Chapter 29: Capturing the City Gates
Chapter 29 Capturing the City Gates
Entering the month of June, after two months of tight gongs and drums of preparation, Paul Greiman formally gave the army the battle order to recapture the port of Fulan.
At this point in time, the Alda Territorial Guard already possessed two fully staffed integrated battalions, with officers and men totaling more than 1,100. Under the tireless efforts of Herman and others, in addition to traditional cold weapons such as swords and spears, it was also equipped with 20 fire-rope rifles and two 4-pounders.
Outside the port of Fulan, the Lord Earl raised his monocular and observed the pirates’ fortifications from afar. This telescope was made by an optician he hired from abroad and quickly equipped to the army, and the officers praised this sharp weapon that could observe the enemy from a distance. Of course, the optician was again ‘retained’ by him with a high salary.
At this time, the Fulan Harbor had been fortified by the pirates with a city wall. It was said to be a city wall, but in fact, compared to a big city like Jingyao, it was just a low earth fence. However, there are quite a lot of defense tools on it, from afar, you can see the wall set up a cauldron cooking something, either boiling hot oil, or stinky dung juice, the pirates have discovered the gathering of the army outside the city, and burned up the fire in advance.
Not far from the city wall, dug a trench more than one person deep, between the trench and the city wall scattered with dense thistles, thorns and other underhanded things.
Schroeder put down his binoculars and suggested: ”Attack directly at the gate, we have artillery, that wooden gate can be blasted open with a few shots. Then use the muskets and artillery as cover, fill in the trench in front of the gate and you can charge in.”
Paul nodded his head in agreement with the plan.
In the afternoon, the two cannons were aimed far away from the gates of Richland Harbor, and the battle began.
“Load …… aim ……” With a loud command from the gun commander, the gunners methodically operated the guns, they had been training continuously for nearly two months for this actual battle, and every step of the movement seemed to become instinctive.
“Fire!” The gunner in charge of firing ignited the gunpowder in the fire door as the gunner in charge of firing let out a loud roar.
“Boom!”
Accompanied by a loud roar, the 4-pound solid iron bullet carrying a huge amount of kinetic energy rushed out of the chamber at a speed of 416 meters per second, and almost instantly impacted on top of the walls of the Port of Fulan.
The pirates on the wall only saw a burst of white smoke from the two strange things far away, and suddenly felt the wall shake a little after two loud bangs. Although it did not hit the gate, but its power still gave the pirates a huge shock, the walls of the city resounded with shouts of panic.
“A crossbow cannon, a crossbow cannon with a much simpler structure but much more powerful.” The pirate leader Shark quickly so judged, and he quickly ordered his men not to gather together, so as not to be swarmed by cannonballs.
“Reset …… adjust the angle of fire!”
The gunners slightly adjusted the angle and quickly shot a second round.
The second round of shelling still didn’t focus on the city gates, but it shattered a piece of the wall, and the shell penetrated through the female wall directly blowing an unlucky pirate off the wall, killing him instantly. The fragments of the wall also caused his companions not far on either side of him to be seriously injured as well.
Wails of pain rang out from the walls, and Shark immediately ordered the two men to be taken down so as not to affect morale.
But by this time, the morale was almost gone, after seeing the power of the “crossbow”, a group of pirates are shrinking their heads and trembling.
……
Accompanied by a huge crushing sound, the fifth round of shelling finally hit the gate, the wooden gate was blown to pieces, ambushed in the city gate on both sides of the pirates were scared to death, the rumbling sound of the cannon at this time in the hearts of pirates has been tantamount to the gods descended from the sky thunder.
“Musketeers advance!”
The musketeers of Arda’s army began to slowly advance towards the city walls under the cover of the shield bearers.
“Archers get ready, the enemy is going to attack the city, tell the men at the gates to keep a close watch.”
Seeing the musketeers advancing Shark continuously gave orders, he knew that the other side was going to start attacking the city.
The pirates equipped with bows and arrows have exposed half of their bodies from the wall, looking for targets close to the trench.
But they thought that the “siege soldiers” in the distance from the wall more than 100 meters stopped, this distance their inferior bow and arrow can not create any effective kill, not to mention the other side has a shield protection.
A sound like frying beans rang out, and 20 fire-rope guns opened fire in unison. Immediately, 4 pirates were hit, covering their wounds and paralyzed on the wall, screaming. “Get down! Get down!” “It’s the legendary black magic!” There was a loud shout from above the city wall.
It was that legendary evil weapon that could hit so far. Shark was secretly shocked at how the enemy’s long-range attacks weren’t over yet, he thought the other side would fill in the trenches and attack the city next.
Indeed it was, taking advantage of the opportunity for the pirates on the wall to get down and hide from the muskets, the soldiers carrying bags of dirt quickly ran near the trench at the front of the gate and started throwing them in.
If they didn’t stop it, it would be too late, Shark couldn’t care less and yelled, “Archers, attack!”
However, no one heeded his words, and those with bows and arrows all nestled behind the women’s wall and refused to get up.
Shark was furious: “Are you all deaf?”
One of his men cried out, “Boss, surrender! We can’t win.”
Shark sneered twice, “Hmph! Finally someone said it ah.”
He then opened his bloodshot eyes wide and yelled at his men, “Gleeman’s old man is hanging in our hands. What did you think would happen to you after you surrendered? Do you know what the consequences are for people like us to harm the nobles?” The voice was indescribably maniacal.
A horrifying scene emerged in the minds of the crowd of pirates.
In this harsh era, after the civilians hurt the nobles, the result of the treatment all depends on the word of the nobles, of course, there are individual nobles to forgive the prisoner was rumored, but more is to impose a serious punishment. Cut off the hands and feet are considered light, was directly executed is very common, more horrible is being abused to death or even worse than death. There was once a lord who dealt with his own assassins in this way: a sharpened piece of wood was inserted into the back door of the punished person, standing on the ground and letting it fall slowly, and eventually the punished person wailed to death in endless pain.
Treating civilians is still so, let alone these pirates who have long been full of blood, all people can not help but shiver.
“Fight the noble brats!”
Under the oppression of fear, the pirates were inspired with bloodlust and shouted to fight Paul Gleeman to the end.
But being held down on the wall and beaten is not a solution, anyway, the trench is almost filled, the other side will soon rush in, Shark ordered the minions to go down the wall and fight with each other.
Just as the pirates were moving down the wall in an uproar, Shark summoned over a close friend and quietly handed over a few words.
……
Accompanied by the chilling roar of artillery once again, a shell drilled into the city gate hole, immediately opened up a bloody channel in front, the pirates gathered at the city gate ignored their companions who fell to the ground and moaned, and dispersed to the two sides of the city gate in panic.
Alda’s army began a timely assault, four infantry companies stepped on sandbags in order to cross the trench, burst into the city and then quickly spread out, with the spears in their hands and the pirates hiding on both sides of the city gates to start a physical fight, for a time the streets near the gates of the city killed in all directions.
The musketeers followed closely into the city, they took advantage of the enemy was blocked by the gunmen, standing in the back of the safety of the free fire, in such a close distance, almost wherever you want to hit, accompanied by gusts of smoke and “touch” sound, there are constantly pirate life was a bullet harvest.
“Surrender your weapons and don’t kill! Surrender your weapons and don’t kill!”
A cavalryman rushed into the city and conveyed the Count’s latest instructions to the pirates who had already been divided and surrounded into several pieces.
“We surrender!”
As soon as they heard that they would be spared from death, some of the pirates who had just been bloodthirsty immediately threw their weapons away and knelt down to surrender. There was a leader, the next pirates also followed suit, lest they fall behind the others, who cares if he will settle scores, let’s gamble first.
In a few minutes, the pirates in the city gate area all surrendered.
(End of chapter)