Derek was having a headache, he didn’t know what had happened to the knights when the cannons started going off, he was conflicted, on the one hand, he wanted to get rid of a lot of people who weren’t in his faction, but he didn’t want to do it at the cost of the battle.

He heard another round of cannons go off from the north, and another round go off from the south. They were preventing him from thinking straight. “Damn it. Scout, go check what happened to the knights that charged.” He shouted at the scout who was a supporter of Harrold.

At this point he heard a few popping sounds from the north, it was quieter than the cannons but had the same type of sound. “God damn it, is this another weapon they have.”

Another scout ran over from the south, “Sire, men are fleeing the battle,”

“Are they running to the palisades or off into the distance?”

“Most are running to the palisades, only a few continued.”

It was expected that some would desert after a loss, but as long as the majority remained that was good.

It was 15 minutes before the Scout under Harrold came back. “Sire, the knights are in dire trouble and that coward Corinth refuses to help.”

“He is following my orders; did I give the orders for the knights to charge?”

“No, but Harrold was in command of the north,”

“I placed Corinth in charge of the North, are you challenging my authority!” Derek shouted at the scout.

The scout went pale, “The family won’t tolerate this,” he said and rode away,

“Are you just going to allow that scout to run away?” his advisor asked.

“I don’t give a shit about him,” Derek Swiped the table objects onto the floor in anger, “The only help the family has given me is useless ‘know it all’ commanders who only know how to give the enemy easy wins.

“Have you seen the casualties from those weapons? My cousin has enchanted armour, arguably a low level, when we sent a couple of scouts to look for his arm and leg, they came back with nothing. The smell of puke is masking the smell of blood. People are waking up screaming in the night, and we have an uncountable amount of casualties that we have had to put to ‘sleep’ as we don’t have any treatment for them.” Derek ranted.

Some of the ‘know it all’ commanders were in the room, and based on the performance so far, they could do nothing but try and make themselves invisible.

At this time another scout came from the south, “Report,”

*Sigh* "go”

“The troops are in full retreat; we have lost the battle in the south today.”

Derek just had a long breath,

A scout came from the north and reported that the infantry was starting to fall back.

“How many knights did they capture.”

“None, yet sire,”

“None, then how many made it back.” Derek could presume that a good 30-40 knights had died and maybe some Barons and Counts too.

“Erm, less than 200 knights, mostly knight rank.”

“Only 2 hundred, how many knights went in.”

“600 milord, with at least 150 Barons and Counts, as well as Earl Harrold.”

“What, 600 went with that fucker! And not even 1/3 came back, are they dead, what about Earl Harrold.” The room was a shock. Derek felt like he lost his mind. “Dam, dam, damn it.” He smashed his hands on the table, destroying it.

This time a scout from the south came in. “Report.”

“Go”, Derek said absent-mindedly.

“Our troops are in an outright rout.”

“What?” this snapped the attention of Derek. “What do you mean, are they not safe at the palisades?”

“No sire, those weapons are bombarding the palisades, some of the projectiles have landed 500 or so meters behind the palisades, we did not build them to deal with this weapon.”

“Shit, shit, shit, Scout, go to Corinth and tell him to bring his unit of horses to me. And any other men he can round up.”

As soon as that scout left, another came from the North, “Sire, our forces are retreating,”

Another round of cannons went off, but this time, Derek heard the thuds being a lot closer.

He looked around to see, pillars of dirt flaring up near the front of the main camp.

“We are retreating to Escroquer. Scouts, inform any stragglers and Corinth about it.”

___

It took Derek a day to get back to Oxford, and 2 more hours for Corinth to reach him, throughout the rest of the day, more and more soldiers trickled in.

“Damn it, damn it,” Derek was pacing in the office. They had to get a rough table quickly built as there was nothing in the castle. “Any news on Harrold?”

“He was in the centre, where they were targeting first,” Corinth said. “That space was cleared out by the third round, but I couldn’t tell you if his Enchanted armour held up”

“What’s the plan now?”

“The family is gambling a lot on this princedom, you may be able to get reinforcements, but the family will send someone to try and replace you.” One of his cousins spoke up.

“And I get the blame for this shit as well. They would just be making the same mistake over again.”

“Yes, although it depends how you word it,”

“How I word it, ‘dear Grandfather, I failed this battle, I need more men, can you not send anymore useless ‘commanders’ who can’t listen to orders.’ Is that what I’m supposed to say?”

“More or less, yes, talk about the new weapon, but exaggerate the details.”

“Exaggerate, we lost half the army to a new weapon, most of the nobility are dead or wounded with life-altering injuries, 1/6 of the army is unaccounted for, 1/6 of the army is injured, I’m surrounded by the smell of puke, and woken up every night by people screaming in their dreams. And you want me to exaggerate on top of that. I have 1500 men in fighting condition, and an extra 300 injured men who can just about hold a spear.”

___

“What are our losses?” Fred asked.

“We lost a little over 400 men,” Thomas said.

“Is that all?” Fred asked. He thought he would lose a lot more than that.

“Yes, thanks to the cannons and the heavy armour, we managed to keep the losses to a minimum.”

“Sent the Lost’s next of kin a stamped letter, allowing them to continue collecting their wages for 10 years.”

“That’s a lot, it’s usually 1-year severance paid in full,” Daniel responded.

“First of all, they are my men, and their family are my people, second, I heard rumours about families being robbed of their severance pay from the excursions into the elven lands. Least we can protect most of the money for them.”

“Ok, ok,” George tried to redirect the conversation, “the issue now is, what is our next plan of action.”

“First off, we send a small party of scouts to check if the enemy had settled down in Oxford,” Fred commented.

“We should take back Summerset too, with the end of the siege it would be good to start reopening production there, as well, we don’t want some deserters taking up residency and becoming a warlord.” Baron Henry said

“Yes, give Thomas 400 infantry to take back Summerset, then we will use the cavalry to hunt down any deserters in the countryside, we don’t want them turning to banditry, especially in our own territory,” Mendes added.

“Alright, the remaining infantry will prepare for our moving out. Also, try and recruit 200 infantry, it would give them a good learning experience in the next battle, they can learn on the job.” Fred said.

“Understood.” They all agreed.

There was a lot to do, however, Fred wanted to check on the progress of the ships, right now 3 early frigates were sitting in port as well as the two patrol boats they had in the first place, they are going to start being strapped for Manpower soon.

Before he went to the dockyards, he visited his mother. “Mom, do you have any idea how we can start growing our population?”

“Well, your tax break sure is helping, only the battle has slowed it down, once we have the 4 towns up and running, our population will improve.” Isabella listed a few policies that were already in place.

“Could we give a reward incentive to those who have a child in the next few years or something?”

“Well, it should recover quite well, plus, the mainland is overcrowded, the family wants to send families over here if you give them benefits for moving, they will come.”

“Ok, let’s try that.”

___

Once Fred was finished with that, he moved over to the dockyard.

“How’re the ships coming along?” Fred asked the director.

“Great, we have 5 of the lightships ready, although we only have enough cannons for one more.”

“What about the heavy ships?”

“They are taking some time, should be ready by summer, but as I say, the cannons won’t be enough,”

“I know, Cannons are needed everywhere at the moment, and we stopped the copper supply for a while. We are going to start reopening it in the coming months,” Fred reassured him.

Copper Shortages were becoming a problem, they had closed off the mine last September, but a lot of his projects needed cannons, he would have to start working on multiple solutions, as well, sourcing more Copper mines.

He went over to the admiral, “how is the training coming along.”

“Well, we’ve had the Morin and the Raycn for over 2 weeks now, the sailors are a little rough on them, but we only just got Marick yesterday.”

“I see, are they seaworthy.”

“Well, the ships are, but we have just recruited over 300 sailors for these ships, Including reservists, and head office administration as well.”

“I see, tell you what, I need you and the captains, or in fact, all the staff officers to start writing down their experiences, these types of ships are brand new, and the more we can learn from each other the faster we can get comfortable with them. I also want to open a cadet school, who will use these notes.”

“I understand, that would be great.”

“Also, the ships may be called into action within a month,”

“A month?” the admiral exclaimed, “you’re killing me here,”

“Fingers crossed, it’s just a show of forces, you may need to sink one or two vessels, but hopefully it won’t result in a full-on battle.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Also, in case we need to put on a performance, try and put more of your skilled men on 2 ships, hopefully, we can fool the enemy to think their performance is standard,” Fred asked.

“Will do, sire.”

___

Fred returned to the fort, each of the command staff had their own preparations to do.

“Any news?” Fred asked when they all met up after their preparations.

“The scouts have confirmed our speculation, the enemy is currently in Oxford,” George explained. “They have pointed out that there is a high traffic of messengers going from their main town’s both east and south,”

“The south, is that south port?” Fred asked.

“Yes. We believe they are asking for reinforcements, whether from the local garrison or the mainland we cannot confirm.” George iterated.

“Are we ready to move out on our end?” Daniel asked.

“I am ready to move to Summerset,” Thomas answered.

“We need to reopen that mine, we are running low on cannons, if they start breaking, we have no replacements from the arsenal until we get a source of copper,” Fred said.

“We buried the mine, wont it take a while to reopen,” Mendes asked.

“We can use the dynamite, as we planned,” George answered.

“What about flooding, the mine was already positioned quite low, and it was starting to flood before we sealed it?” Thomas asked.

“We can give you a couple of steam engines, and some mine carts, the north mountain started using them at the start of the year.” Fred offered.

“We already have mine carts,” Thomas asked in confusion.

“The steam engine can pull the mine carts out of the mine as well as the water,” Fred explained.

“Wow, I see,” Thomas answered.

“But are we not giving the enemy more time?” Henry asked.

“Yes and no, we aren’t ready for our push. It would be better to re-establish a firm footing before we push.” Fred answered.

“Even if they gather reinforcements, they will try and force us to siege them in oxford, with those… dynamites, in place, it should give them a nasty surprise, and allow us to sap even more of their forces,” Daniel said,

“Daniel’s right, we are technically losing the war as he has taken two towns and we have taken nothing,” Thomas commented.

“Can we call over any archers who specialise in hunting from the mainland?”

“Rangers?” Henry asked.

“Is that what you call them?” Fred thought they were called that as well but wasn’t sure if it was a modern term from his old world. “Yes”, about 250 if you can.”

“It might be doable, why do you need them?” Henry asked.

“I want them to act as skirmishers separate from the army, hopefully, to harass the enemy messengers and supplies. As well as to help train some of my men in forestry and hunting skills.”

“I see,” Henry didn’t quite understand it, but he could entertain the kid for now and see his plan in action. “I will contact the mainland with the request. The report of the battle will be sent over by ship tonight, so I’ll send the request with it.”

“Great.” Fred was happy about this. “Who’s going after the runaways in the countryside?”

“I’ll go,” George offered.

___

They saw Thomas and George off as they went towards the south, George will be sweeping the east of Thomas as they travel, and then when they march on Oxford they will sweep the north, the north wasn’t that big of an issue, there was a river and three forts, filtering the runaways east.

It took two weeks for them to prepare, the mainland had sent over 100 rangers for now and could send more within the month, this was good for now.

Miners had been escorted back to Summerset so they can reopen the mine, as well as a few hundred labourers to open up the fishing port, allowing the ore to be transported via the river.

They were now back at the meeting,

“We have news from the scouts that a few cities have started sending out reinforcements towards oxford, mainly from the two port-towns in the south, it looks like they were garrison forces,” Dominic explained. “Further news on the mainland suggests a build-up of forces of about 4000-6000 troops, and many ships have been docked by the three main ports along the north coast,”