Chapter 71: Scattered Bullets Dislike Cavalry
Chapter 71: Scattered Bullets Dislike Cavalry
The artillery on the high ground had already noticed the enemy’s approach, and the spearmen who had come over to assist them had set the bottom ends of their spears on the ground, ready to defend against the cavalry.
After Paul’s order arrived, the artillerymen redirected their guns loaded with loose bullets, pointing them at the place where the Byrdean knights would have to pass on their route of advance.
Abbot saw the soldiers of Arda who had turned in a defensive stance.
Hmph! Greiman had only arranged two thin layers of spearmen against them, and they could be rushed through in a moment.
The knights of this era had their own cognacs, wore the best equipment, ate the best meals, had a high social status, and under the repeated instillation of virtues such as loyalty and bravery, they regarded honor and faith as more important than their own lives, and all of the above endowed the knights with strong material and spiritual power.
If they violated the virtues of loyalty and bravery, for example, if they cowered when ordered by their lord to charge, they would lose it all, which was a punishment worse than death for the knights.
Therefore, despite the danger of charging, they would still charge the enemy without hesitation, and the first knight to touch the enemy would be honored and rewarded supremely, whether he survived or not.
Both the knights and the horses beneath them wore thick battle armor, which made them naturally heavy cavalry.
The warhorses also wore special iron masks on their heads, which left only an opening in front of them, allowing the horse to have a near 360-degree view of the terrain and obstacles in front of them through a small field of vision between the mask opening and the blind spot directly in front of them, and the smaller field of vision prevented the warhorse from being distracted by what was on either side of it or fearful of the sight of the unending jungle of spears.
When faced with a spear formation, a knight’s impact is not to run headlong into it, even if a man is determined to die, a warhorse will instinctively avoid sharp things, that is only done when the battle situation is compelling with the horse completely blindfolded, and it also needs to fulfill certain terrain and distance requirements.
Generally, it was the first row of knights who threw throwing spears or shot with short bows, and then spread out to the sides, with the knights behind deciding whether to continue throwing or to make a direct impact, depending on the situation. After opening a small gap, the subsequent cavalry would quickly widen the breach and charge into the square formation for a big kill.
Unless they had been rigorously trained for a long time, the average person faced with the powerful might of a knight’s cluster charge, the opponent would psychologically break down before they could even start throwing their spears, and those infantry squares made up of improvised militia would often disperse in a huff.
Although there were only a few dozens of riders led by Aibut, when they were getting closer and closer, they still created a great sense of oppression to the Arda army, and many soldiers were nervous and sweating coldly.
“Bad, TOO big!”
Looking at the smoke and dust raised in the distance, Paul felt remorseful, I’m afraid that the two rows of spearmen couldn’t hold them back.
He and the two battalion commanders whip their horses hard and run along the formation of the line, hoping that the new order can be quickly conveyed to the whole army: “All platoons from the third to the sixth face back!”
The sudden order to change formation created some confusion in the ranks, especially with the enemy cavalry storming over at high speed.
Aibut watched the changes in the ranks of the Arda people and laughed coldly in his heart, “Hmph! Too late! A really thin line in formation is simply looking for death.”
He picked the gap between the two infantry battalions and prepared to break through there and have a back-and-forth attack with the infantry in front.
Then the artillery of the Arda army rang out!
8 cannons firing scattering bullets at the same time was a horrible thing, along with the flashes of fire and smoke, each cannon spewed out hundreds of scattering bullets, creating a fan-shaped area with an arc length of 30~50 meters within the distance of 400 meters in front of them, and the horrible and deadly metal storms raced towards the Baildin cavalry.
Just as Abbott and the knights near him raised their throwing spears, countless deadly projectiles also came from their right side, nearly half of the 30-horse onslaught team was directly swept down, even with their horses into a sieve, and the protection they wore didn’t play any role.
The rest were almost as badly wounded as the men and horses. The horses that didn’t die either fell to the ground neighing in pain or ran around uncontrollably. The riders who fell to the ground struggled to avoid the trampling of their mounts, or wailed uncontrollably due to the pain of their wounds.
The few knights and squires at the end of the line were very fortunate not to have suffered any injuries, the tragedy in front of them made them lose their judgment, letting their mounts carry them around the battlefield after being frightened. Paul stared blankly at the tragic scene in front of him, feeling a twinge of familiarity, and muttered to himself, “The morale bar is white.”
He quickly reacted and ordered the back four rows of spearmen to turn around and deal with the infantry directly in front of them with full force.
In fact, the will of the Bairdine soldiers in front had already been crushed, in the process of re-approaching the Arda army, they had received two rounds of volley fire from the musket company, and another round of mortar shelling, their morale had already bottomed out, and quite a few of them had already quietly deserted.
Finally, the soldiers who were not close to the musket company’s side touched the front of Alda’s army, and they tried several times to break the spearmen’s line formation, but no matter how much they tried to “ruffle” them, as long as they dared to get close, the other side had only one action – stabbing, stabbing without a trace, stabbing without a trace, stabbing without a trace, stabbing without a trace, stabbing without a trace, stabbing without a trace. Stabbing, without evasion, without cover.
With the officer’s command, a line of spears thrust over in unison, each time taking the lives of a group of people.
Finally, after the hopeless breakthrough, they subconsciously pulled away from each other, the fear of death made them instinctively resist advancing, letting the whips of the supervisory knights whip on them.
Just as the supervising knight drew his sword and prepared to slaughter a few cowards to establish his authority, he saw the terrible passage of his companions’ total annihilation through the gap between Alda’s troops, and with a clang, his sword fell under his horse.
A goodly number of the Byrddin militia who stood in front saw it as well. “The knight lords who encircled the enemy are all but wiped out!” The dreadful news quickly spread through the crowd, it was the usually formidable knight lord!
The militia beside the supervising knight begged him not to let them continue to die, while the knight who reacted flicked his whip to disperse the crowd, and urged his mount to run towards the rear without looking back.
Seeing the Aldar in front of them raising their spears, the abandoned Bairdian militiamen cried and knelt on the ground begging for mercy, not even having the energy to run away.
With the situation settled, Paul said to the officers around him, “Gentlemen, it looks like we’ll be able to have dinner within the city of Butua today.”
Orders were quickly given: the 1st Infantry Battalion and the Musket Company approached the gates of Butua, while the 2nd Infantry Battalion gathered up the prisoners.
……
Angelo and the others had been observing the battlefield, and now they finally realized that defeat was inevitable.
“That idiot, asshole Ebout, he failed!”
He cursed Ebute fiercely, it was all over now.
“Master Chief, what should we do now? Shouldn’t we retreat back to the city to die.”
The faces of the two barons were in despair.
Angelo shook his head, “Even if we gather back some of the routed soldiers, what’s the point, Butua can’t be defended.”
He pointed to the south and said, “Our own territory can’t be stayed either, with the remaining old, young, women and children can’t resist Gleiman’s army, now go back to your respective home and pack some belongings, bring your family to the south to defect to the Count of Kent, he will surely take us in.”
The three immediately reached an agreement and ran in the opposite direction of Alda’s army.
Thank you for the rewards of “purple fans”, “ilvanda”, “hades, Harley”.
(End of chapter)