Each day, such training would last for two to three shichen (approximately four to six hours), after which he had to return to the city walls and continue his old trade. The lad in the same dormitory had signed up for the musketeer squad and was now standing behind him, flaunting his brand-new musket. If it weren't for the disciplinary rules against fighting, Fanna would have loved to sew his mouth shut.
But he also noticed something was amiss.
The fellow villagers who joined the musketeer squad had only trained for a few days, and they were already honing their shooting skills in battles against the demonic beasts, while the artillery squad? They hadn't even fired a single shell. Moreover, those heavy cannons couldn't possibly be transported onto the city walls.
Looking at the top of the wall, two people standing side by side would almost block the passage entirely. Usually, everyone was accustomed to running on the inner slope of the wall, even if it was a bit steep, it was better than hindering teammates from performing bayonet thrusts. As for the cannons... the two wheels alone were wider than the top of the wall, and coupled with the need to shoot downwards, it didn't seem practical at all.
Could it be... that this thing wasn't meant to deal with demonic beasts?
The subsequent practice confirmed Fanna's guess.
Tie Fu brought the four artillery squads to the riverbank. He discovered that, at some point, a massive "boat" had appeared on the Redwater River! No... he wasn't even sure if it was a boat. The outer shell looked no different from the stones used to build the city walls, wide and short, with nothing resembling a boat except for two bare masts. Fanna's squad even started arguing about it.
"It's obviously a pontoon bridge," Youpi concluded first. He had followed ore-transporting sailboats to the Longsong Stronghold and often boasted about his extensive knowledge, "A deck several zhang (approximately 3 meters) wide is clearly for stability! I've traveled all over, and if it were a boat, how would it move without wind? This river once flooded, washing away the decade-old wooden bridge in the stronghold. The people in the city replaced it with a pontoon bridge, nailing a bunch of wide wooden planks onto flat boats and then connecting them in a row with iron chains, making it stable to walk on!"
"The farthest place you've been is the Longsong Stronghold, and you call that traveling all over," Rodney scoffed, "Would a pontoon bridge need to have two masts erected, as if afraid of not being blown away by the wind?"
"And look at the tail end, isn't that a steering wheel lying horizontally? A pontoon bridge wouldn't need that." Nelson chimed in, as the two brothers always spoke with one voice, "Also, the arrangement of the wooden frame in the middle looks like it's meant to build a shed, it's just not finished yet. This is a boat, without a doubt."
Fanna wasn't very interested in whether it was a boat or not, he only cared about the content of the upcoming training. The answer was revealed quickly. Tie Fu asked them to drive the horses that were pulling the gun carriages onto the Town, which was the name of the boat, personally named by the Prince Roland. After listening to Tie Fu's introduction, Youpi's face immediately stiffened, while the two brothers looked smug—and then tie the cannon wheels to the reserved restraining bars.
There were two sets of such restraining bars, four in each set, located on the centerline of the deck, arranged one in front of the other. It was obvious that they could load two cannons at a time.
Okay, Fanna thought, now it was certain that they weren't going to deal with demonic beasts – the Redwater River flowed from north to south, and there were no rivers this wide in the Misty Forest.
When Fanna first stepped onto the deck, he immediately felt its outstanding stability. The river water flowed along the hull, but the stone boat remained motionless, as if standing on the ground. Only when the horses were driven up did he feel a slight swaying.
He also noticed that every time an artillery squad completed a round of boarding and disembarking practice, Tie Fu would record the time next to him. Linking this to the restraining bars on the deck, it seemed that only two of the four squads could be put to use. Fanna secretly told this news to his squad members, and everyone immediately mustered their strength, using all their effort in every step. Being re-kicked back into the spear squad if they weren't selected was a minor thing compared to losing the increased salary!
On the seventh day, Fanna finally ushered in the long-awaited live-fire shooting training.
And on this day, the Prince Roland also personally came to the scene to watch the artillery practice. Everyone in the four squads puffed out their chests and walked with full of energy.
Since everyone was already quite familiar with the set of procedures for loading ammunition, the first shot was quickly fired by Fanna's squad first.
This was also the first time he had witnessed the power of the cannon. In the deafening roar
, an iron ball twice the size of a fist landed in the snow a li (approximately 500 meters) away, kicking up a large amount of snow and mud, and then bounced forward a long distance. And his naked eye could not capture the trajectory of the iron ball at all.
This made Fanna feel faintly frightened in addition to excitement. How exactly did the Prince Roland create such a terrible weapon? If he were facing a cannon attack, even with a full body of armor, it would probably be useless.
After each squad fired a round, the Prince Roland would order someone to insert a flag at the first landing point of the cannonball, and at the same time cut off a hemp rope from the flag to the position of the muzzle. After four rounds, when it was Fanna's group's turn again, he heard the command to change the cannon's muzzle angle.
There was a dial marked with scales on the part where the two ends of the barrel were connected to the carriage, marked with five scales: 0, 5, 10, 25, 30. Although he didn't quite understand what this meant, it was good to operate according to the instructions. Tie Fu shouted, "Angle five!" Youpi, the strongest, immediately inserted the cannon brush rod under the chamber of the cannon and pried the cannon from the tail end. Fanna turned the screw on the carriage until the first white line was submerged in the hole, and Youpi released the cannon brush.
After the tail end of the cannon barrel fell back, it was slightly lower than the initial position, and the muzzle was raised upward, with the indicated scale exactly on the number 5.
Then there were four more rounds of shooting, inserting flagpoles, cutting ropes, and adjusting the angle of fire.
Fanna gradually understood what the Prince Roland was doing.
He was collecting the distance of each iron ball shot out, and the larger the upward angle of the muzzle, the farther the iron ball landed.
Fanna had a deep understanding of this when using a bow. When shooting upwards, the arrow could shoot far, and when shooting flat, it would land quickly. He didn't expect cannons to be like this, only because the speed was faster, so the flight distance was much farther. He couldn't help but have a whimsical idea, if the speed of the iron ball was fast enough, would it never land?
*******************
On the banks of the Redwater River, the Town's test voyage was also in full swing.
Considering the need to use Wendy as the power source, the personnel on board must be absolutely reliable. So Roland selected a batch of politically reliable subordinates as the first crew members of the Town. The captain and commander was Chief Knight Carter, the helmsman was Brian, raising and lowering the sails was the responsibility of Carter's attendants, and the messenger was Tigu Paine. These people were frequently in contact with witches, and coupled with his silent ideological transformation, they no longer held any prejudice against witches. Tigu even extended his love for his daughter to the entire witch community.