Steel, Guns, and the Industrial Party in Another World-Chapter 732: Formal Intervention
TL: Rui88
Many times, the development of events is unexpected, from the fate of a single person to the great changes of history.
Just when Fort Ness had fallen into its most desperate moment, when the residents of the city had either resolved to fight to the death or planned to live on as slaves, it was as if the prayers of the people in the church had finally been heard by the Lord of Light. The old man reached down a great hand from the heavens and slapped the enemy that was about to bring them to ruin into a daze.
Scouts sent out from the city confirmed that the Crusader Army had retreated and that there were no traps nearby. Everyone in the city fell into an uncontrollable revelry.
The residents who had previously been cowering in their houses poured out, filling the streets and alleys, embracing and kissing each other, singing and dancing.
The commoners at the bottom were overjoyed, but after a brief moment of joy, the higher-ups had to face the harsh reality once more.
Although the enemy had temporarily retreated, Fort Ness was like a long-ailing patient, lacking the strength to press their advantage. There was an element of luck in this victory. Now, their armed forces were in such a precarious state that they could barely protect the city, let alone fight far from it.
The enemy below the city walls was gone, but the surrounding areas were still under the control of the Church’s army. The Horn Bay Alliance had only gained a moment of respite when the noose was at its tightest.
How were they to seize this chance to breathe?
The Council continued to gather intelligence and learned that the Crusader Army was reorganizing its troops. With the vast support of the Holy See, they would soon recover to their previous state and make a comeback.
The Horn Bay Church and the Holy See behind it were too massive. One or two setbacks were not enough to thwart their determination to eliminate the heretics.
Sometimes, when a glimmer of hope appears but is not seized, it is more painful than having no hope at all.
At this moment, Lion’s Port sent people.
The envoy congratulated the Horn Bay Alliance on escaping the crisis of annihilation, but the matter he proposed next sent the entire Council into an uproar—a civic group from Lion’s Port was willing to raise a military force to assist the Horn Bay Alliance in resisting the Church.
It was practically a pie falling from the sky—because they had been besieged, the people in Fort Ness did not know about the recent series of events that had occurred between the Crusader Army and Lion’s Port.
Fort Ness tacitly refrained from asking about Marquis Paul Grayman himself and formed a covenant with the so-called civic group from Lion’s Port.
Although the Church’s army had retreated, their navy was still squatting outside the port of Fort Ness. The primary task was to break this blockade and restore the Horn Bay Alliance’s sea lanes to the outside world.
The day after the covenant was made, the Horn Bay Alliance Navy, which had been hiding in the port all this time, launched an attack on the Crusader fleet.
Since the Alliance Navy was far from what it had been in its heyday, the commander of the Church’s navy was first puzzled by the opponent’s suicidal act, then gladly accepted what he saw as an overconfident challenge.
The idiots on land had suffered a setback, so it was up to the navy to regain face. The commander prepared to add a glorious stroke to his military career.
The navies of the Horn Bay Alliance and the Church were still equipped with galleys, using combat methods passed down since ancient times: ballista fire, ramming, grappling hooks, and finally, boarding for hand-to-hand combat.
Just as the two sides were locked in a fierce and inseparable battle, the Alda Navy bore down on them from upwind.
Although the sailors below were fighting intensely, the high commands of both fleets still had the leisure to observe the Alda fleet. Neither the Horn Bay Alliance Navy nor the Church’s navy had any experience fighting against the Alda Navy.
Sailing ships were no longer unfamiliar to the people of Horn Bay, but the neat formation of the fleet as it sailed was still impressive, especially the colossal ship in the queue that was like a castle, inspiring awe in all who saw it.
The Alda fleet sailed toward the battlefield in a single-file column.
The commander of the Church’s navy felt a flicker of unease. He instinctively felt that the newcomers did not come in peace, so he immediately issued an order, dispatching a portion of his ships to prepare for a response.
The sudden appearance of the fleet and the abruptly issued orders caused a certain degree of chaos in the Church’s navy.
The Alliance Navy, however, knew that the people of Ordo had come to help them fight. They could continue the battle without distraction, and their morale soared because Lion’s Port had honored its agreement to come to their aid.
The cannons mounted on the Alda warships far surpassed the ballistae on the Church’s warships in both range and accuracy, allowing them to easily attack first from a place the enemy could not reach.
They opened fire. In an instant, huge plumes of smoke billowed from the Alda fleet, flickering with the light of flames.
Amidst wave after wave of tremendous roars, high-speed cannonballs smashed through the hulls of the Church’s warships. The shot and flying wood splinters mercilessly reaped the lives of the sailors.
The Alda fleet was actually serious. The Church fleet fell into even greater chaos and was forced to divert more ships to deal with the new enemy.
Although galleys were more maneuverable in smaller bodies of water, the Alda fleet had its own well-developed experience in dealing with such vessels.
First, they used their range advantage to inflict heavy casualties on the rowers. The simple sails of the galleys, which served only as auxiliary power, could not support normal navigation, leaving them at the mercy of others.
The Alda Navy performed at its usual training level. Under the command of the flagship Sea Fortress, the ships advanced in an orderly fashion, one after another, with each warship firing in volleys, broadsides, or in batches under a unified command.
The roar of the cannons merged into a soaring sonata of death, creating a tremendous shock for the residents of Fort Ness who had bravely gathered at the port to watch the battle.
For a long time, the Horn Bay Alliance, as the foremost power in Horn Bay, had taken pride in its maritime strength. Although the navy had fallen behind in the war against the Church, it was not because the navy itself was incompetent, but because coastal cities had fallen into enemy hands one after another, weakening the navy as it lost its sources of replenishment.
But now, it seemed a more powerful force had risen on the sea.
This fierce naval battle continued until the afternoon, finally ending with the defeat and surrender of the Church’s fleet.
“Things are progressing better than expected! With the sea lanes open, the Alliance should be able to recover somewhat. I hope they still have gold coins in their treasury.”
When the news reached Hydra, the capital of the Duchy of Eton, Mariana, who had returned to Horn Bay once again, breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank the gods!” Duke Ettiot Cabre laughed heartily. “If the southern front had completely fallen, things would have become a mess here too.”
“Don’t celebrate too soon,” Mariana reminded him. “Although Edwin Cook is gone, there is still Webster in the south. The Church’s initial victories were brought about by him. Also, Jars’s army has entered Horn Bay, and Eton is the first to bear the brunt.”
“You are right, we must not let our guard down.” The Duke’s expression turned serious again.
“Teacher, was the chaos in the Church’s army outside Fort Ness related to you?” Helen asked in a low voice.
Half a month ago, just as she and her husband were worrying about the impending fall of their southern allies, Mariana had suddenly appeared in Hydra.
During their conversation, her optimistic attitude about the situation had puzzled Helen, but a few days later, news came that the Crusader Army had suffered a camp riot and then retreated.
Mariana blinked her eyes somewhat playfully. “That was already a big pot of boiling oil, and I just flicked a little spark into it. Or you could say… a catalyst. Pretty clever, right? It’s a new term I learned in Northwest Bay!”
Despite the relaxed demeanor she displayed, the red-haired lady’s heart was filled with mixed feelings. Her son, Paul, had just fought a war with the orcs in the north, and now he was directly confronting the power of the Holy See in Horn Bay.
A person with an enterprising spirit would always face all sorts of problems. This was growth.
For a moment, Mariana did not know whether to be happy or worried. The power of the Holy See was far greater than that of the orcs.
But her optimistic outlook was stronger. The Holy See’s influence spread across the continent, supported by churches everywhere. But just like the relationship between a liege lord and his vassals in a secular power structure, even a king could not command the subjects who had sworn fealty to him as he pleased, let alone the Holy See and the local churches, whose relationship of dependence was flimsier and whose control was more fragile.
Horn Bay was the starting point for the Holy See’s fall from its divine pedestal, but it was not the end. A greater blow to it was about to occur in the Gabella Empire.
