Maoyuu Maou Yuusha Vol 4 CH Extras

VOLUME 4 MAPS AND EXPLANATIONS

Volume 4 Maps and Explanations

 

——– The Third Crusade, the First Battle of the City of the Gate

The 43rd Demon King, Ruby Eyes, has seen many victories on the battlefield, but has naturally seen many defeats as well. Among these, the greatest defeat would be the First Siege of the City of the Gate during the Third Crusade. In the war between quality and quant.i.ty, quant.i.ty was the one which one this particular battle.

The Demon Race, or at least those members of the Demon Race which took to the battlefield each had martial ability far exceeding that of the average Human. In a battle of equal numbers between Demons and Humans, there would be no possibility for the Demons to be defeated.

In response, the strength of the Humans lay in their numbers. The Human Race, who each had many children, had a population far exceeding that of the Demon Race. The Southern Kingdoms alone had a population rivalling that of the entire Demon World. With the addition of the Central Continent, the Human World outnumbered the Demon World ten to one.

The Humans, with the Central Continent based about the Holy Empire committed almost their entire army to the establishment of the Third Crusades. For the paranoid kingdoms of the Continent to fight alongside each other and form a grand army like the Crusades relied on solid foundation of faith and the authority of the Holy Church. Ensuring the security of their countries while their entire armies were on the expedition demonstrated the success of the mutual supervision system which was built.

Bishops from the Holy Church as well as armistice-observing military officers from each of the other countries were sent to every country in order to observe and ensure that each country maintained the lowest numbers of soldiers necessary for training and the preservation of peace.

In response to this, the Central Continent kept its military strength at its lowest, directing the majority of its strength against the Demon Race to achieve victory.

The concept of operations was as follows:

Start of the Battle

The campaign began when the garrison in the City of the Gate sallied out to engage the Vanguard forces of the Holy Crusaders. The Vanguard itself was a far larger force than the Holy Crusaders, and being armed with powerful muskets, they were able to suppress the Demon Army.

 

Middle of the Battle

At this point, the Fiend cavalry levelled their spears and broke off from the main force to engage the Vanguard on its flanks in order to throw the vanguard into chaos. Within this chaos, the Human Army was unable to use its muskets, allowing the Demon Army to preserve as much of its strength as possible.

However, the commander of the Crusaders, the Ash Green King was able to read the intentions of the Demon Army. In response to the manoeuvre, he used an overwhelmingly large force to blunt the blow.

The Fiend cavalry employed illusionary magic in order to obscure their positions and make it difficult for the Human musketeers to aim at them. However, to begin with, Crusader muskeeters were never trained to fire with accuracy. The most they could accomplish was to fire in a general direction.

To solve this issue, the Crusaders employed ma.s.sive numbers of muskets firing in a general direction. The musketeers focussed on firing in the direction of the cavalry, and naturally, most of them missed. However, aggregating all of this low accuracy fire meant that at least one shot would it. Even if only one in one hundred shots. .h.i.t their targets, with ten thousand muskets, that meant that hundred casualties would be sustained per volley. With less than 1,000 cavalrymen, the Fiend cavalry found their forces gradually attritted volley by volley.

For this reason, the Demon Army’s strategy failed and the Vanguard was able to maintain order and stand up to the Demon Army. Moreover, with the addition of cannon fire from the Crusader Grand Army, the Demon Army was thrown into chaos. At this point, it appeared that the utter annihilation of the Demon Army was just a matter of time.

End of the Battle

The final twist to the battle was the sudden attack from the rear of the Crusader Army by the combined armies of the Tribes of Beasts and the Tribe of the Gate.

In order to avoid musketfire, they forced themselves into the opening between the Right Wing and the Grand Army of the Crusader Army. In order to avoid shooting their compatriots, the musketeers were unable to direct their fire at the combined army. Left with no choice, the Hundred Paladins rode to intercept the enemy.

By employing even this limited level of disorder among the Demon Army, the Demon King was able to regroup the shattered Demon Army and retreat towards the City of the Gate. However, losses were great, and the Khan of Beasts, the Silver Tiger Lord, was sacrificed in this battle.

From a fragment of historical records in a forgotten library

 

———– The New Star Fortifications

With the appearance of muskets and cannons on the battlefield, fortification construction theory experienced a radical change. The specific introduction of cannons able to deliver great volumes of high-impact artillery fire necessitated a fundamental s.h.i.+ft in the concept of fortified defence.

In response to this new weapon, a new fortification in the form of the Star Fort was developed. The Goryōkaku in Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido to the north of j.a.pan is great example of such fortifications. (Scribe annotations: Hakodate, Hokkaido and j.a.pan are not places which exist in the entire Continent. Goryokaku is also no fortification known to anybody in either the Demon or Human World. Since this was all written by the Crimson Scholar, perhaps she mixed up the names with some other place.)

Of course, even before this, similar weapons have continued to exist. The musket had its counterpart in the bow and crossbow, while the cannon had its counterpart in the catapult.

However, the catapult was substantially larger and less mobile. Moreover, compared to explosively discharging metal blocks at high velocities, catapults were substantially slower and hence had less destructive power. In this manner, the erection of walls served a distinct purpose.

However, with the introduction of cannons, the old curtain wall, a straight vertical wall, was simply unable to withstand any sort of protracted bombardment. This was proven true in many engagements.

As such, walls were built to withstand cannonfire without crumbling, by making them lower and thicker. At this point, rather than walls, the fortifications were designed primarily to absorb and deflect the impact of the cannons.

Such low-height walls were also useful against musket fire.

While bows were capable of direct fire (firing in a straight line towards the enemy), they were primarily designed for indirect fire (firing in an arc towards the enemy).

As a result, using indirect fire, archers were able to pick off enemies hiding within fortifications. Of course, in response to that, soldiers learnt to put s.h.i.+elds above their heads to block arrows.

In contrast, muskets fired exclusively straight.

Older fortifications relied on pus.h.i.+ng down siege ladders erected on walls to prevent enemy soldiers from climbing in, on dropping rubble and large stones and on pouring scalding water on enemies below.

However, the newer fortifications relied on standing on thin boards (which resulted in them being unable to move freely) and firing with muskets on enemies in safety while enemies were unable to fire back.

Constructing this sort of fortification required a higher level of engineering and architectural skill. The square forts which had been constructed up to now were gradually replaced by star forts. Compared to square forts, longer lines of walls needed to be constructed, which represented increased costs and time required. However, despite the cost, star forts offered many advantages.

The old style forts used to shortest distance of walls to cover the area, and if necessary, could be constructed to have several corners to increase the length. However, the walls were overwhelmingly straight, and would absorb the brunt of cannon fire, leading to them absorbing great damage with each shot.

The new fortifications were constructed with sloping walls, such that even while surrounded by cannon emplacements, they would suffer significantly less damage. In addition, as the different walls of the star fort faced each other, defensive fire from the defenders would form overlapping fields and hence result in the greatest damage on attackers attempting to siege the walls from the front.

In other words, attackers faced the troubling dilemma of deciding between a strategy which yielded minimum damage and a strategy which would result in maximum casualties for the attacker.

The very first Star Fortification constructed in history was the defences of the City of the Gate. This star fortification proved to be instrumental in the Second Battle of the City of the Gate, or the Siege of the City of the Gate, and was later greatly expanded. Without the star fort, the walls of the City of the Gate would have fallen almost immediately and would immediately have been occupied by large hordes of Holy Crusaders.

However, the chief architect and engineer of the star fortifications argued, “Even though the low-height fortifications were my idea; however, the star shape was created by simply reconstructing the old fortifications which previously existed in the City of the Gate. They were not my invention.”

To think that the City of the Gate, a city so ancient that no written records exist of its history, once had a genius capable of designing such defensive infrastructure. This is a mystery of history which persists even to this day.

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