Chapter 38: The English Are Truly Giving It Their All

"The Song army is nothing but a pack of butchers. Listen to the weeping pleas of your friends and family who fled from Jinzhou, and look at the brutality Sun Li has shown throughout his march. Do you still hold onto the naive hope of surrendering to that cold-blooded killer? We, the English, shall never be slaves. For the sake of freedom, we would rather die in battle!" Agents of the Earl of Glamorgan were spreading this propaganda throughout the capital of the English provisional government.

"Long live England! Down with the brutal invaders!" As the message spread, slogans of defending the homeland echoed through every street and alley. In this era, the call to protect one's home was perhaps the only way to awaken the spirit of the people. This was deeply tied to the actions of Sun Li’s Song army—their unreasonable exploitation of the wealthy, their blatant classification of civilians, and, most importantly, the fact that we, the English, were being treated as second-class citizens!

Moreover, rumor had it that they intended to force people into the dark, wretched mines to labor for the dictator Sun Li!

Why, that would be worse than fighting to the death. What joy is there in living such a life?

The residents of the English Isles were far wealthier than those on the European continent, and naturally, they had no intention of living such a miserable existence.

"We cannot sit idly by and wait for death. No matter how strong Sun Li’s army is, he has only 100,000 men. We have over a million warriors who dare to fight for freedom. We will surely achieve final victory!" the Earl of Glamorgan’s agents continued to incite the masses.

Suddenly elevated to the status of "warriors," the commoners were unwilling to be outdone. Fueled by indignation, cries of "freedom" and "warriors" filled the air. When compared to the life of a miner under Song rule, there was no need to think twice—was it not obvious that they should fight to the end?

The answer was clear: even the most foolish person knew that the moment for battle had arrived.

The Earl of Glamorgan and his cohort of capitalist moguls had staked everything. They contributed more than half of their wealth, and factories worked day and night to churn out simple, practical bayonet-equipped flintlock muskets.

Driven by vast financial resources and the once-formidable industrial system of the English Empire, the Earl of Glamorgan directly armed over a million gun-toting rioters.

The revolutionary army had previously captured Song flintlock muskets on the battlefield. The design of the bayonet lug was easily replicated by the industry-savvy English, and the newly produced muskets with bayonets were soon indistinguishable from those used by the Song soldiers.

The English had finally reached the same level as the Song army in terms of weaponry. Well, the Earl of Glamorgan chose to magnificently ignore the existence of artillery high-explosive shells.

Recognizing the invincibility of the Song army in open-field warfare, the Earl and the provisional government refused to engage them in the open. After arming all the capital's residents, they turned the massive city into a defensive stronghold, determined to resist the Song forces with everything they had.

Sun Li could not simply slaughter every Englishman if he intended to rule the islands. While he might have had the desire to collect "points," he lacked the sheer power to exterminate everyone, and even if he did, he had no wish to become an enemy of all mankind.

Yet, under the fervor of total resistance, Sun Li knew that only by crushing the capital would he force the hopeful English to face reality.

One should not underestimate the impact of a capital city falling in this era. This was not a time of advanced industrial nations like in the Second World War, where one could endure eight years of resistance even after losing the capital.

This was an age still clinging to the remnants of feudalism.

National consciousness was just beginning to emerge, spurred largely by that man Amasga. In the minds of the average civilian, if the war had reached a point where even the capital could not be defended, was that not a total defeat?

Though the Song system was oppressive to the white population, it was at least not an extermination. If they could survive, and in the face of inevitable defeat with no hope of victory, few were willing to sacrifice themselves for nothing.

The Earl of Glamorgan knew full well that the battle for the capital would be the most critical engagement determining whether England would continue to exist—there was no doubt about it.

He moved all 50,000 of his well-trained troops into the city, using them as the backbone to instruct the armed mobs—who had no military knowledge beyond pulling a trigger—on how to fight.

In other words, he had to ensure they wouldn't collapse the moment the enemy fired their cannons.

The Earl of Glamorgan was determined to command the battle from the capital himself. If he lost, he would have nothing left. If he were lucky, he might escape to live as a wealthy hermit, but having tasted supreme power, how could he ever accept a life of subservience? Besides, the Earl was getting old; if he was to die, he would die a glorious death, not one spent in constant hiding.

In the council formed by the capitalists, the Earl was perhaps the one with the most military spirit. Many other members had already secretly fled.

"Run, then. Run! Do you truly believe you can find peace at the ends of the earth? As long as Sun Li continues to rise, the entire European continent will know no peace!" the Earl muttered to himself in his office.

This capitalist, who had squandered half his life, saw things clearly; he recognized the military potential and ambitions of the Song Empire. This Sun Li was a military dictator through and through, a war-monger whose ambition could never be sated. Unless he was struck down once and for all, he would never cease his expansion.

However, looking at the current situation, it was uncertain whether the European alliance—which appeared united but was actually built on shifting sands where no one truly trusted another—could actually defeat the Song.

If there were any force capable of defeating Sun Li, it would perhaps be the mysterious Eastern continent that had supposedly wiped out the Dwarf Emperor’s entire army. He chuckled bitterly; if that ambitious Sun Li truly succeeded, he would eventually meet his match in the East.

The Earl thought this with a sense of vengeful satisfaction. He could only fantasize about Sun Li’s failure, yet his fantasy was grounded in a cold, logical assessment.

When Sun Li received the intelligence from the Jinyiwei regarding the total mobilization of the enemy, he finally took the Earl of Glamorgan seriously. The man was not entirely useless; his ability to incite the masses was quite impressive.

Sun Li ordered a temporary halt to the assault on the capital. It was not that he wouldn't attack; the English Isles were now filled with fanatical, agitated citizens, and those crazed capitalists were distributing weapons everywhere. Every city would essentially require a brutal house-to-house battle to claim ownership.

Therefore, attacking the capital—which had the highest concentration of people and appeared the most formidable—was the simplest and fastest way to shatter enemy morale.

Once the Song army halted, Sun Li massed over a hundred cannons, all loaded with the new high-explosive shells, and tightly encircled the capital.

Among them were over thirty 12-pound cannons.

When the preparations were complete, Sun Li gave the order, and the first large-scale bombardment in history began. A hundred guns fired in unison. The new shells demonstrated the most terrifying lethality this world had ever seen. The armed mobs, who knew nothing of bunkers or self-protection, had no way to evade the barrage.

They were blown to pieces in droves along the city’s outer perimeter!

The fighting on the outskirts ended quickly under the combined pressure of artillery bombardment and infantry charges. The Earl of Glamorgan’s hope of using the outer defenses to wear down the enemy was in vain, and tens of thousands were killed or captured.

However, these were merely hastily armed civilians. With over a million left in the city, the Earl felt no pity.

Just as the Earl of Glamorgan imagined the Song army entering the city, only to suffer heavy casualties in the narrow confines of urban warfare against the massive English militia, he was disappointed once again.

Sun Li had no intention of entering the city to trade lives with a million armed civilians. Instead, he used his artillery to advance layer by layer, trading time for space.

Sun Li and his Song Empire had plenty of time. Until the nations of Europe could field a navy capable of challenging him, the English Isles were a death trap.

As expected, Sun Li used his powerful shells, backed by ample funding, to blast the entire city into a wasteland.

"You want urban warfare? You want to use narrow spaces? I’ll burn the houses and level the buildings—where will you hide then?"

"Come out and fight in the open!"

In this era, buildings were mostly made of wood, and even the occasional stone structure could not withstand the sustained bombardment.

Thus, the Song army proceeded with the intention of flattening the entire capital, creating a sprawling ruin.

The militiamen hiding in the buildings fell into despair. They were forced to flee the collapsing structures and face the regular Song infantry in head-on volleys of musketry and bayonet charges.

The result was obvious: these untrained mobs, whose willpower was inferior even to the Song line infantry, could only suffer defeat and surrender.

The process was essentially this: the Song artillery would concentrate fire to collapse a block of buildings, the armed mobs inside would be forced out into the open, and then a round of volley fire followed by a bayonet charge would finish the job.

The Earl of Glamorgan soon realized that it was not just the million armed civilians—even his 50,000 "elite" revolutionary troops could not withstand the bayonet charges of the Song line infantry.

The only difference between the revolutionary army and the rioters was that the rioters collapsed after a single volley, while the revolutionary troops could trade a few rounds of bayonet fighting before being slaughtered into submission.

The process varied, but the outcome was always the same. The Earl of Glamorgan knew that his final trump card had failed. Hearing the loud, rhythmic drums of the Song military band, the Earl calmly took out his cherished golden flintlock, wiped it carefully, closed his eyes, and pressed it to his forehead. With few servants left, there was no one to stop the man who had once wielded such immense power.

In his office, completely alone, the Earl of Glamorgan brought his own life to an end.