Chapter 200: Assassinating an Enemy General (1/2)
During Berengar and Eckhard's dual advancement upon the occupied regions of the Duchy of Austria, Linde had set Berengar's spy network to task with assassination and sabotage once more. At the moment, the same young female agent who had assassinated the Garrison commander at Meran was currently operating within the City of Vienna; she was just one of Berengar's many agents stationed within the Capital of the Duchy.
She had recently received a coded message that claimed Berengar had been successful in his campaign for Salzburg and would soon be marching his massive army into Lower Austria and, by extension, the City of Vienna. As such, she had been tasked by Linde to make preparations for his arrival.
At the moment, the young and beautiful agent was clutching onto the concealed handgun in her pocket, which was a pepperbox revolver. The device could fire seven shots in a short period and would be instrumental to her plans.
The woman was currently dressed as a common man, with her breasts bound by cloth to hide their size. She wore a hood over her head and had wrapped her long hair around her face tying it so that it looked like a beard at first glance.
Her task was a simple assassination; Since the successful capture of Vienna, Duke Dietger had returned to Northern Bavaria to fight against the House of Luxembourg and their allies in the North. In doing so, he has left a promising General in his stead; she was targeting his lead General, who at the moment was taking a walk through the city. As she approached the man from afar, she began to overhear the General conversing with another nobleman.
”Count Siegmund has been cleared of all suspicion; it has been revealed that Count Berengar of Tyrol had smuggled the Habsburg boy into his territory. The foolish child has declared himself the rightful Duke of Austria and has placed Count Berengar as his Regent.
The General talked to the Nobleman immediately scoffed as he heard such news and proudly declared his opinion.
”Count Berengar? Berengar the Accursed, as the Catholics call him, the Reformists refer to him as Berengar the Indomitable or Berengar the Conqueror; he has many nicknames. One thing is sure he remains undefeated in battle and has a large army.
Out of all the men sent to Salzburg, 5,000 men are the only ones to return from the region alive, even less from Kärnten. They say he alone has an army of 30,000 men at his back; you are renowned for being an able strategist. Tell me how this is remotely possible?”
The General sighed heavily before revealing his thoughts on the matter; it was something that he had thought about a great deal as the war continued to wage.
”Berengar had roughly 15,000 men in his field army when we first invaded Austria; this is not including the garrisons that he has fortified with hundreds of men each. In a few months, he has raised an extra 15,000 doubling his armies. He has a significant amount of wealth and heaven-defying industrial capabilities. As such, he can outfit every one of those men with proper equipment.
On top of this, his forces utilize some revolutionary form of hand cannon, which no surviving examples have been recovered; as such, we don't know how they function or how effective they are. By equipping his soldiers entirely with these weapons, he must have created a revolutionary set of tactics for them to work correctly. Thus there is no natural way of knowing how to counter them without trial and error. It is no wonder he continues to thwart our best efforts to stop his advance.
If the rumors are true about the might his army possesses, then invading Austria was a mistake; in my humble opinion, we should retreat to Bavaria until we can learn how to counter the advanced weapons and tactics he uses in his army. Yet, his grace Duke Dietger is determined to hold onto this land. Thus we have no choice but to defend it with our lives.”
The General was greatly troubled by Berengar's rapid conquest of the Duchy; he had conquered critical areas and was now marching on the capital, as for the most southern Counties of Austria, the Bavarians had yet to make much progress in their occupation and had forced their troops to withdraw towards Vienna to face off against Berengar's incursion with their full might.