Our Family Has Fallen

Mathematics demands talent; no matter how hard you try, if you don’t get it, you just don’t get it.

Compared to Totnes, which has an entire Gun and Cannon Academy and a series of schools, selecting artillerymen from millions...

Hamlet doesn’t even have ten thousand people, and what’s more difficult is that they are generally illiterate. Literacy work is still underway, and even schools are piecemeal, laughable compared to those mature academies, like kindergartens.

But difficulties are not a reason to give up. Talented individuals do not just appear out of nowhere; they are cultivated.

What Lance needs to do is start from scratch in this era where learning costs are high and the populace is generally illiterate, to cultivate his own talents.

This is a despairing gap, which is precisely why Lance invests so much.

And it’s clear that Lance’s investment is yielding results.

After successfully forging cannons, the resources Lance invested in artillery received feedback at once.

”Prepare!”

A shout from the training ground, and the entire artillery crew began to move around the cannon.

The actions between the few people were swift and decisive, with no sign of conflict, but rather the smooth operation of precision parts.

”Fire!”

The artillery crew swiftly completed cleaning, loading, and aiming. The moment the shout was given, the fire lighter handed over the ignition rod.

Almost simultaneously, the other members of the artillery crew scattered to avoid the risk of a burst muzzle.

As the fuse burnt out, the next second was a deafening roar.

The intense firelight and smoke blurred everyone’s attention until the target five hundred yards away shattered in an instant.

The wooden structure, in the face of the cannon’s power, appeared like thin paper, leaving a pit.

Being visible from such a distance was enough to indicate the target was very large, actually just a large wooden board propped up by two logs.

But it wasn’t over yet.

”Volley fire!”

With the commander’s shout, the recently fired cannon immediately began a new round of cleaning and loading, while another pre-prepared cannon ignited.

Another roar followed, connecting with the previous shot, the bomb slid past the target from a slightly off angle, significantly different from the direct hit earlier.

But the cannons of this era were inherently uncontrollable; seeing the target at such a distance was already fortunate.

Times have changed. The second shot was not the limit of Hamlet’s artillery; the third, fourth shots followed, all the way until the fifth shot was fired.

Three out of five shots hit, and the distant target bore a heavily scarred appearance.

”Target!” The commander shouted, waving the small red flag in his hand and pointing to the other side, ”Nine o’clock direction.”

Looking over, it was a formation of scarecrows, simulating a cavalry flank attack.

The artillerymen’s response was... those cannons swiftly turned their barrels under the push.

”Fire a volley!”

The trained artillerymen knew that facing cavalry required no precise aiming but a visual estimate of the situation, predicting their distance based on speed and time; that’s what the gunners needed to calculate.

But the simulated situation had already been calculated by someone.

”Three hundred yards!”

As soon as the words fell, a continuous burst of roars followed, bombs shot into the formation, and encountering the targets, they burst out more shockingly than the wooden boards earlier, with similar devastation anticipated if they hit flesh.

And the bombs didn’t lose momentum, taking out the scarecrows in a straight line behind them, the power of five simultaneous shots directly tore the formation apart.

But it didn’t stop there; they immediately began a new round of loading.

”Free fire!”

And at this moment, the commander was timing and reporting the simulated cavalry charge situation.

”Two hundred fifty yards... two hundred yards... one hundred fifty yards!”

At this point, they wouldn’t wait to fire together; whoever loaded faster fired, competing for every second.

You could distinctly hear several explosions in succession, but what spewed from the cannon barrel was no longer a single bomb, but a cluster.

The shells rained upon the nearby scarecrows, mowing down the majority as if cutting grass.

”Good!” Lance, observing the scene from a not too distant spot, couldn’t help but nod; there was finally some combat capability.

Having invested so much money, sparing no expense for Hamlet to build such a war machine, if there were no returns, he would cry to death.

Beside him, Barton also slightly introduced the type of bombs following the Lord’s words.

”This is a grape shot, where smaller shells are tied into a bag and stuffed into the cannon barrel like a bunch of grapes. When fired, they scatter to cause large area damage.

Although its effective range is shorter than ordinary solid shots and the trajectory uncontrollable, the damage area is large, and within a hundred yards, it can penetrate ordinary Knight’s Armor.

The effect against unarmored targets is even better; within two hundred yards, it can cause damage, especially when formations are dense, capable of destroying most of the enemy’s will in one shot.”

”Hmm, very good, these are excellent for dealing with cavalry. Set up a few cannons, and should they charge, let them taste the power of artillery and tell them times have changed.”

What satisfied Lance even more was that the recent exercise was completed independently, without Barton’s command or his intervention.

This indicated a certain combat capability, only lacking battlefield validation.

Most of these men, even to use the term entirely, were civilians, even refugees.

Before arriving in Hamlet and joining the military, they might not recognize a single character, let alone operate artillery.

But after receiving education and training, they demonstrated the standards of a qualified artilleryman.

Among them, as one of the gunners, was Bonaparte, who left a deep impression on Lance. His talent was developed after joining the artillery, and his capabilities surprised even Barton.

Moreover, Lance noticed during the shooting earlier, his artillery crew had the best accuracy, and it should be known that a month ago he was still a serf.

This is enough to show that ordinary people aren’t stupid; they merely lack learning channels, each one a genius awaiting to be discovered.

”How many usable cannons do we have now?”

”Twenty newly forged six-pounder cannons have been delivered, but we currently have only ten artillery groups, among which only five are qualified.

These five groups were accumulated from before, the new five being recruited newcomers, and expanding further quickly is tough. It takes time to train personnel to reach standard.

At this point, Barton was also somewhat troubled; previously, there weren’t sufficient cannons, but now there are more than enough, yet too few to operate them.

Even Lance was speechless hearing this, no wonder Barton brought out only five cannons for the exercise; it turns out there were only five usable ones...

Fortunately, Lance wasn’t the type of leader disconnected from reality; he understood there was no solution to this problem. Artillery, a specialized branch, can’t be trained overnight.

Back when he trained pikemen, even after a month, they would still falter when rushed by bandits.

But now, gathering their gear in formation, even fanatical heretics found them difficult to shake.

The battle at the outpost had demonstrated that given time, they would prove themselves.

”My support will not waver; even tightening our belts, the artillery won’t be overlooked, but combat capability must be rapidly formed; the situation is increasingly chaotic, and time is running out for us.”

Lance was willing to provide them with time and wasn’t going to withdraw his support.

His attitude undoubtedly reduced Barton’s pressure.

”Rest assured, Master, all these artillerymen are carefully selected; a few show great promise and, once trained, can become leaders, making it easier to pull together a real artillery team.”

Barton knew the Lord’s unwavering financial support for the artillery, yet he didn’t dare squander it frivolously, having known poverty.

His expansions were conservative; even those cleaning cannons were reserve artillerists.

This batch, once trained, would yield dozens of artillerymen.