Chapter 17: The Battle of Mordano 4
The French army bombarded wave after wave for more than an hour! The Neapolitan side had no choice but to watch as the walls became more and more damaged, and they could only sit and wait for the moment when the walls were blasted down.
"Everyone, if you should run for your life, run for your life, go quietly, you can't notify the troops who are still on the front line, otherwise you won't be able to leave alone." The old mercenary leader said in a low voice: "I am an old man, and I can't run anymore, so leave the rest to me to preside over the street fight!" Before you flee, order your troops to get ready for street fighting! Next, listen to my arrangement to enter various parts of the city and resist the invasion of the brutal French army! But only if you don't reveal the slightest intention of fleeing."
The rest of the crowd looked at the old mercenary leader silently, and they didn't know what to say to comfort him, but no matter what they said at the moment, they were saying cool things. After a while, the middle-aged mercenary commander finally spoke, his voice trembling slightly: "We will announce the order in secret, you say, how to deploy the street battle arrangement, we will definitely let our troops enter the position where they should be!" The rest of the crowd also said that they would obey the arrangement of the old mercenary leader.
At this time, there was a roar outside, everyone knows, time is getting more and more urgent, looking at the city wall seems to have not changed much, but everyone knows that the structure inside the city wall has been seriously damaged, and the French army is not sure when to break through the city wall and kill the generals, and it will be difficult for everyone to escape at that time. As a result, the elderly mercenary leader immediately made various arrangements and arrangements, so that all the troops in the entire city entered various buildings, relying on the buildings to effectively kill and injure the French army!
The rest of the people, listening to the instructions of the old mercenary leader, secretly remembered it in their hearts, and then when he finished speaking, they immediately contacted their heralds and asked them to go and convey the order, and immediately move to the designated position according to the arrangement of the old mercenary leader. After these things were arranged, the group, including the two mercenary leaders who had been arranged before, took their cronies and prepared to flee the city according to the previous arrangement.
When they reached the city gate, they saw several carriages, each with a coachman, and their cronies could move as many as they could. Of course, if you have arranged it earlier, you can take more things with you now, and if you don't arrange it before, you can only take the most valuable things out in a hurry. They walked to the side of the carriage, thinking about it is not appropriate, I don't know when the French army will break through the city and then send people to chase it, how far the carriage can run is still unknown, they are going to come with a lot of horses to follow together, in case the French army chases, they can also directly ride and flee for their lives. After doing this, the group hurried for their lives.
These heads were able to flee for their lives quickly, but for the sake of secrecy, they did not notify everyone else in the city except for themselves and their cronies. The rich merchants and magnates in the city, other officials of all levels, large and small, and many ordinary people, were all kept in the dark. In fact, it is not that there are no people who want to escape, but anyone who has something to do with it can hear the exact news, knowing that the French army outside is attacking extremely fiercely, using a huge cannon that has never been seen before, spraying a huge iron ball, and the city wall can't stop such a violent bombardment at all! Therefore, those rich businessmen and tycoons, and even some middle and low-level officials, have already packed up their baggage, but the city gates are all guarded by the defenders, no matter how they call the door, those defenders are unwilling to open the door, and they have no choice, otherwise, they would have sneaked out a long time ago.
Even if it doesn't matter, there is no way, and the information is not well-informed, in fact, you can hear the violent roar at the city gate, it is like the end of the world! All this made the people extremely panicked, and if they hadn't guarded the city gates, I am afraid that the people in the city would have fled long ago.
Now the city is full of panic, people are panicking, the whole city is like a powder keg, if something is detonated, the whole city will be completely destroyed, and then it will definitely cause great chaos.
In a certain corner of the city, a group of panicked people gathered together and approached the city gate, and they planned to wait for the French army to attack, so that they would take the opportunity to seize the city gate, and then flee by the way. However, they didn't have any organizational records, just put them together temporarily, planning to take advantage of the opportunity to create a chance for their escape life.
"The walls on the east side look pretty bad now! The French army only bombarded the city wall for an hour or two, and they actually bombarded the city wall like this! Are they sent by the devil or not? How could you have such a terrible weapon! A civilian in a yellow cloth coat said as he approached like Simon.
A civilian in a white cloth coat continued: "Who knows where these French devils got such a terrible batch of weapons, they are simply only in the Nine Hells, and they should not appear in the human world at all!" ”
The third civilian said in a deep voice: "Now it's not about how the French got the weapons, let's think about the present!" Wait a minute, as soon as those French invade the city, it will definitely cause a great chaos in the city, and a few of us have dragged our families here to avoid the chaos that will wait for a while. Also, once the chaos spreads here, the rabbit-guts defenders here will be scared away immediately, and we will follow them out of the city at that time! If they hadn't been scared away, we wouldn't have just been able to sit back and take down those soft-footed shrimp! ”
A white-bearded civilian said, "Yes! We're going to get ready! Damn, I look at the current situation in the city, it doesn't look like someone is presiding at all, I dare to pack the ticket, those usually high-ranking city lords, generals and those damn mercenary leaders must have slipped away first! They sneaked away just to make us backs, so that we could hold back the French army! ”
All the civilians' faces turned a little gray after hearing this, but they had obviously had such a guess before they gathered here, so they didn't seem too panicked.
When the inside of Fort Mordano was in chaos, the French army outside continued to bombard unaffected, seeing that the city wall had begun to have obvious cracks, and the whole wall was slightly recessed, anyone with a discerning eye knew that the city wall was not far from being completely destroyed!
The French artillery has been bombarding for more than an hour! During this time, the rest of the soldiers stood in front of the main camp of the French army, responsible for protecting the artillery units from enemy attacks. They stood outside the battlefield for more than an hour, unaware of the mutations that had taken place inside the city, but they did witness the artillery siege from beginning to end. This time, they were deeply impressed several times, and many of them turned pale and a little frightened. They were all thinking, if such a fierce artillery seemed to attack themselves, how could they resist when the huge iron ball that was unstoppable roared towards their position? This is far more terrifying than any massive cavalry charge! They stood in front of the formation, and watched closely, the walls of Fort Mornoda, from being extremely strong, to being slowly bombarded little by little, and then from the surface to the inside, little by little, deformed, crumbling, and distorted!
To say that the one who despises artillery the most and can't look down on artillery is the commander of the cavalry regiment, Lane. Ryan is an orthodox knight, and the knights he commands have always been the best in the army, all of them are aristocratic elites, and they have always been the mainstay of the empire. However, since the appearance of the artillery regiment, the status of their knights has been declining day by day, although other arms cannot compare with them, but they are inferior to the status of artillery! Now that Ryan has seen the power of the artillery corps with his own eyes, he is also completely shocked, and he can't imagine that a majestic city like Fort Mordano can be bombarded like this without a single soldier and without sacrificing a person's life, and it seems that it is not far from being completely destroyed! In this way, wouldn't the defenders of the city, who had hidden in the castle and had the advantage before, no longer be safe from today? Aren't all the walls turned into ornaments? As long as dozens of cannons like this are fired and a gap is blown out of your city wall, then what is the use of you hiding in the city? Ryan didn't even dare to imagine what a tragic situation the knights he was proud of would be in the face of such an iron ball bombardment! If it is in a field battle, you can only use the advantage of cavalry to quickly get rid of or snatch these big guys, otherwise once they stand firm and bombard, even if you only come for that round, you will suffer heavy losses. It was only then that Lane realized why the generations of French kings had paid more and more attention to the seemingly weak artillery unit! They are epoch-making services, and they will rewrite the mode of war and create a new course of war!
Tiger and Ryan also watched the opposite city wall being bombed into slag bit by bit, they are also long-range attack troops, and they don't know what to say about such a strong long-range attack force. In the past, they were regarded as chicken ribs because the range was not far or close, and the enemy could not shoot if he was far away, and it would not take long for the enemy to be grabbed by people when he was close, and he would not be able to shoot a few rounds at all. However, the emergence of such a long-range artillery attack force will make their long-range attack force have a different status from now on, such a range, such a power, from now on artillery will also become one of the strong arms of the land army!
Tedler pursed his lips and stood aside, although he had also seen the French military training before, but compared with this bombardment, it was completely different! This time, he deeply realized the strength of France, and even more realized that the French artillery unit would be the king of land siege in the future! He was a little anxious to run back and tell his king that he should develop or buy such artillery from France as much as possible, otherwise his country would be unstoppable if it faced such an artillery bombardment!