Free Web NovelChapter 244: Fair Game
When the lever was pulled down, the locking mechanism released, and the counterweight at the front, packed full of heavy stones, dropped straight down. The stones held in the sturdy cloth sling attached to the rear arm flew powerfully forward.
Whoosh!
It was an attack that used the seesaw principle.
You could trace the most magnificent trajectory.
Crash!
Bang!
The trebuchet is a time-honored siege engine that has been in use since ancient times.
Because gravity adds force to a stone falling from a high arc, it can deliver a powerful blow to an enemy fortress, which is why it remained a useful siege engine even after the cannon appeared. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
I had the chance to watch our siege engines launch their attack on Baschurten Castle up close. The cavalry had only taken part in building the encirclement, while the actual siege was led by the infantry.
Unlike the main force, which had already begun the siege, the allied cavalry I led had joined up only yesterday.
While the siege was underway, we were given the role of hunting down any detachments or reinforcements the enemy had hidden away, so as to eliminate any potential threats.
Rather than wasting cavalry by grinding them down in a siege, having them sweep the surrounding area like this was standard military practice.
In the end, after a lot of hard riding around, we seized the entire region except for southern Baschurten. After joining up with the main force, we were mobilized to build the encirclement.
The sight of ten trebuchets hurling stones that pounded the fortress and its buildings was truly spectacular. Unlike Boeven, which was ringed with a palisade, Baschurten Castle was a true fortress, and an enormous one at that.
So a day or two of siege wouldn’t cut it.
Even now they were busy assembling more trebuchets.
Thud!
Reloading a trebuchet takes a considerable amount of time. First, several soldiers grunt and strain to haul the launched arm, which has shot up high into the air, back down by pulling on the attached ropes.
This kind of grueling manual labor mostly fell to the levy.
"Dummkopf! You pigs! Pull, pull harder!"
"Pull it straight before I shove you in the sling and launch you!"
All sorts of shouting flew back and forth as the levy gritted their teeth and hauled on the ropes. They even hitched packhorses to the ropes to help pull, because the counterweight was so heavy.
Snap!
Bang!
"Aaagh! My leg! Dammit!"
"Verdammt! The rope hit me!"
Sometimes a rope would snap or the arm would break, smashing the trebuchet to pieces. This was why even the simple act of operating siege engines produced injuries and deaths without warning.
This was also the reason why, a week into hurling stones, only ten were in operation despite assembling so many trebuchets.
They’d been thrown together in a hurry, so durability was a serious problem.
On top of that, transporting the trebuchet’s component parts took a long time too.
The engineers, choking back every curse imaginable, put on a tearful, miserable performance trying to fabricate replacement parts. They were so pitiful that I even mobilized the cavalry to handle deliveries.
"Stones! Bring stones! Load them in the sling!"
"The lever! Bring the lever!"
The simplest task of all, moving the prepared stones into the sling, was no easy job either. They couldn’t be too heavy, but they couldn’t be too light either.
Since finding stones of just the right weight wasn’t easy, they made use of existing stonework from nearby.
They knocked down the walls of the outlying villages beyond the fortress and launched those, and they scoured other places to bring in stones. The boulder flying through the air right now had been taken from ruins dating back to Roman times.
The concept of preserving cultural heritage was meaningless in the face of battle.
For now, anything that could be launched was fair game.
Crash!
Aaagh!
The defenders of the fortress hurled stones our way too. Stones launched from a fixed trebuchet were mostly very inaccurate, but if you got unlucky and took a hit, you were done for.
Just like those soldiers who’d been pulped by a stone.
Baschurten Castle had a large, deep moat that easily blocked attackers from approaching the walls. The reason the enemy could afford to hold out against a siege was that they possessed such superb defensive installations.
They had diverted the long river that flowed all the way to Rosenheim and turned its course into a moat, which meant we were forced to rely on nothing but trebuchet bombardment.
Feuzen also had a river, so the right conditions for a natural moat existed, but the truth was the project had never been carried out because of the enormous cost and the difficulty of maintenance.
As a result, the city was left wide open to the enemy’s invasion.
If I hadn’t come to the rescue in time, it would have fallen.
So watching Baschurten’s solid defenses withstand the Euz army’s offensive gave me pause. For the attacking side, it was a bleak, hopeless prospect.
So this was why the Geerhilt family, having refused to surrender even after the Count of Baschurten had, was trying to hold out at Baschurten Castle until the duke’s army won?
Boom!
Crash!
Until the sun went down, they hurled stones without pause, but they couldn’t inflict any noticeable damage. I didn’t know how long it would take, but a grueling fight lay ahead.
Fried called a war council and erupted in fury before the commanders.
A week had passed without any results to show, and he was thoroughly enraged.
"Dammit, did they pour all their money into these walls? What makes them so solid?"
The walls were tougher than expected and the enemy’s resistance was fierce, so our side had suffered considerable losses as well. Already over a hundred. The defenders had surely taken losses too, but there was no way to know at this point.
But blindly launching an all-out assault would clearly make those losses snowball, so no matter how angry Fried was, he couldn’t order one.
Pounding away with siege engines to wear down the enemy fortress’s defenses was reaching its limits too. The deep moat, together with the solid walls, was exhausting the attackers.
The commanders spoke with sighs.
"Even if we tried to fill the moat, we don’t have anywhere near enough equipment for it."
"It’s a natural moat, so draining the water is useless. We’re only losing soldiers."
"Those bastards requisitioned and stockpiled all the food from the surrounding villages, so won’t they hold out for years?"
"At this rate, if we’re tied down here until the civil war is over..."
Each of them voiced the difficulties and concerns of the siege. And really, it was only natural. Of all forms of combat, the siege was the most costly and the most protracted.
Both sides were well supplied, so we had to brace for a long campaign.
There’s a reason for the saying that you should avoid a siege and draw the enemy into a pitched battle.
General Alexander, a Greek who had amassed a great deal of siege experience, attacked the relatively intact southern villages of Baschurten in order to lure out the Baschurten army holed up in the castle.
While Benjamin and I had been spread out seizing the rest of Baschurten, the two southern villages had been destroyed by General Alexander. That was why we couldn’t take the south.
Nothing was left. It had been turned into ruins, just like Ladwig.
The sight of the pitiful survivors scattering in every direction was nothing but heartbreaking.
