

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