Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 565 Siege (Seventeen)
At a glance, Lieutenant Colonel Lordwick also realized the urgency of the situation.

"Captain Welf!" Lordwack called out his best centurion without hesitation. "Take your men into the water from the north! Protect the fence!"

The lieutenant whose name was called simply saluted, and without a word began to remove his breastplate, then his clothes, trousers, and boots, leaving only his helmet. His men did the same.

The nearly naked centurion, leading a nearly naked hundred-man squad, strode down the riverbank, his teeth clenched on his short sword, climbed the wooden stakes, vaulted over the fence, and swam straight toward the "rebel" boat.

A fierce battle ensued in the water.

The Iron Peak County engineers beside the fence had no time to cut the chains. On the shore, provincial musketeers opened fire on them, and in the water, provincial soldiers surrounded them.

Some engineers hurriedly retreated to the large boats, while several large boats rowed vigorously toward the horse-stopping post, trying to catch up with their comrades.

However, many more engineers were unable to retreat in time and had no choice but to fight to the death.

Thus, the naked Senas, like newborn babies, clumsily swung their arms in the water, hacking, stabbing, crying, and shouting at each other.

The river was stained red with blood, but at night, all that could be seen was darkness.

A soldier from the United Provinces swam to the stern of a small boat, grabbed the rope dangling in mid-air, and tried to cut the thick rope with his short sword.

On the large boat, the sergeant at the helm immediately threw away the rudder, grabbed the oar, and smashed it hard against the enemy in the water, crushing the enemy's skull with a single blow.

As if all the bones in his body had been broken in an instant, the soldiers of the United Provinces became limp and could no longer maintain their balance, and were pushed sideways by the current.

But for some reason, his left hand was still gripping the cable tightly, like a ponytail hanging on the cable, with half of his body above water and half underwater.

The sergeant on the large boat gritted his teeth and smashed the hand of the provincial soldier again, once, twice, three times. He was sure he had smashed the bones of that hand to pieces, but the provincial soldier's body was still hanging on the rope.

Before the sergeant could strike a fourth time, another soldier from the United Province leaped out of the water from under the sergeant's feet, grabbed the sergeant's calf, and dragged the sergeant into the river.

The same thing was happening around every large boat, with the Iron Peak County soldiers on board attacking the United Provinces in the water with spears and oars.

The provincial soldiers in the water were also trying to drag the "rebel" soldiers on the small boat into the water and kill them.

As soon as a soldier from the United Provinces put his hand on the gunwale, four of his fingers were severed by a sharp shovel.

A soldier from Iron Peak County had just punctured an enemy's trachea when the dying enemy dragged him into the river and swarmed him, stabbing him to death.

Both sides were more determined than the other had anticipated, and the battle inevitably devolved into a brutal war of attrition.

Meanwhile, on the riverbank, musketeers from both sides were firing fiercely to cover their own soldiers.

The provincial musketeers fired at the ships, while the Iron Peak musketeers fired at the water. However, the battle was so chaotic that it was impossible to tell whether they had hit their comrades or the enemy.

In the water, Captain Welf saw that the "rebels" on the boat were putting up fierce resistance, so he ordered some of his men to continue swimming a distance into the middle of the river, away from the small boat, to cut the mooring ropes where the oars and spears could not reach.

However, the cable is higher off the river surface, further away from the large boat.

The soldiers from the United Provinces thrashed about in the water, their fingertips almost touching the cable several times, but they just missed it by a hair's breadth.

On the large boat, a sergeant heard a splashing sound in the distance. Looking closely, he saw that the United Provinces man was hanging on the cable in a difficult position, while cutting the rope in his hand with a short sword.

"Turn around!" the sergeant shouted hoarsely. "Turn around now!"

However, no one could carry out his orders. Most of the ships in the Iron Peak County Regiment were small fishing boats and sampans, which the United Provinces easily capsized.

The few large boats that were available were also entangled by the United Provinces, and the soldiers on board were fighting for their lives and had no time to maneuver the boats.

Seeing this, the soldier tied a rope to the end of the spear, stepped on the other end of the rope, held the spear upside down, took a deep breath, bent his body like a bow, and with a loud roar, hurled the spear directly at the United Provinces people in the distance.

This throw was as if divinely inspired.

The soldier from the United Provinces who was being targeted saw the movements of the people on the boat, but being in the water, he had nowhere to grab hold and no time to dodge. He could only watch helplessly as the spear pierced his chest. The soldier was thrown directly into the water, and the intense pain made him instinctively clutch the spear shaft in front of his chest, but his strength and his life were rapidly draining from his body. He was swept away by the water and drifted downstream.

On the other side, a soldier on the ship tried to pull back the spear, but he was almost pulled into the water himself. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and let go in time.

But it was precisely because of this that he lost his only weapon.

The people from the United Provinces in the water also noticed this, and they quickly surrounded them.

The sergeant cursed loudly, trying to remove a plank from the boat, but the large boat was very sturdy and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't budge it.

Just when the situation seemed hopeless, several shouts suddenly came from afar. Immediately afterwards, the United Provinces turned around in unison and abandoned their attack on the large boat.

It turned out that Tamas and Mason on the other side of the river had discovered the United Provinces' movements and urgently dispatched a company of reinforcements.

With no boats available and only the option of swimming, nearly half of the soldiers either fell behind or were swept away by the current. However, half a company of soldiers managed to swim to the east bank to support their comrades in distress.

With the addition of fresh troops, the main battlefield immediately shifted from the area around the small boats and sharp wooden stakes to the river surface.

Lieutenant Colonel Lordwick's best 100-man squad was engaged in a fierce battle with half of the main force company of the Iron Peak Regiment in the water.

Now, none of the musketeers on the shore dared to fire into the water anymore, because they could no longer distinguish friend from foe.

So the musketeers on both sides turned their guns and aimed them at the musketeers on the opposite bank of the river.

The firepower that the new army positions on the west bank received instantly became more than ten times stronger than before.

Lead bullets struck the riverbank and the breastwork, creating waves of earth.

Because of the urgent need to expedite construction, the pontoon bridge, which required the lighting of numerous torches, was also given special attention.

From time to time, the engineers building the bridge were hit by stray bullets. Those who were lucky enough to avoid being hit in vital areas were immediately carried back to the back of the riverbank for treatment.
Those who are unlucky simply snort, fall into the river, and disappear beneath the waves in the blink of an eye.

The provincial musketeers quickly realized that aimless firing was simply not enough to suppress the musketeers on the other side.

More and more provincial musketeers began targeting “rebel” engineers exposed outside their bunkers.

Gaisa Adonis saw this and was very anxious.

"Not using your precious thing yet?" Gaisa asked, trying to control his emotions and avoid putting pressure on the major.

Watching the engineers he had personally trained toil away amidst gunfire, Mason felt even more heartbroken than Geza.

But he firmly shook his head, "It's not the right time yet."

On Margit Island, Lieutenant Colonel Lordwijk has organized a second wave of assault teams.

His best hundred-man squad had halted the rebels' destruction of the water fence and disrupted their efforts to transport follow-up troops by small boats and sampans.

Now, Lieutenant Colonel Lordwijk has decided to send his second-best 100-man squad into battle.

In a proud silence, the fully armed provincial swordsmen and shieldmen rushed down the riverbank and toward the "rebels'" landing zone.

Mason keenly observed the enemy commander's movements, and his intuition told him that this was a target worth exposing his "treasure".

"Fire!" Mason shouted the order.

The gunners removed the gun covers.

The new army's heavy artillery, which understood the value of silence even better than the United Provinces' standing army, roared with deafening fury.

[From the perspective of the new military, a sampan refers to a small boat with a very small cabin, or even no cabin at all, relying entirely on its own buoyancy, capable of carrying 1-2 people; a small boat refers to a small fishing boat that can barely seat 3-5 people; a large boat refers to a transport boat that can seat about 10 people, accommodate two rows of people paddling, and is built according to military specifications.]
[From another perspective, a sampan refers to a canoe that can only be used by one angler; a small boat refers to a real fishing boat that can accommodate two fishermen to cast their nets and has enough space to carry their catch; and a large boat is a larger transport vessel.]
From the perspective of the Southern Area Army, sampans, small boats, and large ships were all considered low-class vessels.
[Thank you to all the readers for your collections, reading, subscriptions, recommendations, monthly tickets, donations, and comments. Thank you everyone!]