Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 381: Wickham Castle Strong Fight

“We're too late.” General Albert laid down his golden monolithic telescope and shook his head: “If we could have come a month earlier, the enemy would have failed to build the walls, and perhaps we could have attacked this camp of the Voluntary Field Corps of the Kingdom of Nasserley while its walls were imperfect. Now that they've built the walls, we're in a bit of trouble trying to pull out this stronghold..."

Claude didn't say anything, and he knew that some of the trouble General Albert said was already giving him face, not some trouble, but a lot of trouble. He did not expect the confession of the captured high-ranking officers of the Principality of Kanas that the voluntary field corps of the Kingdom of Nasri had rebuilt its logistics base on the ruins of Castle Wickham, and it had only now come to light that they had not rebuilt their sites, but had expanded them and even built the most peripheral walls.

Originally known as the capital city of Cromwell Overseas Territories, Wickham Castle is known for its tight security. At the time of the first colonial war in the Kingdom of Hicks, Castle Wickham had only one local guard force, which had remained under the siege of a standing army in the Kingdom of Hicks for six months. Finally, it took the colonial army of the Kingdom of Hicks a month and a half to bring in two heavy offensive artillery and destroy the walls before seizing the castle.

The second overthrow of Wickham Castle was the victory of General Michelchi, who led the Cavaliers to the fall of two standing regiments on the front lines of the Kingdom of Hicks during the First Colonial War. The two walls of Wickham Castle that had been shelled by artillery had not yet been repaired, and the local guard regiment defending a dissatisfied Hicks colonial army could only surrender with a white flag and restore Wickham Castle to the ranks of the rangers.

Subsequently, after receiving information from the Kingdom of Hicks on the addition of five standing regiments to the colonies of the Nubian continent, General Michelchi decided to implement a hard-walled clearing strategy in the overseas territories of Cromwell and Beringana, relocating all the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Wickham Castle, leaving only one empty castle and those Nikancas living around it.

After the beginning of the Second Colonial War, the Standing Army of the Kingdom of Hicks took over Castle Wickham with ease, massacred and expelled the Nikans occupying the residential homes of the castle residents, and set Castle Wickham as a general logistics base. General Michelch, however, ordered Commander Claude's Rangers to take over the castle of Wickham through pre-excavated covert raids, burning down all logistical supplies and forcing the Hicks Kingdom Standing Army on the front line to surrender to the victory of the Second Colonial War because the explosion of those ammunition depots left the entire castle of Wickham in ruins.

Only after two failed attempts, the Kingdom of Hicks refused to put an end to the war and announced the formation of 10 standing regiments. In the name of mercenaries, the so-called decommissioned soldiers were hired from the dead enemies of the Kingdom of Auvellas, the Kingdom of Nasri and the Principality of Kanas, who formed two voluntary regiments to be transported to the Nubian continent to stabilize the colonial situation.

In the first half of this year, the Kingdom of Hicks transported two more formed Standing Regiments to the Colonial County of Vibato, only to face a food crisis. In parallel with the emergency delivery of armaments such as grass, hundreds of thousands of acres of good land have been reclaimed in the colonial county of Vibato to survive the famine. According to the confessions of senior officers who had been captured, the first planted potatoes had been recovered in the Colonial County of Vibato and the food crisis had been alleviated, which was why they had decided to launch military operations against the Cromwell and Belingana jurisdictions.

The Voluntary Field Corps of the Kingdom of Nasseri, having seen the favourable topography of the site of Castle Wickham, decided to rebuild the logistics base there. If the Volunteer Light Rider Corps of the Principality of Kanas hadn't been caught hunting the buffalo, they would have stayed under Cromwell. With both regiments on guard, Crowell's direct command will soon become a colonial county in the Kingdom of the Hicks.

That is also the main reason Claude is determined to uproot the Kingdom of Nasseri, a voluntary field regiment, and as the highest commander of the theatre, he will never allow the enemy to nail such a nail within his own battle range. Especially the kingdom's dead enemy, the voluntary field regiment of the kingdom of Nasserli, was famous for its good defense and death in five years of Eastern Regional Warfare. If it were left to occupy the ruins of Wickham Castle, the Cromwell administration would soon become the enemy's jurisdiction.

Too bad, as General Albert said, they're too late. The enemy has built a perimeter wall, while the camp is housed inside it. It is not a good idea to launch an offensive without much difference in strength. The Thunder Division is likely to hit the enemy's walls with a bloodshed, causing heavy casualties and still failing to capture Wickham Castle, and there is a good chance that the enemy will seize the opportunity to fight back.

Claude would have liked to see if the enemy had built it at its original location, so maybe that secret passage could still be used. Claude was very disappointed that the enemy had expanded the entire castle of Wickham and that the trench where the secret exit was located had been filled and enclosed in the walls.

General Albert's suggestion is siege, or siege. Using the thunder regiment's aircraft power, force the enemy to stay at Wickham Castle and wait for the moment when their grass runs out.

I just don't know how long this will take to work. No one knows how much grass and logistical supplies this volunteer field regiment in the Kingdom of Nasseri carries, and if it is only a matter of two or three months, we can all endure it. But if the enemy has been stockpiling supplies for a year, then everyone should go back to washing and sleeping early. Anyway, it can't be attacked, allowing the generals to stay in the wilderness for a year without fighting morale and collapse...

But Claude rejected General Albert's suggestion, and what he needed was time to destroy the volunteer field corps as soon as possible. Instead of being entangled with the enemy here, the longer the delay affects the theatre, not to mention the disadvantaged position of logistical supplies alone compared to the enemy. Even if the Thunder Division is powered by mechanical power, it consumes more horses than people, it is not enough to graze grass on the wilderness, and a lot of nutrient-rich ingredients are needed to feed it.

So Claude decided to attack and throw a bomb in his hand, and he didn't believe this volunteer field corps of the Nasserley kingdom could hold the wall. General Albert did not understand that Claude had mastered the killer and persuaded him for a while. Claude simply shook his head with a smile and insisted on not listening to his persuasion. Instead, he was ordered to throw out his troops in case the enemies in Wickham Castle gathered to flee. At the same time, let him see why he has the certainty to break through this wall built by the enemy.

But Claude's dial didn't ring, and surprisingly, this corps of volunteer fielders didn't shrink behind the walls of the city as a shrinking turtle. Aware that the Thunder Division soldiers in the pits 100 metres from the walls posed a great threat to the guards on the walls and the artillery crews, they launched an infantry strike back out of the walls, forcing the first Thunder Division soldiers who attacked to snipe the enemy to pay a great deal of casualties and had to retreat from the front line.

Claude's shadowy face made it clear that the enemy had found that the Thunder Division had attacked them with no more force than they had, so he was confident that he would strike back out of the city. Claude wanted to throw the projectiles over and inside the walls, and he had to be within seventy meters of the walls. But as things stand, the Thunder Division can't get close to the wall 100 meters, not even sniper the guards on the wall...

Claude had to instruct the self-destructed Corps of Voluntary Light Riders of the Principality of Kanas to dig trenches from 800 metres to the enemy's walls in order to avoid artillery fire on the enemy's walls and reduce casualties. This is impossible. The enemy has a large quantity of armaments and ammunition. Within 800 metres, if more than three people are seen gathering, the artillery on the walls of the city will fire solid bullets. Under these circumstances, the soldiers of the Thunder Division could not dig any further in front of them, but had to dig from a distance of 800 metres outside the range of the city wall artillery.

It took eight days to dig three trenches up to 200 metres from the city wall, during which the Voluntary Field Corps at Castle Wickham also sent night assault troops to attack the guards in the trenches, killing and injuring nearly 100 thunderous soldiers. Together with the soldiers killed and injured by shelling on the walls of the city while digging trenches, nearly four hundred people have been killed.

However, because of this, it provoked the anger of the general of the Thunder Division. Everyone knew that the Division still had a bomb thrower in its hand, so morale was not depressed. Instead, the war spirit was much stronger, demanding that the battle be fought day and night and continue digging forward. I can't help but dig under the walls overnight and throw bullets at my enemies.

Claude had also learned by then of the difficulties of the Kingdom of Nasseri, a volunteer field regiment, who had changed his plan of action and was determined to fight another tough battle beneath the castle of Wickham, rather than hoping to throw a bullet at the enemy. He also remembered the famous saying in previous generations on the military web that weapons were not the determinants of war and that it was the people who truly determined that war prevailed.

As can be seen from time to time by the Voluntary Field Corps of the Kingdom of Nasseri sending people out to fight back against the walls, the enemy's morale is equally high and they are confident that they will be able to defend the castle of Wickham. If the enemy is not trapped in the castle and their morale is weakened, the enemy can continue to fight the Thunder Division inside the castle even if it is too late to strike an enemy with a projectile. Perhaps by then, the Thunder Division, who thought the enemy had been defeated by the dropping of a bomb, would have suffered a huge loss. After all, the dropping of a bomb was not a real killer, it was just a mutation of a grenade, and the killing power was not that great...

Starting 150 meters from the wall, Claude ordered the soldiers to dig the lateral trenches in case the enemy came out of the city and fought back, followed by another 120 meters to dig the lateral trenches, one step at a time.

General Albert watched the battle somehow and didn't understand why Claude did it. With two months of stocks of grass and ammunition before the departure of the two divisions, it is likely that logistical supplies will have been depleted before the strike at Castle Wickham.

Claude just smiled and said to General Albert, "Be patient for a few days and you'll see." Over the next few days, the soldiers of the Thunder Division finally dug a lateral trench within 100 metres of the city wall, which allowed them to suppress the artillery fire directly on the city wall and even prevented the enemy from leaving the city to set up campfires to prevent night raids.

In the evening, in preparation for the night attack by the Thunder Division, the Volunteer Field Corps had to send a large number of soldiers to guard the city walls, throwing torches from above the city walls from time to time, using fire to check whether there were night attacks on enemies near the trenches of the city walls...

Claude's night attack, however, did not prepare the Thunder Division soldiers to approach the wall at all. All they had to do was approach the wall within seventy metres and throw the projectiles directly onto and inside the wall. Continuous explosions exploded over the walls of the city, and occasionally soldiers' limbs were blown from the walls of the city in the fire.

A total of 10 rounds of thousands of projectiles have been thrown, killing and injuring a wolf over the wall that the Thunder Division stormed. While the Volunteer Field Corps had mobilized several reinforcements, it was afraid to send more men up because the first two men and horses who had climbed the walls had been killed and injured. Even when the bomb dropped for 10 minutes, they were still standing under the walls, and only a few soldiers were sent to the walls to observe.

The 10-minute pause was just Claude ordering the bomb squad to go 15 meters ahead and throw five rounds into the city. As a result, nearly 100 rounds of first-round projectiles were thrown in, and reinforcements of volunteer field corps stationed beneath the city walls suffered a huge loss when they landed. The projectiles were falling in the crowd, blowing up a large number of pieces, and soldiers without casualties turned around and could not even take their wounded comrades with them.

By then, the subsequent siege troops had crossed the trenches in front of the walls and climbed the ladders against the walls. Although there are more than a dozen soldiers on the walls sent to observe the vigilant volunteer field corps, this is simply not enough to resist so many attackers, either turning around and fleeing or dying under the assailant's bayonet.

Soon the walls of the frontal assault were occupied by the soldiers of the Thunder Division, and the soldiers who went up to the walls continued to attack along the walls, opening the gates of the frontal assault downtown and allowing the subsequent troops to enter. Covered by bomb drops, four walls fell into disrepair and most of the men and women of the Volunteer Field Corps were trapped on the rubble between the walls.

After the four walls were captured, Claude ordered no further attacks, waiting for dawn, in case of accidental injuries. It was only after dawn that the Legion of Thunder discovered that the voluntary field regiment of the Kingdom of Nasseri was ready to resist, setting up defensive positions on the rubble between the walls at night and concentrating artillery shelling the walls to the west with the intention of opening a gap and killing a way out.

Sadly, the perimeter wall they built was of very good quality, and dozens of artillery shells bombarded the city for half a day, only to punch the walls into a pit and slump. Whereas Claude saw the enemy not surrendering, he ordered the soldiers to turn their heads and bombard the rubble placed on the wall, destroy the defensive positions set by the enemy and attract the enemy's fire, while ordering McJackie's guerrilla battalion, Battalion 131, to use projectiles in conjunction with General Albert's troops to launch an attack and seize the enemy's defensive positions.

The fierce battle inside Wickham Castle lasted three days and two nights, and the remaining 43,000 troops of the volunteer field regiment of the kingdom of Nasri, who eventually passed away, laid down their weapons and surrendered to the Legion of Thunder.

The Wickham offensive lasted a total of 22 days, with more than half of the casualties in the voluntary field regiment of the Kingdom of Nasserli, more than 17,000 troops killed and the entire army destroyed. But Claude's Thunder Division and General Albert's Rock Division III were also casualties. The Thunder Division's casualties were mainly concentrated on the trenches being dug back and the last night raids on the city, with nearly 4,000 casualties.

The casualties of the Rock III Division, on the other hand, were in the last three days of the city's offensive, as they were unfamiliar with the city's alley warfare, and General Albert's troops lost more than 6,000 casualties, almost losing the strength of a regiment, while attacking defensive positions built by the enemy on the rubble.