Chapter 53: The Brutal Battle (Part VI)

Upon learning of the Dwarf Empire’s troop quality, willpower, and weaponry—intelligence that revealed an enemy lagging not a single bit behind the Song State, and by that, I mean lagging in no aspect whatsoever—Sun Li was far from confident that he could achieve victory with fewer numbers than the adversary.

Sun Li was acutely aware that the decisive factor of warfare in this world was not the amount of territory occupied, but how many elite troops the enemy had left standing!

Elites, not ordinary conscripts!

Naturally, Sun Li's strategy against the powerful and advanced army of the Dwarf Empire was to exhaust their elite forces to the absolute maximum!

The greatest advantage of Sun Li's Empire System was that, as long as he had resources, he could continuously recruit brave and battle-tested elite soldiers. His speed in replenishing elite troops could utterly crush every nation in this world!

Consequently, the so-called grenade-wielding cannon fodder units were born. Sun Li had originally intended them merely as a means to wear down the vanguard of the dwarven soldiers, but the results far exceeded his expectations. They had actually shattered the morale of these high-spirited dwarven troops, causing them to rout!

This phenomenon undeniably increased the winning odds of the Song State's army. In close-quarters combat, the Song army would no longer fear the dwarven soldiers! Their greatest shortcoming had been leveled out at the cost of human lives!

Sun Li believed that as long as this battle completely crippled the main force of the Dwarf Empire, even if the Song army were defeated, a reorganized Sun Li could grace the European continent once again a year later!

Furthermore, would a crippled dwarven army not deter the greedy Three-Nation Alliance from abandoning this fertile land?

Marshal Agris naturally realized that he could no longer afford such attrition! Today, Marshal Agris resolved to settle the outcome once and for all. If matters proved impossible, he would rather take the main force of the Dwarf Empire back to their homeland!

Just as Sun Li had deduced, warfare in this world ultimately hinged on the number of elite troops. Acquiring a larger territory was merely a means to expand living space and secure more living supplies, thereby ensuring the sustenance of a larger population and the training of more elites!

However, if the price of acquiring territory was exhausting one's entire foundation, that would be putting the cart before the horse!

Therefore, come what may, Marshal Agris had to settle the score in today's decisive battle.

The opening of this battle followed the usual routine: artillery pounded for a few rounds, after which the Song State maintained a defensive posture. Before the Minié riflemen under Sun Li's command could advance to play their sniping games, the dwarven main force pressed forward directly.

Naturally, the Song artillery pivoted, bombarding the neatly aligned ranks of the dwarven line infantry. Consequently, the fifty thousand advancing dwarven troops were forced to endure once again the agony experienced by their fallen comrades of yesterday, leaving a trail of corpses scattered across the ground from start to finish.

Thus, utilizing their formidable numerical strength, the dwarven army stretched out a wide battlefront and arrived before the twenty thousand soldiers of the Song State's first defense line. Marshal Agris had calculated the distance to perfection; this expanded battlefront forced the Song soldiers in the first line to continuously spread out to prevent themselves from being semi-encircled by the dwarven forces!

The result was that the Song first line, vastly inferior in numbers to the dwarves, had a battle formation with an extremely thin depth—merely a few ranks deep.

This was precisely the outcome Marshal Agris desired!

"Cease advance, present arms, aim, fire!"

Upon closing to a distance of forty to fifty paces, the dwarven army halted and commenced the volley fire tactics so popular in this world!

This was the traditional firing distance of past dwarven military operations; the extreme thirty-pace volley range of the previous day had resulted in casualty rates that were simply too devastating! The psychological blow to surrounding soldiers had dealt too severe a blow to morale!

Ever since the tactic of volley firing gained popularity across the European continent, nobody knew when a peculiar standard for evaluating the elite status of various nations' armies had begun to circulate: namely, troops capable of advancing to a closer range to deliver a collective salvo were undoubtedly more elite than those who fired their initial volley from afar!

This standard held a grain of truth. The hit rate of flintlock muskets increased along an ascending curve as distance decreased; the closer the range, the more dramatically the accuracy improved!

To be able to press forward under enemy volley fire to a closer distance without suffering a morale collapse simply demonstrated how formidable a military's combat willpower truly was!

When the dwarven army halted, the Song soldiers certainly did not act like gentlemen waiting for the adversary to fire first. At almost the exact same moment, both sides discharged their bullets at the opposing enemy.

Within each company on both opposing lines, several unlucky souls struck by bullets fell simultaneously. The soldiers standing behind them stepped forward expressionless to fill the resulting gaps. Both sides were engaging in systematic volley fire, intending to keep it up until the enemy broke or suffered too many casualties to maintain the line. Naturally, they had to employ the three-stage firing method to guarantee an uninterrupted stream of firepower!

A series of billowing gunpowder smoke rose. Even though the lethality of three-stage firing fell far short of a three-rank simultaneous volley, within the span of just a few short minutes, the front lines on both sides were littered with the bodies of fallen soldiers!

"It seems Marshal Agris, having recognized the futility of melee combat, intends to use superior numbers and volley fire to shatter me. Indeed, warfare in this era relies not only on the soldiers' willpower and discipline, but numbers are also a critically vital factor!" Sun Li watched the intense volley executions unfolding on the battlefield and continued to issue orders to reinforce the line with another thirty thousand infantry. In just this short span of time, the thin Song line infantry formation was nearly on the verge of being unable to patch the gaps!

Once a major breach appeared in the battle line, a single charge by the dwarven soldiers at that gap could pierce through the formations of these Song troops! By that time, even if the Song soldiers were wrapped entirely in explosive packs, caught in a pincer attack from front and rear by the dwarves who had broken through, defeat would be certain!

Regardless of the infantry formation, the absolute taboo was being caught in a pincer attack or having the lines pierced by the enemy! From both a tactical and moral perspective, these two scenarios would inevitably cause the entire battle situation to slide toward a rout.

This had nothing to do with the soldiers' willpower or discipline. Back in the day, the tightly ordered formation of the Qi Family Army had been repeatedly charged by the Later Jin—later known as the Manchu—iron cavalry. Despite fighting until the ground was littered with corpses, they had stood unyielding, staunchly holding their ground against the assaults of the Later Jin cavalry. However, once the Later Jin brought up their cannons and delivered direct fire point-blank into the dense formation of the Qi Family Army, the formation was utterly shattered, and the charging Later Jin cavalry easily tore the entire Qi infantry formation apart.

Although those soldiers of the Qi Family Army fought on until the very last moment even without their formation, the battle was irredeemable, and they were inevitably annihilated by the Later Jin cavalry. To their dying breath, not a single soldier of the Qi Family Army surrendered!

Therefore, for infantry, once the formation is lost, even the most fearless soldiers are destined to defeat!