Iron Powder and Spellcaster

"The dock is only a small place in total, and all the porters are familiar faces. Who are you missing after the bombing? You don't know?" Winters slammed the table.

"There are too many people on the dock. As long as you have the strength, you can come and work as a porter. How can we remember everyone?" The man who was interrogated answered accurately: "Mr. Gendarmerie, why don't you ask someone else?"

Winters asked various questions from other angles, but the other party bit him to death and knew nothing.

"You go out." The exhausted Winters waved his hand: "Call the next person in."

The man left and another short man took the chair.

The short man sat awkwardly on the stool, pursed his lips tightly and said nothing.

"May I ask your name?" Winters broke the silence politely.

Before he finished speaking, Dumpty scratched his neck and shouted, as if he had been stabbed in the butt by a hedgehog: "I don't know anything!"

"I asked for your name..."

"I don't know anything!"

"name……"

"I don't know anything!"

"roll!"

"I don't know anything!"

Winters picked up the cup on the table and smashed it to pieces on the ground.

——Cut——

"The dock workers are very tight-lipped and won't say anything." Winters reluctantly reported the results of the inquiry to Lieutenant Colonel Field to the dock workers.

In the lounge of the officers' club, Field, Moritz and Winters sat in a circle around a small table.

"The porters are afraid of being regarded as leakers. Several gangs control all the porting business on the dock. They have issued a gag order, so the porters naturally don't even dare to fart." Field was in a bad mood and held the wine glass in his hand for a long time. But he didn’t drink a drop of wine: “We can’t protect the porter’s family, they won’t stand on our side.”

No progress was made in the assassination, and neither Field nor Winters looked good.

Major Moritz on the side seemed not to be affected at all, happily pouring himself a drink. Winters couldn't help but wonder whether Major Moritz had really lost his hearing, or whether he was using his inability to hear as an excuse to avoid an annoying job.

Under the calm dock, an undercurrent is surging, and the Benvenuto family's house is still empty. Some news came from the cripples in Qianmin Street, explaining why the dock workers had all kept their mouths shut and why Benvenuto's family had disappeared.

The porters at Aquamarine City Terminal are roughly divided into several groups based on region. On weekdays, violent conflicts often occur due to grabbing work and other reasons, and one or two arms and legs are broken from time to time.

On the night of the assassination, the Monta people found their leader lying in a pool of blood in the alley behind the Pinewood Tavern, killed by a knife to the left side.

Just a few days ago, the Monta people had a fierce fight with the Van people. One Van person was seriously injured and a dozen were slightly injured. The seriously injured one died shortly after being carried back.

The Republic of Monta is located in a mountainous area and has a difficult living environment. The land cannot support people, so men have no choice but to work as soldiers to earn money. Therefore, the Monta people are fierce and tenacious in character, brave and unafraid of death. The land of the Monta Republic has been an important source of soldiers since ancient times.

Now the Monta people identified the Waan people as the murderers and vowed to pay blood for blood. Then they will never give up until the blood of their enemies is spilled.

Although the Waan people did not admit that they killed the leader of the Monta people, they just regretted that someone deprived them of the opportunity to take revenge.

For the Waan people who value family relationships, if a Waan dies, the whole family will take revenge. The entire Waan community is connected by a complex network of kinship relationships, like a pot of soil filled with plant roots.

The Waans suffered a big loss before, and they are also licking their wounds and preparing to take revenge.

In the shadow of the bustling port area, the two sides are gearing up and accumulating strength, and may fight at any time.

According to Cripple, both parties bought a lot of real stuff on the black market, and even bought a lot of gunpowder. Even the Platoans, who had nothing to do with this matter, were secretly preparing. The end result can be very ugly.

The Waan who was seriously injured and died in the previous violent conflict was Benvenuto's biological uncle. Blood revenge is a highly praised behavior in the Waan culture. Therefore, the Benvenuto family is now the main target of revenge by the Monta people. According to the lame man, their family should be protected by the Waan community.

Are several groups of workers at the dock going to fight to the death?

Field didn't care at all.

In his eyes, even if the seawater in the port is dyed red by the blood of dock workers, it is still a problem of the customs and the city guard.

But precisely because of this absurd reason, the dock workers remained silent and refused to say anything.

"These guys are just convinced that we can't torture him without evidence." Field said angrily and frustratedly: "XX! Being put in jail and beaten up will definitely tell you everything."

However, Field could only speak harsh words. Although torture is a common method used by alliance law enforcement officers to obtain evidence, alliance law has strict restrictions on the conditions for the use of torture. The church also strictly prohibits believers from using torture to extract confessions from believers - in theory.

If Field dared to take the dock workers to jail today without any evidence, he would have to pack up his things now and go write the history of the war without waiting for the day when the verdict would be reversed in the future.

"What about money?" Winters suggested another simple method.

"We can't pay a price that can afford their lives. The dock workers will not show mercy when they organize to kill rats [referring to leakers]." Field shook his head: "And ordinary workers will not know any valuable information. , we have to find the leaders, but it is absolutely impossible for them to tell us where the leaders are now."

Winters had a new idea in his mind in the past few days, but he was careful not to bring it up rashly. Now, seeing that the investigation has reached an impasse again, he feels it is time to share his new ideas.

"I got a spring gun in the past few days, which is similar to the gun I picked up." The spring gun Winters mentioned was actually Sophia's: "After several experiments, I first found that this gun is very strange. Simple, but the shooter is even more complicated."

After Sofia was taken to the military camp under house arrest, the spring gun she brought was left in the Serbian government. Winters couldn't resist his curiosity and disassembled the gun, then spent three times as long as it took to disassemble it and put it back together.

As a person with a natural intuition for mechanical structures, Winters quickly figured out the structure and principles of the spring gun. The ignition mechanism of the spring gun is essentially a friction wheel connected to the scroll spring. Before use, the friction wheel must be "strengthened" in circles. When the trigger is pulled, the friction wheel rotates and the flint strikes, creating sparks that ignite the gunpowder.

In Winters' view, the advantage of this design is that it does not require careful care of the match like a matchlock gun to prevent it from extinguishing, and there is no open flame.

You know, the matchlock is a very dangerous weapon, both to the enemy and to the gunman himself. Because the matchlock burns slowly but it is still an open flame. For the matchlock shooters who carry a large amount of gunpowder and are covered with gunpowder powder, they are already eligible to receive wages if they can do it without setting themselves on fire.

Another advantage is that it can be used with one hand. The shooting process of the matchlock gun requires the use of two hands. There is no one-handed matchlock gun. The spring wheel gun can be fired by holding the gun with one hand and pulling the trigger, so the dock assassin can hold the gun in one hand and the sword in the other.

However, Winters also realized the dangers of this design - the spring wheel mechanism was too complex, too fragile, and unreliable.

Trigger, latch, scroll spring, if any part is loose, the gun will misfire. The assassin dared to hang such a gun on his waist. Aren't he afraid that the shot would go off and smash his thigh?

"What's not simple?" Field lay back on the sofa without interest.

"It's not easy to use! The people who made the gun didn't consider the actual situation of one-handed use at all. The barrel used was the barrel of a long gun. It was essentially a sawed-off long gun, and it still shot 30-gram lead bullets. This A gun of this caliber is too difficult to use with one hand. If I were to design it, I would make it a smaller caliber." Winters expressed his thoughts confidently: "The gun we caught is more spring-loaded than the one in my hand. The caliber of the wheel gun is still large, and anyone who can shoot accurately with that gun must be proficient in firearms.”

Field lay on his back on the sofa and hummed softly: "Then what?"

"The customs autopsy report gave me some inspiration. The customs coroner used the body shape, appearance, and calluses on the hands to infer their identity and social class. I think we can also use the existing evidence to infer that the assassin was what kind of person."

"It's interesting." After hearing this, Field slowly stood up and sat upright: "Continue."

"Of the four assassins, at least two are proficient in firearms and can use this large-caliber spring gun with one hand; there are also assassins in the customs, so they know when the Skua will dock and are waiting at the dock in advance; four The travelers took the initiative to approach them, thinking that the assassins were coming to pick them up, which was very strange... By the way, there were also their horses. The draft horses pulling the cart did not panic when they heard the gunfire... Haha , an untrained draft horse may not be able to do this.”

Field's expression became extremely serious, and even Moritz noticed the change in the atmosphere and silently put down his glass. The lieutenant colonel said to Winters in a deep voice: "Just say what you want to say."

"There is another thing about those assassins that impressed me very deeply. They are all masters of swordsmanship. They are especially very, very, very familiar with Marshal Ned's long sword skills."

Winters used three extras in a row to express his thoughts. He continued: "As familiar as having experienced thousands of sparring exercises, the assassin knew how to use the swift sword against the long sword. The first person I bumped into An assassin almost had his stomach cut open as soon as he handed over the sword. If it were an ordinary swordsman, I would never be so embarrassed. Major Moritz has also fought against the opponent, you can also ask the major for his evaluation."

"There are not many people in Veneta who meet these descriptions of swordsmen who are familiar with the swordsmanship of the military principal, who are proficient in firearms, and who have been trained not to be afraid of the sound of gunfire." Winters gritted his teeth and expressed his conclusion: "This It was my own idea. The assassins we are looking for should be a few alumni...one of them even had his jaw broken by my kick."

"Alumni", what alumni? Winters clearly wanted to say he was an Army officer, but the accusation was too serious. He still used the term alumni, but Field would not have any misunderstanding.

"Are you very good at swordsmanship?" Field asked in a confused manner.

"It's okay, but there aren't many swordsmen who can make me so embarrassed."

"Let's go, there is a training sword in the club." Field grabbed his uniform jacket and stood up: "It's useless to say it, you will know after a trial."

Half an hour later, on the second floor of the Officers Club.

Field took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said breathlessly: "You are really good at it. I didn't expect that among the newcomers, I am the one with the worst swordsmanship..."

There was no training armor, only a helmet, and in a point-and-point swordsmanship contest, Winters beat Fielder 20-0. Winters actually thought about giving the lieutenant colonel a few points, but when he took hold of the sword, he only thought about winning. Lieutenant Colonel Field's swordsmanship is far inferior to his attainments in magic.

"It's your turn." Field twitched his fingers at Moritz and threw the helmet to the major.

Facing Moritz, the pressure on Winters increased sharply. The major is indeed one of the top swordsmen in the army's internal competition. His reaction speed and control after the sword is handed are much better than that of the lieutenant colonel.

But...it's still a bit worse than Ike. Although Winters is indeed dealt with by Ike all year round, Ike is the truly top swordsman. Winters' swordsmanship continued to accumulate as he failed again and again, and he even almost defeated Ike in the end.

Major Moritz's swordsmanship was strong, but he was only first-rate. Not only was he unable to suppress Winters, but Winters became more courageous and won the game.

Lieutenant Colonel Fidel looked at him with his eyes shining brightly.

"It's up to you to bring honor to the Military Police Department in this year's competition. Moritz has no motivation. You must practice hard." Field rushed up and held Winters' hand tightly: "You must bring the Military Police Headquarters to the forefront." Kill all the beasts."

Flattered, Winters nodded repeatedly.

Thanks to book friend Yan Yunsan, to book friend 20181013204343295 for his recommendation vote, to Qinggui w for his recommendation vote, and to all the book friends who have voted for recommendation before.

The desire to win is a very interesting thing.