Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 438 The Great Alliance Marches Forward (Part 11)

The soft, creamy-yellow curtain wall gradually encroached on Elno's view, eventually taking it completely over.

The earth stood solemnly silent, the oppressive atmosphere more suffocating than the thick smoke.

Elno stared intently at the opposite bank of the river, but he couldn't actually see anything.

Sweat seeped uncontrollably from his palms and fingers, making the gunstock damp and sticky. After hesitating for a long time, Erno finally loosened his grip like a thief on his first attempt, then quickly wiped his hands haphazardly on his trousers.

Just then, a human-shaped silhouette suddenly leaped out of the wheat field on the opposite bank and fled towards the valley village where Elno was located.

"They're here!" The figure jumped into the river, tumbling and scrambling as it ran, shouting frantically, "They're here!"

With his heart pounding in his throat and his fingers already on the launcher, Erno finally realized that the man was actually a hidden sentry his superiors had placed on the other side of the river.

The sentry's desperate warning was like an invisible hand pulling back the curtain; in the wheat field where nothing could be seen before, dark shadows suddenly appeared.

Those dark figures floated between the waves of wheat and the low-pressure smoke layer, neither shouting nor hiding, slowly approaching Elno.

It felt as if all the blood in his body rushed to his neck, making Erno's head feel dizzy and throbbing. Sweat instantly broke out on his back and forehead, and his heart clenched into a fist.

"The enemy!" Only one thought remained in his mind: "The enemy!!!"

"Fire!" Lieutenant Woods' command rang in my ears: "All units! Free fire!"

Erno's fingertips stung inexplicably; he didn't know if he was trembling. But in any case, he smoothly attached the match cord, steadied the gun, and pried open the powder bath lid.

Aiming at the dark humanoid figure in the distance, Elno pressed the launch stick, his heart pounding.

"boom!"

Everyone heard the first thunderous roar from Ernor's arquebus.

As if on cue, the crackling explosions shattered the peace.

The low wall was briefly illuminated by the muzzle flashes, and the smoke seemed to be pushed hard, its spread abruptly halted.

Immediately following, the war drums on the opposite bank of the river began to sound, and the dark figures stopped walking slowly. They roared and charged toward the valley village.

"Ah, it's starting, finally..."

Colonel Bode, who was in charge of the overall battle, Colonel Gaisa, who was in charge of the southern battlefield, Colonel Skool, who was in charge of the northern battlefield, Lieutenant Woods, who was defending River Valley, Captain Loson, who was waiting for the order to attack, and every officer on the battlefield had the same idea.

However, Erno, crouching behind the wall, was not as sentimental as the officer, nor did he have the leisure to ponder where Plato would go after today. He couldn't be blamed, for no one had ever explained to him why this battle was necessary.

Erno simply loaded, fired, and reloaded mechanically, just as he did during training.

The entire perimeter wall was shrouded in choking smoke, and it was unclear whether the enemy had released more smoke or the smoke from their own fire was thicker.

Each time Erno pulled the trigger, he would briefly disperse the smoke in front of him, allowing him to glimpse the opposite bank. But the smoke billowing from the muzzle would quickly blend back into the thick fog, just like the gunshots mixed in with the shouts of battle—appearing briefly and disappearing just as fast.

After the first volley, the musketeers of Baishan County began firing freely, with only sporadic gunfire heard along the wall.

With this level of firepower alone, it would be impossible to stop the charging enemy, or even slow them down.

While most of the musketeers were still shoving their second lead bullets into the barrels, the parliamentary soldiers at the forefront had already jumped into the raging torrent, wading through thigh-deep water, and charged toward the other side with their weapons in hand.

Hearing the sounds of splashing water coming from behind the smoke screen, Woods suddenly realized: he had just wasted the most crucial first volley.

However, Woods had no time to regret it. He banished his frustration from his mind, kicked the woven basket behind the wall, and pulled out a palm-sized iron weight from it.

"Grenade launcher!" Woods shouted with all his might, his voice even becoming strangely shrill: "Ready!"

However, in the noisy battlefield, one person's shout is insignificant, and only Elnor and a few other soldiers around Woods heard the lieutenant's order.

Erno hurriedly abandoned his musket, took an iron weight from his basket, and shouted, "Grenades—ready!"

Soldiers stationed on other sections of the wall also acted as communication devices, their shouts echoing through the smoke: "Grenades—ready!"

The enemy soldiers at the forefront had already waded through the water and reached the riverbank.

For the first time, Erno saw what the "enemy" looked like—similar to him, with two arms and one head, mostly wearing undyed linen clothes, their faces twisted and grotesque from fear and violent breathing.

What Lieutenant Woods, who was next to Elno, observed was that the puppet government soldiers only had a light short weapon hanging from their waists, and that they carried simple ladders and shields in groups of several people.

The ladders and shields were not new equipment prepared on the spot. Although most of the puppet government soldiers were not armored, their actions showed that they were no strangers to siege warfare.

"Has Bazenaul fallen?" Woods' heart sank, and his last hope for his allies vanished. "Then there will be no more reinforcements."

"Today! It's just us!" Woods roared as he stood up, exposing most of his body to the enemy, and hurled a lit grenade onto the riverbank: "Victory or death!"

The other soldiers followed suit and threw grenades.

Lieutenant Woods had already learned his lesson once, so this time he waited until the second group of enemy soldiers stepped onto the riverbank and the first group had reached the edge of the high ground before ordering the bombs to be dropped.

A soldier from the newly reclaimed land regiment, who had just run across the wheat field and crossed the river with the people in front of him, looked up and saw many dark shadows flying out from the high slope.

He initially thought it was a rock and instinctively covered his head. But the black iron lump that landed in front of him had a hissing "rope" hanging from its rear.

The soldier from the newly established regiment immediately grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at the rope—he had seen something similar in Bazenaul. The garrison there used it frequently, and he had learned how to deal with it.

The mud dampened the fuse in the hemp rope, extinguishing it, but the hissing sound continued!

The New Reclamation Army soldier turned around in horror as another grenade exploded behind him.

A series of muffled explosions rang out, sending bits of flesh and mud flying into the air before drizzling down behind the low wall and into the river, like a light rain.

The shockwave swept away the thick smoke that had enveloped the riverbank, allowing both sides to briefly see the horrific scene on the riverbank:

Although some grenades that fell into puddles did not explode, and although the fuses of some grenades were extinguished by quick-thinking parliamentary soldiers, all the grenades that successfully detonated caused terrible casualties.
On the soft soil, there were irregular small craters everywhere caused by the explosion. Shrapnel poked the ground around the craters with holes, like wet marks left by water droplets falling on a stone.

Wounded soldiers with severed limbs rolled and screamed in agony, while many more had multiple holes in their bodies, blood soaking the fabric around the wounds, their lives rapidly slipping away from those holes.

Woods was shocked by the victory, and Elno pulled him down from his feet. On the east bank of the nameless stream, the Grand Council's musketeers had arrived on the battlefield. As the smoke was dispelled by the shockwave, Woods, with most of his body exposed outside the breastwork, appeared before them.

Following orders to prioritize shooting officers, they immediately set up their muskets and opened fire on the shorter officer on the opposite bank.

Woods had just been pulled back behind the breastwork by Elnor when he heard a series of gunshots coming from the opposite bank.

Some lead bullets flew over his head, while the rest hit the wall and sank deep into the soft mud mixed with hay.

Only after dragging Lieutenant Woods to a safe position did Elno manage to utter a complete sentence: "Lieutenant! Watch out!"

Woods, belatedly realizing what was happening, paused for a moment, then nodded gratefully.

The Parliamentarian army's offensive momentum faltered, and the soldiers—a hundred men or so—abandoned their siege equipment and retreated to the opposite bank.

Most of the wounded soldiers—also roughly a hundred men—were dragged away, leaving only a few crippled and completely incapacitated wounded soldiers to die on the riverbank.

Cheers erupted behind the mud-covered walls as the enemy began to retreat.

However, at the same time, large numbers of Grand Council musketeers dressed in light brown coats also appeared on the opposite bank of the river.

As a white military flag with red cross stripes came into view, the Grand Council soldiers moved with even greater order and discipline.

The Grand Council's musketeers used the paddy field ridges to suppress the defenders on the opposite high ground, while simultaneously driving thick wooden planks into the paddy field ridges along the river, transforming the earthen ridges used by the villagers for demarcation and flood control into temporary breast walls.

With the Grand Council soldiers who attacked the "two sides" of the Jizi River bend temporarily retreating, the battle along the river valley village quickly turned into a firefight between musketeers of the two armies across the river.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Woods ordered an inventory of ammunition and the transfer of wounded soldiers, while also re-inspecting his defensive lines.

The lieutenant's ears were filled with chaotic gunfire and screams, along with the continuous wails of dying soldiers on the riverbank.

Before long, the pitiful cries of agony disappeared, leaving only the sounds of gunfire and the screams of those who had been shot.

Having repelled the enemy's first attack, Woods' soldiers were in high spirits and were no longer as hesitant to fire at the enemy on the opposite bank as before.

Unfortunately, the lieutenant could not share in his men's joy, because he knew very well that it was just a probing attack, the purpose of which was to find out the strength of the defending forces.

As the enemy's positions on the opposite bank of the river are consolidated, the subsequent attacks will become increasingly fierce.

And how many more times can his troops' ammunition reserves—especially those good hand-thrown grenades—last?
Woods began to regret it. He regretted not asking for more when Captain Winters Montagne sent the batch of grenades.

While a hand-thrown grenade may look like just a lump of iron, its manufacture is actually quite difficult. It can be made by either punching out two iron shells and then forging them together, or by casting it as a single piece. The former is labor-intensive and time-consuming, while the latter is incredibly difficult.

Therefore, Baishan County could neither manufacture hand-thrown grenades nor use the tactics of hand-thrown grenades.

The outer casings of the hand-thrown grenades used by the garrison in Baishan County all came from Tiefeng County. Some were delivered as payment in trade between the two counties; the rest were sent by Winters Montagne on his own initiative when the troops were divided.

The "hand-thrown grenades" that Tiefeng County brought out for barter were far from satisfactory in terms of power. They would split in two upon detonation, making them less effective than the old-fashioned large iron-cased bombs.

Therefore, merchants in White Mountain County had been buying the grenade casings supplied by Iron Peak County as iron. At one point, people in White Mountain County suspected that Venetta had created this thing in order to sell the iron at a higher price.

However, the new batch of grenades sent by Winters Montagne was clearly not the same as the old ones.

Lieutenant Woods returned to his frontline command post—a fortified hull converted from a sheep pen—and picked up a grenade from a basket, still without a fuse, examining the dark iron casing in his hand.

He instinctively wanted to know what improvements the Iron Peak County people had made to it, but he was more concerned with how to make the remaining grenades more effective.

Woods urgently summoned two "designated centurions" and fourteen sergeants from the First Infantry Battalion of White Mountain County.

"Enough with the nonsense." The lieutenant surveyed his men. If the First Battalion were a human body, then the sixteen men in front of him would be the skeleton supporting it. "The new batch of grenades sent from Tiefeng County is good stuff; we must make the most of it. There were too many unexploded ordnance earlier. When you get back, cut the fuses off half of all the grenades."

“Sir,” a commissioned centurion replied in a low voice, “I’m afraid it’s not a problem with the fuse. I just saw those guys in new clothes stomp out the fuse with their feet. They’ve seen this stuff before and know how to deal with it.”

"That's why I told you to cut the fuse in half, to give them no time to react." Woods thought for a moment, then slapped his knee. "How about this—go back and pick out the brightest and strongest soldiers, and have them specialize in throwing grenades. Hmm... and assign someone else to light them. One person throws, one person lights, so some idiots don't throw grenades like stones. How can they possibly explode loudly if they're thrown into water?"

"Yes!"

"I've already sent someone to the colonel, requesting that he collect all the grenades from the other battalions and give them to us." Woods earnestly asked his subordinates beside him, "What suggestions do you have?"

The appointed centurion and his soldiers looked at each other in silence, unsure whether they had the right to speak.

These veterans knew perfectly well that the only reason they were promoted to sergeant or even officer was that the army in Baishan County was expanding too rapidly and was severely lacking in commanders, while they possessed combat experience. No officer wanted to hear their opinions, nor did any officer want to see them giving orders.

“Speak up!” Woods clapped his hands encouragingly. “Don’t be afraid!”

"Sir," a sergeant mustered his courage and spoke, pointing to the east: "There are more and more musketeers on the other side of the river, and our men are already being suppressed to the point of being unable to raise their heads."

As they were talking, lead bullets fired from the opposite bank struck the wall beside them, making a series of "thud" sounds.
The sergeant suggested, "The musketeers from Thundercrow County are just sitting around doing nothing. Could we ask them to come and help as well?"

Woods considered for a moment, then nodded: "Okay. What about the others? Don't you have anything to say?"

“At this rate of consumption, the gunpowder will run out sooner or later.” Another commissioned centurion said in a hoarse voice, “We’d better prepare as much as possible now. Once the fighting starts at the colonel’s place, I’m afraid no one will be able to take care of us.”

“Indeed.” Woods thought for a moment. “However, we need to find a safe place to store the gunpowder.”

"How about the church in the center of the village? It's very sturdy."

Woods was about to agree, but then he changed his mind and shook his head: "No, let's go somewhere else."

The centurions and soldiers were given some more courage and each suggested a location.

Just as Woods was about to make a decision, he heard Elno shout in terror from inside Fort Dew: "They're here again! Lieutenant! So many people!"

On the east bank of the nameless stream, battle flags fluttered in the lingering smoke.

Accompanied by deafening war drums, hundreds of soldiers in light brown coats, carrying siege equipment, surged towards the small hill where the river valley village was located from three directions like a giant wave overflowing a dam.

Woods looked up at the sky; the sun hung high in the sky, coldly watching the human tragedy.

"Here we go again, of course it's happening again," Woods muttered to himself. "It's far from over."

[The intuition of the people of Baishan County was correct. The reason why Tiefeng County manufactured grenades that they knew were not very effective was twofold: firstly, "something is better than nothing," and secondly, to add some value to the iron materials... The production capacity was there, so why not use it? Simply selling iron materials would be too unprofitable.]
[A reader asked about the relative skill levels of Woods and Mason in defensive warfare. Well… Lieutenant Woods is indeed the best defensive warfare expert in the three southeastern counties, but only in the three southeastern counties. And the three counties… have never engaged in a siege or siege battle.]
[Therefore, in the three southeastern counties, there are some officers skilled in offense, but for those skilled in defense... only Woods stands out.]
[Up to this point in the campaign, Woods lacked practical experience. Even with his solid theoretical foundation and quick thinking, he was still prone to making mistakes. However, he was adept at learning from his errors and summarizing his experiences.]
[The officers of Iron Peak County all knew that selecting soldiers with good physical strength and concentrating their use of grenades would be remarkably effective. Blue Rose, who absorbed a large number of remnants of the expeditionary force, also pointed out the technique of "large-scale use of fragmentation grenades in siege warfare."]
[Even in actual combat, the attacking parliamentary forces summarized some experience and tricks for countering grenades, such as stomping them out, splashing water, and cutting the fuse (Note: There are indeed such methods and records for dealing with grenades with exposed fuses in this plane)]
[However, the relevant military concepts did not spread to White Mountain County, so White Mountain County remained stuck with the old ways. But when Lieutenant Woods received the new type of grenade, he immediately thought of the most effective use—this could perhaps be called the convergent evolution of military technology.]
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(End of this chapter)