Chapter 285
As early as April, the Alda Navy began to conduct land and water reconnaissance on the upper reaches of the Vis River, but it was on the water in a galley, disguised as an ordinary merchant. They must find out the water level, siltation and other information, otherwise, what if a larger warship carrying nearly twenty artillery pieces and hundreds of sailors comes in and accidentally runs aground.
They also had a clear picture of the ports along the river. Based on this readily available information, the staff department finally selected a place called Yuwei Town after repeated consideration.
The lord of Fishtail Town is named Thoro Carter. He is a viscount. He was originally a vassal of the Ferdinand family, but his current allegiance is to Maltz Kent - his current official title is Maltz Ferdinand.
The Viscount has realized that he may become the target of Alda's navy. After all, Alda has just wiped out the pirates not long ago. He obviously has considerable water power and attacks upstream along the Vis River. It is also a matter of course.
Therefore, after the war between the two major factions in the Northwest Gulf, he strengthened the defense of Yuwei Town, repaired the city walls, organized the militia, and obtained four crossbows from unknown sources.
However, the staff still chose this place because the dock facilities here are the most complete and are enough to unload various supplies. The Arda army's logistics requirements exceed those of other armies of the same era.
After entering June, the increase in precipitation has made the water in the Vis River more abundant, and the monsoon winds from the sea are enough to provide sufficient power for the sail warships. After more than a week of intensive preparations, the Second Fleet A total of 16 ships with the Third Fleet set off with two infantry battalions. In addition to 4 sail warships, the Navy also had 12 galleys, some of which were its own ships and some of which were recruited from the private sector, including sailors. There were more than 1,600 troops in the first wave of this expedition.
Just when Operation Overlord was about to begin, Alda's aid supplies followed Derrick to Bido Castle.
"How could he...how could he do this? Graiman is so outrageous."
Count Malken looked angry, but what made him angry was not that Grayman didn't send troops directly.
"How could he transport the goods here without everyone's consent? How much money will this cost?"
What really made him angry was that Paul moved [Northwestern Industries] without permission 】The weapons and armor waiting to be exported are for them to use.
After hearing what Earl Malken said, everyone in the hall fell down one after another.
Earl Price Parker: "Ahem, the situation is urgent. It is understandable that Count Grayman did this. With this batch of ordnance, it will be easier for us to defend Fort Bido."< br>
He turned to Derrick: "So, we only need to hold on for two weeks, right?"
Derrick confirmed: "That's what Earl Grayman said, unless...unless the Alda Army Weiss The operation up the river failed."
Someone began to pray silently.
Earl Parker encouraged everyone: "Cheer up, everyone, after all we have 4 artillery pieces!"
When it comes to artillery, everyone's eyes lit up, Graiman He actually gave them such a sharp weapon. Thinking of the impressive performance of the artillery in the last battle of Biduo Castle, it makes people excited.
At this time, a total of 4 artillery pieces were brought. The four families of Heller, Parker, Malcolm, and Johnston sent the most troops, so each family was allocated one artillery piece, and the other small lords only coveted it.
"Boom!"
On the top of the wall of Fort Bido, the Alda artillery instructor who followed was teaching the coalition soldiers how to operate the artillery.
The artillery provided to the coalition forces, even for the Arda army, is a new type of artillery - a sub-cannon. In another time and space, there is another name "Flangji", Ming Dynasty It was introduced from Portugal during the Dynasty and was produced in large quantities.
This is an iron breech-loading smoothbore cannon. The whole gun is composed of three parts: barrel, belly and sub-cannon. The gunpowder and projectiles are all packed in the sub-cannon. When shooting, the sub-cannon is directly put into the belly of the cannon. After firing one sub-cannon, another cannon is put in for firing, because the propellant and projectiles are both advanced in the sub-cannon. It is packaged, so the rate of fire is greatly increased compared to the previous front-loaded artillery. Therefore, Paul gave it another name - "rapid-fire cannon".
However, due to technical limitations, Alda's cannon-casting craftsmen have not yet been able to solve the problem of the large gap tolerance between the sub-cannon and the barrel, resulting in more gunpowder gas leakage, so the rapid-fire cannon has a shorter range. It can only hit more than 300 meters, and because the mechanism is relatively complex, it can only be built relatively small.
The four rapid-fire cannons come with a total of 20 sub-cannons, which is enough to maintain "non-stop firepower" for quite some time.
Allied soldiers gathered on the city wall to watch the lucky one operating the legendary "Thunder Hammer". As the roaring roared again and again, the city wall continued to make sounds of exclamation and admiration, and the artillery fired. The power of the time is really scary.
It is impossible to teach these rookies how to deduce distance and calculate the pitch angle of artillery in a short period of time. Even the Arda army relies more on the experience and intuition of the gunners themselves.
So Instructor Alda first asked the artillerymen to shoot from different angles, then measured the distance between the impact point and the castle, and drew an eye-catching circle mark with white lime at the impact point as a reference for quick aiming after the battle began.
In the early morning of June 3rd, the Kent army appeared in the fields outside Bido Castle. There was a loud roar in the castle, and the defenders rushed to the walls, nervously preparing for battle.
“It feels like there are more than 8,000 people coming this time.”
“Oh my god, it looks like that Maltz guy is going to kill us.”
The lords stole. Whispering and frowning, there are now more than 2,000 defenders in the fort, far fewer than the enemy.
"Oh! Who are those big guys?"
......
Jais looked at the fortress in front of him with great satisfaction, and he felt excited that he was about to get revenge. . The last battle at Fort Bido left him with such an unforgettable shame that even a series of previous victories could not let him go.
"Today I can finally wash away the humiliation, right where it started...!"
He clenched his fists tightly.
A man next to him wrapped in a cloak whispered: "Lord Viscount, since it is a siege, my people are only providing support."
Jais nodded with a smile: "Okay. Captain Doug! But when we advance to the wall later, we still need your longbow to suppress the opponent."
The man in the cloak nodded.
Jaais waved his hand: "Hurry up and prepare our [Thunder Hammer]!"
The six behemoths were pushed by the soldiers and slowly advanced towards Fort Bido.
Those were six huge trebuchets.
(End of this chapter)