Munitions Empire

The Suthers flag fluttered in the wilderness, and the cannons behind the soldiers still roared, with one shell after another striking the remaining low wall, turning the hastily gathered stones into dust.

"Let those damned Northerners feel our strength! Avenge the 1st Battalion!" The officer on the flank continued to encourage everyone as he moved forward with his troops.

These farmers and slaves, who had been conscripted just two months ago, now nervously clutched their Shireck flintlock guns, crowding together, step by step advancing forward.

"Follow the drumbeat! Forward!" The hoarse shouts of their superiors echoed in their ears as they breathed in the somewhat chilly air, watching the low wall grow closer.

Very quickly, the tension escalated several notches as the soldiers saw several of their comrades' bodies hanging on the low wall, mutilated and too horrific to bear.

In truth, these bodies were hung there after being killed, and the mutilation was the result of ceaseless shelling. But the approaching Suthers soldiers didn't know this, and fear had already spread, nearly stopping them in their tracks.

However, the officer standing behind them had no sympathy for these conscripts, hastily recruited for war. He immediately shouted loudly, "Advance! Retreat and die!"

With this officer's shout, the barrage from Suthers ceased. Ammunition wasn't free, and this level of shelling had vastly exceeded the originally planned rate of consumption.

While there was a lot of ammunition, with the current logistics, the reserve shells that could advance with the troops were hardly sufficient.

Therefore, some savings had to be made where possible. Didn't you see that those soldiers had begun to approach the low wall? Continuing the shelling now was impossible anyway, wasn't it?

In the sudden silence that ensued, the soldiers from two Suthers battalions began climbing over the piles of broken wall. The climb was evidently easier this time around, as some walls had been shattered by the cannon fire.

However, that particular type of gunshot sound that vexed Romel rang out once again. Although not as intense as before, it was clearly enough to handle the Suthers soldiers climbing over the wall.

The first Suthers soldier to climb over didn't even make it across the road before being shot dead halfway.

Another soldier jumped down from the low wall, landing on something soft. He looked closely and realized it was the belly of a corpse.

He stumbled, nearly smashing his face into the dead soldier's face. The deceased soldier's mouth was agape, his eyes not fully closed. The horrific sight so frightened this Suthers soldier that he quickly propped up his head with his hands, only for his head to be immediately penetrated by a bullet.

At a distance of a dozen meters, the accuracy of rifles with rifled barrels and Minié balls meant precision was hardly a concern. As long as they aimed and fired, Tang Mo's trained hunters could easily kill.

In Tang Mo's troops, because of their experience in mountain bandit suppression, one-tenth of the soldiers had truly killed people, over half had seen corpses, and all of them had hunted large animals, using animal carcasses for bayonet training.

Cleary, such training, coupled with Tang Mo's intentional emphasis on obedience to orders, allowed these Northern Ridge hunters to maintain a considerable level of composure in their first appearance on the battlefield.

Now, fifty soldiers held their weapons, seeking targets to fire at, while another fifty helped their comrades reload the used rifles.

Though the gunfire had thinned out compared to before, the fearsome rate of fire of Tang's K1 Quick Gun meant that Suthers soldiers climbing over the wall continued to fall one after another, with none even crossing the midpoint.

Seven or eight Suthers soldiers, seizing an opportunity, began sneaking toward the village on the other side of the wall, believing it was a breach as they had noticed no movement from the village.

But just as they neared the village, they were met with intense gunfire. A barrage of bullets greeted them, and the seven or eight soldiers were immediately mown down.

Three of Tang Mo's specially trained rangers quickly holstered their revolvers and retreated from their hiding places.

They had been lying in wait in the village, with the purpose of dealing with any enemy that might approach. They were Tang Mo's trusted forces, each equipped with two revolvers at their waist, so well-armed that even Wes envied them.

Experienced and accustomed to hunting in the Vicious Forest, they had retreated immediately after striking, with no intention of engaging in prolonged combat.

And as the gunfire in the village grew intense, most of the Suthers soldiers abandoned the idea of taking a detour.

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The battle continued unabated, as Suthers drummers who were stationed near the broken wall beat their drums relentlessly. They hadn't climbed over the low wall, so they couldn't see what was happening on the other side.

The commander of the 2nd Battalion of Romel's Suthers troops who had climbed over the low wall now realized that his soldiers were being massacred by the enemy on this side of the wall.

He drew his revolver and fired a shot into the ever-thickening white smoke, not knowing if he had hit anyone.

Then, he knelt on one knee and began to reload his gun. With the help of the increasingly dense gun smoke, a Suthers soldier managed to safely scale the low wall, weapon in hand, shouting as he charged over the corpses towards the enemy.

Right after that, he heard a gunshot. The soldier stumbled forward a few steps before tripping over a body and fell straight down.

His hands trembling, he fumbled as he tried to load his gun with ammunition, and he yelled loudly for the soldiers who had climbed over the wall to stay calm and to hold their fire for the moment. But he could still hear the haphazard firing of his own soldiers.

The familiar sound of Suthers' Shireck flintlock guns was sporadic and ineffective, while the unfamiliar sound of gunfire from across the field was continuous and unrelenting.

Though irregular, the shots were battering the already collapsing will of the Suthers troops, causing an inexplicable irritation.

Uncontrollably, his hands shook even more. He knew he was beginning to feel fear and that he might not win this fight.

In fact, he couldn't even think of a decent plan for retreat—if he mustered the courage to turn around and scale the wall again, he really feared he might not dare to do so.

The sound of bullets hitting the wall behind him kept him from daring to stand up—though, clearly, kneeling here was not the solution either.

Soon, the white fog from the gun barrels would dissipate, and anyone remaining here would undoubtedly become a live target.

His thoughts were abruptly cut off as a bullet tore through his neck, and blood spurted from his collar like a fountain, impossible to stem no matter how he tried to cover it with his hands.

Next to him, terrified by the sight of corpses and blood, a Suthers recruit, in a panic, knocked into the officer who was desperately trying to plug the hole in his neck and frantically attempted to climb over the wall to escape.

As he scaled the wall, a bullet passed through the recruit's back, causing him to hang on the wall like his predecessors—left there.

On the road, more than three hundred bodies had piled up, with around a hundred Suthers soldiers begging for mercy among the corpses.

An attack force of about six hundred men, two battalions of infantry, had been mysteriously defeated once again without even getting a clear view of how many enemies there were, or who their opponents were, and they collapsed and fled back to their starting position.

Viscount Romel's face had turned white with rage and fear. He had promised Tucci that he could take Three-Way Intersection in one attack.

Now after two assaults, his entire brigade of 1,500 men had charged twice and hadn't captured the seemingly defenseless junction, just a stone's throw away that appeared to have no formal defenses.

At this very moment, he truly regretted not taking that damned little village earlier! Why did he wait until now to lead his troops here? If he had hastened his arrival and not chosen to set up camp with the forest at his back, maybe he could have avoided these days of crushing defeat.

He pressed his legs against his horse's sides, letting it take him toward the distant low wall, as if he wanted to glimpse the faces of the enemy on the other side.

However, the knight next to him saw that Romel had lost his composure and rode forward, reaching out to grab the reins of the Viscount's horse.

Amidst the field before Romel lay Suthers soldiers who had been terrified into disarray, clustering in small groups, ducking and hiding, completely ignoring the remaining officers' restraint, making the whole battlefield appear utterly disheveled.

Clearly, Romel's brigade was no longer capable of launching a third charge—indeed, they had even lost the courage to stay and continue fighting where they were.

After this battle, Tang Mo had relatively resolved the trouble of fighting on two fronts, leaving only the nuisance of the reinforcements Tucci was bringing from the southeast.

From any angle, this Suthers military force preparing to head north, personally led by Tucci, was not akin to the rabble led by Romel.

They were the real elite of Suthers, their morale sky-high after just securing the "Central Line Victory"... the enemy.

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