WeTried Translations
Translator: Nemui
Editor: Nemui
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Friedrich's Battlefield
Chapter 176: The Battle for Cuanca (2)
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"How long does he intend to keep me waiting, Yorgos Caruna..."
Viscount Dionisio Lucatti, the rebel commander who had led the uprising in Cuanca, was alone in a room of the viscount family's mansion, which had been designated as headquarters, growing increasingly impatient.
The first wave of Yorgos Caruna's army should have arrived in Cuanca's harbor three days ago. The Arelia royal family's army, already stationed in the Caruna region, should have believed there was still a little time before Yorgos's army, which had reached the island country in the southern sea, finished resupplying and landed on the western Ludna Continent. That was why the first wave was supposed to finish resupplying quickly, land in a swift strike, and secure a bridgehead in cooperation with the rebels who had risen on land. Then the remaining main force would land. That was the operation Dionisio had heard from Yorgos's envoy.
However, even after the promised date passed, the first wave of Yorgos's army did not appear in the harbor. Because of that, the rebels on land alone were now being forced to fight the Arelia royal family's army.
In addition to the reinforcements that should have come not coming, the message arrows fired in before the battle by the enemy commander, Countess Cecilia Fargier, had lowered their morale. The city residents were also reluctant to cooperate. The enemy would not want to attack while suffering heavy losses, so Dionisio did not think Cuanca would fall immediately. But if this situation continued too long, he could not say whether they could defend it.
As a Carunan noble, he had endured the oppression of the Arelia royal family and still worked to maintain the land of Caruna. On the surface he had submitted to the Arelia royal family, enduring that humiliation while working so the power of the Carunan nobles would not be completely extinguished. On top of that, he was moving to welcome a royal of a lost nation who had fled to the southern continent as a child and lived without contributing anything to Caruna, recognizing him as the new king in accordance with bloodline. So why could Yorgos not even keep one promise?
Since yesterday's offensive, the enemy had not yet shown any new movement. But the one leading the army was Countess Fargier, famed as a wise general. If they continued fighting her directly for too long, there was no telling what indirect method she might use.
That was why he wanted to welcome reinforcements quickly and narrow the difference in strength. If the gap between the two armies shrank to less than double, the morale of the rebel army would rise, and the defending side, overwhelmingly favored in a siege, would no longer lose. After that, once the main force led by Yorgos arrived and the other rebel armies joined them, they would be the ones superior in strength, and could overpower and defeat the exhausted enemy army by force.
"My lord! Lord Viscount Lucatti!"
As Dionisio was reaching for wine to calm his impatience, one of the messenger knights rushed in.
"What is it! Another offensive?"
"No! A ship! One ship is approaching the harbor! It is a transport ship from the Ludia continent!"
Because the report delivered was not ill news but good news, Dionisio felt relieved.
If there was only one ship, it was likely not the first wave of reinforcements. Perhaps some unexpected incident had delayed their arrival, and they had sent a ship carrying a messenger.
Even so, it was far better than receiving no news at all. Besides, if they had gone to the trouble of sending one transport ship, it surely did not carry only a messenger. If their strength increased by even several hundred soldiers, that would certainly help.
"Receive them at once! Bring someone who can explain their situation here!"
"Understood!"
At Dionisio's order, the knight answered with a salute and ran out.
......
The transport ship was clearly made on the Ludia continent, with a design and structure somewhat different from ships common on the Ludna Continent. Thanks to the sailors' skillful handling, that single ship entered Cuanca's harbor without danger.
Several dozen rebel soldiers greeted it at the harbor. At their head stood a knight who was an officer of the Lucatti territorial army and acted as the person in charge.
The man who showed his face from the deck of the transport ship was dressed like a captain. His dark skin and facial features made it obvious at a glance that he was from the Ludia continent.
"You're late! And only one ship!"
Before the captain could speak, the knight shouted in irritation.
"By three days ago, five ships and the first wave of one thousand men were supposed to have landed! What is going on!"
"...A lot of unexpected things happened on our side too! The other ships of the first wave are scheduled to arrive by sunset! I'm just a hired captain asked to carry soldiers, so ask the commander of the soldiers aboard for details!"
While the captain answered the knight after a slight pause, the sailors lowered the bridge for disembarking and prepared to land the soldiers.
"There are reinforcement troops aboard?"
"Aye, two hundred of them."
"Then hurry! Perhaps seeing the ship enter the harbor made them panic, but the enemy army has begun preparing another offensive! Right now we need every soldier we can get!"
"As you can see, I'm hurrying them! Wait a little longer!"
After the two exchanged shouted words from the quay and the ship, the preparations for landing were soon complete. Officers and soldiers began crossing the disembarkation bridge and coming down into the harbor.
"...Hey, wait. What is this?"
Seeing the officers and soldiers coming down, the knight's face turned pale.
People from the Ludia continent looked different from those of the Ludna Continent, and their culture was completely different. Those differences also appeared in soldiers. Their swords and spears had different shapes, and their armor and other equipment could be seen at a glance to come from another cultural sphere.
Yet the ones filing down from the ship were clearly not people of the Ludia continent. There was a lightly equipped group who seemed to be northerners from the Ludna Continent, an extremely rare sight in this region, and a heavily equipped group wearing weapons and armor of the kind common in western Ludna.
In other words, they were...
"Th-these men aren't reinforce..."
The knight who tried to shout had his throat pierced by an arrow fired from the ship, cutting off his words. As the knight collapsed with an expression of shock, the landed officers and soldiers attacked the rebel soldiers who had been waiting for the ship.
"Enemy! The enemy is in the harbor, gwaaaah!"
"Hurry and call for help! Go call help!"
The armed rebel soldiers were annihilated in moments while shouting, and the men who led the landing secured the quay and advanced. During that time, knights and soldiers continued disembarking from the ship: the forces of the Barony of Welek led by Acht, and officers and soldiers of Cecilia's direct regiment.
"Do not chase fleeing enemies too hard! Prioritize controlling the harbor and strengthening the surrounding defenses!"
After shooting the enemy knight from the ship, Acht himself landed in the harbor and gave orders.
After the decisive battle two years ago, Acht and the people of the Barony of Welek, migrants from the northern continent, had all their rights guaranteed as they were by the new king, Samuel Arelia. The son of the late Baron Ivar Welek inherited the title, and for now, Acht and the other close aides supported the young lord in governing the territory.
Acht and his comrades had volunteered for the suppression of this rebellion in order to answer the mercy of the new Arelian king.
The ranger unit formally established as the Barony of Welek's army, made up of those who had decided they would continue living in battle, numbered a little over one hundred in total. Exactly one hundred of them joined the campaign, were assigned to this detached force infiltrating the harbor, and were now displaying their ability without reservation.
Because the hired captain had improvised skillfully in matching the enemy knight's mood, Acht and the elite Loire soldiers managed to land smoothly. Before the rebel army could send a formed force to respond, they seized the harbor, took up defense, and raised smoke signals.
......
"It seems the detached force succeeded."
Watching smoke rise from the harbor beyond Cuanca's wall, Cecilia murmured.
Making the enemy believe it was a messenger ship sent by Yorgos's army, sending several hundred soldiers of a detached force into the harbor, and throwing Cuanca into confusion from within. That was Cecilia's trump card.
For this plan, before the previous winter, she had sent an envoy of the royal family to one of the merchant ships visiting from the Ludia continent and negotiated. What seemed an enormous reward to a merchant was an amount a royal family could sufficiently pay. The captain from the Ludia continent gladly accepted the royal family's request and signed a contract to lend out his ship until the following spring.
And now. At the same time Cecilia led the army into the Caruna region, she entrusted a little under half of her direct regiment to a reliable veteran knight, added the Barony of Welek's forces specialized in guerrilla warfare, and sent them to the Ludia-made merchant ship moored in a Loire region port. After the uprising occurred in Cuanca, the detached force received Cecilia's order, set sail, and reached Cuanca today.
If they were heading to western Ludna from beyond the southern sea, they would need to load large quantities of food and other supplies, so the number of soldiers one ship could carry would be about two hundred at most. However, if they were reaching Cuanca from a nearby port over about a day, they needed fewer supplies and could carry more soldiers.
As a result, all five hundred members of the detached force boarded a single ship, and the ship entered Cuanca while pretending to be Yorgos's envoy. Cecilia did not know what kind of exchange had happened at the harbor, but the enemy had been deceived, and the detached force seemed to have landed. The rising smoke proved it.
A siege favored the defending side, but that was only when opposing an enemy attacking from outside. No fortress, castle, or city was built to endure simultaneous attack from inside and outside. That was a truth both allies and enemies had proved many times in the previous war.
With five hundred soldiers having entered, the enemy could not calmly defend the walls. In fact, the rebels on the wall facing Cecilia's army were noisy because of the enemy incursion, and by any view, they were in no state to concentrate on defense.
The rebel army was showing an opening more than sufficient for Cecilia to launch the finishing offensive. There was no reason to let this chance pass.
"Archer units, volley fire. After that, all infantry units will charge."
The army, having finished preparations for the offensive, moved at the command of Cecilia, their general. The archers of the Arelian Royal Army, noble territorial forces, and mercenaries threw the enemy into further confusion with arced arrow fire. Then several thousand infantry, from regular soldiers to conscripts, charged.
The rebel army likely had vague unit organization and an unclear chain of command to begin with, and their resistance was plainly weaker than in the opening battle. They probably could not decide in this short time how much strength to allocate to the detached force that had infiltrated and how much to allocate to the main force attacking from the front, nor how to fight after that.
"...It has fallen."
"Magnificent, my lady."
Seeing the gate smashed open by the battering ram and the officers and soldiers who had climbed the ladders enter the walls one after another, Cecilia murmured. Rose, standing beside her, offered words of praise.
The rebel army, having lost any chance of victory, seemed to have its morale collapse in an instant. With the gate and walls breached, enemy resistance disappeared. The battle ended, and the port city of Cuanca fell into Cecilia's hands.
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