Munitions Empire

The Qi Army, which had been prepared, was somewhat flustered but still persisted in fighting. On the temporary Qi Army position stationed at the entrance of the village, a row of Qi soldiers were crazily firing their Shireck Model 1 rifles towards the direction of the Tang Army tanks.

After just hearing the sound of the machine-guns firing next door, the Qi Army commander here issued the order to defend the village to the death.

The Qi troops then began preparing, choosing the hedges at the head of the village and some mud walls as cover, deploying soldiers and also arranging machine-gun positions.

Additionally, relying on the village, at both sides of the village, the Qi Army had also deployed some soldiers, and even behind these soldiers, two cannons had been set up.

These were not the routed soldiers of Qi Country but a complete Qi Army force that hadn’t yet engaged in the battle! They were somewhat more combat-ready than those at the positions, as one could clearly tell by the equipment!

Usually, if they were not main Qi Army forces, they wouldn’t be equipped with novel contraptions like automobiles. Not to mention, after equipping a lot of automobiles, these Qi Army soldiers also had a large number of horses.

The battle had just begun when Liu Guozhu felt that his attack this time seemed a bit rash. Because when he peered out to observe the enemy, he saw an endless number of Qi soldiers.

Just by looking at the sheer number of enemies, it wasn’t something his dozen Tang soldiers plus a tank could handle.

But since the battle had already started, it was too late to say anything. Liu Guozhu knew that now he could only probe and attack first, and if that didn’t work, cover the infantry while they retreated.

The machine-gun directly in front of the tank was continuously firing, and the gunner had not actually seen any real targets but was simply following orders, wastefully depleting his ammunition.

Suppressive fire did have some effect though, confused as the Qi Army was, their actual casualties were almost zero, but the incessant gunfire did indeed create considerable psychological pressure on them.

Next to the tank, the Tang Army infantry had a somewhat better view; they quickly noticed that a large number of enemy forces were moving inside the village, so they immediately launched their counter-attack.

After the riflemen found cover, they began aiming and firing at Qi soldiers, with rather exquisite marksmanship, striking down some Qi soldiers still in search of cover.

At this moment, Tank No. 4 suddenly boomed, firing its gun, startling the surrounding Tang soldiers. Everyone looked towards the firing tank, and they saw a cloud of white smoke continuously billowing around the barrel of the tank’s gun.

The heavy and forceful shell hit the wall of a mud house in the village, creating a big hole directly in it, the massive explosion lifting the roof off, with tiles falling down and clattering on the ground.

Because there were so many of them, the Qi Army filled the entire village, and in the house hit by the shell, there was also a group of Qi soldiers stationed.

As a result, this terrifying shell blew more than a dozen Qi soldiers into the air, burying them under the ruins.

"Tat-tat-tat-tat!” Finally unable to hold back, a hidden Maxim machine-gun on the Qi Army position began to sweep fire.

Bullets hit the severely bullet-marked Tank No. 4 and sparked, but such an attack was obviously not capable of damaging Liu Guozhu’s tank.

After firing a shell, Liu Guozhu ordered the tank to continue moving forward, getting closer to the village to exert greater pressure on the enemy.

He knew that if his tank did not keep advancing, the Tang soldiers following beside his tank would be unable to approach the village amidst the hail of bullets without it.

Only if his tank drew the enemy’s attention, would the following infantry find the opportunity to continue advancing, getting close enough to the right positions to continue firing.

Just at that moment, a cannon shell whistled past, flying over their heads, and also over Tank No. 4, before exploding far, far away.

"What weapon is that?” The infantry platoon leader, hugging his rifle and listening to that piercing sound of slicing through the air, looked in astonishment at the soldier next to him.

"I don’t know either!” The infantryman beside him fired a bullet and drew back, while cycling the bolt and responding.

"It’s aiming at our tank! Where is it? Find it! Find it out!” The platoon leader desperately ordered loudly.

If the tank covering them was destroyed here, then none of them could escape. Without the cover of the tank, how were they to withdraw from the combat and return to their starting point? ℝÃΝố฿ƐS̈

So he had no choice but to risk poking his head out, ceaselessly searching for the location where the enemy’s weapon had just fired from on the bullet-ridden battlefield.

"Where is it… where is it he muttered quietly, and as he watched the village interior bustling with shadows, finally, on the other side of the village, he saw a patch of dissipating blue smoke.

"There!” he just excitedly shouted when a bullet struck next to him, soil splattering and burning painfully against his neck.

The sudden attack frightened him so much that he shrunk his head back, and upon touching his neck with his hand, he saw some blood on his fingertips.

It was just a graze… He spat on his fingertip with relief, then rubbed it against the corner of his clothes.

At this moment, Liu Guozhu, who was on the tank with a radio headset, was still inside the tank, and hadn’t heard a fatal shell that had just flown past his tank.

He was still focused on commanding his loader to find an opportunity to load another shell and then fire another round at the Qi Army in the village.

Soon, his tank stopped again, and then the loader began to insert a new shell, while the gunner searched for a new target.

Almost the next second, he stepped on the firing pedal, and the 75 gun fired once again, blowing up a low wall in the village and flipping the Qi Army soldiers behind it head over heels.

Liu Guozhu had to poke his head out again to check the results of his shot, but this time, just as he stuck his head out, a shell struck the body of his number 4 tank directly.

The shell coincidentally hit the upper right corner of the body of tank number 4, striking the exact point where the top armor and the front and side armors met!

The powerful impact created a blunt angle at that spot and then deflected at a bizarre trajectory, flying upward.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, startling Liu Guozhu, who didn’t even have time to react before he just saw a flash of gold pass before his eyes.

However, even with his headset on, he still heard the sound of the shell and felt the tank’s vibration.

He knew something had hit his tank, but he was lucky that it didn’t penetrate.

"Shit!” Realizing something in the village could threaten his tank, he forgot to take cover and instead looked out, slightly stunned but frantically searching for the target that had fired at him.

As he searched for the threat, a figure rushed onto the tank, scrambled on top in an instant, and shouted loudly while pointing at a distant target, “Over there! Where the white smoke is! There’s a big gun over there!”

The person was the infantry platoon leader, who, disregarding the bullets flying everywhere, climbed onto the tank to report his observations to Liu Guozhu.

Liu Guozhu followed the direction of his pointing and indeed saw a cannon aimed directly at him. He immediately held down the talk button, alerted his driver to start moving, and ordered the gunner to rotate the turret.

The gunner frantically turned his turret while the commander suddenly started moving tank number 4. Caught by surprise, the infantry platoon leader cursed and rolled off the tank.

Another shell came flying in, but this time the enemy apparently didn’t expect tank number 4 to suddenly move forward; the shell just blasted away, whistling past tank number 4 once again.

The Qi Army soldiers in the village seemed to be petrified by the Tang Army’s reckless momentum, as they had never encountered an enemy who communicated amid a hail of bullets.

Yet, amid the shouts of their officers, they still gathered themselves and began to fire more densely to block the continuing advance of the Tang Army.

The anti-aircraft machine guns had already suppressed the constantly firing machine-gun positions inside the village, and Liu Guozhu had his turret aligned with the enemy’s cannon that was still firing.

Just now, to cover tank number 4 as it adjusted its turret, a Tang Army soldier opened fire on the Qi Army’s hidden artillery, exposing his own position and taking a bullet in the shoulder.

His sacrifice was valuable, as his shot hit a Qi Army soldier operating the cannon, which had not been able to fire another round yet.

In that brief period, tank number 4 had aligned its turret toward the hidden artillery and fired the third shell.

The shell hit the artillery position where the Qi Army’s cannon was located, instantly lifting the barrel and blasting the surrounding Qi Army soldiers into the air.

The battle was still ongoing, and Liu Guozhu didn’t have time to savor his victory. He ordered his tank to continue moving forward, then commanded the turret to realign and aim at the village for another shot.

The Qi Army had realized they couldn’t stop this tank’s advance, and their defensive line started to waver instantly.

The Qi Army soldiers positioned at the edge of the village began to retreat towards the interior, abandoning the Maxim machine gun that had been suppressing them, while the Qi soldiers around had already cleared out.

Startled horses ran wildly through the streets and alleys, as the Qi Army’s commanders seemed to realize that they no longer had control over the situation.

So they began to regroup their troops, preparing to continue their resistance by relying on the remnants and ruins within the village. They didn’t dare to retreat, for this was a Qi Country army command post nearby, and they dared not abandon so many documents and pieces of equipment to escape like that.

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