Although Giles rushed back to Five Rams City as quickly as he could and immediately quelled the Earl of Winley's rebellion, he still had little time to prepare for the Kingdom Army's attack.
After crossing the Eagles Beak Pass, through the mountainous region known as the Devil's Belly, the road south becomes quite flat. The dense network of rivers in the south might cause some trouble for the march, but the south also lacks large rivers that can form a natural barrier. The Kingdom Army is advancing rapidly.
Giles also knew that Minos could not delay the Royal Army for long, and the enemy would surely spread the news that he had abandoned his army and fled. The traitor Wenley was right; many of his vassals would think that he had lost his honor and was unworthy to continue ruling the South.
In the past few days, Giles has been frantically building his new army. He sent officials to conscript all the young men from Five Rams City and the surrounding villages and towns, opened the armory, emptied it of weapons and distributed them to the conscripted soldiers, and ordered them to defend the city walls.
Besides the young and middle-aged men, Giles also scourd up all the food in the vicinity, transporting what could be taken to Five Rams City and burning or destroying what could not be taken.
However, he left behind a large number of elderly, weak, women and children, and the Kingdom Army would bear a moral responsibility if it allowed them to starve to death.
Giles's strategy is scorched earth. The army is not a self-sufficient organization; it needs to requisition or purchase a large amount of local manpower and resources wherever it goes. Now that he has cleared out both people and resources, let's see what good ideas the Kingdom Army can come up with.
A few days later, the Kingdom Army finally arrived at the walls of Five Rams City.
For centuries, this place had been under the rule of the Giles family, and the royal power from the Plenty Plains had never penetrated so deeply into this land.
They were the first Kingdom Army unit to reach this point, and all the officers and soldiers, from top to bottom, were filled with pride.
But the Royal Army soon discovered the anomaly around Five Rams City. After sending people to investigate the surrounding villages and towns, everyone cursed Giles with hatred.
There is no doubt that Greedy Wolf Grand Duke has dug a huge pit for them, and the Kingdom Army may also be partially abandoned halfway.
"We must act swiftly. Only with the food in the city can we feed the surrounding residents; otherwise, a terrible famine may occur!"
Harrison set the tone at a meeting of senior officers.
However, many people are not optimistic. As the stronghold of the Giles family, Five Rams City, which has been run by generations, is a formidable city that has withstood the test of many wars and has never been able to be conquered from the outside by any army.
But Harris was very confident: "I have received definite news that the sixteen siege cannons have been unloaded at the port and will be transported here soon. At that time, we can concentrate our bombardment on the city wall and make it collapse quickly."
King Rodney XVII wanted to eliminate Giles on his own, so he rejected Paul's proposal to send marines to attack the port to support the Royal Army's operations, and instead requested that Alda's army use its maritime resources to help the Kingdom Army transport supplies southward.
These sixteen siege cannons are one of the supplies for this operation.
"Oh, that's great!"
"It is said to be able to fire 24-pound shells."
Everyone at the meeting became excited, and the previous dull atmosphere was swept away.
The attack on Five Rams City began quickly.
The cast iron cannon barrels gleamed blue in the morning mist. Sixteen 24-pound siege cannons were lined up along the newly built earthen embankment, their muzzles uniformly raised to a 15-degree elevation angle.
Behind each cannon were two buckets of soaked sandbags, to protect against enemy arrow volleys. After the artillery sergeant cleaned the cannon barrel with a long-handled brush, another soldier gripped the ramrod and pushed a linen cartridge coated with butter into the three-meter-long barrel. The dull thud of the ramrod hitting the cartridge startled the crows on the city wall.
"Loading complete!" hoarse shouts echoed. Gunners used spikes to pierce the oiled paper at the end of the propellant charges and carefully inserted the fuses into the touch hole. Observers climbed onto the lookout towers, the bronze casings of their monoculars gleaming in the morning sun.
"Ready—" The gunner suddenly waved his yellow command flag, and sixteen torches almost simultaneously approached the ignition port, the gunpowder hissing as it rushed into the breech. As orange-red flames spewed from the muzzle, the earth trembled in the sulfurous white smoke.
The first shell flew for a full three seconds before the stone battlements 800 yards away suddenly exploded into a pile of rubble, and half a bloodstained spear flew out from the bluish-gray dust.
The defenders on the city walls used every means at their disposal to fight back, including crossbows, catapults, and longbows, but their efforts had very limited effect.
A second salvo followed, this time with three shells hitting the base of a corner tower simultaneously, causing the iron-clad oak gate to creak and groan in the shockwave.
Through the gaps in the smoke, one could see the defenders pouring water onto the city walls with wooden buckets—while the siege cannons roared, the other Cannons were also busy, firing red-hot incendiary bombs that ignited the flammable materials on the walls.
"Change to chain-linked shells! Slice through their breastworks!" an artillery captain yelled, his throat aching. The loader immediately switched to two semi-circular shells linked by a chain, which would become deadly cutting wheels as they spun in flight.
With another deafening roar, the parapet at the top of the city wall snapped cleanly like wheat stalks swept by a giant scythe, and the soldiers operating the catapults fell down the twenty-meter-high wall along with the rubble.
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After six rounds of rapid firing, the cannon barrel was so hot it could fry an egg. The artillerymen wrapped felt soaked in vinegar around the ejector rods to clean the rifling; the acrid steam mixed with gunpowder residue burned everyone's nasal cavity. Suddenly, the observer blew the brass whistle—spiderweb-like cracks had appeared on the second floor of the southwest corner tower, and the cracks were spreading upwards along the mortar joints.
"Change to solid shot! Concentrate your fire on the area five feet below the crack!" This time, the loader was inserting a heavy projectile marked with lime.
When the smoke from the eighth round of shelling cleared, the oak framework supporting the city wall was clearly visible on its surface, with broken wood splinters sticking out like pale bone spurs.
The defenders were clearly aware of the crisis and tried to repair the walls, but to no avail; 24-pound shells were already penetrating the wounds in the walls one after another.
During the thirteenth salvo, a three-meter-wide section of the wall suddenly bulged outwards, and the sound of the iron hoops between the stone blocks snapping even drowned out the sound of the cannon fire.
"Three last shots!" The artillery commander pointed his sword at the crumbling city wall. Ignoring the risk of burns, the gunners adjusted the gun mounts by hand, and three shells whistled out in a triangular formation.
The moment the first projectile struck the wall, the entire section of the city wall slowly collapsed like a giant beast with its skeleton removed. The flying debris traced hundreds of parabolic arcs in the air, and the surface of the moat was blasted into dense columns of water.
As the smoke and dust gradually settled, the once towering corner tower was reduced to a pile of sharply angled ruins, and the collapsed slope formed a natural attack route.
As the cannons sizzled as they cooled, the assault team's drums began to sound from behind, and large numbers of soldiers, weapons in hand, prepared to storm into the city through the newly opened breach.
On the remaining battlements, half of a charred military flag lay fluttering among the smoking rubble. The defenders' longbowmen were still firing back, their arrows whistling through the air, but they could no longer stop the torrent of bayonets that was about to surge through the breach in the city wall.