Road to the Crown

Chapter 74: Weapon concept

13th march 1574

After everything was said and done I ended up blue balling myself instead. After licking all the tears from Elia's face, and stealing another deep kiss from her lips, we started cuddling for a long time, but the longer we were embracing each other, while the fire in my body was only spreading, my hesitation also continued to grow.

Looking at the situation as a whole, no matter if the problem was resolved or not, it still started with Elia approaching me and attempting to use her body to get me to do something. Even if everything was clear now, if I still ended up having my way with her, all the words I said would lose their meaning.

But I couldn't simply just tell her to stop. Instead, while we continued to cuddle, I slowly decreased the intensity of our endearments, bit by bit calming the both of us down, before we simply fell asleep while cuddled in a warm hug.

Sounds like something a loser would do, I know, but when I woke up, greeted by the sight of Elia's warm smile and long, sensual kiss, I realised that I made the right choice. Instead of turning that entire moment into nothing else but a carnal pleasure, it turned out into a strong memory of the two of us resolving the first conflict that struck us!

As Elia continued to rub her cheek against my breast, I actually started thinking about the way to resolve the problem that she came to me with last night. While at first, I really wanted to solve it by just swarming entire city by the guests and then entering it in the Governor company, that wasn't the way to go.

Could I call myself a man if I didn't turn the earth and heaven around for the sake of my woman?!

My woman

Once again focusing on Elia trying so hard to hug me even harder that in a fantasy scenario I would start worrying whether she wanted to simply merge with me into one being, I looked at her hair, while repeating those words in my head.

My woman

Even if the feeling of possessing someone like that was something rather low, stemming from the caveman instinct, it still resonated with me. After all, in this age, a bond between a man and his wife was way stronger than the joke that the future ages turned the marriage into.

And for the sake of this woman, I had to do something against this damned fucker!

Not only he dared to defy the natural order of law in the country, using his military power that should be aimed at the uninvited guest visiting our borderlands, but he also had his eyes set on MY WOMAN!

If he wanted to deal with this by using military force, I would respond to him in kind!

No more tricks, diplomacy and schemes. If it was about MY WOMAN, I didn't mind getting my hands dirty!

But how the heck should I deal with him? Sadly, the system wouldn't turn my resolve into a disciplined unit of veterans willing to die for such a simple matter like marital strife!

Yet, I had this system for a reason. So rather than using it as a way to solve all the problems that would ever plague me in this world, I should make use of its real purpose, just like I did with the matters regarding the economy. Use it as a tool to use my modern knowledge in this backward world!

But before I could even get to outlining any plan of mine, I had to decide what I could and what I could not do.

First of all, the city of Pilzno had to be safe. If I were to somehow dig up enough uranium to make an atomic bomb, using it would turn the place into nothing more than a pile of burning and radioactive dust. Just like that, all forms of highly potent explosives could be written off my list of potential solutions, along with all kinds of weapon aimed at killing large swats of people enclosed within the city walls. After all, the city prospered out of the backs of its citizens!

But there was no way that I could simply ask Peter and his people to stand in front of the wall, and let me shoot them all to death!

Or was it?

As long as I could bring them outside the gates for some dumb reason, like willing to give him a dumb battle for the sake of Elia's hand, I could get him to group himself with his people and step up to the field. Knowing the Polish trends, he would most likely use his numerical advantage and mobility of his mounted forces to push me to a corner and cut all of my men up while seizing up my head.

But there was a reason why modern warfare gave up on the horses through the entire western part of Europe in such a way, that even during Polish-Bolshevic war, great general Pilsudzki openly ignored an enormous horse army under general Budionny, claiming that cavalry would no longer play any part in the war. After all, even soviets wouldn't find enough suicidal maniacs ready to charge up a reinforced nest of machine guns!

Wait, machine guns? Wasn't that a great idea?

With all Elia's cuddles disappearing from my mind, I pulled the system in the middle of my vision, sorting through all the items that I could produce. Obviously, a real heavy machine gun or even its ancient cousins from the world wars was impossible to use. Even if it would be possible to craft it, how could I explain it to everyone who would witness its power? I needed something simpler! Something more usable! Something explainable!

Why not use the revolving gun idea then? With a bit of effort, something like a simplified Maxim gun could be made!

Even if the step of using the recoil to power it was way over the line of what I could introduce in this age without enough backing and the industry capable of producing it without my involvement, why bother with such things? What if I made a gun powered by nothing else than just a simple crank?

But while the idea was great, there was actually something else I had to think about first. In the current times, all guns were loaded like cannons - from the front. Even if I could change the way of conducting the war by introducing backloaded weapons, it wasn't something I could use in a relatively short time, without changing the entire doctrine.

Yet, the idea could be introduced!

So for now, I had to find a way to bring Peter's forces for an open battle, outside of Pilzno. Nothing too hard. I had to get someone to help me with crafting a simple backloading gun, that one would be challenging, but for the sake of keeping the ruse of the entire project being nothing more than a funny idea, it had to be done. Then just expand on it, and make a carriage gun, powered by a crank, where multiple barrels would spin on the base, with the corb powering up the loading, shooting and cleaning mechanism!

Not so bad for something that would turn me from a simple noble into a god of war!