Chapter Sixteen: The Mad Soldier

As the battlefield blazed with chaos and the main army corps suffered heavy losses, Marshal Max was determined not to win a thousand battles at the cost of eight hundred losses. If he finished this fight with less than half his troops remaining, there would be plenty of people waiting to punish him back home.

“Order the pike phalanx to charge the enemy lines!” Marshal Max issued the command for a close-quarters assault as he watched the disarrayed formations of the German Republic’s forces.

The well-ordered but heavily battered Franconian musketeers gradually withdrew to the flanks. At the center, the pike phalanx advanced steadily, braving a hail of bullets. The musketeers did not simply retreat and abandon the fight; instead, they provided covering fire from the sides, preventing the German Republic’s troops from forming dense, cohesive ranks.

Even though the enemy soldiers wielding matchlock muskets formed squares, they proved ineffective against the disciplined pike formation.

The German Republic’s frontline commander, seeing the enemy close in for melee, ordered his troops to cease firing and prepare their formations. At this moment, the rigorous training under Amaska bore fruit. The German soldiers gradually stopped shooting, reorganized their ranks, but as the enemy’s weakened musket fire continued, men kept falling.

“Ready, aim!” At the command from the officers and propagandists, the first line of soldiers knelt, the second half-kneeling, the third standing, each assuming their precise firing positions. When someone in front was struck down, another immediately replaced them, maintaining the formation.

Marshal Max narrowed his eyes, deeply shaken by the resilience of the enemy. Their willpower was astonishing.

“Fire!” As the Franconian imperial troops closed to thirty paces, three ranks of musketeers unleashed a powerful volley.

The once orderly ranks of the Franconian army instantly fell into disarray. Soldiers in the advancing pike phalanx dropped one by one, blood splattering everywhere. The tight formation shattered, creating gaps.

“Bayonets! Charge! Germany will prevail!” Officers and propagandists shouted, and the German Republic’s troops fixed bayonets fiercely, turning their muskets into three-meter-long spears. Driven by a resolve to succeed or die, they charged the enemy lines, shouting battle cries.

“Long live Germany!”

“Germany shall triumph!”

“Father, Mother, your child has earned five more acres of fertile land!” With bloodshot eyes, a peasant soldier lunged headlong into a pike. Desperately, he tried to thrust his bayonet into the enemy before him, but the gap and his waning strength foiled his efforts.

The pike-wielding soldier glared in disbelief at the enemy who was clearly throwing himself to his death. He could not fathom what force drove this man’s fearless courage, nor why dying had anything to do with five acres of land.

Before the soldier could recover, another German soldier bypassed the pike impaled with the fallen comrade, thrusting his bayonet deep into the stunned Franconian soldier’s chest.

“Germany will prevail!” The bloodied German soldier shouted as he drove his bayonet in, seemingly venting all his fears in this cry.

Bang! A sudden gunshot rang out. The victorious soldier faltered, collapsing softly, mumbling his last words:

“Ger… man… will…”

Across the battlefield, the desperate cries of the brainwashed German soldiers rang out. The Franconian musketeers, well-trained, had long since retreated, leaving the less disciplined pike formations to face the onslaught of these fearless German troops.

Indeed, the Franconian frontline soldiers mentally wondered: how did we end up facing such madmen?

Marshal Max’s eyes widened, mouth agape, as he witnessed the brutal combat unfolding. Was this really an army formed of peasants trained for only a few months?

Was he fighting a band of armed farmers, or battling fanatics from the Light God’s realm?

Despite the suicidal bayonet charges, the German Republic’s numerical superiority was unmistakable. Though their casualties far exceeded those of the Franconian Empire, the 30,000-strong Franconian formation was being pushed back steadily.

Yes, the pike phalanxes were retreating under pressure, gripped by fear.

With nearly 50,000 German troops pressing forward layer upon layer, the Franconian formation finally broke.

“Quick! Send 5,000—no, all—no, I mean every cuirassier, charge the enemy’s frontline immediately!” Marshal Max roared hoarsely to his messenger. The Franconian lines were on the verge of collapse, about to be overwhelmed by the enemy’s human tide.

With the sound of the cavalry charge horn, 10,000 Franconian cuirassiers formed a wall-like assault formation and swept in from both flanks, their thunderous hooves shaking the earth like an earthquake.

“Have the pike phalanxes on the first line’s flanks hold the line. Forty thousand German pikemen and spearmen will support the flanks!” Amaska, seeing the Franconians commit all their cavalry, also sent every pike soldier and spearman he had to the front. The German Republic’s fighting spirit pleased him greatly—propaganda and ideological education had clearly taken effect. The strength of the people was formidable.

Yet no matter how strong the spirit, it could not resist a charge of thousands of armored horsemen. The fanatical armies of the Light God had once been crushed by group cavalry charges.

“German Guard, advance! Defeat these invaders!”

The elite infantry of the Guard, specially trained to counter cavalry, marched forward in unison under the drumbeat. Though considered elite by the German Republic’s standards, they moved steadily toward the cuirassiers.

At this moment, just as the cuirassiers neared the battlefield, the once 30,000-strong Franconian forces—perhaps now fewer than 20,000—crumbled beneath the relentless assault.

The pike phalanxes had long since been swallowed by the overwhelming masses, unable to break free. The musketeers, witnessing the bayonet-wielding enemy surge past the pikes, lost their composure and fled en masse toward the rear.