Ch.132Expansion (4)

BOOM!!

“Tsk, the first shot is always difficult.”

The monumental first live-fire attempt was a failure. The targeted castle wall remained intact.

Was the angle too high, or was there too much gunpowder, or perhaps both? Whatever the issue, the cannonball flew over the wall and landed on civilian houses behind it.

There was no need to wait for the observer’s report. Even without squinting, I could clearly see wooden debris from the shattered buildings being scattered over the castle walls.

Ah, of course, it wasn’t just wooden fragments flying around. There were stone pieces, and things that used to be people.

“When’s the next shot?”

“Should be ready in about an hour, sir!”

“That’s plenty of time.”

The cannon’s bore is large enough for a grown man to crawl inside, making it time-consuming to clean out the gunpowder residue. Additionally, loading the massive stone cannonball that fits such a caliber requires careful attention, consuming even more time.

As a result, reloading takes a full hour—an incredibly long time—but nobody here seems concerned about it.

Sssssss—

As wet cloth is inserted into the barrel, it makes a hissing sound like water being sprinkled on hot iron.

The technicians clean the inside of the barrel with ramrods, their expressions suggesting this is routine work, while the Rotaring army commander watches in confusion, wondering if what he just witnessed was real or if he might be dreaming.

“Well… we’re doing it now, but later you’ll have to do it yourselves. We’ll teach you everything about operating it from start to finish, but there’s nothing better than practical experience, so watch carefully.”

The chief technician speaks with a smug expression upon seeing the commander’s dumbfounded face. But he’s not addressing only the commander—he deliberately raises his voice so the surrounding soldiers can hear him.

The soldiers barely understand what just happened.

The thunderous noise, loud enough to make ears fall off, was sufficient to make even strong men collapse to the ground, but the strict discipline of the Rotaring army forcibly controls even such involuntary reactions. The soldiers’ legs are trembling severely, but ingrained discipline barely keeps them standing.

In this scene resembling a group that has collectively inhaled sleeping gas, only the technicians move busily.

They carefully transport bundles of gunpowder wrapped in oiled cloth and stone cannonballs meticulously carved by stonemasons day and night, diligently clean gunpowder residue from inside the barrel, measure the angle of the recent shot, and adjust it to properly hit the castle wall this time.

……….

“AAAAARGH!!”

“Someone’s trapped under here!! Help!!”

“Damn it all…”

If the Rotaring forces were in chaos, the enemy Caroling forces must have been in an even worse state.

Civilians who were preparing to evacuate to the safer inner city when the enemy appeared are now in complete disarray after suffering heavy casualties from the stone that fell from the sky. The soldiers who should be protecting them haven’t fully grasped the situation and hesitate to act.

“Is it a catapult?”

“There’s no way they could have set up a catapult so quickly!!”

That’s correct.

Typically, catapults are built on the battlefield using locally sourced materials.

Given that they need to throw heavy stones, their weight and size are enormous, and even if you attached wheels, they could only move along well-paved roads, making them useless on the rough terrain of battlefields. Their slowness is just an additional drawback.

To use a catapult, except for critical components, everything must be procured locally, the ground must be prepared, pillars driven into the earth—a process taking dozens of days to complete on site. But the Rotaring army has just arrived at Lutetia. There simply hasn’t been enough time to build catapults.

“Huh…!”

Of course, those on the castle walls, including the Caroling king, clearly understand what happened.

The massive bronze cannon, larger than a person, was so imposing that those on the wall had been watching it for some time, allowing them to witness the entire process from firing to impact.

Even though everyone saw the huge stone flying toward them, they stared blankly at the projectile’s parabolic trajectory like ordinary people witnessing a natural disaster—no, a miracle—only regaining their senses after the cannonball had demolished several civilian houses.

“What is that thing?! A mobile instant catapult?”

Those on the wall, having regained their senses, are now trying to guess the nature of that weapon while formulating countermeasures in their minds.

Of course, they cannot accurately identify it no matter how hard they think.

Gunpowder weapons are occasionally used only in the far Eastern Empire and haven’t made their way to these distant lands.

Even if they conceptually know about gunpowder weapons, they’ve never seen one in person, so the Caroling officials cannot connect their theoretical knowledge of gunpowder weapons with the cannon before their eyes.

“We must go out and fight now!!”

“If we remain idle, all will be lost!! Your Majesty, we need a decision!!”

Some instinctively judge that if that stone-shooting device continues firing, the battle is already lost, and they advocate abandoning the defensive position to confront the enemy directly.

In a typical medieval siege, defenders would lock the gates and withstand the siege while continuously preventing the enemy from undermining the walls or setting up catapults.

Above all, medieval supply capabilities are limited, so attackers cannot sustain a siege for long. The basic strategy for defenders is to exploit this supply imbalance by dragging out time until the besieging army becomes exhausted and withdraws.

However, with such a device—a cannon—the situation changes completely.

Mangonel or trebuchet catapults take considerable time to set up, allowing for sufficient countermeasures, but cannons are already completed weapons, making such countermeasures impossible. Moreover, the projectiles are even larger.

Judging that Lutetia will be completely destroyed by those stones if they remain passive, various knights and nobles beg the Caroling king to lead a sortie.

“…Damn it.”

But a sortie is impossible.

The Caroling forces—the royal army gathered in the Duchy of Lutetia—are literally scraped together with great effort. They’re already so weakened that they would barely withstand a normal siege against the Rotaring army, let alone face them in open battle.

Even if they miraculously drove away the Rotaring forces by burning everything, there would still be problems afterward. The enemies aren’t just from Rotaring; there are other rebels as well.

“Is there… any communication from Rotaring?”

“None so far, Your Majesty. They appear to be preparing to use that thing again.”

The Caroling king, with a heavy heart, probes for any possibility of resolving this favorably, but that possibility shatters into thin air.

“Ugh…! We must prevent them from using that thing again. Send out the light cavalry!!”

“Yes, sir!!”

……….

The Caroling light cavalry was intercepted by pikemen and makeshift barricades made from dismantled carts. A few men managed to approach the cannon, but they had no way to damage the muzzle-loading cannon made of solid bronze with an extremely simple structure. It was too heavy to drag away, so they could only wail in frustration before being shot dead by the approaching Rotaring soldiers.

Afterward, the Rotaring forces ignored all of Caroling’s attempts at negotiation and continued the bombardment until Lutetia’s walls became practically useless. The collapsed sections reportedly looked like ancient ruins.

In any case, the breached walls allowed numerous soldiers to pass through unhindered, and when the field commander judged the time was right, the Rotaring forces poured in like a flood.

But there wasn’t much of a battle, they say.

The thunderous noise and continuous bombardment were enough to crush the morale of the Caroling forces. With veteran soldiers having died in numerous previous wars, the Caroling troops—now little better than militia—either fled screaming or threw down their weapons and surrendered, causing the Caroling army to collapse instantly.

Of course, not all soldiers broke; some still fought to protect their king, but due to the overwhelming numerical difference, they were all killed before long.

“And the pretender… begged for his life…”

“Yes, Your Majesty. That treasonous wretch pleaded and groveled, offering to surrender both Caroling and the throne if only his life would be spared. A proud Rotaring soldier, unable to bear the sight, mercifully ended his life with honor.”

That’s a lie.

The morning report stated that when the Rotaring forces approached, the Caroling king resigned himself to his fate, silently bowed his head, and accepted the soldier’s blade. However, since Rotaring needs to thoroughly undermine Caroling’s legitimacy, they couldn’t announce that publicly.

As a result, the commander officially reported to me using fabricated information. Seeing everyone in the audience chamber sneer or click their tongues at the Caroling king’s final moments, it seems the image manipulation has succeeded.

“I present these to the rightful ruler of Rotaring and Caroling.”

At any rate, the symbols of Caroling’s sovereignty—the crown, scepter, and seal—have now safely come into my possession.

Now all that remains is… how to deal with the claimants.