Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 560 Siege (Part Twelve)
[Outside the city of Zhuwangbao]
“…When you’re using a shovel, remember one thing,” Mason lay on the ground, turning to look at the trainees behind him, “Never expose any part of your body outside the cover.”

After saying that, Mason began to demonstrate how to use the shovel while lying down. He changed from lying down to lying on his side, holding a sawn-off pointed shovel horizontally, and his arms flew up and down, constantly filling the woven basket next to him with soil. In the blink of an eye, he dug a shallow pit under himself.

Throughout the entire process, Mason's body remained almost pressed against the ground, with not even his elbows protruding outside the basket.

Behind Mason, reserve officers from the Second Army College, including Houdl, lined up to watch the Chief of General Affairs roll around in the dirt.

The reserve officers, attending Major Richard Mason's class for the first time, looked at each other with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

A reserve officer named Richard chuckled and whispered to the classmate next to him, "Why does it look like a maggot?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than Richard felt a force coming from behind his knees—the person behind him had kicked him without warning, causing him to stumble and nearly fall flat on his face.

"What the hell are you doing?" Richard regained his footing and asked the person behind him through gritted teeth.

The student who kicked Richard, however, looked completely unconcerned and defiantly stared at the speaker.

Richard recognized the man who kicked him: a peasant from Iron Peak County named Hoddle.

He was about to argue on the spot, but then he thought better of it and didn't react. He just sneered, turned around, and said contemptuously in a voice loud enough for everyone around him to hear, "That's right, you're all maggots wallowing in the mud."

The next second, Richard was pushed to the ground from behind.

Enraged, Houdel lunged at Richard and swung his fist at the latter's face.

But before he could vent his anger, he was pulled away. Hodel tried to break free and continue hitting Richard, but the arms holding him were as hard as iron and wouldn't budge.

Houdel turned to look at the person who had grabbed him—it was Doug.

Doug shook his head silently but firmly at Hoddle, and Claude and Mattia rushed over one after the other, standing between Hoddle and Richard's friends.

The conflict between Hoddle and Richard was like a grenade thrown into a line of soldiers, the shockwave spreading in all directions in an instant.

Everyone was looking in their direction, even the instructors around them noticed the small commotion, only the head of general affairs at the front was still engrossed in digging, completely unaware that the trainees' attention had shifted away from him.

Being stared at by hundreds of eyes helped Hoddle regain some composure. He whispered to Doug, "I'm fine now."

Doug nodded and released Houdel.

On the other side, Richard was also helped up. He shook off the arm that had helped him up and charged at Hoddle in a fit of rage.

Just then, the baby-faced voice rang out, "Hodel, you lose five points."

The squad leader's voice calmed everyone down, and under everyone's gaze, the baby-faced man walked out from between the ranks.

He wasn't in a hurry or angry at all; instead, a faint smile played on his lips.

But when it comes to deducting points, the baby-faced guy is anything but lenient.
“Lenjeel Richard, you lose one point,” the two boys said, stepping between the two sides who were in a tense standoff. “Everyone else, within five, return to your original positions.”

"I'm going to lose points too?" Richard asked incredulously.

"Who told you to lose?" the baby-faced man said with a smile. "I'll deduct another point from you because you questioned the point deduction."

The reserve officers present were stunned into silence.

"Three..." The baby-faced man glanced around at the students who hadn't moved yet, and started counting down from "three," "Two..."

Everyone fled back to their original positions as fast as they could. Claude and Maggie looked at Hoddle with concern as they left, while Doug simply patted his childhood friend on the back.

The trainees' lines were straightened up instantly.

On the other side, Mason finally finished digging the demonstration tunnel. He got up, brushed the dust off his clothes, pointed to his work with satisfaction, and turned to explain to the trainees, "Dig half a meter deep and half a meter wide, enough for you to bend over and move around. That's the first step..."

Mason's voice grew softer as he spoke. Even if he was slow to notice, he could tell that the atmosphere was a bit strange.

"What's wrong?" Mason turned his head and asked the faculty member next to him, puzzled.

“It’s been resolved,” Kadar stepped out of the queue and answered loudly, “Your Excellency.”

The reason Kadar was chosen to say this was not because he liked to show off, but because none of the other junior staff members present could walk without a cane, and only he was agile, so he had to put out fires everywhere.

Kadar strode up to his senior and explained cryptically, "There's been a minor conflict between the students."

"A minor disagreement?" Mason understood instantly, his eyebrows involuntarily rising. "They fought?"

"Yes."

The reserve officers present thought the chief of general affairs was about to lose his temper, but what happened next surprised them all—Major Richard Mason's brows slowly relaxed, and a look of nostalgia spread across his face.

“It’s good to be young,” Mason commented with a smile.

Kadar gave a wry smile.

"Who fought whom?" Mason asked again.

“Leonard Richard, and Houdl.”

"How did you punish them?"

“The one who hits loses five points, the one who gets hit loses one point,” Kadar replied bluntly.

Mason looked Kadar over with interest. "You, just like your class monitor, are both cold on the outside but warm on the inside. When I was in school, fights were always..."

Kádár, drenched in sweat, quickly stopped his senior from continuing, "Sir, please continue the lesson..."

Mason realized he had been talking too much, so he immediately stopped, cleared his throat, and looked at the students.

Some astute trainees suddenly noticed that throughout the entire process, the head of general affairs only asked the squad leader "who was fighting" and "how to punish them," but didn't ask a single question about "why they were fighting."

Mason used a shovel as a pointer, pointing to the small earthen wall he had piled up outside the tunnel, "When digging, remember, all the excavated soil must be shoveled onto the side of the ground closest to the enemy's position. You absolutely cannot do it the other way around."

He looked at the trainees and asked expectantly, "Does anyone know why?"

The reserve officers' square was completely silent.

Mason felt a little embarrassed, because he had never been a teacher before, so he could only try to encourage the cadets by imitating the way his teachers had done when he was in school, "It's okay, speak up." The reserve officers' formation remained deathly silent.

Mason scanned the trainees, but everyone avoided his gaze, which made him feel extremely disappointed.

“First of all, of course, it’s because it would waste earth, but the main reason is…” Mason perked up and gestured as he explained, “If you shovel the earth onto the side of the ground away from the enemy’s position, when the enemy fires at you, the shells might land on the mound and bounce back into the tunnel.”

"Don't assume that shells will get stuck in the ground. Often, shells don't come at a perpendicular angle; they bounce off walls at an angle. And if it rains and then the sun comes out, even soft soil will harden..."

Mason spoke until his mouth was dry and his throat was hoarse, but the trainees seemed like wooden figures, giving no response no matter how hard he tried.

Seeing this, Mason couldn't help but feel discouraged. Someone else might have just gotten away with it or passed it on to someone else. But Mason couldn't do that; his strong sense of responsibility made him want to do every task assigned to him well.

He held his lower back and thought for a moment, then decided to change the way he taught the class.

"Forget it, let's not stand in a square formation. How can the people at the back see anything standing like this?" Mason said loudly with a laugh. "Come on, everyone, come to the front and sit next to me..."

The trainees looked at each other in bewilderment, and the instructors were equally puzzled.

Mason joked, "This is a field, not a classroom. There are no walls on all sides. If you all stand like this, I'll have to shout myself hoarse to make sure the people in the back can hear me. Come forward and save me some breath."

The instructors understood the head of general affairs' meaning, and although they didn't understand his intentions, they still followed his orders.

So the trainees hesitantly stepped forward, forming a crescent shape around Mason, one person next to another.

“Sit down,” Mason gestured with the shovel, “If you all stand, the people in the back will have even less of an view.”

The reserve officers obeyed the order and sat down, making the makeshift drill ground much emptier.

The teachers and students of the Second Academy gathered in a small open space. Mason could see the face of every student without squinting, and he could make every student hear him without shouting.

Mason's back was sore from the energetic demonstration, so he moved a stack of willow baskets used for demonstrations to sit down in front of the students.

“You’re tired of standing, and I’m tired of standing too,” Mason said a little embarrassed. “So I’ll sit and talk, and you can sit and listen.”

After saying this, Mason finally received some response from the students—he saw faint smiles on many of their faces.

“A good start,” Mason thought. He pondered for a moment and decided to begin with what the students were interested in.

The next second, the reserve officers heard the chief of general affairs say something astonishing: "You all know I'm from the United Provinces, right?"

The nominal number three figure comes from the foothills, which is one of the open secrets of the "Second School." From teachers to students, everyone knows this but no one mentions it.

Richard Mason's decision to bring up this relationship on this occasion caught the students off guard.

Even the instructors looked surprised.

Mason didn't dwell on it, but instead asked, "You all know that the people from the United Provinces are called 'mud men' because they are good at earthwork, right?"

The derogatory term "mudman" was known to all the Paratu people present, and many had been using it frequently recently. However, many were hearing about the origin of this nickname for the first time.

“But do you know why it’s ‘mud guy’ and not ‘soil guy’?” Mason continued.

This stumped both the trainees and the instructors.

However, Mason wasn't there to pose a question, so he quickly answered, "Because the terrain in front of the mountain is very low and the groundwater level is very high. With one shovel, you can see mud; with two shovels, you can see water; with three shovels... you can raise fish."

A low chuckle rippled through the group of reserve officers.

“So digging trenches in front of the mountain is very painful, every shovelful of water and mud comes with it,” Mason laughed, making a digging motion with the shovel in his hand. “It’s nothing like the comfortable life in Palatour.”

Looking at the dust on the chief of staff's field officer uniform, the reserve officers simply couldn't associate "comfort" with digging.

Mason spoke eloquently: "Actually, the word 'mudman' was originally used by the nobles of the piedmont to belittle farmers, because farmers in other places toiled in the soil for a living, while farmers in the piedmont had to 'toil in the mud' every day."

"During the Sovereignty War, the term was used by the royalists to humiliate the militia in the foothills. Because the militia in the foothills were good at digging, the royalists called them 'mud bums'."

"The tunneling techniques you are learning today all originate from the foothill militia under Marshal Ned Smith."

People get sleepy when learning new knowledge, but everyone is very interested in listening to short stories, including the reserve officers present.

“Since digging trenches in front of the mountain is so arduous,” Mason asked, “why did the old marshal still lead the militia to dig trenches?”

After a pause, Mason emphasized his words, answering his own question, "Because digging trenches will reduce the number of deaths, because digging trenches will narrow the gap between the militia and the knights, because digging trenches will help them win."

"Therefore, when the royalists use this term, it's more like they're humiliating themselves."

"They despised the militiamen who wielded shovels and dug in the mud, but the 'mud men' defeated them and drove them out of the foothills."

"To laugh at someone who is inferior to them is tantamount to belittling oneself, don't you think?"

The dark mass of people in front of Mason responded to him with low, approving murmurs.

Houdel was also one of those who spoke up. He was originally furious, but after hearing Lord Mason's words, the pent-up anger in his chest dissipated somewhat.

In fact, Houdl was quite dissatisfied with His Excellency Mason's demonstration of prone tunneling.

In his view, it was a disgrace to the Tiefeng County Army that a dignified magistrate was crawling on the ground and wriggling around—especially in front of outsiders.

So when the boy in the leather boots spoke rudely, Houdel's anger was completely ignited.

In this respect, Lenzel Richard merely offended Hodl. Hodl's real discontent was directed at the Tribunal for the Plenipotentiary.

However, after listening to Tribunal Mason's words, Hoddle vaguely understood the deeper meaning the Tribunal wanted to convey.

Houdel had always been reluctant to do the work of digging and excavating.

His joke inadvertently revealed his true thoughts: "Before I entered military academy, I was digging in the dirt every day, and after I entered military academy, I'm still digging in the dirt every day. So what's the point of me entering this military academy?"

However, after hearing the tribunal explain the origin of the nickname "Mudman," Hoddle instinctively felt a sense of kinship with the "foothill militia" mentioned by the tribunal, and also felt a certain pride in the militia's skill of "digging trenches," which enabled them to defeat the noble lords.

Just then, Houdl heard the tribune's voice coming from ahead:
"Enough with the small talk, it's time to learn some real skills. Who was fighting just now? Come to the front, I'll teach you step by step."

[My pace has slowed down again recently, I'm very sorry. I think it's related to my irregular sleep schedule (T_T). I apologize again and will try my best to get back on track.]
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