Munitions Empire

"It’s truly suffocating! Being able to come out and get some fresh air is really a delightful thing," complained a corpulent man with a thick neck, fidgeting with it as he spoke to the young nobleman by his side.

"Shut up! If it wasn’t for you getting Gis to nod his head, I would never let someone like you stand beside me in this lifetime!" Baron Stela’s face was ugly with disdain as he covered his mouth with a white handkerchief and scolded.

The man walking alongside him was none other than Qiumuluo, the human trafficker that Tang Mo and Northern Ridge had been looking for all this time, who at this very moment, was strutting among a troop of over ten thousand of Shireck’s private soldiers.

"Don’t be so tense. As long as we kill that damned bastard named Tang Mo, no one will trouble me anymore," Qiumuluo said with a cold laugh, then seeing that Baron Stela was not responding to him, he too shut his mouth.

Normally, Beiji would be the one commanding the battle, but Beiji was already dead, buried somewhere within the battlefield’s range.

Therefore, this time, Gis had no choice but to take to the field himself to lead the war against the Great Tang Group.

Yet, Gis’s mood was not very good. He suspiciously moved his command post to a position further back, as if he was a coward.

But those familiar with Xiuyi Gis knew he was not a coward. Therefore, if he placed his command post behind the main force, he must have had his reasons.

In fact, Gis was a cunning fox. He instinctively sensed danger and thus created a retreat route for himself in advance.

For someone like Gis, who often did bad things and resorted to underhanded tactics, some issues in the details were sure to catch his attention.

It wasn’t the danger on the battlefield he sensed, but rather, after the operation began, he detected something amiss from the kingdom’s response.

Logically, when he rallied his troops and desperately prepared to target the Great Tang Group, the higher-ups of the kingdom were sure to be displeased, even supposed to find every means to stop him.

After all, the war was erupting within the Leite Kingdom’s territory; no matter how swift the conflict resolution was, it was ultimately the kingdom’s interests that would be damaged. Therefore, the rulers of the kingdom, or rather the ruling class, could not remain indifferent to this matter.

At the very least, they should inquire about the whole affair and try their best to persuade Gis not to engage in such activities within their nation’s borders.

However, the strange thing was that ever since the operation began until now, there had been a surprising silence from the king’s side, even hints of a willingness to cooperate.

The intelligence Gis had received indicated that the king had purchased at least 4500 K1 Quick Guns from the Great Tang Group, and even artillery and steam engines!

This meant that even if the Great Tang Group was not an intimate ally of the king, there had to be large-scale business cooperation between the two parties.

Against such a backdrop, the king still held his peace, allowing the Shireck Consortium to launch an attack on the Great Tang Group, which was a bizarre situation in itself.

Gis was no fool; on the contrary, he was very smart. He therefore immediately guessed something of the truth from such abnormal details.

The king must have had a cooperation with Tang Mo, and this cooperation might well be aimed against Shireck! Moreover, the outcome of this war could very well determine the Leite Kingdom’s stance.

If Shireck won, then the king would turn a blind eye to his recent audacity.

But if Tang Mo’s side won, the king would kick Shireck when they were down, cut off the private army’s retreat, and get rid of the trouble of having a state within the state, regaining control over the nation’s power. ʀἈΝΟ฿ƐS̩

Gis, who had been mulling over these matters, asked his subordinate absent-mindedly, "Where are we now?"

"My lord! We’re about to enter Brunas territory ahead..."

"The mountains on both sides..." Gis’s brow furrowed slightly as he stared at the hills on either side, seeming to find the terrain here a bit too disadvantageous.

It was at this moment that he suddenly realized what was the other unsettling detail he had felt along the way.

Resistance!

Yes, resistance!

If someone was attacked, they would definitely think of resisting. But ever since his Shireck private troops began their march westward, Tang Mo’s forces had not appeared at all.

They had not intercepted Shireck Consortium’s military forces, nor had they protected the mines and other assorted assets previously under their control, all of which were handed over without a fight.

No joke, even after he had burned down several villages under Tang Mo’s control, those previously widely acclaimed private soldiers of Tang Mo’s from the battle at Northern Ridge had vanished as if evaporated, completely silent and out of sight.

"Urge Baron Stela! Tell him that if he can take Brunas in record time, I will reward him with 2000 Gold Coins!" Gis, already sensing that this westward expedition might not go smoothly, immediately ordered.

Just as he gave the order, a private soldier from Shireck at the very front thought he had spotted something.

About a dozen meters ahead of him on the ground, there seemed to be a man-made pit, and inside the pit, something appeared to be moving.

He squinted, trying to get a clearer view of everything in front of him. Moving in time with the drumbeat, his feet continued to advance forward, drawing him ever closer to the suspicious spot.

Just as he realized that the thing crouching in the pit was a person, and that this person was aiming a rifle at him with a black, gaping barrel, he was so frightened he nearly screamed out loud.

Following that, intense gunfire drowned out his cry, and within seconds, the advancing phalanx fell into disarray.

The sound of gunfire was something that the soldiers of Shireck’s private army had never heard before, or rather, it was a sound unheard of by soldiers of any other military except those of the Great Tang Group’s security forces.

Its sound was continuous and enduring, much like waves crashing against the shore, unceasing and tumultuous.

With careful listening, one could discern that this was not a group of soldiers firing their rifles, but rather a single weapon, discharging a dense barrage of bullets in a seamless process never before experienced.

Bullets engulfed the formation marching across the open fields in an instant; a musician with a field drum slung on his waist had his chest torn open by a bullet and, shuddering as if electrocuted, fell to the ground.

Blood sprayed onto the face of the soldier walking beside him, and before he had time to touch the blood on his face, his arm was blown off by a bullet.

The relentless bullets mowed down rows of soldiers like a lawnmower cutting grass. Those who hadn’t yet reacted were smashed in the head before they could even scream.

Amid the crowded line, a young soldier was walking forward with the group, clutching a brand-new K1 Quick Gun.

The moment he heard the gunfire, he instinctively looked at the flag of his unit, which quickly fell, abruptly and without warning.

Before he could understand what was happening, he saw the soldier in front of him clutching his stomach and screaming as he knelt to the ground.

The young man he knew seemed to struggle to his feet, only to topple straight to the ground. It was only then that the person following behind saw clearly that the uniform of the man in front had been dyed red with blood.

He hurriedly knelt, trying to help the poor man who had been shot and lay on the ground. But as soon as he knelt, he saw blood spurting from a gaping hole that the familiar man could not cover with his hand.

Tang Mo’s Maxim machine gun was actually a modified version from Germany, the M08 machine gun. Instead of the original Maxim’s 11.43mm caliber bullets, it used 8mm caliber bullets, just like the Mauser Rifle.

Doing so basically unified the caliber, allowing the troops to be equipped with only one type of rifle ammunition, which is the standard German 7.92mm caliber bullet, also referred to as the 8mm caliber bullet.

Thus, Tang Mo had greatly simplified his logistics by not having to set up separate, incompatible production lines for different calibers of ammunition.

However, this arrangement did put the Navy at a disadvantage as the machine guns equipped on their ships could only use 8mm caliber ammunition, which naturally had less power.

But on land, especially at close range, the power of 8mm caliber bullets was already entirely sufficient.

Indeed, it was enough! At that moment, a bullet shattered the field drum strapped to the waist of a musician at the flank of the square, then penetrated his stomach and went through an officer behind him before finally coming to rest after its deadly flight.

Completely unaware of the need to go prone, the troops from Shireck stood as if they were lambs to the slaughter, and then were knocked down in droves.

Standing at the concealed observation position of the command post, Wes remembered something Tang Mo had said. Tang Mo had said that he was afraid there wouldn’t be enough enemies for him to kill…

Now he truly understood the meaning of those words; in that moment, he even felt that Tang Mo’s statement was somewhat… modest.

For the Shireck private soldiers before him were truly in disarray, their blood even turning to mist, spreading amidst the crowd.

It wasn’t until a Maxim gun jammed and ceased firing that the soldiers on the opposite side from Shireck realized—they had been attacked by an invisible enemy!

The remaining men, panic-stricken and bewildered, didn’t even know how to respond to the situation before them. Those few scattered soldiers simply stared down at the cadavers at their feet.

They hadn’t yet realized what was happening, thinking they were in the midst of a nightmare from which they had not awoken.

For in their minds, only in hell could there be a vision of bodies covering the ground at their feet. What they didn’t know was that at that moment, they might indeed have been in hell…

"Bang!" A sudden gunshot rang out, and the head of a Shireck soldier, who had been staring blankly at a pile of corpses at his feet, exploded. Then the rest of his body twisted and fell, crashing onto another dead body.

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