Chapter 285
Chapter 285.
Back in April, the Alda Navy had begun a reconnaissance of the upper reaches of the Vise River on both land and water, but on the water in paddle sailing ships, disguised as ordinary merchants. They had to probe for information on water levels, siltation, and so on, otherwise what if the warships with a much larger tonnage and carrying nearly twenty guns and hundreds of sailors drove in and accidentally ran aground.
The ports along the river were also mapped out by them, and based on this readily available information, the staff, after repeated consideration, finally chose a place called Fishtail Town.
The lord of Fishtail Town was named Solo Carter, a Viscount, originally a bannerman of the Ferdinand family, but his current allegiance was to Maltz Kent – now explicitly referred to as Maltz Ferdinand.
The viscount had realized that he might be a target for the Alda navy; after all, Alda had just recently passed through its extermination of the pirates, and apparently had a sizable water force, and an attack up the Wiese River would be a logical step.
So after the two major factions in the Northwest Bay went to war, he fortified the defenses of Fishtail Town, repairing the walls, organizing the militia, and getting four crossbow cannons from who knows where.
But the staff still chose this place because it had the best docking facilities, enough to unload all sorts of supplies, and the Arda army’s logistical requirements were more than any other army of its contemporaries.
After a week of preparations, the 2nd and 3rd fleets departed with two infantry battalions on board 16 ships, the navy had 4 sailboats and 12 oarboats, partly its own ships and partly recruited from the civilian population, as well as sailors. Including the sailors, the first wave of the expedition amounted to more than 1,600 men.
Just as Operation Overlord was about to begin, Alda’s aid arrived with Derek at Fort Biddle.
“How can he …… how can he do this? Gleeman is just too unlikeable.”
Earl Malcolm was furious, but what angered him wasn’t the fact that Greiman didn’t send troops over directly.
“How could he ship goods here without everyone’s consent? How much money must be lost?”
What really made him angry was that Paul had taken the liberty of giving them the weapon armor that [Northwest Industries] was waiting to export.
Hearing Count Malcolm’s words, the people in the hall fell absolutely dead.
Earl Price-Parker: “Ahem, the state of affairs is urgent, Earl Gleiman is justified in doing so, with this armament, it will be easier for us to hold Fort Biddle.”
He turns to Derek: “So, we only have to hold out for two weeks, right?”
Derek confirmed, “That’s what Count Gleiman said, unless …… unless the Arda army’s operation up the River Wes fails.”
Someone began to pray silently.
Count Parker cheered the crowd, “Cheer up, gentlemen, after all, we have four artillery pieces!”
Everyone’s eyes lit up at the mention of artillery, Greiman had actually given them such a sharp weapon, remembering the unimpressive performance of the artillery in the last Battle of Biddle Castle made people’s hearts flutter.
At this time a total of 4 guns were brought, Heller, Parker, Malkin, Johnston four families contributed the most troops, so each family was given a gun, other small lords only had eyes to covet.
“Boom!”
At the top of the walls of Bidor Castle, the accompanying Alda artillery instructor was teaching the soldiers of the allied forces how to operate the artillery.
The artillery that was given to the coalition army was a new type of artillery even for the Alda army – the submarine artillery, which in another time and place had another name “Franco-Portuguese”, and was manufactured in large quantities after being imported from Portugal during the Ming Dynasty.
It is an iron rear-mounted smoothbore cannon, the whole gun consists of three parts: the barrel, the belly, and the sub-gun. The gunpowder and projectile were loaded in the sub-cannon, and when shooting, the sub-cannon was directly put into the belly of the cannon, and after a sub-cannon, another cannon was put into it to fight, because the firing powder and projectile were encapsulated in the sub-cannon in advance, so the firing speed was greatly increased compared to the previous front-mounted cannon. Therefore, Paul gave it another name – “rapid-fire gun”.
However, limited by the level of technology, Alda’s artisans were unable to solve the problem of the large tolerance of the gap between the sub-cannon and the belly of the cannon, resulting in more gunpowder gas leakage, so the range of the rapid-fire cannon was shorter, only able to hit more than 300 meters, and due to the relative complexity of the mechanism, it could only be built in a relatively small size.
The four rapid-fire guns came with a total of 20 sub-guns, enough to maintain “uninterrupted fire” for quite some time.
Soldiers from the allied forces clustered on the city walls to watch the lucky ones operate the legendary “Thunder Hammers”, and with the roar of the guns over and over again, there were constant shouts of amazement and admiration on the walls, the power of the guns when they fired was truly frightening.
It was impossible to teach these rookies how to deduce the distance and calculate the pitch angle of the artillery in a short period of time, even the Aldar army itself relied more on the experience and intuition of the gunners themselves.
So the Alda instructor first let the artillerymen shoot using different angles, then measured the distance between the point of impact and the castle, and marked the point of impact with a striking circle with quicklime as a reference for quick aiming at the beginning of the battle.
Early in the morning of June 3, the Kentish army appeared on the field outside Biddulph Castle. The sound of snails was loud in the castle as the defenders surged to the walls, nervously preparing for battle.
“It feels like they’ve come in over 8,000 this time.”
“Geez, looks like that Maltz guy is going to eat us.”
The lords whispered, one frowning, the fort’s defenders now numbered over 2,000, far below the enemy.
“Oh..! What are those big guys?”
……
Jaaius looked at the fortress in front of him with complacency, the excitement of an impending vendetta on his mind. The last battle at Fort Bido had left him with an unforgettable shame, so much so that a series of previous victories couldn’t let him off the hook.
“Today I can finally wash away the humiliation once and for all, right where it started ……!”
He clenched his fists tightly.
Next to him, a man who wrapped his body in a cloak whispered, “Lord Viscount, since it’s a siege, my men will just provide support.”
Jaaius smiled and nodded, “All right, Captain Doug! But later, when we advance to the wall, we’ll still need your longbows to suppress the other side.”
The man in the cloak nodded.
Jaaius waved his hand, “Step up and prepare our [Thunder Hammers]!”
The six behemoths slowly advanced towards Bido Fortress, propelled by the soldiers.
Those were six huge stone throwers.
(End of chapter)