Chapter 16: The Battle of Mordano 3
Angus watched as the first artillery adjusted the angle, so he gave another order: "Fire!" With a wave of his hand, another large iron ball bombarded the side of Fort Mordano. Although I had already tried firing once this time, I still readjusted the angle after all, so although the situation was much better than just now, there were still some iron balls that hit each other. However, the artillerymen will adjust as they shoot during the bombardment, and there is no need for Angus to say anything more.
Dozens of iron balls, each in a certain parabola, according to the trajectory adjusted by the original artillerymen, pounced on Mordano in black pressure, and then slammed into the walls of Fort Mordano. "Boom!" "Boom!" "......Boom" On the wall of Fort Moldano, the people in the city heard a roar louder than thunder, and the ground kept shaking, as if the end of the world was coming, and they were all frightened and pale, and the timid people hid directly under the bed and covered their ears and trembled.
The soldiers standing on the city wall, seeing that the momentum was not right, all fled from the section of the city wall at the city gate, and as soon as the soldiers who were dodging stood still, they saw that the pile of iron balls was roughly divided into three waves, and they were fiercely in the middle of the city gate, the middle of the city gate and the upper section of the city gate. Then the soldiers saw that there were some more cracks in the surface of the wall, and the whole wall trembled as the debris splattered. There were also one or two iron balls that flew too high, directly over the city wall, hit the national flag, snapped the national flag and broke it, and then flew towards the city wall unabated! Finally, the iron ball fell on a private house, smashed a large hole in the roof of the house with a bang, and smashed a water tank into the house before it stopped moving.
The soldiers were all stunned when they saw it, thinking that if such a powerful iron ball hit themselves, wouldn't it turn into a meat pie as soon as it was smashed? Look at such a thick city wall, just after being smashed in such a wave, it has been splashed with rubble and cracks, and then look at the weak point of the dwelling, just smash it with an iron ball, and a huge hole will appear! If this is smashed on a person, it will explode when it hits the head, and the body will become meat sauce when it hits the body!
The soldiers looked at this scene with purple lips and pale faces, their hearts were shocked and inexplicable, they didn't know how to react at all, they stood there trembling with weapons in their hands, and their heads went blank.
The mercenary commanders, the city lords, and the senior generals of the local defenders, looking at this scene, although they had been mentally prepared when the French army tested the first wave of artillery, it was still completely unacceptable to really see this scene! Those mercenary leaders finally saw the reality clearly, and now it was no time for them to bargain with the king of Naples, but how to find an excuse to sneak out first! But where do they have time to prepare? A lot of psychological objects are in the city, and many troops are also scattered out to defend the city, because I felt that it was not a big problem to defend the city for a few days, so I didn't make much preparation, and I took other people's mercenary money, and there was no excuse to transfer the troops out of the city directly at this time! The thought in their hearts was that they could only prepare themselves and then abscond, and that their troops would have to abandon here.
But how can they afford it? The most precious thing about their mercenary leaders is not the beautiful wives and concubines in their family, nor the many floating wealth in their family, let alone how much land they own, the most precious thing they are these mercenaries! Now abandon them in this Fort Mordano, they will be a lost dog when they go out, not to mention a comeback, I am afraid that they will be thrown into the well by their former opponents and take the opportunity to humiliate! They struggled in their hearts, and their faces began to twist slightly, but they couldn't think about it at all! If they really dare to transfer all their troops desperately, abandon the city and flee, then the problem will be even more serious! Now there is a large army dragging in the city, so the army will break through the walls and enter the city, after all, there are still troops capable of fighting with the French army, which will drag the French army firmly in this Fort Mordano, so that they can buy enough time for these heads to escape. If they dare to recklessly mobilize the army to flee directly, then they will move their whole body, and the rest of the troops will not be fools, and then they will abandon the city and flee with a swarm of bees, then the result will be that everyone will not be able to escape! Because the French army still has more than 10,000 cavalry there, it is no joke, if you want to pursue them, they will catch up in minutes.
The city lord of Fort Mordano was also pale at this time, his eyes were full of fear, his hands trembled slightly, and he watched the French artillery unit outside adjusting the firing angle and loading ammunition. It wasn't that he didn't want to escape, but he was the lord of the city, and he was a man of aristocratic spirit, and he couldn't bear to abandon the people of the city and survive alone.
The city lord turned his head stiffly, looked at the distorted faces of many generals, and said tremblingly: "Everyone, think of a way, you can't let these French artillery continue to bombard!" If it is bombarded like this, it will be either today or tomorrow, and the city wall will be completely destroyed! Then the blade of the French army will come directly on you and me! He hoped that these generals would rise to the occasion and go out of the city to fight to the death against the enemy, and smash all the French artillery, so that Fort Mordano might escape!
However, this is just the beautiful fantasy of the city lord, the surrounding generals, there is no one to talk to at all, just pale faces, staring blankly at the French artillery position, watching them slowly carry ammunition, slowly clean up the bronze artillery, and then reload the ammunition, adjust the angle, and prepare to wait for the enemy general to give another order to open fire!
The old mercenary leader stared into the distance and spoke with difficulty, his voice sounding hoarse and difficult: "City Lord, it's not that we don't want to sacrifice ourselves, it's not that we don't dare to go out and fight the enemy to the death, it's really more than enough to do it!" Look at the columns of soldiers in front of the French artillery, and the spears are the famous Swiss spearmen! Face-to-face slashing, ten of us are not enough for one of them to fight! Not to mention their elite knights, which are among the top powerful knights on the entire European continent, and we can't escape when we go out into the wilderness and encounter such a group of cavalry! I'm afraid it's not enough for those cavalry to slash and slash with a burst of impact! After speaking, he left muddy tears, he is old, he wants to run away at this age, he can't run at all, and this belongings are gone, all the mercenaries are smashed here, he ran back alone, with his age, he is not strong at all, and there is not enough time for him to make a comeback, he choked up while crying: "I can't imagine that this trip is actually the end of my bad old man's journey, it seems that God is calling me!" ”
The rest of the generals were also concerned when they heard this, and all of them were in a heavy mood, thinking about all kinds of things in their hearts, and no one spoke anymore.
They panicked here, turned around here for all kinds of years and couldn't do anything, but the French troops on the other side didn't care what they thought, and while they were discussing, a third wave of shells roared and bombarded them! This time it was no more shocking than the first, the walls shook again, and then stopped, and the place where the bombarded gate was only a little more cracked, although only the outermost surface crack.
However, although this does not seem terrifying, the soldiers have just been frightened stupid, so this time watching the third wave of shells bombardment, all of them shook smartly, and then I don't know who shouted: Run! And then the whole line collapsed! All the soldiers standing on the wall rushed to the city, they wanted to escape from the hell on earth, hide in the city to have a little sense of security! Although after the city wall was breached, they also had to face the murderous French army, but they couldn't care so much for a while, rather than facing the incomparable cold iron egg at this time, they would rather fight with the French army who were also human beings, and there was always a chance to live.
At this time, the high-level of Fort Mordano also knew that it was pointless to continue to stay on the city wall, the French army had such a siege weapon, they didn't need to climb the city wall to fight with them at all, they directly broke the city wall, and then they would kill it, and it would be easy to occupy Fort Mordano!
At this time, the middle-aged mercenary leader and the young commander glanced at each other secretly, and also followed everyone down the city wall. Unlike the others, the two of them had a premonition that these French soldiers were not easy to mess with, so they also prepared the back road early, planning to slip away with oil on the soles of their feet when the situation was not good. But they also did not expect that the French offensive would be so swift that they barely gave them time to react, and bombarded the walls to the ground! They had only had time to secretly withdraw some henchmen and a small number of descendants from the army, and temporarily promoted some low-level soldiers to replace them, and then arranged for them to prepare for the evacuation of Fort Mordano at any time.
Unexpectedly, their precautions actually gave them such a glimmer of life, and the elite backbone was brought out, maybe there would be a chance to turn the tables then, even if they joined other mercenary teams, then their own group of people could take care of each other, unlike other mercenary leaders, who could only run away from the city alone, and they were extremely frightened.
Angus, the commander of the French artillery, squinted at Fort Mordano in the distance, he was proficient in artillery, and of course he was no stranger to the city wall, the biggest target of artillery. Looking at the degree of cracking of the castle in front of him after being fired by several rounds of artillery salvos, he concluded that it would definitely be able to be blasted in about 3-4 hours, and then the French army could drive straight into the streets of Fort Mordano, completely destroy the enemy army, and occupy Fort Mordano!
Seeing that another round of artillery salvo had passed, he carefully observed the situation of each artillery, and if he found something wrong, he immediately ordered the soldiers to solve it, so as not to accidentally damage his own artillery when it arrived. You must know that it takes much more effort to train this group of skilled artillerymen than to train ten times as many other branches of the army, and every artilleryman is very precious, and he naturally cherishes it very much!