Chapter 292：

The battle on the high ground lasted for nearly half an hour. Senior officers such as Schroeder, Claude, and Tirpitz personally led the team to participate in hand-to-hand combat, and finally regained the artillery position.

No matter how old the mercenaries are on the battlefield and how rich their combat experience is, they cannot stop the close cooperation of more than 600 Arda soldiers. What's more, most of the mercenaries on the high ground are longbowmen, and close combat is not their best job. In the end, they were helplessly defeated.

As for the ordinary soldiers sent to protect the longbowmen, they were terrified after seeing the power of the musket salvo.

In Paul's design, the army under his command does not take the route of elite soldiers, but relies more on discipline and organization. Soldiers must absolutely obey the orders of their superiors, even if the orders are not the best or even have defects.

They don't need to be proficient in all skills, but they must master their own skills proficiently, perform their duties in battle, and complete tasks with good collective organization and division of labor and self-sacrifice spirit, just like ants or bees.

Of course, due to the limitations of the times, the so-called "elite soldiers" in this era are not much elite, so Arda's individual soldier quality can be regarded as one of the tallest among the dwarfs, and the per capita literacy alone can crush the big soldiers. Part of the army soldiers.

In short, the Duke's army on the highlands faced a powerful opponent half a generation or even a generation beyond them.

Leaving a pile of wounded and groaning on the ground, the Duke's army retreated back into the woods in the opposite direction of Arda's army.

Schroeder ordered the battlefield to be cleared quickly, first of all to check the loss of artillery.

Fortunately, although there were traces of being moved, none of the artillery was pulled away, and all remained on the ground, but more than half of the artillery mounts were destroyed.

"Why didn't you get the artillery away sooner?"

Schroeder was very strange and interrogated the wounded prisoners who remained on the ground.

"Those southerners (mercenaries) claim to have seen all the weapons in the world, and there is nothing they can't use, so they want to use these thunder hammers to bombard you, but later saw that you came up and couldn't pull them away in time , destroying the shelf below."

The captive's answer made Schroeder chuckle a few times. This is the first time a weapon like artillery has appeared in history. Even if the mercenaries are well-informed, how can they fiddle with it, not to mention that the artillery moved down the gunpowder when they retreated. up.

"Immediately use the intact artillery to bombard the enemy, and at the same time organize artillery to repair the damaged artillery mounts."

Schroeder immediately gave the order.

…

Ferguson and Emerson are still waiting eagerly for news.

Earlier, they sent an army to attack the place where the Arda people deployed Thunder Hammer, and they fell into ecstasy after seeing the flag of success erected. According to the next plan, the army on the high ground will flank Arda with the troops attacking from the front. people,

Seeing that the enemy army below sent a group of people to go up to the high ground, Ferguson lost no time in ordering the repaired troops to launch a second attack, either to eat up the enemy army that stayed in place, or to force the enemy army that counterattacked the high ground Back to aid.

Subsequent developments disappointed Ferguson and Emerson. The Arda army that stayed in place remained motionless, and the cavalry and infantry who attacked from the front continued to kill them. What was worse was that the flag of their own side erected on the high ground fell down.

"They're back!" A servant rushed over to report.

Then a group of dejected and ashamed people came to Fergus and Emerson.

Knowing what's going on without them opening their mouths, Fergus asked coldly, "Where's Thunder Hammer?"

The leading squad leader didn't dare to raise his head, and shook his head with drooping head.

Fergus was stunned: "You didn't bring back a single one?"

A long silence followed.

"waste!"

The mercenary captain was furious, raised his whip and whipped his subordinates severely.

"You have been going up for such a long time, and you can't do it even if you divide up the number of people and pull back a few doors?"

The team leader was beaten hard, and he opened his mouth to argue: "Master Fergus, although the frame carrying the thunder hammer is equipped with wheels, the Ardas took all the horses on the high ground when they retreated, such a cunning guy The wheels are locked, and we can't go far by dragging or lifting them manually, so we have to figure out how to use them to deal with the Arda people on the spot."

Fergus stopped swinging his whip, and asked with a livid face, "Have you gained anything?" He did see that after the mercenaries captured the high ground, the thunder hammer on the high ground did not move at all. Obviously, his subordinates did not touch it. What clue.

"Uh... because the opponent counterattacked too quickly, we haven't figured out how to use them, but there is a brazier next to them, which is obviously related to fire."

Fergus glared: "Do you need to talk nonsense? When it was fired, there was so much smoke, do you think I'm blind?"

The team leader suddenly said in a hurry: "There is another important piece of information. There is a strong strange smell on the high ground. The smell seems to be... seems to be..."

He scratched his head, quickly recalling the smells he had smelled in his mind, suddenly slapped his forehead, and shouted loudly: "That's right! It's sulfur, and that strange smell should be the smell of burning sulfur."

"sulfur?"

Fergus and Emerson raised questions at the same time, and they looked at each other. Sulfur is a very common firelighter But no matter how violent the burning is, it can't be connected with the earth-shattering momentum when the thunder hammer is fired, there must be something else.

Sitting on the horse, Emerson leaned over and asked, "Did you take a closer look at the specific structure of the Thunder Hammer?"

The mercenary squad leader rubbed the back of his head, "The structure is very simple, just a big metal pipe, some are made of bronze, some are made of iron."

"When you get back to the camp, draw a picture for me in detail."

"Yes, my lord."

While Emerson and others were discussing Thunder Hammer, Arda's army began to attack them, and the remaining artillery bombarded them. Many troops deployed in front began to move back without orders. To avoid the roaring shells.

Both Fergus and Emerson could see that the morale of the troops had dropped to the extreme after the roundabout attack failed and the frontal attack failed several times.

"Damn it, this is the first time I have encountered such a small number of tough people." Fergus complained bitterly in his heart. In his previous war career, he had encountered difficult opponents not once or twice, but that time It was under the condition that the strength of the two sides was not much different, but in today's battle, even after the opponent received reinforcements, his own number was fully three times that of the enemy's.

It turned out to be such a mess...

Fergus looked to the north, and the Ardas were moving in a horizontal formation. The order of the formation gave people an illusion from a distance—it was not individual people, but a moving wall, oppressive Feel full.

"Lord Emerson?"

When the mercenary captain spoke, he no longer had the arrogance he had before.

Emerson nodded unwillingly: "Oh... let's go."

The battle on the border of the Duchy has finally come to an end.