Munitions Empire

Tang Mo rode his tall horse across the no longer soft wilderness, passing in front of the soldiers of the two companies, loudly encouraging them, "Gentlemen! I am a foreigner! I was born in Brunas and only recently got to know you, train you, lead you into battle..."

This time was different from just before. Although those were also recruits who had never seen war, they had cover and did not need to attack, so their psychological pressure was necessarily ten times smaller or even more.

Now, he was about to lead these recruits to confront the enemy troops head-on, even to break the opponent, so he must rally the troops before the battle, to elicit a bit more adrenaline from these new soldiers.

Tang Mo spurred his horse and said loudly in front of the soldiers of the two square formations, "If we are defeated here today, your homes will be burnt to the ground, your wives and daughters will become the playthings of others, your children will be slaves for their entire lives! And all I need to do is return home, lie in my bed, and shed two cheap tears for your suffering."

While he was saying this, behind the two infantry squares, the artillery recruits had already begun unloading the shells from the wagons.

On the side of the wagons, six C64 cannons were lined up. These howitzers, designed and constructed from Krupp blueprints, used gun steel made from remelted and reinforced naval artillery materials, and all the small parts inside were hand-polished by Mathews.

By the standards of this era, these weapons were definitely advanced enough to be enviable, and they had never roared in real war before.

Regrettably, of the artillerymen who operated these cannons, only 15 soldiers and three officers had real cannon-firing experience, and now, they were divided into groups of three, each manning one of the six powerful cannons.

Among these artillerymen with almost no firing experience, there were even three elves, because they had used naval guns on armed merchant ships, and that counted as some real combat experience.

Tang Mo hoped that advanced weaponry could enhance the combat effectiveness of these new soldiers, make up for their numerical shortage, as well as their inferiority in experience.

The good news was, at least the breech-loading cannon shells Tang Mo had were equipped with set charges, and the loading of the shells followed a fixed procedure—this reduced the impact of the recruits’ lack of experience on the precision and safety of using the cannon.

It was precisely for this reason that Tang Mo kept bellowing here. He was not only trying to bolster others’ courage but also trying as much as possible to psych himself up, "So, this is your war! But I, Tang Mo! I have come here! I have met you! I feel that I should, and I must, lead you...

To victory!"

Behind Tang Mo were the Suthers soldiers who were crossing the embankment, capable of vaguely seeing some people gathering here but not really having a good way to respond for the moment.

The distance between the two sides was neither far nor close. Both were also still organizing their own troops, a bit confused, a bit reluctant to face reality.

Tang Mo here needed to boost morale, needed to build up courage to challenge the Suthers’ troops. On the other side, the Suthers troops, obviously, had not realized that they would encounter enemy forces here.

According to earlier deductions, Northern Ridge was unlikely to have a reserve force left here, so when they discovered the two new companies under Redman’s command, Tucci’s confidant was utterly dumbfounded.

He immediately ordered the messengers to take this information back to Tucci, while organizing his troops, ready for a defensive stance on the spot.

Considering the size of the enemy, he knew he had the advantage, and he remembered his promise to Tucci, knowing that holding his position would count as a significant accomplishment.

Therefore, he had absolutely no intention of being reckless but ordered the troops that had reached their positions to stand by and observe the movements on Tang Mo’s side.

His enemy, Tang Mo, at this moment drew his waist sword, pointing it theatrically towards the sky, "Do you know what victory is? Victory! It’s a man’s glory! Today! We stand here, for glory, for victory, for courage... No matter what damn thing it’s for, as long as we smash those fools across from us, when we grow old, we will be able to sit in our armchairs, remembering everything about today!"

He spoke word by word, chin raised, as if he were already a victor, "If you run, show cowardice, fail to keep pace with me... then when you think of today, you will only remember the enemy’s gun barrels, remember the terrifying sound of cannons!"

"But, if you bravely battle alongside me, a foreigner! Then when you remember today, you will remember the endless grasslands, you will remember the magnificent forests, you will remember the entire earth calling out our names!" he pointed his Longsword towards the Suthers troops, shouting loudly. "Today! Forward! Not a step back!"

"Long live Northern Ridge!" Inspired by his words, the Northern Ridge hunters were now seething with excitement, cheering loudly, taking steps forward.

The entire formation began to move forward, everyone shouting hoarsely, "Forward!"

Behind Tang Mo, on the artillery position, Redman anxiously watched Tang Mo, who was leading the troops forward personally.

He was supposed to lead the attack and have Tang Mo stay behind to defend the artillery position, but Tang Mo had refused this suggestion and ordered him to stay and command the artillery battle.

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So now, he could only stand there, watching Tang Mo’s back through the binoculars, urging his own artillerymen to quickly find the right angle to shoot.

These recoilless guns were actually quite inaccurate; each time they fired, they would jump on the spot, which greatly affected their precision. As a result, they were quickly replaced by the more advanced recoiled guns.

However, the outdated recoilless guns were only considered inferior when compared to the recoiled guns. After all, the large number of muzzle-loading cannons equipped by Suthers could hardly be asserted as anything but genuine recoilless guns, could they?

Redman, while watching his own artillerymen busily preparing to fire, tried to emulate Tang Mo, rallying everyone loudly, "Northern Ridge is our homeland! Here, our taxes are the lowest, and we lead lives of our own choosing! Now, some dare to insult our wives and daughters, massacre our kin, plunder our wealth, and trample our crops!"

"Behind us lies the land of Northern Ridge! We must take up arms and fight to the very last moment!" He pointed toward the distant mountains as he shouted, "For Northern Ridge! For each and every one of us! Smash the enemy! Do not give an inch!"

"For Northern Ridge!" The gunners, who were loading the shells and measuring the firing angles with special tools, were equally moved as they repeated over and over, "For Northern Ridge!"

"All cannons, fire at will! Fire!" Once all the soldiers had finished loading, Redman preemptively issued the command for a volley.

Putting down his binoculars, a commander of Suthers and an intimate of Tucci, sneered disdainfully, curling his lip, "Ha! With only half a battalion’s strength, they dare to fight a frontal battle against my full battalion? I’m curious to see how they die!"

"Prepare to fire!" he commanded loudly to his subordinates.

He felt assured of his victory since the enemy only had the strength of half a battalion. If the enemy had maintained their distance and held their ground, they might have been able to hold out for a while, but now being forced into battle, they had evidently lost the advantage of a defensive position.

After crossing the embankment, he began to regroup his forces, and by this moment, they had secured their footing.

His cannons were deployed, his troops had formed their ranks. Under these circumstances, the enemy’s attack was simply suicidal.

As a fierce warrior of Suthers, he was confident that even if it were the main force of Northern Ridge with comparable strength, he could hold his position here without retreating half a step!

So he looked toward the enemy artillery in the distance. There, including the reinforced gunners assigned to him, 10 cannons surrounded by soldiers were all busy loading.

At the soldiers’ feet lay kegs of gunpowder and spherical cannonballs, with the firers holding up their torches, waiting for the command to open fire.

Just then, a thunderous roar suddenly erupted from the sparse enemy artillery positions.

"Boom!" The enemy’s artillery sounded mighty, startling the Suthers warrior into instinctively shrinking his neck.

Six cannonballs with a whistling sound flew over the heads of Suthers’ troops, their piercing screeches causing the entire formation of Suthers to uncontrollably waver.

The cannonballs did not fall into Suthers’ formation, for the parameters were incorrect; they all flew past the ranks, continuing on until they crashed into the sloping embankment and then detonated on impact.

"Boom! Boom!" The explosions of the six cannonballs came from behind Suthers’ troops, and the subsequent billowing black smoke and spurting dirt compelled the Suthers soldiers to involuntarily turn back to look.

With one glance, they utterly forgot they were on a battlefield, as they stared blankly at the dust kicked up by the blasts falling like raindrops, some hardly able to believe that this destruction was caused by the enemy’s fire.

At that moment, the Suthers warrior was also dumbfounded, watching the exploding cannonballs, and even forgot he was commanding a battle.

Meanwhile, at the Northern Ridge artillery position, an artillery commander cursed in frustration, "Damn it! Wrong parameters! Overshot! Idiots! Adjust the firing parameters! Quick!

The angle is off! Adjust fast!"

Hearing the command, all the artillerymen scrambled, some turning the wheels on their cannon mounts, some re-opening the artillery breeches on the side of the cannon barrels, and others congregating to cross-check their calculation formulas.

Seeing that the first volley had gone awry, Tang Mo felt his heart bleeding—those were the shells he’d scrimped and saved to accumulate! There were only a few to begin with! And now you’ve just wasted six in one go? That’s money! Money! Fellas!

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