Munitions Empire-Chapter 973 - 895 all the way at full speed

Chapter 973: 895 all the way at full speed Chapter 973: 895 all the way at full speed When Zhao Yu saw the checkpoint ahead, he felt his teeth clashing together nonstop, and he could even hear the rhythmic clicking sound.

“Stop the car!” The checkpoint commander bellowed from a distance, “This area is already off-limits… Stop the car!”

But the convoy showed no indication of stopping. Instead, the driver pressed the accelerator, and the speed of the car soared to an extremely fast pace.

“Stop the car!” The checkpoint commander, realizing something was amiss, shouted loudly. The surrounding soldiers also began to remove the guns slung on their backs. But at that moment, a crisp gunshot suddenly rang out from a nearby building.

A bullet went straight through the brain of the checkpoint officer, splattering blood everywhere. All the soldiers around the checkpoint were immediately thrown into disarray by the sudden attack; they scrambled for cover and looked up to search for possible positions of the sniper.

At that moment, the leading luxury car smashed through the makeshift wooden barricade, breaking the thick wooden rod into two pieces.

The cars behind zoomed past without any intention of slowing down; the last car even threw hundreds of Gold Coins out of the window, which fell to the ground with a pleasant clinking sound.

...

“Can we really get through like this?” Zhao Yu, still shaken, looked to the young strategist sitting next to him.

The young strategist chuckled, “Don’t worry! We’ve carefully chosen this vicinity; it’s all residential areas with no phones… It’ll take them at least twenty minutes to send out the news of someone crashing through the checkpoint.”

To delay the reporting time by the soldiers further, they had scattered hundreds of Gold Coins on the ground. By the time these soldiers picked up the coins and found a phone, it would delay them another fifteen minutes.

With that time, their convoy had already reached the location, entered the tunnel, and started moving toward the outskirts of the city. By the time Li Mingshun discovered the tunnel and figured out Zhao Yu’s direction of escape, Zhao Yu would probably already be on a plane.

Once they were on the plane, the pursuers would not be able to catch up—choosing to take a risk with a plane was because the pre-arranged train might be intercepted along the way.

Several local officials had dubious loyalty; to ensure fullproof escape, changing to a plane was deemed necessary. After all, as capable as the Great Tang Empire’s intelligence department might have been, they could not perfectly secure over a thousand kilometers of territory within the Dahua Empire.

As soon as Zhao Kai gave an order to intercept, many places would execute Zhao Kai’s command, posing a threat to Zhao Yu’s safety. Thus, regrettably, the decision was made to escape by plane, albeit with some risk of a plane crash.

As for whether Dahua Empire would launch planes to intercept—among the pilots qualified to fly advanced fighter jets capable of catching up with a C-47 transport plane, which one didn’t have some connection with Great Tang?

Great Tang had already arranged for four fighter jets to take off from a field airport they would pass, to escort the C-47—essentially, these pilots were also joining Zhao Yu in rebellion.

Sure enough, it took Li Mingshun over half an hour to receive the news of the checkpoint breach, and by the time he arrived at the scene, not a single shiny Gold Coin could be seen on the ground.

With a gloomy expression, he looked at the blood on the ground and the body of the checkpoint commander lying in the middle of the road, Li Mingshun immediately began the pursuit.

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What was desperate was that the Imperial Capital of the Dahua Empire was very large, extremely large. Hiding a dozen cars was all too easy. After sending off Zhao Yu, these cars quickly dispersed and vanished without a trace.

The Rolls-Royce that had smashed through the checkpoint had already been burned to a crisp, the flames even drew Li Mingshun’s attention, causing him to search the nearby area for half a day without finding the exit of the secret tunnel.

This model of luxury car was ubiquitous in the Imperial Capital; no one even knew the exact number. The car’s license plate had been removed before it was set on fire, and seems it could be installed on any car and continue to be used, without showing any flaw.

In the end, Li Mingshun could only report the situation, then lead his men under the assumption that Zhao Yu had already escaped the Imperial Capital and started searching the surrounding areas.

Meanwhile, the DC-3 passenger plane from the Great Tang Empire, which no one dared to detain, nor dared to ask too many questions, had already taken off towards Fengjiang.

In a country like the Dahua Empire with no radar or air-defense system, finding a plane that had already taken off was not an easy task.

Planes passed through the sky from time to time; observed with the naked eye, they were just tiny black dots, who could identify whether that plane was the one they were looking for?

“You can’t shoot down every same model of airplane in the sky, can you? Your Dahua Empire itself owns hundreds of DC-3 airplanes, plus those from Shu Country, Qin Country, Chu Country, Great Tang Empire, what if you hit the wrong one—how would you explain it to others?”

Other countries might be easier to deal with, paying them off and apologizing would suffice…but the Great Tang Empire would certainly look for any excuse to turn on us…”

Around the Imperial Capital of the Dahua Empire, there are three airports, one military for internal use, typically for moving government goods, and also houses maintenance for fighter jets and military transport planes, the other two are civilian airports.

At this moment, inside the command tower of the eastern civilian airport, a duty dispatcher clutching the telephone, bewildered, answered a questioning call from the City Defense Army headquarters, “Yes, planes just took off… not just one, right, can you provide the exact time? If it’s not precise, I can’t really help you…”

“Yes, within half an hour… uh… six planes took off… one was from Shu Country, one from Qin Country… yes, two more were domestic flights, one flying to Great Tang. If it’s forty minutes, there will be two more planes… both heading for Great Tang.” He answered clearly, because there was a timetable.

“Ground the remaining planes! Recheck everything!” an exasperated voice came over the phone. Then, without asking further, the call was abruptly ended.

Immediately thereafter, within the military airport, over a dozen pilots rushed to their planes amid the sound of alarms, the ground crew scurrying around; though the hope was slim, the Dahua Empire was preparing their planes to intercept those that had already taken off.

Regrettably, their pursuit was fated to be fruitless: compared to the worn-out fighter jets of the Dahua Empire, the DC-3 transport planes were not particularly slow; chasing them was not a very good option.

Moreover, if the other side were to deliberately veer off course by a degree or half during flight, relying on eyes to locate a plane within the clouds…was also merely a faint hope.

Yet there weren’t any other good options available on this side of Dahua—if not utilizing the power of the Imperial Capital, how conscientiously the local forces would act was anybody’s guess.

In the western part of Fengjiang City, seeing the telegram from the Imperial Capital, the City Lord spoke with a grave expression, “What kind of a joke is this? How did things get tense all of a sudden? What exactly is going on?”

The content of the telegram ordered the civilian officials not to interfere with the military deployment and to prepare for the arrival of a new military commander dispatched by the Empire.

The officer delivering the telegram admitted he too was unaware of the exact situation, “I don’t know either. The message from the Imperial Capital suddenly came that fighting had broken out; then we received orders here to enhance our alert level.”

“If something were to go wrong, who would be responsible?” the City Lord, scoffing in support of Zhao Yu, tossed the telegram aside and asked.

That officer glanced at him and reminded him, “Sir, isn’t it too late to be talking about responsibility? Is the control of the army outside the city firmly in our hands?”

Knowing what the other meant, the City Lord pondered for a moment, then asked, “Most of the commanders outside the city are our own people, so there’s no problem with that. But I fear that if we act now without any disturbances arising from the Imperial Capital first, wouldn’t we be accused of rebelling?”

Because the telegram didn’t clarify what exactly happened at the Imperial Capital, they were still at a threefold lack of knowledge. Rash actions at such a time could very well lead to mayhem.

That officer had a clear thought, scoffed coldly, and said, “What time is it now, still thinking of sitting on the fence? It’ll be too late to make a stand soon! If we are unprepared on our end, and later Prince Zhao Yu requires our help, won’t you and I have to face a grim fate?”

“So you mean…” The City Lord, upon hearing the officer’s words, also began to waver. He had long been on Zhao Yu’s side, situated in Fengjiang and closely linked with Great Tang; escaping this involvement was simply a fool’s dream.

His hesitation wasn’t due to an unstable stance, but rather he feared causing a mess on his end, which would make it difficult to explain to Zhao Yu.

However, the officer didn’t feel that way; he had long been aligned with the Great Tang Empire, and he straightforwardly said, “If Prince Zhao Yu succeeds, then whatever disturbances we cause here will be irrelevant; if he fails, whatever we do or don’t do, won’t we all die together in the end?”

“You are right! Order the troops to enter a state of readiness! Come with me across the river… to East Fengjiang, to meet with people from Tang Country to think of a strategy!” The City Lord nodded decisively.

“That’s the only way! Let’s go!” Putting on a reluctant demeanor, the officer also followed the City Lord’s pace, heading outside.

Almost at the same time that the DC-3 transport plane took off, the intelligence department of the Great Tang Empire received a telegram in encrypted form, the content was straightforward: “The prey has been hooked; nothing can be reversed now.”

“The scales of Operation Balance have tipped towards success!” Holding the note, Li’ao smiled and looked toward Luff who was also waiting on the same message, “Now… it’s up to you guys.”