To the south of Suolong Pass, Shenwei Fortress.

Duke Calis stood on a high platform made of dirt bags and rocks, looking at the outline of the fortress that towered over the horizon in the distance, and his heart was full of unease and trepidation. The wind constantly smells of blood from afar, mixed with thick and faint smoke, and everything is full of danger and the smell of death.

"It's still too late......"

The duke's sigh was mixed with helplessness. Although Kamui Fortress is far away, you can see through the telescope the red flag fluttering in the wind at the top of the tower, embroidered with golden silk thread with an unknown monster that resembles a python in the shape of a python, with horns and claws on the top of its head.

Huge canyons blocked the way.

When attacking from the south to the north a few months ago, Duke Calis led the main force of the Rhine Kingdom on the fortress road. This was a practice that had been going on for many years———— and the fortress was stocked with a large number of crushed rocks, which were covered in metal mesh pockets and lowered into a deep ditch by large loaders erected at the northern exit of the fortress to fill in the valley that had been used to hold back the northern giants. When you get close to the ground, you can pave it with finer gravel and wooden planks to create a simple and smooth temporary passage.

Calis had walked this road many times, but he had never felt so nervous and frightened as he was now.

The scouts suffered heavy losses. Since the day before yesterday, their return rate has plummeted to 20 percent. The scouts who returned alive were covered in blood and wounded, all of which were signs that the giants had reached a very high level of skill with muskets. All the scouts who were shot became disabled, either with their arms blown off on the spot, or their legs and feet blown off. In their opinion, being shot in the limbs is already a manifestation of the Holy Lord, blessing the believers to survive. If the part of the bullet is the body...... Then you will surely die.

The bottom of the canyon, which is hundreds of meters deep to the northwest and northeast, is covered with thick corpses. This is one of the most terrifying pieces of news that the scouts have brought back at the risk of their lives. The number of dead there was more than 40,000, and more to the northeast. All bodies were stripped naked, uncovered, and exposed to the bright sun of early spring.

Luckily, it's not summer, and the warmth but not the heat keeps the bodies "fresh". Of course, this is only for the degree of decay, and the surface of the white flowers is mixed with various colors. Purple, dark red, black gray, brown yellow...... The skin that was held up high by the swollen flesh looked thin, and when you got closer, you could even see the fluid flowing slowly under the cortex. All it takes is a needle to gently prick the tip down, and a large patch of slimy putref immediately gushes out of the swollen skin, releasing a strong foul odor.

Calis took a long detour with his guards to the corpse dump on the northeastern side of the canyon. It has become a temporary haven for all kinds of bugs. Swarms of ants weave beneath the piles of corpses, carrying human hair and small pieces of minced flesh clinging to rotting slime. Snails cling to dark corners with heavy shells on their backs, and they love the foul-smelling putrid water that flows from inside carcasses. The black beetles are concentrated in the anus of the deceased, and as the decay intensifies, a little feces flow out of the anal opening, and in their opinion it is the most delicious meal in the world.

Although it is not the season for mosquitoes and flies, they are attracted by food. The surface of the corpse was covered with flies and eggs, but they had not yet hatched, and from a distance it looked as if the deceased was covered with white spots. Dense phobia sufferers are sure to be scared to death in such a place, and the best doctors are helpless.

Calis did not ask the people below to count the number of dead. Forty thousand, or fifty thousand, or even more...... It's dead anyway, and the specific numbers are meaningless. This only meant two things: first, the defenders of the fortress were completely wiped out. Second, the fact is that the northern giants have no special penchant for human flesh, and they do not treat the dead as food at all, but discard them like garbage.

In a way, it's a good thing. This will reduce the fear of giants among your soldiers to a certain extent. As long as there is war, people have been killed. It's nothing to die, but if you can't even save the body, it will be a very big blow to morale, and it may even lead to a large-scale mutiny in the current situation.

As for the fortress defender Tazwil...... Calis could only shake his head and smile bitterly.

There were no skirmishes, and the giants in the fortress didn't even have the intention of going out of the city to fight in the field. Leaning on the tall and heavy walls, they watched vigilantly the white army coming from the north.

The adjutant came to the duke, put his right hand on his shoulder, saluted, and said respectfully: "My lord, the artillery position has been set up, please give an order!" ”

Calis nodded, his gaze at the fortress in the distance did not shift, and asked seriously, "Is the measured data accurate?" Are the positions set at the maximum range? ”

The adjutant said: "There must be some deviation from the visual inspection, but it won't be too much." The artillery officers below all said that they couldn't go any farther, and that the firing radius could not cover the entire fortress, and they could only ensure that they could just reach the position of this wall. ”

The words of Flamar on his deathbed touched Calis. He knew that the giants had muskets and cannons, but he knew nothing about the data. Retreating all the way north of Suolong Pass, Calis sent a large number of scouts, desperate to capture a few giant captives and ask for some information from them. Although Calis himself was unfamiliar with the language of giants and could not understand what they were saying, he believed that catching a captive would always make a difference, rather than blindly moving forward or backward and fighting.

Unfortunately, his idea could not be realized. The scout teams suffered heavy casualties, but failed to capture a single giant.

Their weapons are advanced and have an extremely fast rate of fire.

Their muskets were of a large caliber and were equivalent to our light artillery.

They were wearing thick armor, and although we fired, we could not penetrate their armor.

Calis thought of artillery from muskets, which was the key to determining the outcome of the war, and also determined whether he could break through the fortress of Shenwei and open the way home for the main Rhine force.

The duke could only take the safest way———— according to his order, the artillery unit sent technical officers in advance to observe the northern wall of the fortress by visual inspection, confirm the maximum firing distance of their own artillery, and use this as a standard to determine the specific location of the artillery position.

Unlike in the past, the white army has lost the range advantage of thermal weapons. Calis pinned his hopes on concentrating artillery fire on the northern walls of the fortress. By smashing it, musketeers and halberders can rush up and overwhelm their opponents with a strong numerical advantage.

The previous practice of setting up gun emplacements at close range is no longer feasible. The towers of the fortress are lined with giant lookouts, who can summon and direct long-range fire countermeasures as soon as they spot a Rhine gun emplacement outside the city. As a last resort, Calis had no choice but to set up a gun emplacement far north of the infantry array. He had long since stopped thinking about artillery suppression and the like, only hoping that these secretly set up large-caliber guns would shatter the wall in the first round of fire.

The Rhine Army had a fighting force of 600,000, which was Calis's greatest reliance.

The Shenwei Fortress has been standing here for hundreds of years, and the Lock Dragon Pass is flanked by impassable mountains, and it is impossible for the giant army to suddenly emerge from the ground. There is only one source for this giant army that has captured the fortress, and that is the sea.

Calis was well versed in military affairs. The navies of the great kingdoms were only the strongest in the Saxons. Their largest tonnage transports could transport 1,200 infantry at a time, and 10 were 12,000 men. The Duke had never seen a giant warship, but through Flamar's description of the river warship on the Pantuo River, as well as the deduction based on relevant data, he could basically conclude that the single carrying capacity of the giant transport ship should be about 1,500 people.

War is all about logistics. Assuming that the giant army that occupies the fortress of Shenwei has as many as 15,000 men, they must have no less than five or more transports of the same class to carry supplies to support a medium-intensity battle.

How big is the Giant Fleet?

A hundred?

Or two hundred?

It was impossible for them to have transport ships alone, and only under the escort of battleships could they safely transport the entire force. It can be inferred from this that the giant should not have too many ships, and the degree of armament is not as high as expected, otherwise the giant would not have reason to give up the sea advantage in vain. You must know that in the past long years, there has never been a giant sea ship going south, otherwise the Saxon Navy would have been aware of it a long time ago.

Calis sketched a map in his mind, crossing the entire Gobi Desert to the eastern coast of the fortress. He could be sure that it was the landing point of the giants, although it was far away, but he had to admit that this method of bypassing the main forces of the kingdom's coalition forces and landing directly on the fortress in most of the rear was indeed unexpected and had the desired effect.

The size of the army of giants who captured the fortress should be 30,000 men! This is the conclusion that the Duke of Calis has thought about and calculated for a long time.

He can choose between two targets———— a fortress, or a landing on the eastern coast.

Calis didn't go far and wide. There are so many uncertainties on the eastern coast that God knows how many giants there are. They must have set up defensive positions, and although they were far less complete than Kamui Fortress, they could get support from the sea at any time, and they could even board ships and evacuate from the sea when the battle situation was unfavorable. Even if the Rhine army captured the landing site, it would not be able to bypass the Grand Canyon in front of them, and it would have to spend a lot of time and manpower to build roads to go south.

30,000 giants, maybe the actual number will be more. Their defense of the fortress is indeed a good move, but it is also their greatest weakness. The Rhine scouts did not find any defensive positions in the vicinity, and all indications were that it was a lone army, and they were doomed to be impossible to replenish in terms of personnel and materiel.

Because of this, Calis decided to take a gamble ———— decide the future of the Rhine Army and himself with a fierce offensive.

"Ordered the artillery to open fire. Hit me hard and smash that damn wall! ”

Calis's tone was calm, and his face did not change at all, as if he was saying something ordinary. Only the most familiar knew that this was a sign of his cruelty. Next, it means to achieve the goal regardless of casualties.

Large clouds of white smoke rose from behind the musketeer array, and soon enveloped the entire battlefield. Round cannonballs whizzed towards the fortress, crushing the rocks and bricks with a furious impact. Everyone knew that their fate was at stake in the battle, and everyone from the officers to the artillerymen showed the strongest will to fight, and the rate of artillery fire exceeded the best level of training in peacetime, and a black rain of bullets appeared in the air, and in an instant the upper part of the northern wall of the fortress was cut off.

Everyone who saw this, including Calis, was shocked, and at the same time their hearts were filled with unprecedented excitement.

This is a reckless style of play, after a few rounds of rapid fire, a considerable part of the artillery will have to enter the cooling program due to overheating, and in serious cases, it may even explode.

The effect of the artillery bombardment was very good, looking at the striking black cracks on the surface of the city wall in the distance, Calis suppressed the excitement in his heart, raised his right hand, and waved it downward: "Keep shooting, let the sappers get on!" ”

He has at his disposal up to half a million logistical transport troops, which are called "sappers".

The dense crowd moved. They pushed all kinds of improvised vehicles and rushed to the canyon as fast as they could, throwing stones and all kinds of debris loaded on the cars desperately down.

As long as this section is filled, the infantry behind will be able to rush up. Of course, the width will not be too large, and it can only reach a few tens of meters in a short time.

Calis did not choose to do something similar to that on the east or west side of Kamui Fortress. There are too many uncertainties to do that, and it's too far away. When the whole army retreated from the north of Suolong Pass, the duke ordered to take away a part of the accumulated military rations. Still, it's only enough to last a week.

He had to be fast enough to march. Although there was food in the warehouse at Suolongguan, carrying a month's worth of supplies required a lot of time to prepare, and it slowed down the march. Sensing the potential danger, Calis had no choice between "steady" and "fast". He hoped that he would react quickly enough to reinforce Tadsville, but he didn't expect it to be a step too late.

Without enough food, it would not be possible to fill the canyon with similar engineering operations on other lots. To make matters worse, the giant scouts patrol the opposite side of the canyon and are bound to be attacked if they spot them.

Calis had already sent someone to inform the Holy See army and the main forces of the Saxon kingdom. He hoped that there was still time, and that if Bishop Somson arrived with the main forces of the two armies and sufficient supplies, then all his hard work and effort would be worth it.

Suddenly, there was a heart-pounding howl in the air. Immediately afterward, Calis felt a violent explosion behind him, and even the ground trembled.

He turned to look behind him, and at the same time heard the adjutant's frightened scream: "My lord, it's those giants, they have opened fire!" ”

Large clouds of smoke and flames rose from the artillery positions and soared into the sky.