Chapter Three: The Fall of the Madrid Empire, Part One (Fifth Update)

The fortifications built by the Madrid Empire included solid bastions and hollow bastions. A solid bastion was a raised platform built entirely of earth, while a hollow bastion began to slope inward gradually from behind the gun emplacements. A parapet was laid along the top, and cannon were positioned behind it. The bastion was the chief structure in the whole system, as well as its main source of firepower. The section between bastions was called the middle rampart, the old curtain wall. In a perfected bastioned system, the middle rampart became very short, so that musket range could fully cover it. A concave outwork was built in front of the middle rampart to prevent direct fire from siege guns, while also allowing musketmen to reinforce the defense of the trenches. The same purpose was served by the triangular outwork. It stood about three or four feet lower than the main fort, so that the cannon on the main bastion could fire over it, while the guns on the triangular work also formed part of the crossfire. The covered way and the troop shelters were screens for infantry preparing to counterattack. To guard against enfilading fire, the covered way was broken by many traverses; sometimes it was built directly in a zigzag, in which case no traverses were needed. The outermost glacis was where the crossfire was densest, and its sloping angle also helped the defenders bring their fire to bear.

Even with the morale of the Madrid Empire’s garrison at rock bottom and the ground at a severe disadvantage, the full, perfected defensive system still drove back the attacking infantry under a storm of concentrated fire.

At that point, the immense numerical superiority of the coalition began to show. While maintaining suppression of the bastion walls, successive waves of reserves kept replacing the units that had fallen back, leaving the garrison under constant defensive pressure.

At the same time, attacks and demolition work were carried out on other fronts. Since this side of the fortress line contained several bastions, Marshal Max took advantage of the defenders’ low spirits and ordered heavy demolition against each bastion in turn.

Hard work paid off. After several hours of fighting, the front of the entire fortress system had been blown open in several places. But the combined armies of the English Empire and the Franconia Empire paid for those gains with several thousand casualties.

In the firefights with the garrison, coalition losses were far heavier than those of the soldiers inside the bastions. Had the defenders not lacked fighting spirit and been relatively reluctant to die, the coalition units at the front would already have been unable to endure such attrition and would have fallen back.

Seeing multiple breaches punched into the fortress line, Marshal Max immediately threw in fifty thousand reserves and launched a full assault.

“For the Empire, advance!”

One long-pike formation after another, shielded by musketeers, crashed into the defenders of the Madrid Empire.

After a volley, the defenders immediately sent out their own pike troops to block the breach head-on, and then the two sides began thrusting at each other with pikes four or five meters long.

In truth, this kind of pike duel was the true mainstream of battle on the European continent. Both sides were dense formations of long weapons; it simply came down to which side had the greater endurance, or rather the greater stamina. Once one side could no longer hold out, the other won. The casualties were honestly not that heavy.

After fighting for some time, the Madrid defenders realized that the enemy had not broken in with the unstoppable force they had feared. Their morale rose slightly, and the musket fire along the walls became even fiercer, greatly increasing coalition casualties.

“Damn it, those useless fools still haven’t broken through after all this time!”

Marshal Max’s complaint was not unreasonable. The coalition pike troops were not like the fanatics of the Holy Light Kingdom, those religious madmen who could throw away their lives one for one without hesitation.

“Bring up the six-pounder field guns. Do not worry about friendly fire. Load them with canister and blast their main formations!”

Seeing the exchange ratio steadily worsen, Marshal Max knew that if they kept fighting like this, there would be no hope of forcing their way in that day. He coldly issued the order for point-blank artillery fire.

Marshal Getdo seemed about to say something, but when he saw the determined look in Marshal Max’s eyes, he reflexively shut his mouth. In his heart he thought: if you Franconians do not care about your main line troops, then we English Empire levies might as well be thrown to you as well.

Gunners laboriously hauled the cannon up to the shattered breaches. Around them stood dense ranks of musketeers, guarding the artillery while also serving as human shields for the gun crews. In this age, artillerymen held a far higher status than those musketeers from peasant stock.

More than a hundred cannon were set in place at the various breaches under a hail of bullets. At times like this, the enormous disparity in national strength between the two-empire coalition and the Madrid Empire became obvious. The coalition could casually field more than a hundred advanced six-pounders, while the entire fortress system, having drained the Madrid Empire dry, possessed fewer than a hundred guns in total.

Seeing the enemy’s desperate resolve, the defenders gathered all the mobile cannon from other parts of the fortress and deployed them within the defensive ring as well.

“Fire!”

At the command, more than a hundred guns from the English Empire and the Franconia Empire loosed canister shot one after another.

The breach, which had been packed shoulder to shoulder with men, was instantly emptied. The sight sent a chill through the feet of soldiers on both sides. It was brutally savage.

After the front line had been hit once by its own artillery, units that could no longer fight were pulled back, and another reserve formation surged forward into the gap.

These Madrid defenders did not have the lofty morale of the coalition troops. The compensation for coalition soldiers killed in action was fairly generous, but if these defenders died, the Emperor of the Madrid Empire would probably not even pay out much.

“Kill them!”

Bang, crack...

Amid cries of battle and gunfire, the frightened defenders could no longer hold. Pressed by the coalition soldiers, they broke back step by step in rout.

All across the bastions, the fighting degenerated into savage mêlée. The coalition main force drove straight for the center of the fortress defenses, determined to smash the shell completely.

More than ten thousand charging soldiers met the last defensive line of the fortress complex: the final artillery position concentrated by the Madrid Empire’s defenders. Under the rain of canister shot, the assault broke apart on the spot.

By then, the most difficult terrain around the outer fortifications had already fallen completely. These guns were nothing more than a crude line of defense improvised from the ground itself, the last struggle of the commanders who remained loyal to the Emperor of the Madrid Empire. The imperial garrison still had tens of thousands of men. If they could only hold this final line, repulse the coalition attack, and endure until nightfall, there would still be hope.

Unfortunately, seeing dusk drawing near, Marshal Max decisively unleashed his most elite force: the Royal Guard of the Franconia Empire. This infantry army numbered only a little over ten thousand, yet it was the finest troop in the Franconia Empire. That alone showed how absolute their conviction was that victory at Madrid was within reach.

More than ten thousand Royal Guards advanced in perfect order toward the last line. With solid shot thundering over them, they pressed forward. Once they reached beyond the maximum range of canister shot, the officers at the front screamed themselves hoarse:

“Royal Guard! Charge!”