I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 205 If you fall behind, you will be beaten.
When General Dodd rode his horse at breakneck speed to the back of the earthen wall defenses, and peered out to observe Chris's camp in the distance through his binoculars, his brow furrowed after only a few glances.

Cannons? Where does Prince Chris get so many cannons?

General Dudley is now feeling extremely overwhelmed.

The situation on both flanks was not going well. There was no hope at all on the birch forest side. With the stream separating them, he had already given up on the idea of ​​sending reinforcements, even if it meant crossing the river with people and supplies.

The situation on the ridge battlefield was better; although the watchtower was burned, the position had not been lost.

Captain Lacey on the ridge has repelled five enemy assaults at the cost of about a hundred casualties. Although the casualties are heavy, he has done a good job.

Dud is working with his staff to develop a night battle plan, preparing to launch a counterattack at night to recapture the birch forest. This would make defending the main camp's front lines much easier.

Unexpectedly, Prince Chris brought out thirty cannons of various sizes at this moment. Dodd only needed to look through his binoculars to know that these things were not just for show, nor were they some kind of ancient stone-throwing cannons.

What frightened Dodd the most was not the number of these cannons, but their location... The cannons deployed by Prince Chris were at least a kilometer away, which meant that their range was farther than most of the Minisian army's cannons.

To win the war, the Minisian Expeditionary Force led by Dud had artillery, and in considerable numbers. Excluding small and old cannons such as swivel guns, shotguns, and catapults, there were as many as twenty-five modern field guns.

These twenty-five bronze cannons were the secret weapons that enabled the Kingdom of Minicia to dominate the seas. They varied in size, and fifteen of them were high-rate-of-fire eagle cannons.

The Eagle Cannon was a 7-centimeter caliber field gun that fired two-pound iron cannonballs. Its maximum rate of fire was three to four rounds per minute, with an effective range of four hundred to six hundred meters. Weighing five hundred kilograms, it could be pulled by two horses or towed by four soldiers for short distances.

The remaining ten cannons were the Bronze King Longbarreled Cannons, which fired twelve-pound iron cannonballs with an effective range of four hundred to eight hundred meters and a maximum range of one thousand five hundred meters, weighing two tons.

The bronze king cannon was the pride of the Minieses. Even the Bohemian Empire and the Leterian Empire did not have the technology to cast bronze cannons and had to purchase them from the Kingdom of Minicia or make poor imitations.

However, what does Dudr see now?
Prince Chris's field guns all had a range of over a kilometer, which left Dodd both terrified and puzzled... Where did these guns come from?
There wasn't much time left for General Dodd to think, because at exactly 2 p.m., Prince Chris's six-pound field guns had already opened fire on the Minisian camp.

……

"The six-pound cannon position is ready!"

The messenger reported loudly.

"Sir, when are we going to fire?!"

"Shut up, I'm observing and calculating data, please be quiet..."

The player, a lowly henchman, was carefully aiming a makeshift rangefinder at the Minisian camp a kilometer away.

He took a deep breath and focused the lens to its limit until the outline of the enemy camp became clearly visible in the eyepiece... The rough rammed earth structure was grayish-yellow in the sunlight, and the figures of the defenders running hurriedly could be seen on the top of the wall.

"Alright, alright, listen to my command, distance 121 meters, load standard solid rounds, elevation angle... one calibration shot, fire!"

With a wave of his hand, a six-pound cannon next to the henchman roared, and the shell left the muzzle, flying a thousand meters away, flying over the earthen wall under his watchful eye.

"Damn, the angle is too high, lower it by one degree, fire another... Okay, now it hits the earthen wall, all the six-pound cannons can be fired with this data, standard charge, salvo ready... Fire!"

At the same time, behind the earthen wall of the Minisian camp, General Dud was looking at the still-smoking iron cannonball in his adjutant's hand. It had just been fired from the opposite side and hit the wet clay wall. He ordered the soldiers to run out and pry it off and bring it back.

Dud was speechless as he looked at the shape of the shell... The shell's surface was as smooth as a mirror, and its texture was so fine that it was visible to the naked eye that he didn't know what to say.

Before Dodd could think of anything, the sentry in the watchtower behind the earthen wall screamed, "Artillery fire! Artillery fire! They're going to open fire!"

Dud immediately turned around and climbed the earthen wall, exposing half of his body. The next second after he raised his binoculars, a blinding flash of fire appeared in his field of vision. Dud instinctively squinted, and the next second, the deafening sound of artillery fire reached his ears.

"Lie down!"

The adjutant suddenly threw Dudra down, causing him to fall behind the earthen wall.

The first volley of six-pound shells had already arrived with a whoosh. The solid iron balls, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, smashed into the earthen wall, tearing apart the rammed earth defensive structure like paper, and scattering wet silt and birch branches like a torrential rain.

A shell struck the watchtower base precisely, the thick oak pillars cracking with a sickening sound. The entire tower tilted slowly and swayed under General Dodd's watchful eye, but it did not collapse.

"General! We must retreat!"

In the aftermath of the artillery fire, the adjutant screamed at the general in terror.

Dud struggled to his feet, his uniform covered in mud and sawdust. He ignored his adjutant's advice and stared intently at a cannonball that had just fallen from the watchtower base. Any lingering hope he had was instantly gone.

"So Prince Chris's field guns really can fire that far! To have such accuracy at a thousand meters, they weren't just firing randomly!"

Dud muttered to himself as he turned and continued climbing the steps behind the earthen wall, observing the actions of Prince Chris's gunners on the other side, confirming that the enemy had only been bombarding with the smallest caliber field guns.

"Send someone to inspect the extent of the damage to our earthen wall immediately!"

Before long, an engineering officer came running over, looking disheveled.

"Seven holes appeared on the surface of the earthen wall, 15 centimeters deep and 50 centimeters wide. No through holes were found inside, but two gaps collapsed on the upper half of the wall."

"How thick are our earthen walls? How many rounds of shelling can they withstand?"

"About one meter, roughly... it can withstand about ten to fifteen rounds."

"Not enough, not enough. The enemy is only firing field artillery right now. Once their siege artillery fires, our earthen walls will be destroyed in just one or two shots... Immediately organize engineers to use mud, branches, and water to thicken and strengthen our earthen fortifications."

Furthermore, I ordered the gunners to move the Bronze King to the gun position and await my command to fire.

"General, our artillery range is insufficient. Doubling the propellant charge would be barely enough, but..."

The adjutant's face turned deathly pale.

"Just what?"

"But Prince Chris's artillery position is too far away; our gunners simply can't use the cannon's rear sights to aim at the target..."

"Then why were the enemy's artillery able to hit our earthen walls? Were their gunners all clairvoyant?"

Dud was extremely agitated; he was biting his lip until it bled.

"I don't care about any of that. The gunners need to get in position as soon as possible. Go find the best binoculars and get them for the gunner so he can see where the shells are going to hit and adjust the gun barrel accordingly... No matter what, we can't let the enemy keep firing at us without fighting back."

(End of this chapter)