Another ready fleet set out from the upstream of the station. This fleet was different from the raft team that had just acted as the vanguard. The cabins were built very wide and the hull was relatively flat. The gondolas were loaded with thick, worked planks. There are two types of people on the fleet, one is a soldier holding a shield against the rain of arrows, and the other is an experienced engineer.
The second fleet passed unhindered through the line of stakes burned by the ancient sacred fire, and approached the isolated island in the middle of the river in the rain of arrows shot from the Blackrock Fortress.
All the boats are spread out on the river, and the hulls are closely arranged together, forming a transverse belt connecting the Lacey bank on the right and the small island in the center of the river. When the boats were side by side, the people on the boat quickly threw iron cables to the left and right adjacent boats. The iron ropes held the entire fleet together tightly, and the ships at the fore and aft were slightly larger than the others, and the heavy anchors were thrown into the water.
On the Blackstone Fortress, the iron arrows fell down with a "hhhhhhhhhhh". Although some soldiers held up their shields to resist, the dense rain of arrows still posed a huge threat to the soldiers who built the pontoon bridge.
"Pfft" "Pfft".
One after another, some soldiers were shot by arrows and fell into the rushing river. The surface of the water was immediately dyed with blood, and the river water began to become turbid.
Laying pontoon planks is the most dangerous and the time when the loss rate of manpower is the highest. The king sent another fleet to the vicinity of the Blackrock Fortress with longbowmen on board to prevent the enemy from coming down from the Blackrock Fortress and destroying the island in the middle of the river. the head ship and anchor.
The king watched the progress of the construction of the pontoon bridge in the Lacey from the river bank.
Under the rain of arrows from the enemy, the number of sappers and shields on Legrand's ship gradually decreased.
General Sheehan waved his flag toward the reserve fleet.
For today's attack, almost all of Legrand's sappers were sent by General Sheehan to chop wood to build temporary military warships and other engineering equipment. Under the order of General Sheehan, the reserve fleet quickly rowed the oars and rushed to the vicinity of the gradually erected pontoon.
At this time, the previous fleet had almost all been damaged under the arrow rain of the fortress.
On the half-built pontoon bridge, some of the corpses of the sappers were hanging on iron cables, while others were lying on half-paved wooden boards. The blood flowed from the wooden boards into the Lacey River, and was quickly washed away by the cold water. But soon, new blood dripped down, dyeing this section of the river a lingering pale red.
On the fortress, General Condor organized a team of soldiers, put down a drawbridge, and the rebels armed with axe rushed to the first ship on the island.
The longbowmen who had been waiting for a long time pulled the bowstring without hesitation.
Like the soldiers Legrand built the pontoon bridge, the rebels were killed by sharp arrows, and they kept falling on their way to the first boat of the pontoon bridge.
On the wide Lacey River, the pontoon bridge was erected little by little, this is a bridge stained with blood.
"past!"
When the last plank was laid, the king gave the order without hesitation.
The long-awaited large force, led by the king, quickly advanced from the pontoon.
This is the time to test one's courage. Although the pontoon bridge over the turbulent Lacey River is fixed by iron cables, when the cavalry passes by, the bridge deck is constantly undulating with the trampling of the horse and iron, and the river water splashes from under the bridge and falls to the knights. on the armor.
At the top of the tower, General Vulture saw the king, surrounded by the Scarlet King's flag, and led the rose iron cavalry through a rain of arrows. They were fast and well-armoured, the rebels did not have archers as good as Legrand's longbowmen, and arrows falling from the sky couldn't stop the cavalry's horses from hurting them like the flat ground.
Rose Rider quickly landed on the isolated island in the middle of the river.
Blackrock Fortress is located in the center of the isolated island. It is an octagonal fortress as a whole, with a tall tower at each corner.
There is a defense surrounded by double-layered wooden stakes around the fortress. Once the enemy attacking the fortress gets close, they must first break through the defense of the wooden stakes. However, there are also many archery holes at the bottom of the tower. Once the infantry attacking the fortress approaches, they will meet Intensive attacks flying out of the archery holes at close range and asphalt hot oil falling from the upper layers.
But the rose cavalry, which was galloping like a breeze, could not be stopped by the arrows at the bottom. The cavalry hurried around the fortress tower, shooting rockets from their horses continuously.
The light cavalry led by the king, the arrows on their backs are special rockets, and the arrowheads are not pure iron, but special fuel wrapped in oil paper.
The arrow flew out rapidly, and the fire blazed on the arrow. The arrows with fireballs hit the wooden stakes around the tower. More and more arrows were hit, and the fire gradually rolled up. Finally, it suddenly jumped up in the blowing wind. In the archery hole behind the double-layered wooden stake, the archers of the rebel army were scorched by the heat wave, and black smoke poured into the archery hole, and the bottom of the entire Blackstone Fortress was instantly filled with choking smoke.
The rebel archers had to flee up the ladder in the tower, and the bottom wooden stakes originally used for defense actually helped the enemy at this time.
There was no snow today, and the fire grew stronger and stronger due to the wind, swept into the high mid-air, and black smoke was sent to the upper floors of the tower. Obstructing the vision of the archers, the rain of arrows falling from the sky was affected and weakened. Taking this opportunity, General Sheehan on the other side of the river led the remaining infantry troop to cross the Lacey River from the pontoon with a tall battering ram.
Several of the king's sworn knights were sent to temporarily protect James at this time.
Even the most arrogant knight had to admit that even if he couldn't kill the enemy with his sword, he wouldn't charge on horseback, but James himself definitely had the courage to stand shoulder to shoulder with any knight.
Almost every day, at the risk of being shot by the fortress's archers, James observed the Blackstone Fortress in various ways from all angles, and successfully restored the structure of the fortress with his own construction experience and observations. After finding out the positions of all the archery holes in the fortress, we finally succeeded in calculating where the fortress is most vulnerable.
The sappers who first arrived at the city were covered with cloth strips, and they filled the trenches in front of the Black Rock Fortress with boulders, dirt and branches.
After the trenches had been filled in, the sappers approached the bottom of the solid blackstone fortress, and while the fire was still raging, the sappers poured cold water on the flames at James' chosen attack point and began digging down the tunnel from that point. [1]. Compared with the solid blackstone fortress itself, the foundation on which the fortress stands is far less solid.
The soil was quickly dug up, and the sappers carefully removed gunpowder from the boxes behind them.
In today's battlefield, gunpowder is just a monster with a huge noise and bravado to the hard castle, even if the two chemists brothers of the King's Academy of Mad Men improved the powder from powder to granule - they are not enough to shake the hard fortress. [2]
However, the king did not intend to use them to directly blow up the Blackstone Fortress, but planned to use the gunpowder, which was a little more powerful than before, to expand the damage to the foundation of this corner of the fortress.
After placing the explosives, the engineers quickly retreated.
In the sound of the "Rumble" explosion, soil and some gravel were raised high, and several engineers who underestimated the power of the explosion and retreated far enough were involved in the aftermath. They were knocked out by the impact of the explosion and fell heavily on the ground. He landed on the ground with blood all over his face.
No one was there to help them. Life was the most worthless thing on the battlefield. The huge battering ram pushed from behind even crushed it directly from a collapsed engineer.
Braving the enemy's arrows and the blood of their comrades, the soldiers pushed the huge battering rams to approach the bottom of the tower whose foundation was emptied by gunpowder.
James was the one who commanded the battering ram, and he improved the giant machinery in the army on the orders of the king.
In the siege, generally used are huge battering rams and trebuchets, in addition to siege towers. But this time, the fortress they are going to attack is made of black stone. This kind of rock is very hard, and ordinary trebuchets are not very useful. James modified the battering ram in the army, reducing its damage but increasing its impact.
The wooden stake of the main body of the battering ram is made of Angel's hard millennium iron wood trunk, which is placed in the triangular frame of the height of two people with iron cables. In this era, giants like it have blasted through many hard city walls.
At this time, more than 60 tall and strong warriors pushed the battering ram to the position confirmed by James, all pulled the rope, shouted slogans, and struggled back. The iron rope hanging the battering ram made a "crunching" sound, and the heavy battering ram was pulled back a little bit.
General Vulture found the battle situation of this corner fortress. He waved away the smoke in front of him, while commanding the archers to move closer to the tower as soon as possible.
Raindrops of arrow stones fell from the tower.
James laughed triumphantly at the battering ram.
In order to meet the requirements of the king, he installed a bunker similar to a sloping canopy on the top of the battering ram. The canopy was inclined to cover the wheels and push rods of the battering ram, so as to protect the towed soldiers as much as possible under the roof. . However, this device has a limited service life, and if it is attacked for too long, it may collapse and in turn injure its own soldiers.
Before that, however, the sappers had blasted the foundations at the base of this corner of the tower for the battering ram with new gunpowder!
"God bless Legrand!"
The commanding officer roared loudly, and he waved the flag, and more than 60 soldiers let go together.
The iron rope was stretched forward almost in an instant, and the clattering sound of the iron rope irritated everyone's eardrums. The heavy battering ram slammed into the walls of Blackrock Spire with a terrible sound of wind.
rumble-
The fine iron hammer slammed hard on the point James had carefully calculated, again and again. The soldiers shrieked with sweat on their foreheads.
Cobweb-like cracks appeared on the tower wall.
When the last battering ram hit, the sound was completely different from the previous ones. The tower wall finally couldn't bear it any longer, and it shattered with a bang. The iron cable swayed directly into the tower with the battering ram, and the gravel flew everywhere.
"I got it right!"
Amid the loud noise, James cheered, grabbed the pen and began to scribble on the scrap of paper he carried with him. Just as he was about to record the summary, the oath knights who were staring at him raised their shields and yanked him out from under the roof of the battering ram.
With a loud bang, the roof of the battering ram, which could no longer withstand the attack, slammed down, and the soldiers that were pulled fled in all directions.
On the other side, the long-awaited king pointed his sword:
"attack!"
The author has something to say: [1] In medieval wars about castles, both attackers and defenders often dug tunnels. The attacker hoped to destroy the enemy's fortifications, while the defenders hoped to use the tunnels to prevent the other party's excavation. The two sides may even engage in direct engagement in the tunnel. Regarding the use of tunnels, it can be pushed back to 1067 when William the Normans conquered Exeter. By digging tunnels and destroying the foundations of buildings, creating an attacking gap was one of the main methods in the war at that time. In addition, there were battering rams and siege cones mentioned in the text.
[2] The improvements in gunpowder mentioned in Chapter 40 above, as well as the degree of gunpowder utilization and technological progress at that time, are briefly explained in Chapter 41.