Chapter 298

Bido Castle was eventually lost. The lords inside took advantage of the night to set up torches and flags on the city walls and quietly evacuated from the underground tunnel.

After dawn, the Duke's army began to prepare for the attack of the new day. Jia Aisi sat in command with red eyes.

He only slept for a few hours last night. Late at night, the troops on guard to the west of the castle ran to report that there was a faint fire in the farther west. The officer in charge of patrolling did not dare to be careless and ran to the camp to report in person.

Jia Aisi endured the nameless anger of being woken up and asked carefully: "Are you sure it is the enemy's reinforcements?"

"I can't be sure, the distance is too far, and it disappeared immediately, but I think it's better to be careful."

"You did a good job, notify all camps to be on guard!"

Jia Aisi had to be extremely vigilant. Which normal person would rush in the middle of the night? It would be bad if he was attacked by the enemy without any preparation.

Most of the soldiers who were civilians could not see clearly at night. After being awakened, they could only use their weapons to hack and slash without distinguishing between friend and foe. Moreover, the troops were exhausted physically and mentally after the failure of the attack for several days. If they were not careful, the camp would be blown up.

So the officers and soldiers of the whole army spent the night nervously.

After dawn, in order to restore morale, Jia Aisi ordered to reward wine and meat. The soldiers had a full meal and started a new day of attack.

However, they found that the thunder hammer that usually frightened people did not sound.

The soldiers who attacked the city pushed the heavy shield cart and slowly approached the castle. This defense measure was quite effective in defending against the flying shells at a long distance, and it could also defend against fatal scattershot at a close distance - provided that it was not destroyed in the middle of the journey. They were trembling with fear and fear, but they did not hear the roar of the thunder hammer along the way. They were used to advancing next to the shells every time. The feeling of the sudden disappearance of this pressure made them more uneasy. The people in the castle would not be prepared for a more damaging trick.

The front troops finally approached the gate, and no grenades were dropped to welcome them. Finally, they found a clue - the figures on the wall seemed to be tied with straw.

"Did the people inside run away?"

With this thought in mind, some brave soldiers climbed up the wall.

Sure enough, there was no one inside except them.

"The enemy retreated! I can take down Biduo Castle!"

...

Hearing the news of his "victory", Jia Aisi didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He mobilized a large army, spent more than a month, and suffered more than 3,000 casualties, and this is what he got in return?

From the results, he did win, but it was a victory that the enemy gave up.

There were no captives and defeated soldiers kneeling on the ground begging for mercy, and no defeated generals who were dejected. This kind of victory made people unwilling.

He had troops stationed on all sides of the castle. How did they run away at night? There must be a mystery in this castle.

Jia Aisi ordered the army to search every place in the castle carefully, and finally found a tunnel leading to the underground in a warehouse.

He sent people to search the tunnel, and they came back an hour later, which shows how long it is. The soldiers who came back said that they were blocked while walking.

There must be an exit in the west of the castle. The Duke's son was very angry, and they must have used this tunnel to transport a lot of supplies during this period.

"Brett Sean, you bastard!"

The whole castle seemed to be able to hear the angry roar of the Duke's son.

The tunnel is very long and has perfect reinforcement measures. This amount of work shows that it cannot be dug in a hurry. It must have been dug by the Sean family in order to deal with emergencies and repaired for generations.

...

On the other side, Paul was also depressed after learning that Bido Castle was abandoned. He thought his allies could hold on a little longer.

"I sent them so many weapons and supplies, and eight rapid-fire cannons, and we didn't even equip ourselves with a few."

However, it was useless for him to be anxious about this matter. He could only remind the two battalions stationed in Emden to pay close attention to the enemy's movements.

Another thing that made him more alert was a secret letter Schroeder wrote to him. The letter mentioned that in the battle on the border of the Dukedom, the enemy sneaked up to the artillery position by detouring from the side and occupied it. Although the Alda army immediately counterattacked and took back the position, and not a single artillery was lost, the enemy had close contact with the artillery and might have come into contact with residual gunpowder.

The enemy might be able to infer one or two pieces of information about gunpowder, but Paul was not worried that they could immediately reverse engineer the real black gunpowder. Even if they knew that black gunpowder contained saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, it would be impossible to immediately test the best ratio. You have to know that in the previous life, as the country that invented gunpowder, due to the lack of rigorous chemical knowledge, China did not figure out the best ratio of various gunpowders even in the late Qing Dynasty, and could only rely on the experience of craftsmen to produce gunpowder of varying quality. To make high-quality gunpowder, a series of complex processes such as crushing, mixing, pressing, drying, and polishing are required. Since Paul made gunpowder, the arsenal has been persistently researching and testing how to improve the purity of saltpeter and sulfur, how to grind gunpowder safely, and other technologies. Dozens of processes have been developed, and the proportion of raw materials has been slightly adjusted according to different uses.

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Although there is no shortage of saltpeter mines in the Northwest Bay, the method of refining saltpeter is still the primitive boiling method. As the saying goes, "A thousand days of boiling saltpeter is not as good as a general's cannon." How to expand the production of saltpeter has always been a headache for Paul. In order to obtain saltpeter, he also sent people to scrape toilets from house to house. This is also one of the reasons why he strictly prohibits urinating and defecating anywhere. Toilets are combat power. Although the amount is not much, mosquitoes are meat no matter how small they are.

Paul knows the principle of using nitrifying bacteria and rice fields to build saltpeter fields to produce saltpeter on a large scale, but the principle is the principle, and it will take time to find a feasible operation.

Alda's demand for saltpeter is so great that it is definitely impossible to hide it from those who are interested, so instead of trying every means to keep the gunpowder formula secret, it is better to spread some misleading information.

Paul consulted with Old Ford, the general manager of the State Council, and Cecil of the intelligence department. The weather has been getting hotter recently, and he plans to build several ice factories.

Old Ford was shocked: "Sir, although life is not as tight as it was in the past two years, there are not many rich people in Lake Heart Town who come to buy our ice. It is definitely a losing business."

"Well, whether it makes money or not is secondary. I mainly want to use it as a cover..."

Paul told them his intention.

Butler Ford nodded: "It sounds like it has some effect, but it will cost a lot of money. We can't let people see at a glance that it is a shell factory."

Seeing that the chief steward of the State Council agreed, Paul instructed Cecil again: "You have to release some false information, make the formula of gunpowder as confusing as possible, and use your brains from the source, such as extracting it from seawater."

"Leave it to me, Lord Earl, it's easy to spread rumors."

Cecil patted his chest and took on the task.