Chapter 47: The Power of Artillery

As the world enters the year 1453, nothing seems to have changed from the previous year, at least for Antonius and his men. Merchant ships still sailing in and out of the various ports and harbors, taverns filled with drunk sea-fares and young lass dancing around sending winks to folks. It remains a busy day for Antonius and his ships, going out with blades, crossbow and other stuff, returning with loads of gold, silver, human power, silk, alcohol, precious metal and other stuff. Every time these boys sails the ship back to the harbour, there will be a huge crowd of Constantinople citizens watching. If what comes out is loads after loads of coins and silk, they will shout aye and rush to help, taking some leftovers in the process. If what comes out are other stuff, they will shout nay and disperse away. This has even become like a tradition in the city happening almost every single day.

If someone is gonna pick anything different, its perhaps something with Antonius' ships. They now got something else attached the hull on both ends and sides of the ship, a long bronze tube – something the crew calls "Peterero", or a "Swivel Gun". Supposedly the crew use this bronze tube a force stops any ships who attempts to be pricky by blowing the guy holding the wheel onto the sky.

On the shores, Antonius stands on the stage as he watches his army trains. He now has recruited a total of two thousand strong forces under his command, which has greatly exceeded the limit given to him by the emperor for almost two times, however this act surprisingly got pardoned by the emperor and gave him the right to recruit up to two thousand men. This huge force is a combination of Varangians, marines, shields men, archers, sailors and a brand-new branch, artillery.

The first batch consisting twenty of Orban's artilleries has been finally completed and sent to Antonius' corps to serve as training purposes. They measure seven feet, or 2.1 meters with a caliber size of 155 milli meters. And today is the day they shall begin their training with their new big toys.

It is not their first time getting a taste of gunpowder, they already had for twice, once blowing up the fortress of Rumelihisarı, and the other time with their smaller Swivel guns.

The testing spot is chosen to be on a relatively flat terrain beside the Genoese colony of Galata right next to the straits of Golden Horn, as Antonius suddenly had a bad taste of humour and wished to use the chance to show his power and force to his old countrymen, if even better he can scare the governor of Galata into submission and force him to pay protection fees.

Antonius put his hands on the cold metal laying of the canons, feeling its freezing surface in the cold winter, wandering what can this thing that Orban promised him that will do wonders can really achieve. Behind him, Jacob hurriedly instructs the soldiers letting them revise again how to men the guns, while some unload round metal shells and black gun powders. In a distance, a sheep herd drives twenty sheeps to the destination as testing subjects.

"Your highness." After a while, Jacob approached Antonius who is still touching and examining the canons. "I urge you to stay in a distance just for safety, or else you can get yourself injured."

Antonius followed, after a while of hustle and hassles, everything is set as soldiers manning the guns got into position, the gunners loaded two metallic chambers filled with black powder into a slot on the back of the canon called a 'breech'. The canon ball has already been placed inside before putting in the powder chamber. After making sure it is lined up and intact, the gunners sealed the slot by putting in a wedge and knocking it with hammer making sure it is tight. Finally, another gunner put in some priming powder to the barrel, then we can say everything is set.

Antonius is growing wary and impatient of this long process as he fidgets around restlessly. Upon hearing Jacob say that everything is set, Antonius could not control his excitement, he ran forward, snatched the fire match from a fellow and commanded. "Let me do the job, boy, go take a break."

The gunner startled but still followed Antonius' orders. Jacob on the other side, tried hard not to laugh but pretended he never saw anything.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Lit!"

Antonius, like others, lit the primer with the torch in a short distance which he latter regretted, almost soon. First he saw a blinding flare coming out of the barrel, followed by a thunderous banging sound that almost deafened both of Antonius' ears. Before he realised what is going on, the energy of the air thrusting backwards together with the canon barrel sent an irresistible force behind, making Antonius lose his balance instantaneously and falling on the snowy ground.

All of these happened within two seconds, Antonius did not even realise what is going on and he is grabbing the snows and grasping for breath, ears humming like his tympanic membrane has broken. After he regained his consciousness, he looked beside him, all he could see is white smoke, for one second he almost thought he had ascended to heaven.

Three other gunners rushed for their admiral's aid, pulled him out of the smoke and started massaging his forehead opening his mouth to relief the pressure of his ears.

Jacob approached, and squatted down, then smiled and pulled Antonius up. "You see, your highness, you said yourself last time that you got to listen to the professionals."

"Oh.. what?"

"I said….?"

"What?"

It took Jacob to repeat himself a few times before he could finally understand what Jacob is talking about, he grabbed Jacob's hand, stood up, shook the snow on his coat off and nodded. "Aye, my bad."

"Anyways, nice work boy, you really did impress me."

Suddenly Jacob just felt that all these three months of effort are worth it.

The poor sheeps however, suffered a much worse fate. Only three of these sheeps died immediately due to the shells, the rest died from the shock that the shell produced when they land pounding on the ground, or in simpler words, they scared themselves to death.

Perhaps that will be the same fate of humans who are facing directly to the barrels of the canons next time on battlefield.