Chapter 248: These Disorderly Bastards
The Baschurten siege, which would decide the southwestern front, had now entered a lull. It was because Fried had accepted General Alexander’s counsel to regroup rather than press the attack.
The encirclement was maintained as it stood, but a welcome rest was granted to the soldiers.
General Alexander prepared for a possible enemy surprise attack, however unlikely, and he also drew up a plan to charge in at once should the gates so much as open for a sortie. In other words, he’d laid a variety of traps.
But the Baschurten army, as though determined to hunker down, didn’t budge an inch.
Saying that people with such patience were rare, General Alexander came to consider a last resort. That was to hurl diseased livestock, filth, and the like into the castle using the trebuchets.
It was the medieval era’s signature biochemical attack.
If an epidemic spread, then no matter how much the enemy fixated on defense behind their solid walls, they couldn’t help but collapse on their own. But this was, quite literally, a last resort, and as such it carried enormous risk.
It was because the losses far outweighed the gains. With an epidemic spreading, the occupying army couldn’t enter, so they couldn’t plunder, and worse still, the manpower and cost poured into containing the epidemic would be enormous.
Still, it was also a tempting method for taking the place quickly, so had I arrived just a little later, Fried, having lost his patience, might really have gone through with it.
By the time the crown prince arrived, though, it was an impossible plan.
Fried and the crown prince had set up seating right in the middle of our camp and were watching the Royal Artillery Corps. I joined them there as well. This scene of enjoying wine and fruit felt oddly out of place.
The soldiers were moving about busily, and I didn’t quite know what to make of such behavior.
But nobles maintained their airs even in the middle of a battlefield.
The crown prince spoke as he gazed at the cannons being transported.
"This is only the second time I’ve seen a cannon in person, but I hope it proves as effective as its roar suggests."
"You saw them at the artillery demonstration? Then you’d have some idea of their power, wouldn’t you?"
"I have no idea at all. I only watched them shoot at a target."
Though they hadn’t hit the target with a single round.
The crown prince, who added that afterthought, grinned, seeming greatly intrigued by the eccentric stunt I’d pulled.
It was also the reason the crown prince, who should have been in Basel, had come to the Baschurten siege grounds. The Western Lords’ Army currently stationed in Basel was hurrying preparations to invade Rheinkalsen, under Count Essenbach’s leadership.
The plan was to take Rheinkalsen, then advance all the way to Konstanz and strike the heart of Radensdorf. The Grand Duke’s army and the duke’s army were squared off on the plain of Dellingen, so the strategy was to strike while the enemy’s home was undefended.
If it succeeded, it would be a masterstroke that could end the civil war, but having encountered countless variables on the battlefield, I knew better than to guarantee any strategy’s success.
"Dreckskerl! Set it down carefully, you pigs!"
"If you break that, I’ll shove your heads in and launch them!"
"Aaagh, Verflucht nochmal! Don’t throw the powder kegs!"
Rough shouting and cursing flew back and forth, with fistfights breaking out here and there, but the work proceeded smoothly. It was fortunate that the weather stayed bright throughout. If it had rained in this situation, the whole day would have been a write-off.
The bronze cannons the Royal Artillery Corps treasured like sacred relics were fixed cannons, mounted on wooden platforms with no wheels and so immobile that packhorses had to be mobilized. So they had to be loaded onto wagons for transport, and since this was unfamiliar work to the laborers, the process went through considerable trial and error. It was a regular marketplace.
"Those disorderly bastards are the Royal Artillery Corps?"
"They’re the only soldiers in Beren who know how to handle cannons."
Fried seemed thoroughly unconvinced by the laborers unloading the cannons and the artillery members directing the work up ahead. The truth was, they did look like a rabble.
He drank his wine, anxious about whether the plan could succeed.
The crown prince smiled and soothed Fried.
"Even if they look unreliable, isn’t it enough if the result is good?"
"That may be so, but I only fear being humiliated before the enemy."
"Don’t worry. When has Lord Streit ever disappointed?"
"...It’s as you say, Your Highness. Let’s try trusting him for now."
The truth was, more nobles than you’d think harbored distrust at the sight of the Royal Artillery Corps. Not only were they uninvited intruders who’d suddenly butted in, but cannons, of all things? It must have been an incomprehensible sight.
So you could easily spot people observing the artillery corps closely from elsewhere in the camp. The faces of the knight-class nobles were plainly marked with displeasure.
The Church and the knight class had played a part in spreading the negative perception of gunpowder weapons in Beren. Even Benjamin and General Alexander went so far as to genuinely worry about whether it would be all right.
But I, the very pinnacle of that knight class, was directing it personally, and it was something the crown prince and Fried had permitted, so even if they grumbled, they couldn’t openly oppose it.
Theirs was a wait-and-see attitude, though.
At times like this, the crown prince and Fried’s trust was very reassuring.
But truthfully, it was also a burden.
To be honest, half of me felt like I was gambling.
Since the artillery demonstration they hadn’t fired a single shot and had done nothing but ballistics calculations day and night, so if they couldn’t actually fire in real combat, what kind of humiliation would that be? A tremendous backlash would follow.
When I’d unrolled the scrolls, I slowly read through the densely written training logs.
These were the source of the confidence the Royal Artillery Corps had instilled in me.
The handwriting was atrocious, but looking at the training notebooks they’d shown me, I could tell that they had truly, earnestly longed for a chance, which was why I trusted their ability and pushed ahead with the investment.
The crown prince, counting the cannons, asked me as if puzzled.
"Didn’t you say you were mobilizing six cannons? I count twelve."
"...That’s because they pried off the ones on the ramparts too and brought them all."
"...Is that all right? Even if Father makes an issue of it, I know nothing about it."
"It’s fine as long as the result is good."
It was Schneider who’d caused the trouble, but I was the one in charge regardless, so I treated it as something I’d ordered. If a subordinate’s merit is my merit, then a subordinate’s fault is my fault too.
The crown prince’s expression turned sour.
"I hope my concern proves unfounded."
"I agree, Your Highness."
While setting up the twelve cannons, what Schneider and Marco measured most meticulously were, naturally, the distance and angle calculations. The distance and angle determined the amount of gunpowder used and the power of the cannonball.
The trebuchet’s range was between 500 and 700 meters, but these cannons’ range exceeded a kilometer, so the artillery corps could go about their work step by step without taking enemy fire.
"Marco, are the distance and angle accurate?"
"I checked any number of times with triangulation. If you’re so anxious, do it yourself, Commander."
"Verdammt! I’m asking because I don’t know! And in front of the high and mighty, no less!"
"Shut it for a second. Are you going to be noisy while I’m measuring the angle?"
Watching those two was just like watching Tom and Jerry.
I understood being on edge from getting a chance for the first time, but I really wished they’d watch their words and conduct. The crown prince watched that spectacle with amusement, but Fried was frowning.
He probably regarded the Royal Artillery Corps as a rabble utterly devoid of refinement. But if they produced real results this time, even that hostile perception would change completely.
While the artillery measured angle and distance, the craftsmen hired in Breisburg picked out suitably sized stones from the supply gathered for the trebuchets and began carving them into cannonballs.
For this, a hundred laborers were assigned to haul the heavy stones.
It wasn’t only the artillery who were noisy; the craftsmen were noisy too.
The crown prince, observing the craftsmen closely, asked me:
"Lord Streit, did you even bring sculptors to the battlefield?"
"Those aren’t sculptors, they’re stonemasons. Experts at carving stone."
A sculptor and a stonemason are entirely different occupations. Stonemasons professionally carve stone to produce building materials, and their technical skill is no less delicate than a sculptor’s.
"I hired them in a hurry to make up for the shortage of cannonballs. Had I only had enough time, I’d have hired more stonemasons, but I only managed to bring thirty."
The Royal Artillery Corps’s biggest problem was that there were only sixty cannonballs. With twelve cannons, even firing just five rounds each would be the end of it. Since cannonballs couldn’t be obtained in Breisburg, there was no choice but to supply them ourselves.
To Fried and the crown prince, the idea of hiring stonemasons to make cannonballs because of a shortage seemed utterly absurd.
They seemed to think that if cannonballs were in short supply, you could just buy them with money, but when I told them a single stone cannonball cost a hundred silver coins, the crown prince and Fried were at a loss for words.
"...So they were a tremendously expensive consumable."
"I agree. A mere single cannonball costing a hundred coins."
The notion that gunpowder weapons were ruinously expensive may well have taken root in the minds of the crown prince and Fried. Even for the duchy’s wealthiest nobles, the price of a hundred silver coins per cannonball was very high.
"Even if you wanted to obtain them, they couldn’t easily be had in Beren. You could get them in Strasbourg, but if you factored in all the transport costs, toll fees, and tariffs, how much would the cost climb?"
Both seemed to understand why I’d gone to the trouble of hiring stonemasons.
It was because, aside from the hiring cost, the other added costs were small.
Cannonballs were expensive, but the greater problem was that they were so scarce that money alone couldn’t buy them, so I’d considered manufacturing and supplying cannonballs as well if I later developed the quarry in Feuzen in earnest.
As the sole supplier to the duchy’s army, that is.
If the price stabilized, even selling at half price would likely bring a considerable profit.
