Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 168 Bian Li

   Mountains and rivers alternate, either dangerous or dangerous.

  Two fast-flowing rivers like silver snakes merged into one, and the earth city of the Hurds was built on the high ground where the two rivers confluence.

When the    Carriage Team arrived at the main camp, the legion sent Major Bello from the Intelligence Unit to lead the officers to watch the enemy.

  Bello led the crowd to stay cautiously half a kilometer away from the city wall.

   The Tucheng in the distance looks no different from an ordinary walled city, except that it is a little rudimentary.

  The terrain of Tucheng is higher than the surrounding area, and outsiders have no way to spy on the movement of the city, but can only see figures walking on the city wall.

  Cooking smoke billows from the sky above the city, as if a fire is being made to cook rice.

   Major Bello pointed at the city wall with his whip: "Gentlemen, there is 'Bian Li'."

   "Bian Li? What's wrong?" Lieutenant Colonel Jesska asked.

   "The barbarians are called like this. It is said that it means the meeting of two waters." Bello explained: "In our words, maybe it should be called Convergence City."

   "I can't see clearly here." Lieutenant Colonel Jesska raised his whip: "Come closer."

   Major Bello hurriedly stopped: "Squad leader! No way!"

   "You can't even look closer?"

   "The barbarians in the city have artillery!"

   "Cannon?" Jesska raised his eyebrows: "Where did it come from? The Hurds can make cannons?"

  Bello smiled bitterly and said, "The barbarians shouldn't have this ability. It is presumed that someone smuggled it to them."

   "How many Heard defenders are there in the city?" Lieutenant Colonel Jesska gently pulled on the reins.

   "A lot, I don't know how much." Bello sighed and replied, "Within a few hundred miles, all the barbarians who didn't flee west ran into Bianli City."

   "How long have you been besieging the city?"

   "Almost a month and a half."

   "More than a month? The Hurds haven't starved to death yet?"

   "I'm also surprised." Major Bello spread his hands: "Maybe the barbarians have already run out of food, and the smoke is just confusing us."

   Winters was very puzzled and couldn't help but ask: "Since the Hurds dare to build a city and hold on to it, can't they hold food for two months?"

  Andre, Mason and others pricked up their ears, they had the same question.

   Major Bello didn't answer directly when he heard the words, instead he frowned and looked at the second lieutenant, as if asking "Don't you understand?"

  Jesska sneered and waved his hand: "He's from Veneta."

   "Oh, so that's the case." Bello laughed, and his brows suddenly stretched.

   Winters and Andre got angry, and Lieutenant Mason was embarrassed.

  Bud said before the others: "Your Excellency Major, we really don't understand, please don't hesitate to enlighten me."

"The Hurd people mainly drink milk and eat meat." Lieutenant Colonel Jesska said, "They have almost no ability to resist risks. This is why the Hurd people went to Palatu to loot when disasters occurred in the past. reason."

Major    Bello explained the logic to Winters and the others: the Paratus could survive on food, but the Hurds could not.

  Different from the barbarian impression of "drinking blood and drinking meat", the Hud people mainly live on milk, supplemented by wild vegetables and wild wheat sown on the way of nomads, and the poorer Hud herdsmen seldom even eat meat.

   Therefore, the Hurds could not hold on to the city. If they chose to be trapped in the city, the livestock that had nowhere to find food would only starve to death faster than humans.

  Without the livestock, the Hurds may be able to last a while by eating meat at first, and when the carcasses of the livestock are also eaten up, they can only eat people.

   And they feed on animal meat. Even if they can hold out until the Paratus retreat, the Hurds will suffer greatly.

This is also the reason why, seeing the Hurd people building a city and holding on, the Paratus expedition was not in a hurry, but rather slowly besieged and fought a war of attrition - even if the Paratus supply line is long, it must be the Hurd people who can't support it first. live.

   But now that thousands of Heard Marauders are crossing the Styx eastward, the situation has suddenly reversed.

  …

After the news of   Hard's army crossing the river reached the siege camp, the leadership of the Palatine army immediately fell into a state of division.

   Officers supporting the withdrawal surrounded Brigadier General Sackler.

The    withdrawal faction believed that the top priority was to return to Paratus. The two standing corps were dispatched as much as possible, and at this moment, there was no field force in Palatu that could meet the thousands of Heard cavalry.

   When they thought that the brutal Hurd army was burning, killing and looting in Palatu at the moment, all the officers felt heartbroken.

Brigadier General Sackler's voice was deafening: "Are you going to let the barbarians loot Palatu?! No amount of land can make up for Palatu's loss? If you don't come back, the barbarians will enter the castles of the kings! "

  The other faction, led by Major General Arpad, advocated continuing the siege, and even launched a storm on Bianli City immediately.

"Withdrawing troops now is a failure!" Major General Arpad gritted his teeth: "The barbarian will soon be unable to hold on! The barbarian stabs us, and we have to stab us back! How can we withdraw now? It's too late to withdraw now! Attack the city! If the barbarian Hurd kills one Plato, we will kill ten barbarians of Hede!"

Most of the    senior officers believed that the siege should continue.

The    support for withdrawal is mainly officers of majors and below, who are lower in rank but have broader support.

  The two factions have been arguing ever since the bad news came from the signal soldiers.

   Admiral Yanosh, who was in command of the entire army, was also unable to make a decision.

   Until the arrival of the Jesska Carriage Team, the Paratus people were still at a deadlock with the Hurds, and the army became more and more restless.

   Winters doesn't have much real feeling about the collision of big people's sparks. He was just a little second lieutenant, not qualified to participate in the line debate.

   However, he was promoted.

  …

  …

   The sky is blue in the morning.

   Hoarfrost condensed on the ground, and from a distance, the field was white.

  The wasteland is entering the deep winter, which is the most bitter and cold time of the year.

  Therefore, among the carriages escorted by the Jesska brigade, there were several eiderdown quilts and woolen coats specially designed for high-ranking officers.

  Winters finally understood why those wooden boxes were all nailed to the ground, and there were three inside and outside three layers of "No Unauthorized Opening" seals attached.

   There are also "munitions" such as jam, tobacco, white flour, wine, etc., all of which, like grain and gunpowder, take up valuable transportation thousands of miles from Palato to this wasteland.

   Knowing that it was these things that he tried so hard to save, Winters regretted from the bottom of his heart that he did not let Heard Barbarians set the carriage on fire.

   In front of Lieutenant Montagne at this moment, the militiamen in various clothes were standing in a loose line, waiting for the new commander to review.

  Many militiamen were wrapped in leather robes plucked from the corpses of the Hurds, and at first glance they were completely unrecognizable from the Paratus.

  The weather was too cold, and the militiamen who lacked warm clothes had to wear what to wear.

   It was a pleasant autumn day when they set out from home, and no one thought that the battle would be dragged on to this day.

   After counting the number of people, as usual, the officer said a few words.

   Winters looked at the shivering militiamen and said, "Your former centurion, Lieutenant Marcello, is my friend."

   Speaking of Marcello who was killed in action, the small playground was silent, and everyone's eyes became even darker.

   Some militia teams that were missing in previous operations were supplemented to the Jieska Brigade, and the merchants who accompanied the army were also recruited into the army, and they were also incorporated into the militia sequence.

   Now the Jieska Brigade has not only been restored to full capacity, but has even been strengthened.

   Because of the lack of officers in the militia, Winters was promoted to "Two Centurions" and led two reorganized centurions.

  In Winters' view, it is still an old problem: there is no redundancy in the command system, and if the centurion is killed, no one can take over.

After a moment of silence, Winters spoke again: "Trust me, and I will never abandon you."

   looked at each other, the response was mediocre.

   "I'm done." Winters understands that empty words are useless: "Besides, we will have pork stew with sauce for lunch today."

  …

  There are few large-scale forests on the wasteland, only scattered small forests and bushes, most of which are meadows.

  The trees near Bianli City were cut down by the Hurds early on.

   This led to a desperate lack of firewood for the Paratus, and even had to dig up the roots of the trees that the Hudds had cut down.

The    militiamen were given very little fuel for heating, and they had been eating dry bread and drinking cold water since entering the camp.

   Even just hearing the word "pork stew" makes many people drool unconsciously.

   At noon, when they saw the gendarmes coming with iron pots, everyone really believed that what the centurion of Montagne was saying was true.

   Smelling the aroma of the stew, some militiamen began to cry silently.

   A bowl of hot soup, a piece of pork, and a piece of bread, in this cold winter day, there is nothing else to ask for.

   took his share, and Ish, a militiaman from Ganshui Town, found a sheltered place nearby and began to enjoy this precious meal.

   He first tasted a small sip of the broth, and the warm soup flowed down his esophagus into his stomach, making his whole body feel warm.

   Only then did Ish really confirm that he was not dreaming.

   He did not drink any more, but began to carefully break the bread and soak it in the soup.

   The fellow beside me felt a little regretful: "It's a pity that the meat is not very fat, otherwise it would be really beautiful."

A stranger in front of the wolf town militia heard this and turned around with a sneer: "It's good to eat some, do you know how many miles this pig has traveled? Without the blood wolf, you can't even eat pig hair, complaining. what?"

   "Who is the blood wolf?"

   "The blood wolf is Lord Montagne, I tell you, at the time of our wolf village..." The wolf town militia was very happy, and added fuel to the excitement of what they had seen and heard.

  The wolf town militia had seen the corpses of two beasts. He told stories mixed with imagination based on stories told by others, as if he was at the scene when the blood wolf was tearing apart the giant lion.

"I can't believe that Chief Montagne is like this..." Ish's fellow countryman thought for a long time and couldn't come up with a suitable adjective. He looked at the wolf town militia with awe: "Brother, you can serve as an official under Chief Montagne, It's great enough."

   "Hey, where is it." The wolf town militiaman blushed slightly, for some reason.

   He suddenly came to the side of fellow Ish, and said mysteriously: "I tell you, don't tell anyone else, I heard that when Lord Montagne was on an island on the other side of the sea..."

  This time, the story changed from half-truth to pure hearsay.

  Ish sipped the broth and listened quietly.

  …

   Winters didn't know that his reputation was killed yet. He was personally dividing the flesh of the militia under his command. Watching everyone feasting, he was filled with pride.

The    pigs were obtained from Lieutenant Mason. Mason took more than 400 pigs from the pasture and went all the way, died all the way, and ate all the way.

   In the end, less than half of the pigs reached the frontline camp alive, but they still overfulfilled their mission.

   It's a pity that these pigs have traveled hundreds of kilometers, and they have developed a whole body of tendon meat. They are strong like wild boars, and they are not very fat.

While    Winters' centurion was feasting, another group was deciding their fate.

   Brigadier General Sackler could no longer bear the endless arguments, and led his men into General Janosz's tent.

   He made up his mind that he must have an explanation. Either fight or withdraw, it must not be exhausted any longer.

   But after breaking into the tent, what Sackler saw was the dying General Janos.

   In terms of the meaning of the story, the next form of Bloody Montagne should be Wolfblood Montagne, Wolfblood - Montagne, which is similar to the form of "Wolf Kisser".

   However, in order to make the sentence smooth, it is more pleasant to call the blood wolf XD. It's a nickname anyway.

   Thanks to the book friends who voted for the recommendation before, thank you all;

   Thanks to the book friends who voted today, Bihart;

Thanks to the book friend Xianjian private contract h, Canis Major Sirius will not sauce sauce sauce, Adluin, TheRedButton, book friend 20170424215733102, landed into a raccoon dog, Nowennuo, Xianyu is not a salted fish, Ling Yiyin, behere370, Muyun Chunshu 1. Have you seen the monthly pass for my ID, thank you all;

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   Thanks again to the book friends who voted for the recommendation today, thank you all.

   (end of this chapter)