Chapter 63: Prelude to the Battle of Banissa (Part Two)

Word of the Cartier forces’ arrival sent a sudden stir through the entire city of Banissa, and soldiers rapidly occupied every strategic point along the defensive perimeter. Major General Sokalys, commander of the Third Corps, and his deputy, Prestewich, ascended the ramparts, peering through a monocular spyglass at the northern bank of the Mins River. The Cartiers were swiftly repairing the bridge, apparently intending to cross the river directly rather than making a detour of several dozen kilometers to reach the city walls from the other side.

Major General Sokalys was not overly alarmed. Banissa would encounter the enemy sooner or later; since Taria had already been attacked, how could Banissa hope to be an exception? Confident in Banissa’s fortifications, Sokalys firmly believed that even with only a single division under his command, the Cartiers before him could never wrest the city from his hands.

This confidence was, of course, well-founded. Throughout the continent, the fortifications of human strongholds had undergone a process of trial by fire and continuous evolution to reach their current state. First came the walls. The earliest walls were tall and thin, built during the era of the Elven Empire when the continent enjoyed general peace. The elves revered nature and possessed individual prowess far superior to that of humans; to them, city walls were more decorative than practical, entirely optional. For human settlements, however, it was a different story. Humans needed protection from wild beasts, so the city walls of that era tended to be built high to prevent solitary creatures from leaping inside.

Later, a war broke out between the elves and the orcs, with both sides possessing distinct tactical advantages. Thin walls could be shattered by the brute strength of the orcs. To prevent unnecessary devastation, humans had no choice but to lower the height of the wall and adopt alternative measures to deter wild beasts and orcish climbers—such as embedding upward-pointing blades or sharp spikes along the top while building the walls progressively thicker. As the orcs expanded their occupied territories during the war with the elves, they also learned various skills from other races, including city-building and siegecraft. Naturally endowed with boundless strength and gradually mastering the use of siege engines, the orcs brought disaster upon the other races during this period. A vast number of human settlements fell, women were reduced to orcish spoils of war, and men were dragged off into forced servitude. A great number of the continent’s half-orcs were born during this era.

Driven by the pressure of survival, humans sought solace through divine intervention—the worship of the Luminous Lord gained immense traction during this time, capturing the faith of the majority of humanity—while simultaneously improving the defenses of their remaining settlements. Taking city walls as an example, large protruding bastions began to appear. These uneven, angular wall designs effectively countered the violent charges of the orcs. Combined with double-layered walls and arrow towers, they formed a multi-dimensional firepower grid centered around a central keep, successfully curbing attackers and preventing defenses from being rapidly breached.

Banissa’s fortifications were a masterpiece of this genre. Beginning with the Tianlun Dynasty, rulers continually thickened the lords' castles to consolidate the defense of this northern city and safeguard their territorial security and property. After the establishment of the Republic, under Warrenheit’s direction, the scattered castles outside the city center were linked together by encircling walls, forging a grand and formidable defense line before the urban area was expanded within. Thus, the lords' castles of various sizes were transformed into auxiliary bastions of the fortified city, capable of forming regionalized minor defense centers. The connecting walls were designed with stability and impact resistance as primary goals, some reaching thicknesses of up to fifteen meters. After the southern armies began fielding matchlock and firearm units, arrow towers underwent modifications as well, developing turret-like structures pierced with gunports so that firearms could be fired directly outward.

"We should consider a sortie," Major General Sokalys lowered his monocular and said to his deputy. Backed by the formidable fortress of Banissa, the defenders should adopt a proactive stance. Although the Cartiers possessed longbowmen and nomadic cavalry, the southerners were deeply confident in the firearm units they had forged. Dealing a heavy blow to the enemy's morale would undoubtedly help boost their own.

It was ultimately decided that Prestewich would remain within the city while Major General Sokalys personally led five regiments out to meet the enemy. The entire city of Banissa had originally been garrisoned jointly by the First Division of the First Corps and the current First Division of the Third Corps. After the First Corps departed to reinforce Taria, Sokalys became the supreme commander. He was a courageous general who preferred to lead his soldiers in battle personally rather than cowering in the rear and sending others to their deaths. The Third Corps currently comprised only this single division, with the major general serving concurrently as its commander, commanding six regiments. Prior to this crisis, a standard Landian division was generally composed of half firearm units alongside spearmen, great-axe infantry, shield-bearers, archers, a small contingent of cavalry functioning as reconnaissance companies, and auxiliary troops. This combination relied on ranged units like musketeers and archers as the primary source of lethality, backed by a protective frontline of spearmen, great-axes, and shield-bearers to form the offensive force.

However, following the invention of the bayonet, the structure of the military underwent a transformation. Firearm infantry were increased while other arms were reduced, retaining only a small complement of security troops and cavalry. The marriage of the bayonet and the firearm seamlessly merged long-range strike units with light infantry.

Prestewich remained behind in the city with one regiment and a detachment of the National Guard, while five firearm regiments quickly deployed outside the walls, forming neat ranks and advancing steadily toward the enemy.

By this time, the Cartier army had successfully repaired the bridge and crossed the Mins River, plunging both sides into fierce combat.

The longbowmen, having recovered their stamina, engaged the firearm-equipped Banissa defenders in a duel of ranged volley fire, with the area-of-effect suppression from both sides leaving each adversary startled. Yet neither side was intimidated by the other's firepower. The nomadic cavalry immediately swept around from both flanks, while the Cartier infantry charged straight ahead.

Sokalys, however, remained utterly unperturbed, calmly commanding his troops. He ordered the spearmen in his formation to anchor the flanks, aiming their pikes directly at the charging nomadic horsemen. Ordinarily, nomadic cavalry would rapidly pivot and launch renewed strikes from the flank. When the enemy ranks grew chaotic through the exhaustion of countering such persistent harassment, the cavalry would pounce like a pack of wolves.

Yet this tactic failed to work this time, because stationed directly behind the spearmen were dense ranks of musketeers. Although longbowmen kept Sokalys’s forces pinned down, the combined musketeers of Banissa’s five regiments outnumbered the longbowmen by more than two to one.

Had the Third Corps not contained such a high proportion of raw recruits, severely limiting the spearmen's ability to hold back the nomadic horsemen, the casualties among the nomads might have been even heavier. Even so, under the raking fire of the musketeers, nomadic cavalrymen tumbled from their saddles one after another, forced to retreat beyond the range of enemy fire.