Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 102 The Crows Are Singing

Once the road connecting Tata and Chiliu was finally completed, António sent a final messenger to the defenders. Based on "final mercy and honor," he demanded that the defenders surrender their weapons and open the gates to relinquish the city.

Serbiati and Leighton jointly guaranteed that no Tanirians would be executed or tried after surrendering.

But when the messenger raised his shield and shouted at the city wall, he was met only with a dozen or so lead bullets.

William Kidd's attitude has been made clear.

The heavy cannon, capable of firing 32-pound iron bullets, was mounted on a large cart and dragged little by little to the front of the city wall.

Even from a great distance, the garrison on the city walls could hear the cacophony of their march: the castrated oxen and draft horses bellowing as they were whipped; the Venetians driving the carts shouting and brandishing their whips; and the creaking axles emitting a monotonous, continuous, grating sound.

If the Angel of Death could sing, then its song must be exactly what the defenders of Tower City are hearing now.

After the heavy artillery arrived at the front, the Venetta engineers spent an entire day using cranes to unload the cannons from the vehicles, deploy them to pre-erected positions, and adjust their angles.

All the light and heavy artillery in the Venetta army was divided into eight gun groups, each consisting of one of the heaviest guns and other light guns.

The Venetta soldiers affectionately called these artillery crews "wolf packs" because each crew resembled an alpha wolf leading a group of cubs.

Using the city gate as a dividing point, four artillery groups were deployed on each of the east and west sides of the city wall, aiming at the weak points of the city wall.

As the Venetians deployed their heavy artillery, the defenders on the city walls did their utmost to try and destroy the enemy cannons with their own light artillery.

However, these attempts were of little success. The Venetians protected their cannons with wooden palisades and mud, making it difficult for the defenders to find a suitable angle to fire.

Moreover, the Tanirians were outnumbered by artillery and were constantly suppressed by the light artillery beneath the city walls.

The Tanirians could only watch in despair as cannon after cannon was placed in front of the city walls, while desperately reinforcing the walls themselves.

The next morning, as soon as the sun shone on the walls of Tacheng, a large-scale bombardment began.

Before unleashing the heavy artillery, they first fired a barrage of muskets and light cannons loaded with grapeshot at the defenders on the city wall.

Especially the musketeers and cannons on the triangular bunker, they were the closest and didn't even need to aim.

The people of Venetia have been working frantically these past two days, continuously adding bags of soil to raise the triangular fortress. Now, the top of the fortress is level with the city wall.

The cannons that the Tanirians deployed at the triangular fortress are now being used by the Venetians against the defenders themselves.

The Tanirians who peered out from behind the battlements were shot dead on the spot. Iron and lead bullets struck the stones, sending shrapnel flying and dust billowing up. The defenders on the city walls lay prone behind their breastworks, not daring to look up.

Most of the defenders were hiding below the city walls. William Kidd was no fool; in the face of such a bombardment, forcing the soldiers to stay on the walls would only be suicide.

Therefore, he ordered most of his soldiers to hide in the bunkers behind the wall, leaving only a small number of sentries to observe from the city wall.

Once the defenders on the wall were suppressed, the eight heavy cannons began to roar.

The cannon fire sounded like a terrifying horn sounding at the end of the world. Iron cannonballs flew out of the muzzle and slammed heavily onto the city wall, the huge impact causing the entire wall to tremble.

The previous two-pound cannons only left a few white spots on the city wall, while the heavy cannon directly destroyed the volcanic rock covering the outer surface of the city wall.

Even if the rock was not crushed, the enormous stress generated by the impact had already exceeded the bearing capacity of the mortar that was binding the volcanic rock.

Where the shells landed, the outer walls of the city wall crumbled, revealing the inner walls made of volcanic rock concrete.

The sturdy inner wall was also blasted open by the cannonball, leaving a huge cone-shaped gap.

The soldiers of Vineta outside the city cheered louder than the roar of cannons.

For the soldiers hiding in the tunnels behind the city walls, it was like hell.

The tremendous noise, the choking dust, and the vibrations transmitted to the hidden bunkers when the city walls were hit by artillery shells made even the most seasoned veterans tremble with fear.

No one understood the damage cannons inflicted on city walls better than the Tanirians hiding in the bunkers. One recruit exclaimed in terror, "The walls are shaking!"

Indeed, the immense impact of the cannonballs made the entire city wall tremble, and the defenders felt it acutely.

Even as cannons were still firing stone projectiles, the old city walls were already showing signs of fatigue. The stone-throwing cannons were like a giant sledgehammer, smashing down wall after wall, and shattering the will of the defenders.

The cannons now unleashing their fury upon the city of Ta are far more powerful than the stone-throwing cannons. Advances in material forming techniques have enabled cannon makers to forge lighter, thinner, stronger, and longer cannons.

The ratio of projectile to gunpowder in stone-throwing cannons was between 20 and 40:1, while each shot from the eight 32-pound cannons outside the city could be loaded with 16 pounds of gunpowder, making the ratio of projectile weight to gunpowder weight an astonishing 2:1.

Even though iron cannonballs are lighter than stone cannonballs, their penetrating power is no less.

The city walls, trusted by the defenders of Tacheng, are crumbling in the face of modern artillery.

Inside the bunker, the Tanirian soldiers, who were praying "Let me get through today," heard the sentry ringing the alarm bell.

Alongside the shelling, the trenches were being filled in.

António and Leighton selected two attack points on the east and west sides of the city wall, both of which were the weakest points in the wall as indicated by intelligence.

The two legions were each responsible for one direction of attack, and their task was not only to destroy the city walls but also to fill in the trenches there.

At Captain Hoffmann's loud shouts, the garrison rushed up the city wall, and the sentries on the wall shouted hoarsely, "Triangle Fortress! They're coming from Triangle Fortress!"

A large number of soldiers pushing carts poured out of the triangular fortress occupied by the Venetians. They rushed into the moat and filled it with mud and firewood from the carts.

"Shoot them! Shoot them!" shouted Hoffman, a Federation officer on the city wall, rousing his stunned men.

The defenders, regaining their senses, immediately opened fire on the Venetas below the city with crossbows and muskets. The distance between the two sides was simply too close, and there were too many Venetas; every shot fired would bring down a Veneta.

Several more loud crashes echoed as stones shattered, and the light cannons outside the city opened fire again to suppress the defenders on the city walls. Stone fragments flew everywhere, their force comparable to that of arrows.

Captain Hoffman, who had just been giving orders, screamed and flailed his arms wildly, his face covered in dust, blood flowing from his tightly closed eyes.

A stray shard of gravel flew into Hoffmann's eyes, and the burly man went mad in excruciating pain and complete darkness. Hoffmann's men tried to restrain him, but Hoffmann roared and drew his sword, swinging wildly, forcing everyone around him to dodge.

Hoffman could no longer hear what the people around him were saying. He roared and swung his sword at the imaginary enemy, retreating as he stood. His men watched helplessly as their captain fell backward from the destroyed breastwork to the foot of the city wall, dying instantly.

Meanwhile, outside the city, the Venetian musketeers had arrived. Using the walls of the moat as cover, the Venetian arquebusiers unleashed a fierce barrage of fire on the defenders on the city walls.

The temporary moat dug outside the city wall was very shallow, less than two meters deep and about a meter high. The musketeers could stand in the moat and place their muskets on the edge of the moat.

The crenellations atop the city wall had been shattered in the shelling of the previous days and offered no real protection to the Tanirian soldiers on the wall. If they peeked out, they would be shot dead by several arquebuses.

However, the Tanirians on the city wall all knew that once the moat was filled in, the next thing to be done would be the city wall, and then everyone would die.

The ferocity of the defenders was also unleashed. The Tanirians howled to bolster their courage, leaning out to kill the Venetians huddled together below the city walls with their bows and muskets.

From their elevated position, they looked down and saw that the Venetta musketeers in the moat were almost completely exposed.

The two sides were exchanging lives at a distance that was almost like having a musket pointed at their foreheads.

Stav, a crossbowman on the city wall, suddenly realized that he could use "blue fire" to burn the Venetians to death.

Stav ran down the city wall. Soon, he came running back, carrying a clay pot that was emitting blue flames.

He shouted, "Blue Fire! Blue Fire!" and rushed to the breastwork. Just as he was about to throw the Blue Fire at the enemy in the moat, a lead bullet came from below the city and hit Stav in the chest, knocking him backward and causing him to fall against the city wall.

The burning sulfur in his earthenware pot spilled all over himself, and his screams and the smell of burning flesh even reached the Venetians below the city.

However, Stav's actions reminded the others that the trench was seven or eight meters away from the base of the city wall, and oil or asphalt could not be thrown that far, but it could be put into cans.

Just as the garrison on the city wall sent men to search for the pottery jars, William Kidd led reinforcements to the east side of the city wall, bringing with him two short-barreled cannons.

"Here! Don't [swear word] face it directly! Fire from the side!" Seeing the gunner foolishly trying to lift the cannon directly over, the enraged artillery commander Berta kicked the gunner away and shouted angrily, "Useless trash! Get out!"

Berta carried the two short-barreled cannons to a spot on the city wall with a slight curve, angled towards the Venetians below.

The gunners frantically assembled the gun carriage and loaded the ammunition. Berta personally aimed and fired.

Two booming sounds followed as the short-barreled cannons unleashed a bloody storm of bullets that swept across the area below the city.

"Good! Good! Good!" the artillery commander roared three times, urging his men, "Keep loading! Keep firing!"

While the Tanilians' cannons were slaughtering the Venetians below the city, the Venetians' cannons outside the city were also wiping out the Tanilians on the city walls.

The Venetta gun crew, 200 meters away, saw the smoke and flashes from the cannons firing from the city wall and immediately adjusted their direction to fire at the two short-barreled cannons.

A four-pound shell struck one of the short-barreled cannons squarely, sending the cast-iron gun flying off its carriage and breaking half of the gunner's arm.

Berta immediately moved another short-barreled cannon to a different position.

One side was on the wall, the other below; the Tanirians and Venetians were practically fighting each other with guns pointed at their heads.

Everyone will die here; it's just a matter of time.

The Tanirians understood the triangular fortress was crucial even before today, but only now did they truly realize they had underestimated its importance. Losing the fortress meant losing control of the moat. If the fortress were still in Tanirian hands, the Venetian army would never have dared to charge into the moat as they were now, because the flanking artillery deployed on the fortress would have turned them into mincemeat.

Moreover, once the Venetians connected the triangular fortress and the siege walls with tunnels, they no longer needed to cross the killing zone in front of the city walls and could directly enter the moat from the triangular fortress.

Not to mention the ranged firepower from the triangular fortress that suppressed the defenders on the city walls.

However, the biggest problem with losing the triangular fortress wasn't just these...

While the attacking and defending sides were killing each other around the trench, behind the city gate, the Montagnier Guard, William Kidd's most elite troops, were assembling.

These heavily armored and valiant warriors are the most skilled and trustworthy troops in the Tanilian Federation. In the Empire, the Montani Guard would be the Emperor's personal guard. They are not William Kidd's subordinates; it's just that the Supreme Council has temporarily placed two companies under his command.

William Kidd always regarded the two hundred-odd Montagnier guards as his personal guard and supervisory force, and the Montagnier guards were the key to William Kidd's control of the army.

However, the situation was urgent, so he had no choice but to deploy his most elite force.

Without any warning, the double gates of Tacheng suddenly opened.

The Monta warriors roared with terrifying battle cries as they charged out of the city gates. They split into two groups and plunged into the moat, hacking and slashing at the Veneta people inside like legendary berserkers.

Captain Zenus charged ahead, axe raised high, and cleaved the Veneta man's skull with a single blow. The axe blade was completely embedded in his skull. After trying to pull it out twice without success, Zenus simply abandoned the axe and drew his armored sword to fight back.

It is impossible to stop attackers from filling in the moat from standing on the city wall at any time.

The only way is to send men out to attack from both the city walls and the area below, and wipe out everyone in the moat.

Therefore, at any time, the city gate is the most powerful weapon for the defending army to counterattack.

But now, the triangular fortress in front of the city gate is in the hands of the Venetians.

Upon seeing a large group of armored soldiers charging out of the city gate, the muskets and cannons on the triangular fort immediately turned and fired fiercely at these heavily armored enemies.

Two musketeers together threw a forty-pound iron-cased bomb toward the city gate. The Monta guard who was hit immediately bled from his eyes and nose and died on the spot.

The other Monta guards, seeing the hissing fuse, fled in panic. But it was too late. A deafening explosion rocked the iron bomb, and the shockwave nearly knocked over the Venetas atop the triangular fortress.

In the narrow space between the city gate and the triangular fortress, limbs flew and blood splattered everywhere. Even the Monta guards who hadn't been hit by shrapnel collapsed to the ground, coughing up mouthfuls of blood.

The area in front of the city gates had become hell, but it was not over yet. The Venetians on the triangular fortress dropped three more iron-cased bombs.

The Monta soldier, coughing up blood, stared at the metal bomb before him, trying to crawl away but his limbs wouldn't move. He watched in despair as the fuse burned out.

"Forgive me, Lord!" he cried out in his last moments before being blown to pieces.

No one heard his "final confession," because the battle cry of "Great Vinetta" drowned out all other sounds on the battlefield.

A large number of swordsmen and shieldmen charged out of the triangular fortress and the tunnel with shouts. The Veneta swordsmen and shieldmen split into three groups. Two groups jumped into the tunnel and began to fight the Monta guards one-on-one. The other group ignored everything else and bypassed the triangular fortress and headed straight for the city gate.

The two major generals prepared six hundred-man squads of swordsmen and shieldmen, just in case the defending troops came out of the city to counterattack.

"Close the city gates! Close the city gates now!" William Kidd shouted in a panic when he saw this from the city wall.

The guards at the city gate immediately cut the cables, and the heavy gate slammed down, trapping the first few Veneta swordsmen inside.

Before the city gate, barrels of asphalt were being poured down. There were still Monta guards alive before the gate, but the garrison didn't care anymore.

Several torches were thrown down from above the city gate. The Venetians screamed and ran away. The pitch ignited on contact, and the defenders burned the Venetians and their own people alive.

On the other side of the gate, a dozen or so guards descended from the city wall through a passage into the gate. The Veneta swordsmen trapped inside knew they were doomed and roared as they fought the Tanirians.

The fighting in the moat became equally fierce. The Council of Taniriia had always spared no expense in its "Royal Guard," and the Montani Guard was entirely equipped with three-quarters plate armor. The Veneta swordsmen were also all equipped with half-body armor.

However, the space was too cramped, and it was almost like fighting hand to hand. Many swordsmen and Monta guards simply dropped their swords and axes and drew their short knives to stab and stab at gaps in the armor and ribs where they couldn't be defended.

The soldiers behind pushed the soldiers in front of them together, leaving them nowhere to dodge. The only way to avoid the enemy's thrusting blades was to kill the enemy first.

Don Juan, standing at the back of the crowd, watched the clumsy fighting ahead with growing anxiety. He glanced at the trench walls on either side and shouted, "Go up! Go up! Go up and stab them! Carry me up!"

The soldiers around him lifted the centurion up and carried him outside the trench.

Juan strode forward, reaching the Montani guards, and plunged his sword down from outside the moat toward the neck of one of the Montani guards.

The Monta guards in the moat discovered that their comrades had been stabbed to death and scrambled out of the trench. Lieutenant Juan's hundred-man squad arrived at that moment, and the two sides began to fight each other again outside the trench.

Blood flowed like rivers inside and outside the city moat, making it resemble a meat grinder.

Winters, watching the battle from 200 meters away in the Flesh Mill, felt his mouth go dry and his heart pounding.

Beside Winters stood Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Vauban, who seemed oblivious to the fierce fighting below the city walls, muttering to himself in bewilderment, "How strange..."

Vauban and Winters were positioned at the very front of the gun emplacements, next to one of the eight "alpha wolf" heavy cannons.

Winters was there for a simple reason: Antonio sent him.

“Sebastian Vauban is a master of siege tactics. It will always be beneficial for you to learn more from him.”

That's what Antonio said, so Winters brought twenty soldiers to guard the cannon.

“Uh…” Winters asked, completely bewildered, “Lieutenant Colonel, what do you mean by something strange?”

The roar of cannons interrupted him, and another round of firing followed.

After the bombardment, the heavy artillery crews quickly covered the cannons with wooden palisades, preventing the defenders on the city walls from threatening these powerful weapons.

Meanwhile, the other gunners were busy reloading ammunition.

The gunner first used a long-handled ramrod to scrape out the remaining gunpowder that had not yet burned out from the cannon barrel, and then inserted a wet mop into the muzzle to clean the cannon barrel.

After firing, the cannon barrel is scorching hot, and the water remaining in the barrel will evaporate quickly, not affecting the next shot.

If the manufacturing process is substandard, washing the gun barrel with water can cause internal cracks to widen, potentially leading to a barrel explosion. Inferior artillery can only be cooled with oil, but that would be extremely troublesome.

After the cannon cooled down, the gunners began to reload the gunpowder, seal it tightly with a stopper, insert a wooden cartridge case, and finally load the cannonball.

After the shell was placed in the barrel, the gunner used rags to seal the gap between the shell and the barrel.

Vauban halted the firing and personally adjusted the artillery's firing angle.

After a thunderous roar, the shell landed at a lower point than usual.

After carefully observing the impact point of the shells, Vauban suddenly realized and excitedly said to Winters, "I know what happened..."

"Uh... what are you talking about?"

“I understand what the Tanirians did,” Vobán slapped his thigh. “They piled up dirt behind the city walls!”

“Pile up earth? You mean…” Winters said uncertainly, “You mean to pile up earth behind the city walls to absorb the impact of cannonballs? But that’s not…”

“That’s right! The aftereffects of the cannons bombarding the city walls don’t seem to have the power these heavy cannons should have.” Staring intently at the direction of the city walls, Woban analyzed, “I conducted several more test shots, and the conclusion became clearer with each one. The Tanirians in the city must have increased the thickness of the city walls by piling up earth.”

“But if we pile up earth behind the walls…” Winters pondered, recalling the lessons on siege tactics, “wouldn’t the walls collapse as well? If the earth spills onto the outside of the walls and forms a gentle slope, it would actually make it easier for us to scale the walls?”

“That’s right.” Vauban rubbed his nose, patted the cannon beside him, and said, “I don’t know if William Kidd doesn’t understand this, or if he’s grasping at straws, or if he has other ideas. But in any case, it seems he’s really determined to stick to his guns…”

……

……

After several hours of fierce fighting, both sides were exhausted and had no energy left to continue fighting.

The city wall still stands, but the large gaps and cracks that have been breached foreshadow its inevitable destruction.

The Montagnier Guard, which launched a counterattack, was almost entirely wiped out. Apart from those who didn't manage to attack, only a few managed to escape to the edge of the city wall and were pulled up by the defenders with ropes.

Three trenches were almost completely filled in, so they could no longer hinder the attack.

But the Venetians also paid a heavy price.

The fighting lasted only one day, resulting in nearly 400 casualties, exceeding the total number of Vinetta's troops killed on Chiliuta Island before that.

Moreover, most of the wounded will die in their hospital beds in the following days.

The fierce battle made the siege battle before today seem as easy as a vacation in retrospect.

Major General Antonio Serbiati's order consisted of only one sentence: "Continue tomorrow."

Considering the Siege of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans' first all-out attack on the city walls resulted in approximately 200 casualties (a sympathetic accountant claims that the Ottomans died 18,000 in one day, which is wildly inflated...). Considering that the defenders of Tarbagatai sent elite troops out of the city to counterattack, 400 casualties should be a reasonable estimate... right?
Thank you to all the readers who voted for the book before, especially writersblock, Tianjingtou, Heise Computer Accessories, Tianshui Youjiaren, and Zhengyi Chunjie Shi Koala. Thank you also to Tianjingtou for the donation. Thank you everyone.

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(End of this chapter)