Chapter 295
Chapter 295.
The battle on the high ground lasted for nearly half an hour, with senior officers such as Schroeder, Claude, and Tirbitz personally leading the team to participate in the physical battle, and finally recaptured the artillery position.
Even though how old the mercenaries are in the sand and how experienced they are in combat, they can’t stop the unity and close cooperation of more than 600 Alda soldiers, not to mention that most of the mercenaries on the high ground are longbowmen, and close combat isn’t their best job, and they end up hopelessly defeated.
As for those ordinary soldiers who were sent to protect the longbowmen, they were scared out of their wits after seeing the power of the musket fire.
In Paul’s design, the army under his command would not take the route of elite soldiers, it would rely more on discipline and organization, and the soldiers would have to absolutely obey the orders of their superiors, even if the order was not the most preferred or even flawed.
They don’t have to be proficient in every skill, but they have to be skilled in their own portion of skills, and when fighting, they will each do their own job, and complete their tasks with good collective organization and division of labor, as well as the spirit of self-sacrifice, just like the ants or the bees.
Of course, because of the limitations of the times, the so-called [elite soldiers] of this era are not elite, so the quality of Alda’s soldiers is also considered to be the tallest in the shortest, based on the per capita literacy this item can crush most of the soldiers of the army.
In short, the Duke’s army on the high ground is facing a powerful opponent that exceeds them by half a generation or even a generation.
Leaving behind a bunch of wounded soldiers who could only lie on the ground and moan, the Duke’s army routed back into the woods in the opposite direction from Arda’s army.
Schroeder ordered the battlefield to be cleared quickly, and the first thing to do was to check the damage of the artillery.
Luckily, although there were traces of movement, none of the artillery was pulled away, and all of them stayed on the position, only that more than half of the artillery’s gun mounts were damaged.
“Why didn’t you guys get rid of the artillery earlier?”
Schroeder wondered, interrogating the wounded prisoners left in position.
“Those Confederates (mercenaries) prided themselves on having seen all the weapons in the world, and there was nothing they wouldn’t use, so they tried to use these thunder hammers to blast you, only then, seeing you hit up and couldn’t pull them off in time, they destroyed the racks below.”
The captive’s answer made Schroeder chuckle a few times, a weapon like artillery was the first time it had ever appeared, even if the mercenaries had seen a lot, how could they swing it, not to mention that the artillerymen had carried the gunpowder down when they retreated.
“Immediately use the intact artillery to bombard the enemy, at the same time organize the artillery to repair the damaged gun mounts.”
Schroeder immediately gave the order.
……
Ferguson and Emerson were still looking over their shoulders waiting for news.
Earlier they had sent an army to attack in a roundabout way where the Arda had deployed their thunder hammers, and were thrown into ecstasy at the sight of the flag indicating the victory going up, and according to the next plan the army on the heights was to be pinched with the frontal attacking force against the Arda.
Seeing only that the enemy troops below had split off and headed for the heights, Ferguson lost no time in ordering the repaired troops to launch a second attack, either to eat up the enemy troops that had remained where they were, or to force that counter-attack on the heights to come back to the rescue.
Subsequent developments were a great disappointment to Ferguson and Emerson, the Arda army that remained in place stood firm, the frontal attacking cavalry and infantry continued to give away their heads, and to make matters worse that the flag of their side that had been erected on the heights fell.
“They’re back!” A squire darted over to report.
Then a group of drooping, mortified men came to Fergus and Emerson.
Not needing them to open their mouths to know what the situation was now, Fergus coldly asked, “Where’s Thunderhammer?”
The leading squad leader didn’t dare to raise his head, drooping his head and shaking his head.
Fergus was stunned: “Not a single door was brought back?”
A long silence followed. “Waste!”
The mercenary captain raged, raising his horsewhip to whip his own men viciously.
“You guys went up there for so long, and you couldn’t even do it by splitting your manpower to pull back a few doors more or less?”
The small captain was beaten hard and opened his mouth to defend, “Lord Fergus, although the rack that carries the Thunder Hammer is equipped with wheels, but the Aldar took all the horses on the high ground when they retreated, and such cunning guys also wheeled it to lock it, so it can’t go very far at all by manpower dragging it or lifting it, so we had to figure out how to utilize them in situ to deal with the Aldar. ”
Fergus stopped swinging his whip and asked with an ironic face, “Did you guys get anything?” He had seen that after the mercenaries captured the high ground, the Thunderhammers on the high ground did not move at all, so it was obvious that his own men had not touched anything.
“Uh…… since the other side counterattacked too quickly, we haven’t figured out how to use them yet, but from the fact that there are fire pots set up next to them, it’s obviously fire related.”
Fergus glared, “What’s with the bullshit? Spewing that much smoke when firing, you think I’m blind?”
The squad leader suddenly said hurriedly, “There’s another important piece of information, there’s a strong strange odor permeating the high ground, that smell seems to be …… seems to be ……”
He scratched his ears and quickly recalled the odors he had smelled in his mind, and suddenly slapped his head and shouted, “That’s right! It’s sulfur, that strange smell should be the smell of burning sulfur.”
“Sulfur?”
Fergus and Emerson let out a question at the same time, and the two of them looked at each other. Sulfur was a very common fire starter, but no amount of violent burning could be linked to that earth-shattering sound when the thunder hammer was fired, there must be something else.
Emerson sat on his horse and leaned down to ask, “Did you get a good look at the exact structure of the hammer?”
The mercenary captain rubbed the back of his head, “The structure is quite simple, it’s just a large metal tube, some made of bronze, some made of iron.”
“When we return to the camp, you draw me a detailed diagram.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Just as Emerson and the others were discussing the Thunder Hammer, the Arda army began to initiate an attack on them, with the remaining artillery blasting this way, and many of the troops deployed at the front began to move backward without a call to avoid the whistling shells.
Both Fergus and Emerson could see that the morale of the troops had fallen to the breaking point after the failure of the flanking circuitous attacks and the failure of the many strong attacks on the front.
“Damn, this is the first time I’ve encountered a hardened force with such a small number of men.” Fergus grumbled hatefully in his heart, in his previous war career, it wasn’t once or twice that he had encountered a tough opponent, but that was when there was not much difference in the strength of both sides, whereas in today’s battle, even after the other side had received reinforcements, his own numbers were fully three times that of the enemy army.
It turned out to be so gray ……
Fergus looked to the north, the Arda people were moving this way in a horizontal formation, and the neatness of the formation gave people the illusion from afar – it wasn’t a single person, but a moving wall, with a great sense of oppression.
“Lord Emerson?”
The mercenary captain no longer spoke with the same arrogance as before.
Emerson nodded reluctantly, “Alas …… withdraw.”
The battle on the border of the Duke’s domain finally came to an end.
(End of chapter)