When the enemy appeared in his field of vision, Van'er saw those fully armed Knight, riding tall horses and wearing shining armor, slowly approaching the town. Usually, a Lord Knight in the town was a high and mighty existence. Now, nearly a hundred of them had come out at once. This scene made him suck in a cold breath.
Van'er felt his palms sweating again, just like when he stood on the wall and faced the demonic beasts for the first time, but this time, he was facing the same kind of noble coalition of Longsong Stronghold.
That's not right. He spat and threw his thoughts aside. Same kind? When did those nobles treat you as one of their kind? He laughed at himself. This trip was to seize Border Town and bring the North Slope Mine back under the control of Longsong Stronghold. More importantly, they even intended to drive His Royal Highness out of the Western Region, which was unacceptable to all the members of the First Army.
Yesterday, His Royal Highness had made it very clear in his speech before the war, that Timothy Wimbledon, His Royal Highness' brother, used tricks to seize the throne and killed the old King Wimbledon III. Originally, Van'er didn't have any opinion on these things between the royal family and the nobles, it didn't matter who became the king. But the Duke Ryan wanted to take this opportunity to take away His Royal Highness' territory, which was too much.
Think about it, before His Royal Highness came here, what was Border Town like? The former Lord seemed to be an Earl, who was rarely seen. When he bought furs, he brought his guards with him, and often bought the good goods from the hunters at low prices. When the Months of Demons came, he was the first to escape, and when the townspeople suffered in the Longsong Stronghold slums, he never cared about them.
Now, under the rule of His Royal Highness, Border Town was getting better and better, these changes were visible to everyone. Van'er thought, the more the miners produced, the more they got paid. After His Royal Highness put the black machine into the North Slope Mine, the extra output was still counted as the miners' pay. Whether it was the construction of the wall or the gravel of the mine, the villagers were paid on time. This winter, no one even starved or froze to death.
Of course, the biggest change was the Militia, no, now the First Army. With them guarding the town, no one had to curl up in the cold wooden shed of Longsong Stronghold in winter, begging those big shots to give them a mouthful of food. If His Royal Highness was gone, would the Duke allow the First Army to exist?
Van'er took two deep breaths and wiped his sweat on his clothes. Of course, they would not allow it. The nobles of Longsong Stronghold did not care about the lives of the townspeople. This was exactly what His Royal Highness had said: only an army composed of the people would be willing to fight for the people.
He raised his head and looked at the left side of the sky. There was a black dot circling in the distance. If he didn't look carefully, he would have thought that it was a huge bird. It was Lightning, the firing commander of the artillery team. She used the trees on both sides of the road as cover and observed the enemy's movements from above. When she flew back, Van'er also noticed that as long as she did not take the initiative to fly to the open area, the people below would only see the branches on both sides when they looked up, and it would be very difficult for them to find the witch who was scouting in the sky.
Within a quarter of an hour, Lightning had flown close to the front of the formation and flashed a green ribbon.
This meant that the enemy had entered the firing range of a kilometer. Van'er still did not know how far the "one kilometer" mentioned by His Royal Highness was, but when he saw the green signal, he subconsciously followed the rules of the comprehensive maneuver and shouted the command to load and adjust the firing angle.
The four artillery teams quickly completed this set of actions, the muzzle was adjusted to the third gear, and the gunpowder and solid shells were loaded into the barrels.
Van'er had thought that after standing on the wall and fighting against the demonic beasts, he could already be regarded as experienced, but today he found that compared to Iron Axe and Brian, he was still far behind. In the afternoon, when they were assembling, his heartbeat had been difficult to stabilize. But when the two men led their respective teams into the firing position, they not only looked normal, but he could even hear a trace of eagerness in Brian's voice. But until now, he still had not recovered his calm, and even the Rodney brothers seemed to be performing better than him. This made Van'er somewhat depressed.
He licked his dry lips and looked for Lightning's position again.
At this time, the enemy suddenly slowed down a lot.
"What are they doing?" Rodney asked.
"I don't know," Cat's Claw opened his eyes wide and looked around, "It seems that they are adjusting the formation? Their people look a bit messy. "
"They are waiting for the troops behind them," Jop said with a trembling voice, "It is impossible for Lord Knight to fight alone, there must be a large number of people behind them."
"You even know this?" Narson curled his lips.
"I have seen it! A Lord Knight will bring at least two squires, as well as a dozen serfs to carry their provisions, "he counted with his fingers," You see, a Duke of Longsong Stronghold has at least a hundred Knight's under his command, right? There are at least three hundred people who can fight on horseback. Adding the Earls and Viscounts in the territory … there are even more! There are also mercenaries, they live on the edge of a knife, they kill without blinking an eye! We only have a total of three hundred people. "
Less than three hundred people, Van'er corrected in his heart. Only two hundred and seventy people are equipped with weapons, according to His Highness, this is called insufficient production. Now those who don't have guns have been sent to the artillery team to carry ammunition for the four cannons. But seeing that there were still people who performed worse than him, he felt a little better.
"That's the mercenaries, they are coming!" Jop whispered.
Van'er raised his head and looked, only to see a group of people dressed in a variety of clothes gradually occupying the front of the battlefield. They didn't ride on horseback, nor did they line up, but instead gathered in twos and threes in the middle of the battlefield. The Knight's spread out on both sides, seemingly to make way for the mercenaries. Compared to half a quarter of an hour ago, the Duke's coalition army was much closer.
At this time, a Knight flew out from the coalition army and quickly rushed towards Border Town. Van'er's heart tightened, he almost shouted the command to fire.
What is she doing? He looked up, but still didn't see Lightning, but the other side was getting closer and closer, while waving a white flag.
"He is the messenger sent by the Duke," Jop muttered, "He should be here to persuade us to surrender."
"That's none of our business," Rodney squatted down behind the cannon, his line of sight aligned with the centerline of the cannon barrel, "Leader, the cannon needs to be adjusted, most of the Knight have already left the battlefield."
In the previous live-fire practice, they had been repeatedly taught that the attack range of the cannon was in a straight line in front of the muzzle, so if they wanted to hit the target, they had to overlap the target with the centerline of the cannon barrel. The five of them turned the cannon slightly, until the Knight troops at the forefront of the coalition army entered the direction of the muzzle.
The messenger who came alone was immediately escorted to the rear of the defensive line by Sir Carter, but Van'er knew that the Duke's move was only a waste of time, His Highness the Prince would never agree to surrender.
Suddenly, Lightning sped up and flew towards the town's defensive line, her arms waving, the yellow ribbon in her hands fluttering in the wind.
The yellow signal meant that the other side had entered the range of 800 meters, within this distance, the cannon's solid bullets had a chance to hit the target. As long as the captain of the artillery team didn't indicate that they were forbidden to fire, the artillery teams could freely shoot.
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