Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 275 Winter Preparations and the War Machine

The third grain convoy led by Louis arrived in Red Tide Territory in the afternoon.

The locals were already used to this spectacle. Dozens of horse-drawn carts, fully loaded with sacks of golden wheat, slowly drove along the main road all the way to the newly expanded warehouse.

With the warehouse doors wide open, workers efficiently moved, registered, and stored the goods.

Sentinels patrolled silently atop distant towers, guarding against any possible unforeseen events.

Bradley stood in front of the warehouse, holding a clipboard. After a while, he saw the familiar figure dismount and nodded slightly.

"This is the third batch. Luckily, the warehouse was expanded in advance, otherwise it really wouldn't be able to fit everything," Bradley exclaimed.

“Wait another two weeks, and there will be a fourth batch.” Louis took a sip of water, speaking casually, as if he were talking about the weather.

Bradley didn't respond, but simply watched as sacks of wheat were carried into the dry, tidy warehouse.

The sunlight shone down, reflecting a faint light between the grains of wheat.

A year ago, when Louis proposed turning Wheatfield Territory into a dedicated grain-producing area to supply the entire Red Tide Banner territory with food, it wasn't that he didn't believe it, but he felt that no one in the chaotic post-disaster North could possibly do such a thing.

After all, in the year following the disaster, most of the northern territories were barely surviving thanks to relief from the capital.

It's already quite remarkable that the Red Tide Territory can barely maintain order.

But Louis did it, without relying on anyone else, creating the greatest miracle in the history of the North.

Wheatfield Territory has truly become Red Tide's own granary. And now it has become the fundamental guarantee for the entire territory for the next year. If Louis wanted to, he could even sell some of this grain, but of course he wouldn't do that.

“You said back then that you wanted to make the Red Tide stop relying on others for sustenance,” Bradley said softly. “At the time, I just thought it was young people talking big. Now it seems… I was short-sighted.”

The warehouse echoed with the shouts of workers as they carried bags of grain in like a tidal wave.

Bradley snapped out of his thoughts and smiled. "This warehouse will probably have to be squeezed even more before winter."

After the grain carts were unloaded, the warehouse doors slowly closed, and the soldier in charge of recording presented the ledger. Bradley flipped through a few pages and then glanced at the sky.

"My lord, are you going back to the castle?"

“We still need to go to the back warehouse.” Louis turned around. “Let’s see how the winter supplies are going over there.”

Bradley nodded and followed.

The rear warehouse area, located near the west side of the main warehouse, was reinforced in the last six months.

Several small trucks were being dispatched along the way, carrying not grain, but boxes of firewood, cloth, and dry food packages.

Louis's gaze swept over the wooden barrels containing pickled radishes and smoked fish.

The warehouse worker quickly and efficiently sealed the barrel lids and carried it into the cellar.

"How much dry-stored and pickled food do you have?" he asked.

"Salted meat, smoked meat, smoked fish, pickled radishes, and dried mushrooms are all being prepared in batches according to plan. The pickling workshop started two weeks ahead of schedule, and is currently more than 70% complete." Brad Lidley paused, then opened the second booklet.

"Regarding fuel, firewood, coal and flint oil have been allocated according to the population quota, and two more batches can be brought back before the mountain roads are closed."

"What about the Fireback Turtle's setup?" Louis asked.

"The barracks have been set up, and the civilian housing is being expanded slowly based on requests." Bradley showed a rare expression of satisfaction. "It's a good thing."

They stopped in front of a row of fabric racks, where several female workers were trying on newly made coats for the soldiers.

"The civilian portion of the winter clothing is 80% complete, while the workshops are still rushing to produce military boots and animal skin coats. As long as the climate doesn't change drastically, no one will suffer from the cold this winter."

"Where are the medicines?" Louis glanced at the neatly stacked medicine boxes in the corner.

"We have replenished our supplies of regular medicines, pain-relieving herbal powder, cold-preventing ointment, and fever-reducing aquatic herbs. We have also re-verified the consumption model reported by the medical camp. In the high-risk area, we will provide one medicine kit for every ten households, in accordance with the new regulations."

Louis looked around, nodded slightly, and watched as boxes of supplies were marked and sealed, ready to be distributed to various districts according to quotas in the coming days.

His gaze swept across the warehouse shelves, then he looked at Bradley beside him:
"Everyone has worked hard this year. And there have been no major disasters or wars, making it a rare good year. Since there is enough food, there is no need to be too frugal with clothing, firewood, and dry rations."

This year we can distribute more; we don't need to be stingy with the distribution.

Bradley was taken aback by what he heard, then smiled slightly.

While other lords were still thinking about how to conserve resources and stockpile surplus grain as a trump card, Louis took the initiative to propose increasing winter supplies.

This affluence stems not only from his confidence but also from his genuine concern for the people.

Bradley added in a low voice, "No wonder...everyone is willing to follow you around."

Louis did not respond, but walked closer to the shelf, touched the stamp on a bag of dried mushrooms to confirm that the markings were clear, and then nodded to his adjutant to begin conveying the new allocation instructions.

This winter will be good.

…………

On a late autumn afternoon, a cold wind carrying a faint smell of rust swirled above the craftsmen's demonstration area.

Louis, wearing a half-cloak, walked steadily through the heavy stone gate, his black and gold military robe gleaming coldly in the sunlight.

The demonstration site was already set up: tools were in place, equipment was secure, a thin layer of coal ash covered the test track, and the air was filled with the scent of molten gold and the lingering aroma of alchemy. The intense heat carried a sense of impending explosion.

Mike was the first to come forward, his hands covered in metallic dust, but he didn't bother to wipe them off.

He casually wiped his thick palm on his trouser leg, puffed out his chest, and said with barely concealed excitement, "Sir, all the test subjects have been completed according to the blueprints and are now awaiting your inspection."

Louis's gaze swept over the array of devices ready to go in the distance, then over a row of expectant craftsmen and several alchemists in sallow robes, and finally he nodded slightly.

"Let's begin." With his command, the entire demonstration area roared to life.

Mike waved his hand, and an assistant craftsman immediately pulled the rope.

"Activate the folding barricades and prepare for ignition!"

With a loud "click-clang," the three sections of the barricade suddenly popped out, the mechanism locking automatically engaging, as if the skeleton of a ferocious beast were unfolding, and slammed heavily into the ground.

Each section of the barricade was covered with iron spikes and crisscrossing stakes. With a slight tremor, the stakes were precisely embedded in the stone floor of the test field, remaining perfectly still.

Subsequently, the alchemy team on the other side immediately took action.

A fiery red magic core, about the size of a finger joint, was pressed into the activation slot, causing the kerosene lines to vibrate slightly.

"Wow——!"

With a series of soft sounds, a row of blazing flames shot out from the ridge of the chevaux-de-frise.

The golden-orange flames spread rapidly across the barricades like boiling waves, forming a complete wall of fire in just three seconds, sealing off the entire test passage.

The flames crackled and popped, and waves of heat rolled in.

"Ready to sprint!" Mike shouted.

Two heavily armored trial knights spurred their horses and charged from the other end, their hooves thundering, but as they approached the line of fire, their horses hesitated for a moment, fear appearing in their eyes.

They tried to bypass it, but found that the three sections of the barricade were linked together and completely blocked off.

"Turn back!" The knight pulled on the reins, forcibly halting the charge.

Fifteen seconds later, only the charred pile surface remained, still emitting smoke.

There was a moment of silence.

“An emergency seal can be formed in ten seconds,” Louis said, standing on the sidelines with his hands behind his back. “If used at the entrance to a canyon, the unprepared enemy vanguard cavalry will be thrown into complete chaos.”

Mike grinned: "This thing in our workshop is much more agile than the old wooden stakes at the Northern Pass."

The craftsmen nodded in agreement.

“Let’s move on to the next item,” Louis said softly, his gaze already shifting to the “steel behemoth” shrouded in a heavy tarpaulin in the distance.

The heavy curtain slowly slid down under the pull of chains, and in the next instant, an almost breathtaking sense of oppression suddenly swept across the demonstration area.

Its overall shape is an irregular wedge, like a sleeping giant crouching on the ground.

The front end features a sharply angled, heavily armored bow, inlaid with narrow observation slits and enclosed arrow slots, resembling a cold and ferocious beast's face.

Thick side armor was added to both sides, with black steel plates connected by rivets overlapping in sections, resembling the scales of an armored lizard.

Four steel bulls were dragging it slowly out.

They were clad in gleaming armor, their horned helmets flashing with a cold light, and wisps of pale blue mist emanated from their nostrils.

That was the effect of the Frostleaf Vine potion, used to soothe a violent constitution and keep the individual calm on the battlefield. Chains and reins connected to the front of the cart; each step felt like a hammer blow to the chest, causing the air to tremble slightly.

"...This is...the Iron Beast."

Emily stood beside Louis, her gaze unconsciously fixed on the enormous thing, her voice barely audible.

Her slender figure appeared as small as dust in the shadow of that giant beast.

“Like a…moving fortress,” she murmured, her expression revealing undisguised awe.

The steel beast moved slowly forward, its heavy wheels meshing and rubbing against the gears, producing a deep and continuous rumble, like some kind of underground behemoth turning over in its sleep.

The four steel bulls that led it forward marched in unison, their iron hooves pounding the ground, their armor clenching, and each impact felt like a hammer blow to everyone's hearts.

The cold mist dissipated from their breath, and the thin blue-white smoke swirled in the air.

Under the skillful control of the craftsmen inside the steel structure, this colossal beast slowly and precisely completed the steering test.

It glided slowly across the front of the demonstration area, leaving everyone present holding their breath.

In the silence, an indescribable sense of oppression washed over me like a tide.

This is not a war machine.

This is a moving steel city wall.

“It’s more stable than I expected,” Louis said, his tone still revealing an undisguised satisfaction. “If it were set up outside the city… the barbarian cavalry line would have been reduced to a pile of scrap metal.”

Although the steel beast's advance was somewhat clumsy, its heavy, stable, and oppressive aura was exactly what he had envisioned in the original blueprints.

He nodded slightly and added, "After a few more rounds of training, to get these bulls more used to commands, they'll be much faster."

“It’s your design that’s so great, sir!” Mike stood at attention and replied, his face flushed, his voice trembling with barely suppressed excitement. “We were just following your instructions…”

Louis waved his hand, telling him to stop flattering Mike, even though Mike's praise was genuine.

The exercise was not over yet. With a crisp sound of a mechanism being activated, the side compartment of the steel beast clicked open, and a set of three-pronged hook spears extended along the slide rail arm. The friction of metal produced a sharp echo, like a beast grinding its teeth in the night.

"Hooked spear—ready."

Mike gave the order in a low voice, and the chief craftsman pushed with his right hand. The telescopic arm suddenly extended out at great speed, and a claw-shaped spear pierced the air with a sharp angle, stabbing hard into the wooden shield target on the simulated battlefield in front.

"Recycle!"

The grappling hook gripped the edge of the shield, and with a tremendous force, the entire wooden shield shattered and flew into the air. A crisp "crack" was heard, wood chips flew everywhere, and the heavy combat shield was torn in two.

Immediately afterwards, the second arm popped out, the hook spear flexibly switching angles to hook onto the back edge of another side-standing wooden shield, and with a smooth pull—twisting, dragging, and rolling back, the whole action was completed in one go, like a metal beast-catching claw repeatedly testing itself.

On the demonstration field, Louis squinted, observing very carefully.

"Live-fire test, begin!" Mike shouted.

Three knights immediately rushed out from the side door, lined up with shields, and launched a short-range attack towards the Iron Beast.

"Target locked—"

"Adjust the thrust angle to 2.4!"

"Thrust out!"

As three voice commands sounded almost simultaneously inside the Iron Beast, the first hook spear on the left instantly thrust out, accurately biting the edge of the shield of the front-row knight, and the cable immediately tightened.

The knight stumbled, pulled forward, and his shield shattered with a crack. The grappling hook retracted immediately, sweeping the broken pieces of wood into the cabin.

The two knights behind instinctively stopped to adjust, but the hooked spears were already like a series of claws, and the second thrust had arrived, suddenly pulling the shield corner of the middle row at an angle and disrupting the rhythm of holding the shield.

The entire process took only a few breaths; the simulated enemy charge collapsed instantly, and the formation broke apart.

"The angle at which the shield is torn is well-designed." Louis spoke slowly from the high platform, his tone steady with a hint of approval. "Paired with the Bull Charge followed by this attack... it can disrupt the formation and penetrate directly into the middle."

Upon hearing this, Mike's eyes lit up: "We've been repeatedly adjusting the force and angle. You figured it out!"

He glanced at the hook-and-spear arm in the distance and added in a low voice, "The current system can basically launch the hook while the vehicle is in motion and retrieve it stably... As long as we continue to improve it, it can be incorporated into the next mass-produced model."

The behemoth stood silently on the railway tracks, its massive metallic form seemingly awaiting the next command.

Next up is the remote attack test.

"Fire control position is ready!" a craftsman announced in a low voice.

Hilcone stood next to Louis, his dark circles under his eyes suggesting he hadn't slept all night. His collar was askew and his sleeves were disheveled; it was unclear what kind of explosion experiment he had been conducting all night.

But his eyes were unusually bright, and he seemed excited as if he was about to jump up at any moment.

"Magic Explosion Projectile, Test Unit One—Fire!"

A crisp "snap" rang out inside the belly compartment, the crossbow's control rails vibrated violently, and the arrow pierced the air instantly.

"Target hit!"

At the end of the test field, the heavy iron target shattered with a loud bang, sparks flying, the iron surface charred and curled, and a dent the size of a bowl appeared as if it had been smashed through by an angry fist.

The ordinary arrows on the wooden shield to the side barely pierced through, failing to even penetrate the second layer, creating a stark contrast.

Before the light from the explosion had even faded, Hilco excitedly shook his sleeves, like an alchemical fanatic hawking his own dynamite toys, and pulled out three arrows with different engravings from his pocket to show Louis.

"Near-detonation, timed detonation, and delayed detonation—we've all adjusted them! Accuracy tests have all passed!"

His voice, however, betrayed an undisguised pride: "We've optimized the explosion pattern three times, increasing its trigger stability by forty percent. Now, whether you want to blow up one person or a group of people, you can do it all."

"The controllability of the burst diameter?"

“We’ve tried everything from two fingers wide to three and a half feet wide!” Hilko grinned. “You want a five-shot burst? No problem. Explosions are our alchemy team’s specialty. We can handle path overwriting and progressive ignition.”

Louis nodded slightly, his gaze falling on the charred iron target riddled with blast marks: "Very good, real explosions... are used to create tactical space."

Finally, there was the comprehensive experiment. The test field was rearranged, with a dozen iron shield formations erected on one side, mixed with iron monster targets to simulate barbarian formations.

On the other side, the Steel Bull stood ready, the Steel Beast stood steadily, and several craftsmen and knights entered the belly compartment and control position in turn.

"Integration testing—begin!" Mike ordered.

The first step was the test firing of explosive arrows.

The magic crossbow from the remote platform accurately struck the enemy's rear ranks, sending several Iron Man shield soldiers flying with a "boom," leaving a gaping hole in the grass with charred blast marks.

Then the raging bulls roared, and four armored steel bulls pulled the steel beasts into motion, the wheels on the rails groaning like the heavy thud of war drums.

They smashed through the path and charged in.

The hook-spear mechanism popped out—"Click—Bang!" Accompanied by the sharp whistling of metal tearing apart, the front row of iron shields was violently hooked and torn apart, with wood chips and iron filings flying everywhere.

The steel beast then deployed its side armor, its internal rails rotating, and the heavy armor structure sealed off both sides like a door, successfully surrounding the simulated enemy remnants.

The terminal launch chamber released a freezing bomb, and the monster target was half-shattered in the icy blue impact, with frozen marks resembling the cratering of a snowstorm.

In just forty seconds, the simulated enemy formation was completely crushed.

After a moment of silence, thunderous cheers erupted in the test field.

"Success!"

"End-to-end collaboration! End-to-end collaboration successful!"

Many craftsmen were so excited they almost jumped up. One grabbed his colleague's collar and roared, "We actually built this war machine! We did it!"

The young alchemy apprentice's eyes reddened: "This level of integrated combat system... something that only those alchemy fanatics in the Emerald Federation can handle, we can make too!"

Standing on the high platform, Louis quietly gazed at the training ground, then turned to Bradley: "Those who personally participated in the creation will all be credited."

These words were met with thunderous cheers once again. Even Hilco couldn't hide his smile, yawning as he chuckled and said to the craftsman beside him, "Don't forget me when we drink tonight."

In the corner, a figure stood quietly, his eyes dark and unsettling.

It was Visa, who had come with Sif to see the whole thing, and the scene sent chills down her spine.

Vesa gazed at the steel beast that slowly came to a stop in the distance, a sight she had never seen before on the battlefield of the Northern Plains.

It is ruthless and composed, advancing without emotion, just like a true embodiment of war.

She had once been a barbarian scout, familiar with barbarian battle formations and the rhythm of cavalry charges, but this thing before her...

If such weapons could be mass-produced, she couldn't understand how the barbarians of the future would be able to resist them.
(End of this chapter)