WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 30: The Cumans

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In the southern Kingdom of Bohemia, a dreadful silence hung over the parade ground of Tabor Fortress.

The thick smoke from Gunpowder drifted away on the wind, stinging the soldiers' noses.

At the center of that silence stood the commander of the Taborites' army. No, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kingdom of Bohemia's army, Jan Žižka, the One-Eyed.

His single eye was fixed on the silver-gray plate hanging from a scarecrow's chest.

"..."

Žižka approached the target with slow, deliberate steps.

Shattered arrowheads and grotesquely flattened lead balls lay scattered across the ground.

They were the defeated.

The defeated remnants of a bygone age.

The proud fangs of the Taborites' army, which had crushed the First Crusade and torn apart even knights' plate armor, had broken and crumpled miserably before that thin plate.

Žižka raised a rough, callused hand and ran it over the steel plate.

Cold.

And smooth.

There were dents, but that was all. The back had bulged outward, yet it had not been pierced. There was not even a crack.

"Hah. Well, I'll be."

A hollow laugh escaped Žižka's lips.

He had spent his whole life on battlefields. He had smelled enough iron to last a lifetime, and he was the kind of man who could read the course of battle from the feel of a blade sinking into bone or the sound of armor being pierced.

Every instinct he had was warning him.

This was no ordinary iron.

"Chval."

"Yes, General."

Chval z Machovic, Žižka's adjutant and one of the Taborites' fiercest commanders, answered.

"Bring me your axe."

"My axe?"

"Yes. That poleaxe you're so proud of. Strike it with all your strength."

Chval hesitated for a moment, but at Žižka's fierce glare, he swallowed and readjusted his grip on the weapon.

"Don't blame me if it breaks."

With a shout, Chval raised the heavy poleaxe over his head and brought it down.

Clang!

It was not a dull impact, but a clear, sharp metallic ring that tore through their eardrums.

"Urgh!"

Chval cried out and dropped the axe.

The recoil had been so violent that his palm had split open, blood running down his hand. The axe blade was chipped and horribly mangled.

Yet the steel plate remained where it was. It had gained only another white scratch.

Žižka looked at his trembling adjutant's hand and muttered quietly.

"What a monstrous thing."

He removed the steel plate and held it against his own chest. It was heavy, yet compared to its defensive power, it felt as light as a feather.

If, just if...

These steel plates covered the chests of the Taborites' soldiers, and above all, covered the Taborites' wagons?

Until now, their Wagenburg had only been reinforced with wooden planks and iron chains.

They could stop a knight's lance charge, but they were vulnerable to enemy trebuchets and concentrated fire. Whenever flaming arrows flew in, they had to fear the wood catching fire.

But what if they covered the wagons in this steel?

'It isn't merely a moving fortress...'

A chilling light gleamed in Žižka's one eye.

'This is a giant serpent of steel. An invincible serpent that cannot burn or break, one that will coil around those crusader bastards and crush them.'

This single object shattered the limits of every tactic he had imagined.

"That brat sent this?"

"Yes, that's right."

The messenger replied in a tense voice.

"His Majesty ordered us to cover all of Tabor's wagons with it. He also sent screws and rivets, saying we only need to drill holes and fasten them..."

"Hah."

Žižka tapped the steel plate with his finger.

To be honest, he had not been sure what to think of Ulrich, the young king.

He had wondered whether Ulrich was just another noble who talked about the Hussite cause but did not want a drop of blood on his own hands.

The moment he saw this gift, though, those doubts melted away like snow.

This steel plate showed an understanding of the essence of war.

There were no gaudy decorations or useless patterns. Only a brutally practical purpose gleamed from it: to deflect the enemy's weapons and keep his own men alive.

Anyone who knew nothing of war could never have made something like this, nor even thought to send it.

The corner of Žižka's mouth twisted along with his scar.

"That young king... understands war."

To win a fight, soldiers needed not some worthless prayer, but sturdy steel plates that would keep their guts from spilling out.

Žižka turned and shouted to the soldiers.

"Gather every wagon! Tear off all the rotten wooden planks at once and reinforce every single one with these steel plates!"

"Yes, General! No, Commander-in-Chief Jan Žižka!"

"And you, messenger, go to Sternberg and tell His Majesty this."

Žižka glared toward the southern sky, at the horizon where Sigismund's army was approaching.

"With these steel plates, Tabor's wagons won't so much as flinch even if God's lightning strikes them."

He no longer feared the coming battle.

If anything, he looked forward to it.

His blood boiled at the thought of those arrogant knights charging in with such confidence, only to smash their heads against this wall of steel.

* * *

A full month had passed since I returned to Sternberg.

Only a month.

Yet in that short time, the landscape of my domain had changed completely.

The sound that woke me early each morning was no longer a rooster's crow.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The tremors of enormous water-powered hammers echoed from the banks of the Sázava River.

The shouts of thousands of laborers beginning work together opened each morning in the domain.

I opened the window of my office and looked outside.

The acrid smell of burning coal and dust rushed in.

In my old life, I would have frowned while worrying about fine dust levels. Now, it was different.

This was the smell of development, the scent of a civilization struggling to survive.

"Bring more bricks! The masons in Section Three are standing around with nothing to do!"

"Tie down the scaffolding properly! If you fall, you're dead!"

The area below the castle was still too shabby to call a city. There were barely any finished buildings.

Most had only just been cleared and laid with foundation stones, or at most had brick walls stacked to knee height.

Planks and bundles of straw lay scattered everywhere, and carts regularly became tangled in chaos on the muddy roads that turned to slush whenever it rained.

Still, there was clear order and energy within that disorder.

I put on my cloak and left the castle. Then I walked down the muddy road, my feet sinking deep with every step, to inspect the construction site.

"Your Majesty, you're here!"

"Mm."

The laborers, their faces smeared with plaster, removed their hats and bowed.

Their expressions showed exhaustion, but there was no sign of hunger or despair.

The silver coin and warm meat stew they received every evening had put life back in their eyes.

What stood out most was the people themselves.

"Hey, the mixing ratio is wrong! How many times do I have to tell you that if you add too much water, the mortar will crack when it hardens?"

"All right, all right! You're awfully fussy..."

A Jewish supervisor wearing a kippah barked orders in clumsy Czech, while an old farmer native to Sternberg grumbled but obediently set down the water bucket and began shoveling again.

A month ago, it would have been an unimaginable sight.

Farmers who spat at the Jews, calling them heretics and the people who killed Jesus. Jews who despised Christians but feared them as well.

Yet as they carried bricks together, ladled soup from the same pot, and counted silver coins while dreaming of tomorrow in the evenings, their hatred slowly faded away.

The external threat of Sigismund, the sight of a growing city, and capitalism had buried even their long religious conflict.

I walked between the unfinished brick buildings.

Standardized homes of red brick, not thatched huts made of straw and wood.

Someday, this place would not be a haphazard medieval slum. It would become a planned city complete with water and sewer systems.

Of course, that was still a distant dream.

For now, even putting up shack-like buildings for the laborers to sleep in was overwhelming enough.

"Your Majesty."

Konrad, the chamberlain, had approached without my noticing. He wiped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief as he spoke.

"We added five more brick kilns, but supply still cannot keep up with demand. I believe we'll need to bring in more timber from Prague."

"Is that so? All right. I'll speak to Abraham."

Konrad looked as though he had aged several years over the past month.

Even with Abraham's help, it was only natural. He had gone from managing a quiet rural domain to becoming an administrator responsible for tens of thousands of workers overnight.

Still, I had no intention of letting him go. You could never have too many loyal, capable administrators.

I needed to feed and dress him well, then make him work for me for at least another ten years.

"Hm? Why do I suddenly have chills...?"

Konrad shuddered lightly, so I patted his shoulder a couple of times.

"Oh dear, be careful. It would be a disaster if you caught a cold. I'll have someone buy you a top-quality fur coat in Prague."

"Yes? Ah, yes... Thank you, Your Majesty."

Konrad wore a strangely uneasy expression.

"By the way, Your Majesty, news of Sternberg has spread throughout the region. Serfs from nearby domains are fleeing and flooding into ours because they heard we provide meals, lodging, and silver every day. Letters of protest from the neighboring lords are pouring in."

"That's a good thing. It means we have more workers, doesn't it?"

"But I fear this could lead to bloodshed with the neighboring lords."

"Doesn't matter. Once Sigismund arrives, they'll be the ones cheering for the Emperor. Tell them to use their protest letters as firewood."

I answered coolly and turned my gaze toward the riverbank.

There, beside Blast furnace No. 1, Blast furnace No. 2 had just begun burning and was belching black smoke.

Hiss! Bang! Bang!

Dozens of water-powered hammers worked without rest, stamping out steel plates.

The finished plates were loaded onto wagons before they could even cool and sent south.

"What about the Wagenburg reinforcement work?"

"According to the Taborites' messenger, more than half the wagons have already been covered in steel plates. The Taborites' soldiers are calling them Panzerkampfwagen, or Panzer for short."

"What? Panzer?"

That name sounded awfully familiar.

Panzer in the fifteenth century? What was this supposed to mean?

'Well, I suppose it would take that much to stand against the Empire's knights.'

I looked up at the sky.

It was an unusually clear, blue winter sky.

Everything was going smoothly. Too smoothly, to the point that it made me uneasy.

But I knew.

All this was only the calm before the storm.

Then it happened.

"Your Majesty!"

A desperate cry came from the direction of the castle gate.

A sharp voice cut through the noise of the construction site.

A scout was riding through the worksite, whipping the horse onward.

People cried out in alarm and leaped aside.

The horse stopped before me with foam around its mouth. The scout practically tumbled from the saddle and dropped to one knee.

"Your Majesty! Urgent news!"

"What is it?"

"At the border... enemies have been sighted at the border!"

The noise around us died down in an instant.

The laborers carrying bricks and the supervisors studying blueprints all stopped what they were doing and stared at the scout.

I furrowed my brow and asked in a grave voice.

"The enemy has reached the border?"

"Yes! Emperor Sigismund's army has been sighted near the Moravian border! Based on its size, it does not appear to be the main force, but an advance unit!"

"How many exactly?"

"About three thousand! According to the report..."

The scout cried out with the face of someone reliving a nightmare.

"They're all Cuman mercenaries!"

The Cumans.

Europe's nightmare.

Descendants of Turkic nomads, raiders infamous for their cruelty.

Sigismund's hunting dogs were coming to tear out my throat.

Footnotes:

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