Road to the Crown

Chapter 304: The end of the Ostros rebelion

8th October 1574

"This is not looking good for them."

In a classical siege, the real battle would begin long before the two armies would meet. Starting with the classical envelopment, the target that attacking party wanted to take down, would have to be completely cut away from the outside help, and the entire adventure had to be finished before any form of relief force could be formed.

Yet in the current scenario, Hans threw all the covenants to the trash, revolutionizing the entire warfare.

With light carriages cutting out any form of supply from the now starving city, by the time that my entire force arrived at the line of already prepared ditches and firing stations, the city was akin to the ripe fruit, only waiting for the gardener's hand to be picked.

"Sir, we are ready to begin the bombardment."

Standing beside one of the many batteries deployed for the siege, my attention was stolen by one of the officers. With his hand pointing directly at the city in the proximity, I could tell from the look of excitement on his face that this particular man couldn't wait for the attack to start.

"Do your job."

Today, it didn't really matter when the firing attack would start. It was all but a distraction either way, so there was no problem with letting the soldiers who remained behind to have some fun. 

Nearly instantly after I gave those soldiers a green light, the entire area shook under the powerful voice of the firing cannons. Thanks to the extensive groundwork done right outside of the Town's firing range, my cannons didn't lose to the stationary defences of Ostrog in terms of elevation, finally giving me the chance to make the most out of their supreme accuracy and range.

As soon as the first position opened fire, the rest of them quickly followed suit. In one moment, the city turned from a relatively calm place when compared to the bustling camp of mine behind the front-lines, into a melting pot of death, ruins and devastation. 

Located all around the city, all the paths that lead outside of its gates were blocked by the sizeable detachments of my troops. Once any attempt at sortie was to be taken, the mobile forces distributed along with the entire encirclement with the light carriages to move them around would nearly instantly fall right down the necks of those stupid enough to put their nose outside of the safety of the city walls.

Even though every cannonball that hit its walls or inner buildings would later mean greater costs of rebuilding this once-thriving population centre, I much preferred this solution rather than losing my soldiers during unnecessary and costly wall assault.

Because after all, my soldiers were already comfortably preparing for the battle within the city walls!

By disguising just a single unit of my men as simple farmers, I made sure their weapons could be concealed, before sending them right after the very last enemy party that we could pretend to accidentally let through our lines. With how we have yet to see the enemy flex how they caught any of them by hanging their heads off the walls, I could say with a lot of certainty that this little ploy was surprisingly successful!

And soon, this guess was proven true. 

With the constant barrage of heavy cannons against the city, no one really realised when it happened, but the gates to the city suddenly opened. As of today, I was just a simple overseer of the military effort managed by Hans, I could watch how the cleverly hidden mobile force of mine instantly reinforced the covert unit, successfully taking one of the gates for ourselves.

"Press forward! Take the south district!"

Even at the distance on which I was standing away from the city, I could still hear the commands of my officers leading their units right into the enemy fire. Even though the light carriages weren't the most armoured units of mine, its walls still provided more than enough cover for the advancing troops to hide during the enemy salvos and ride on when there was a need to quickly relocate somewhere else.

Obviously, there was just a single reason why the heavy carriages didn't join the fun right away. With how much slower they were when compared to their lighter cousins, they would only slow down the pace of my troops taking over more and more of the city from Ostros' hands.

Red flare.

One of the recent discoveries that had little to do with my lands. I could say that while I did my part in discovering it with how actively I promoted new things, outside of this moral aspect, it was created by someone completely unrelated to my force, workforce or even industrial areas. Yet, as soon as I realised what it was, my entire military took over the entire stock of the crafty merchant that accidentally made it, ordering a whole lot more from him in the near term.

"Push the heavies towards the source."

This was all the input that I had to provide during the entire battle. With how the heavy carriages and tanks were the absolute ace cards of my force, that was the only type of unit that remained fully and solely under my command. Unless I were to order them to go in, they would remain on their position for as long as the battle would last.

"Yes, sir!"

In one instant, as soon as my words left my mouth, one of the many messengers burst out from the headquarter's tent, chasing the mirage of the nearby position. Just a few hundred paces to the side of my current commanding centre, behind a hill, a huge and relatively flat plaza was occupied by all sorts of machines of mine. Form the new models that arriver with the pretrained crews during the last train shipment, through the several pieces that had various mechanics checking them all over in order to repair the damage they sustained during the fighting, all the way to the battle-hardened and prepared unit of heavies.

They would only have one task during the fight. 

With Ostros efforts to assemble a big army cut short by the quick raids of the light carriages, they had a severely limited pool of manpower. Even if they were to mobilise every single citizen of the town into their army, they could still afford only a single to two points where the resistance would be actually substantial. With most of their cannons and better equipment gone on the battlefields already, they could only throw numbers against my superior in every other regard force.

And that's where the heavies would come in.

Their sole reason for existence wasn't to be the main battle tank. With how slow it was thanks to the several layers of armour and steel plates covering its entire hull, even a child on a pony, or even a properly running adult could easily escape from its chase. 

But once those several tons worth of metal would attain any kind of momentum, just by directing it right against the enemy defences, I could make sure that nothing would remain from them after just a single charge!

And I didn't have to wait all that long to see it with my own eyes!

Thanks to my elevated position, I was able to peer through the walls into the inner parts of the city. Compared to Krakow, despite taking way more space on the plain, its streets were several times wider, attributing to how loosely populated it was. Even with this place being the centre of Ostros power, outside of the household court and some basic administration buildings, this town was just as big as any other one could find just by walking down the road!

Looking from my position, I had the perfect view. I could see how just a few moments after I gave the order, a group of two heavy carriages leisurely strolled into the place where my foot soldiers had some troubles dealing with a barricade made from the rubble.

Seeing what the drivers of my heavies did then, made me think that at least one of them would be the great ancestors to all the chads in the future world. Without a care in the world, instead of blocking the enemies from attacking the other side of the street, those two carriages of mine simply rode directly into the barricade, quickly splitting it into three separate blockades.

And then they started firing the reaper guns from within the carriage.

At this point, there was no point in me watching the proceedings any more. Sending my assistants away, I moved back to the commanding tent and sat on the chair designed especially for my use. 

"Sir, the city is taken!"

Just a few moments later, the information finally arrived. While it didn't mean that the fighting was over yet, it was the last hard step that we had to take before officially ending Ostros' uprising. 

And just like that, another officer came to the tent, cast a quick look at me before saluting and reporting.

"Sir, we took the keep. Ostros household is no more."