Chapter 355 Gold shines wherever it goes

The setting sun was blood-red, and after cheering, the parliamentary soldiers began to change shifts.

Carrying spears and shields, they walked down the stairs to the tower in twos and threes.

These soldiers defending the city are mainly composed of semi-professional mercenaries and infantry knights, with the city guards of Rapid City as the flesh and blood.

These citizens and shop assistants were street vendors a month ago, but after two months of training and one month of war, they have become more tough.

"I heard that Mr. Siolin sponsored a batch of beef?"

"Can we have beef tonight?"

"You really eat beef? That's what the knight eats."

"I don't eat beef, so having soup is good enough."

Rubbing their sore muscles, the soldiers chatted and began to discuss what they would have for dinner tonight.

In order to prepare for this uprising, the warehouses in Rapid City stored three months' worth of food and fodder. Even though the soldiers outside the city were eating dry biscuits, they could still continue to eat bread.

Just as they were holding their wine jugs and talking about which brothel to visit after dinner in the evening, a soldier grabbed his companion's clothes.

His companions kept silent tacitly, turning their heads away in awe and fear, not looking at the wizards passing by.

Although they helped their side repel the church's army, the citizens still believed that they were evil pagan wizards.

Hiring pagans to fight heresy is only a stopgap measure.

They are all good believers who were forced to get involved with the evil devil.

No, I didn't accept the wizard's help. The two parties were just in an employment relationship.

At the beginning, many citizen councilors expressed opposition to Governor Catherine's strategy of hiring wizards to fight for them.

However, as the intensity of the siege gradually increased, the citizens had no choice but to accept the existence of the wizards in the face of their brilliant performance.

Although cooperation with wizards may damage the reputation of Rapid City and its citizens, there is no time to worry about that at the moment.

The wizards of Black Snake Bay have long been accustomed to the looks of the soldiers.

They supported each other, too tired to speak, and took a sip of the medicinal wine hanging around their waists from time to time to calm their spirits while staggering.

After the wizards left the city wall, the strange atmosphere dissipated, and the hungry soldiers dragged their tired steps towards the food shed.

Looking at the soldiers with envy, the city guards were hungry but could not go to the canteen to eat.

According to the regulations, they had to go to the command room to report to Pettier first.

The tower where the command room is located is behind the monastery, which is exactly the blind spot of the catapult.

The command room on the second floor of the blockhouse was filled with captains and officers of all ranks, reporting the situation to the young man in the middle.

"The third section of the city wall was damaged, and ten people were killed or injured..."

"The damage to the fifth section of the city wall was not serious. There were no casualties, but there were three deserters..."

Pedtier stood in the center of the command room. On the long table were neatly laid out maps and charts, all densely marked.

A month ago, Pettier was just an unknown logistics officer of the Parliament Army, but a month later, he had become the de facto commander-in-chief of this battle to defend the city.

To put it simply: the army was still controlled by Catherine, but Petit was actually in charge.

Judging from his position in the parliamentary army, Pettier was the third most important person after Catherine and Karl.

The reason for this rocket-like rise is simple.

Three weeks ago, a stone thrown by the church army hit the city wall and bounced off, knocking down a bell tower.

Right next to the bell tower was the command room at the time, where the chief city defender and senior generals held meetings.

After the senior officers were injured or seriously wounded, Pettier, the logistics officer, stepped up and temporarily replaced the commander-in-chief. He carried the offensive of the day with perfect command.

Catherine immediately promoted him to city defense consultant, and the nightmare of Elad and others began.

No matter how they attacked, each section of the city wall was just enough to hold on.

Others may think that they can easily hold the city because the parliamentary army is too strong/the church army is too weak, but only these city defenders know that one of the real reasons lies with this thin young man.

Every morning before the change of guard, Pettier would call a meeting of the garrison officers from each section of the city.

The specific content of the meeting is quite simple and is divided into three parts:

First, who will lead a few hundred soldiers, a few wizards, and a few red dragons to a certain section of the city wall, and who will lead a few dozen soldiers and a few wizards to another section of the city wall.

Second, who will lead the troops as the reserve for which sections of the city wall, and who will be responsible for assisting in the defense in which direction.

Third, what should we do if something happens?
Then the meeting was adjourned, and everyone took their soldiers and supplies to the city wall, and then defended the city step by step.

The amazing thing is that according to the troops deployed on the city walls by Pettier, they were able to repel the enemy every day.

Many people even wondered if Pettier was a fortune-teller or a psychic wizard who could predict the future or eavesdrop on people's thoughts.

Otherwise, why is it that under his command, the enemy would retreat every time as soon as the last red dragon breath was used up?

Not one more, not one less, with almost no waste.

"...There were quite a lot of casualties among the soldiers on the seventh section of the city wall, about twenty in total, but fifteen of them were only slightly injured and can be put back on the battlefield after being bandaged."

"Okay, does anyone want to add anything?" The fast-moving feather pen stopped, and Pettier asked with dark circles under his eyes, looking around. The city guards present looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Well, adjourn the meeting. Come to the meeting early every morning." Pettier and the remaining soldiers gave the order and turned to walk towards the third floor.

The city guards breathed a sigh of relief, said hello and headed towards the tavern.

Pettier rubbed the eye boogers from the corners of his eyes and climbed up the stairs to the third floor. In the small study on the third floor, Catherine and other senior members of the parliamentary army gathered in this small room.

According to the previously established practice, after the city guards finished reporting on their work, Pettier would go to the second floor to report to Catherine.

Seeing Pettier's haggard appearance, Mitternich walked to the tea table and poured Pettier a glass of cold mint tea.

After saying thank you, Pettier put the summarized briefing on Catherine's desk.

"How are things going today?"

"Fortunately, the number of casualties is no more than 70." Pettier hesitated, "Mr. Archon, I have to remind you that our two types of dragon breath are not enough."

"Not enough? How could it be not enough?" Carl, who was standing by the window, turned around. His left arm was hanging and there was a sword wound on his cheek extending from his chin to his ear.

"The parliament designed it based on the assumption that Fort Anson could be defended for a month, but Fort Anson was breached in two weeks, and there was no reserve." Pettier walked to the table and pointed to the figures on the briefing. "I tried my best to save, but it's still not enough."

"How long can the current two types of dragon breath be used?" Catherine asked as she glanced at the numbers on the briefing.

Pettier licked his dry lips, thought silently for a while, and then sighed: "I think, at the current rate, it will be used up in two weeks at the earliest. If we save money, it will be less than three weeks.

According to the original plan, this time point was just in time to receive the second batch of support in early August, but the situation is different after all. The councillors considered it too extreme and left no room for error. "

"Can we get the secret party coalition forces in Black Snake Bay to arrive earlier?" Carl walked to the table, picked up the briefing and asked while scanning it.

"I sent them a letter before the port walls were breached."

"Have they got any news? How did they recover?"

Catherine looked at Mitternich with a serious expression, and Mitternich helplessly whispered to Karl: "There will be news from Black Snake Bay at the end of June."

"What? How come I don't know?" Carl asked with his eyes wide open.

Mittenyi dug out a letter from the pile of documents and said, "After the last batch of wizards arrived to support us, the defense of Black Snake Bay was weakened a lot.

The Sand Sculpture Knight Nedsal who was stationed in the Red Copper Fortress led his troops to launch a surprise attack from Dragon Flame Township and captured a large number of wizards who were good at fireball magic.

Not only was Black Snake Bay unable to send out wizards and secret party mercenaries ahead of schedule, even the reinforcements from early August had to be postponed to the end of August. I was afraid that it would affect morale, so I didn’t say anything.”

An unspeakable silence spread in the room. Catherine took off her glasses, leaned back in the chair, rubbed her eyebrows, and said nothing.

The rest of the Black Knights and councillors looked at each other, also not knowing what to say.

"How is the war in Upper River?" a councillor suddenly asked, "When will Lady Meliati come to rescue us?"

"Same old." Mitternich sat back on his desk, "Fighting a seesaw battle near the High Castle with the castle."

"Don't keep thinking about saving us." Carl still had the original dream of counterattack, "Maybe we can fight back ourselves?"

But Carl himself understood that after losing the port at the very beginning, it was simply a pipe dream to talk about counterattack.

But he had to say this, otherwise the morale of the Black Knights would drop.

Pettier seemed to have thought of something: "Horn of Jeanne d'Arc, I mean, can the Salvation Army of the Saint's grandson come to the rescue?"

"Ask him for help? It's not time yet, is it? We Black Knights can still fight." Carl said the beginning with great confidence, but the ending seemed weak.

With an uncertain look on his face, Karl turned to look at Mittenyi beside him: "Mittenyi, why haven't you spoken?"

Mitternich smiled bitterly and pulled out another letter from the pile: "This is the news from Kasha County. The knights of Jinhe Township and the Salvation Army have started a war. It is estimated that they will not be able to rescue us within two or three months."

"Why at this time?" A black knight standing at the door complained in a low voice.

"Yes, how can we rashly go to war with the knights of Jinhe Township?" After hearing this, a congressman's voice became a few degrees higher.

"This is not something they can choose, nor is it something we can choose." Catherine, who was originally resting, finally spoke, and the original noise dissipated a lot.

After all, the woman in front of him took advantage of the war and claimed to be in wartime power, purging a large number of opponents in the Rapid City Council.

If anyone wants to go into the dungeon and keep the company of former councillors, he might as well speak out against it now.

"Or should we hire another group of mercenaries?"

"The port has fallen into the hands of others, and the river has been blocked by sunken ships. Where can we find someone to hire? And how can we get in even if we hire someone?"

"Then what do you think we should do?"

“…I don’t have a good solution.”

Catherine opened her eyes, hiding her tired look. She looked at the slightly depressed senior members of the Parliament Army and sighed:

"I didn't want to talk about this matter in case there were spies passing the news to the church army outside the city, but now they are almost here, it shouldn't matter."

This nonsensical sentence confused everyone present.

"Catherine reigns, you mean?"

Catherine stood up and looked around at the people around her:
"Kasha County has officially raised its flag against the church. I estimate that their reinforcements will arrive within three days at the latest. By then, we can break out and cooperate with them to fight a beautiful counterattack."

(End of this chapter)