The port of Noto is a very small place, in the south of Sicily, because of the rugged and complex coastline, there are not many places that form natural harbors, so the port of Noto is not so conspicuous among these ports.

Moon Bay is a beautiful plain just outside Port Noto, and every summer, the locals hold a grand ceremony in Moon Bay to commemorate the ancestors who first left their mark on Port Noto in the early years.

Moon Bay at that time was beautiful.

But now, the plain is filled with heavy gunsmoke and the pungent smell of blood.

Upon discovering the unusually heavy fire of the enemy troops from the flank road of Porto Noto, Count Don Sanjod did not give the order to attack the enemy on the heights, but decisively ordered the left flank to continue to approach the port of Noto, while ordering the left flank to continue to charge at the enemy.

At the present order, Count Don Sanchod let out a soft sigh 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 well aware of the number of troops in Wallachia, but it was because of this that he felt that the Grand Duke was much more daring than he had imagined.

Although it is known that this may well mean that the initiative has been completely abandoned, the courage required to take the initiative when the situation is not good is not something that ordinary people can have.

The Grand Duchess was obviously a very brave man, and she even abandoned the better defensive port of Noto, choosing instead to attack herself in the open field, which alone made Count Don Sanchod admire her.

But in spite of this, the Count knew that her bravery would only lead to a faster fiasco, and even seriously thought that the Archduchess's actions were obviously foolish.

"Take Port Noto before dark."

It was an order from Don Sanchod to his men, and the time he had given was not sufficient, but not harsh, at least in the eyes of his men, enough time to drive the Balkan barbarians out of Porto Noto once and for all.

As for the next, as long as they keep chasing from behind like a flock of sheep, they can easily harvest their spoils all the way.

The first to attack was the central force, which had arrived not far outside the port of Noto, and crossed a fishing ground with fishing nets and large strings of dried fish, but this force was already comparable in number to the entire Wallachians, and their aim was first and foremost to break through the town outside the port of Noto.

"Capture the town will drive out the Wallachians hiding in the harbor, and they have only a few hundred men in the town, after all, they have thrown almost all of them into the road." Don Sanchod did not forget to carefully advise his officers what to do when arranging the attack.

Don Sanchod is a very strict man in this regard, he likes to follow the rules, even if the enemy is at a disadvantage, but he will plan every step very carefully, and then let his men complete the whole plan step by step according to his intentions.

The sand seemed to sink down with every step of the foot, the strong fishy smell of the fishing ground was uncomfortable, and the spears in the hands of the first row of Aragonese soldiers pierced the broken nets that stood in front of them.

The discomfort under his feet and the large amount of mess on the ground brought the advancing team to a slight halt, and the officer at the end of the row let out a loud shout to restrain the advancing soldiers.

In front of them, there are several rows of fishing nets hanging from wooden poles, and sparse figures can already be seen behind the fishing nets.

The Aragonese soldiers clenched their spears, and they were ready to engage the enemy.

A fierce and piercing whistling sound sounded at this moment, and the fishing nets that were scattered and hung were suddenly carried towards the soldiers by two great forces, which came from two cannonballs that were fired almost simultaneously, and the whole net was carried by the two cannonballs towards the Aragonese like a huge wall.

The fierce tearing of the intertwined nets of the fishing nets almost instantly tore the bodies of the Aragonese soldiers who were encased in them to the point of flesh and blood, and the broken limbs splattered with blood splattered out of the gaps in the fishing nets, and in the blink of an eye, a terrible gap appeared in the middle of the Aragonese ranks.

"Ah~"

Sophia, who was standing behind a stone wall, let out a "self-talk" that she didn't know what it meant, and the people next to her didn't know that she was actually a little regretful.

Sophia was convinced that she had a talent for commanding armies, and at least the idea of using fishing nets instead of hinged cannonballs made her think she was smart.

Although this idea was not actually her creation, but a kind of artillery shell specially designed to kill and injure infantry that Alexander mentioned when he chatted with her in the court of Bucharest, Alexander also reluctantly said at the time that the conditions needed to realize the thing called "shotgun" were still very harsh.

But now Sophia felt that she could proudly tell Alexander that her invention of the "fishnet bomb" had the same effect he had hoped.

With the fire of the hussar guns, a fierce battle began.

Count Don Sanchod was not wrong, his years of experience and keen judgment on the battlefield allowed him to accurately estimate the number of enemy forces defending the town of Noto head-on.

Sophia's strength in the town was less than 700 people.

This is the elite of Sophia's "Dragoons", unlike other dragoons, which are composed of new and old soldiers, this Sophia's Guards is a strong force composed entirely of veterans who have retired from the previous Balkan Regiment of Montina, or more precisely, an army that has been reorganized from Montina's army.

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

The dragoons were almost entirely an army built up by Balkan veterans, trained and fought in strict Balkan style, much to the disdain of many Wallachian nobles, who knew that this army was the elite of His Highness the Grand Duke.

As for how such an army would fare on the battlefield, many Wallachians found it debatable, and although the Duke of Rome, who was then Count of Montina, led his army to defeat the invincible Ottomans, it is another matter whether an army composed of Wallachians alone could be as brave as Montina's army.

Now, Sophia has put all this speculation to the test on the battlefield.

Reload, aim, shoot, retreat.

Hundreds of dragoons mechanically completed their task, and when the horn sounded, the sound of raising guns in unison could be heard from a long distance, and the shooting did not need to be aimed at a certain target, but only needed to concentrate towards a certain point according to the orders of their respective officers, and then pull the trigger to complete the task.

This was a radical departure from the Ottomans' vaunted marksmans, and compared to the Ottoman nouvelles, who claimed to be able to shoot down their targets, Alexander never demanded that his soldiers have good marksmanship, let alone that they take the trouble to shoot an officer or nobleman of the enemy, he just wanted them to obey orders, even mechanically repeat the boring movements.

On the battlefield, there may be accidents that change the tide of battle because of the miracles created by sharpshooters, but more often than not, it is still with powerful firepower.

Round after round, the dragoons were really fully armed with only Sophia's guards, so she placed this unit in the town of Noto, and with their light light cavalry guns, the Wallachians built a terrible "dead line" to the southwest of the town of Noto.

Count Don Sanchord stared solemnly ahead, knowing that he had finally met an opponent, or that he still underestimated his enemy.

The Count had seen Gonzalo's new army, and though he had never underestimated an army with hot and cold weapons, he always felt that he had a way to deal with such an enemy.

At the very least, he believed that the overly thick-focused phalanxes advocated by Gonzalo could often be ineffective due to the terrain, and even because the Iberian army was not good at using cavalry on a large scale, it might cause the phalanxes to be unable to coordinate with each other, so as to give the enemy a chance to break through.

However, he still admits that Gonzalo's idea of the phalanx was amazingly powerful, especially since the Castilian genius came up with the idea of having the artillery and the phalanx attack at the same time, which can be said to completely subvert the practice of any previous people who used artillery.

But now the Count found that he still did not seem to really understand the actual power of Gonzalo's Model Army, and that what gave him this idea was another opponent who was completely unexpected.

The gunfire on the left flank was farther away, and it was supposed that his own army was pursuing the Wallachians, but Count Don Sanjod was vaguely uneasy, for he heard the occasional cannon fire in the intermittent gunfire, which made him think that things might have been very different from his previous suspicions.

Since the advent of artillery, the most famous is the urban cannon of the Ottomans that captured Constantinople.

But in Europe, it was the unconventional Czech peasants in the Hussite War who were the first to load their artillery on horse-drawn wagons and go to the battlefield to fight the enemy.

Unlike the artillery that was built on batteries, the Czech peasant army made artillery truly a pioneer in the establishment of artillery positions anywhere on the battlefield at any time.

However, despite this, once faced with a retreat in battle, those artillery pieces became a great burden, and the retreating side either discarded them as trophies of the enemy or destroyed them outright.

But now, although the Count of Don Sanchod heard that the left flank seemed to be getting farther and farther away from him, the enemy was still able to use artillery fire incessantly under the fierce pursuit of his own army?

Thinking of this, the Count sensed something unsettling.

The battle in front of the town continued, and the enemy seemed to be gradually retreating into the town under the onslaught of the Aragonese.

This should have been a good thing, but Count Don Sanjod frowned secretly as he looked at the formation, which was gradually starting to become chaotic due to the intricate terrain of the town.

"We're going to win, my lord." One officer said with a little excitement, "The enemy is brave, but we are better, as long as we continue the pursuit, the next thing is to collect the spoils." ”

Don Sanchod looked at the officer quietly, he didn't want his men to know about his concerns, which would make them cranky.

Nor should he change his plans for a victory that is on the horizon just because he is just guessing.

It's just that somehow, the Count looked at the troops that were gradually disappearing into the town, and the uneasiness in his heart became stronger and stronger.

Sophia had left Port Noto before the Guards retreated, and she withdrew from the town 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 the pleas of her retinue to retreat farther away, and stopped on the coast, not far north of Port Noto.

Sophia rode on a black steed that was given to her by Alexander, who was said to have been brought to her by Pagassos from the current Bosnian king Helva, who gave her the horse.

Sophia liked the horse very much, not only because it was fast, but also because she felt that it would be as good as her to choose a "husband".

The retreating Balkan dragoons once again lined up on the beach, in fact behind a makeshift wall formed by the sand of a shallow pit dug out of the beach half a man deep.

The muskets were set up again, and the height of the shallow pits and low walls was comfortable enough for the soldiers to aim comfortably at the Balkans who were pouring out of several intersections of the town.

Sophia smiled smugly.

The town's congested roads became an insurmountable obstacle, or rather, the Aragonese who could have avoided it all chose to take this path in an attempt to defeat the Grand Duchess.

The Aragonese army, which had to be dispersed through the town, was no longer in formation, and when they came out of the other side of the town, they were confronted by the Wallachian dragoons who had been waiting for them.

"Shoot!"

Even in the Guards of the Grand Duchess of Wallachia, the dragoon commander, who still retained the style of the Balkan regiment, gave orders according to the rules of the "former Montina Army".

The dragoons were equally accustomed to pulling the trigger again, as they were ordered, and the guns rang out on the other side of the port of Noto, and everything seemed to be back to square one.

Don Sanchod's hand tugged at the reins slightly, his expression was already very unsightly, and the sound of shooting on the other side of the town suddenly gave him the illusion that if he continued like this, he would be dragged down at last.

Don Sanchod had this idea because he saw a few horses in the town that had broken their legs because they didn't have time to take them.

Looking at the horses that were struggling to get up on the ground, but could only let out a neighing sound, the Count suddenly realized a problem that he had ignored before.

"Those Wallachians," Don Sanchod asked, looking at the people around him, "how many cavalry do they have?" ”

The men who were asked this question looked surprised, according to their information, most of the Wallachians, except for a part of the cavalry, landed directly on the port of Noto along the coast by boat, and because of this they not only arrived in the port of Noto earlier than the Neapolitan coalition, but also had a short rest here.

Don Sanchod took advantage of the Wallachians' premature presumptuousness, choosing them first after making various decisions to break them.

But now, Don Sanchod's problems suddenly made him and his men feel as if they had made a huge mistake.

The gunfire on the left flank was incessant, and it seemed that both sides were constantly shifting positions from the beginning, listening to the sparse and sometimes dense gunfire of that time, Don Sanchord's hand holding the reins could not help but slowly tighten.

"Immediately recall all troops and withdraw to Port Noto."

The Count's order surprised those around him, but no one questioned it, and with the trumpets of the Aragonese army, the Aragonese army began to gradually withdraw towards the town.

With a bang, one of the Aragonese soldiers fell to the ground, and the shield in his hand was smashed upward by the huge force of the lead bullet, and the edge swept his forehead, and blood immediately ran down his nose.

Still, the soldier struggled to get up and retreated, and behind him on the beach was a dense patch of dead and wounded Aragonese.

The Wallachians did not pursue, and in fact they were very tired by this time, at least many of them had their eyes smoked by gunpowder.

Sophia looked to the west, the distant high ground blocking the setting sun, and the sea to the east was already covered in darkness.

The early arrival of the winter night brought the battle to an end sooner than expected, but for Sophia, it was just the beginning.

Until he saw the Wallachians in the distance mounted their horses and retreated to get along, Count Don Sanchord remained silent.

The first group of Aragonese troops to retreat from the heights looked so tired that they even stopped to rest on the main road not far from the town, while a group of Andolphan cavalry farther away changed from a brisk run to a slow walk.

The Count had already learned from the reports of the officers of the left flank who had returned that they were being fought by a light cavalry armed with sabers and short muskets, and armed with a light horse-drawn cannon that could be carried quickly.

Now he knew about that army, which was called the "Dragoons" by the Archduchess of Wallachia.

The noisy battlefield has quieted down, and both sides of the day's battles have paid a great price.

But Count Don Sanchod knew that he had lost the first encounter, for his enemies were less than half of his own.

"Defend Port Norto." Standing on the pier, Count Don Sanjod looked at the sea that had been completely covered in darkness, listening to the sound of the waves in the distance that seemed to be low and roaring, and the count smiled leisurely, "The next battle still has to be fought." ”