Wellsburg is the second castle in southern Europe named after the Wells family.
It is located in the center of the valley hinterland of Wales, on the gentle slope of a peninsula formed by the bend of the river and the extension of the peaks on the right.
Wellsburg began to build the city as early as five years ago, but the real large-scale construction was only after Art became a baron.
This is the first city in Wales, which was designed and supervised by the former Provence architect Cooper himself. It will soon become the core of the entire Earl of Wales's rule.
Compared to provincial castles such as Thorne, Codor or Jona and Lucesene, which have been accumulated for more than ten generations and hundreds of years, Wellsburg is definitely not majestic.
However, Wellsburg has a sense of solidity that makes people feel at ease.
Wilsburg as far as the eye can see is divided into two levels.
The outer layer is bounded by the edge of the peninsula surrounded by valleys and rivers. A twenty-five-foot city wall made of earth and stone was built. There is a city ultimatum on the city wall. Behind the city ultimatum is a walkway fighting position that can accommodate two horses running.
There is a city gate on each of the north, south and east sides of the outer wall. The two main city gates in the north and south directions are more than fifteen feet long and wide, and each has two huge oak-inlaid iron gates. After the first city gate, there is a gate with a thick iron grille. The iron hinges in the city wall drag the gate up and down.
The east-facing city gate is connected to a river port wharf. This newly completed wharf is not large in scale and is mainly used to dock materials sent from the villages in the valley upstream. Most of them are used to supply raw materials and wood to the workshop area.
Since the east gate has a natural barrier of the river and is a waterway dock passage, the city gate is relatively weak, and only two oak doors are used to block it.
The other side of the outer wall extends along a gentle slope to the mountainside. However, due to the steepness of the mountain, this is naturally a "dangerous area", so the outer wall on the mountain side itself is not too high, nearly more than ten feet. However, the builders dug more than ten feet into the mountain outside the fort wall. This was to excavate the stones needed for city construction, and to increase the height of the rear end of the outer wall to increase its defensive function.
This is the main city wall of Wellsburg, and it is also the most time-consuming and money-consuming place.
Within the outer wall, the large flat land between the peninsula and the gentle slope is roughly divided into six areas, namely military barracks, barns, squares, residential areas, and markets. The military barracks that can accommodate 500 soldiers has been built, but the rest of the area is basically open space. The housing markets are currently only on the drawings drawn by the Ministry of Government Affairs and Construction.
The open space behind the peninsula leads to the buffer zone at the top of the slope. Cooper dug it into three levels of ladders, and a serpentine road with two vehicles running in parallel leads to the top of the slope around the gentle slopes.
The setting of these ladder sills has a function. A large amount of earth and stone are used to build the wall when the ladder sills are excavated, and the steep cliff formed by the ladder sills itself also has the function of city wall defense.
Follow the road between the ladder ridges to the flat land on the top of the slope. This is the core fortress of the entire Wellsburg - Stone Castle.
The structure of the stone fort is almost the same as that of the fortresses of this era. The stone structure is solid and durable. The fort wall is fifteen feet high and five feet thick. The fort wall is equipped with defensive facilities such as ultimatums, arrow towers, watchtowers, and watchtowers. Within the fort wall, there are complete living facilities such as armory, garrison barracks, kitchens, training grounds, livestock sheds, and barns. The core of the stone fort is the lord's hall and banquet hall. The four-story square stone tower is enough for a hundred people to hold a banquet.
In addition, three deep wells were dug in the stone castle, and there were underground chambers and secret passages in the square stone tower that led directly to somewhere outside the city.
Behind the stone castle is the mountain peak that extends into the peninsula. The builders extended Wellsburg toward the mountain peak and built a tall watchtower halfway up the mountainside. This watchtower was eighty feet tall and could accommodate twelve men for garrison.
Now from this watchtower, you have a panoramic view of the entire Wells Valley.
This Wellsburg took nearly five years, and nearly ten thousand people participated in its construction. The main force among them were enemy slaves captured by the Welsh Army in previous wars and prisoners sentenced to hard labor for crimes. In addition, all newly arrived residents who could not be resettled in time will also be sent here to participate in the construction of the city until the government can properly resettle it.
In addition, every year during the off-farm season, farmers who have become property owners in Wells Province will also go to the Wellsburg construction site under the unified organization of grassroots administrative officials to participate in the construction. Of course, unlike war slaves and newly arrived residents who are temporarily resettled here, these farmers can earn a lot of income by coming to work.
According to the current scale and city design of Wellsburg, it can accommodate 700 soldiers (including 200 stone fort garrison) and 6,000 residents on weekdays.
In case of emergencies such as war, the Earl of Wales can accommodate 1,200 soldiers and 15,000 residents.
And the part within the city wall is not actually all of Wellsburg.
In the government's design drawings, Wellsburg also includes the already-larged workshop area in the south of the peninsula and the wider land on the other side of the river on the peninsula.
According to Art's plan, as long as the battle south is successful, he will build a stone bridge on the peninsula to connect the land on both sides of the river, and then build a slightly simpler outermost city wall, which will expand the city area five to ten times.
By then, Wellsburg will have become a real big city with a population of 60,000.
It is too early to say this now. The focus should be on the troops and supplies that have been flowing in and out of Wellsburg in recent days.
Two days ago, under the order of the Military Affairs Office, twenty standing peasant soldiers of the Wells Garrison Corps and more than fifty conscripted peasant soldiers (laborers) took the lead in stationing in Wellsburg.
Then the baggage soldiers of the Welsh Army's Baggage Department arrived at Wellsburg one after another through both land and water channels carrying military supplies and food supplies.
· Military supplies such as grain, bacon, wine, fruits and vegetables, tents and linens, cooking pots and tableware, weapons, armor, and ordnance tools were transported to Wellsburg by carriages and boats and stored in the military camp warehouse.
At this time, Jafar, the deputy captain of the cavalry company directly under the Wells Corps, was escorting a convoy toward Wellsburg with fifty cavalrymen. This convoy consisted of ten four-wheeled iron carriages, accompanied by five or six military officials from the Weapons Research Laboratory of the Wells Corps.
Not long after the cavalry-escorted convoy arrived, the soldiers of the First Division of the Welsh Army, led by Angus and Kazak, entered Wellsburg in a long queue. These infantrymen did not station themselves in the main camp in the city. They chose the open space near the military camp to set up tents. After resting here for a day, the army will continue to move south and station in the lakeland...
In the following week, Wellsburg became a transit point for troops and supplies, with people and supplies constantly coming in and out every day.
Even busier than Wellsburg is the Lakeland garrison camp in the south of the valley.
Since the first batch of grain supplies arrived at the lake dock via the river five days ago, thousands of pounds of grain and supplies have arrived here every day. The warehouse of the garrison camp is almost full. Peasants and soldiers of the reserve regiment outside the military camp are leading farmers and laborers in the lake area to build three temporary barns, which are mainly used to store grain for war preparations.
On the morning when the first batch of military rations arrived, a special team had just left the military camp and walked along the mountainous area southeast of the Lake Land...