Chapter 46: The Landing Battle (Part II)

Swish! Hu Hei thrust his officer's saber once again into the neck of a dwarf tin can. Having been through numerous battles, his battlefield skills were exceptionally honed, allowing him to pierce precisely into his enemy's vital spots. It wasn't that Hu Hei had nothing better to do and was trying to look cool by laboriously aiming for the neck; it was simply because every single one of these dwarf soldiers was wearing sturdy upper-body plate armor, making it utterly impossible to thrust the saber in anywhere else!

The bayonets used by the ordinary soldiers fared slightly better. Under a full-force thrust, even if it failed to pierce the half-plate armor, it could still force these dwarf soldiers to violently lean backward and lose their physical balance. The Song soldiers could then exploit this opening to stab into the vital areas unprotected by plate armor, such as the face, neck, and groin...

Well, on the battlefield, in order to stay alive and kill the enemy, these soldiers discarded all notions of propriety and bottom lines. Launching attacks on the lower body carried zero psychological burden...

This was war! Not a duel between gentlemen!

Hu Hei lifted his face, smeared with blood and dirt. After killing several enemies, the handsome shako hat he had been wearing had long since vanished. At this moment, he had only one goal—to kill, and to survive as best as he could!

Before Hu Hei could catch his breath, another dwarf soldier rushed straight at him—one who had not been baptized by the grenades in the rear, a fresh and vigorous soldier!

Clang! Hu Hei nimbly parried the dwarf's lunging musket with his saber. But this time, it was clearly not as effortless as his previous kills. He stared in astonishment at the fully armored dwarf soldier before him, who stood a full head shorter than himself. The heavy panting of the dwarf soldier indicated that he had run hundreds of meters while weighed down by dozens of pounds of steel.

Yet... yet a dwarf soldier who had consumed such massive amounts of physical stamina actually possessed greater strength than Hu Hei! The web of Hu Hei's hand still throbbed dully from blocking the dwarf soldier's full-strength blow!

No wonder these short-statured dwarves had once been able to unify the continent of Europa. This physical endurance and raw strength were practically bovine!

Across the entire battlefield, the Song soldiers were now locked in close quarters melee with the remaining several thousand dwarf soldiers. After paying a heavy toll in casualties, the dwarf soldiers had finally successfully penetrated the Song soldiers' formation. Everywhere, the sounds of bayonets clashing and piercing flesh echoed through the air.

A close observation would reveal that these dwarf soldiers' bayonet-fighting techniques were quite ordinary, limited to just a few basic moves. However, they displayed astonishing strength. The moment they made contact, most dwarf soldiers would deliver a thunderous blow to the Song warriors. Even if a Song soldier managed to block it by sheer luck, their footing would be thrown off balance by the immense force, immediately followed by a fatal thrust from the dwarf!

These fresh dwarf warriors had repelled the momentum-filled bayonet charge of the Song battleline shortly after close combat began!

The superior protection of plate armor, combined with the explosive strength of the dwarf warriors, directly suppressed the Song soldiers, whose bayonet techniques were only slightly superior in close combat!

The steel-clad dwarf soldiers dragged the battle straight into a grueling melee, inch by inch compressing the Song soldiers' lines!

Marshal Fumdore and the Gestapo—the head of the Imperial Secret Police sent by Sun Li to assist—stood shoulder to shoulder at the bow of the ship, holding binoculars as they gazed at the bogged-down battlefield ahead. Even though Song soldiers continuously stepped onto the boarding ramps to enter the fight, the dwarf army kept pressing its lines closer and closer to the docks. At this rate, the troops who had just landed on the port would sooner or later be driven back into the ocean!

It was only because the Song soldiers were fierce and unafraid of death; regular armies of ordinary nations would have already broken and shattered under the onslaught of this group of iron tin cans!

"Marshal Fumdore, the main enemy force is currently pinned down by our troops. I request that you immediately order a bombardment of the battlefield. All artillery must participate to annihilate these several thousand main-force dwarves in one fell swoop!" The Gestapo glared at Marshal Fumdore with a gloomy gaze. In his eyes, as long as victory could be secured for the great Emperor, anyone could be sacrificed, including himself!

Fumdore looked into the Gestapo's dark eyes, swallowing back the rebuttal that had risen to his lips. He knew that if he uttered a single word of dissent, he would be at the mercy of the Imperial Secret Police!

In any military force, shelling friendly troops was heavily resisted!

"Cease sending infantry forward immediately. Commence bombardment. For the sake of victory, every single soldier of Song will gladly die!" the Gestapo roared, witnessing the struggle in Marshal Fumdore's eyes.

"I order... all ironclads... open fire on the main dwarf army..." As soon as Marshal Fumdore finished those words, he seemed to have exhausted all his physical strength and retreated gloomily into his command room. He did not want to watch those friendly infantry soldiers slaughtered by his own command, even if this bombardment was for the sake of victory!

The Gestapo watched with satisfaction as the order was transmitted to the executing soldiers. The ironclads providing cover on the sea surface simultaneously ceased fire, all gun muzzles pivoting toward the battlefield where brutal hand-to-hand combat was unfolding.

Boom, boom, boom!

Under the immense recoil of the simultaneous volley, the ironclads shifted backward in parallel by several meters. For a moment, the sea surface was once again veiled in thick gunpowder smoke.

As the covering artillery fell silent, Hu Hei, who had just exhausted himself to kill the dwarf soldier right in front of him, seemed to sense something. He looked back toward the friendly ironclads.

"What's coming was bound to come after all," Hu Hei muttered to himself.

"Long live the Emperor! Victory to Song!" As if knowing what he was about to face, Hu Hei shouted out his inner conviction with tragic heroism.

Hearing their commander's heroic cry, the surrounding Song soldiers mustered all their strength and began to shout in unison. As the sound spread, a stirring, tragic atmosphere enveloped the entire battlefield, and their resistance grew even more fierce!

Indeed, at this moment, the Song soldiers were merely resisting; they were utterly incapable of advancing against the vastly superior numbers of the dwarf battleline!

As if responding to the soldiers' final cries, the piercing sound of artillery shells tearing through the air echoed across the sky. A few quick-witted Song soldiers ignored the enemy bayonets lunging at them and threw themselves flat onto the ground. Hu Hei, seasoned by numerous battles, was one of them!

Boom...

Amid countless explosions, this battlefield crowded with thousands of soldiers welcomed the most advanced shrapnel bombardment of this era. The plate armor and steel helmets that the dwarf soldiers took such pride in during close combat offered zero protection. Limbs were severed just the same, and entrails flew just as far as those of the unarmored Song soldiers. In this perfect pairing of steel and gunpowder, these obsolete heavy infantrymen, along with their iron armor, were reduced to scrap metal...

Flying limbs and broken arms filled the sky, and ears were saturated with hellish wails, which were promptly drowned out by the next wave of artillery fire...

Across the open field, the dense formations of infantry were thoroughly eradicated by the high-explosive shells!

Watching from the rear, the dwarf general nearly spat a mouthful of old blood upon seeing thousands of his main forces perish together with a single Song infantry regiment.

He had not expected the Song soldiers to be so tenacious, capable of engaging the fully armed dwarf soldiers in hand-to-hand combat for so long. Even less did he anticipate that the Song naval artillery would send his own elite troops and the enemy straight to heaven together!

In the eyes of the dwarf general, such death-defying units were pillars of the nation, carefully preserved to prevent excessive losses!

Yet, these reckless spendthrifts of Song had casually used an elite infantry regiment as bait and traded them away...

After several rounds of naval bombardment, not a single person remained standing on the port battlefield. Under such dense shrapnel bombardment, staying upright meant that not even the Old Man God of Light himself could protect you...

Following the artillery barrage, the morale of the Song soldiers aboard the transport ships showed no sign of decline. Everyone saw the reality of the battlefield and understood that while the commander's approach was inhumane, everything was justified for the sake of victory!

The boarding ramps were rigged once again, and columns of Song soldiers disembarked from the transport ships, marching into the bloody battlefield littered with wails and corpses.

These cold Song line infantrymen, upon seeing any surviving dwarf soldiers, immediately put them out of their misery with a swift blade, having no intention of taking prisoners. By now, everyone's eyes were bloodshot from slaughter; no one would extend a helping hand to enemies who had just been butchering their comrades!

"Quick! There's a commander here who's still breathing! Get a stretcher over here!" Hu Hei was fortunate; amidst such fierce bombardment, he was still breathing, though his mind had long since been concussed into unconsciousness. He could only be carried back to the ship by arriving soldiers for medical treatment...

The dwarf general watched helplessly as his thousands of main forces vanished just like that—first overturned by artillery fire, then finished off by Song infantry. Scarcely anyone made it back alive...

Looking at the remaining thousand-odd soldiers under his command, the dwarf general knew he no longer had the strength to drive the landed Song forces back into the sea. And this was only the first day!

Even the nearest reinforcements wouldn't arrive until tomorrow!

Who could have imagined that Song would be so formidable? Protected by a force of over ten thousand dwarves, it had taken them merely a single day to reduce the entire coastal defense force to near total annihilation!

For the first time, the dwarf general encountered a human faction with firepower fiercer than their own!

"The Dwarf Empire has no cowards who fear death! We swear to defend this city to the death! As long as we live, the city stands! Long live the Dwarf Empire!" Drawing his officer's saber, the dwarf general delivered his final rallying speech to the thousand-odd surviving soldiers under his command, preparing to make a last stand at this port city and leave the rest to fate...

Naturally aware that the dwarf defenders were at the end of their rope, the Song landing force disembarked two infantry regiments and hauled off five 6-pounder infantry guns.

These four thousand-plus Song soldiers, providing cover for the artillery, advanced slowly toward the parapets defended by the dwarf soldiers.

The dwarf army's artillery had long been lost in the preceding artillery duel, leaving them to watch helplessly as the Song grand army deployed artillery right before their eyes, only to blast apart every single parapet defending the dwarf forces!

After blowing several massive breaches, the Song soldiers, acting on their officers' orders, formed neat lines and marched forward to the beat of military drums, shouldering their flintlocks! (To be continued.)

PS: Today is the first day of publication, and I will try to update as many chapters as possible. Thank you for the support of all the esteemed readers!