Chapter 493 Proxy War
The Marcel Castle is strategically located, with three rivers converging here, forming a natural barrier. The city wall was built along the river, and the wall was thick and solid, with only one wall requiring heavy troops to defend.
This castle is the capital of the Duke of Marcel, where about 60,000 noble coalition troops are stationed. The city reserves more than 100,000 tons of food, enough for 60,000 defenders for two or three years.
The most critical point is that secret weapons are installed on the top of the city. The six magic crystal cannons purchased by Duke Marcel from the Kingdom of Harland have been installed on the top of the city that requires heavy troops to defend.
In order to better exert the power of the magic crystal cannon, the Kingdom of Harland provided excellent logistical services.
Richard selected four officers and eight non-commissioned officers from an artillery battalion to help Duke Marcel train personnel. This group of people were carefully selected from the artillery unit, and each of them was the backbone of the company. Dirac, who was in charge, had been promoted to the rank of major, and promotion to the level of battalion commander was imminent.
When the war broke out, the instructors of the Kingdom of Harland could no longer be withdrawn.
Moreover, when entering the Kingdom of Delong, the twelve instructors had also received training from the intelligence department and knew that they needed to perform some special tasks and fight on behalf of Duke Marcel.
When the battle broke out, Dirac, the captain of the instructor team, took over the command very decisively and commanded the magic crystal cannon to fight.
The command of the artillery requires a lot of parabola calculations, which places very high demands on officers.
To calculate the parabola, it is also necessary to consider variables such as air friction and wind speed, and it is necessary to measure the acceleration of gravity first. To measure the acceleration of gravity, you must have some basic knowledge in physics.
The Harland Mage Association mastered this knowledge thirty years ago, and it was not too difficult to break through the window paper. But for a country like the Kingdom of Delong, calculating the landing point of the artillery shell is like a miracle, and it can't meet this requirement at all.
The Dawn Plane is an extraordinary plane with extraordinary power, extremely serious class solidification, and a very conservative social atmosphere. Richard has been running education for thirty years, and no one in the nearby countries or lords is willing to follow suit.
King Anton wanted to learn from Richard's reforms, which also triggered brutal internal fighting in the country.
After all, for the nobles, monopolizing knowledge is instinctive, and spreading knowledge does not meet their requirements.
In fact, since Richard was promoted to Duke, the nobles of the Kingdom of Grant have sent many people to study in the Harland Territory School, hoping to steal the advanced knowledge of the Harland Territory.
However, the Harland Territory has a political review and confidentiality system, and it is difficult for outsiders to enroll.
Elementary and junior high schools are slightly better, because the knowledge taught is not sensitive, and you can enter by pulling relationships and going through channels. Richard focuses on high schools and technical secondary schools, and often sends middle and high-level mages to supervise. Occasionally, there are those who engage in enrollment corruption, and it is difficult to escape the mantra of the patrolling mages.
In addition, the intelligence department has planted many spies in the school, and the bureaucrats in the education system are also very clear about this.
According to the severity of Richard's handling of officials, the bureaucrats dare not ignore the future, relax the standards of political review, and recruit people of unknown origin.
Although Richard derived the law of universal gravitation and calculated the acceleration of gravity thirty years ago, the key knowledge was not leaked due to the strict confidentiality system.
The magic academic world of the Dawn Plane has not yet been exposed to this new knowledge.
After all, in the case of the Kingdom of Harland, only those who enter high school will be involved in ballistics calculations.
The high school students in Harland are actually on the list of the intelligence department. Most of them are arranged in the military, government, scientific research institutes and other departments. They are not easily allowed to leave the territory and have no communication with the outside world.
Since Richard started to manage the territory, after more than 30 years of development, the Kingdom of Harland has trained thousands of high school students. Those who can calculate ballistics and serve as artillery commanders are not rare.
However, the Kingdom of Delong has no tradition of valuing scholars. Only a few nobles have mastered a little basic mathematics. Even if the instructors of the Kingdom of Harland try their best to teach, there is no talent reserve in the country that masters advanced mathematics knowledge.
Duke Marcel spent a lot of money to recruit, and barely only one noble with a good mathematical foundation can meet the requirements, but if you want to really command the artillery well, you need to supplement the mathematical foundation.
Duke Marcel's officers could not be relied upon, so Dirac had to take the instructors of the Kingdom of Harland to take action himself.
Although Dirac had average physical talent and had not yet been promoted to a professional at the age of more than 30, he was very talented in learning. When he was studying, he easily passed the high school entrance examination and was recruited by the artillery unit. Although his physical fitness was average and his own combat effectiveness was not strong, he relied on his excellent mind and was promoted to a major officer and served as the captain of the artillery squadron.
This time he was also selected by the superior department to serve as the captain of the foreign instructor team to perform a secret mission.
Seeing that the Kingdom of Anton led troops to attack, Dirac decisively ordered the artillery to open fire. With the calibration of the magic hot air balloon, only three rounds of artillery shells were fired, and the army where King Anton was located was directly hit.
The exploding shrapnel flew in all directions, and more than a dozen people were swept down in an instant. The power of the artillery explosion has exceeded the three-ring magic fireball.
An ordinary three-ring magician can release at most four or five fireballs in a battle. As long as there are enough shells, a magic crystal cannon can fire hundreds of shells in one battle.
The firepower projection intensity of an artillery squadron is far greater than that of a 300-man mage regiment.
Under Dirac's command, the six magic crystal cannons fired continuously, firing about three rounds every minute.
In just over ten minutes, Dirac had already fired hundreds of shells.
The magic crystal cannon appeared on the battlefield again, instantly making the army of the Delong Kingdom panic. In the past few years, the army of the Delong Kingdom has suffered a lot from this new weapon.
In the bombardment of more than ten minutes, 60% of them hit the army of the Delong Kingdom, directly defeated four infantry battalions, and caused about 2,000 casualties to the Central Guard.
Before even touching the city wall, the casualties exceeded 2,000. This unfavorable situation made the morale of the army of the Delong Kingdom very low. They barely approached the city wall, and were killed and injured by the crossbows and alchemical bombs on the top of the city.
The magicians mixed in the siege troops also lost about 20 people in this failed battle.
In desperation, the Kingdom of Anton had to withdraw from the range of the magic crystal cannon.
Although the magic crystal cannon is powerful, it has an immediate effect in battle. But the consumption was also very serious. Not only did it consume magic crystals, but it also required the payment of twenty serfs for each cannonball.
At this critical moment, Duke Marcel did not care about the population.
Seeing that the cannonballs were running low, Duke Marcel waved his hand and sold 400,000 people at one time, exchanging a large amount of baggage from Harland. There were about 6,000 cannonballs alone, and 40,000 alchemical bombs were also purchased.
This reserve can already fight twenty fierce battles.
With sufficient ammunition reserves, Marcel Castle immediately became as solid as a rock, easily blocking King Anton's army.
Under the blunt soldiers and strong city, King Anton was once again extremely uncomfortable.
In desperation, he could only divide his troops to plunder around Marcel Castle, hoping to force the defenders of Marcel Castle to go out of the city to fight.
Duke Marcel was also a veteran general and had a very clear understanding of the situation. His command style was also very conservative. He was as steady as an old dog in battle. He was determined not to go out to fight in the field, and relied on the fortifications of Marcel Castle to hold on.
At the same time, the two dukes Peron and Ram purchased a large number of magic hot air balloons from Harland through population trade.
As of January 3284 of the Dawn Calendar, the two dukes ordered more than 300 magic hot air balloons, and the population they paid was as high as about 350,000.
At this moment, the civil war in the Kingdom of Delong has been going on for sixteen months. In the first year, the Kingdom of Harland purchased nearly 930,000 serfs, and the harvest in the second year was still good, purchasing 780,000 serfs from the Kingdom of Delong.
In less than two years, the population reached more than 1.7 million.
The total population of the Kingdom of Delong has lost about 6 million.
As the magic hot air balloons sold by the Kingdom of Harland formed combat power, they continued to appear on the front line and fought several brutal air battles with the Pegasus Knights.
Although the Pegasus Knights were better than the magic hot air balloon group in the air battle, the enemy could continuously replenish their forces, but they themselves suffered serious blood loss. Although they shot down more than 200 groups of magic hot air balloons in the continuous battle, the Pegasus Knights had suffered more than 70 casualties, about one-seventh of the total number of people.
In desperation, the leader of the Pegasus Knights, Mensalo, could only reduce the frequency of reconnaissance and blockade, and wrote to the special envoy Rosen, asking for compensation for his losses.
After receiving the letter from Mensalo, Rosen was immediately worried. Although he had considerable authority, he could not help with the replenishment of the army.
Now is the time when the Holy Glorious Empire is shrinking comprehensively, and the flying troops have suffered losses, which are difficult to replenish in a short time.
However, the Kingdom of Delong must maintain the situation, otherwise the magic hot air balloons sold by Harland will continue to flow, and the Pegasus Knights will be drained sooner or later.
Rosen racked his brains and wrote many letters to coordinate with Count Truss, and finally drew 40 Pegasus knights from the Red Moon Plane garrison to replenish the Delong Kingdom front.
Now the Holy Glorious Empire has only 40,000 troops stationed in the Red Moon Plane, and its influence has fallen a lot, which is a little worse than that of the Harland Kingdom.
There are two garrisons in the Red Moon Plane, and the technical troops are replenished very slowly, and they have not been full for many years. There are only 700 Pegasus cavalry in total, and their combat effectiveness is far inferior to that of the Wyvern Knights of the Harland Kingdom.
It is already very difficult for the Red Moon Plane garrison to add 40 Pegasus Knights to the front line of the Delong Kingdom.
But for the Harland Territory, it is relatively simple to manufacture 300 magic hot air balloons. If the factory is running at full speed, it will take at most four months.
If a war breaks out, the civilian market will be compressed, and the production capacity will be increased at all costs. The magic hot air balloon factory can be expanded three times, and 400 magic airships and 2,000 magic hot air balloons can be manufactured in a year.
In addition to the magic airship troops, the Harland Kingdom’s army also has wyverns and lions.
The Wyvern Knights are the most elite troops of the Harland Kingdom, with a total of more than 180 people, including 120 wyverns, and the rest are logistics and reserve personnel. The members of this army are carefully selected from the entire army. There are about a hundred professionals above the fourth level. The soldiers all wear the rank of major and lieutenant colonel. The average military service of officers and soldiers is as high as 21 years.
Some backbones have even longer military service than Richard. The average salary of officers and soldiers is eight times that of ordinary soldiers. The annual military pay and subsidies are close to 20,000 gold coins.
Of course, human knights don’t spend much money, but raising a wyvern requires a lot of resources. This kind of high-level magic beast needs to eat magic beast meat almost every day. If there is no magic beast meat, you can only use magic crystals to prepare nutrient solution.
Fortunately, the Harland Kingdom controls the upper reaches of the Black River and has a huge resource of snow crystal fish monsters. By hunting snow crystal fish, it can provide 3,000 tons of snow crystal fish meat every year. Enough to feed the wyverns and lion ducks.
If the magic crystal is used to prepare the nutrient solution, the cost of maintaining this wyvern knight group will exceed 150,000 gold coins, which is almost equivalent to half of the legion.
After years of development, the Harland Kingdom Lion Duck Knight Force has expanded to three squadrons, with nearly 240 Lion Duck Knights. There are nearly 130 female lion ducks and young lion ducks in the Lion Duck Breeding Base in the Eagle Mountains.
After more than 20 years of hard breeding and expanding the population, the number of lion ducks has increased by about 20 times.
Limited by the cost of feeding, Richard plans to expand the number of lion duck cavalry to 300. The wyvern knight group will increase to about 150.
Unless the catch of snow crystal fish increases again, the income from the military expenses of Harland will not be able to support it.
Without sufficient magical beast meat, the annual consumption of a lion duck is equivalent to the cost of raising 300 gold coins. The consumption of a wyvern is even higher, consuming hundreds of standard magic crystals a year, and the breeding cost is as high as 1,000 gold coins.
The consumption of 300 lion duck knights is equivalent to 15,000 auxiliary soldiers, nearly 8,000 regular troops. The maintenance cost of 120 wyvern knights is equivalent to half of the legion.
In the past few years, even the Kingdom of Ryan only maintained a staff of 300 lion duck cavalry. Even if the Kingdom of Harland is rich, it can't sustain unlimited military expansion.
Now with the order of the nobles of the Kingdom of Delong, the military industry department of the Kingdom of Harland has accelerated its operation. In order to transport war resources nearby, the province of Rex has made a comprehensive move.
Under Martin's promotion, a local arsenal was successfully relocated, and the steel plant supporting the arsenal has also been put into production.
Even Rex Xingsheng relied on local finances to build a railway from Berenburg to Cologneburg, which is about 200 kilometers away.
Cologne Castle is located at the border of Rex Province and the two duchies of Visia and Klein. Due to the civil war in the Kingdom of Delon, it has become a large material transfer point.
In just sixteen months, this area has grown from a wasteland to a population of 30,000.
After the railway was completed, it became an important stronghold on the border of Rex Province. Some time ago, Martin also added four squadrons to the garrison in this area, and now the garrison has more than 2,000 troops.