Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 257 Attack and Defense

After obtaining news of the near-total demise of the popular battalion that had opened its way ahead, the territorial nobles of the Principality of Kanas and the Principality of Eskilin cautiously stopped marching, laid down the camp and recruited the fleeing inhabitants, quickly clarifying the situation.

Unlike the highway leading to the Principality of Kanas, which is known as the Pan Mountain Trail, which runs on one side of the cliff, on the other side of the valley, and on the other side of the hillside. And the highway on the Principality of Eskirin is sandwiched between the two mountains, with hillsides and cliffs on both sides.

In addition to the highway, which leads all the way to the triple fork, passing under Squirrel Village, there are four other sites on this side of the highway that can go up the hill and around to the back of Squirrel Village. In the case of ABCD, Muriel had taken a cold gun at point A and lured the colonists into pursuit until point D was ambushed. Claude's defensive position is set at Point D, which is the nearest point to Squirrel Village.

Now the two principalities are camped in the hillside woods opposite point A, where they dispatched several squadrons to reconnaissance, also knowing the defensive positions set up by the enemy guarding Squirrel Village at point D, for which many territorial aristocrats have quarrelled.

In the view of some territorial nobles, since the enemy has placed more than a hundred guards in defensive positions, it is clear that it has emerged from the empty nest and must have been unparalleled on the side of Squirrel Village. As long as one of the troops is involved with the enemy in the defensive position and the other hurries along the mountain path, as long as the squirrel village is taken, the enemy's back road over there is copied, it becomes a sandwich in the pie and they can't run away if they want to.

On the other hand, the nobility of another part of the territory believes that it is simply impossible for them to leave us such a loophole in the face of the sleazy and insidious nature of their enemies. A number of traps should have been set on the highway to Squirrel Village to delay our journey, and since the enemy would have set up defensive positions on the hillside, that suggests that that is where he must defend himself, rather than being prevented by conspiracy. We can totally rely on our superior forces to take down enemy defensive positions on the hillside, then take over Squirrel Village, and push with strength...

This is actually a radical and steady view, along the mountain lane, avoiding enemy defensive positions, either quickly or by avoiding emptiness, avoiding excessive casualties among the troops under their command. Attacking the enemy's defensive positions, although only more than a hundred, can still cause considerable casualties. It would also delay the consuming of the scarce food and ammunition supplies carried by the troops, which was not a good option for the nobles of the Territory.

Finally, the Territorial nobles decided to try the idea of travelling quickly along the mountain path to Squirrel Village. This time, they deployed two battalions, one headed straight for Squirrel Village along the mountain path, and the other battalion was responsible for engaging the defensive enemies on the hillside defensive positions in an aggressive posture that prevented them from dispatching to support Squirrel Village.

Of course, the enemies on the hillside have not forgotten to drive two horses forward. However, unfortunately, when walking to the highway not far from Point D, several enemy soldiers ran down the hillside defensive position, and a random gun killed the two horses approaching the road ahead...

This distance is somewhat embarrassing for the battalion marching on the hillside and the battalion responsible for engaging the enemy in the defensive position. Because the soldiers who killed the horses could return to their defensive positions only by turning a few dozen meters, and sending someone to chase them would easily step into the enemy's range of fire, and the chase would not be fatal.

But without the horses, how do we know if there's a trap on the highway up ahead? We can't let the soldiers find their way. The reported territorial nobles quickly came up with an idea, concentrating on all the horses in the camp, two in one, putting a knife in their asses and driving them on the hillside.

It is true that running horses are not so easy to get hit by gunfire, even if they are shot once with the horse's life force, they can still run forward for a little while. Soon, "Boom Boom” sounded, a large trap appeared on the mountain path, two horses fell into the trap, the trap sounded the horse's wail, but it stopped crying after a while...

This trap, Claude, took three big canisters of gunpowder to blow up the trail, and it took a team of soldiers a day to dig it up. I had no idea that only two horses had been caught in it, and Claude could only shake his head and smile. But it doesn't matter if you don't have a few enemies in the pit, the real purpose of this trap is to stop the enemy from moving forward. I just don't know how many lives the nobles of the Territory would spend to fill this trap.

The trap is situated between the two mountains, on the other hand, dozens of meters high on the cliff rock wall, where the enemy is unlikely to climb. On its own side is a small rock hill 20 to 30 metres high, which the enemy must come to take over their defensive positions if they are to climb, otherwise they will not be able to bypass.

And of course, the enemy has another option, which is to bury this big trap on the highway. However, Claude planted a cannon on the hill, the loot captured in the three southern counties sent by Major Ledfank to Claude, a light live ammunition cannon produced by the Principality of Eskilin. The artillery was unable to fire shotguns and had an effective range of only 300 metres, and the light infantry artillery equipped by the Kingdom of Ovieras was arguably not a grade and belonged to a decommissioned cargo. In the Principality of Eskilin, however, such artillery is firepower support for infantry battles.

Claude would have arranged two light infantry artillery cannons on top of Pebble Hill if it weren't for the small size of the cannon. Just considering that the defensive position required artillery shells to cover the fire to repel the attacking enemy, Claude had to remove the garbage cannon from the warehouse while letting Muriel carry a small group of soldiers on the hill. Their task is to stop the enemy from filling this big trap.

Territorial aristocrats wanted to bury the great trap on the highway, so they drove the colonists to dig up the soil and prepare to fill the great pit on the highway. But what they didn't expect was that the enemy in the defensive position ambushed the guards on the hill on the side of the trap, still in a position where they could beat you, but you couldn't fight back, and the people carrying the wood and the dirt pack were knocked down like targets, one by one, on the highway, and there was no way to get close to the big trap.

When the nobles of the Territory made several wooden platoons to resist the guns, the artillery on the pebble hill fired, and the narrow highway allowed only one wooden platoon to travel, just enough time for the artillery to aim to fire. Moreover, the mountain road is rough and winds up, and the enemies above the pebble hill are high enough to hit the trolley who can't hide behind the wooden platoon car. Few people could not be pushed up, more people were hit by guns, even at a distance of 70 to 80 meters from the big trap, the artillery on the pebble hill was enough to destroy the wooden platoon car.

One afternoon, the efforts of the nobles of the Territory were all in vain. The territorial nobles of the Angry Principality of Eskirin pulled out the four light live artillery cannons that they had brought to prepare for the battle with the artillery on the pebble hill. However, the artillery above the pebble hill, although of the same type as the four artillery guns of the nobility of the Territory, was arranged at a higher altitude, with much greater range and cheaper.

Territorial aristocracy can only allow artillery players to move forward, thinking that one fight at a time will always triumph. Unexpected to move forward and fall into Claude's calculations, he ordered two light infantry artillery slopes on the hillside defensive position to fire, directly destroying three artillery guns, while jumping chicken dogs surrounding the crowded enemy, causing heavy casualties.

As a result, more than two hundred more people were killed and injured by the Allied Territorial Lords in one afternoon as a result of pit crashing and preparations for artillery shelling, and nearly five hundred more had been lost to the colonial battalion that had been lured into defensive positions in the morning. The soldiers' morale was extremely low and they were not prepared to go to the southern three counties to take advantage of the wind.

After dinner, the aristocrats of the Territory gathered in a large ledger to discuss countermeasures, and now their only option was to take down the enemy's defensive position on the hillside, which was the only way to go. However, it is clear to all that there is a high cost of casualties to positively capture the enemy's defensive positions. The enemy, although small in number, is far more qualified and equipped than the Allied Coalition.

In the presence of the lowly people, the nobles of the Territory may claim to be armed by their own families, and the vigilantes are elite, but in the presence of these regular army guards in the kingdom of Orvilas they all know how much their vigilantes weigh. In terms of guns, they are also basically equipped with antiquated weapons that have been eliminated from the armies of the two principalities, after all they are dealing with rebellious territories rather than invading foreign aggressors.

Moreover, if the best weapons of their own families' militias are equipped, the suspicion of the Grand Duchy is raised, and the other is that the best guns are equipped at great expense to the living standards of the nobles of the two Duchy territories, which, if spent too much on militias' equipment, tend to affect their own quality of life and prevent them from enjoying a better life. So some nobles are too poor a territory to scratch more wealth to be equipped with weapons. Others are reluctant to invest in armaments.

But what can be said is that the arming of the families of the territorial nobles of the two principalities is still there and the loss is only a small fraction. Most of the casualties during this period were conscripted inhabitants whose strengths were still present for the nobles of the Territory, so there was no need to abandon the intention of pillaging the three southern counties. Only when discussing how to attack enemy defensive positions, most of the territorial nobles did not intend to send their own private soldiers, but instead struck the conscripted inhabitants brought by the nobles of the territory of the Principality of Kanas.

The territorial nobles of the Principality of Kanas have also suffered from the fact that, despite the presence of a regiment of more than 4,000 troops, the armed forces of their families together amount to less than 1,000, and more than 3,000 are conscripted inhabitants. But they were trapped at the corner of that hill road for four days, killing and injuring 700 or 800 people. Turning to the highway on the Duchy of Eskirin, a reward was given the previous two days to allow these conscripts to hunt down their enemies who had attacked and ambushed them. Killed more than a dozen enemies, but lost nearly a hundred on his side.

Today, more than 500 people were killed and injured again, and to date, the loss of conscripts has reached about 1,300, more than a third, and the remaining conscripts who can fight are just over 2,000. Their morale is very low, and the nobles of the Territory think that they are being used as cannon ash. If these conscripts are forced to attack enemy defensive positions again, excessive casualties may provoke mutiny...

A nobleman proposed a night attack, but other noblemen pointed to defensive positions on the hillside far away, and could see from the hillside to the side of the hillside, igniting more than a dozen large piles of bonfires, enough to burn overnight. Both on the hillside and on the hillside, they are seen by enemies in defensive positions, carrying out night raids that are no different than during the day. If you send someone to extinguish those fire heaps, the first is that they are also within the range of the enemy's guns in the defensive position, and the second is that they will alert the enemy.

After lengthy military discussions and bargaining, the territorial nobles of the two principalities finally reached an agreement to give soldiers and conscripts a good night's rest and attack the enemy's defensive positions on the hillside tomorrow morning. As for the attackers, all territorial nobles draw their own militias proportionally from their respective family forces, temporarily forming two battalions, staffed with 1,000 conscripts, in an effort to take enemy positions with a military advantage.

A safe night had passed, and in the morning when Claude saw with a single telescope the enemy troops leaving the camp in a fierce direction towards the hillside, he knew that a blood war was inevitable. Five hundred meters away, he fired live ammunition directly from two light infantry artillery. It was just that the militias and the colonists of the nobles of those territories were not lined up as regular army parades, but were waving their melee weapons wildly towards their defensive positions on the hills after being bombarded by artillery.

“Within 200 meters, the guns are free to fire, the guns are loaded with shotguns, and you cannot fire until you are close to 50 meters!” Claude's cold sermon.

In one morning, the Alliance of Territorial Lords launched three strikes at positions guarded by Claude, each of which was beaten down, with dozens of insane soldiers rushing to the position the second time, but soon eliminated by the guardian's bayonet. The attacker was killed and wounded by more than half a dozen horses. The hillside was covered with corpses. The blood made the dirt on the hillside thick. One foot went down and it stained a large chunk, with a stinging bloody smell...