Release That Witch

The second recruitment in Border Town went much more smoothly. Thanks to the winter food rations, the members of Militia were given a larger amount of better-tasting food. Many would save their bread and dried meat, and gave them away secretly to their families on visitation day each week. Roland told Carter and Iron Axe to turn a blind eye, but nevertheless, it became known when families happily talked about the food they brought home.     

In the first place, a military force comprised of civilians was an excellent chance for publicity. The word-of-mouth approach became even more effective than any announcement the City Hall could make. Most people in Old District were well aware of the Militia organized by His Royal Highness by now, where the soldiers were paid a high salary and fed three meals a day. The fighting with the demonic beasts was also not as dangerous as they had imagined. Thus, more candidates from Old District showed up compared to the first recruitment. There were even some residents from New District who came to sign up.     

There were more candidates that met Roland's requirements than he had anticipated. The second Militia was thus expanded to 200 soldiers. Carter was appointed to helm their training. When the horn sounded, the new recruits made their way to the city wall and were on the standby as an auxiliary force.     

Chief Knight Carter and Assistant Minister Barov raised objections to this. The first Militia was already a force capable of fighting demonic beasts, making the recruitment of a second Militia unnecessary in their eyes. Never mind the fact that the size of the second Militia was twice the size of the first one. The higher food rations and salaries of the soldiers also led to a hike in their financial expenditure. What was worse was that the gold royals they spent did not give them any significant returns.     

But Roland insisted on his decision.     

That was because these people were not recruited to fight demonic beasts.     

At the moment, he dared not to tell his men about the plan he had in mind. He wanted to conquer the stronghold before the duke could attack Border Town, but he worried that Carter and Barov would completely shut down his idea.     

Unlike Border Town, Longsong Stronghold was the official border of the Kingdom of Graycastle. Its city walls were 10 meters high, built of bricks and stone. The duke and the six noble families of the Western Region were stationed in the inner city, so they could mobilize about a thousand soldiers at any given time. In theory, it was impossible to conquer the stronghold with his Militias made of fewer than 300 soldiers—even if they were equipped with flintlocks, a technology invented in a different era.     

Besides, the witches could not serve as their secret weapon of decapitation due to the God's Stone of Retaliation; Roland had confirmed this with Nightingale several times. Duke Ryan and the six noble families must have spared no efforts in purchasing the stone—naturally, this was done in the name of donation. It took several dozens of gold royals for them to trade a single stone, which could seal the power of the witches within a certain range and hence acted as the most powerful weapon against the demons. The stones were thus the biggest annual income source for the church.     

Roland's only chance was open warfare.     

Most of the armies kept by the lords in this era were conscription-based, where most soldiers were drafted just before the war. To prevent runaway soldiers, the lords were forced to lead them to the battlefield personally. This gave Roland an excellent opportunity to implement his annihilation plan. However, he was still unsure how to seize this chance. After all, his knowledge of war strategies came from movies, television, or historical stories. He had no firsthand experience with them.     

Since he could not figure it out, he thought he should focus on the things he was good at instead.     

He stretched lazily and left his office, heading towards the wooden shed in the backyard.     

The assembled Steam Engine II stood quietly in the middle of the field. Upon first glance, it looked more polished than the previous version and the welding marks were evener. Thanks to Anna's new ability, her green Heart Fire could penetrate into the tiny gaps for welding, allowing the individual parts to fit better than their last attempt.     

In addition to a better appearance, Steam Engine II also functioned more efficiently, thanks to a newly equipped centrifugal governor. Its existence was remarkable as the first automatic control system and feedback system in history. The structure of centrifugal governor was very simple, consisting of two thin hinged rods, each with an iron ball at the end, and one rotating spindle. It looked like the bamboo dragonfly, a toy for children. When the bamboo pole was rubbed between hands, the two rotating blades would rise into the air because of the centrifugal force.     

As for the centrifugal governor, the two iron balls acted like blades. When the steam engine worked, the spindle would rotate. If the engine output was high enough, the balls would spin faster and gradually rise under the influence of the centrifugal force, leading the rods to reduce the aperture of a throttle valve. When the output lowered, the balls would spin slower and fall because of gravity to increase the valve output again. This would keep the steam engine running with a near-constant output.     

Now that it was speed-controlled, Steam Engine II was able to take on sophisticated tasks.     

And the gears produced by the blacksmith now sat neatly in the corner of the shed.     

Going by modern assembly line standards, none of the gears would pass the quality check and would be thrown into the defective bin, waiting to be recycled. But in this era, they were rare artistic works—the involute design of the gears carried an inherent sense of harmony, and the gears emitted a unique metallic sheen after being immersed in lard.     

Besides the gears, the carpenters had prepared the foundations, caps, as well as other parts. He sent the guard outside for Anna, so that they could begin assembling the first steam-driven boring machine together.     

In Roland's plan, this was the most effective way to mass-produce flintlocks.     

If he had relied on the work of blacksmiths, the manual production of a single gun barrel would be time-consuming. But with the boring machine, they could directly drill the barrel from the casted iron bars. In one day, they would be able to produce more than ten barrels.     

With a change in the cutter, the boring machine could also be used to cut rifling. Fitted with rifling, the flintlocks could be fired with even greater accuracy.     

With how things were going, he was sure that he could arm his two Militias of nearly 300 soldiers by the end of winter.     

However, Roland still could not guarantee that, in the face of charging enemies, his soldiers would be able to calmly load, aim, and shoot their targets, rather than dropping the weapons and running away. The two Militias had only been in training for a short period of time and had no experience in battling human beings after all.     

Thus he had to bring out an even more powerful weapon that could obliterate the enemy before they could start their own assault.     

That weapon was cannon.     

As the Lord of War in the history of warfare, the lethality and deterrence force cannons commanded were incomparable to flintlocks. A six-pound field cannon had the range to attack the enemies before they could gather. The mixed-up armies of this era would not be able to keep their discipline under the constant attack of the cannons. As long as Roland could equip his Militias with three or four cannons, his enemy would not even have the chance to charge at them.     

He had made his arrangements step by step—after he had invented the manual milling machine, he processed suitable gears that he used to build the steam-driven boring machine on the basis of speed-controlled Steam Engine II. And with the boring machine, he could produce a variety of gun barrels and cannon barrels.     

There were at least two months before the Months of Demons ended. If his plan worked, the Militias of Border Town would have the ability to compete with the duke's troops in an outright battle.