Munitions Empire

Liu Guozhu felt like a mackerel hiding in a can, with a giant outside trying to pry open the protective tin, yearning to swallow him whole.

The gunfire and barrage outside were so intense they made people’s scalps tingle, with bullets coming from everywhere and explosions resounding all around.

However, the No. 4 tank he was driving remained incredibly sturdy, its thick armor blocking attacks from all directions.

Bullets banged against the tank’s armor like raindrops hitting a roof, with one bullet striking the armor and ricocheting off, sparking a shower of sparks.

The sheer volume of incoming ammunition even wore away the paint on the tank, obliterating its original appearance and indicating bullet impacts so dense that some bullets hit exactly the same spots.

Seated in the commander’s position, Liu Guozhu thought that for infantry to charge in such an environment was sheer madness; even with armor protection, it required immense courage to break through such defenses.

Peering through the slender gap at the commander’s spot, Liu Guozhu saw a bunker ahead continuously spewing flames, with bullets shooting out incessantly from the small firing holes.

"One o’clock, one o’clock! Machine gun bunker! Do you see it? Do you see it?” Liu Guozhu shouted loudly to his gunner.

The gunner was operating the turret’s rotation and, upon hearing Liu Guozhu’s reminder, immediately started to align the turret’s scale in his field of vision.

He worked hard to align the turret scale to the direction of one o’clock and then observed the smoke-filled battlefield through the scale-laden sighting scope.

"I see it! I see it! Loader! High-explosive shell loading! High-explosive!” He had spotted the target, then yelled at his loader.

The loader responded swiftly, pulling out a shell marked with ‘high-explosive’ from the ammunition rack and pushed it into the cannon breach without hesitation.

The next second, the breech block closed automatically, and then the gunner heard the loader’s ready shout. Instinctively stepping on the firing pedal, the shell shot forth from the barrel.

Accompanied by a violent tremor, the shell flew out of the 75mm short-barreled cannon, heading straight toward the distant target, narrowly missing flying directly into the machine gun bunker’s firing hole.

Even so, the shell exploded right next to the firing hole, the enormous blast engulfing much of the bunker, instantaneously silencing the firing hole.

Qi Army soldiers hidden in the bunker were not intimidated by the Stuka bombers; they stood their ground, trying to halt the Tang Army’s advance.

But when the Qi Army awaited the Tang forces’ assault, they discovered that the advancing Tang Army was equipped with a weapon they had never seen before.

This weapon was fast, fitted with a rotatable turret, had two machine guns and a cannon, full of firepower and extremely strong in defense.

Driving this new weapon, the Tang Army quickly got close to the Qi Army’s front lines. These steel monsters tore through the barbed wire, then began rampaging through the forward positions of the Qi troops.

In the midst of the Qi Army’s gunfire and shelling, follow-up Tang infantry braved the barrage to fill the wide trenches obstructing the tanks’ path, with sandbag-carrying Tang soldiers being shot down one after another beside the trench.

Soon the Tang Army’s artillery barrage swept in, starting to suppress the Qi positions. In a flash, the Qi fortifications were swamped by explosions.

Tang troops were exhilarated, hurling sandbags into the trench one by one, even using the bodies of their comrades to pack it further.

Then, as soon as it was barely passable, a No. 4 tank crushed the sandbags and bodies in its eagerness, surmounting the only barrier that could have stopped its advance.

Liu Guozhu directed his tank toward the filled-in trench with reluctance, then ordered the driver to navigate briskly across.

He felt the tank’s nose suddenly dip, indicating that the filling in the trench was still slightly lower than the edges.

But that didn’t matter at all because the No. 4 tank’s off-road capability was formidable, unmatched by any other tanks of the era.

With the engine roaring, Liu Guozhu felt the tank’s nose hit something, followed by the vehicle regaining balance. Within two seconds, he felt the nose lift high, clearly having crossed to the other side of the trench.

He firmly gripped the handhold beside him, then let the nose crash down as the tank regained balance, once again able to see the Qi Army position so close at hand.

"Direct front! Direct front! Enemy machine gun position! Aim! Aim!” Liu Guozhu saw Qi soldiers in the trench ahead, operating a Maxim machine gun and firing.

"Tatatatatata!” The tank’s coaxial machine gun began firing, with the electromechanical operator aiming his gun, sweeping bullets across the edge of the enemy trench.

The shooter behind the Maxim gun was struck by a bullet and fell backward, while his assistant gunner was similarly mangled beyond recognition.

Near the machine gun emplacement, a white fog of bullet-driven smoke had cleared out, and that Maxim gun itself was damaged by bullets, tilting over to one side.

The nearby three or four machine gun positions had all been removed, the supportive fire from the Qi Army ceased instantly, and what little resistance remained sounded like feeble gasps and moans.

The Qi Army soldiers in the trenches, watching those massive steel-made beasts approach their position, had already begun to collapse.

Their will to fight had already been shaken by the Stuka Dive Bombers, and now, seeing this kind of new weapon they have never encountered before, they lost even the thought to counterattack.

As a Type 4 tank rolled over the trench, breaking the reinforced wooden planks on the edge of the trench, the Qi Army soldiers within immediately panicked and fled in all directions, shouting, “The enemy is coming! Save us! They’re firing at us!”

On the crater-filled battlefield, Liu Guozhu’s Type 4 tank first crossed over a huge crater relentlessly before aligning its turret at a machine gun bunker not far away.

"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!” The coaxial machine gun roared, ejecting a stream of tracer bullets toward the Qi Army’s position.

The machine gun ports on the other side fell silent; perhaps frightened, the Qi Army soldiers inside fled out and, along with the soldiers from the nearby cover bunker, began to frantically escape.

"Fire! Fire! They are retreating! Aim…,” Liu Guozhu reminded his gunner as he saw some panic-stricken Qi soldiers scrambling away through the observation window.

The gun commander immediately continued operating the coaxial machine gun to strafe, sending another volley of tracer bullets into the crowd, toppling all the Qi soldiers who had left their trenches.

On the bare position, Qi Army’s artillery shells soon fell, but there were not many of them, and their accuracy was terribly off.

Seven or eight shells fell behind the Tang Army tanks, while another two or three shells fell onto the Qi Army’s own positions, and those in full retreat were blown into bitter joy.

Just then, Liu Guozhu saw a Red Dragon Flag passing over his own tank—it was the Tang Army Infantry coming up to occupy the trenches and positions near the tank.

The battle continued, but the situation had become one-sided. The Qi Army, already disheartened by the Tang Country’s air assault, was now completely scattered by the impact of the tanks and had withdrawn from the first line of defense.

However, before they could recover, or rally on the second line of defense, Tang Army’s artillery once again rolled over them.

"Whoosh!” Howling shells landed on the Qi Army’s positions, causing the already terrified Qi soldiers who hadn’t caught their breath to once again break into a cry for their fathers and mothers as they fled in disarray.

"How can their artillery fire be so fast?” A Qi soldier who didn’t even care for his weapon beside him, started running, crying and complaining as he ran.

"Stop talking! Save your energy!” An experienced soldier ran along the trench without looking back, reminding the rookie beside him as he ran.

"Where is our artillery?” Another Qi soldier had in his mind already desecrated his own artillerymen’s ancestry.

He had barely finished speaking when he saw a 130mm howitzer lying inside a hidden position. Next to it was a smoking crater, and bodies scattered around that had not been dealt with in time.

This was the handiwork of the Stuka Dive Bomber, with a bomb accurately hitting this gun emplacement, advancing all the artillerymen inside, and the gun itself.

Staring wide-eyed, his pace slowly slowing down, this complaining Qi soldier foolishly looked at the artillery parts scattered beside the bodies and those incomplete corpses, and in an instant, he even forgot to run.

During his daze, a sound pulled him back to the harsh reality: that long, increasingly mournful sound from hell echoed over his head again.

"Buzz… woohoo… woo!” Accompanied by that distinct, terrifyingly sharp buzz, a Stuka Dive Bomber returning to the battlefield dropped bombs once again.

The sound utterly devastated the already retreating Qi Army, and they fell to their knees, raised their hands high, and cried out to the Tang Army for surrender: “Stop firing! We surrender! Please, we beg you! We surrender! Stop firing!”

Following that, they saw the tracks churning as the hefty Type 4 tanks drove past them, rolling over their trenches, rushing towards the distant beyond.

And the Tang Army soldiers following the tanks began to take over trenches and positions, escorting prisoners, and filling in some trenches and obstacles.

The noise gradually faded away; it was only at this point that the Qi Army realized the border defense line they had solemnly promised to hold for half a year seemed to have been almost breached by the Tang Army in just one morning!

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