Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

After the fixed end of the drawbridge on the triangular fort was severed, all the people on the bridge tumbled down onto the open ground between the triangular fort and the city gate.

Fearing a Venetian assault, the defenders dared not open the city gate to rescue them.

This hastily constructed triangular fort was actually just an earthen mound, without even an entrance or exit, save for the drawbridge connecting it to the city wall.

After destroying the drawbridge, the Venetians temporarily cut off the defenders' support and turned to focus on annihilating the remaining Tanilia Federation soldiers inside the fort.

About a dozen Federation soldiers fled into a storage room deep within the triangular fort—a space so cramped that the Venetians couldn't handle them for the moment.

Juan, seeing his own men standing at the door with none daring to enter, felt a surge of rage and cursed out loud, "Cowards! What are you staring at? Take off your armor and give it to me!"

An army sergeant immediately stripped off his armor, and the others clumsily helped the Centurion to strap it on.

Don Juan, with another layer of armor over his original military gear, looked particularly bulky and awkward.

He pulled out a dagger from his boots and, without saying another word, fiercely kicked open the wooden door.

The Tanilians inside were also startled and instinctively pulled the trigger. With two "thud" sounds, one was the gunshot, and the other was the lead bullet hitting Juan's armor.

The lead bullet penetrated the outer breastplate but changed its trajectory as a result and was deflected by the inner breastplate, flying out from under his ribs.

Juan felt as if a huge hammer had struck him, his insides churning, almost suffocating, but he still managed to stab at the nearby enemy with sheer willpower.

The soldiers behind him, seeing the Centurion act so boldly, also surged forward, and the Tanilians were quickly slaughtered in close combat.

Meanwhile, the soldiers on the city wall came to their senses, clamped their heavy matchlock guns to the parapet, and began firing at the enemy atop the triangular fort.

The city wall was three to four meters taller than the triangular fort, giving the Tanilians a height advantage, and their hail of lead bullets made it impossible for the Venetians on top of the fort to stand their ground.

[The height of the triangular fort in front of the city gate was 5-6 meters, while the height of the Tachi city wall varied from 8-9 meters depending on the terrain.]

But what happened next left the officers and men of the Tanilia Federation on the city wall dumbfounded as a group of peculiar soldiers charged up from in front of the triangular fort.

They were called soldiers because they all wore grey military uniforms. They were strange because instead of weapons, they carried various tools.

The second group sent out by Antonio and Layton were the engineer companies from two legions.

Chanting their cadence, the engineers braved the storm of enemy gunfire to break down the pointed angle of the triangular fort, which faced directly toward the Venetian position, using shovels, picks, and explosives, reducing the original earthen mound that was five to six meters high to a gentle slope.

Then the Venetian engineers used the slope to bring up buckets of earth and bundles of firewood onto the triangular fort; akin to the djinn from the tales that could build a city overnight, they used sacks, dirt, and wood to construct a temporary bastion atop the triangular fort, unlike the original structure, this new one faced the city wall.

The Venetians' position on the triangular fort was rapidly solidified, making it very difficult for the city wall defenders' ranged weapons to harm the Venetian soldiers inside the fort.

And all this was achieved under the muzzles of the Tanilian guns.

That night, for the first time, the officers and soldiers of the Tanilia Federation truly understood what military technology overpowering meant.

Military technology wasn't just about better muskets and cannons, it was also about superior ideas, training, and tactics. Discover hidden tales at empire

The Tanilians could muster the courage to fight to the death against the Venetians, yet they would never be able to execute the tactics displayed by the Venetian army that night—a resolute and swift offensive combined with highly efficient engineering work.

The siege lasted nearly half a month, William Kidd began to feel a hint of despair for the first time.

...

...

The first day after the brief yet fierce struggle for the triangular fort.

The Venetian army began their true, large-scale bombardment of Tachi for the first time.

The heavy cannons had not yet been brought up, and those roaring on the front lines were light cannons of six pounds or less. These cannons could hardly inflict substantial damage on the city walls, as their shots only left white marks on the hard granite exterior.

Nevertheless, the bombardment had been continuous since the break of dawn, without stopping until now.

There were two reasons for this: first, although light cannons and mortars had difficulty in destroying the city walls, they were extremely effective against the ramparts atop the walls. The Venetians focused their bombardment on both the demi-lunes and the city gates, aiming to knock down those ramparts, leaving no place for the defenders to hide or escape from their shooting position.

Secondly, it was to exert pressure on the Tachi defenders, making them incapable of launching counterattacks on the triangular fort.

Because the location of the triangular fort was simply too crucial, being too close to the city walls; even now, for the Venetian soldiers wishing to go to the triangular fort, they had to cross a stretch of exposed ground that Tanilian guns could cover.

Engineer battalions were toiling desperately, endeavoring to extend a passageway to the triangular fort, but they were still short of a hundred meters as of now.

The triangular fort was only seven or eight meters from the city wall. If the Tanilians decided to recapture the fort, they could simply use a long enough ladder to cross over.

But for the Venetians to support the triangular fort, they had to cross through a "killing zone"—the designation the officers used for the exposed area covered by guns and guns."

If the Tanilians were determined to retake the triangular fort, a mere two battalions of infantry inside would definitely not be enough to hold it.

Thus, they had to rely on artillery fire to suppress the defending forces at the city gate, preventing them from daring to stand there, thereby inhibiting them from organizing a counterattack.