I Am Louis XIV

  Chapter 200 A little test

At this time, due to the struggle of the witches, part of the oil paint had peeled off, revealing the real night sky, and the real night sky was no different from what they had seen before. In other words, Bosch's technique was still traditional tempera painting. The technique is to use translucent paint to superimpose layer by layer on the real scene. Behind the broken hole, the faces of dark wizards are revealed. They use brooms and ride nightmares. They are like They looked at the witches like they looked at free goods, their ruthless eyes seemed to have decided how to cut these witches, but they first had to get rid of the burden attached to these precious harvests. A dark wizard just waved his hand, and one of the witches let out a terrified cry. Screaming as the "husband" behind her was thrown without resistance.

As if they had discovered some kind of interesting game, the dark wizards laughed, obviously they could silently throw all the mortals on the ground, but they deliberately pointed their fingers or wands at the witches. They threw the soldiers far away one by one in their heart-piercing screams - in order to escape as quickly as possible, the witches pulled their brooms to a height of 300 feet or even higher, crossing the dark wizards' intentions. The fog and clouds created, not to mention that these soldiers were all injured, even if they are intact mortals, they will inevitably be shattered when they fall from here.

While the black wizards have ended these mortals, they are still busy cleaning up the tears shed by the witches. These tears from the broken hearts, even the mortals have many wonderful uses, not to mention the witches, a When the wizard directed the crystal bottle to fly into his hands, even if there was only moonlight, he could see that the tears in the bottle were not crystal clear, but were filled with impurities. These were not ordinary impurities, but mixed with pain in the tears. The blood, he glanced at it and put it away with satisfaction, took out another empty bottle, and wanted to collect more, but when he looked at the witch, he found that there was a strange smile on her lips, at first He thought she was crazy, but it occurred to him—he didn't seem to hear the last screams of the mortals.

As a dark wizard, this gentleman's reaction can be said to be inflexible. As soon as he pulled his broom, he suddenly rushed out a dozen times, and a flame wiped his boots and flew past, just a little bit - Hood sighed in his heart He raised his hands, chanted a spell, another spell was brewing in his hands, and the dark wizard's spell had already been called back - even the wizards of Gayola Island, it is difficult to compete with these dark wizards. One-on-one confrontation, after all, the situation in Gayola is not at its worst, but since Louis XIV has decided to bring the power of the world to the battlefield, he will not let these wizards continue to be like a pile of loose sand - The wizards in Gayola Island here are trained like soldiers in the army, and they will not face the enemy alone. While the transparent shield thrown by a wizard was shattered in front of Hood's eyes, Another wizard's magic had already hit Hood's opponent and took away one of his arms. The dark wizard was embarrassed and tenaciously controlled the broom to descend. During the descent, he took out a dry monkey paw to press it. On his broken arm, so he could cast spells again.

As soon as he landed on the ground, he realized that these wizards, who didn't know where they came from, were all in groups of three or three, three in a group, three in a pair, they were like an arrow, some charged, some Protection, someone makes up for the knife, once a wizard is left behind in the group, then the other two will cover each other and retreat until a new wizard is replenished - this is unmatched by the dark wizards, although they are facing alone. In the days of any wizard, a powerful force can ensure that they can escape even if they cannot win, but now they have to face an enemy that is several times their own. There is no way to boldly give his back to his companions like Hood, and it is no longer rare for the dark wizards to fight each other. The dark wizards here were even hired by Leopold I. They are even more afraid of each other.

   They know what to do, but that's how many things are, it's not something you can do when you know how to do it.

  The witches watched these newly-appeared wizards fly to them and cast spells to free them from the snare. Before they could say thank you in a hurry, they immediately turned their heads and flew down to find their lover. No wonder the dark wizards didn't hear the shouts. It turned out that countless tangled vines suddenly grew out of the wilderness. Their tough branches and leaves were like elastic cushions, which firmly intercepted the soldiers who fell from the air. , Except for a brief panic, and some unfortunate ghosts broke their hands and feet again, none of them suffered misfortune.

  Hood glanced at the witches who were crying with joy and snorted. In Gayola Island, there are not many wizards who choose mortals as wives and husbands, and these Bohemian witches don't care.

But this is a blessing in disguise. Hood turned his gaze further afield, where the members of the sorceress were still fighting frantically with the dark wizards - like Hood, the wizard wearing the shimmering sun badge on his body They gathered together slowly, just like the dark wizard who encountered Hood. The dark wizards have no professional ethics and contract spirit. Once they found that the situation was not good, they ran faster than anything else, but today , their king did not simply drive them away, even if not all the dark wizards in Flanders, it can be said to be a force that should not be underestimated, if they escaped, no matter what the future Being hired by an enemy, or harboring hatred for the king, would be an inconvenient matter.

Hood and other wizards raised their hands tacitly. They did not completely destroy Bosch's "painting", but even filled up some holes. If the king wants to keep these dark wizards here, then this net can also be turned around to deal with the black wizards. Wizards, as for the ground, there is another part of the wizards of Gayola Island in charge.

  ———

Manit doesn't know that their reinforcements, no, it should be said that the reinforcements of the mortals have arrived. She and the members of the order can be said to be the witches with the most inheritance, but they can only rely on tenacity to face the dark wizards. The will and the courage to disregard life and death fight against them, and the dark wizards believe that it is only a matter of time to get them, and they do not want to be hurt by the last counterattack of the beast - it is just that as time passes, several black wizards headed by Bos. The wizard was still getting impatient. In front of the black magic that rolled over, the members of the order kept falling, and in the end, only Manit was left.

Manit dragged her feet and hid behind a high-backed chair. She was hit with a blight spell, and her entire foot shrank into a dry stump, and it continued to spread upward. She gritted her teeth. , cut off her own foot from the knee, and burned her mouth with flames. The severe pain made her unable to press down even if she chewed the aconite. She watched her blood condense into a small lake on the ground and began to chant. Recite the last mantra.

She didn't notice the relief on the back chair - Saint Magdalene suddenly wriggled, and the long hair that had been used to wipe Jesus' feet protruded from the back of the chair and hung down, like a poisonous snake, suddenly and tightly wrapped around Manit's neck.

   Its strength was so great that it even pulled up Manit, who was lying on the ground. Manet pulled out a knife and wanted to cut it, but she could only cut off a small amount of sawdust with each stroke.

   Bosch did not go over, he waited leisurely, just like every curse, his saints can always bring him a lot of rewards.

   "Did you hear anything?" asked the piper suddenly.

Piper, a very rare dark wizard who is willing to respect some rules, just like although he once took all the children from that city and traded them to other dark wizards, but first of all, also Ask the city to be unwilling to keep its previous promises. His flute can drive flying insects and mice, and he is especially sensitive to the movements of these small creatures. Although almost all the insects and mice have been dispersed or swallowed, he still feels a vague sense of unease.

   "A group of mortals," a dark wizard scoffed, "their generals want to come and fight us."

   The dark wizards laughed in unison. If a team of monks from the Tribunal came, they would have to be vigilant, but what can mortals do? Dark wizards can distort the trajectory of arrows or bullets, disrupt the vision of mortals, change the color and quality of the air, they can make dead things come alive, and they can instantly knock a mortal dead - the one killed by the soldier before. The dark wizard was ruthlessly ridiculed, and they all thought that if it was themselves, they would never have made such a stupid mistake.

   Then they saw an incomparably bright white light.

  ———

The artillery of the seventeenth century was still a front-loading artillery, that is to say, from the gunpowder to the shell, it was loaded from the front of the barrel. The shells were divided into three types, solid stone bullets, solid iron bullets, and hollow shells. There are iron bullets with explosives, but at the end of the 16th century, there was a small number of shotguns. This shotgun is cylindrical, the outer layer is tin or thin iron, and there are round iron pellets inside, which need to be fired. At that time, the gunner had to put the silk powder bag, the wooden cartridge holder and the shotgun first. This shotgun is only used to attack dense queues because of the small power and short range of a single iron shot, but because the artillery is inconvenient to move on the battlefield— Even the most rigid officer would not order the soldiers to stand neatly in the face of the artillery, so the use of shotguns was infrequent.

And with the help of wizards, these six-pounder guns were quickly transported to Waterloo, and those gunners didn't even know that they were going to attack some dark wizards. The king had a certain understanding of the situation in the town, if not the back of his hand. Those dark wizards did not take mortals seriously. For them, the original residents and the women and children of Brussels were a group of trembling rabbits and chickens. Duck, after the witches escaped with the soldiers, and the elders of the witch sect headed by Manit confronted the dark wizards, they kept moving the battlefield, and they were already some distance away from those mortals. If shotguns were used, then the king needed Manet was the only one left behind, but the dead couldn't speak, and even if the witches could summon Manet's soul, she would have nothing to complain to the king.

The last battlefield of the dark wizards and witches is located in the small church in the town. Unlike the stone-built cathedral in people's concept, this small church only uses stone as the foundation, and the walls and ceiling are all built up. It was wooden, and while the people here did the best they could, it fell apart in a split second under the shelling of the cannonball.

  What the dark wizards see is the light from the shotgun bursting in the air, of course. Iron pellets do not emit light. This is the white phosphorus projectile that the king tentatively dropped under the power of the inner world. White phosphorus is a material that is very easy to burn, but it is not easy to maintain its stability. The wizards of La Island have experimented many times before extracting and blending a wax-like medicine from the coal. The white phosphorus is hidden in it, and it will not explode due to contact with oxygen. At the same time, the heat of the speed will melt these "waxes", exposing the white phosphorus inside, so that the white phosphorus will burn, and not only that, the wax will become very viscous after melting. It is a flame that will not go out when the attached thing burns out. This viscous auxiliary material helps the white phosphorus not be easily bounced or brushed away, but is fixed in one place and burns continuously.

  If the white phosphorus falls on the skin, it can be burned until the bone is seen.

Manit was about to give up resisting, the pain of suffocation was unimaginable unless she experienced it personally, but at this moment, her throat suddenly loosened, and she fell to the ground, even if her eyes were black, she could feel a burst of burning eyes of light.

The high-backed chair was placed in the ear room on the side of the altar, and it was supposed to be for those distinguished guests. The hard oak actually withstood the first wave of white phosphorus, and the saint on the relief, Mordella, twisted in pain. Moving and screaming, Manit pressed the last aconite into his mouth and swallowed it, and climbed behind the altar with his hands and feet. Because there was no ceremony, the marble altar was empty and there was no incense boat. There is also no white linen, but it has become the safest place.

She looked out from behind the altar and saw the dark wizard who was always hiding in the crowd, but who made the most insidious shots, his face was "flowing" terribly, and Manit heard someone shouting "Bosch! "And as soon as he waved his hand, that voice went away.

   "Transformation!" Bosch, who found that he couldn't pass the flame, screamed: "Transformation! Rush out!"

  ___

  PS: For some of the notes in the book about industry, warfare techniques, and weapons:

  Because this chapter talks about shotguns, I will popularize them here.

At the end of the 16th century, standard shotguns made of small metal projectiles or metal fragments in the cartridge appeared in Europe. The cartridge was made of tin cans or thin iron sheets. The shotgun is then ignited and the charge is ignited. The shotgun made of metal leather disintegrates after a short distance from the chamber, and the metal projectiles are scattered in the shape of raindrops and bombard the target, which is used to kill the group of people exposed on the ground. Because the shotgun disperses after it pops out of the muzzle, the effective range is relatively short.

Because of the help of the wizards, Louis managed to add white phosphorus to the shotgun to enhance the power of the shotgun, while the general stone bullets and iron bullets can play a role in the city walls and dense formations (they will still be used after they land on the ground). Constantly jumping, especially for cavalry formations, is very lethal). But for wizards, it is only possible to use this special case - requiring the cooperation of some other wizards, compressing their range of activities to a small point, or enticing them to gather together.

   What Louis is testing here is whether the weapons of mortals have enough lethality to wizards, and the last card is the wizard of Gayola Island.

After   , let's talk about revolvers and steam-powered ships.

Of course, in people's impressions, the revolver is the first modern revolver invented by American Mussel Colt in 1836, but the prototype of the revolver first appeared in China, but In a real sense, the single-barreled multi-chambered revolver appeared at the end of the 16th century, and first appeared in 1597, and was not fired with matchlock, but with flint, but this kind of pistol was not easy to make and expensive. , so it has not been popularized on a large scale. Generally, it is customized by nobles. In this article, this kind of revolver has not been popularized in the army. It is only a gift from the king to his close servants and ministers - so it should be not a problem. From the pictures I found, it doesn't look much different from the later revolvers either.

Finally, let's talk about steam-driven ships. Similarly, the most well-known is that Watt improved the first practical steam engine in 1776. As for the use of steam engines on ships, it was Fulton in 1802. (French) built the first steam engine ship, but the concept of steam engine was expressed by ancient Greek scholars in the form of "steam float" as early as the first century AD, and later temple gates also used this kind of thing. Concept, a steam-powered cannon was also envisioned by Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance. It was not until 1679 that the French physicist Denis Barben invented the first working model of the steam engine, which was the first time that the idea of ​​steam power technology was put into practice. In 1695, British engineer Seville built several steam pumps for pumping water. This is the first time that steam technology has been used in production. After that, Newcomen and others continued to develop steam engines, and finally in 1705, they trial-produced the first steam engine that could be used as power. This steam engine is called 'Newcomen steam engine'. Drainage equipment for coal mining and mining.

So here Louis XIV just advanced the practical work of steam equipment by 20 or 30 years. With the help of wizards, the sealing and durability of steam-driven equipment can be guaranteed, so it is not impossible for steam engines to appear in advance. Moreover, Up to now, the thirty Calais ships are still secretly refitted and experimented, and none of them have left the dock...

   (end of this chapter)