Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 418: The Age of Smokeless Gunpowder
"Woooo ...
With a slight grinding sound that made one's teeth ache, a train stopped at the platform of Madrid Railway Station.
His Royal Highness Rudolf, the Basque Prince of Spain, wore a top hat and a long black trench coat. He walked down from the carriage with an unhappy look on his face, muttering as he walked: "The speed of this train is really too slow, not even as fast as riding a horse. And the riding experience... I am also crazy. Why do a few people have to take a train to go back to Madrid? It's a waste of time."
Complaining quietly to himself, Rudolph and his party slowly walked out of the station under the close protection of a group of guards.
The entire station was bustling with people and extremely noisy. Although Rudolph was walking in the aisle reserved for nobles, both sides of the aisle were crowded with all kinds of people in ragged clothes and pale faces. When seeing the well-dressed Rudolph and others passing by, countless arms stretched out from the railings on both sides of the aisle, and the owners of these arms begged the nobles in the aisle in a very humble tone.
"Your Highness, please leave quickly and don't give them even a little bit of alms, otherwise these poor people will go crazy."
"What's going on? I've only been away from Madrid for over a year, why is it like this now?"
"Your Highness, a lot has happened in the past year or so. The most important thing is that the railway between Madrid and Bilbao has been opened. Countless iron ores and coal were transported from the seaside and became nutrients for the operation of countless factories outside Madrid. These factories certainly need countless workers, but there are always workers who are not selected or are unusable after working for a period of time, so most of them are concentrated here. They make a living by begging or doing odd jobs."
"Plop", during a conversation, Rudolph had already walked out of the platform. His military boots stepped heavily into a puddle, splashing a lot of dirty water.
"Your Highness, please be careful. This train station is currently used for both people and goods. Countless coal is unloaded here every day , and then transported to various factories by horse-drawn carriages. The train is overloaded, so the road surface is naturally easy to deteriorate..."
"Hoo~cough, cough." He looked up at the faintly visible row of chimneys in the distance and the billowing black smoke coming out of them. Then he sniffed the air near the station that seemed to have a distinct smell of coal ash, and with mixed feelings, Rudolf got on the royal carriage that had stopped by.
The Madrid train station is quite a distance away from the Royal Palace. After the royal carriage had traveled smoothly for more than ten kilometers, the blue sky and white clouds reappeared in Rudolf's eyes. Even the smell in the air, which was mainly accompanied by the foul smell of coal smoke, gradually became fresh.
With a series of "bang" sounds, the doors in the palace opened one after another, and Rudolf came to Philip's office unimpeded.
"Ah, our brave and invincible commander is back! Welcome, welcome!" As the last door opened, Philip was already standing in front of his desk. When Rudolf appeared in front of him, he opened his arms warmly and gave him a hug.
There was a slight delay, but Rudolf returned the hug to Philip.
After the greetings were completed, Philip sat back at his desk, asked Rudolph to sit across the table from him, and asked all the secretaries and attendants to leave the office.
"Tell me, my dear Rudolf, what could have made you return to Madrid in person when the situation on the Eastern Front is so tense?"
"Huh~" Although he felt very complicated at the moment and had many things to say, after thinking for a while, Rudolph still felt that he had to talk about business first.
"One bad news and one good news, Philip, which one do you want to hear first?"
"Ha, Rudolph, your sense of humor is becoming more and more obvious. Well, let me tell you the bad news first."
"The bad news is that in the Battle of Lützen last month, the Swedish army deployed 20 Maxim machine guns and wiped out a combat regiment of more than 3,000 of ours in one encounter."
"Hiss~! How could the time traveler Osman have invented a machine gun so quickly? What did he study before he traveled through time? Um, Rudolph, where's the good news?"
"The good news is that I changed our army's tactics in time, changing the dense formation to a skirmish line. After paying a heavy price of more than 5,000 casualties, I snatched five machine gun bullets from the enemy."
"Praise God! Rudolf, this is great! The smokeless powder problem that has held us back for more than a decade is about to be solved! Oh, once this problem is solved, breech-loading rifles, breech-loading cannons, machine guns, etc. can all enter mass production!"
"Yes. Although the Swedes desperately protected their machine guns, when it seemed that the situation was hopeless, the machine gunners simply detonated the explosive packs on their bodies and blew the guns to pieces. However, we don't really care about the guns themselves, we care about the formula of gunpowder. Now, with real bullets as a reference, our scientists should have no problem, right?"
"Of course, no problem! I'll ask someone to invite Professor Galileo over right away. No, I'll go there myself!"
"Before that, Philip, can I ask you a few questions?"
"Hey? Rudolf, what's wrong with you?" After saying this, Philip simply sat back down, and then he leaned back and said, "Please sit down. I see the confusion in your eyes. Let's talk about it in detail."
It was October 1619, a year after the full-scale outbreak of the War of Religion.
At the beginning, whether it was the Czech rebellion against the Holy Roman Emperor, or the war between Protestant princes such as Prvatz and Württemberg and the strong Catholic bastions such as Bavaria, the entire Justice League had one voice: put aside the dispute and try to sit down and talk properly. As for the problem that none of the German princes listened to the call of the Justice League and the fighting could not be stopped at all, the entire Justice League showed great restraint: only calling for a ceasefire and not sending troops to participate.
However, when the Nordic power Sweden, led by Gustav II, intervened in the war in early 1619, the Justice League was not happy.
Of course, from Philip's perspective as a historian, a severely weakened and discredited Holy Roman Empire and a group of German princes exhausted by the war would maximize Spain's interests. Therefore, even if Sweden joined the war, the Justice League would mainly engage in verbal battles and still not intervene militarily.
But to Philip's surprise, Sweden in this life was blessed by the Ottoman time traveler. The Swedish army led by a famous general like Gustav was already far ahead of the German princes in terms of tactical thinking, and now with the blessing of equipment. Therefore, Sweden won three games in just three months after joining the war. The old imperial general Tilly and Wallenstein, who was personally invited by the Holy Roman Emperor, were defeated by Gustav one after another. By June 1619, Gustav's troops were already heading straight for Vienna.
So the Justice League could no longer sit still. Spain sent out 100,000 troops, and the other countries in the alliance sent a total of 50,000 troops. The 150,000-strong army marched into Germany in a mighty force.
Sweden is a country with vast land and sparse population. The Swedish expeditionary force led by Gustav himself only had a little over 20,000 men. Even with the armies of other Protestant princes, it was only 50,000 to 60,000 men. Therefore, when Rudolf led the huge army of the Justice League into German territory, Gustav commanded the army to retreat quickly until the two sides met at the strategic location of Lützen.
In this tragic battle, the Swedes used machine guns, a revolutionary weapon, for the first time. Such weapons did cause great damage to the flintlock soldiers who were marching forward and shooting in dense formations. Fortunately, Rudolf, the time traveler, was leading the army personally. After learning about the battlefield situation, he quickly changed his tactics. After defeating the Swedish and Protestant coalition forces with flintlock soldiers, he also grabbed a few bullets!
With the spread of smokeless gunpowder technology, the world's war situation will undergo tremendous changes!
