Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 565 Siege (XVII)

At a glance, Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk realized the urgency of the situation.

"Captain Welf!" Lodewijk called his best centurion by name without hesitation. "Take your men into the water from the north! Protect the stockade!"

The lieutenant who was called saluted briefly and began to take off his breastplate without saying a word, then his clothes, pants and boots, leaving only his helmet. His subordinates did the same.

The nearly naked centurion, leading a team of nearly naked centurions, strode down the river bank, clenched his dagger in his teeth, climbed up the wooden stakes, climbed over the fence, and swam straight to the "rebel" boat.

A fierce battle broke out in the water.

The engineers from Tiefeng County beside the fence had no time to chop the chains. On the shore, the federal musketeers opened fire at them, and in the water, federal soldiers also surrounded them.

Some engineers hurriedly retreated to the longboats, and several large boats also rowed hard towards the horse-blocking piles, trying to pick up their comrades.

But more engineers had no time to retreat and could only fight to the death.

Then, the naked Senas people waved their arms clumsily in the water like newborn babies, hacking, stabbing, crying and shouting at each other.

The blood dyed the river red, but at night, all that could be seen was pitch black.

A federal soldier swam to the stern of a small boat, grabbed the cable hanging in the air, and tried to cut the thick cable with the dagger in his hand.

On the big boat, the soldier at the helm immediately dropped the rudder, picked up the oar, and smashed it hard at the enemy in the water. With just one hit, the opponent's head was dented.

It was as if all the bones in the body were broken in an instant. The body of the federal soldier suddenly became limp and could no longer maintain balance. He was pushed sideways by the water flow.

But for some reason, his left hand was still tightly gripping the cable, like a horsetail hanging on the cable, with half of his body above water and half under water.

The sergeant on the longboat gritted his teeth and hit the federal soldier's hand once, twice, and three times. He was sure that he had smashed the bones of the hand into pieces, but the federal soldier's body was still hanging on the cable.

Before the sergeant could hit the water for the fourth time, another federal soldier jumped out of the water from under the sergeant's feet, grabbed the sergeant's calf, and dragged the sergeant into the river.

The same thing was happening around every large boat. The Tiefeng County soldiers on the boats used spears to stab and oars to hit, desperately attacking the people from the United Provinces in the water.

The federal soldiers in the water were also trying to drag the "rebel" soldiers on the small boat into the water and kill them.

A federal soldier had just put his hand on the side of the boat when four of his fingers were cut off by a sharp shovel.

A soldier from Tiefeng County had just pierced an enemy's trachea when he was dragged into the river by the dying enemy and then stabbed to death by a crowd of soldiers.

The will of both sides was stronger than the other side expected, and the battle inevitably fell into the most brutal war of attrition.

At the same time, on the river bank, the musketeers of both armies were firing fiercely to cover their own soldiers.

The musketeers from the Federation fired at the boats, while the musketeers from Tiefeng County fired at the water. However, the battle situation was so chaotic that they had no idea whether they were hitting their comrades or the enemy.

In the water, Captain Welf saw that the "rebels" on the boat were resisting fiercely, so he ordered some of his men to continue swimming for a distance to the center of the river, away from the boat, to cut the ropes where oars and spears could not reach.

However, farther away from the longboat, the cable is higher above the river surface.

The federal soldiers struggled in the water, and their fingertips almost touched the cable several times, but they were just a little bit short.

On the longboat, a sergeant heard the sound of splashing water in the distance. He looked closely and found that the federal man was hanging on the cable in a difficult posture, cutting the rope in his hand with a dagger.

"Turn around!" the sergeant yelled at the top of his lungs. "Turn around now!"

However, no one was able to carry out his orders. Most of the ships at the disposal of the Tiefeng County Group were small fishing boats and sampans, which were easily overturned by the people from the United Provinces.

The few large boats that were available were also entangled by the Federal Provinces. The soldiers on the boats were fighting for their lives and had no time to operate the boats.

Seeing this, the soldier tied a rope to the end of the spear, stepped on the other end of the rope, held the spear upside down, took a deep breath, bent his body like a bow, roared, and threw the spear in his hand directly at the federal people in the distance.

This throw was like a divine help.

The targeted federal soldier saw the movements of the people on the boat, but he was in the water and had no leverage. He had no time to dodge and could only watch the spear pierce his chest. The federal soldier was thrown directly into the water. The severe pain made him instinctively grasp the spear shaft in front of his chest, but his strength and his life quickly drained from his body, and he was carried by the water and drifted downstream.

On the other side, the soldier on the boat tried to drag back the spear, but he was almost pulled into the water. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and let go in time.

But because of this, he lost his only weapon.

The people from the Federation in the water also noticed this and they quickly surrounded them.

The sergeant cursed loudly and tried to remove a piece of plank, but the boat was built very solidly and no matter how hard he tried, it didn't move at all.

Just when the situation became desperate, a few loud shouts were suddenly heard in the distance, and then the federal people turned around in unison and gave up the siege of the longboat.

It turned out that Tamas and Mason on the other side of the river discovered the actions of the Federalists and urgently sent a company of reinforcements.

In the absence of boats and with the only way to swim, nearly half of the soldiers either fell behind or were swept away by the current. However, half of the company of soldiers still managed to swim to the east bank to support their comrades in distress.

With the addition of fresh troops, the main battlefield immediately shifted from the small boats and sharp wooden stakes to the river.

The best centurion under Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk and half of the main company of the Tiefeng County Regiment engaged in a melee in the water.

Now, no musketeer on the shore dared to fire into the water, because they could no longer distinguish between friend and foe.

So, the musketeers on both sides turned their guns and aimed at the local musketeers on the other side of the river.

The firepower that the new army positions on the west bank were subjected to suddenly became more than ten times more intense than before.

The lead bullets hit the river bank and the breastwork, raising waves of earth.

Because of the rush to complete the work, the floating bridge, which had to be lit with a large number of torches, was also given special attention.

  From time to time, engineers building the bridge were hit by stray bullets. Those who were lucky enough not to be hit in vital areas were immediately carried back to the river bank for treatment.

Those who were unlucky would just let out a light groan, fall into the river, and disappear under the waves in the blink of an eye.

The Federal Provinces' musketeers soon discovered that it was impossible to suppress the musketeers on the other side by just aimless shooting.

More and more Federal Provincial Musketeers began to target the "rebel" engineers exposed outside the bunkers.

Geisa Adonis saw it all and was worried.

"You don't need your baby yet?" Geisa suppressed his emotions and asked in a tone that would not put pressure on the major as much as possible.

Seeing the engineers he had brought with him working hard in the hail of bullets, Mason felt more heartbroken than Geisa.

But he still shook his head firmly, "It's not the right time yet."

On Margit Island, Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk has organized the second wave of commandos.

His best centuries had halted the rebels' efforts to destroy the water barriers and disrupted their use of boats and sampans to ferry follow-up troops.

Now, Lieutenant Colonel Lodewijk decided to send his second-best centurion into battle.

In proud silence, the fully armed United Provinces sword and shield soldiers ran down the river bank and rushed towards the "rebel" landing site.

Mason keenly captured the enemy commander's movements, and his intuition told him that this was a target worth exposing his "treasure".

"Fire!" Mason ordered sternly.

The gunners removed the gun covers.

The heavy artillery of the new army, which understood the value of silence better than the regular army of the Federation, issued a deafening roar.

  [From the perspective of the new army, a sampan refers to a small boat with a very small cabin or even no cabin at all, relying entirely on its own buoyancy, and can carry 1-2 people; a small boat refers to a small fishing boat that can barely seat 3-5 people; a longboat refers to a transportation boat that can seat about 10 people and can accommodate two rows of people rowing, built according to military specifications]

[To put it another way, a sampan is a canoe that can be used by only one fisherman; a skiff is a real fishing boat that can accommodate two fishermen casting nets and has enough space to hold the catch; a longboat is a larger transport boat]

[From the perspective of the Southern Front, sampans, small boats, and longboats are all small boats that are not worthy of being on the stage.]

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