Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 405: Chapter 47 Riverside Camp

Hearing that General Yanosh had died, Winters’s fist clenched unconsciously.

The one-eyed lieutenant colonel was unmoved. He sneered and asked, “You called me out just to tell me this?”

“Surrender the supplies you are carrying, and I will allow you to keep your flags and weapons and leave,” the Herder repeated the terms he had offered, looking quite self-assured, “Anyway, you are still alive, which isn’t too bad, is it?”

“Fine,” the lieutenant colonel responded blandly, “I’ll go back and think about it.”

The Herder smiled with a mix of politeness and scorn, “Your Excellency, there is no point in delaying. No one is coming to save you, and my mercy and generosity are also limited.”

“Anything else?” the lieutenant colonel, casually cleaning the blood from under his fingernails, asked indifferently.

“May I know Your Excellency’s full name?”

“John Jeska.”

“I am Alaric, a Chiliarch of the Haug Koda, or what you call a Chiliarch.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“I am also honored to have crossed swords with Your Excellency.”

Lieutenant Colonel Jeska was passive, and the negotiation quickly came to a hasty end.

Upon standing up from his bear skin, Alaric said coldly, “Gentlemen, as we speak, the grains of sand in the hourglass are falling one by one. There isn’t much time left for you.”

…

On the way back to the main camp, Lieutenant Colonel Jeska suddenly asked, “Lieutenant Montaigne, what do you think?”

Winters spoke frankly, “If we hand over the supplies, will they really let us leave? I’m not confident about it. But we do need to be prepared.”

“You’re wrong to think that way,” Lieutenant Colonel Jeska said disdainfully, “If the Herders are so formidable, why don’t they just come and attack us?”

“They probably just want our things…” Winters raised his eyebrow: “Hmm, could it be?”

“Exactly what you’re thinking. Do you think I’m the one in a hurry, or are they more anxious?”

The lieutenant pondered for a moment: “It seems like that Herder is more hurried.”

“Exactly, he’s so anxious he’s about to wet his pants! And he has the audacity to ask us to surrender?”

The lieutenant was puzzled, “But didn’t he say…”

“You believe him just because he said it?” Lieutenant Colonel Jeska burst into laughter, “I might as well say I’m his father!”

Winters, recalling the Herder’s expression and behavior, couldn’t help feeling irritated, “That guy, was he lying to us without batting an eye?”

“In war, no tactic is unusual. Don’t think the Herders are simple-minded, barbarians are the most cunning.” The lieutenant colonel instructed casually, “Don’t spread what that Herder said. If anyone asks, just say he was here to persuade us to surrender.”

…

Beacons had already been lit, and the messengers for help had crossed the bridge early.

The first thing Lieutenant Colonel Jeska did upon returning to camp was to interrogate the prisoners, while Winters went back to his troops to lead them in strengthening the defensive fortifications.

The Paratu People, regardless of rank, were all working hard.

The camp was backed by a large river and already had trenches and earthen walls, although the walls were not high and the trenches not deep.

But with just a few hundred people in the camp, they could never dig up much earth, even if they worked themselves to death.

After discussing it among a few officers, they decided not to expend effort on the walls or trenches, but instead to work on some more immediately effective measures.

That’s why everyone was working frantically to raise the height of the shooting towers and to collect lumber from within the camp to sharpen into stakes to repel Calvary.

When Winters returned to his troop, he saw Andre, Bard, and a few others gathered together.

“What are you doing?” Lieutenant Montaigne asked.

Andre handed a matchlock gun to Winters, “Look at this.”

Winters caught it, “What’s wrong?”

This was an ordinary matchlock gun with a long wooden handle and a short iron barrel for firing.

Winters noticed a detail: a long dagger was inserted into the barrel, turning the matchlock gun into a short spear.

“This is interesting,” Winters said thoughtfully.

The dagger was tightly fitted, and it took some effort for him to pull it out. Holding it, he noticed that the dagger was crudely made, consisting of a strip of iron sandwiched between two pieces of softwood.

“This little contraption actually saved our lives today,” Bard said, patting a young man beside him, “Baronna, tell Lieutenant Montaigne about it.”

Baronna, very nervous, stuttered, “This dagger, back in my hometown, Hunters use it when hunting boars. Sometimes when a boar isn’t killed by a shot, Hunters insert the dagger into the gun, using it as a spear.”

Winters reinserted the dagger into the matchlock gun and tried a few thrusts.

Bard explained, “There are quite a few merchants in the convoy who only have halberds. I thought this device could be useful, so I had the blacksmith make a few dozen. Normally, after firing a matchlock, all you have is a club, but with this, it can be used as a short spear. Today, it actually gave the Herders a little surprise.”

“Bard and I have been studying it,” Andre added, “If we equip each matchlock man with one of these daggers, perhaps they can replace the pikemen.”

Winters smiled faintly, handed the matchlock back to Baronna, and shook his head, “It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

Winters, who came from the infantry, reminded his two cavalry classmates, “How light is a matchlock gun? How heavy is an arquebus?”

“What do you mean?”

“The arquebus is heavy; the lighter ones weigh fifteen pounds, the heavier ones can weigh thirty pounds. They require a rest to shoot. How could you use that as a short spear? The weight of a pike is only five to ten pounds.”

Andre, unconvinced, picked up an arquebus to try it out and then said no more.

Actions speak louder than words; matchlock guns are too cumbersome and ill-balanced for combat, and they also have a short attack range.

Even though they are held with both hands, one cannot thrust like a speargun, and the effective range is similar to that of a one-handed spear, merely an arm’s length plus half the length of the gun.

Affixing a dagger to the cumbersome matchlock to use as a short spear isn’t as effective as wielding the gunstock in reverse to bludgeon someone.

Winters added salt to the wound, “Moreover, a spear is at least two and a half meters long. How long is a musket with a dagger attached? The spearman’s role is to protect the shooter from cavalry charges; using a short spear against mounted gunmen is inherently at a disadvantage.”

“So this thing is useless?” Andre asked reluctantly.

“Not necessarily,” Winters thought for a moment and said, “If the weight of the musket could be reduced to under ten jins, it would be of great use. Additionally, the musketeers must be brave enough to engage in close combat. Otherwise, I would still prefer to use halberds and spears to protect the shooters.”

Andre couldn’t help but protest, “Then why not just make muskets that weigh under ten jins?”

Winters replied helplessly, “It’s not as simple as you say! To reduce the weight of the musket, you need a lighter barrel. If the barrel is light, the walls are thin. Aren’t you afraid of a bursting chamber? Or loading less powder, which then lacks power.”

“In the end,” he summed up, “we need better iron.”

…

At midnight, under the obscured moonlight, the stars shone bright and clear.

Only the sentries remained awake; everyone else in the riverside camp had long been asleep.

Two silent figures, leading horses, quietly slipped out of the northern gate of the camp.

The men bit on wooden sticks, the horses were fitted with iron bits, and Winters followed closely behind Colonel Jeska, communicating with each other solely through hand signals.

The colonel insisted on not bringing guards, saying that the more people there were, the more likely that problems would arise.

The two officers left the camp without a word, and to anyone unaware, it might seem like they were deserting.

The night was still and quiet save for the sound of insects. Even the slightest noise could travel far.

Winters and the strong-willed had all their metal objects wrapped in cloth, and so did the colonel. The two did not ride their horses but led them by the reins at a slow pace.

Since the negotiations, Herder scouts had been roaming near the riverside camp, probing for weaknesses.

The Herders’ small horses were agile and good at jumping. Shooting them with muskets or crossbows proved ineffective. Send out Cavalry to engage, and the enemy would gallop away.

Time and again this happened, much to the annoyance of the Paratu People.@@novelbin@@

Winters’ rifled gun had problems again—the rifling scraped the lead, losing accuracy. Thankfully, Berlion said he could fix it, and it had already been handed over to the blacksmith for repairs.

Ancient laws stated, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

Taking advantage of the pitch-black night, the colonel, with Lieutenant Montaigne, prepared for a close reconnaissance mission.

According to the colonel, he only brought Winters because, firstly, he had a good horse, and secondly, because he didn’t suffer from night blindness.

The Herder camp was separated from the Paratu military camp by a solitary hill.

Jeska and Winters reached the top of the slope, already within the Herder sentries’ patrol range.

Beneath the slope, the Herder camp was ablaze with lights, busy with unknown activities.

“My eyes aren’t as good anymore,” said the colonel lying on the ground, “you count. Count how many campfires they have.”

Winters, also prone on the ground, covered his left eye with one hand while focusing intently with his right on the distant fires.

Jeska whispered to the lieutenant, “When the Herders deploy, they form groups of ten. If it’s really a Chiliarch, there must be at least fifty campfires at the least.”

“Commander, I’ve counted up to eighty already!” Winters whispered back, pressing to keep his voice low.

“Did you count correctly?”

“Now it’s up to ninety.”

“[Swear word related to sheep]” Colonel Jeska suddenly cursed, “The steppe couldn’t possibly come up with a ten-thousand-man team again, could it?”

“What does that mean?”

“Go, there’s a scout rider coming!” The colonel got up, pulling on the lieutenant’s clothes to drag him backward.

“Wait.” Winters did not budge, his eyes fixed on the distant camp. He, too, suddenly swore, “[Swear word related to a sailor’s mother]! The Herders are building siege engines!”

“Stop talking nonsense, let’s go.”

The two leapt onto their Warhorses and dashed toward the camp.

Herder scouts sensed something amiss and gave chase for a while but fell behind, and eventually did not pursue further.

Back at camp, Jeska asked the lieutenant, “How many riders did we first encounter from the Herder group?”

“Nearly a hundred.”

“And the group outside the camp?”

“About two hundred.”

“Understand now?”

Winters shook his head vigorously, “I don’t understand.”

“Herders aren’t particular about uniform numbers,” Colonel Jeska said grimly. “A Tulu might actually have only thirty or forty riders. A so-called Chiliarch might be well off if they have six hundred. But the groups of Tulu we encountered were all at full strength. This Haug, he likely also has full numbers.”

“So?”

“Herders are nomadic by family units, and their pastures can only support a limited number of people. When the men increase, they split the household, and so do the tribes. It’s rare for a tribe to be able to send out more than a thousand able men for warfare all at once. If we’re not incredibly unlucky to have encountered a major tribe en masse, then someone is calling the shots among the tribes.” Jeska gritted his teeth as he spoke, “The last person with such authority… was Khan Quyale, thirty years ago.”

Winters wasn’t born thirty years ago and wasn’t a Paratu, so he couldn’t fully empathize with Colonel Jeska’s alarm.

Right now, he was more concerned about the immediate crisis: “Never mind this Khan Quyale for now, sir! The Herders are constructing siege weapons; that’s the real threat!”

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