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Chapter 18: Fire the Cannons!
Heavy copper beasts quietly prowled on the grassland, their massive, pitch-black mouths facing Constantinope’s towering city walls.
“How beautiful.”
Sultana Momoana, escorted by her many guards, patted the cannons’ cold barrel with an expectant smile, as if she could already imagine the beauty of the violence it was capable of.
These terrifying cannons were the secret weapons Momoana had prepared to bring down Constantinope. She had hired talented engineers and craftsmen, while spending a fortune to purchase top-notch ores all around the world, but it still took many months and work casualties before these magnificent beasts came to be.
These cannons weighed over twenty tonnes, with just its barrel itself being almost thirty centimeters thick. It was dubbed as the Indomitable Cannons.
Just to ship it here, they needed ninety strong oxen for the transportation, four hundred men carefully supporting it from the sides, more than a thousand men to cut down enough trees to make enough rolling logs, and a team of professional engineers to handle the repairs…
It took them an additional two months just to ship it.
They had spent a gigantic amount of money, manpower, and resources on this, but Momoana thought that it was worth it.
The Indomitable Cannons had a firing range of more than two kilometers! No matter how sturdy Constantinope’s west wall was, it wouldn’t be able to withstand such terrifying bombardment.
“It’s time to silence the Romains with a loud explosion.”
Momoana and her escorts backed a decently far distance away before issuing an order to the cannoneers,” Fire!”
Preparations had already started since the morning, such as setting the cannons up, angling them, cleaning the barrels, concocting the firepowder, and so on. However, there were many things to do that they didn’t make in time for the earlier battle.
It was only now that the cannons were ready to be fired.
Tz tz—
The long fuse was lit, and an orange spark slowly advanced before finally creeping into the opening of the Indomitable Cannons…
BOOM!
BOOM BOOM!
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
All of the cannons simultaneously fired with roaring explosions, launching cannonballs that were over half a ton heavy. The rebound impact against the ground felt like an earthquake!
The cannonballs smashed into Constantinope’s west wall with deafening explosions, causing rubble to fly everywhere. Tremors reverberated to the other parts of the walls.
The Romain garrison troops panicked.
The west wall that had protected Constantinope for over a thousand years had suffered heavy damage for the first time!
The wall smithereens flying around in the wake of the impact pierced through the Romain soldiers’ armor as if they were made out of paper. A huge tower instantaneously crumbled like a fragile egg shell…
A stretch of the imposing wall was torn into pieces just like that!
“T-the city wall collapsed?!”
The Romain garrison troops who witnessed that sight were dumbstruck. Some of the soldiers even abandoned their posts and fled like headless flies.
Panic had gripped the soldiers.
It was even worse among the civilians, who thought that the end of the world had befallen them. Some of them fainted on the spot, whereas the others desperately ran toward the heart in hopes of finding salvation with their Lord.
Amidst this pandemonium, there was one group of people who conspicuously defied the theme.
“Woah!” Shu Yichao galloped to the area where the wall collapsed to inspect the hole. “Is this the Basilic? No wonder I had a feeling that I overlooked something. Turns out I forgot about this. Its prowess is impressive. I’d expect no less from the great cannons that blasted Constantinople into bits in history! Speaking of which, I don’t think I have really seen a cannon before…”
Shu Yichao strolled to the city wall, with the bombardment, the flying smithereens, and the billowing smoke not hindering him in the least. He was even in the mood to kick some of the rock pieces on the ground.
“This is a huge production, at the level of an AAAA game! It’s rare to see game developers with integrity nowadays!”
Shu Yichao looked at the Ottomains’ cannoneers. “I wonder if they are just background or really rendered characters… Also, is the section of the wall that’s going to collapse predetermined or RNG?”
Seeing the composure displayed by the Priest King, as if he had known this would happen, the nearby soldiers slowly regained their bearing.
Meanwhile, a twin eagles flag was swiftly approaching the area. An armored Constantin XI had decided to personally visit the most dangerous wall section in this moment of crisis.
Constantin XI noticed Shu Yichao and nodded at him before surveying the wall and motivating the soldiers. “Warriors of our Romain Empire, muster your courage! Fear and apprehension may have gripped you now, but never forget your heritage. We are the last bastions defending the glorious legacy left behind by Caesar, Augustus, and Trajan!
“We shall protect the final Romain land in the world! Since ancient times, we, Romains, have always valued our honor above our lives. Even if we die on the battlefield, we won’t allow our enemies to besmirch the legacy we hold pride in!”
Under the emperor’s words of motivation, the soldiers guarding the city regained their courage. They began to gather rubble, mud, and dust to repair the city walls.
Meanwhile, the Ottomain army was in a joyous mood, with soldiers cheering in excitement. Their successful bombardment recovered some of the morale they had lost from the earlier setback.
Sultana Momoana breathed a sigh of relief.
“How laughable those heretics are.”
She disdainfully eyed the devastated sections of the west wall with a determined smirk. She had already decided on her next course of action.
I’ll continue bombarding the west wall with the Indomitable Cannons to shake the morale of the garrison troops, wear out their spirits, and deplete their resources. Once I blast open numerous openings and tire out their garrison troops, I’ll flood their city with my 200,000 soldiers!
The Khitans might be troublesome foes, but our warriors outnumber them several hundred fold. Who knows? I might even be able to capture that young Khitan general alive!
Momoana gulped down her saliva before returning to her tent.
Two figures covered in a translucent veil that vaguely revealed their slender frame and smooth skin walked up to Momoana and called out, “Sultana—”
Momoana waved her hand to dismiss them.
She was just about to rest when another piece of news arrived.
“The Venetians and the Genoese wish to meet me?” Momoana was baffled. “What are those greedy merchants up to?”
If there were people in this world whom even the wise sultana was unable to read, the two commercial cities that were birthed on Romain soil, Venice and Genoa, would surely be on the forefront of the list.
On the one hand, those people had been putting together fleets and attempting to transport rations into Constantinope. Yet, they were also using their connections to sell Romie intelligence to her.
They raised commodity prices in Constantinope to make a killing from the ongoing war, but they also put their money into hiring mercenaries to protect the City of the World’s Desire.
They reached out to Demetrios, who was residing in the southern Morea, and persuaded him to rebel against his brother, Constantin XI, while also ratting on him to Constantin XI.
It was hard to tell whether they were trying to ally or waging a war against Romie. In any case, Momoana struggled to make sense of their intention.
“Forget it, I’ll just hear them out and see if they have anything to offer.”
Momoana stood up and headed off to meet the representatives of the two commercial cities. Unexpectedly, she received a piece of shocking news.
“What did you say? The Khitans intend to launch a night assault?”
—
Starve’s Additional History:
To be clear, only one of the cannons is the Basilic (which is one of the largest cannons ever built, designed by Orban). The rest are Dardanelle Guns, which are modeled after the Basilic.
Interestingly, Orban actually reached out to Constantine XI, but the latter turned it down because it was too expensive. So, Orban reached out to the Ottoman instead, who then used it against Constantinople.
The Basilic was very powerful, but it overheats very easily so it can only be used thrice a day (and even so, it only lasted six weeks before becoming non-operational).