Chapter 1548: Chapter 71: Siege (Part 41)_2
Winters was getting into his lecture and didn’t notice the White Mountain County officers and Thunder Group County officers, whose expressions were a bit subtle.
There were no classrooms in the military camp, and the classes were held in the open air.
The reserve officers sat on the ground, attending a lesson in an extremely rudimentary environment that they were destined to never forget.
“In that case, why attack?” Winters looked at the reserve officers, “Who can answer me?”
As his gaze swept over them, all the trainees instinctively lowered their heads, even Houdel, who was usually extraordinarily bold, avoided his eyes.
After waiting for a moment and seeing no one answered, Winters didn’t waste time and directly provided the answer:
“Because attacking allows you to take the initiative more than defending does. Defense is passive and reactive, you can only wait for others to attack you, being led by the nose by them. Attack is active and proactive, you can maneuver the enemy, forcing them to follow your lead.”
“Do you understand now?” Winters tapped the board with the map pinned to it with a grapevine stick, “Why does the old marshal want to [strategically attack and tactically defend]?”
“Simply put,” he made a fierce throat-slitting gesture, “when facing off with the old marshal, as long as he seizes an opportunity, he will thrust his sword at your vital points, forcing you to block, dodge, and retreat.
“He will drive nails into the places where you cannot afford to be threatened, making you feel like having a bone stuck in your throat or a thorn in your back, forcing you to actively attack him, at which point he will have set up a strong position, causing you to crash against it and bleed.”
“Does it sound easy?” Winters asked with a smile, “Even a bit too easy?”
The next moment, he put away his smile, looked around at the trainees, and said heavily, “But even just the first step of ‘attacking what the enemy must save’ has caused countless people, numerous famous generals, and many kings — to stumble!”
—————–
[East of Hill 50]
The personnel of the Thunder Group County Group’s Fourth Battalion had mostly arrived.
Four basic “Camp Square Formations” were lined up in a straight line on the clearing by the forest edge.
Long spearmen stood on the outside, while sword and shield bearers and halberdiers guarded the military flags in the center. Musketeers were on the outermost circle, divided into four squads arrayed at the corners of the formations.
There were still some soldiers who hadn’t arrived, but they couldn’t wait any longer. Waiting further would render the encirclement meaningless.
Paradi tucked the helmet under his arm to free his hands for putting on his gauntlets.
He tightened the leather straps with his mouth, yet his eyes were firmly fixed on the red, white, and blue military flag embroidered with a number in gold thread atop the hill, not moving an inch.
Pashche Mick rode over on a warhorse, walking slowly.
“Ah,” the commander of the White Mountain County team sighed softly, “Going to risk our lives again.”
“Hmm,” Paradi spat bitter, tasting saliva onto the ground, still not taking his eyes off the enemy on the hill.
“There’s something,” Major Pashche hesitated for a while before finally opening his mouth with great determination, “I must ask you plainly.”
Paradi raised an eyebrow, glancing at his friend inexplicably, “Say it.”
Pashche cleared his throat lightly, “Did you really with your cousin…”
Instantly, Paradi Rima tensed like a startled cat, his shoulders tight, back arched, his whole body stiff as a corpse.
He slowly turned his head, his eyes wide, not filled with anger but shock, looking at his comrade beside him, making the latter feel uneasy.
“[Swear]! Mick! [Swear]!” Paradi exploded, “I [swear] just said it like that! Understand? It was just like that!”
“Oh, I see…” Major Pashche dragged the words long, quite disappointed by his friend’s dishonesty.
Then came an awkward silence.
“I…” Paradi’s face flushed, his embarrassment reaching the extreme, “I was only eight at the time! Eight! What did I know? Could it be… you never admired older women when you were young? Never?”
“Yes! Ah, yes!” Major Pashche kept nodding, but the smile on his face betrayed him, “Who hasn’t?!”
While they were speaking, a long, deep bugle call came from the south and repeated twice.
“Ha,” Pashche craned his neck to look south, but the woods and the terrain blocked his view, “The Tiefeng County Regiment has set out, we should get going as well.”
“Hmm.”
“Farewell, old friend,” Pashche Mick tapped his horse lightly, smiling as he borrowed someone else’s words for his farewell, “Once we defeat the enemy, we will reunite.”
Paradi couldn’t bear to look his friend in the eye, fearing just a glance would bring tears, so he merely nodded heavily.
Pashche whistled, and then he departed gracefully.
Major Paradi Rima fastened his iron helmet, lifted the visor, drew his saber, and pointed it straight at the glaring tricolor flag on the hillside.
“Beat the drum!” Paradi swung the saber, “Advance!”
…
With three horn calls as the signal, the “Rebels” from the north and south simultaneously launched an assault on the steadfast high ground.
However, Fan Shang, a soldier of the Seventh Battalion, Fourth Hundred-Men Squad, Third Tent, lacked such a macro perspective. He was just a most ordinary musketeer, earning slightly higher wages than the long spearmen in the back rows, following the centurion’s orders.
The army paid Fan Shang higher wages not because he was favored by the army, but because the matchlock gun carried some risks when used, so musketeers were considered a technical branch, and their wages were naturally higher.
Also because in real battle, the musketeers’ positions most of the time would be even further forward than the long spearmen.
Urged by the halberdiers, Fan Shang and his seven tent-mates carried their firearms, jogging to the front of the Seventh Battalion’s square formation to stand in a vertical line.
The same went for the other nineteen tent’s musketeers.
The two hundred-men squads of musketeers in the Seventh Battalion formed separate small square formations outside the big square, and Fan Shang luckily ended up in the very front row.
He set up his firearm, gently blew on the smoldering match cord, then leveled the gun towards the enemy downhill and opened the powder pan cover.
As his cheek touched the stock, Fan Shang suddenly felt very calm, concentrating entirely on observing the “Rebels” on the hillside below.
He saw that all the “Rebels” wore coarse hemp clothing in gray-blue, even the cap-plumed officers and mounted commanders displayed the same — very unlike the “steadfast.”
Fan Shang guessed the “Rebels” clothing was likely dyed with cheap cabbage or cornflower as many of their clothes had washed out and appeared grayish.
“Alas, they should use indigo,” Fan Shang sighed internally, “Linen is hard to dye, and cabbage fades easily.”
The reason Fan Shang took extra note of the faded clothes on the rebels was because before becoming a musketeer, he was a dyer.
He could dye linen as well as woolen fabrics, mostly in cheap blues and greens, occasionally in blacks and reds.
But after Paratu broke into chaos, linen couldn’t be shipped out, nor could wool. The shortage of raw materials caused textile mills to shut down. As weavers stopped working, dyers soon found no bread on their tables either.
And Fan Shang had an entire family to support, so he sold himself to the army at the price of twelve silver plates.
“Cabbage won’t do,” Fan Shang murmured in his mind, “it really needs indigo.”
The rebel troops in blue-gray clothing aligned neatly, advancing slowly in step as they directly approached the slope.
When they reached the base of the hill, it was as if they disappeared, swallowed up in an instant.
Yet the sound of their drums grew louder and louder — it was the slope’s curvature blocking Fan Shang’s sight.
Soon, as the “Rebels” ascended the slope, gleaming spearheads emerged from the high grass.
Then came the shafts of the guns, then the rebels’ cap plumes, faces, shoulders, torsos, belts, pants, and tall gray cloth leg wraps.
As the distance between the two sides shrank, the rebels’ musketeers also quickened their pace and filed out of the ranks.
Their matchlock guns followed the beat of the drums as they advanced, smoothly swaying.
As the distance closed, the echoing order “Fire at will!” resonated in Fan Shang’s ears.
“They really should use indigo,” Fan Shang thought as he squeezed the trigger, focused on the rebels below the hill.
…