Iron Power And Sorcerer

Iron Power And Sorcerer Chapter 98

2021-02-22

Chapter 98 Lieutenant Colonel Sapper and Tinker
After a small battle in the trenches On the first day, the offensive and defensive sides sent people to collect the corpses, but neither of them moved.

On the second day, the defenders sent out to dig trenches.

It's just that this time it's not late at night, but during the day with great fanfare.

Clearly the defenders were keenly aware of the Veneta's weaknesses, with no artillery, too few cannon fodder troops, and a lack of cavalry.

So there is simply no need to cover one's ears whilst stealing a bell at night, instead Veneta can get close by night.

Just work during the day, and the guards on the city wall can clearly see the movements of the Veneta people.

The defenders seemed to spread their thighs and said to the Veneta people: "Come on, come on, don't come."

On the city wall, Half Moon Fort and On the Triangle Fort, the soldiers of the Federation are waiting in full force. The cannons and muskets have been loaded, the crossbow has been wound, and bundles of arrows are lined up beside the bowman.

Obviously, if the Veneta people are willing to risk buckshot and arrows to compete for the moat, the Tacheng defenders are also very happy to exchange.

On the Vinet tower wall, Leighton was so angry that he almost slapped the parapet wall with a slap, and he yelled: "[Indistinct swear words]! He was actually underestimated by the Tanee! Send a The battallion is gone! This time they won't dare to go out again unless XX kills them!"

"If we send troops to kill the people in the moat, I'm afraid it will do what William Kidd wants." Antonio With a smile on his face: "Roster [Layton's name], who do you think is in the moat now?"

"Don't beat around the bush! Playing dumb riddles with me every day is annoying. Come on, talk straight!" Layton didn't answer at all, Fiercely glared at Antonio.

Antonio didn't care, he was obviously used to his old classmate's violent temper, he asked himself and answered: "William Kidd will never send his soldiers out, I'm afraid there will be soldiers in the moat. A miner who used to live in Tacheng. We kill one more miner, and he will eat and drink less. I want to exchange the extra mouth for the life of my army soldier, William Kidd is really a good deal.”

"What should I do then?" Layton stared again.

Antonio tapped the wall of the parapet rhythmically with his fingers: "This is a conspiracy. They are dispatched during the day to kill our commandos more efficiently. How far is the city wall."

"About half a kilometer."

"This distance is already within the effective range of the artillery, not to mention that the Union's artillery is condescending, Half Moon Castle Why didn't the artillery on the Triangle Fort fire at us? Why did we watch us build a siege wall?"

Layton's nostrils suddenly expanded, and he scolded: "Still playing dumb riddles? You are endless, right? "

"Think, friend, think. The younger generation is watching, don't be so impatient."

"Go on."

See Layton To attack, Antonio patted his arm, explaining: "There is definitely not enough gunpowder in the tower city. So the enemy is waiting for the time to kill our army as much as possible, otherwise they will be bombarding us long ago. Our soldiers Less, can't be wasted. William Kidd has less gunpowder, so it can't be wasted. To do this kind of action is nothing more than lure us close to the city wall..."

"Stop talking nonsense and come to a conclusion. ' said Layton impatiently.

"We don't do what William Kidd wants us to do. We don't have cannons at hand, and there are few enemy gunpowders, which is not bad." Antonio patted the dust on his hands: "No need to. They sent troops to kill the miners in the trenches, and they were forced to work out of the city after the First World War last night. No matter who they are, they will not work hard. And these miners who resent the federation may be of great use to us.”

Layton's eyes stared like bulls: "Then we'll just watch the Tanies strengthen the city's defense?"

"Since William Kidd can send someone to dig the city, we can also do it. Civil work." Antonio said in a relaxed tone: "Whatever the enemy does, we will do it too. Anyway, we will never follow their plan and see who is afraid of who."

In the afternoon of that day, when When the defenders who had been on guard on the city wall of Tacheng all morning began to tire, the fortress of the Veneta people began to move towards the city wall, several hundred meters away.

The Union soldiers standing guard at the Triangle Fort noticed the strangeness of the enemy on the opposite side, and hurriedly called their superiors. After several layers of reports, the top commander of the Tacheng defenders, William Kidd, came to the triangular fort in front of the city gate - this is the position closest to the Veneta people's fortress.

After careful observation for a while, Captain Kidd finally understood what Veneta was doing, he fiercely slapped the earth wall of the Triangle Fort and scolded: "[Pirates are the most vulgar. Dirty words]!"

In the position facing the city gate and the triangular fort, the Veneta people made an opening in the fortress wall and are building a connection with the city gate - triangular fort - opening A corridor inclined at a 45-degree angle.

This is also why the first sentinel to find it reported that "the enemy's earthen wall is approaching us".

On the Tacheng side, the Tanilians are digging trenches in a frenzy.

Outside the city, however, the Veneta are also in full swing building the walls.

Tacheng's most advantageous defensive condition is not the city wall, but the foundation. The whole city sits on a large piece of Fire Mountain Cliff, and the soil created by the weathering of the rock is blown lower by strong sea breezes.

So the soil around the city is extremely thin, even too thin to be cultivated, and beneath the soil is the hard Fire Mountain Cliff. The siege side can neither dig trenches close to the city wall nor destroy the city wall by blasting tunnels.

The siege troops must pass through the hard open field in front of the city wall, in the process they will be completely exposed to the long-range fire of the defenders, bounced shells and flying lead and arrows kill.

However, people are in a hurry and can think of any way.

The engineer Lieutenant Colonel Sebastian Vauban, who was transferred to the Road Construction Countermeasures Headquarters, was called back to the front of the siege before the chair was hot, and was forced to the corner of Vauban by two major generals. The school racked its brains and came up with an alternative: since it was impossible to dig trenches, build walls and make trenches on the ground.

In simple terms, it is to build a tunnel on both sides of the wall. Although this is far more laborious than digging trenches, it is the only way at present.

Layton listened to Vauban's plan and immediately made the decision: just do it!
In Roster Leighton's eyes, "It's better to think ahead than stop", it is better to do something than to watch the enemy dig trenches.

However, the operability of the plan decided by slap in the head is extremely poor, and a lot of engineering problems have arisen after it is implemented.

First of all, this is to build a tunnel under the eyes of the enemy. The enemy may tolerate the Veneta army in the half-kilometer outer city, but it will never tolerate the Veneta army continuing to build corridors close to the city.

Digging trenches has natural barriers to block direct fire, but building walls is not enough, and the construction efficiency of rammed earth walls is too slow.

While being bombarded by the enemy and ramming the earth with a pier, no one has such tenacious nerves.

Thanks to Vauban quick witted in an emergency, inspired by the engineering technology of dam building, an innovative way of building a wall was invented temporarily.

Lieutenant Colonel Vauban used local materials to weave a roughly cylindrical cage from the dense vines and pliable branches in the island's woods. Fill the cracks with gravel and finally press down with soil.

Place the cage flat on the ground and build it up one layer at a time to quickly build a temporary wall.

The length of the cage is the thickness of the wall, and a one-meter-long cage makes a wall sufficient to withstand fire from muskets and light artillery.

Although the walls of this shoddy structure are sure to collapse over time, no one expects them to stand on the ground forever and to last until the end of the siege.

In order to make construction safer for soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Vauban invented a "moving wall".

That is, the farm cart is filled with dirt and pushed to the front of the construction site to block the axle, forming a temporary sheltering wall.

This kind of moving wall is not only used to block the enemy's artillery shells, but also can block the enemy's vision, and the sappers quickly build a corridor with a cage of earth and stone behind the wall.

After the tunnel at the current position is repaired, the cart will continue to push forward, and then continue to work at the next position.

When William Kidd saw what the Venetas were doing, he immediately ordered the bombardment of the Veneta fortifications that were extending toward Tower City.

The Veneta fortifications are only about 500 meters away from the city wall, and even a three-pound or four-pound light artillery can be approximately accurate at this distance.

The four-pound gun on the triangular fort opened fire first, and the four-pound iron ball flew parabolically over the head of the Veneta and landed far behind the wall, nothing but air and earth. Did not hit.

Seeing this, the gunner immediately adjusted the wooden wedges on the tail section of the gun barrel. After reloading, the four-pounder roared for the second time.

This time, the cannonball directly hit the four-wheeled cart full of dirt.

The body of the cart trembled, and the axle and spokes made a groaning strain under the impact of the huge force. The spokes of one of the wheels could not bear it and broke.

The four-wheeled cart fell to one corner, the other end was raised high, and the soil spilled out... But that's all, the Veneta people dragged the cart away and pushed another one come up.

The gunner adjusted the angle again. This time the shells flew under the body of the four-wheeled cart. In theory, it should be able to kill the Veneta behind several cars.

However, the enemy, like a bloodless stone, did not waver at all, and continued to build the corridor.

William Kidd slammed his fist on the dirt wall of the Triangle Fort.

After one shot, two consecutive effective hits, the skill and luck of the gunner are beyond doubt, but the Veneta doesn't seem to...not hurt.

William Kidd ordered a switch to eight-pounder guns, but the first two hits seemed to have run out of luck. The eight-pounder can fire either too low or too high.

An eight-pounder shell directly hit the cart, but it didn't cause any trouble to the Veneta.

Seeing that the Veneta corridor had been repaired for some distance, William Kidd instead ordered the eight-pounder strikes to strike the walls on both sides of the corridor that had been repaired.

However, the effect of shooting at the wall of the corridor was even less ideal, because Lieutenant Colonel Vauban made the corridor turn left and right, and approached the city wall like a snake.

Although this increases the amount of work, it also makes it impossible for the artillery on the city wall to shoot directly into the tunnel.

The eight-pounder guns placed on the triangular fort can only strike the walls of the tunnel at a large angle, and they are all bounced off by the walls.

William Kidd went to Half Moon Fort on the east side of the city wall. The guns of Half Moon Fort were farther away from the tunnel, but the angle of incidence between the ballistic and the wall was larger.

Sure enough, shooting from Banyuebao towards the tunnel, the hit rate is even worse. William Kidd's heartache was gunpowder, and he prayed that the next shot would hit the wall of the corridor directly.

Finally, an eight-pound iron ball slid in a graceful arc in the air and smashed fiercely on the side wall of the tunnel.

The huge impact of the shells directly knocked off a large piece of the side wall, and the long-suppressed defenders on the city wall suddenly burst into cheers.

But they couldn't laugh right away, because the Venetas brought out more cages filled with earth and stones, and quickly repaired the battered walls.

In desperation, William Kidd stopped the shelling, he couldn't waste the gunpowder shelling the earth wall several hundred meters away.

On the side of the Veneta, Major General Layton patted Vauban's shoulder with a big laugh: "It's gold that will shine sooner or later. With your professional ability, a lieutenant colonel of the Legion Army Corps obviously wronged you. Work hard, take down Tacheng and I'll make you a colonel!"

"The further the tunnel is built and the closer it is to the city wall, the more difficult it will be to build." Lieutenant Colonel Vauban smiled wryly and called the head said, "I'm a tinkerer. If there is a problem, I'll find a way to fix it. I just hope you don't send me to the Military Law Office if you can't go ahead and fix it in the future."

"Each metre you advance your corridor can reduce many casualties in the subsequent battle." Antonio said mildly: "We know the difficulty of this plan, and we will do our best. After the war, I and I General Layton joins you to ask for credit."

Second Lieutenant of Engineer Otto Skorzeny hurried over, saluted the three high-level officers, and anxiously reported: "Sir. , our wall seems to be built too high. I observed that the bottom cage can no longer bear the soil and stone above, and is about to be crushed!"

Vauban, Antonio and Layton immediately After rushing to the location of the dangerous wall found by Lieutenant Otto, Lieutenant Colonel Vauban carefully observed the test and confirmed: "It's really not good. There are too many heavy objects on it, and the bottom basket can't stand it."

Antonio asked: "How about tearing down a few floors and letting the soldiers bend over to move?"

"The height of the wall is calculated by me. If the wall becomes shorter, The corridors cannot be well shielded at the corners." Lieutenant Colonel Vauban explained helplessly.

"Then what do you say?" Layton asked impatiently.

Vauban thought silently for a while, then said slowly: "I see no signs of breaking the Third Layer below, which means that removing the two-layer cage can ensure the stability of the wall structure. From the top of the wall After the two layers of cages are removed, a shallow trench with a depth of two layers of cages is dug between the walls, which is equivalent to increasing the height of the walls in disguise. At the same time, the excavated soil and stones can also be used to build walls, saving the transportation of soil and stones from the rear time, one move, two gains."

Leighton was overjoyed when he heard Vauban's approach, his face quickly turned from cloudy to bright, and he happily punched Lieutenant Colonel Vauban on the shoulder: "you brat It's a bit quick-witted."

The thin-statured engineer lieutenant colonel Vauban was punched by the five-year-old Layton and held breath cold air, he said bitterly: "You better not be in a hurry to praise me, if Dig trenches, and once it rains, water will accumulate. Digging trenches on rocks is not only time-consuming, but also it is difficult for the accumulated water to seep into the soil... There is no way to do this. I think it is better to pray that it will not rain first. ."

Antonio and Layton were dumbfounded.

......

When the officers of the Tacheng frontline were busy with civil work, outside a village in the interior of Chi Su Island, Andre roared furiously: " This group of XX tricksters! Tricky people! Tricksters! I will kill them today! I will kill anyone who doesn't build roads! I'll see who doesn't dare to go!"

Thanks for the recommendation before Book friends of the ticket, thank the demoness for their screams, justice and purity are the recommended tickets of koala and Tianshui Youjiaren, thank you all.

I tried to draw a sketch of the siege of Tacheng simply by hand, and posted it in this chapter.

(end of this chapter)