Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 97 The Engineer Lieutenant Colonel and the Tinker
On the first day after the small-scale battle that took place in the city moat, both sides sent people to collect the bodies, but neither side took any action.

The next day, the garrison sent men out again to dig a moat.

This time, however, it wasn't late at night, but rather during the daytime that they started their operation in a grand and bustling manner.

Clearly, the defenders had keenly perceived the weaknesses of the Venetians: they lacked artillery, had too few cannon fodder units, and were short of cavalry.

Therefore, there is absolutely no need to deceive oneself by working at night; on the contrary, the Venetians can take advantage of the darkness to get closer.

They simply worked during the day, as the guards on the city walls could clearly see the movements of the Venetians from their elevated position.

The defenders seemed to be spreading their legs and saying to the Venetians, "Come on, come on, don't refuse."

On the city walls, the Half Moon Fortress, and the Triangle Fortress, the Allied soldiers were on high alert. The cannons and muskets were loaded, the crossbows were strung, and bundles of arrows were stacked around the archers.

Clearly, if the Venetians were willing to risk being hit by lead bullets and arrows to seize the moat, the city's defenders would be more than happy to make the exchange.

On the parapet of Venetta, Layton was so angry he almost smashed it to pieces. He cursed, "[Indistinct profanities]! How dare those Tannis underestimate us! Send a whole battalion! This time, we'll make sure they never dare to leave their homes again!"

“If we send troops to kill those in the moat, we’ll probably be playing right into William Kidd’s hands.” Antonio, however, smiled. “Rost [Layton’s name], what kind of people do you think are in the moat right now?”

"Stop beating around the bush! You're always talking in riddles with me, it's so annoying! Just say what you mean!" Layton didn't respond at all, and glared at Antonio fiercely.

Antonio was unfazed, clearly used to his old classmate's volatile temper. He answered his own question, "William Kidd would never send his own soldiers out. The moat is probably full of miners who originally lived in Tower City. Every miner we kill is one less mouth to feed. William Kidd is really making a good deal by trying to trade extra mouths for the lives of our soldiers."

"Then what should we do?" Layton glared again.

Antonio tapped rhythmically on the surface of the parapet with his fingers: "This is an open conspiracy. They're launching an attack during the day to kill our assault team more efficiently. How far are we from the wall, you can estimate?"

"About half a kilometer."

"This distance is already within the effective range of artillery, not to mention that the Alliance's artillery positions are on higher ground. Why aren't the cannons on Half Moon Fortress and Triangle Fortress firing at us? Why are they just watching us build siege walls?"

Layton's nostrils flared as he snapped, "Still playing riddles? Are you never going to stop?"

"Think, my friend, think. The younger generation is watching, don't be so impatient."

"Get lost."

Seeing that Layton was about to explode, Antonio patted his arm and explained, "The gunpowder in Tower City is definitely running low. So the enemy is waiting for the opportunity to inflict maximum damage on our troops; otherwise, they would have already bombarded us with cannons. We have fewer soldiers, so we can't waste them. William Kidd has less gunpowder, so he can't waste it either. This move is simply to lure us closer to the city walls..."

"Stop talking nonsense and get to the conclusion," Layton said impatiently.

“We’ll do whatever William Kidd wants us to do. We don’t have cannons right now, and the enemy has less gunpowder, so it doesn’t really matter.” Antonio dusted off his hands. “There’s no need to send troops to kill the miners in the moat. After last night’s battle, they were forced to leave the city to work, so no one will work hard. Besides, these miners who resent the Federation might be very useful to us.”

Layton's eyes widened like a bull's: "So we're just going to watch Tanny fortify the city?"

“Since William Kidd can send people to dig moats, we can do civil engineering too,” António said casually. “Whatever the enemy does, we will do too. We will never follow their plans and see who is afraid of whom.”

That afternoon, as the garrison that had been on guard of the city walls all morning began to tire, the fortifications of the Venetians, a few hundred meters away, began to approach the city walls.

The Union soldiers on guard duty at the triangular fort noticed something amiss with the enemy opposite and hurriedly summoned their superiors. After being reported up the chain of command, William Kidd, the highest-ranking commander of the Talon garrison, arrived at the triangular fort in front of the city gate—the closest point to the Venetians' fortified walls.

After observing carefully for a while, Captain Kidd finally understood what Venetta was doing. He slammed his hand hard on the earthen wall of the triangular fortress and cursed, "[the most vulgar pirate swear word]!"

Directly opposite the city gate and the triangular fortress, the Venetians had made an opening in the earthen wall and were building a passageway that was inclined at a 45-degree angle to the line connecting the city gate, the triangular fortress, and the opening.

This is why the first sentry to discover it reported that "the enemy's earthen wall is approaching us."

In Tacheng, the Tanilians are working hard to dig trenches.

However, outside the city, the Venetians were also building walls in full swing.

The most advantageous defensive feature of Tacheng was not its city walls, but its foundation. The entire city sits on a large volcanic rock, and the soil from the weathering of the rock has been blown to lower ground by strong sea winds.

Therefore, the soil around the city was extremely thin, even too thin to be cultivated, and beneath the soil was hard volcanic rock. The attacking side could neither dig trenches to get closer to the city walls nor use tunneling and blasting to destroy the walls.

The attacking forces had to cross the hard, open area in front of the city walls, during which they would be completely exposed to the defenders' long-range firepower, being killed by bouncing cannonballs and flying projectiles and arrows.

However, when people are pushed to the limit, they will come up with any solution.

Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Vauban, who had just been transferred to the Road Construction Countermeasures Headquarters, was called back to the siege front before he could even settle into his new position. Cornered by two major generals, Lieutenant Colonel Vauban racked his brains and came up with an alternative: since they couldn't dig trenches, they would build walls and trenches on the surface.

Simply put, it involves building passageways between the two side walls. Although this is much more laborious than digging trenches, it is currently the only solution.

After hearing Vauban's proposal, Layton immediately decided: Let's do it!
In Rost Layton's view, "It's better to advance once than to stop once," and it's always better to have something to do than to just watch the enemy dig trenches.

However, this hastily decided plan was extremely impractical, and when it was put into practice, it caused a great deal of engineering problems.

First, this is building a tunnel right under the enemy's nose. The enemy might tolerate the Venetta army being half a kilometer outside the city, but they would never tolerate the Venetta army continuing to build tunnels closer to the city.

Digging trenches provides a natural barrier to block direct fire, but building walls does not, and rammed earth walls are too slow to construct.

While being bombarded by enemy cannons, they also rammed the earth with slabs; no one has such resilient nerves.

Fortunately, Vauban had a flash of inspiration and drew inspiration from the engineering techniques of dam construction, and invented an innovative way of building walls.

Lieutenant Colonel Woban used local materials, weaving a roughly cylindrical cage from the dense vines and flexible branches in the island's forest. He first filled the cage with large pieces of gravel, then filled the gaps with smaller pieces of gravel, and finally pressed it down with soil.

By laying the cages flat on the ground and stacking them layer by layer, a temporary wall can be quickly constructed.

The length of the cage is the same as the thickness of the wall; a one-meter-long cage can withstand the fire of muskets and light artillery.

Although these crudely constructed walls would certainly collapse over time, no one expected them to stand forever; it would be enough if they lasted until the end of the siege. To allow soldiers to construct the walls more safely, Lieutenant Colonel Vauban invented a "mobile wall."

This involves loading a farm cart with soil, pushing it to the front of the construction site, and jamming the axle to form a temporary shelter wall.

This mobile wall was used not only to block enemy shells, but also to obstruct the enemy's line of sight. Engineers then quickly built a passageway behind the wall using baskets of earth and stones.

Once the passageway at the current location is repaired, the trolley will continue to be pushed forward to the next location to continue operations.

Once William Kidd understood what the Venettas were up to, he immediately ordered an artillery barrage on the Venetta fortifications that were extending toward the city.

The Venetians' fortifications were only about 500 meters from the city walls, a distance at which even a light cannon weighing three or four pounds could achieve near-accuracy.

The four-pound cannon on the triangular fortress fired first, and the four-pound iron ball flew in a parabola over the heads of the Venetians, landing far behind the fortifications, hitting nothing but air and the ground.

Upon seeing this, the gunner immediately adjusted the wooden wedge placed at the breech of the barrel, and after reloading, the four-pounder roared for the second time.

The shell hit the four-wheeled cart full of mud directly, the iron shell pierced the cart's deck and became deeply embedded in the soil.

The truck shuddered, and the axles and spokes groaned under the impact. One of the wheels broke off.

The four-wheeled cart tipped over in one corner, with the other end sticking up high, spilling dirt out... But that was it. The Venetians dragged the cart away and pushed another one up.

The gunner adjusted the angle again, and this time the shell flew under the four-wheeled cart, which should theoretically kill several of the Venetas behind the cart.

However, the enemy seemed like a stone that would never shed blood, remaining unmoved and continuing the construction of the tunnel.

William Kidd angrily slammed his fist on the earthen wall of the triangular fort.

After the initial calibration shot, two more shots hit their mark. The gunner's skill and luck were beyond question. However, Veneta seemed... not to feel any pain.

William Kidd ordered the use of eight-pound cannons, but the first two hits seemed to have exhausted his luck. The eight-pound cannons were firing either too low or too high.

An eight-pound shell hit the wagon directly, but it didn't cause the Venetians any trouble.

Seeing that the Venetians' tunnel had been repaired for some distance, William Kidd then ordered the eight-pound cannons to bombard the walls on both sides of the repaired tunnel.

However, shooting at the tunnel walls was even less effective, because Lieutenant Colonel Vauban deliberately made the tunnel meander left and right, like a snake approaching the city wall.

While this increased the workload, it also prevented the cannons on the city wall from firing directly at the passageway.

The eight-pound cannons positioned on the triangular bunker could only bombard the tunnel walls at a wide angle, and all of them were deflected by the walls.

Seeing this, William Kidd went to Half Moon Fort on the east side of the city wall. Half Moon Fort's cannons were farther from the passageway, but the angle of incidence between the trajectory of the cannonballs and the wall was greater.

Sure enough, firing from Halfmoon Fort into the tunnel was even less effective. William Kidd, heartbroken over the loss of gunpowder, prayed that the next shot would hit the tunnel wall directly.

Finally, an eight-pound iron ball slid through the air in a beautiful arc and slammed hard against the side wall of the passageway.

The immense force of the cannonball ripped a large section of the side wall apart, and the long-suppressed defenders on the city wall erupted in a deafening cheer.

However, their laughter soon turned to silence as the Venetians brought out more baskets filled with earth and stones and quickly repaired the blasted walls.

Left with no other option, William Kidd called a halt to the shelling; he couldn't afford to waste gunpowder bombarding an earthen wall hundreds of meters away.

On the Venetian side, Major General Layton laughed heartily and patted Vobban on the shoulder: "Gold will shine sooner or later. With your abilities, a lieutenant colonel in the reserve corps is clearly beneath you. Do a good job, and if you take Tacheng, I'll promote you to colonel!"

“The further the tunnel goes, the closer it gets to the city wall, the more difficult it becomes to build.” Lieutenant Colonel Woban shook his head with a wry smile and said, “I’m just a tinkerer. Wherever there’s a problem, I try to fix it. I just hope that if we can’t build it any further in the future, you won’t send me to court-martial.”

“Every meter your tunnel advances will reduce casualties in the subsequent battles,” Antonio said gently. “We know how difficult this plan is; just do your best. After the war, General Layton and I will jointly recommend you for commendation.”

Second Lieutenant Otto Skorzeny, an engineer, rushed over, saluted the three senior officers, and anxiously reported, "Sir, our wall seems to be too high. I've observed that the bottommost cages can't withstand the weight of the earth and rocks above and are about to break!"

Vauban, Antony, and Layton immediately rushed to the location of the dangerous wall discovered by Lieutenant Otto. After careful observation and testing, Lieutenant Colonel Vauban confirmed, "It's really no good. There are too many heavy objects on top, and the cages at the bottom can't withstand it."

Antonio asked, "How about we remove a few layers and make the soldiers bend over to move?"

"The height of the wall is what I calculated. If the wall were lower, the corners wouldn't be able to properly conceal the passageway," Lieutenant Colonel Woban explained helplessly.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Layton asked impatiently.

Woban pondered in silence for a moment, then slowly said, “I see no signs of cracking in the third layer below, which means that removing two layers of cages will ensure the stability of the wall structure. After removing two layers of cages from the top of the wall, we can dig a shallow trench between the walls, two cages deep. This is equivalent to indirectly increasing the height of the wall. At the same time, the excavated soil and stones can be used to build the wall, saving time in transporting soil and stones from the rear. It’s a win-win situation.”

Layton was overjoyed when he heard Vauban's idea. His face quickly brightened, and he happily punched Lieutenant Colonel Vauban on the shoulder: "You've got some quick wit, kid."

The slender engineering lieutenant colonel, Woban, gasped after being punched by the burly Layton. He said bitterly, "Don't praise me yet. If we dig trenches, they'll flood when it rains. Digging trenches on rocks is not only laborious, but the water doesn't seep in as easily as it does in soil... These are all unavoidable measures. I think we should pray that it doesn't rain."

Antonio and Layton were speechless.

……

While the officers on the Tacheng front were busy with civil engineering work, outside a village inland on Chiliu Island, Andrei roared in fury: "These damn bastards! Bastards! Bastards! I'll kill them all today! Anyone who doesn't go to build the road, I'll kill him! I'll see who dares not to go!"

Thank you to all the readers who voted for the book before, and thank you to Witches' Screams, Justice and Purity is Koala, and Tianshui Beauty for your votes. Thank you everyone.

I tried a simple hand-drawn diagram of the siege of Tacheng, and posted it in the chapter comments.

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(End of this chapter)