Chapter 89

Another ready fleet started from the upstream of the station. This fleet was different from the pioneer raft team just now. The cabin was made very wide and the hull was relatively flat. Flat bottomed boats are loaded with thick processed boards. There are two kinds of people in the fleet, one is soldiers holding shields to resist the rain of arrows, the other is experienced engineers.

The second fleet passed through the wooden lines burned by the ancient flame, and approached the island in the middle of the river in the rain of arrows shot from the Blackstone fortress.

All the boats spread out on the river, and their bodies were closely arranged to form a transverse belt connecting the right Laixi river bank and the small island in the center of the river. When the boat was in line, the people on board quickly threw iron ropes at the neighboring boats. The tightrope connects the whole fleet tightly, and the ships at the head and tail are slightly larger than the others, throwing heavy anchorages into the water.

On the Blackstone fortress, the iron arrows are falling. Although some soldiers hold shields to resist, the dense rain of arrows still poses a great threat to the soldiers who build the pontoon.

Poop, poop.

One after another, a soldier was hit by an arrow and fell into the turbulent river. All of a sudden, the surface of the water became bloodstained, and the river began to become turbid.

It was the most dangerous time to lay the planks of the floating bridge, and it was also the time with the highest rate of manpower loss. The king sent another fleet to arrive near Blackstone fortress, with longbowmen on board, in order to prevent the enemy from coming down from Blackstone fortress and damaging the first ship and anchorage on the isolated island in the middle of the river.

The king watched the progress of the construction of the floating bridge in the Lacey River on the bank.

Under the enemy's arrow rain, the number of engineers and shield soldiers on the rogrand ship gradually decreased.

General Sheehan put the flag on the Reserve Fleet.

For the sake of today's attack, almost all of rogrand's engineering teams were sent by general sheen to chop wood to build temporary military warships and other engineering equipment. At the command of general Sheehan, the preparation fleet paddled quickly to get near the gradually built pontoon.

By this time, the previous fleet had been almost completely damaged under the arrow rain of the fortress.

On the half built pontoon, some of the corpses of the engineers were hanging on the iron ropes, and some of them were lying on the half paved wooden boards. Blood flowed from the wooden boards into the Lacey River and was quickly washed away by the cold water. But soon, new blood drips down, dyeing this section of the river into a pale red that cannot be washed away.

On the fortress, general vulture organized a group of soldiers, put down a drawbridge, and the rebels with sharp axes rushed to the first boat on the island.

The longbowmen who had been waiting for a long time did not hesitate to pull the bowstring.

The rebels, like the soldiers who built the pontoon in Legrand, were killed by sharp arrows and kept falling down on the way to the first boat of the pontoon.

On the broad Laixi River, the floating bridge is built little by little, which is a bridge dyed red by blood.

"Past!"

When the last board was laid, the king did not hesitate to order.

The long-awaited army, led by the king, advanced rapidly from the pontoon.

This is a time to test one's courage. Although the floating bridge built on the fast flowing Lacey river is fixed with iron ropes, when the cavalry pass by, the bridge deck keeps rolling with the trampling of horse iron, and the water splashes from under the bridge and falls on the Knights' armor.

At the top of the tower, general vulture saw the king, surrounded by the scarlet King's flag, leading the rosary to march through the rain of arrows. They were fast and well armored. The rebels didn't have a good archer like the long Bowman of Legrand, and the arrows fell from the sky and couldn't hurt the cavalry's horses like the ground to stop them.

Rose cavalry quickly boarded the island in the middle of the river.

Blackstone fortress is located in the center of the island. It is an octagonal fortress with a high tower in each corner.

There are double-layer wooden posts around the fortress. Once the enemy attacking the fortress approaches, he must break through the wooden posts. However, there are also many archery holes at the bottom of the tower. Once the infantry attacking the fortress approaches, they will meet the dense attack from the archery holes and the hot asphalt from the upper layer.

But the wind like galloping rose cavalry could not be stopped by the arrows at the bottom. The cavalry raced around the fortress tower, shooting rockets from the horse.

The light cavalry led by the king had special rockets on their backs. The arrowheads were not pure iron, but special fuel wrapped in oil paper.

The arrows flew out rapidly, and the fire started to burn on the arrows. One by one, the arrows with the fire group hit the stakes around the tower, hitting more and more arrows. The fire gradually rose, and finally jumped up in the wind. In the archery hole behind the double stake, the rebel archers were scorched by the heat wave, and black smoke poured into the archery hole. The whole bottom layer of Blackstone fort was filled with choking smoke.

The rebel archers had to run up the ladder inside the tower, and the bottom stake, which was originally used for defense, helped the enemy.

Today, there was no snow. The fire became stronger and stronger with the wind. It rolled into the sky and the black smoke was sent to the top of the tower. It hinders the archers' vision, and the arrow rain falling from the high altitude is affected and becomes weak. Taking this opportunity, general Sheehan, who was on the other side of the river, led the rest of the infantry to cross the Lacey River from the pontoon with a big hammer.Several of the king's pledge knights were sent to protect James when he came.

Even the most arrogant knight has to admit that even if he can't kill the enemy with a sword, he won't charge on horseback, but James himself has the courage to compete with any knight.

Almost every day, James risked being shot by the archers of the fortress. He observed the Blackstone fortress from various angles with various methods, successfully restored the structure of the fortress with his own architectural experience and observation, marked the positions of all the archery holes on the fortress, and finally successfully calculated where the most vulnerable part of the fortress was.

The first engineers who arrived at the foot of the city covered their mouths and noses with cloth strips. They filled the trench in front of the Blackstone fortress with boulders, earth and branches.

After the trench was filled, the engineers approached the bottom of the hard Blackstone fortress. At this time, the fire was still burning. The engineers used cold water to pour out the fire at James' chosen attack point and began to dig the tunnel from that point down. Compared with the hard Blackstone fortress itself, the foundation of the fortress is far less solid.

The soil was quickly dug up, and the engineers carefully took the powder out of the box behind them.

In today's battlefield, gunpowder is just a monster with huge noise and bravado for a hard castle, even if the two brothers of chemists at the king's Academy of madman Sciences improved gunpowder from powder to particle - they can't shake a hard castle with enough power. [2]

but the king did not intend to use them to directly blow up the Blackstone fortress. Instead, he intended to use more powerful gunpowder to expand the damage to the foundation of this corner of the fortress.

The engineers quickly backed down after they had placed the explosives.

In the "boom" of the explosion, the soil and some gravel were raised high. Several engineers who underestimated the power of the explosion and retreated far enough were involved in the afterwave. They were knocked out by the impact of the explosion and fell heavily on the ground, with blood on their faces.

There was no one to help them. On the battlefield of life and death, life was the least valuable thing. The huge siege hammer pushed from behind even ran over a collapsed engineer.

Risking the enemy's arrows and the blood of their companions, the soldiers pushed huge siege hammers close to the bottom of the tower whose foundation was empty by gunpowder.

James was the man who commanded the siege hammer. He improved the giant machinery in the army according to the king's orders.

In the siege, the general use is a huge siege hammer and catapult, in addition to siege tower. But the fortress they are going to attack this time is made of black stone. This kind of rock is very hard, and the general stone throwing machine is not very useful. James transformed the siege hammer in the army, reducing its damage scope, but increasing its impact strength.

The main body of the siege hammer is made of the hard millennial iron wood trunk of angel, which is placed in a triangle frame of two people's height with iron ropes. The iron head in the front is chilly in the sunlight. In this era, such a huge weapon as it once broke many hard walls.

At this time, more than 60 tall and strong warriors pushed the siege hammer to the position confirmed by James himself, pulled the rope together, yelled slogans, and fought back. The iron rope hanging the siege hammer made a "creak" sound, and the heavy siege hammer was pulled back a little bit.

The high vulture general found out the situation of the corner fortress. He waved back the smoke in front of him and directed the archers to move closer to the tower.

Raindrops of stones fell from the tower.

James laughed triumphantly at the siege hammer.

In order to meet the king's requirements, he installed a shelter similar to an inclined canopy on the top of the siege hammer. The inclined canopy covered the wheels and putters of the siege hammer, protecting the soldiers under the canopy as much as possible. However, the service life of this device is limited. Once it is attacked for too long, it may collapse and in turn injure its own soldiers.

But before that, engineers had used new gunpowder to blow up the foundation at the bottom of the corner of the tower!

"God bless Legrand!"

The commanding officer roared. He waved the flag and more than 60 soldiers let go.

Almost in an instant, the iron rope is stretched forward, and the clattering sound of the iron rope is stimulating everyone's eardrum. Heavy siege hammer with a terrible wind hit the wall of the black stone tower.

Long long -

the fine iron hammer hit the point James calculated carefully, again and again. The soldiers' brows were covered with sweat and they screamed.

Spider web cracks appeared on the wall of the tower.

When the final attack hammer hit out, the sound was quite different from the previous several times. Finally, the wall of the tower could not bear it any more. It was suddenly broken. The iron rope with the siege hammer swung directly into the tower, and the gravel flew around.

"I'm right!"

In this loud noise, James cheered. He grabbed the pen and began to write on the straw paper he carried with him. Just as he was selflessly trying to record the conclusion, the knights who watched his oath raised their shield and yanked him out from under the roof of the siege hammer.With the loud crash, the roof of the siege hammer, which could no longer withstand the attack, fell down and the soldiers fled.

On the other side, the long-awaited King's sword pointed:

"attack!"

The author has something to say: [1] in the medieval wars about castles, both sides often dug tunnels. The attacking side hoped to destroy the enemy's fortifications, while the defending side hoped to use the tunnels to prevent the other side from digging. The two sides may even fight directly in the tunnel. As for the use of tunnels, the earlier one can be put forward to the battle of Norman William's conquering Exeter in 1067. It was one of the main means in the war at that time to excavate the tunnel and destroy the foundation of the building, so as to create the attack gap. In addition, there were also the siege hammer, siege cone and so on.

[2] The improvement of gunpowder mentioned in Chapter 40 and the utilization and technical progress of gunpowder at that time are briefly explained in Chapter 41.