Noto Port is a very small place, in the southern part of Sicily. Because the coastline is rugged and complex, there are many places where natural harbors are formed, Noto Port is not so conspicuous among these ports.

Moon Bay is a very beautiful plain outside Noto Harbor. Every summer, locals will hold a grand ceremony in Moon Bay to commemorate the earliest ancestors who left their mark in Noto Harbor in their early years.

Moon Bay was beautiful at that time.

But now, the plain is filled with heavy smoke and pungent blood.

When he found that the enemy troops from the road on the side of the Noto Harbor exposed unusually fierce firepower, Count Don Sanchode did not order an attack on the enemies on the high ground, but instead ordered the left wing to continue to attack the enemy and decisively ordered the approaching of Noto Harbor.

At this time of order, Count Don Sanchode sighed with some emotion. For the first time, he felt that he might have really underestimated the Wallachians who had come from afar.

The Count was very clear about the number of troops in the Wallachia army, but it was precisely because of this that he felt that the female grandfather was much more courageous than he thought.

For troops with disadvantages, it has always been a normal choice to defend and wait for assistance. Although knowing that this may mean completely giving up the initiative, the courage required to take the initiative when the situation is not good is not something that ordinary people can have.

This female grandfather was obviously a very brave person. She even gave up the Port of Noto with better defense and chose to attack herself in the open wilderness. This was only a matter of this that made Earl Don Sanchode admire her very much.

But despite this, the Count knew that her courage would only result in a faster defeat. Even if he thought about it seriously, the actions of this female grandfather were obviously out of reach.

"Catch Port Noto before dark."

This was an order issued by Don Sanchode to his subordinates. Although the time he gave was not sufficient, it was not harsh. At least in his subordinates' eyes, this time was enough to drive the Balkan barbarians out of Port Noto.

As for the next step, just keep chasing from behind like driving away the flock of sheep, you can easily harvest their spoils.

The first attack was to come not far outside Noto Harbor, and cross a central unit with fishing nets and large skewers of dried fish farms. However, the number of people in this unit can be compared with the entire Wallachians, and their purpose was to break into the town outside Noto Harbor.

"If you occupy the town, you can drive out the Wallachians who are hiding in the port. Their troops in the town are only a few hundred. After all, they have almost put all of them on the road." When Don Sanchode arranged for the attack, he did not forget to carefully instruct the officers of his subordinates what to do.

In this regard, Don Sanchode is a very rigorous person. What he likes is to follow the steps step by step. Even if the enemy is at a disadvantage, he will also plan every step carefully, and then let his subordinates complete the entire plan step by step according to his intentions.

Every step forward of the sand seemed to sink down. The strong fishy smell on the fishing ground made people uncomfortable. The spears in the hands of the Aragon soldiers walking in the front pierced several broken fishing nets blocking the front.

The discomfort under his feet and the large scattered debris on the ground made the moving team stagnate slightly, and the team officers at the end of the line shouted loudly to restrain the advancing soldiers.

There are several rows of fishing nets hanging on the supported wooden poles in front, and sparse figures can be seen behind the fishing nets.

The Aragonese soldiers held their spears tightly, and they were ready to fight against the enemy.

A violent and harsh whistling sounded at this moment, and the fishing nets that were hanging scattered suddenly flew towards the soldiers by two huge forces. The force came from two shells that were shot from almost at the same time. The entire fishing net was carried by the two shells, like a huge wall, and was covered by the Aragons.

The mesh entangled with fishing nets ripped violently and almost instantly, the body of the Aragonese soldiers covered in them was pulled away, and the broken limbs splashed with plasma squeezed out from the gaps of the fishing nets. In just a blink of an eye, a terrible huge gap appeared in the middle of the Aragonese queue.

“Ah~”

Sophia, standing behind a stone wall, made a sound of "self-talking" that she didn't know what it meant. The people next to her didn't know that she was actually a little regretful.

Sophia firmly believes that she has the talent to command the army. At least the idea of ​​using fishing nets instead of hinged shells made her feel that she is really smart.

Although this idea was not actually her creation, but a shell specially used to kill infantry that Alexander mentioned when chatting with her in the Bucharest Palace, Alexander also said helplessly that in order to achieve something called "shotball", the conditions required were still very harsh.

But now Sophia feels proud to tell Alexander that the "fishing net bullet" she invented also achieved the effect he hoped.

With the shooting of the light cavalry cannon, the fierce battle began.

Earl Don Sanchode was not wrong. Years of experience and keen judgment on the battlefield allowed him to accurately estimate the number of enemy troops defending Noto Town head-on.

Sophia has less than 700 troops in the town.

This is the elite of Sophia's "Dragon Cavalry". Unlike other Dragoons, which are composed of new and old soldiers, Sophia's Guards are entirely composed of veterans retired from the Balkan regiment of Montina, or to be precise, an army that was adapted from the Montina army.

When Alexander handed over this army to Sophia, he once told her not to let the guards leave her side at any time, because these soldiers had already received land and rewards in Montina, and they had become the leaders of Montina, so they were the most loyal army.

The Dragoons were almost entirely troops established by veterans of the Balkan regiment for the backbone. They trained and fought strictly in the Balkan regiment's way, which made many Wallachian nobles dislike these new troops, but they knew that this army was the elite of His Highness the Grand Duke.

As for what kind of performance such an army would be on the battlefield, many Wallachians found it to be debated. Although the Duke of Romanthesia, who was still Earl of Montina, led his army to attack the arrogant Ottomans, it would be another matter if it were just an army composed of Wallachians to be as brave as the Montina army.

Now, Sophia lets all this speculation prove on the battlefield.

Reload, aim, shoot, back.

Hundreds of dragoons mechanically completed their tasks. When a horn sounded, they raised their guns in an orderly manner and could be heard from a distance. Shooting did not require a target, but only focused towards a certain point according to the orders of their respective team officials, and then clenched the trigger to complete the task.

This is a completely different fighting style from the Ottomans' proud sharpshooters. Compared with the Ottoman New Army, which claims to be able to shoot down targets running on horseback, Alexander never asked his soldiers to have any good shooting skills, nor did he ask them to take great pains to shoot an enemy officer or nobleman. He just needs to obey orders or even mechanically repeat the boring actions.

There may be accidents on the battlefield that the miracle created by the sharpshooter changed the situation, but more of them still rely on powerful firepower.

Round after round, the only one of the Dragoons who were truly fully equipped with firearms was Sophia's guards, so she arranged this army in Noto Town. At the same time, with the light cavalry cannons, the Wallachians built a terrible "dead line" in the southwest of Noto Town.

Earl Don Sanchode stared ahead with a solemn expression. He knew that he had finally met an opponent, or that he still underestimated his enemies.

The Count had seen the new army in Gonzalo. Although he never underestimated the army with hot and cold weapons, he always felt that he could still deal with such an enemy.

At least he believed that the square array that Gonzalo advocated that pays too much attention to thickness may often fail to exert its power due to the terrain. Even because of the shortcomings of the Iberian army's inability to use cavalry on a large scale, it may cause the square array to be unable to coordinate with each other, giving the enemy the opportunity to defeat each other.

But he still admitted that Gonzalo's phalanx concept had amazing power, especially the Castilians genius proposed the idea of ​​allowing artillery and the phalanx to attack at the same time, which can be said to have completely subverted the practices of any previous predecessors who used artillery.

But now the count found that he still did not really understand the actual power of Gonzalo's model army, and the one who made him have this idea was another opponent who completely unexpectedly.

The gunshots on the left wing were farther away. It should be that his army was chasing the Wallachians, but Earl Don Sanchode was vaguely uneasy because he heard the sound of cannons from time to time in the intermittent gunfire, which made him feel that things might be very different from his previous guesses.

Since its introduction, the most famous artillery is the Urban cannon that the Ottomans captured Constantinople.

But in Europe, it was the first Czech peasants who did not play according to common sense in the Husse War to put artillery on a carriage and dragged them to the battlefield to compete with the enemy.

Unlike the artillery built on the turret, the Czech peasant army made artillery a pioneer in establishing artillery positions anywhere on the battlefield at any time.

However, despite this, once you face retreat in battle, those artillery becomes a big burden. The retreating side may either discard the spoils that become enemies, or directly destroy them.

But now, although Count Don Sanchode heard that the left-wing front seemed to be getting farther and farther away from him, under the fierce pursuit of his own army, the enemy could still use artillery to shoot continuously?

Thinking of this, the Count felt something unsettling.

The battle in front of the town continued. Under the fierce attack of the Aragons, the enemy seemed to gradually retreat to the town.

This should have been a good thing, but seeing the formation gradually beginning to be chaotic due to the complex terrain in the town, Count Don Sanchode frowned secretly.

"We are going to win, sir." An officer said with a little excitement. "The enemy is brave, but we are better. As long as we continue to pursue, we will have to collect the spoils."

Don Sanchode looked at the officer calmly. He didn't want his subordinates to know his worries, which would make his subordinates think randomly.

For a victory that is about to be won, he should not change his original plan just because he just speculates.

But somehow, the Count looked at the troops gradually disappearing into the town, and the uneasiness in his heart became stronger and stronger.

Sophia had already left Port Noto before the Guards retreated. She withdrew from the other side of Port Noto under the protection of a small group of guards, and then quickly retreated northeast along the coast of Moon Bay.

However, she stubbornly refused her followers' request to retreat further, and stopped on the coast not far north of Noto Harbor.

Sophia rode on a black horse, which was given to her by Alexander. It is said that the horse was brought by Pagasus from the current Bosnian king Herva, and then Alexander gave the horse to Sophia.

Sophia likes this horse very much. In addition to being because it runs very fast, there is another reason that she thinks that this horse will choose a "husband" just like her.

The retreating Balkan Dragoons once again set up a front on the beach, in fact they retreated behind a temporary low wall, and what formed the low wall was the sand in a shallow pit dug up on the beach.

The musket was set up again, and the height formed by shallow pits and low walls was very comfortable to allow the soldiers to comfortably aim at the Balkans who were gushing out from several intersections in the town.

Sophia smiled proudly.

The crowded and intertwined roads in the town became an insurmountable obstacle, or the Aragonese who could have avoided all this chose to take this path because they tried to defeat the female grand duke.

Because they had to spread through the town, the Aragonese army had no formation at this time, and when they walked out of the other side of the town, they were facing the Wallachian Dragoons who had been waiting for a long time.

"shooting!"

Even as the guards of the Grand Duke of Wallachia, all the dragoon commanders who still retained the Balkan regiment style were used to issuing orders in accordance with the "Former Montina Army" regulations.

The Dragoons were also used to pulling the trigger again as they ordered, and gunfire sounded on the other side of Noto Harbor, and everything seemed to be back to the beginning.

Earl Don Sanchode's hand slightly pulled the reins. His expression was already very bad at this time. The sound of shooting sounded again on the other side of the town made him suddenly feel that if this continued, he would even be dragged down in the end.

Don Sanchode had this idea because he saw several war horses in the town whose legs were broken because they didn't have time to take them away.

Looking at the war horses that were struggling on the ground and trying to stand up, but in the end they could only make a sound of grief, the count suddenly realized a problem that he had ignored before.

"The Wallachians," Don Sanchode looked at the people around him and asked, "how many cavalry do they have?"

The subordinates who were asked this question showed a look of surprise. According to their intelligence, the Wallachians, except for some cavalry, landed directly on the coast along the coast. It was precisely because of this that they not only arrived at Noto Port earlier than the Naples coalition, but also had a brief rest here.

It was precisely because Don Sanchode took advantage of the Wallachians' premature advancement and chose them first after making decisions to defeat them.

But now, Don Sanchode's problem made him and his men suddenly feel that he had made a huge mistake.

The sound of gunfire on the left wing was always constant, and it seemed that both sides had been constantly shifting positions from the beginning. Listening to the sparse and dense gunfire, Don Sanchode's hand holding the reins could not help but tighten slowly.

"Recall all troops immediately and withdraw from Port Noto."

The Count's order surprised those around him, but no one raised any questions. With the waves of horns, the Aragonese army began to gradually retreat into the town.

With a "bang", an Aragon soldier fell to the ground. The shield in his hand was hit by the huge impact of the lead bullet and bounced upwards. The edge swept hard on his forehead, and blood immediately flowed down his nose.

However, the soldier still had difficulty getting up and retreating, and on the beach behind him, there were densely packed with dead or injured Aragons.

The Wallachians did not pursue them. In fact, they were already very tired at this time. At least many of them had their eyes that were almost impossible to open by gunpowder.

Sophia looked west, and the high ground in the distance blocked the falling sunset, while the sea in the east was already shrouded in a layer of darkness.

The early arrival of winter night made the battle end earlier than expected, but for Sophia, it was just the beginning.

Until he saw the Wallachians riding war horses from afar, Count Don Sanchode kept saying a word.

The first team retreated from the high ground, the Aragonese army looked very tired. They even stopped to rest on the road not far from the town, and a group of Andorot cavalry further away changed from running to slow walking.

The Count had known from the report of the officers of the returned left-wing troops that they were fighting with a light cavalry using sabers and short muskets, and equipped with a light horse-drawn artillery that could be carried quickly.

Now he knew that army was called "Dragonist" by the female Grand Duke of Wallachia.

The noisy battlefield has calmed down, and both sides paid a huge price for the battle this day.

But Count Don Sanchode knew that he had actually failed in this first encounter because his enemies were less than half of him.
Chapter completed!