Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Chapter 81: Pike and Shot

Two days passed, and before this short period, Konrad had given Marshal Eckhard an unusual check, open wide.

"Take from the treasury whatever you need," Konrad had ordered him. "Hire the wandering mercenaries. Arm the local militia. I don’t care if they are just farmers holding a spear for the first time. Raw recruits become hardened veterans if they survive long enough."

Thus, the Marshal had spent the last two days throwing Fugger silver at anyone who could hold a weapon...

And the timing could not have been more perfect.

Because of the incredible success of the Norfolk four-course harvest and the massive influx of wealth from the secret western trade routes, the local markets were overflowing.

Merchants, sell-swords, and wandering tradesmen were everywhere.

Mercenaries, naturally, only cared about hard coin. They wandered into the valley wearing flashy, slashed doublets and carrying massive two-handed swords, looking for the highest bidder. freewebnovёl.ƈom

But the local farmers? They were a different breed entirely... seeing the black-armored Reiters riding proudly through the towns, eating sugar-glazed bread and drinking pure grain spirits, the young peasant boys suddenly realized that breaking their backs in a muddy field was a fool’s game.

They wanted glory. Or, to put it much more accurately, they wanted the fame and money that came with wearing the Viscount’s blackened steel.

Konrad stood near the edge of the main drilling yard, sipping from a hot wooden cup of the smuggled Ottoman coffee.

"Keep the matchcords away from the open barrels, you idiots!" a veteran sergeant roared, kicking a young farm boy in the back of the knee. "You’ll kill us all before we even see the enemy. This is a wheellock!"

After hearing such words from the sergeant, Marshal Eckhard finally walked up the steps to join Konrad.

He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in a week, his eyes bloodshot and his face pale.

"Lord Konrad... my throat is raw," Eckhard groaned, leaning against the railing.

"They will learn quickly once the Savoyard knights are charging at them," Konrad replied, taking another sip of his coffee. "Do you have the final tallies?"

"I do," Eckhard said, unrolling the canvas ledger and pointing a finger at the inked numbers. "The Fugger silver worked exactly like a magnet, just as you predicted. We bought out three entire wandering mercenary bands that were heading south for the winter. Hardened pikemen and halberdiers. Mostly old Landsknechts who got tired of fighting for the Pope’s empty promises. They are loyal to the coin, but they know how to hold a line."

"And the militia?" Konrad asked, leaning over to inspect the ledger.

"We armed over six hundred local farm boys," the Marshal answered, shaking his head slightly. "They want the glory of the von Frundsberg name, and the steady silver you promised. We mixed them into the veteran gunner squads, just like before. One veteran to watch over every three new men. If they try to run, the veterans have strict orders to shoot them."

However, Konrad wanted the exact total.

Eckhard stood up a little straighter, "As of this morning, our standing field army numbers exactly four thousand and one hundred men. A massive host, My Lord."

"And the artillery?" Konrad murmured.

"Master Klemens hasn’t slept in three days," Eckhard chuckled dryly. "We now have twenty-one twelve-pounder bronze cannons fully mounted on their carriages and ready to roll. On top of that, every single one of the new recruits has been issued a standardized wheellock rifle and a steel plug bayonet."

Even so, the numbers alone weren’t enough to guarantee a victory in the Duchy of Savoy... Savoy was a mountainous, densely forested region.

Dragging twenty-one heavy cannons through the passes would be a nightmare, and deploying them required space.

"If their main army is distracted in Burgundy, the border barons will still try to ambush us with their remaining cavalry."

"The new militia boys will break if heavy horse hits them in the flank, My Lord," Eckhard warned him, "You can give a farmer a gun and promise him all the sugar and fame in the world, but when a two-ton warhorse covered in steel is charging right at his face, instinct takes over. He will drop the wheellock and run into the woods."

"Not if he is boxed in," Konrad corrected him flatly. "A man only runs when he has somewhere to run to. If we position them correctly, their fear will force them to stand their ground and fight." freewebnovёl.ƈom

After hearing such words, Eckhard frowned. "Boxed in?"

"Look here," Konrad instructed, tapping the center of the drawing. "We put the hardened mercenary pikemen right here, in the dead center. A bristling forest of eighteen-foot steel pikes. Completely impenetrable to a cavalry charge."

"A standard pike block," Eckhard noted, nodding slowly. "It’s a strong defense, yes. But pikes can’t shoot. The enemy will just stand back and fire arrows into them."

Thus, Konrad drew several smaller squares onto the four corners of the central pike block.

"That is where the wheellock gunners go," Konrad smirked, "We put the new farm boys and the veteran musketeers on the corners, forming a protective sleeve around the pikes. When the Savoyard knights charge, the gunners fire a devastating volley of lead directly into their ranks."

"...If the knights get too close, the gunners simply take three steps backward, retreating safely behind the wall of mercenary pikes to reload."

Eckhard stared at the drawing, "The cavalry would be shredded by the gunfire before they even reached our lines. And if they try to run down the shooters, they will impale their own horses on the pikes."

"..." Konrad was surprised as he threw the coals back onto the table; the marshal had figured it out quickly.

"Has this formation been tested before? What do you call it?" Eckhard asked.

Konrad looked at him.

The Spanish Tercios would soon become famous across the globe for this exact formation, dominating the battlefields of Europe for over a century. But here, in the Swabian valley, Konrad was going to perfect it before anyone else even truly understood the math behind it.

Konrad took a slow sip of his coffee. "Have you ever heard of the tactic known as Pike and Shot?"