Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Once these words were spoken, the cannon shelter fell into a brief silence.

After a little while, Winters murmured to himself, "But we've survived the big battles, dying in a place like this now is just too worthless."

Hearing this, Mason sighed.

No matter how much preparation or firepower was mobilized, Maple Fort remained the home base that the New Reclamation Legion had spent twenty years building, still the strongest fortress in the Newly Reclaimed Land.

Even if it was on the brink of collapse, toppling it without shedding blood was impossible.

"My soldiers." Winters said to his senior, "Anyone who dies here, I'd be heartbroken."

Hearing this, Mason sighed again.

After a moment of silence, Mason looked troubled at the immense and battered entity still standing before them: "Why haven't they surrendered yet?"

...

Meanwhile, inside Maple Fort, the unfortunate Major Alder Felter was also deep in self-doubt: "Could it be that I'm just too formidable?"

Staring at the flickering candle flames on the square table, Major Felter silently screamed, "Why haven't they come to ask me to surrender?!"

If there's anyone who has made more progress than the United Provinces artillerymen during this month-long siege, it's certainly Major Alder Felter.

All the education, training, and cultivation the major had received in his life, all the knowledge, skills, and techniques he'd learned, and even the intellect, physique, and virtues given by his parents seemed to have been prepared in advance for this siege.

When the rebels broke a gap in the triangular fort, he erected a fence overnight to seal it.

When the rebels smashed the shelters on the city walls, he organized teams to quickly make soil baskets for repairs.

When the parapets were repaired and damaged again, he switched to digging Armament Caves on the reverse slopes, tenaciously maintaining troops on the battlements.

When his subordinates' morale was low, he ate and lived with the soldiers, personally weaving baskets and digging dirt, wielding a shovel to work.

When his subordinates feared climbing the battlements, he dressed fully in gear and inspected every part of the lines daily.

In this near-dismembering siege, Major Alder Felter maintained the most basic morale of his subordinates, preventing them from completely collapsing. He also maintained the most basic discipline among his men, preventing them from tying him up and surrendering.

In such difficult circumstances, achieving such a remarkable feat, even Major Felter himself couldn't help but want to cry for himself whenever he thought of it.

To the extent that Major Felter sometimes couldn't help but ask himself: "Is it really because I'm too brilliant? So much so that the rebels dare not launch a full attack? Or... are they deliberately... holding back?"

Every time such thoughts arose, Major Felter would give himself a slap, ordering himself to dismiss such nonsense.

He forced himself to believe: the reason the rebels dared not launch close-quarters assaults wasn't that they deliberately refrained from doing so, but that his various efforts made them wary of attacking rashly.

It's not that Alder Felter was too foolish to see the situation, but because without the reminder of those slaps, the major might collapse sooner than his own subordinates.

So he chose to believe the "reality" he was willing to accept.

To be fair, although the design of Maple Fort was a bit outdated, it didn't hinder its ability to pose significant challenges to the enemy. Even in the eyes of the United Provinces officers, it was a fortress not easily shaken.

Maple Fort didn't lack armaments, ammunition, or food. If there were 500 competent soldiers under his command, the enemy wouldn't even think of touching the internal walls of Maple Fort without triple the casualties. If the enemy surrounded without assaulting, Maple Fort could hold out indefinitely.

Unfortunately, Felter only had about 500 of the old, weak, sick, and disabled.

This idea of inflicting triple casualties on the enemy was out of the question, much less talk of "holding out indefinitely."

Everyone could figure out the fort was definitely untenable, either surrender or die, and without a compelling reason, anyone would choose to surrender.

Therefore, Alder Felter's primary challenge was how to maintain the morale of this ragtag group and prevent them from collapsing—most crucially, prevent them from "collapsing prematurely."

Whenever there was a chance, Major Felter would instill in his subordinates the idea that "it's better to surrender later than sooner, and passive surrender is better than surrendering at someone's persuasion."

In a sense, Major Felter wasn't lying.

According to Paratu people's customs, the victors had absolute power over the defeated, able to execute, sell, and enslave prisoners at will.

However, the instances of execution and selling only happened in wars against the Herders nowadays.

It must be said, the establishment of the republican system profoundly changed this land.

In the past, "Paratu people" was just a loose concept; their wars were conflicts between lords and lords, massacres between rulers and rebels—killing prisoners was killing enemies, so Paratu people never hesitated.

However, when the imperial system drew to an end and the notion of a "country belonging to all" was widely spread and accepted, killing prisoners turned from killing enemies to killing compatriots, which was no longer acceptable by public morals.

But although the republican system changed the Paratu people, the change has been minimal so far.

Even though the Paratu people now view killing compatriots as immoral, they felt no guilt extracting ransom and enforcing labor from "defeated compatriots."