Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 442: Chapter 65 Three Opportunities

The situation on the battlefield took a sudden and dramatic turn, leaving everyone dumbstruck.

The Herders were defeated utterly like a collapsing mountain; the routed soldiers from the failed siege swept back through their own formation, actually breaking the central army of the Terdon Tribe.

Winters looked out upon over ten thousand Cavalry trampling each other in disarray, scattering like birds and beasts, and couldn’t imagine that victory would come so suddenly.

Since Andre wasn’t in the fortress at the moment, Colonel Jeska had Pierre lead the Dusack light Cavalry to follow and scout the enemy.

Soon, Mr. Michel, who had been promoted to temporary sergeant, brought back intelligence: the barbarians’ flags were in disarray, and they were no longer an arrayed force, but rather in a chaotic retreat towards the west.

With the situation clear, the people of Paratu were relieved and rejoiced, even the rough men wiping away tears. The greater the suppression they had felt when surrounded by the Herd Barbarians, the more excited they were at this moment.

Winters had no time to celebrate; he was busy gathering the Centurion for questioning.

A messenger had found him—Colonel Jeska wanted all officers to come to a meeting.

When he arrived at the small plank building that served as the headquarters for the battalion, he found that aside from Jeska, Bard, and Mason, there were also two Centurions who had originally been stationed there: Lieutenant Otiba [from Palatu] and Second Lieutenant Sanu [from Veneta].

Winters winked at Sanu and pulled over a chair to take a seat.

The atmosphere was very relaxed; who could have thought that the fierce Terdon Tribe would turn out to be so formidable in appearance yet so ineffective in reality?

“Do not attribute it to us! Do not attribute it to us! Oh Lord, the glory is Your name!”

Bouts of singing filtered into the room; the people of Paratu were singing hymns in unison.

For the believers, defeating so many enemies at such a small cost could only be explained as a miracle.

“If the Herders want to run, let them run,” Jeska said, getting straight to the point once everyone had arrived: “Do not pursue them, continue to strengthen the fortifications.”

At first, Winters didn’t understand: the Herder army was in retreat, they should be pursued relentlessly, to prevent them from regrouping.

But Colonel Jeska wouldn’t make a baseless statement…

After a little thought, Winters figured it out and couldn’t help but laugh at himself: “You mean…the Herders are feigning defeat?”

The smiles quickly faded from the other junior officers’ faces, their expressions turned serious, and they leaned forward involuntarily.

“Pretending to be defeated to lure the garrison out of the stronghold and then seek an opportunity to surround and annihilate them. That’s a favorite tactic of the Herders,” Jeska pointed at Lieutenant Otiba, asking, “Are you from Palatu?”

Otiba was somewhat baffled: “Uh? Yes, my home is at Kingsfort.”

“Then you should know how the last Grand Duke died.”

“I’ve heard it from an instructor… but it was when I was a child.”

Jeska turned to the Venetians beside him: “Tell them about it.”

Lieutenant Otiba scratched his head, stood up, and roughly recounted the well-known story amongst Palatu soldiers.

The story was simple: another year of great disaster, the Herders invaded from the east en masse, pillaging and slaughtering along the way, eventually reaching the foot of Kingsfort.

Impenetrable after over ten generations of Palatu Grand Dukes’ construction, Kingsfort held out against the barbarians’ prolonged attack. After disputes over loot caused internal strife among them, the barbarians eventually fled in defeat.

Seeing this, Grand Duke Bello IV immediately led his troops out to attack, resulting in a pursuit that lasted three days and nights.

Finally, at the mouth of the Kalga River, the overconfident and depleted Palatu forces ran headlong into the Herders’ counter-charge.

By the time the slaughter ended, the Kalga River was filled with the bodies of Palatu’s people.

From then on, no one in Palatu would eat fish from the Kalga River because those fish had fed on the flesh of Palatu’s people.

…

An aside, the impact of this battle was profound: the Grand Duke, along with seven earls, were killed, extinguishing the male line of the Hetumoger family.

The crown of Palatu, after much shifting, finally landed in the hands of Bello IV’s cousin—Richard IV, who at that time was not yet known as the Mad King.

For Richard IV, who routinely faced financial ruin, receiving the Kingdom of Galloping Horses was like finding a treasure. He treated Palatu like a money bag, ruthlessly drawing more than two hundred fifty thousand Ducats every year.

As wealth continuously drained away, Palatu began its steady decline.

The frontier defenses could no longer be maintained, and the Herder tribes raided Palatu every year, calling it “harvesting autumn grain.”

The Emperor, for his part, turned a blind eye and a deaf ear.

From nobility to commoners, resentment and dissatisfaction with Richard IV grew day by day. Beneath the facade of loyalty, deep currents were swirling.

So much so that when the people of the mountain front rose up, Palatu, which was supposed to staunchly support the crown, not only didn’t exert effort to suppress the rebellion, it actually became a source of troops for the “rebels.”

A large number of the lower nobility of Palatu changed their names and called friends to join the ranks of the Allied Army, funding their own revolt.

Throughout the early, middle, and late phases of the Sovereignty Wars, the Allied Army relied on the people of Palatu to carry their Cavalry units.

Ned Smith discovered that among the troops were many curious knights who, under assumed names, claimed to be from the mountain front but spoke with a highland accent.

These men brought their own Warhorses, weapons, and armor to the army; they disliked taking orders, especially from commanders of commoner backgrounds.

Yet, each was a skilled warrior, never deserting despite the lack of military pay, fighting desperately in battle as if they had irreconcilable hatreds with the Empire.

It was precisely because of their distinguished service during the Sovereignty Wars that the Republic of Palatu was able to enjoy a political status on par with The Federated Provinces and Veneta within the Alliance.

If Bello IV had lived during the outbreak of the Sovereignty Wars, he surely would have sent troops to help his cousin suppress the rebels, to avoid getting burned himself.

Under pressure from both sides, the nascent Federated Provinces republic would have been swiftly snuffed out.

If the United Provincials couldn’t even withstand the initial phase of the conflict, then there would have been no chance for the Venetians to join the fight.

But history has no ifs; who could have predicted that a reckless decision made on a whim by a young man would ultimately lead to the birth of five republics and a “great” Alliance?

…

Now back to this meeting.

Ottiba spread his hands, indicating he had finished speaking.

Mason hesitantly asked, “If the Herders are only feigning surrender, isn’t that a bit too costly? They’ve lost quite a few men!”

“Whether it’s a real defeat or a feigned one, it all comes down to this,” Jeska paused for a moment, looking around at the five lieutenants, pronouncing each word clearly, “The tiger doesn’t leave the mountain!”

He went on to explain, “If we hold this bridge, the initiative is in our hands. If he attacks, we inflict casualties; if he runs, we don’t chase. By remaining still, we control the action and give the Herders no opportunity.”

The lieutenant colonel made sense, and naturally, the five lieutenants had no objections.

Winters was also somewhat uneasy about leaving the fortress to pursue the enemy.

However, the strategy of “The tiger doesn’t leave the mountain” left Winters with a small regret; he originally wanted to take advantage of the Herders’ defeat to unearth the sacrificial golden statue.

Now it seemed safer to let the golden statue continue to lie buried in the ground.

Since the internal consensus had been reached, Squad Leader Jeska immediately sprang into action.

Bard led people to continue broadening and deepening the trenches and restocked the chevaux de frise;

Ottiba and Sanu took their men to reinforce and raise the height of the fortress walls;

Mason was rather unlucky. The moment the lieutenant colonel remembered Mason’s wrong turn, he became angry and punished him to clean up the battlefield, collect cannonballs, and drag away corpses.

Weapons, armor, leather cloaks, cloth garments, boots, ornaments… everything valuable and useful was collected.

The dead Herders were stripped bare, and then flung straight into the river, ending up naked, empty, and clean;

Apart from dispatching a few Dusack scouts to survey the enemy situation, no troops were allowed to leave the camp.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeska boldly displayed his intentions to the Herders: no matter what cunning plots you have, I won’t even spare a glance. After all, with every second that passes, the number of lives you need to sacrifice for this Bridgehead Fortress increases.

While the other lieutenants were busy with construction, Winters was busy building morale.

He gathered the musketeers responsible for the staggered shooting and began calling names from a list:

“John from Wolfton!”

“Ryan from the Valley of Light!”

“…”

In the entire Bridgehead Fortress, there were hardly a few who could read.

This deeply impressed upon Winters the importance of universal education. If the lieutenants could read, they could keep records themselves, and Winters would only need to do the summary.

But all his lieutenants were illiterate and he had to transcribe the list himself.

This was also why he divided the musketeers into ten squads, because people have ten fingers. The lieutenants supervising the musketeers were illiterate and could only use their fingers to count people.

The musketeers whose names were called stepped forward one by one. Amongst the nearly three hundred and forty musketeers and crossbowmen who took part in the staggered shooting, Winters called out only thirty-three names.

Not knowing what the centurion intended to do, the thirty-three musketeers stood in a row, uneasy.

“These people,” Winters deliberately paused, emphasizing his words as he announced, “are the ones who managed to make their guns fire with every round during the six-and-a-half rotation shooting! Well done!”

“Reward!” Winters gestured grandly.

Xial and Heinrich brought over a bag of clinking silver coins and distributed them from one end of the line to the other, giving three coins to each person.

Winters then led the crowd in applause. Most of the six-round musketeers blushed with embarrassment, and their eyes dared only to stare at their shoetips.

Then came the fifty musketeers who had managed five rounds, each receiving a single silver coin, with no cheers.

The third group consisted of seventy-eight musketeers who managed four rounds, receiving neither bonus nor applause.

“The rest of you!” Winters slapped the paper, staring at the remaining half of the musketeers on the ground: “In six rounds of shooting, you managed at most three shots. Some of you didn’t make a sound at all!”

In the center of the clearing, there was a deadly silence. Many musketeers hung their heads in shame.

“Look at me! Don’t lower your heads!” Winters sternly scolded with a hardened heart, his cold voice amplified by magic echoing through the fortress: “To punish without teaching is to inflict cruelty! That is why I am reasoning with you now. Every round of fire you fail to deliver, you might kill one less enemy. Kill one less enemy, and you might cause the death of a comrade. Everyone was born of a father and mother, you cause death, you must atone!”

The entire fortress was now silent, even the longspear men who were otherwise uninvolved held their breath and listened.

“Some of you may feel this is unfair. I miss one shot? How could that possibly cause another person to die?” Winters raised three fingers: “Three times! That’s why I give you three chances. In three battles, if you can’t even make a single qualifying volley, you deserve to pay with your life! All that awaits you is the gallows!”

Everyone couldn’t help but look towards the temporary gallows at the edge of the clearing, where the noose swayed in the wind, awaiting its deadly purpose.

Winters shouted, “Bring the gun!”

Xial handed a matchlock musket to Winters.

“I will fire six shots, and if three don’t fire, I’ll put the noose around my own neck!”

Xial set up six Herder helmets twenty paces away from Winters.

With all the eyes of the Palatu people on him, Winters skillfully loaded, aimed, fired, and reloaded.

Six continuous shots rang out, all six hitting their mark, knocking down each Herder helmet as they were fired.

Initially, all the Palatu people were silent, but when Winters knocked down the second helmet, some began to cheer.

After that, with every helmet Winters knocked down, the Palatu people roared in unison, each cheer louder than the last.

When the sixth helmet was struck and flew off, the cheering reached its peak, and even the one-eyed lieutenant colonel watching from a distance applauded.

After the sixth shot, Winters casually tossed the musket aside. Xial caught it firmly, his palms red from clapping.

Six shots fired, all six hitting their mark, no one was unconvinced.

“I will never force you to do what I cannot do. If I can do it, so can you,” Winters’s voice, with the power of magic, overpowered the cheers of the crowd.

His gaze swept over every musketeer on the ground: “Remember, you only have three chances. And you—have already wasted one!”

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