I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 257 Emergency Evacuation
Shouts of battle, gunshots, and explosions echoed continuously from the mountains and forests ahead, coming from all directions and covering the entire mountainside.

Colonel Carlos stood on the hill where the arquebusiers had been stationed, using the insignificant height to observe the battlefield through binoculars. His face was grim, and his knuckles were white from the force he was using, making the bronze tube of the binoculars creak.

"Report!!!"

A messenger covered in blood ran up quickly from below. After a brief check by the guards, he rushed to the colonel.

"Sir, the Third Company has lost contact on the hill to the west."

The messenger's voice trembled slightly.

"The commander of the Fifth Company sent me to report that they have suffered at least twenty attacks... heavy casualties, with more than half of their combat strength lost. They are currently retreating and hope to receive reinforcements."

How far is the Fifth Company?

"One kilometer to the east..."

"Stain!"

Upon hearing this, Carlos immediately felt a headache coming on. In the plains, a kilometer could be covered by a person in twelve to twenty minutes on foot, but in the snowy, roadless mountains and forests, a distance of one kilometer at a time was enough to exhaust the soldiers.

Moreover, as darkness falls and visibility worsens, the difficulty of the rescue increases exponentially. This one-kilometer stretch is practically an insurmountable barrier, especially under enemy harassment. This distance is enough to wipe out the entire company.

Carlos slammed the binoculars onto the snow, the sound of shattering lenses sending a shiver down the spines of the surrounding officers. He drew his ivory-handled sword from his waist, the tip pointing directly at the dense forest to the east.

"Order the 7th Company to immediately converge on the 5th Company! Move the reserve mountain hunters up there!"

"But sir."

The adjutant hurriedly tried to dissuade him.

"The 7th Company is currently encircling and suppressing the enemy on the north slope. Ten minutes ago, their report indicated that their progress was going smoothly. If the 7th Company is mobilized now, it will certainly render their operation a complete failure..."

"Execute the command!"

Carlos's voice was like a hammer striking ice.

"Send two more light cavalry squads to quickly infiltrate along the mountain path..."

His words were suddenly interrupted by a strange whooshing sound. Everyone around him looked up at the same time and saw more than a dozen trails of white smoke streaking across the western mountain peaks, heading towards where Carlos was.

"Artillery fire?!"

The adjutant exclaimed in surprise.

"The enemy clearly doesn't have any artillery..."

The thunderous explosions provided the answer.

Those weren't cannonballs at all, but gliders strapped with explosives. They were simple flying machines made by a few players using pine wood, canvas, and captured gunpowder.

These gliding explosives, propelled by the mountain wind, swooped down toward the musket hill, and then... plunged headlong into the adjacent coniferous forest, engulfing large areas of snow and trees in the smoke and dust of the explosion.

Well, besides killing some innocent small animals in the forest, the biggest result of this bombing attack was that it scared several arquebusiers so much that they fell down in the snow, getting their buttocks and backs wet.

Yes, these people will definitely catch a cold tonight.

That's all. All the effort those players put in for at least half an hour was definitely wasted.

Even so, none of his soldiers were injured or killed in the attack, but Carlos's expression grew increasingly grim.

"Sir... these enemies are probably more than just Bagnian elite skirmishers?" The noble adjutant beside him couldn't help but speak up. He was one of those who had been so frightened that he sat down on the ground when the gliding bombs exploded in the forest. Now that he had stood up, he didn't care about the undignified appearance of the mud and snow on his backside and quickly told Carlos his opinion.

“I once saw the Emperor’s court review in Neyama, where the Imperial Guard, directly under the Emperor’s command, was scattered... I’m afraid even they couldn’t compare to these Bagnian barbarians.”

"Sir, the people we're fighting are probably that Bagnian prince's guards, or even his officer corps... Sir, let's retreat. Continuing to fight will result in too many casualties."

Carlos did not refute the noble adjutant's cowardly remarks, simply because he also felt that there were too many things wrong with the enemy.

First of all, these guys, who number only about five hundred, are extremely flexible and varied in their tactics.

From the use of gliding explosives to the guerrilla tactics of dispersing troops, and the precise use of terrain, all of these demonstrate that they are not ordinary scattered soldiers, but an elite force that has been carefully organized and trained, with an absurdly strong subjective combat capability.

According to frontline combat reports, the Bagnya skirmishers are extremely tenacious. They will occupy advantageous terrain and quickly fire their flintlock muskets at the nearest enemy. Once their own soldiers get close, they will immediately turn and run away.

After increasing the distance, it will turn around and continue attacking.

One company commander used a tactic of drawing the enemy's attention from the front while sending small units to flank them, encircling about ten Bagnian skirmishers. The enemy then fought to the death within the encirclement, dragging more than thirty Bohemian pikemen and swordsmen to their deaths.

Then, in the end, the company commander got nothing but a dozen or so mangled corpses, tattered cotton armor, and ten precision flintlock muskets; he didn't capture a single prisoner of war.

Upon hearing this battle report, Carlos's first reaction was not shock, but rather suspicion that the messenger sent by the company commander had eaten some poisonous mushrooms and was hallucinating, which was why he told such an absurd and unrealistic story.

However, even now, Carlos still believed the messenger's nonsense, because the company commander had not only brought back ten corpses, but also ten fine flintlock muskets.

A corpse can be faked, but those ten flintlock muskets with barrels as smooth as mirrors cannot be faked.

Colonel Carlos felt that if he could bring these ten flintlock muskets back to the United States and sell them privately, he could make a fortune.

At the same time, it was because of these flintlock muskets that Colonel Carlos understood why the enemy had such fierce firepower, and why they were able to wipe out a large number of his own arquebusiers and spearmen in just a few rounds of fire.

For this reason, Carlos dares not lead his troops out of the mountains. It is already late, and in another half hour, it will be completely dark. He has sent people to notify all troops to retreat as soon as possible and regroup here.

The arquebusiers and supply troops left behind have already set up camp on this small open space, setting up some defensive fortifications in preparation for receiving the returning troops.

Whether it will be effective or not, Carlos has no idea. In any case, he dares not send out his last reserve force... the light cavalry company.

Then, at that moment, a red signal light flew up from a distant mountaintop, shining like a twinkling star in mid-air, desperately radiating light and heat, causing Carlos's face to twitch... The worst thing had still happened.

This red signal flare represented the highest level of distress signal from the Bohemian army, meaning that without reinforcements, they would be annihilated.

It was at this moment that Colonel Carlos realized he had been tricked... The enemy was deliberately luring the Bohemian army to disperse and wage an asymmetrical annihilation war in this mountainous and snowy forest.

Carlos felt dizzy, as if he had walked into a meticulously designed maze, and every step he took was a trap set by the other party.

Those Bagnians were not being dispersed, nor were they being passively attacked.

Instead, they were actively guiding the Bohemian army into the mountains and forests, dispersing them so that they would all step into their inescapable trap at the same time in different places.

"Messenger!"

Carlos's voice suddenly became hoarse.

"Immediately light three bonfires, arranged in a triangle!"

This was a signal for the Bohemian army to retreat urgently.

(End of this chapter)