Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 181 Paper-packaged Medicine
The barbarians have gone mad—the Paratists were certain of this.

Teldun's forces no longer distinguished between a main attack and a feint, and instead surrounded the bridgehead from three sides and launched a direct assault.

More than twenty thousand-man squads took turns fighting, with the barbarian chieftain personally leading his guards to oversee the battle.

The fleeing Hed people were shot to death by a hail of arrows after only a few steps.

Moving forward meant certain death, and retreating meant certain death as well; the barbarian's eyes turned red with rage.

Before the barricades in front were even cleared, the people behind brought out crudely made wooden ladders and tried to force their way through the fortress wall.

Initially, they tried to fill the ditch with soil, but that was too slow.

So the barbarians simply pushed the human and horse corpses directly into the trench, and used wooden ladders tied with shields as bridges.

Ultimately, this was just a temporary fortress, lacking both high walls and deep trenches.

Using the tactic of stacking corpses, the Heds quickly filled in the "road," and then ladders were erected on the fortress walls.

Besieged on three sides, the pressure on Plato's army suddenly increased dramatically.

It was only thanks to the four centurions taking turns leading their troops out of the fortress to counterattack—killing the enemy below the walls and clearing away the corpses and sand in the trenches amidst a hail of arrows—that Hart's army was unable to scale the walls.

The results were remarkable, but the cost was equally high, because the Hed people were determined not to miss the opportunity to fight the Parat people at close range.

Each sortie resulted in more than one-fifth of the men never returning, and just as many were wounded.

Of the four centurions, Winters and Bard were wounded one after another. If they hadn't been wearing heavy armor, they would have died countless times already.

Lieutenant Sanu—a fellow countryman of Winters from the sea—was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. His men fought desperately to bring the unconscious lieutenant back to life, but Sanu was no longer capable of fighting.

Lieutenant Ottiba was unfortunately struck by an arrow through his left armpit and died before he could be taken to Father Kaman for treatment.

Two of the five lieutenants inside the fortress were gone, leaving only artillery officer Mason in the safest place, where he was carefully protected.

At this moment, Mason is the most valuable human resource within this earthen fortress.

The sounds of gunfire never ceased a moment ago from the four-cornered bastions and the triangular bastions in front of the gate.

The musketeer's face and hands were covered in soot, as if he had just crawled out of a coal pile.

The prepared propellant has been used up, and how much gunpowder to pour into the barrel now depends entirely on the musketeer's feel.

In this way, an accident would be inevitable.

During the battle, muskets repeatedly exploded, and unfortunate musketeers were killed instantly by shrapnel from the shattered barrels.

Those who survived were left with their faces and hands mangled and bloody.

The soldiers grew increasingly fearful of firearms.

The screams of their comrades still echoed in their ears, making them afraid to aim carefully. More and more musketeers fired their guns haphazardly and that was it.

Winters made a tough decision and simply removed twenty of his most skilled musketeers, assigning them to prepare propellant for the others.

Because the lead bullets had been used up early, a strange scene appeared on the battlefield: guns were firing non-stop in front, while people behind were busy melting lead to cast bullets and packing gunpowder.

So much so that the lead ball was still warm when it was handed to the musketeer.

Because of the lack of wooden tubes, the gunpowder was hastily wrapped in straw paper and sent to the fortress wall.

To save time, a musketeer ignored orders to reuse paper packets—because paper was limited—and tore a small opening in the packet with his teeth to pour gunpowder into the barrel.

According to the firing procedure, the next step should be to wrap the lead bullet in linen and feed it into the chamber.

Still wanting to save time, the musketeer had a sudden inspiration: he wrapped the lead bullet in paper and used a cleaning rod to force it into the barrel.

This saves time that would otherwise be spent cutting the fabric.

Two small improvements significantly increased the musket's loading speed.

Seeing how quick and easy this method was, the musketeer's comrades also followed suit.

Subsequently, more and more musketeers began to follow suit.

Upon discovering that the paper used to wrap the gunpowder was dwindling, the rear guard quickly reported this to Lieutenant Montagne.

Upon learning that someone had deliberately damaged the paper package, Winters, who was stitching up his wound, flew into a rage, grabbed his machete, and strode straight toward the wall.

The stitches from his wound were still hanging on his leg, dangling back and forth.

"Needle! Sir! Don't step on the needle!" The medic chased after him in a panic, but he couldn't catch up with the centurion no matter what he did.

Enraged Lieutenant Montagne just wanted to see which bastard dared to damage the "armor" and then deal with him personally.

But when Winters saw the filling process for the [paper-wrapped medicine], his anger vanished in an instant.

Winters quickly found the musketeer who had first invented the procedure.

The terrified musketeer was brought before "Blood Wolf"—he didn't know the centurion's real name, only his nickname.

The musketeer thought he was doomed and wouldn't escape a beating no matter how lucky he was, but the atmosphere seemed different from what he had imagined.

The musketeer lowered his head nervously, secretly glancing at Blood Wolf out of the corner of his eye.

Blood Wolf sat on an empty gunpowder barrel, his left leg resting on another, while a barber stitched up an arrow wound on his leg.

"What's your name?" the other person asked.

Compared to the various rumors the Musketeer had heard, Blood Wolf's voice was surprisingly gentle.

But the musketeer couldn't help but shudder: "Nemi."

"You're not from Wolf Town, are you?" Blood Wolf gasped, clearly in pain from the stitches. "I can name everyone in Wolf Town." "No."

“You’re not in my hundred-man squad either, are you? I can call almost all of my men.”

“No.” Nemi felt like she had been given a second chance at life: “I’m in Commander Ottiba’s hundred-man squad.”

"Oh." Blood Wolf's expression was somewhat somber. He then asked, "Tearing up the paper packets and using them as projectiles, were you the first to do that?"

Nemi's heart clenched instantly. He swallowed hard and stammered, "Sir, I...I don't know either..."

Seeing the other person's helpless look, Winters guessed that he hadn't picked the wrong person.

“You did a great job. I called you here to reward you.” Although he said he was going to reward you, Winters searched his entire body but couldn’t find any money.

However, having already said it, he was too embarrassed to say, "I didn't bring any money today, I'll give it to you later."

Looking around, Winters had a sudden inspiration, grabbed his saber, and handed it to Nemi.

When he saw Blood Wolf reach for his knife, Nemi shuddered in fright, then realized that Blood Wolf was going to hand him the saber.

"No, no, no!" Nemi retreated repeatedly, waving his hands frantically.

“Why can’t I take it?” Winters explained, “The scabbard is inlaid with gold, and the sword itself is a fine blade. I didn’t bring any money with me today, so I’ll give you this saber as collateral. After this battle, you can come find me with it. If I die, you can keep the sword. You won’t lose out, what do you say?”

"No, I can't accept this! I can't accept this."

“It’s only right to provide collateral when you owe a debt. Here you go.” Winters shoved the saber into Nemi’s hands. “Take your fellow soldiers and go teach the other musketeers. Teach them all. I’ll go get you some more paper.”

……

“What are you going to do?” Father Kaman, clutching his folio, looked at Winters warily and backed away step by step. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Temporarily requisitioned.” Winters pressed on, promising confidently, “When we return to Palatour, I’ll buy you another copy.”

“This is a folio!” Kaman roared – the young priest was losing his temper with Winters for the first time.

[Note: A folio is a book made by cutting a whole sheet of paper in half and binding it together, which is equivalent to what we call a quarter-size book. It is usually used for the most important documents.]
"Fluffy books are great! They have more paper and the quality is better."

"Are you crazy? This is a scripture! Your soldiers dare to stuff pages of a scripture into their gun barrels?"

“It’s alright, they won’t know it’s a scripture if you don’t tell them,” Winters replied earnestly. “They’re illiterate.”

“Don’t take this one, it’s a handwritten scroll.” Kaman retreated to a corner of the tent, with nowhere else to go. He pleaded, “I’ll find you other books, you can have them all, just leave this folio for me.”

"You'll give me the scriptures too?"

"I'll give you the scriptures too."

Winters considered for a moment and nodded: "Okay... but I'll come back for it if I need it."

……

Just as Winters was frantically searching for papers, Mason, who was stacking them on the wall, discovered a serious problem.

Before this, Mason's biggest fear was that the cannon would explode.

A musket exploding might kill one or two people, but a cannon exploding could wipe out everyone on a triangular bunker.

Therefore, Mason strictly controlled the firing rate of the cannon, personally supervised the cooling process, and weighed all the propellant himself.

But now the bigger problem is the gunpowder, not the barrel explosion.

The gunpowder was being consumed faster than Mason had anticipated, and the stockpile was decreasing at a rate almost visible to the naked eye.

There weren't enough shells; the solid shot had long been used up, and there wasn't enough time to recover them.

Nowadays, lead bullets are used as shotgun shells, which is not only wasteful but also causes lead residue.

At this rate, the gunpowder at the bridgehead will run out before nightfall.

Even without gunpowder, the Hud people could overwhelm the Parat people simply by sheer numbers.

The war had escalated to the point where it resembled a personal feud. No one cared about the initial cause; both sides were focused on one thing: to kill the other completely.

The small fortress of Jeska was like a magnet, firmly attracting thousands of Hed cavalry.

The Terdun tribe's will was remarkably strong, and they attacked the bridgehead wave after wave.

The barricades were removed, the trenches were filled in, the breastworks were all lost, and ladders could now be erected on the fortress walls.

Mason had no doubt that they could maintain this offensive until sunset.

The few officers still capable of action held an emergency meeting and came to only one conclusion: "The plan must be changed."

The back gate of the bridgehead quietly opened, and a Dussac cavalryman galloped out, heading straight for the south bank of the Beihui River.

When the light cavalry returned, they were accompanied by Andrea Cellini's cavalry unit, each rider carrying two barrels of gunpowder on his horse.

Among the nearly one hundred cavalrymen was an old soldier dressed in ordinary soldier's armor, but whose temples were already gray.

As soon as the veteran entered the fortress, he went straight to the brigade command post located on the south wall of the fortress.

As he stepped into the battalion command post, the veteran roared angrily, "Jeska! You've got some nerve!"

The one-eyed lieutenant colonel sprang up from his chair as if by reflex.

General Sackler has arrived.

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(End of this chapter)