Chapter 54: The Brutal Battle (Part 7)
Bang, bang, bang!
Thick smoke permeated the entire plain, and tens of thousands of soldiers stood in neat ranks, firing volleys at each other. If one were not fighting in the trenches but merely watching from the sidelines, the spectacle would have been remarkably captivating!
However, this exchange of gunfire was decidedly unfair to the dwarf soldiers. Not only were they the attacking force, but they also had to endure artillery bombardment from ever-closer range!
The front-line companies were constantly battered and forced to fall back, only to be reorganized by their officers into replacement pools or new formations, sent right back into the meat grinder. Although the continuous disruption of their unit cohesion inevitably degraded the dwarf soldiers' combat efficiency to some extent, it was fortunate that the dwarf army had already widely adopted pre-packaged paper cartridges. This greatly reduced the error rate among the dwarf soldiers who were otherwise unnerved by the horrific casualties—well, at least the probability of barrel explosions decreased dramatically!
The Song army's formations were likewise constantly disrupted, but interestingly, this kind of chaotic restructuring and replenishment had zero impact on the Song soldiers. This was not due to some superior psychological resolve—the opposing dwarf soldiers possessed an equally unyielding will—yet they still suffered from a certain degree of disorder.
The Song soldiers were able to maintain their organizational integrity and execute seamless replacements entirely thanks to the template mechanism of the system-recruited troops. During combat, Sun Li discovered that identical units recruited through the system functioned just like in a video game: they could be replaced entirely without any lingering drawbacks, and formations could be assembled at will. The reason was simple: all troops of the exact same type were trained through the exact same standardized method! The blessing of this was that whenever any unit suffered casualties and received raw recruits as replacements, it could instantly guarantee the restoration of one hundred percent of its original combat effectiveness.
Conversely, the soldiers of the other nations in this world clearly could not have every single man trained under the exact same instructor. This created subtle, seemingly negligible differences in peacetime, but those differences were magnified infinitely on the battlefield when shattered formations had to be hastily reorganized and thrown back into the fray!
In other words, if this war of attrition continued, the continuous shattering and reforming of full-strength units would leave the Song soldiers entirely unaffected, while the combat effectiveness of the Dwarf Empire's soldiers would steadily erode!
This was precisely why Sun Li held such high praise for this style of line infantry firefights; he had no intention whatsoever of altering the current strategic stalemate. As long as he ensured the frontline held, he would continuously feed men into the meat grinder to bleed the enemy dry!
Marshal Aglis's original objective was naturally not to engage the Song army in a polite exchange of volley fire until his own forces collapsed. Once the line-infantry firefight stabilized, the heavy anti-infantry ordnance hidden behind the dwarf battle lines was finally dragged forward!
Just as the battlefield descended into another bogged-down stalemate following the arrival of the 3,000 Song reinforcements, various infantry-slaughtering weapons such as organ guns and rocket launchers were suddenly unmasked between the dwarf companies.
The soldiers who had been locked in the rhythmic mechanical cycle of loading and firing during the line battle were naturally unable to quickly evade the enemy's sudden deployment of these devastating weapons.
"Fire!"
At the command of the dwarf officers, a dazzling array of lethal "fireworks" erupted all across the dwarf battle line.
In a single instant, this barrage stunned the Song soldiers who had faintly held the upper hand in the volley exchange!
Over sixty percent of the soldiers in the first two ranks of the entire formation, anyone within range of the dwarf anti-infantry weapons, were instantly mowed down!
"It seems the time for desperate measures has arrived," Sun Li thought to himself.
The moment the dwarves brought up their heavy ordnance, Sun Li knew that the era of standard line-infantry firefights was over. To continue fighting that way would be pure slaughter!
Under Sun Li's command, more than 10,000 line infantry surged out from both the left and right Song phalanxes. Abandoning their steady, goose-stepping advance in neat rectangular formations, these final 30,000 Song infantry reserves broke into a trot, marching in columns toward the flanks of the 5,000-strong dwarf frontline army!
These Song soldiers once again demonstrated their military discipline, which far surpassed this era. They maintained the integrity of their columns while jogging, and upon reaching their designated positions, they executed a simultaneous wheel to the left and right upon their officers' commands, leveling their rifle barrels directly at the flanks of the dwarf army!
Simple as it sounded, such tactical maneuvers on a chaotic battlefield were simply beyond the capability of ordinary soldiers!
On a battlefield choked with smoke and ringing with shrieks, trying to maintain a neat formation while jogging deep into the enemy's flank and then calmly pivoting one's line of fire—any hesitation would give the enemy time to react, turning the maneuver into a suicidal trap where they would be surrounded and devoured.
Yet, the performance of the Song soldiers once again dropped Marshal Aglis's jaw in astonishment. The two columns executed their advance and pivot with the fluidity of flowing water, and before the dwarf soldiers on the flanks could even prepare a counterattack, rolling volleys directly laid those dwarf ranks low!
"Quick! Dispatch 3,000 men to each flank immediately! Column assault, break up the charging Song army!" Marshal Aglis roared, his eyes blazing with crimson fury.
At that moment, the dwarf phalanxes—caught in a devastating crossfire and continuously decimated—were utterly incapable of mounting a defense. After all, their focus and formations had been rigidly locked forward in massive rectangular blocks!
This was equivalent to a single line holding the stem of a T-junction, relentlessly shaving layer after layer off the vulnerable flank of the enemy formation!
The flanking Song soldiers marched forward with steady discipline, firing rhythmically and slaughtering the dwarf troops. Outnumbered on this sector of the battlefield, the dwarf phalanxes had no way to defeat the enemy, nor did they even have the time to wheel their formations around to face the threat!
The sporadic reinforcement companies sent up to plug the gap were beaten back within minutes! The main dwarf army was utterly unable to turn its bulk around, forced to watch helplessly as the enemy methodically eradicated their flanks, knowing that once time ran out, total collapse would follow!
Seeing that Marshal Aglis had left behind only a single reserve brigade while committing a full 60,000 troops to the battlefield, Sun Li knew his goal of dragging the enemy's main force into a general engagement had been fully achieved. Now, let us kill to our heart's content!
"Ryan, I will take 5,000 larmen to deal with the dwarf reinforcements on the left. Take the rest and hold back the dwarf reinforcements on the right! You must hold out until I shatter the main enemy force; under no circumstances are you to let the dwarf reserves reinforce the enemy's flanks!" Sun Li commanded. He, too, was about to throw every remaining man into the all-out war of attrition!
"As you command, my Majesty! The enemy shall only advance over my corpse!" the cavalry commander Ryan roared in response.
Following Sun Li's orders, over 10,000 well-rested lancers thundered their hooves, charging toward the oncoming dwarf infantry reinforcements. Cavalry speed far outpaced infantry; striking first by striking later, they blocked the path of the dwarf reserves.
Sun Li spurred his warhorse, flanked by 5,000 lancers, and charged directly into the solid phalanx of 30,000 dwarf infantry arrayed before him.