Chapter 56: I Specially Target Those Wearing Neckties!

Morin led two platoons of reserve troops, moving rapidly through the shadows of ruins and buildings.

His strategy was clear: given the combat effectiveness demonstrated by the Britannians, meeting them head-on in a straight fight was suicide.

To relieve the pressure on the flank, the enemy's offensive rhythm had to be disrupted.

And the most effective way to disrupt that rhythm in urban warfare was to try and eliminate their commanders.

The era's military tradition of officers leading from the front indeed provided Morin with this exact opportunity.

Soon, Morin and his men arrived at the left flank position, where the battle had already reached a white-hot intensity.

The fighters of the International Brigades, relying on shattered buildings and barricades, were engaged in a desperate life-or-death struggle against the ceaselessly surging soldiers of the Northumberland Flintlock Regiment.

Yet, the situation was far from optimistic.

Despite having the guidance of "urban warfare theory," neither the International Brigades, the National Army, nor the Saxon soldiers had received proper training for it.

To be honest, were it not for the natural advantages of being the defenders, their performance in urban combat would not have been any better than the enemy's.

By this time, the Britannians had already breached the first row of buildings, and both sides were contesting them house by house, room by room.

Morin did not rush to join the frontal combat. Instead, he led his soldiers in a quiet climb up a three-story building on the flank.

From here, he had a clear view of the main Britannian force in the street below.

He rested his rifle on the windowsill, carefully searching through the sea of enemy soldiers.

It did not take long for him to spot his target.

It was a Britannian officer wearing a tie, frantically waving a small revolver and shouting orders.

In this era, the identifiers of an officer were strikingly distinct.

They usually wore more tailored uniforms, carried sabers or pistols, and were always found issuing commands from the rear of the formation.

Morin took a deep breath and steadily squeezed the trigger.

"Bang!"

The gunshot was swallowed by the chaotic noises of the battlefield and went completely unnoticed.

Yet, the Britannian officer directing the combat jolted violently, a burst of blood blossoming on his chest. He looked down at it in sheer disbelief before collapsing straight to the ground.

The soldiers around him froze in shock.

Before they could react, several veteran marksmen alongside Morin had each picked their targets and opened fire in succession.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Several more figures who appeared to be officers or non-commissioned officers dropped to the ground in response.

Following that, the rest of the men began firing wildly at any targets within their sights.

In an instant, the Britannian forces in this sector were thrown into complete chaos.

The relatively rigid military tradition of Britannia meant that the initiative of their junior enlisted men was evidently not as high as that of the Saxons; in most cases, they relied entirely on direct orders from their superior officers to fight.

Thus, once several officers went down, the soldiers suddenly lost their coordination. Uncertain whether to press the attack or fall back, they stalled right where they were.

Seizing the moment, the soldiers of the International Brigades launched a counterattack, thoroughly suppressing the Britannian troops.

"Well done! Keep it up! Focus on the ones wearing ties!"

Morin commanded in a low voice.

The small squad under his command operated like a pack of hunters lurking in the shadows, continuously picking off key enemy personnel with precision sniper fire.

However, their assault quickly drew the enemy's attention to their general location.

A large number of riflemen began firing frantically at the building they occupied, chipping away flakes of plaster from the walls with a flurry of bullets.

When several consecutive rounds punched straight through the window frames, Morin and the others no longer dared to expose themselves.

Worse still, the International Brigade soldiers on the left flank ultimately broke under the mounting casualties and began to retreat.

Yet Morin could hardly blame them; after all, coming from all corners of the world, most members of the International Brigades had never experienced military training prior to arriving in the Kingdom of Aragon.

They had been rushed into battle after receiving less than three months of recruit training following the distribution of their equipment.

Therefore, leaving aside morale and tenacity, purely in terms of combat proficiency, it was hard to say they were much better than the kingdom's "levied peasants."

And as they retreated, the tactical map showed that the 3rd Platoon's previously stable defensive zone was, just as Morin had anticipated, gradually turning into a salient exposed on three sides.

This was the very last thing he wanted to see.

If the enemy moved just a fraction faster, 3rd Platoon risked being completely surrounded.

"We have to pull back!"

Morin made a decisive judgment.

He dispatched the last remaining runner at his side.

"Go notify Platoon Sergeant Klaus! Tell him to gather every sub-unit he can find, including the heavy machine gun positions and field artillery, and immediately abandon the current position, falling back to the third line of defense deeper in the city! I'll find a way to buy them time against the enemy. Go, now!"

The runner saluted and sprinted off.

As for Morin himself, he made an even more daring decision.

He glanced at the remaining soldiers around him—including Corporal Baumann and the two battered squads under his command who had just fallen back from nearby to regroup—bringing their total strength to twenty-nine men.

"Corporal Baumann!"

"Sir! Platoon leader!"

"Do you dare to pull off something big with me?" Morin looked at him, a wild gleam flashing in his eyes.

Corporal Baumann grinned, revealing a flash of white teeth.

"Just tell us how you want it done, Platoon Leader, and we'll do it!"

"That's my man!"

Morin gave him a firm slap on the shoulder, then pulled a general map of Seville from his orderly's haversack and spoke to him.

"We aren't retreating. We're going deeper! We'll slip around behind this bunch of enemy forces, hit them hard from the rear, and then loop back to our lines!"

"Slip around behind them?"

Though Baumann and his men did not yet fully grasp the concept of "infiltration" as Morin described it, a surge of excitement rippled through them.

After all, in their eyes, as long as they followed Morin, they could deliver a lesson these Britannians would never forget.

Before long, relying on his omniscient vision where "unseen means unobstructed," Morin led his twenty-odd men and vanished into the labyrinthine ruins.

Meanwhile, Platoon Sergeant Klaus received the runner's orders.

The calm and capable platoon sergeant frowned upon hearing Morin's plan.

He knew all too well how risky the platoon leader's decision was; if it failed, that detachment would never return.

Yet he understood even better that this was currently the only way to buy enough time for the main force to effect an orderly retreat.

Moreover, he had a lingering sensation that this kind of perilous combat was something only Morin could pull off...

"Understood, executing orders!"

Without a moment of hesitation, Klaus immediately set about organizing the troops.

He swiftly relayed the commands to every sub-unit he could locate, instructing them to provide cover for one another and fall back toward the rear in an orderly fashion.

The heavy machine gun team detached their weapon from its tripod and retreated first under the cover of the infantry.

As for the two precious artillery pieces, through the strenuous efforts of the gunners, they were hitched back up to the draft horses and dragged deeper into the city.

Though tense, the entire retreat proceeded methodically under the seasoned sergeant's command.