Warlord: King of All Clans

Leo is the lord, so he considers the issue from the lord's perspective.

The entire river bay is his base. For Hekou Town, which is currently the main production base, the question is not whether it can be defended or not, but whether it can continue to produce as usual.

If Hekou Town stops production for three months, the development of the entire Hewan Territory will be slowed down by one year.

As for Vichi, Ivan and others, they were only generals of the lord's army. They cared more about the lives of their subordinates. It was obviously the best strategy to defend the city while fighting with two thousand cavalrymen at the foot of the city.

But these people did not speak, because Leo had the unique right to speak, and those who could become the leaders of the River Bay Lord's Army were all Leo's die-hard fans.

Not to mention leading the troops out of the city to fight in the field, even if they were asked to go into battle shirtless, they would do it without hesitation.

However, Leo knew that he was not Zhuge Liang, and it was impossible for all his decisions to be correct, so he always encouraged his subordinates to raise objections.

Everything should be discussed first and then decided upon. Whether it is adopted or not is another matter.

Therefore, the leaders of Hewan have developed the attitude of following orders and refusing to obey them even if they should.

Ivan and Vich, who were in charge of leading the River Bend infantry, were fine. Their heavy infantry were trained to hold the line, no matter where they were.

But Bjorn, who was in charge of the Basaka archers, and Basarov, who was in charge of the giant shield crossbowmen, preferred to defend the city.

A few hundred projectile troops were still not enough to face two thousand cavalry. They could not shoot more than a few arrows at a distance of several hundred meters before being rushed, and they could not play out their long-range advantage.

Standing on the top of the city wall and shooting at the short bows below the city, whether it is a longbow or a powerful crossbow, you can crush the opponent.

So Leo wasn't trying to command them, he was trying to persuade them.

Seeing that the gap between the enemy and us could not resonate with his men, Leo raised his hand and said: "What's more, we have a secret weapon!"

As he raised his hand, the followers beside him opened several wooden boxes and lifted up thick metal cylinders from them.

These metal cylinders are one meter long, made entirely of wrought iron, and are wrapped in circles of iron hoops.

Destroying cannon!

These gun barrels were forged from multiple layers of wrought iron, wrapped in circles of iron hoops, and then poured with a layer of molten copper.

Above the copper water was a circle of dense magic patterns, and a small bright yellow magic crystal was inlaid in it.

This is the largest gun barrel that the Riverbend craftsmen can build. If it is larger, there is a risk of explosion.

Since the establishment of the Riverbend Forge, Leo began planning and researching muskets and artillery. The design ideas and simple drawings were handed over to the Riverbend craftsmen and Fesa, but when they returned after the Orc War, there was no result.

He always thought that with gunpowder and blast furnaces, cannons would be just around the corner.

But this was not the case. When he participated in the research himself, he found that making cannons was not such a simple matter.

Because the molten iron in the river bend is almost useless for casting cannons!

With the current level of pig iron casting in Hewan, the gun barrels produced are all full of honeycombs, sand holes, and various deformations. They are almost impossible to process further, and they always explode like firecrackers.

Twenty cannons of different specifications were cast, and twenty of them were exploded!

An angry Leo could smash the barrel of the gun with a hammer and create a crack.

If you want to cast an iron cannon, you have to wait until the quality of pig iron improves.

As for copper cannons, it goes without saying that the difficulty of casting copper cannons is much lower than that of iron cannons, but without one's own copper mines, they are luxury items.

The casting of bronze cannons was based on national strength.

Even if all the copper coins in the entire river bend were collected and melted, they might not be enough to cast a bronze cannon!

But Leo did not give up and soon changed his mind based on the current situation of the river bend.

If you can't cast, then forge!

He had seen the introduction to the Tiger Crouching Cannon and had some knowledge of forged cannons.

Forged cannons are not as popular as cast cannons, mainly because the cost of forged cannons is much higher than that of cast cannons, and due to technical problems, they cannot be mass-produced.

In ancient times, without sufficient furnace temperature, it was difficult to melt wrought iron into molten iron. The alchemy workshop in the south might be able to do so, but it is currently not possible in the River Bend.

However, using a small hammer to hammer out a little bit at a time can only produce a wrought iron plate of a small thickness, so only small composite gun barrels can be made.

For small field guns, mortars, and even early gun barrels, wrought iron forging has superior performance than pig iron casting.

Even in modern times, with the improvement of metallurgical technology, modern cannons have also begun to use forging technology.

The current situation of the river bend just meets these conditions.

First of all, Hewan has no shortage of iron materials, and secondly, Hewan has no shortage of blacksmiths. These are the two prerequisites for forging cannons.

Moreover, Hewan currently does not need large siege guns or ship guns. It only needs small field guns that can serve as firepower and kill manpower.

The materials for forging cannons are all wrought iron that is hammered out with a lot of manpower. Its performance is far superior to pig iron, but the kobold blacksmiths in the river bay are already hammer kings who are proficient in forging wrought iron.

They do not have the exquisite craftsmanship of human blacksmiths and have almost no room for growth, but at least they can quickly forge the various wrought irons that Leo needs.

Give a kobold blacksmith two extra wheat cakes a day, and he'll work himself to death on the anvil!

So he turned to studying forging gun barrels.

After several months of research, he finally had these five strange-looking gun barrels today.

Although there was no explosion after many tests, for safety reasons, Leo still asked Master Morse to engrave magic patterns on it, relying on magic crystals for energy to improve its stability.

This is already the largest iron cannon that Hewan can forge. The remaining individual artillery such as the "Tiger Crouching Cannon" is also under development.

Unfortunately, the time is still short. If Leo is given another year, he will be able to form an artillery unit.

In three years, he can build a musket unit!

Vichal and Valeri, who often stayed at the river bend, had seen Leo's iron cannon tests several times and had a basic understanding of this thing, but Ivan and Basalov, who had been stationed at the river mouth, could not tell what it was.

Ivan lifted up a cannon that felt like it weighed two hundred pounds, and was obviously not a human weapon. "Ah, this is a weapon for ogres, so powerful! It feels like it can kill a horse with one blow!"

Leo hadn't thought of this and nodded immediately, "That's right, it's very suitable to let the ogre operate it. Even if it runs out of ammunition, it can still swing it and hit people."

Fisa also brought the dog-headed men to the river mouth to support the humans. When she saw Leo's secret weapon, she rushed over and said, "Iron Cannon! It's the Iron Cannon!"

She was even more excited than Leo, "Smart Leo, he invented the iron cannon!"

She is a big fan of guns and cannons. She built the first musket in Hewan, but she was afraid of killing herself by the explosion and never dared to use it.

She has also studied the iron cannon for a long time, but has made no progress.

Leo was very happy and stroked Fraser's head, "You still understand me!"

While petting the dogs, Leo ordered, "Dogs, come on!"

The dog-headed man who was studying the cannon with him lifted the cannon with great effort and placed it on the rack, then began to fill it with gunpowder, iron bullets and cotton wool.

The ammunition for these five cannons was a bag of iron bullets the size of a finger.

The early iron cannon was equivalent to a large shotgun, which was an enhanced version of the musket. Its range, hit rate and other aspects could be ignored.

The ogres following Leo were obviously very skilled at this. The three ogres cooperated with each other and carried out a standard procedure. One ogrell stood on the barrel of the gun, holding a torch and excitedly lit the fuse on the flash port.

"Choke! Choke! The cannons are coming!"

With a roar, the kobold fell off the barrel of the gun, and smoke filled the air.

Two hundred meters in front of the cannon, there were dozens of straw targets standing upright, at least half of which were torn into pieces!

Except for Leo, everyone present was terrified by this scene. The power of this cannon shot was at least equivalent to that of a hundred heavy arrows!

Not to mention flesh and blood, even the armor and shields of heavily armored elite infantry cannot withstand an attack of this magnitude!

If this hits a human, let alone maintaining the formation, it would be a strong army if the survivors did not turn around and run away at the first moment.

"See? With this secret weapon, two thousand cavalrymen are nothing to worry about." Leo declared confidently, "Commendations, follow me to the battle, and let's blow him up with cannons!"

"Yes!" The generals of Hewan answered in unison without hesitation.

Just then, a scout cavalry came over quickly.

"Report! The enemy was defeated by the Kobolds!"