Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 1237: WW1: Taking back Thessaloniki (10)

In a damp hut right next to a harbour, a middle-aged man, surrounded by dozens of documents and books of all kinds, was seriously studying a book titled ’Offence as an Ultimate Weapon’ by author Sarvesh Ranavikrama.

The sound of water droplets and the creaking of the wooden hut due to the wind and cold could occasionally be heard, but for the man dressed in a thick leather jacket, seated within an office room that no one would expect to see within a rundown hut, those sounds did not matter at all. He had simply tuned his brain to ignore those specific sounds.

However, that did not mean that he was not aware of the surroundings. In fact, his senses were far more acute than those of a normal person, which was one of the reasons why he was put in charge of the operation by the Secretary General personally.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching the hut, the sound reaching his mind after all the ambient noises were filtered out. The man’s concentration was immediately broken, and his attention turned towards the door. "Are those bastards attacking again?" he muttered, asking himself with a dark and gloomy expression.

His name is Nikos Papadakis, a brigadier general of the Greek special forces. It was he who had taken the task of launching an attack on the port of Thessaloniki under the direct command of his excellency, the director general, Georgios Paleologos.

After the attack, as they had anticipated, they were able to regain the complete naval base of Thessaloniki, albeit ruined with their own hands. Unfortunately, their conquest was no different than a rootless duckweed, as their logistics lines could not handle so much stress coming from the enemy up north, which left them living off the logistics supplies provided by the Bharatiya Navy.

Unfortunately, a single source of intermittent logistics supply was not enough to maintain complete control over Thessaloniki as they initially did, so the area of control continuously shrank until the present, where only two harbours on the farthest end of Thessaloniki were left.

But even then, the troops from the Slavic Bessantium Kingdom did not let them go at all. They launched one attack after another, trying to completely eradicate them from their own land. Sadly, such raids had always had the same results, which is that although they could survive thanks to the weapon systems provided by the Bharatiya Empire, it would only be with dozens of their soldiers being killed in action.

So it was not surprising to see the brows of Nikos furrowed like a dried-up riverbed.

However, to his surprise, his subordinate, who usually reported information to him with a face that looked like a drunkard whose debt collector had come knocking on his door, now looked like a radiant peach blossom, his excitement practically gushing out even through the thick woollen jacket that obstructed half of his face.

Without saying anything, his subordinate directly passed over a piece of paper that looked to have been crumpled, but Nikos did not comment on it and simply spread open the paper and read through the details. By the time he had understood the significance of what he had just read, his eyes widened, and he was filled with disbelief.

"Yes," he clenched his fist, his hands trembling with excitement as he punched the table with all his might.

---

Boris Dragan had a sombre expression on his face. He knew such a day was right around the corner, as all the military bases towards the east had fallen, and he knew he was next, but still, when it appeared right before him, only an arm’s length away, he was still taken off guard.

Looking down at the city that stretched towards the horizon, one would immediately feel awe, as if one were looking at an invincible city that could not be breached. But as soon as the view was slightly tilted to the right, one would immediately become speechless, their hearts filled with one single emotion, terror.

Hundreds of thousands of troops, occupying the entire field of vision, appeared like an ocean of people with no end in sight. And once it was understood that each and every one of the soldiers was equipped with rifles and grenades, the horror would only intensify. But that was not all, the artillery pieces, like monsters of destruction, were lined up neatly in their designated positions, their aim directly pointed at the walls of Thessaloniki.

If he had a chance, Boris didn’t want to face such a formidable opponent by himself, but sadly, without the support of the European Union, he was left with no choice.

The usual etiquette of a battle, to inquire if the defender had any idea of surrendering and whether the attacker had the intention of retreating, was conducted. Without any surprise, it was a failure, and as a result, Vaibhav Krishnamurthy gave an order to attack with a decisive and resolute heart.

The monsters that were lying in wait for their prey suddenly came alive, and they pounced with ruthless aggression. Being bombarded, the wall immediately shook, with vibrations being sent coursing straight into the very foundation of the entire city.

It was as if thousands of drakes were spitting fire on the city wall, sending debris flying everywhere and vaporising the air in an instant.

The casualties began to mount with every passing moment, people dying on both sides.

Boris Dragan could feel that their cannons, even the new ones forged by the French, were no match for the Bharatiya artillery, and that left him with a bad taste in his mouth. The amount of money spent on developing a new generation of artillery weapons to catch up with the Bharatiya Empire as soon as possible was astronomical, but despite pouring so much money, the best artillery pieces the French could come up with were simply weapon systems that could barely compete with the base artillery pieces of the Bharatiya Empire.

He could tell that he was not doing a lot of damage to the enemy, so he did not have a good look on his face. "Hopefully, I can stall them for a few days," he thought, because then he would not have to be treated as a traitor and a deserter, and he would still receive the credit he deserves. Besides, he does not exactly have to go back and take orders from his highness Dmitry or his son; he could simply sell himself for a good price to the army of the European Union. He was confident that the Union military would not refuse someone like him, who managed to stall the largest Bharatiya Army for 6 to 10 whole days.

Four days later

A covert operations team had taken a long route by circling around Lake Koroneia and found themselves over 15 kilometres away from the northwestern border of Thessaloniki.

"Everyone, listen up," a man with a four-star badge on his shoulder spoke out, attracting the attention of everyone. "The mission we have undertaken is arguably the hardest aerial mission the Empire has ever seen."

"Currently, the temperature is about 10 degrees Tapans, and given that it had just rained, it is quite humid as well, both conditions detrimental to our mission."

"I have more good news, as we reach our designated height of over 1000 metres, we will encounter temperatures of 1.5 to 3.5 degrees Tapans, and the wind speeds might reach forty to fifty kilometres per hour. The only advantage that could barely be considered as one is that, thanks to the colder winds, our buoyancy will be much better, since the difference in temperatures between the air within the balloon and the air outside the balloon would be high. But overall, the task is no different from insanity."

"However, this is what we all signed up for as the most elite trooper unit of the Empire. We know no fear, so everyone, I won’t wish you good luck, since you are not going to need it, so go out there and conquer those guys."

The hot air balloons slowly rose up from the ground, and without any surprise, they immediately caught the air current coming from the Vardar River Valley of North Macedonia, quickly propelling the hot air balloons forward at unimaginable speeds for a hot air balloon.

One good thing about the current situation was that the air current, despite being very rapid, was very stable, so all the air balloons, as if catching a wave, floated in the same direction.

"Oh damn," naturally, when trying such a daring strategy, there are always uncontrollable factors, such as the current situation where one hot air balloon collided with another, causing a crash. One of the paratroopers reacted quickly and jumped off, opening his parachute in the process, but the other paratrooper was not so lucky; he lost his balance and was thrown overboard, and in panic, when he pulled the parachute, it got entangled, leading to his death. But thankfully, quite a few survived; however, the hardest part had yet to begin.

Due to the speed of the winds, the hot air balloons could not be used again, so it was a one-week trip; either they succeed, or they don’t. So they had no choice but to jump off the balloon and paraglide down to their target, but the problem is, the wind speed also makes it harder to land on the target. The recommended wind speed to operate a balloon is around 20 kilometres per hour, but now it was around 50, so the exit from the parachute should be done over 3 to 5 KM away from the target, with a range of error reaching a kilometre.

And then there was the landing, the paratroopers had to find an even, flat ground to land. It could not be a place filled with trees or buildings because their landing speed could probably reach nearly 40 kilometres per hour, so they would have to go into the tucking position and roll several times to slow down. They were already wearing extremely defensive tearproof clothing to protect the body from both incision and blunt damage, but it was still a risky manoeuvre that was only tested in theory.

But surprisingly enough, nearly 70% of all the paratroopers made it to the ground in one piece, where they were immediately taken in by the Greek forces that were entrenched within the city.

Brigadier General Nikos Papadakis quickly organised the troops under his control and followed the command of the paratroopers that came from the rear.

"We have to act quickly; we should not give them any time to redirect their forces from the front to the rear." The Lieutenant Colonel of the paratroopers ordered.

Nearly 7,000 Greeks quickly infiltrated the city and took the paratroopers to the frontline as they requested.

The paratroopers no longer hesitated; they looked at each other and nodded, then they took out a small canister.

Nikos looked at the paratroopers with curiosity. The next moment, what they did surprised him; they took a special hollow pipe which they had requested earlier, with one of its ends screwed on with a methyl cap, and pushed gunpowder into it, after which the canister was loaded, "!" Nikos’s expression shifted widely.

Then, boom!

The canisters were shot right onto the soldiers defending the wall.

As soon as the canister made contact with the ground, it was as if a small charge had been triggered; the canister was immediately punctured, spewing out large amounts of gas.

Nikos looked at the scene in front of him with his mouth agape. How could such a small canister carry such a large amount of gas, and what was that gas in the first place? Why were the people rubbing their eyes and screaming as if they were in the depths of hell itself?

"It’s a special gas-based concoction prepared by the people in the empire. It’s not poisonous, but some ingredients have gone into it, so it will cause a lot of irritation whether the person inhales it or the gas reaches the eyes," a paratrooper smiled as he explained.

Nikos felt a chill run down his spine. This is quite scary, but he did not have time to slowly process what he had witnessed, because the next moment, loud ground-breaking bombardments sounded on the other side as if everything had been planned.

The force of the cannon striking the wall on the other side even made Nikos, who was quite a distance away from the wall, shiver.

"Boom!"

"Haha, it’s finally breached."

One of the paratroopers exclaimed with a hearty laugh.

The next moment, through the breach, what came were not the cavalry he was originally expecting, but metal monsters, the Bharatiya war tractors which he had heard so much about, moving slowly, one step at a time. Right behind the flame-spewing monsters that shot red-hot bullets in all directions finally came the cavalry, charging immediately and breaking the defensive line in a single move, after which the infantry followed and quickly put up a defensive formation. Then came the motorcycle regiments, which split apart at once and started wreaking havoc throughout the city wall.

Under the full might of the Bharatiya Army, and with some support from the Greek forces, the city of Thessaloniki returned to the Greek Republic after five days of battle.