Munitions Empire-Chapter 1005 - : 927 Fengjiang’s cannonade
Chapter 1005: 927 Fengjiang’s cannonade
After another day of fierce fighting, the Dahua military once again pushed the front line towards Fengjiang by one kilometer. They paid the price of 3,000 people for this advance, which is by no means a small number.
Nobody can easily bear the loss of 3,000 people in a single day. Such a cumulative number of casualties is enough to bring a country to collapse.
Yet, in order to capture Fengjiang as quickly as possible, Zhao Chen could no longer afford to care about the consequences: he must cut off the Great Tang Empire’s support for Zhao Yu at the earliest opportunity, as this is now the only chance for the Dahua Empire to achieve victory.
After pushing the position forward another kilometer with great difficulty, Zhao Chen’s 250mm caliber army heavy artillery was finally able to launch shells into Fengjiang City.
Starting from yesterday, Zhao Chen couldn’t wait to move his cannons to the appropriate position, and today he started the bombardment of Fengjiang without any reservations.
“Load the shells!” Standing next to the sufficiently gigantic cannon, the wheels of such a large artillery piece were even made of solid steel, and moving it even a little bit required a lot of time and manpower.
In order to get this massive cannon into the proper position, the Dahua Empire even had to enlist the help of several tractors—working in conjunction with towing vehicles, they barely managed to do so.
Along the way, the Engineer Corps had to fill countless shell craters, and there had to be a protection squad for safety. Most operations had to be carried out at night because the enemy aircraft harassed them during the day.
In short, using this level of heavy artillery is a massive undertaking and requires a lot of time. Zhao Chen spent an untold amount of effort to accomplish this formidable feat to put enough pressure on Fengjiang as quickly as possible.
After the shells were loaded into the barrel using the corresponding equipment, under a camouflage net, the loaders then pushed the propellant charges into the artillery piece one after another.
Because the caliber was too large, this type of artillery could no longer use standardized propellants. Its charges are separate and must be adjusted according to the range required.
Amid a series of commands, the gunners closed the breech and then retreated to a safe position.
The gun commander pulled the firing cord, and the next second, the muzzle of the artillery spewed out astonishing flames. The sky filled with white smoke enveloping everything around, and the massive tremor caused the surrounding sand and mud to dance wildly.
A gigantic shell tore through the sky, making a sharp whistling noise, traversing over a dozen kilometers, and eventually landing in the slums on the outskirts of Fengjiang City.
No help for it, the city’s outskirts are often such slums, where the poorest residents of the entire city live. These people rely on hard labor to survive, eking out a meager existence beneath the city’s industry.
Because they are poor, the buildings in these places are also quite shabby. The Dahua Empire has been using wooden structures for buildings all year round, while reinforced concrete structures like those in the Great Tang Empire are in the minority.
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Even though many of the buildings in the center of Fengjiang were made of reinforced concrete, there were still a lot of wooden houses on the outskirts.
Now, it was these wooden houses’ turn to suffer: a 250mm caliber giant shell fell, and even if it didn’t directly hit the wooden houses, the damage to such buildings was tremendous.
With a thunderous boom, a black column of smoke rose into the sky, climbing and rolling continuously, clearly visible even from Fengjiang’s city center.
The surrounding buildings collapsed in a moment, while some houses caught fire directly, and the house that was hit by the shell barely left any rubble or debris.
There was a terrifying big pit on the ground where dozens of civilians living here were instantly killed. Keep in mind, it was a 250 caliber shell; causing the death of nearby people from the shockwave alone was an easy thing to happen.
The earth trembled with that loud bang. The sudden explosion caused terrifying destruction, but all of this was just the beginning.
Another shell followed closely behind: the Dahua Empire, in order to bombard Fengjiang, had prepared five 250mm caliber heavy artillery pieces, and this barrage was a joint launch from these five cannons.
Along with the second loud noise, another massive black smoke plume rose inside Fengjiang City, visible clearly throughout the city, and even most of the city could hear this deafening sound.
Such things cannot be hidden, and panic also began to spread: many civilians started fleeing towards the east side of the city, and refugees carrying their belongings could be seen everywhere on the streets.
The weather was no longer cool, so even if they had to sleep on the streets, these civilians would choose to sleep on the safer streets.
After all, being closer to the Great Tang side was theoretically safer, and if push came to shove, risking a swim to the Great Tang side was also an option.
…
Zhao Yu paced nervously in his room, having just heard the sounds of artillery and also having seen the smoke rising within the city.
At this moment, he felt restless, as the place he was in was about to become frontline: “The enemy is at the gates of Fengjiang City! Why haven’t we counterattacked? If this goes on, aren’t we finished? Huh? Aren’t we finished?”
He didn’t dare to question his own counselor Xu Guo, nor did he dare to rage at Luo Xiao, so the only ones he could afford to scold were his own butler who was privy to his thoughts and a few Fengjiang generals who had already lost most of their real power.
Even so, he didn’t dare to trouble Zhao Zheng and Zhao Feng— in his view, these two were “insiders” worth winning over, and he couldn’t afford to offend them easily.
But he couldn’t help but curse, after all, Dahua’s military shells were already falling into the Fengjiang urban area. If he didn’t make a stand now, wouldn’t he be no different from a clay statue?
“Your Highness! Zhao Chen holds heavy troops and is attacking fiercely at all costs; our soldiers have already tried their best…” Zhao Zheng, who had been stripped of military authority and had now become a mere figurehead, spoke up, “Without air superiority, without the pilots risking their lives to bomb, Dahua’s military could have very well reached the city district by now.”
As a general, Zhao Zheng had insight. He briefly glanced at the maps and some documents left by the Great Tang Empire Advisory Group and roughly guessed a part of the plan.
After all, in order to claim credit and sell a pitiful story, the loss of Dwarves and Goblins would not be hidden from Zhao Yu. In these days, more than 1,000 Dwarves had died, more than 1,300 Goblins, and 1,000 Orcs lost their lives; the numbers were not small.
Losing over a thousand people every day was already a significant loss for the defenders— this actually clarified a lot, at least proving that these mercenaries were the real deal.
Speaking of which, the contribution of the Great Tang Empire to this matter cannot go unmentioned: despite the nominal claim that it was Fengjiang that paid to hire the Foreign Legion to participate in the war, the actual payer was the Great Tang Group.
The funds used to hire these soldiers were genuine silver, above market price even. The demands of the Great Tang Empire were simple—since I’ve paid in full, you must give your all!
Countries were also giving face to the Great Tang Empire in this respect: they were very aware that whether or not they could reverse the trade deficit, whether they could afford to pay the loans provided by the Great Tang Empire, as well as the war reparations they owed… all depended on this “mercenary” operation.
Hence, the troops heading to Fengjiang, many of which were elite troops directly drawn from the main forces of various countries with the intent to train them.
Being the party spending the money, the Great Tang Empire also inspected the quality of these troops and applied their own standards to certain logistical supplies.
Therefore, these mercenaries from various countries participating in the battle at Fengjiang were all very formidable fighters; even if not quite up to the true Tang Country military, they were on par with their opponents, the troops of the Dahua Empire.
This was evident from the combat actions of both sides: the casualty ratio was about 3 to 1, a loss ratio that basically signifies an equal strength in offensive and defensive battles.
“But, but…” Of course, Zhao Yu knew that his own side had actually fought quite well. Not to speak of anything else, the troops moving southward had already captured Sword Pavilion, achieving a major victory, hadn’t they?
Zhao Feng by his side was also trying to reassure him: “Your Highness! There’s no need to panic! Our southern troops have already taken Guiguang Sword Pavilion! Victory is beckoning to us! As long as we hold Fengjiang, everything will start to get better.”
“Rest assured! Reinforcements will keep coming continuously!” Xu Guo, sitting there as steady as Mount Tai, casually comforted Zhao Yu: “Your Highness’s safety is not a problem! If the situation in Fengjiang deteriorates, isn’t it just the same if we go to Shanping?”
“Even so…” What Zhao Yu truly wanted was to go to East Fengjiang, to Great Tang. But he indeed couldn’t bring himself to voice this; he also knew that he should stay within the borders of the Dahua Empire.
Looking at the fifth column of smoke rising on the distant horizon outside the window, Zhao Yu felt very tense—those shells seemed to be falling right in front of his face.
Over by the Fengjiang Bridge, there were more refugees fleeing. To ensure that Fengjiang wouldn’t become an empty city overnight, the Great Tang Empire maintained a very reasonable pace in accepting refugees.
But civilians and local wealthy people didn’t care about that much; for them, only when they could run to the Great Tang Empire, could their safety be assured.
So they kept running in the direction of the Great Tang Empire, even though they knew the Great Tang Empire wouldn’t let them pass; they still clung to a fantasy: what if, what if one day the Great Tang Empire gave permission?
“Isn’t there any other way? To stop this shelling?” Zhao Yu, still not giving up hope, asked his two relatives.
“It’s not impossible, if we know the enemy artillery positions, we can destroy them with coastal defense heavy-caliber artillery…” Zhao Zheng offered his suggestion.
“Or send out the Air Force, find the enemy’s artillery positions, and bomb them directly…destroy these long-range artillery pieces.” Zhao Feng, who was also present, gave his opinion.
“Then do it quickly!” Zhao Yu, full of dissatisfaction, said to them: “Hurry up! Hurry… I don’t want to hear the sound of artillery anymore! I don’t want to hear it!”
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Another update will be finished soon, to be presented around 12:20, those who don’t wish to stay up can read it tomorrow morning.
