I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 265 Iron Rain

"For Bohemia!"

The silver bells on the stirrups jingled during the charge, their sound overpowering even the battle cries of the cavalry. They were the ancestral talisman of Lieutenant York, but now they sounded like a death knell.

York pressed his face against the warhorse's sweaty neck, and could clearly feel the trembling of the seven-year-old Arabian horse's muscles... not fear, but the battlefield instinct burning in its blood.

The breastplate of the comrade on the left gleamed with a cold, fish-scale-like light in the twilight, while the iron hooves of three hundred warhorses trampled the frozen earth into rolling black waves.

Three hundred cavalrymen equipped with breastplates, sabers, and spring-loaded muskets would surely be able to tear through the enemy's defenses, like a sharp blade slicing through soft butter.

York was thinking this, as he was gleefully contemplating the taste of victory and the bright future...

Then the sky cracked open.

When the first cannon shot rang out, York thought it was thunder in the sky until he saw the blood mist explode three hundred paces to his left.

A charging warhorse suddenly turned into scattered pieces of flesh. The rider's upper body was still spinning in the air, his scimitar still in a slashing posture. The dull thud of a solid shot piercing flesh came half a second later, like death snapping its fingers in his ear.

York was stunned. The cavalry lieutenant, who had been out of military school for two years and considered himself to have some battlefield experience, turned pale and looked around unconsciously, at a loss for what to do.

Fortunately, York was not the commander of the cavalry company, and his fear did not affect the normal operation of the unit.

"Spread out, form skirmish lines, don't huddle together!"

The colonel roared at the top of his lungs, but the sound was instantly swallowed up by the second wave of artillery fire from the front.

The whistling sound of the chain shot was unique; it was a hissing sound like a meat grinder.

The standard-bearer on the right wing was cut in half at the waist with his flag, and the gold-edged military flag, wrapped with half of its intestines, flew into the sky. York watched helplessly as the spinning chain shot swept across six warhorses, their legs snapping off like straw.

The fallen riders didn't even have time to scream before they were trampled into a bloody pulp by the surging torrent behind them.

"God of Light, how can their chain shot travel such a distance?!"

York’s squire screamed as his horse suddenly stumbled, causing him to fall off.

As York turned around, he saw a fist-sized iron ball fly past to his left, embedding itself in the frozen ground below, its trajectory carving out scarlet furrows behind him.

The forelegs of three warhorses were severed by the solid ricochet, and the riders were thrown into the dust like rag dolls. A young man's face landed right on the path of the ricocheting bullet, and his features were instantly smashed. Even his mother could not recognize him as her son.

"Glory is my life!"

The colonel, leading the remaining cavalry, roared out the ancient oath together.

They held their sabers in their mouths, gripped the reins with both hands, and crouched low. This was the Bohemian light cavalry's proudest death charge, a move their ancestors had used to tear through the heavily armored spearmen of the Reteria Empire's army.

The high-speed cuirassiers quickly covered a distance of more than a kilometer. The enemy artillery was getting closer and closer, so much so that York, who had already rushed to the front, could see the busy figures of the gunners on the enemy artillery positions.

Wait, what's with that four-wheeled carriage that's turned sideways?!
York's pupils suddenly contracted.

Three hundred meters away, at the foot of the hill, the muzzles of twenty long-barreled cannons were spitting fire, each flash accompanied by a thunderous roar. The gunners, dressed in dark green uniforms, mechanically and precisely repeated the loading motions... pouring powder, loading shells, inserting matchlocks—the whole process was so fast it was almost despairing.

Closer still, fifty shield carts covered in iron plates resembled the fangs of a giant beast, with musket barrels protruding from their firing ports in a dense array, like a hive of poisonous bees. On either side of these shield carts, an even greater number of small cannons were placed.

"If we can get past the last 300 steps, we'll win!"

The colonel's roar, mixed with the stench of blood, filled his ears. York bit down hard on the back of his saber, the salty metallic taste spreading on his tongue. He could see the face of the artilleryman in the front row... It was a freckled boy. Why was he wearing such a ferocious smile?

Then York realized why the player was laughing so loudly.

In an instant, York seemed to see a giant dragon crouching on the ground, its jaws wide open, flames and steel, and thunder, which instantly made him deaf.

Lead bullets rained down like a storm, and his warhorse on the left was hit in the eye socket, its brains splattering onto York's breastplate, still steaming.

The silver-inlaid breastplate of the comrade to the right was torn open like a piece of paper. The lead bullet tumbled and deformed in his chest cavity, finally exiting from his back with bone fragments. The crisp sound of it piercing the scale armor was like hail hitting the ground.

York's mount suddenly rolled over, throwing him off... A lead bullet struck the horse's leg, rupturing the tendon.

As he fell from his horse, he smelled the asphalt of incendiary bombs. In his last glimpse, he saw his ancestral silver bell rolling in the pool of blood, reflecting the burning sunset on the horizon—the flames of enemy musketeers firing in unison.

……

The Bohemian cuirassiers were incredibly stubborn. Despite being bombarded by twenty six-pound field cannons and fifty tiger-squat cannons, they charged from 1,500 meters away, enduring the shells all the way to the shield carts of the artillery emplacement. The wrecked warhorses and the corpses of the cavalrymen paved a path of death.

Even though their formation had been completely broken, many cavalrymen were wounded, and more than half of their horses had been killed or wounded, they still continued to charge towards the enemy's artillery positions with their strong will and courage.

Then, they were met with a volley of fire from two hundred well-prepared flintlock musketeers, leaving them bloodied and battered.

In the end, only about fifty cavalrymen remained who could continue charging.

Carrying their longswords and wearing fish-scale armor, the Han and Tang warriors marched out of the formation amidst the scraping sound of their armor plates, clearly dissatisfied. They had originally planned to film a classic video of heavily armored infantry defeating a larger force with their longswords against cavalry.

As it turned out, the beasts on the other side of the artillery were ravaged. When the three hundred cavalrymen charged over, only fifty or so were left, their courage shattered. They were not even enough to fill the gaps between the one hundred and fifty heavy infantrymen. Each of them could not even kill one horseman.

Xiao Dao and his Overlord Tigers team fought a brilliant skirmish in the mountains, and the series of videos went viral throughout the player community.

Taking advantage of the terrain, they achieved a victory against overwhelming odds, successfully annihilating an enemy field force three times their size. This earned them praise from other players and casual viewers, as well as high viewership, making others extremely envious.

The Han-Tang warriors also wanted to replicate this, but they couldn't let the entire Overlord Tigers brigade participate in this spectacle.

The idea is good, but the enemy isn't cooperating!

This is fucked up.

"Wait, brothers, don't rush. Their infantry is coming. You'll have plenty of enemies to fight. Don't be impatient!"

(End of this chapter)