bookpower #355 - Gold shines wherever it goes
#355 - Gold shines wherever it goes
The setting sun was like blood, and the Parliamentarian soldiers, after their cheers, began to change shifts.
Shouldering spears and shields, they descended the city walls in twos and threes along the steps.
These city-guarding soldiers were mainly composed of semi-professional mercenaries and foot knights, filled in by the city guard of Rapid Current City.
These citizens and shopkeepers, who were still hawking on the streets a month ago, had, after two months of training and one month of war, gained some semblance of iron and blood.
"I heard that Gentleman Siao Lin sponsored a batch of beef?"
"Can we eat beef tonight?"
"You really think you'll get beef? That's for the knightly lords."
"If I don't get beef, even soup would be great."
Rubbing their sore muscles, the soldiers chatted, starting to discuss what food they might have tonight.
For this uprising, Rapid Current City's warehouses had stored enough provisions for a full three months. While the soldiers outside the city were gnawing on dry biscuits, they could still eat bread.
Just as they were talking about which brothel they would patronize after a full meal, one soldier tugged at his companion's sleeve.
The companion tacitly silenced himself, respectfully and fearfully turning his face away, avoiding looking at the passing wizards.
Even though they had helped them repel the Church's army, the citizens still believed they were evil heretical wizards.
Employing heretics and heathens to fight was just a temporary measure.
They were all good believers, only forced to mingle with evil devils out of desperation.
They, they didn't accept the wizards' help, it was just a雇佣 relationship.
Initially, many citizen议员 expressed opposition to Magistrate Catherine's strategy of hiring wizards to fight for them.
However, as the intensity of the siege warfare gradually increased, the citizens had to accept their presence in light of the wizards' glorious achievements.
Although cooperating with wizards might tarnish the reputation of Rapid Current City and its citizens, they couldn't afford to worry about that too much right now.
The Black Serpent Bay wizards were long accustomed to the soldiers' gazes.
They supported each other, too tired to even speak, staggering as they occasionally took a sip of medicinal wine hanging from their waists to steady their spirits.
After the wizards left the city walls, the eerie atmosphere dissipated, and the hungry soldiers dragged their weary steps towards the food tents.
Enviously watching the soldiers, the city guard officers, although hungry, couldn't go to the food tents to eat yet.
They had to follow regulations and report to Pettier in the command room first.
The turret where the command room was located was behind the monastery, precisely in the dead zone of the catapults.
Inside the command room on the second floor of the turret, it was filled with captains and officers of all ranks, reporting the situation to the young man in the center.
"The third section of the city wall has been damaged, with ten casualties..."
"The fifth section of the city wall's damage is not serious, with no casualties, but there are three deserters..."
Pettier stood in the center of the command room, the long table neatly arranged with unfolded maps and charts, densely marked.
A month ago, Pettier was just an unknown logistics officer in the Parliamentarian army, but a month later, he was the de facto commander of this defense war.
To put it simply: the army was still controlled by Catherine, but Pettier was actually in charge.
In terms of his position in the Parliamentarian army, Pettier was now the third most important person after Catherine and Karl.
The reason for this meteoric rise was simple.
Three weeks ago, a Church army catapult launched a stone that hit the city wall and bounced up, collapsing a clock tower.
The clock tower happened to be next to the command room at the time, where the chief city guard officer and senior generals were holding a meeting.
After the senior officers either spiraled to the heavens or were seriously injured, Pettier, as the logistics officer, stood up, temporarily replaced the commander-in-chief, and perfectly withstood the day's offensive with his command.
Catherine immediately promoted him to defense consultant, and then began the nightmare for Ellard and others.
No matter how they attacked, each section of the city wall could be defended just enough.
Others might think that being able to defend easily was because the Parliamentarian army was too strong/the Church army was too weak, but only these city guard officers knew that one of the real roots was actually in this weak young man.
Every morning before the shift change, Pettier would convene a meeting of the city guard officers from each section.
The specific content of the meeting was quite simple, divided into three parts:
First, who led several hundred soldiers, several wizards, and several red dragon breaths to which section of the city wall, and who led dozens of soldiers and several wizards to another section of the city wall.
Second, who led troops as a reserve for which sections of the city wall, and who was responsible for joint defense in which direction.
Third, what to do if such and such a situation occurred?
Then the meeting adjourned, and everyone took their soldiers and supplies to the city wall and defended it according to plan.
The magic of it was that, according to Pettier's allocation of troops on each city wall, they could just repel the enemy every day.
Many people even suspected that Pettier was a divination wizard or a mind wizard who could divine the future or eavesdrop on thoughts.
Otherwise, why was it that under his deployment, the enemy retreated as soon as the last red dragon breath was used up every time?
Not one more, not one less, with almost no waste.
"...The soldiers on the seventh section of the city wall suffered some casualties, with twenty, but fifteen of them were lightly injured and could be put back on the battlefield after bandaging."
"Okay, does anyone have anything to add?" The rapidly moving quill pen stopped, and Pettier, with dark circles under his eyes, looked around and asked.
The city guard officers present looked at each other and shook their heads in unison.
"Okay, meeting adjourned, come to the meeting earlier every morning." Pettier instructed the remaining soldiers and turned to go to the third floor.
The city guard officers breathed a sigh of relief, greeted each other, and headed towards the tavern.
Pettier rubbed the sleep from his eyes, supported himself on the stairs to the third floor. In the small study on the third floor, Catherine and a group of Parliamentarian army leaders were gathered in this small room.
According to the previous established practice, after the city guard officers reported their work, Pettier had to go to the second floor to report to Catherine.
Seeing Pettier's haggard appearance, Mittney walked to the tea table and poured Pettier a cup of ice-cold mint tea.
After thanking him, Pettier placed the summarized briefing on Catherine's desk.
"How is the situation today?"
"It's okay, the number of casualties is only seventy." Pettier hesitated, "Magistrate, I have to remind you that our two types of dragon breath are running low."
"Not enough? How could it not be enough?" Karl, standing by the window, turned around, his left arm in a sling, and a sword wound extending from his chin to his ear on his cheek.
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"The council designed it to last for a month in Ansenburg, but Ansenburg was breached in two weeks, leaving no reserves." Pettier walked to the table and pointed to the numbers on the briefing, "I tried to save as much as possible, but it's still not enough."
"How long can the current two types of dragon breath last?" Catherine asked, scanning the numbers on the briefing.
Pettier licked his dry lips, thought silently for a long time, and sighed: "I think, if we look at the current rate, it will be used up in two weeks at the earliest, and less than three weeks if we save it.
In the original plan, this time point was exactly when the second batch of support would arrive in early August, but the situation is different after all. The councilors considered it too extreme and did not leave any room for error."
"Can the Black Serpent Bay's secret society allied forces come early?" Karl walked to the table, picked up the briefing, and scanned it.
"I sent them a letter before the city wall at the port was breached."
"Did they have any news? How did they respond?"
Catherine looked at Mittney with a solemn expression. Mittney whispered to Karl helplessly: "Black Serpent Bay sent news at the end of June."
"What? How come I don't know?" Karl asked, glaring with his bull-like eyes.
Mittney pulled out a letter from the pile of documents: "After the last batch of wizards supporting us arrived, the defenses of Black Serpent Bay's homeland were weakened a lot.
Nidsar, the Sand Sculpture Knight stationed at Red Copper Fortress, led troops to sneak attack from Dragon Flame Township, and plundered a large number of wizards who were good at fireball spells.
Black Serpent Bay not only cannot send wizards and secret society mercenaries in advance, but even the reinforcements in early August will have to be postponed to the end of August. I was afraid of affecting morale, so I didn't say anything."
An unspeakable silence spread in the room. Catherine took off her glasses, leaned back in her chair, rubbed her eyebrows, and said nothing.
The remaining black knights and councilors, you look at me, I look at you, and also don't know what to say.
"How is the battle on Upper River?" A councilor suddenly asked, "When exactly can Lord Moliaty come to save us?"
"Same as usual." Mittney leaned back on his desk, "Fighting a war of attrition near the fortresses near the High Fort."
"Don't always think about saving us." Karl still harbored his original counterattack dream, "Maybe we can counterattack ourselves?"
But Karl himself understood that after losing the port from the beginning, talking about counterattack was simply wishful thinking.
But he had to say so, otherwise the morale of the black knights would fall.
Pettier seemed to think of something: "Hoen of Joan of Arc, I mean, can the Savior Army of the Holy Grandson come to rescue us?"
"Ask him for rescue? Isn't it too early for that? Our black knights can fight again." Karl said grandly at the beginning, but the ending was somewhat weak.
With an uncertain look of doubt, Karl turned to look at Mittney beside him: "Mittney, why haven't you said anything?"
Mittney smiled wryly and pulled out another letter from the pile of letters: "This is news from Caxia County. The knights and the Savior Army of Golden River Township have started a war. It is estimated that they will not be able to rescue us for two or three months."
"Why at this time of all times?" A black knight standing at the door complained in a low voice.
"Yes, how can they rashly start a war with the knights of Golden River Township?" Hearing this, the tone of a councilor rose a few notches.
"This is not their choice, nor is it our choice." Catherine, who had been resting, finally spoke, and the original noise dissipated a lot.
After all, the woman in front of her used the war to proclaim herself the wartime magistrate and purged a large number of opposition factions in the Rapid Current City Council.
If anyone wants to accompany those former councilors in the dungeon, they may as well speak out against it at this moment.
"Or can we hire another batch of mercenaries?"
"The port has fallen into their hands, the river channels have been blocked by sunken ships, where can we hire them, and how will they come in if we hire them?"
"Then what do you say we should do?"
"...I don't have a good solution either."
Catherine opened her eyes, hid the tired look in her eyes, looked at the Parliamentarian army leaders whose atmosphere was slightly depressed, and she sighed:
"I didn't really want to say this, in case spies passed the news to the Church army outside the city, but now they are almost here, it should be okay."
This nonsensical sentence confused everyone present.
"Magistrate Catherine, what do you mean?"
Catherine stood up, looked around at the people around her:
"Caxia County has officially raised the flag against the Church. I estimate that their reinforcements will arrive within three days at the latest. At that time, we will break out and cooperate with them to fight a beautiful counterattack."