Early the next morning, Prince Alexei, accompanied by a group of generals and Ivan hilko, walked out of the camp.

From the position of the camp, he could see the full shape of konotopu fort.

Konotopu fort is in the shape of a low strip, just like a lieba. The castle is arranged in a four-star shape, with two sharp corners facing your side. A position is being established. In front of the castle facing the enemy, there is a trench five meters wide and five meters deep. There are towers in the South and East. It stands high above the whole castle, just like the spire of the Orthodox Church.

What attracts people\'s attention is the hastily built triangular fort. It is outside the castle and connected with the castle by a bridge. If attacked by the enemy\'s flank, the outer fort can play a certain protective role.

"What facilities are there in the city?" Alexei asked Ivan hilko.

Ivan hilko recalled and replied, "Your Highness, there is a square in the center of the castle. In front of the square is a bunker, a reservoir and a orthodox chapel."

Prince Alexei nodded.

He turned to a messenger and said, "go and call Raphael."

Right away, perhaps for fear that the herald could not fully understand his meaning, Prince Alexei added: "if Raphael is exploring the enemy\'s fortifications, wait for him to explore, and I can wait for him."

Rafael, who can make Prince Alexei condescend to your honor and wait for a long time, is a Frenchman by name. He is indeed a Frenchman and an engineer of military engineering.

Since the Smolensk campaign three years ago and the subsequent attack on Riga and a series of sieges, the Tsar\'s Russian army has exposed its shortcomings of not being good at siege. Alexei has hired a group of experts from Western Europe to guide and strengthen the Russian army\'s ability to tackle tough problems.

Raphael was one of those hired by the prince. The same is true of those who appeared under konotopu with Vasili selemedev.

After waiting for about an hour, Raphael finally came.

The Frenchman has brown hair. His face is white and meticulous. But apart from his head, he is sloppy: his upper body is only wearing a single shirt and is full of loess; The lower part of the body is a pair of bloomers, which, like a sweater and leather boots, is also full of bits and pieces of loess.

If anyone else comes to see the prince like this, the prince\'s guard will beat him out. But Prince Alexei was kind to Raphael, especially when he looked like this.

"Lord Raphael, have you just returned from the front?" said Prince Wen.

"Yes, your highness. I\'ve gone to explore the little fortress."

"What do you think of that little fortress?"

In the eyes of experts like Raphael, it is undoubtedly the finishing touch for Cherchen to build such a triangular fort in front of konotopu fort, and greatly improves the defense of konotopu fort. However, after all, Cherchen is a soldier rather than an architectural engineering expert. In the view of experienced siege engineers, konotopu fort has only solved the problem from scratch, but its defects are numerous - for example, its design is unreasonable and its construction is too hasty. The breast wall of the triangle fort is too low, and there is no loophole to protect the soldiers, so the defenders who shoot will become the living target of the enemy; The castle is too small, so only small and medium-sized artillery can be protected on the barrier; It was a solid castle, so there was only one access from konotop castle to the triangle castle, and there was no access gate, so the soldiers could not safely leave the castle in order to clean up what the enemy put into it to fill the trench, or launch a counterattack. The worst thing is that the layout of the triangle fort is unreasonable, so there are large shooting dead corners under the city wall. Unless they are explored, the defenders can\'t open fire on the enemy hiding in those areas.

After listening to Raphael\'s orderly analysis, Prince Alexei and all Russian generals were very satisfied.

Experts are really different, professional!

"Raphael, if I send you enough men, how long do you want to set up artillery positions and offensive positions?" the prince finally asked.

When Raphael thought about it, he assured himself, "seven days!"

From April 26, the army of Czar Russia began geotechnical work. Raphael put new technologies such as mathematics, applied engineering and artillery into the operation of attacking konotopu fort. With the help of the adjutants sent to him by Alexei, he assigned a large number of manpower to specific tasks in an orderly manner.

The Russian soldiers dug tunnels and zigzag trenches with amazing speed and pushed their spider web like tunnels forward. Due to the ingenious choice of tunnel angle, the defenders could not shoot at the engineers digging the tunnel for a long time. The Russian army also transported the excavated soil to the rear and built a fort in the waste land.

Hundreds of people lined up, carrying mud bags and boards back and forth, like worker ants.

The tunnel kept approaching the wall, eyeing the defenders. Within a few days, the Russians dug trenches only 300 steps from the trench of konotop fort, which was within the range of 3-pound guns and 6-pound guns in the castle.

Soon their front reached the edge of the trench.

The Russian army also built two mud and log mixed platforms to place light artillery and protect artillery with wooden barriers.

On April 29, bright flags were flying on the front positions of the Russian army; Light and heavy artillery guns are arranged on the gun positions scattered in front and back. They also established other positions to bombard the walls of konotop in other directions.

At this time, Cherchen fully realized that the Russian army in front of him was not the Russian army that besieged Smolensk three years ago.

In the war, it is not only themselves who learn the war, but also the commanders of the Russian army such as Prince Alexei are making progress.

Chechen urgently reinforced 50 chiefs to the triangle fort, and widened the breast wall with sandbags at night.

On May 1, Russian artillery began to bombard konotopu fort.

The 36 cannons already in place on that day were divided into two rows. The 3-pound artillery and 6-pound artillery fired grape shells, and the 12 pound artillery fired iron shells with great penetration.

The Russian army also has a huge stone gun. The cannon is made of bronze, weighs 17 tons, is 5.38m long and has a wall thickness of 20cm. The cannon is enough to fire stone bullets with a diameter of 630mm. The cannon needs 136kg gunpowder for one shot, which can project 295kg projectiles 1.6km away. Although this heavy gun can not be compared with the "czar cannon" in front of the Kremlin, the huge muzzle is like a monster with a bloody mouth, which is enough to frighten the defenders in konotop.

Before the first round of shelling, a total of more than 4000 Russian new arms gunmen from the three regiments first fired a round of face to face volley at the triangle fort with fire guns, which made the defenders dare not look up behind the breast wall.

Then the cannon began to blast.

The guns began to pound the two sharp corners of the triangle Fort facing the trench.

In konotopu Fort behind the triangle fort, Cherchen tried his best to disrupt the enemy\'s shelling with artillery shells in the city.

Konotopu had originally placed four cannons, and Cherchen brought six more. Except for the three guns in the triangle fort, there are seven guns here. Together they bombarded the enemy\'s forts that could be seen in sight.

The shelling from konotopu Fort achieved certain results: in the third round of salvo, a shell penetrated the wooden barrier as if blessed by God and hit a powder keg behind it, causing a big explosion and destroying an enemy artillery position and two guns in the position.

A Russian artillery position was destroyed, and the morale of the defenders soared. Due to the cover of the triangle fort, the firepower of the Russian Musketeers could not threaten konotopu fort, so Cherchen assigned an artillery to cooperate with the artillery of the triangle fort to counterattack the Russian new arms Musketeers firing in the array.

Seeing an artillery position turned to ashes in the fire, and the new army\'s Musketeers had to retreat under the threat of enemy fire, Prince Alexei\'s face did not fluctuate at all. He just asked Raphael, "when can we bury the trench?"

"Anytime, but to reduce casualties, it\'s best to suppress the Musketeers in the triangle fort," Raphael suggested.

Prince Alexei nodded. Then he named Ivan hilko.

"Lord hilko, I\'ve always heard that the shooting skills of Cossack soldiers are unparalleled in the world. Let you and your Cossack team cover and fill the trench."

Ivan hilko knew that Prince Alexei\'s words were military orders and could not be violated. Moreover, he also intended to show his strength to the Russian generals who despised her.

So Ivan hilko pulled out his pistol at his waist. He held it high and waved it forward. Two hundred Cossack Musketeers began to evacuate and rushed towards the trench parallel to the trench in front of the triangle fort.

The Cossack brothers who originally belonged to the same camp began to merge. As the most elite chief of the Cossack emirate was escorted in the triangle fort, Ivan hilko\'s Cossacks had just entered the trench. The chieftain guards held mikale muskets behind the breast wall. Their shooting skills were amazing. As soon as the Cossack Musketeers in the opposite trench showed up, the trigger on the trigger was pulled down exactly.

In just over an hour, 30 people were killed on Ivan hilko\'s side.

This made shooting against the triangle fortress a fatal task, and the Russian Cossacks did not see a good omen.

They hid behind the breast wall and did not dare to look up, because they became the living target of the enemy as soon as they appeared against the blue sky in summer.

"Cossack brothers, Cossacks don\'t beat Cossacks!"

Just as the Russian Cossacks in the trenches were leaning against the breast wall and leaning on guns, they dared not show their heads, and a cry came out from the triangle fort.

"Let\'s raise the gun an inch, and you raise the gun an inch, so that everyone can do the job." the voice continued.

Subsequently, the two sides actually achieved a tacit understanding. In the next hour\'s exchange of fire, neither side was injured or killed.

Slowly, the shooting between the two sides stopped. No one gave orders, but the Cossacks just stopped fighting.

The Russian Cossacks followed the circuitous trench to the front of the barrier of the triangle fort; The Cossack garrison of the triangle castle first poked out his head, and then someone boldly put down the rope and went down the barrier to them.

At first, both sides were very cautious, but in this meeting, there was no unfriendliness between them. Especially the Cossacks of blazlav, because of the relationship between Baohong and Ivan hilko, the two sides often cooperate in combat and have great feelings for each other.

Ivan hilko\'s Cossacks always rated brazlav\'s Cossacks higher than other Cossacks.

They looked down on the Cossacks of konotop, but now they saw that they fought so bravely and tenaciously, looked up at them, and talked to them as equally as blazlav.

Both sides were smiling and could not help but exclaim at each other. So on the battlefield, they chatted with each other and said that the two sides were originally a family and should not shed so much Cossack blood; Finally, they even toast and smoke to each other.

Prince Alexei and Ivan hilko, who returned to the tent for a rest, did not know that the Cossacks on the front line were idling away at first. According to Raphael\'s estimation, they thought that at this time, one third of the casualties in the triangle Fort should be killed, and they could start to fill the trench.

But when the gunfire stopped, Prince Alexei and Ivan hilko came out of the tent, and the scene of the battlefield stunned everyone.

At this time, Ivan hilko\'s face was no better than that of the dead.

Vasili selemedev, who stood beside Prince Alexei and endured the pain, said sadly: "captain of the hilko regiment, you Cossacks are really brothers!"

Ivan hilko was trying to refute, but Prince Alexei raised his whip against Vasily selemedev\'s mouth.

"Captain of the hilko regiment," Prince Alexei said to Ivan hilko, "get your men down and remember! It won\'t happen again."

After thanking the prince, Ivan hilko rushed to the front and withdrew the Cossacks. But although his subordinates made him lose face in front of the Russians, Ivan hilko did not dare to deal with anyone, because his team leader was also afraid of Cossack rebellion.

After the Cossacks withdrew, Prince Alexei sent a team of serfs to fill the trench. As a result, it can be imagined that most of the "gray animals" sent were killed and injured, but the trenches were not buried much.

The first day\'s battle ended as night fell. Although they won the victory of defending konotopu fort, the situation is not optimistic.

Fedot, who came back from the triangle fort, told Cherchen and other officers his judgment on the situation: the triangle fort was too weak and small, and many design problems were exposed in the battle. If we want to hold the triangle fort, we must always supplement reinforcements and repair fortifications. Because on this day alone, more than 40 people were killed and injured in the triangle fort. This is the result of the "tacit understanding" between the Cossacks on both sides.

After listening to the story of Dr. Robert Frost, he summed up in a vivid way: "like a patient suffering from tuberculosis, it is necessary to continue to take medicine and supplement nutrition to maintain life."