Chapter 69 – The Battle of Butua 1
Chapter 69 The Battle of Butua 1
For those Baildin soldiers who were recruited by their respective lords, September 3rd was an extremely miserable day.
A few days ago, they were still working diligently in the fields for the livelihood of their families, and then the affairs officer of the lord’s castle came to the village and asked the village chief to gather all the village’s young soldiers.
Selecting his stronger looking men from the crowd, the chamberlain announced, “The vile and lowly Aldar have kidnapped Lord Myron Garnard, Lord of Baeldin, and we must teach them a hard lesson, from now on you will fight for the honor of Baeldin.”
The lord’s orders must be obeyed or he may be hanged and his family punished as slaves.
The officer told the chosen ones to follow him to the lord’s castle with any household goods that could be used as “weapons”, as the lord’s castle often did not have enough weapons in stock for one man.
Sure enough, when they arrived at the lord’s castle, only half of them received spears, and a few received wooden shields, while the rest could only fight for the lord with their own “peasant weapons”, which varied from pitchforks, hoes, scythes, and even wooden sticks. The “peasant weapons” were many and varied: pitchforks, hoes, scythes and even sticks.
They were divided into hundreds, each of which was led by a knight for training.
These days they trained how to stand in a line, how to move as a group, how to camp, and most of the time they practiced how to fight the enemy using wooden sticks against each other.
Occasionally, a few enthusiastic knights would come over to give advice on fighting techniques, but more often than not, they just stood by and watched as the practice turned into a real brawl due to excessive force and accidental injuries to each other.
Watching these commoners use awkward maneuvers on each other was a great pastime, and every time it caused a burst of laughter, as long as it didn’t result in death, no one would stop it.
A few days later, the hastily trained soldiers were brought to Butua by the knights, where they would pick up their supplies and some other ordnance before heading to the next territory to settle the score with the Arda.
When they arrived, they realized that the required supplies were not yet ready, so they had to stay here for a few days first. The barracks in the city of Butua couldn’t accommodate so many people, so they were shoved into some homes to borrow a room.
Some dishonest people caused frequent civil-military conflicts, and the lord’s house sent people over to indiscriminately cut off the heads of a few people, and only then a little more stable.
Suddenly received an order that the Alda people themselves came to the door, to immediately go out of the city to fight with them. The city of Butua was in a flurry of activity, and it took several hours from noon to gather the people together and form up under the leadership of the knights.
After leaving the city, under the prodding of the knights’ whips, the soldiers had just formed four squares when the Aldar appeared in their field of vision. Looking at the other side’s stance the number of people was only half of theirs, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
The small chiefs hissed and conveyed the orders of the lords: “Anyone who retreats without receiving an order will be hanged, and the reward for killing or catching an Aldar soldier is 100 copper coins, and the reward for an Aldar officer is 1 silver coin.”
The harsh military rules and generous rewards caused a commotion in the ranks, and many began to get excited about the battle, talking to each other about how to earn more military honors, while many others closed their eyes and prayed silently to the Lord of Light.
The Aldar stopped a short distance away, and the lords decided to take the initiative to go over and finish them off. Each of the four knights commanded a square to move towards the opposing position.
“Cutting off heads to earn military honors!”
During the movement, the military leaders, big and small, yelled to boost their morale, and many of them also shouted strangely to give themselves courage.
Just as they were getting closer and closer to the ranks of the Arda people, the row at the very front of the other side suddenly sprouted white smoke, and with a crackling sound, tragedy struck ……
……
“First Platoon, fire!”
After Company Commander Dempsey gave the order, the first platoon of musketeers pulled the triggers, and 40 deadly projectiles flew towards the Bairdian square that was at the front of the line.
A scream rang out, the square of Baildin soldiers was packed densely with people although it was getting more and more disorganized as they went along, more than three-quarters of the bullets hit the enemy, dozens of soldiers fell to the ground, some instantly gagged, some covered their wounds and kept struggling and screaming.
After receiving the first blow, despite the fact that there were already casualties on their side, most of the Bairdian soldiers had not yet reacted and continued to move towards the Arda army with their spears raised, driven by inertia.
The first platoon of musketeers quickly backed off to load their ammunition, and Dempsey ordered, “Second platoon, fire!” The crackling sound resounded again, the Baildin soldiers also fell a large number of them again, this time the people walking in front of them reacted, they hadn’t even touched the enemy yet, and they didn’t see any arrows and crossbows shooting over, and so many people were killed or wounded, it was really too evil.
Panic began to spread in front of the soldiers, the speed of the feet unconsciously slowed down, some people want to see the opposite side of the Aldar people in the trick, some people to help fell on the ground struggling companions, tear open the blood-stained clothes to see, so big a wound in plain sight.
The front a slow does not matter, the back of the square unaware of the soldiers were blocked immediately pushed and shoved, urging the front of the cowards do not block the way, a time to shout and curse, screams intertwined in the battlefield.
The musket company opened fire once again, accompanied by another group of people screaming and falling, the Bairdian soldiers at the front finally collapsed, they either turned around and hid behind the others, or ran to the two sides of the line, in any case, just don’t let themselves become the target of the Aldar.
The knight commanding from the back of the group saw this, and judged it to be the effect of one of the Arda’s strange weapons, only now realizing that those oddly shaped sticks were a long-range weapon.
He grabbed the nearest soldier, “You! Go to the back and inform the lords to send their archers here!”
Then he spurred his horse to the front and raised his whip to fiercely beat those panicked soldiers, scolding, “Idiots! It’s just some weapons similar to bows and crossbows, and it scares you all like this!”
He drew his own matching sword and raised it high as he shouted, “The enemy has long range weapons, we must now charge at them in one fell swoop! Now at my command, the whole army assaults!”
The four “squares” of Baldinians moved in a diagonal trapezoidal formation towards the Arda army, and the knight’s voice was carried to his companions commanding the following squares, who signaled that they would follow!
……
Paul was pleased with the results of the first round of fire, the volleys were still very powerful at this distance.
He instructed the messenger, “Inform the artillery to blast apart the two squares behind them.”
Then he ordered the two battalion commanders, “Have your mortars open fire! Spearmen get ready to charge, the musket company will charge after one round of flanking fire, and focus on wiping out the two foremost enemy squares!”
……
The frontmost Bairdine square reformed its formation and began to run forward.
However, at this time, the 6 mortars in Alda’s army also opened fire, accompanied by a thunderous boom, hundreds of loose bullets of all sizes flew out in unison, forming a huge killing surface, and the Bairdin’s formation was particularly tight, sweeping down a large number of people in almost an instant.
After all, they are flesh and blood, under the huge casualties the instinct of creatures to avoid harm was stimulated, the first square formation instantly collapsed, the soldiers ran backwards without the slightest hesitation, the knights who escorted the formation were dumbfounded, shocked by the terrible scene that had just happened.
The artillery company deployed on the nearby high ground also opened fire, at this distance of only a hundred meters or so, there was no need to even test fire, all the cannons blasted at the third square formation in unison.
The thunderous sound rang out once again, signaling another arrival of the Grim Reaper, as eight solid iron bullets opened up several bloody channels in the square formation.
The knight commanding this square took a solid shell in the waist, and the crowd watched in horror as their lord knight was cut in two, his fine, thick armor having no effect at all.
After killing the knight, the cannonball’s power did not diminish, and rushed into the middle of the soldiers to continue harvesting lives, and for a time, blood and flesh were splattered, and severed limbs flew everywhere.
The third square formation, collapsed!
I’m sorry to pass it on so late at night, but the author’s pen power is not enough, the description of the battle scene is a bit anxious, and repeated revisions do not feel satisfied. I hope that the readers will not feel embarrassed to read it.
(End of chapter)