Free Web NovelChapter 245: Bring the Cannons
General Alexander, who always wore a good-natured smile as he soothed Fried, was the type who showed no mercy in his methods. And yet the Baschurten army didn’t budge.
What dogged bastards.
They had barred their gates so tightly it was as if they wouldn’t come out even if everything were burned to the ground.
One of the commanders under Fried cautiously proposed:
"How about requesting support from our allies in Basel?"
"That’s out of the question! Do you want us to become a laughingstock?"
"He’s right! At this rate, can we even take the castle by next year?"
"No! The princes will look down on us Euz!"
There was a matter of pride at play, so opinions were divided even on the simple matter of requesting support. The blunder was failing to properly prepare to take a fortress as solid as that one. We should have planned for a long campaign.
We’d prepared with a short campaign in mind, so naturally everything fell short.
As the commanders’ shouting rang out, the council devolved into a venue for venting frustrations.
Left like this, our own forces were going to splinter before the castle ever fell.
I came up with the surest method of all for breaking down those solid walls.
"How about mobilizing the cannons at the royal castle?"
"...Mobilizing what?"
The eyes of Fried and the commanders fixed on me. Their reproachful looks said it all: what kind of nonsense was this? Since it was going to be a long campaign anyway, the idea was to put the cannons rotting away in the royal castle to use.
"As I understand it, of the twelve bronze cannons received as a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor, six are set up on the ramparts, and the remaining six are kept underground. I’m proposing we use them."
"Is the cannon really such an effective weapon? I’ve heard they’re difficult to operate and nothing but expensive."
"It was thanks to cannons that France drove out England."
Did you have to take a cannon to the face to truly grasp its power?
Germany had never been on the receiving end of a cannon yet.
They said cannons had never even been mobilized in the great war with Burgundy. But at the same time, this was an opportunity. If the cannons brought from the royal castle could take Baschurten Castle in one stroke?
Wouldn’t the perception of gunpowder weapons change completely?
Rather than babbling about them being the devil’s weapons, they’d take note of their enormous usefulness. All the more so with a wall before them that wouldn’t budge no matter how furiously we battered it with trebuchets and every other siege engine!
And once that perception took hold, a lot of the obstacles to employing gunners would vanish. It was a gamble well worth attempting.
Fried seemed to be tempted at heart too.
There was no answer in the current situation, so the idea was to try anything.
"But to use the royal castle’s weapons, we’d need His Grace the Grand Duke’s permission, wouldn’t we?"
"There’s no time to send someone all the way east for approval, so let’s just bring them and let the results speak for themselves. If it succeeds, the credit is yours, Lord Fried, and if it fails, I’ll take responsibility."
I had complete confidence in the cannons. Fried and the commanders, realizing my resolve ran that deep, deliberated hard. General Alexander, who had been silent, asked:
"Lord of Feuzen, have you ever actually seen a cannon?"
"I haven’t seen one in person, but I know of its power indirectly."
"Ha ha, the tremendous roar I felt in Constantinople in my youth is still vivid to me."
This Greek general was originally a man of the Despotate of Morea, but he said he had lived in Constantinople for several years, and as it happened, that was the very time the city came under invasion by the Ottoman beylik (now an empire).
He’d been confident that as long as the formidable Theodosian Walls protected the city, it could repel any foreign enemy, but the empire had already begun to decline and could not withstand the onslaught of the rising Ottomans.
Massive cannonballs struck the walls one after another, and after the Ottoman assault came crashing in like a tidal wave, the city finally fell. General Alexander, who had been on the outskirts, managed to escape.
He said he’d been able to get away because the Ottomans were so consumed with plundering that they didn’t bother pursuing those who fled. After his homeland of Morea fell, he sought asylum in Trebizond, but that too couldn’t hold out for long.
So he had barely managed to flee and lived as a mercenary in Italy, which brought him to where he was now. It was an abrupt detour into an old tale, but to the commanders it seemed like quite a fascinating adventure story.
Fried, perhaps sick of hearing it by now, showed little interest.
General Alexander smiled gently and said to me:
"The cannons they mobilized were very powerful and terrifying. But the decisive cause of the empire’s fall was that a single small side gate was left open. Do not place too much faith in cannons."
"I don’t think cannons will solve everything."
For now, they were just one of the methods.
To think we could solve this with a mere six cannons would be sheer arrogance.
That’s precisely why, to solve this with cannons, we’d need to equip ourselves with far more of them. Securing both gunners and cannon manufacturing technology would prove invaluable when the Burgundians came pouring in.
Of course, the enemy would drag along an enormous number of cannons too, but that was a hundred times better than being shelled with no way to answer.
In any case, for the present, it was more than worth attempting.
Fried, perhaps bothered by my saying I’d take responsibility, eased my burden.
"Credit is credit and responsibility is responsibility. Lord Streit, if it succeeds the credit belongs to everyone, and if it fails the responsibility belongs to everyone, so don’t carry that burden. However, be sure to get permission from His Highness the Crown Prince before proceeding."
Fried had grown crueler through this war, but the one thing that remained unchanged was surely his honest nature. Getting permission from Franz, the crown prince and supreme commander of the Western Lords’ Army, was certainly important too.
Even Benjamin, who was at odds with Fried, went along with it this once.
"You want to mobilize the cannons at the royal castle? You can’t be serious."
"Unfortunately, I am serious. It’s about time we put them to use, isn’t it?"
The crown prince, whom I’d reunited with after a long absence and who had welcomed me warmly, made an incredulous face at my sudden demand to hand over the six cannons stored in the royal castle’s armory.
"Haah, the trouble with you is that you’re a knight, yet you take far too much interest in gunpowder weapons."
"During the defense of Feuzen, the gunners I trained were quite active. They focused fire on picking off the enemy’s knight commanders, disrupting their chain of command."
"I don’t find that particularly special. We’d sooner just send you reinforcements."
"The commander-in-chief of the Baschurten invasion force and his commanders won’t welcome reinforcements."
That damned regional selfishness again?
The crown prince shook his head and asked Count Essenbach, who was watching this with amusement: ƒreewebɳovel.com
"Count, what would you have me do? Should I grant his request?"
"Your Highness, there are cannons on the ramparts of Strasbourg too."
"...What’s that supposed to mean? That’s not what I’m asking about."
"Wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to test out cannons while we’re at it?"
With Count Essenbach lending his support, the crown prince finally granted permission after much deliberation. He said he would send a letter to Grand Duke Karlus on the eastern front, but I wanted to act first and report afterward.
The crown prince urged me to share a meal for the first time in ages, but I had to get to the royal castle as fast as possible, so I declined, and he was tremendously hurt by it. Honestly, when he sulks like that, I’m the one left feeling awkward.
"You truly are a gale in the flesh. Spare me a moment of your time."
Count Essenbach briefly stopped me as I was about to set out in a hurry.
I had no idea what was so important that he’d brought me to such a secluded spot.
"After you’ve used the cannons, could you share the detailed information with me?"
"Telling you isn’t difficult, but what for?"
"There are cannons in Strasbourg, so I intend to learn of their power in advance."
This crafty deputy commander was surprisingly interested in cannons. The cannons said to be installed in Strasbourg, a free imperial city entangled with the interests of many nations, could become a major obstacle. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
I see—as a prince, he had reason to be wary of cannons after all.
Using them himself was an entirely different matter, so he wanted to learn about them through me.
There was no noble in Beren who truly understood cannons. With neighboring states already trading cannon fire and waging battles, there would be real trouble down the line.
It was true that he’d helped persuade the crown prince, and word of the cannons’ power would spread through the Baschurten siege, but since he seemed to want the detailed information, I agreed to provide it.
"I’ll compensate you with whatever you need."
"Very well. But I’ll collect later. Right now the Baschurten siege is what matters."
"Good. Tell me whenever something comes to mind. I’ll be waiting."
I figured Count Essenbach’s interest in Strasbourg’s defenses wasn’t born of simple curiosity. Grand Duke Karlus had said he would banish the queen to Strasbourg.
The Gwendirente family, which wielded the most powerful influence in the free imperial city, would be all but abandoned by Beren, and this could become the opening for another family to rise.
And the whole situation would descend into utter chaos.
That’s how it always goes wherever interests are entangled.
The Duchy of Roden, Württemberg, Offenburg, and other neighboring states would keep up their relentless pressure on the free imperial city, watching for their chance, so perhaps this was groundwork laid for that moment?
Strasbourg was a region with no connection to me, so I had neither the justification to get involved nor the power to do so. I shook off the uneasy thoughts and rode hard toward the royal castle of Breisburg.
