Originally, Marin planned to draw one of the three most powerful legions in the country to Scotland to assist in the war. However, the plan could not keep up with the changes. The Pope also needed people to attack Siena, and about 15,000 people were also needed.
In this way, the troops needed to be drawn reached a huge amount of 25,000. But the local area cannot be without enough troops to guard it, otherwise what if there is an enemy to attack? Although Malin trained more than 10,000 militias, the militias were just militias and could not replace the regular army.
So, Marinth thought about it and decided to modify the plan - he decided to hand over the mission of landing in Edinburgh to the Fourth Legion, currently stationed in Newcastle, Saccarat.
In conjunction with Edward's army's mission to attack southern Scotland, Marin asked Sakara to find 10,000 strong men among the tens of thousands of refugees in Northumberland.
Anyway, England's attack on the Scottish border was actually a feint attack, and it didn't require too many main combat troops. Originally, Siwag's Fifth Legion would have to go out with Edward's army. In addition, Edward would also form a purely English 10,000 army to act together. Including a fake 10,000 army on Newcastle, the total number of troops reached 30,000. Including the strong people, it would cost 50,000 or 60,000 people.
But after all, the real main combat force will become Sivague's Fifth Legion. Edward's pure England Legion will become an auxiliary force. As for the 10,000 fake army prepared by Newcastle, it is completely accustomed to shout "666" throughout the process...
In addition, Sivague's Fifth Army will not be all dispatched. Because Edward was worried that the remnants of the previous dynasty in London would take the opportunity to launch a rebellion. Therefore, 10,000 people from the Fifth Army would leave 3,000 elite troops stationed in London to protect the safety of Edward's family. This decision did save the life of Edward's family...
In this way, the main attackers were actually the 7,000 soldiers of the Fifth Legion, assisting 10,000 pure England Legion and 10,000 "cheerleaders" of Newcastle.
If a war with Scotland under normal circumstances is going to begin, it is a search for death and it is easy to be defeated by the elite Scottish forces.
But now it is different, because the elite Scottish soldiers were captured or killed in the war two years ago. Now the remaining Scotland is only 2,000 imperial guards with stronger combat effectiveness. The others are second-line troops or simply militias, and their combat effectiveness is weaker than the "miscellaneous army" that England has collected. Moreover, the number will never exceed 10,000.
Moreover, the main task of the English army this time was to feint attack to attract the main Scottish troops to defend, and to provide cover for the Fourth Legion to cross the sea to fight. Therefore, they do not need to have too strong combat power, as long as the momentum is strong enough.
Under their cover, the Fourth Legion of Saccarat could take the opportunity to board the ship from Newcastle Harbor, head to the port near the Scottish capital Edinburgh, and then surprise attack Edinburgh, capture the core Scotland's top leaders and end the war.
...
However, Saccarat's Fourth Legion seemed to lack firearms. Because what Marin valued at the time was the long-range strike ability of the English archers in the Fourth Legion.
However, the archers' long-range strike ability is useless in siege battles. Therefore, Marin will send 20 heavy artillery pieces to the Fourth Legion. This batch of heavy artillery is the latest Karen naval gun infantry version developed by the Beihai National Casting Artillery Factory, and it is a 32-pound cannon.
However, compared with the genuine 19th-century British Karen naval gun, this infantry version of Karen cannon is a bit larger. The genuine Karen naval gun weighs only 771.8 kg. The 32-pound Karen naval gun produced by the Beihai National Casting Cannon Factory weighs one ton, which is nearly 230 kg heavier than the genuine Karen naval gun.
But there is nothing to do about this. After all, the current technological level of Beihai Kingdom is much worse than that of Britain in the 19th century. Moreover, it is already a miracle to be able to produce a 32-pound Karen naval gun. Because the current steel technology is too backward. Marin developed carbon steel to cast such a light heavy cannon with medium and low carbon steel. If it were replaced with mature iron, it would probably take two tons to be safe. Otherwise, it would be easy to explode.
The 32-pound iron ball shell hit the city gate and the city wall, which was quite substantial. The most important thing is that according to information, Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, was not replaced with the Iron City Gate. If you use the 32-pound Karen naval gun to bombard it, you can break the city gate.
No wonder Scotland is a remote countryside in Europe after all, and many popular things will take a long time to spread to Scotland. Moreover, to the south of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, there are large areas of mountainous hills, forming a natural barrier to block the British army. If the southern mountainous areas cannot block the British army, it will not make much sense to replace Edinburgh with an iron gate.
However, the Scots did not expect that Marin actually wanted to attack the Scottish capital by using a large-scale landing war.
If it were normal, Scotland generally stationed thousands of main troops in the capital, but it was not afraid of Marin landing in 10,000 troops. After all, the defending party had a natural advantage in territoriality. But now, most of the main troops in Scotland were captured, leaving only a few crooked men, and most of them had to be sent to the south to defend England. In this way, there must be not many troops left behind in Edinburgh, and their combat effectiveness was limited. Marin suddenly sent 10,000 elite troops to engage in landing wars. It would be strange if the other party could stop it...
The only problem is that the consumption of gunpowder for such large-caliber artillery is extremely amazing. Generally speaking, the consumption of naval gun gun powder and the weight of shells is 1 to 3. In other words, a 32-pound iron ball shell may require about 10 pounds of gunpowder. If 20 volleys are fired, it will consume 200 pounds of gunpowder in one round. If 100 rounds are fired, it will cost 20,000 pounds of gunpowder... However, European saltpeter is so scarce and expensive now... So, heavy artillery can't afford to be shot...
Fortunately, the Karen naval gun is a short-barrel artillery, and the loading weight only requires 1/8 of the weight of the shell, which means that the 32-pound Karen naval gun only requires 4 pounds of charge. The 20 Karen naval guns fired a round of salvo, which consumes only 80 pounds of gunpowder. But this is also a great consumption. It is estimated that it will take more than 100 rounds to break the heavy city gate, which means it will cost more than 8,000 pounds of gunpowder, which is definitely a huge consumption.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content behind! For Marin, the Beihai Kingdom is not short of warships or artillery. The only thing that is lacking is gunpowder (mainly saltpeter).
The army consumes gunpowder lightly. Navy naval guns are the real big gunpowder consumer and are also gold-swalking monsters. Today, the price of gunpowder in Europe is extremely high, reaching a high price of 1 shilling to 2 shillings. Even at the lowest 1 shilling, 8,000 pounds of gunpowder cost 8,000 shillings, worth 1,600 gold coins.
If it were a navy, a ship would have volleyed 20 guns, and a volley of 50 warships would have volleyed 1,000 guns. I would have volleyed 1,000 guns. I would have lost thousands of pounds or even tens of thousands of pounds of gunpowder. If I had a naval battle for one day... few monarchs in Europe could stand up and not go bankrupt...
Saltpeter in India is cheap, but unfortunately after buying it twice, Marin not only bought all the inventory there, but also attracted the attention of Spain and Portugal. Now, these two countries have also begun to buy saltpeter in India. Unfortunately, India's annual supply of saltpeter is only hundreds of tons. Now, it is necessary to supply the North Sea, Spain and Portugal. Therefore, the amount that Marin can buy is definitely not enough to support the North Sea warships to fight.
Of course, saltpeter is enough in India. Now that saltpeter is so easy to sell, Indians will definitely increase their production. But where can Marin afford it?
Therefore, the best way is to find another way.
For Marin, there are two other sources of saltpeter - one was purchased from the Ming Empire, but this is full of uncertainty. After all, who knows if the Ming Dynasty officials will lose their supply one day.
Therefore, the safest source is to develop saltpeter in Chile.
But although there is a lot of saltpeter in Chile, it also has a big trouble - saltpeter is all in the tropical deserts in northern Chile. If you want to mine, you must go deep into the hot and dry tropical desert...
However, Marin's North Sea subjects and England's subjects could hardly adapt to the tropical desert climate. Therefore, this plan was temporarily stranded.
However, when considering going to Senegal to buy rhinoceros leather during this period, Marin suddenly thought that the bearded men in North Africa seemed to be very adapted to the desert climate...
After all, the Arab bearded men in North Africa have always lived in arid and water-deficient desert areas and have long been used to that climate.
So, Marin thought - could he buy a batch of slaves adapted to the tropical desert climate from North Africa and go to Chile to mine saltpeter?
At the same time, Marin also plans to purchase a batch of "Desert Boat" camels from North Africa to transport saltpeter from the depths of the northern Chile desert to coastal ports...
Chapter completed!