When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#148 - Smelling Salts and Morris Squares

"Bang!"

Thirty paces away, the wooden target shook violently, and the flying stone bullets instantly punched a dozen holes of varying sizes in the wooden target.

While the assistant gunner was using a ramrod to return the firing lever to its original position, Victor immediately took a wooden stick-like smelling salt from his waist.

After circling it slightly under his nose, his expression immediately cleared up a bit.

Twisting the spring again, the creaking of gears sounded continuously.

"Bang!"

The target, riddled with holes, broke in the middle and fell directly to the ground.

"How is it?" Hohn asked, with his hands behind his back, standing on the side, impatiently.

Holding the heavy spring-powered gun, Victor picked up the smelling salts that had just been given to him and said with a smile, "Your Majesty, this thing is much better than potions."

This smelling salt form of the refreshing potion was more effective than he thought. Without the process of drinking and waiting for it to take effect, the stimulating smell went straight to his brain.

After smelling the smelling salts, he even felt he could fire another shot.

"Ceci, you did a good job." Hohn looked at Ceci with satisfaction. "You made this solid refreshing potion in three days."

Ceci rubbed his hands, standing in place somewhat unconfidently: "I added devilwood, devilwood tree oil."

"Devilwood tree oil? What is it? How is it made? Would you like to talk about it?"

Speaking of this, Ceci was no longer sleepy and began to explain in detail.

The so-called devilwood tree oil is made by heating devilwood shavings in high-temperature steam.

During this process, the internal fibers will gelatinize. After taking it out, it is mashed into a clay, which can be sieved to extract a semi-solid oily substance.

After Ceci's explanation, Hohn gradually remembered this thing. This kind of tree is more common in the southern mountainous areas, and he had seen it in the Wild Spider Forest before.

Carrie had introduced it to him before.

The ancestors of this tree are said to be the famous Treants from the era of the former Seven Hills Kingdom.

However, later, due to a withering disease epidemic, a large number of Treants became ill and died. Their descendants decided to coexist with the withering disease, so they gradually evolved into what they are now.

To some extent, devilwood is a zombified Treant, except it can't move.

Devilwood got its name because it is dark inside and out and is known as waste.

This kind of devilwood is okay in its early years and can be used for firewood. After a 3-year maturity period, it will quickly turn black.

The quality of devilwood is very poor and cannot be used to make furniture at all. Its brittleness is only slightly better than charcoal, but if you really want to use it for firewood, it has an unspeakable pungent odor.

Most of the time, devilwood is used to make powders to repel termites and woodworms.

According to Sisi, some alchemists also use devilwood shavings as a low-profile catalyst when consumption is downgraded, but it is called dogshit wood because its pungent smell will seriously affect meditation.

"How did you think of using insect repellent medicine as an oral medicine?"

"I originally just used devilwood as a carrier to make topical refreshing ointment, so that I could reduce the volume and make it easy to carry." Ceci scratched his head. "But I didn't expect that this ointment would evaporate quickly when exposed to air. With the idea of not wasting it, I gave it to the Holy Gunners to use, but the feedback was actually stronger than ordinary refreshing potions. It really surprised me..."

Hohn was the one who asked Ceci to research shrinking the refreshing potion. He does have this need at the moment.

Over these days, Hohn has acquired thirty-three Cannity Type I spring guns, one Cannity large-caliber gun, and one Ferdinand Type I spring hand cannon.

This has used up all the orichalcum. His Ferdinand greatbow was melted down and replaced with a more efficient and portable spring hand cannon.

In this way, each brigade in Hohn's current four major legions can be allocated a spring gun.

In normal circumstances, Hohn will still reorganize the Holy Gunners, incorporating them into the Holy Armored Division at a ratio of two to one for melee and ranged soldiers.

For now, the Hussite wagon fort tactics that the Holy Armored Division is learning are the most suitable for Hohn's current situation.

Hiding in armored wagons and using spring guns and flails for defensive counterattacks is very suitable for militiamen with little training.

But this tactic also has drawbacks, that is, it requires a sufficiently flat ground to deploy and enough time for it to deploy.

For Hohn, this tactic is like the Song Dynasty, with poor mobility and inability to pursue and expand the results of the battle.

The biggest drawback of this tactic is that in this world, knights can really break through the wagon fort alone, or even leap over the wagon fort.

Therefore, this tactic can only be used as a transitional tactic, and the classic musket and pike formation must be put on the agenda as soon as possible.

But Hohn doesn't want to use the Spanish Great Tercios right away.

The Spanish Great Tercios require sufficient troops and a lot of training. The formation is relatively rigid and wastes a lot of manpower and firepower.

So Hohn prefers the Maurice formation from the Dutch War of Independence.

During the Dutch War of Independence, because the soldiers were farmers, peddlers, and craftsmen, not professional soldiers.

This led to Prince Maurice often having to lead a group of stinky fish and rotten shrimp who had only been trained for a few weeks to fight against Spain's seasoned soldiers [Flanders Army].

In order to have a good time fighting the Spanish, Prince Maurice came up with this quick version of the musket formation.

Unlike the Spanish Great Tercios, which placed musketeers in the four corners, the Maurice formation placed musketeers on the sides or behind the pike formation.

At the same time, the size of the Great Tercios was reduced, from a square formation to a thinner horizontal formation, strengthening frontal firepower projection through retreating shooting and increasing combat width.

The cost is that the defense is greatly reduced compared to the Great Tercios, especially the protection against flank cavalry charges, which is almost non-existent.

The advantage of the Maurice formation is that the training time cost is lower, the equipment investment is lower, and the tactical means are more flexible.

Compared to the Spanish Great Tercios, which require a long time of training, Hohn thinks it's better to use the Maurice formation for now.

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Recently, a small-scale flu has appeared in the new camp. Hohn has a hunch that another batch of Favored Ones are about to be produced.

After Grampwen's wedding tomorrow, Hohn will have to leave the day after tomorrow. At that time, he will leave the craftsmen who make spring guns in the camp.

Once the war starts, with the old camp soldiers as gunners and the new camp soldiers as pikemen, the Maurice formation is still very advantageous if the opponent is infantry.

But in order to exert the firepower advantage of the Maurice formation, Hohn's spring guns have two major problems.

The first problem is that the weight of the whole gun and the caliber of the barrel are not small, which leads to only being able to fire buckshot, and the kinetic energy of the bullets decays seriously.

This problem should be solved by the duke's blacksmiths, at most it's just a matter of cost. Duke Kush has saved hundreds of years of sealed warehouses, and is not afraid of this.

The second is the problem of firing frequency and number of times.

After a long period of training, all the Holy Gunners have basically pulled the amount of magic power to about two to three shots, but this still does not complete the entire battle.

Moreover, their firing frequency is relatively low. After firing three shots, it often takes one and a half or even two minutes. Hohn is not pursuing a situation where they can shoot from beginning to end, at least they have to finish shooting three shots in one minute.

This is not blindly pursuing a long time.

But now, with the refreshing smelling salts, most of the time, they can finish shooting three shots in one minute. If necessary, they can even switch hands to others and fire three more shots.

It's barely enough to deal with a battle.

Although Ceci, as a pharmacist, doesn't understand why smelling salts are useful, this situation is common in this era.

Since it's useful, then use it for now.

"Okay, Ceci, to reward your contribution, I appoint you as the President of the Papal States Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and your disciple is the first member."

Handing the letter of appointment to Ceci, Ceci took the hemp paper with a confused expression.

"Later, I will bring you a list of goods. Don't spread it around. See which ones on it can be used as medicine, or which ones you are interested in, and write a report for me."

"Understood."

Hohn left the shooting range with a refreshed spirit and walked towards the stables, leading out a short riding horse.

"Jenna, let's go, let's go to the city to get the alchemy goods list."

Calling Jenna and Sisi, Hohn rode on his horse and headed towards Joan of Arc Fort.

Halfway there, Jenna looked into the distance and shouted, "Look quickly."

Raising his head, he saw several faint wisps of black smoke rising from the direction of Joan of Arc Fort behind the small woods not far away.

Hohn frowned slightly.

He heard that yesterday, the rioting citizens surrounded the duke's castle, resisting the issuance of war bonds and tax commissioners, and only dispersed at sunset.

I don't know how the duke handled it, and what the situation is in Joan of Arc Fort today.