Schwade was growing somewhat frustrated. The artillery battalion, serving as the vanguard, had been held up in this godforsaken place for three days straight — something he had never anticipated. Ever since entering Feltonba Province, he had led the artillery battalion under the cover of the Imperial Guards as the army's advance force, sweeping through city after city and fortress after fortress without encountering any castle or stronghold capable of withstanding the bombardment of their cannons. Usually, after a few volleys of cannon fire, the enemy would flee in wailing terror, the Imperial Guard soldiers would charge in pursuit, and the defensive positions would fall into their hands.
The Commercial Alliance had long been prepared for the
Moreover, during the three years of bloody warfare at the Mana Hill Plains, the Commercial Alliance had forcibly conscripted enormous numbers of fresh troops and grain from these southern provinces. The relentless exploitation had sparked frequent rebellions and unrest, while the garrison forces were woefully thin — utterly incapable of withstanding the Norton Family's military might.
The Alliance's high command had believed they could employ a strategy of luring the enemy deep: when the Norton Family attacked the southern provinces, they would draw the invading army far into the continent's southern territories, then attempt to cut off their supply and baggage trains, forcing a retreat. This would inflict a minor setback while buying the Commercial Alliance time to rebuild its strength. Perhaps they could even set an ambush along the retreat route and score a few small victories, bolstering the morale of the reconstituted Alliance forces...
But what the Alliance commanders hadn't anticipated was that the Norton Family's forces weren't going to attack the lightly defended southern provinces at all. Instead, they had marched straight for Feltonba Province — territory belonging to the Mayflower Trading Company. This threw the Alliance high command into complete bewilderment, and they scrambled to guess the Norton Family's true intentions. The most plausible theory was that their objective this time wasn't territory, but the annihilation of the Commercial Alliance's major trading companies.
As commander-in-chief of the Alliance's armed forces and president of the Twin-Headed Dragon Trading Company, Grand Duke Combellet, upon receiving news that the Norton Family had launched its assault on Feltonba Province, actually let out a long sigh of relief. Although the Mayflower Trading Company had held Feltonba Province as its corporate territory for less than five years, several gold and silver mines were situated in the province's hilly terrain, and the Mayflower Company had long since constructed numerous fortified castles and strongholds throughout the region, fully prepared for defense.
Grand Duke Combellet was confident that even with the Norton Family's cannons, they couldn't easily take Feltonba Province. At the same time, he was more than happy to watch the Mayflower Company and the Norton Family bleed each other dry. After all, Grand Duke Nicholas of the Mayflower Company had recently grown very interested in the seat Combellet currently occupied, rallying the leaders of second- and third-rate trading companies to adopt an aggressive posture against him, accusing him of bearing responsibility for the Alliance's decline into its current wretched state and the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Brubia City.
Had it not been for the staunch support of the Ford, Leeward, and Vesia Trading Companies, Grand Duke Combellet might very well have been ousted by Grand Duke Nicholas. Unfortunately, all three companies had lost their corporate territories and suffered severe drops in strength. Their support for Combellet was motivated by a desire to reclaim their territories and exact revenge against the Kingdom of Andinac and the Norton Family. But having been thoroughly weakened, they could talk a big game yet couldn't provide Grand Duke Combellet with truly effective assistance. Meanwhile, it was the Mayflower Company — whose territories remained intact — the Peterson Trading Company, and the Chickted Trading Company that had undergone changes.
The Mayflower Company intended to use this opportunity to surpass the Twin-Headed Dragon Company and unseat Grand Duke Combellet. The Peterson Trading Company maintained strict neutrality, helping neither side — though they seemed weary of war and eager to negotiate a ceasefire to restore peace so everyone could get back to doing business. This position enjoyed quiet backing from many trading companies, including the Miladas Trading Company, which ran hotels and was the most committed anti-war faction. It couldn't be helped: once the wars began, their family company had suffered consecutive losses for years with virtually no profits, and they could only squeeze what they could from the impoverished commoners on their corporate territory, never making ends meet...
As for the Chickted Trading Company, in Grand Duke Combellet's eyes it was an out-and-out traitor. The unfortunate reality was that the Trading Alliance had yet to recover its vitality after the catastrophic defeat at Brubia City, and simply didn't have the bandwidth to deal with the Chickted Trading Company. Sometimes Combellet even considered whether he should first reach a temporary peace with the Norton Family, then focus all his strength on crushing the Chickted traitors — removing the Alliance's worries from the rear while showing the fence-sitting trading companies exactly what happened to betrayers, as a warning to anyone else who might consider it.
But before Grand Duke Combellet could make up his mind, the Norton Family's forces launched yet another offensive against the Trading Alliance — and this time their target was the Mayflower Company's territory, Feltonba Province. Although Combellet felt a certain grim satisfaction at the news, he still remembered that he was, after all, the Supreme Chancellor of the Trading Alliance and commander of the Alliance's armed forces. He responded immediately. In addition to mobilizing troops to prepare for reinforcement, Combellet shared everything he knew about how to counter the cannons with Grand Duke Nicholas and ordered the Mayflower Company to pin the Norton forces in the hilly terrain for a month and a half, buying time for reinforcements to reach the front line.
...
The cannon fire rumbled on, thunderous echoes rolling through the mountain ridges.
Unfortunately, beyond billowing clouds of dust, there was no sight of walls crumbling or fortifications collapsing. He waved his hand in frustration and gave the order to cease bombardment, then turned to the staff officers beside him: "How much longer until Lord Ovekis arrives?"
"Lord Schwad, the Thunderbolt Catapult Battalion is positioned at the very rear of the Freedom Alliance's armed column — they're the last to march. It will take them at least another four or five days to reach this location. As for Lord Ovekis, we sent messengers to fetch him yesterday, so he should be able to come by tomorrow..." one of the staff officers replied, though what he reported was hardly good news.
"Damn it — I should have let His Highness keep those stubborn holdouts from the Invincible Fleet locked away, or better yet just executed them all. We shouldn't have let them be ransomed back..." Schwad muttered bitterly, then led his handful of staff officers down from the hilltop in low spirits.
"My lord, shall we not resume the bombardment?" one of the staff officers asked.
"Let's save what gunpowder we can." Schwad shook his head helplessly. "You saw the results for yourself. Nearly fifty cannons firing in unite, and that fortress of Linseddon still stands before us. Any damage it sustained will be fully repaired overnight. On top of that, the terrain is terribly unfavorable — we're attacking uphill, which means we can't get close enough to press the assault. The only option now is to wait for Lord Ovekis and see whether the catapults can fling explosive packages over the walls to destroy the enemy's trebuchets and siege crossbows. Only then can we send the infantry in. That's the only way we can take this mountain fortress with minimal casualties..."
"My lord, that will be very difficult to achieve," said another, rather thin staff officer. "I've calculated the angles and distances. To lob projectiles into the fortress, our catapults would need to advance roughly another hundred and fifty meters. But the range covered by the trebuchets and siege crossbows inside Linseddon extends to about three hundred meters — we've already paid the price of dozens of casualties to learn that. Moreover, since the fortress sits on high ground, only our cannons can reach it from beyond four hundred meters. The catapults simply don't have the range..."
Schwad rubbed his chin in frustration. "We're out of options for now. We'll have to wait for Lord Ovekis to arrive. You've all seen the enemy's preparations. They've piled sandbags all along the outer wall of Linseddon Mountain Fortress. Our cannon fire just kicks up clouds of dust, unable to even touch the wall itself. This must be a tactic suggested by the sailors from the Invincible Armada after they were ransomed back. They used flour sacks to cushion their ships' interiors during the Battle of the Romani Sea to get close to our family fleet, and now they're using the same method to shield themselves from our cannons."
Our artillery can only fire upwards from this position. At most, we can deploy fifty cannons here. You've all seen the results of the past two days' bombardment—every shot just hits those sandbags, unable to reach anything inside the fortress. Beyond wasting gunpowder, it's utterly useless. And our infantry can't get close to the mountain fortress either. The only way forward is to figure out how to throw explosive packages over the walls and cause chaos inside. That's the only way we can take this mountain fortress. Do any of you have a better idea?"
The staff officers fell silent in unison. It wasn't that they couldn't come up with alternative siege tactics; it was that the terrain of Linseddon Mountain Fortress before them was simply too formidable. On a plain, they could have devised a dozen different siege plans. But here in this hilly region, with countless valleys and cliffs, flanking maneuvers meant a grueling march that would exhaust everyone. Any notion of outflanking left or right, or circling behind, was essentially a pipe dream. Apart from a frontal advance, there was simply no other viable strategy.
Take the fortress itself, for instance. It was situated atop a large stone hill. What the Norton Family forces were currently facing wasn't even the main castle gate, but merely a side wall. Yet this particular side wall was effectively blocking the artillery battalion's advance. The reason was simple: this side wall faced the main road leading to the gate, which was also the primary thoroughfare into the interior of Feltonba Province. The defense force from the Mayflower Commerce had deployed a large number of trebuchets and siege crossbows on top of and behind this wall, effectively sealing off the main road and halting the advance of the Norton Family's armed forces.
To put it more vividly, imagine two bread loaves, one large and one small. Linseddon Mountain Fortress sat atop the larger loaf, while the smaller loaf represented the winding, serpentine road. The two loaves were pressed right against each other. To reach the fortress, one had to travel along the road on the smaller loaf, make a big turn around the side wall of the fortress on the larger loaf, and only then reach the main gate. From there, one could proceed to other parts of Feltonba Province. Between the small and large loaves, apart from where the gate connected them, the rest of the area below was deep valleys and ravines. Between the road and the fortress's side wall lay a chasm fifty to sixty meters wide, and the fortress itself was over twenty meters higher than the road. From their elevated position, the defenders had an unobstructed view of everything below.
In other words, if the Norton Family forces wanted to attack the main gate of Linseddon Mountain Fortress, they first had to pass along the road on the smaller loaf. They would be fully exposed to the long-range weapons deployed by the garrison on the fortress's side wall, completely unable to fight back and stuck in a position where they could only endure the bombardment. Moreover, the defenders had piled sandbags outside the side wall, effectively neutralizing the cannon fire. This was the first time since the Norton Family forces entered Feltonba Province that their cannons had proven ineffective. Linseddon Mountain Fortress had successfully halted their advance.
The cannons could only be used in a straightforward siege role, and occasionally grapeshot could be employed to deal with massed infantry charges.
Since invading Feltonba Province, the first resistance tactic adopted by the Mayflower Commerce was their preferred high-level combatant strike tactics. This was specifically aimed at the artillery battalions, as if they believed that by destroying the cannons, the Norton Family forces would lose their offensive capability. However, the Norton Family was well-prepared. Reddy and the Sword Saint Hughes each personally guarded one artillery battalion. After the Mayflower Commerce lost two Sword Saints and three Gold Knights, they ceased direct attacks on the artillery battalion encampments. Instead, they resorted to guerrilla tactics along the army's marching routes—striking once and then immediately withdrawing to minimize their own casualties.
Then something almost comical occurred. A Sword Saint from the Commerce Alliance, along with four Gold Swordsmen, ambushed an artillery battalion squadron during its midday rest. After killing some soldiers and driving off the remaining Norton Family troops, they proceeded to destroy over a dozen bronze cannons by slicing through their barrels, rendering them useless. At this point, one of the Gold Swordsmen opened a well-sealed large wooden barrel. Inside were grey silk parcels of uniform size, and within those parcels were black granules.
"What on earth is this stuff?" the Gold Swordsmen remarked, and then he thrust a lit torch into the barrel...
With a thunderous boom, the Sword Saint and the four Gold Swordsmen were completely obliterated—not a trace of them remained.
High-level combatants of the Commerce Alliance were not cabbages that could be regrown after being cut down. The decisive battle at Brovia City had already cost the Alliance more than half its elite fighters. Now the Mayflower Commerce had lost yet another three Sword Saints and eight Gold Swordsmen—a devastating blow that struck at the very sinews of their power. The Norton Family forces, on the other hand, had lost only a little over forty cannons and three to four hundred soldiers. In terms of sheer numbers, the Mayflower Commerce might have appeared to come out ahead, but in terms of quality, they had suffered a catastrophic loss. From that point on, the Mayflower Commerce never again attempted any high-level combatant strike tactics.
Over the course of more than twenty days, the Norton Family forces, accompanied by the thunderous roar of cannon fire, systematically destroyed and captured every castle fortress the Mayflower Commerce had deployed across the hilly terrain. It was only when the Commerce finally received a letter from Grand Duke Cambelite informing them that sandbag fortifications could withstand cannon fire that they managed to halt the Norton Family forces at Lindsayton Mountain City.
...