Chapter 113: Cat-Ear Holes

The more than five hundred Divine Machine Battalion soldiers led by Zhang Chao were providing covering fire from the rear, their position only three hundred meters away from the position held by the Divine Machine Battalion soldiers led by Wang Zhanbiao.

Upon seeing a large group of cannons suddenly emerge from the ground, Zhang Chao was greatly shocked; he wanted to go to the rescue, but Meng Yifan and his soldiers began firing as soon as they appeared, without any pause in between.

This resulted in Zhang Chao being unable to rescue them in time, and he could only watch helplessly as four hundred Divine Machine Battalion soldiers were bombarded by explosive shells.

Seeing Wang Zhanbiao unleash the Divine Bell Cover and launch a death charge toward those rebels, Zhang Chao hurriedly employed a Mysterious Grade Mid-Tier Lightness Skill, moving like a giant bird at a supersonic speed of four hundred meters per second.

During his advance, Zhang Chao withstood several explosive shell blasts on the battlefield before rushing toward Wang Zhanbiao.

Just as Wang Zhanbiao was about to be killed by a rocket, at this critical moment, a large shield fifteen meters long and five and a half meters wide appeared before him.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Fourteen rockets exploded one after another, and the massive shockwave caused the earthy-yellow ripples on this Dharma Artifact shield to flicker constantly, like ripples spreading across the surface of a calm lake.

To protect Wang Zhanbiao, Zhang Chao did not retreat a single step, hard-carrying the explosions of fourteen rockets.

Even with the Dharma Artifact shield absorbing the force, the impact generated by the fourteen exploding rockets still caused the webbing between Zhang Chao's thumb and index finger to split and his arms to ache intensely; even his internal organs suffered from the massive vibration force, and he could not help but turn pale and spit out a mouthful of blood.

"Retreat! Retreat first; as long as the green hills remain, there's no need to worry about firewood," Zhang Chao roared in Wang Zhanbiao's ear.

Wang Zhanbiao gave Zhang Chao a grateful look, and the two of them ran quickly toward the rear under the protection of the Dharma Artifact shield.

"What a pity," Meng Yifan sighed; he had been just a hair's breadth away from blowing up a Third Grade Martial Artist like Wang Zhanbiao, but unfortunately, he was rescued by Zhang Chao at the critical moment.

"The Divine Machine Battalion's Thousand-man Unit actually has two Third Grade Martial Artists; this battle will not be easy to fight," Meng Yifan frowned, calculating in his heart how to wipe out the rest of the Divine Machine Battalion with the minimum cost.

On the Divine Machine Battalion's position, having endured the bombardment of the Elm Cannons, the explosions of the Shenwu Great General Cannons, and the secondary explosions of the gunpowder barrels, the area was now filled with smoke, littered with corpses, and flowing with blood; fewer than one in ten had survived by luck, and most of them were wounded.

Before these survivors could even celebrate their survival, those soldiers who had stood up from the ground each leveled a Bird Gun and fired a dense volley of lead bullets at them.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" The sound of Bird Guns rang out, and all the survivors were struck down into pools of blood; from this point on, not one of the four hundred Divine Machine Battalion soldiers led by Wang Zhanbiao was spared—except for Wang Zhanbiao who had escaped, everyone else was dead.

"Bastards!" Seeing this scene, Zhang Chao felt a heart-wrenching pain; the one thousand soldiers he led were basically all from Zhanghe County, and many were related to him—they could be said to be his own hometown soldiers.

He had originally thought this would be an easy mission to suppress the rebellion, but he never expected to suffer such heavy losses; nearly half of the one thousand Divine Machine Battalion soldiers were dead or wounded, and even if he eventually wiped out the rebels in Luolong County, how could Zhang Chao have the face to return and face the elders of his hometown after so many brothers had died?

"Fire! Fire! Blow those bastards to hell!" Zhang Chao roared.

The remaining five hundred Divine Machine Battalion soldiers were filled with rage; many of the soldiers who had died were their friends and relatives, and they naturally wanted to avenge their comrades, but those rebels were very cunning—after firing their Bird Guns, they all hid in the trenches.

The range of the Shenwu Great General Cannon was five hundred meters, enough to hit the enemy's position, but the Shenwu Great General Cannon was a muzzle-loading cannon, suitable for direct and upward fire, and very difficult to use for downward fire.

"Lord Zhang, there is no firing angle," Wang Zhanbiao said.

Zhang Chao suppressed the anger in his heart and carefully observed the enemy's position; the enemies were all hiding in ditches, which made it very difficult for the Shenwu Great General Cannons to hit them.

Zhang Chao was worthy of being a Thousand-man Unit commander of the Divine Machine Battalion; after a moment of thought, he came up with two methods: one was to raise the cannon platforms, and by propping up the Shenwu Great General Cannons, they could hit the enemies inside the trenches.

The other method was to adjust the cannon muzzles higher so that after the shells were fired, they would follow a parabolic trajectory, and if operated well, they could land the shells directly into the trenches.

Building cannon platforms was too time-consuming, so Zhang Chao decided to adjust the cannon muzzles significantly to bombard the enemy.

"Listen to my orders: adjust the muzzles higher and fire in a parabolic trajectory to bombard the enemy army," Zhang Chao shouted loudly.

The Divine Machine Battalion soldiers followed orders, adjusted the angles, and then the cannons roared; sixty-five Shenwu Great General Cannons lowered their firing angles and launched scorching shells toward Meng Yifan and his men.

The Divine Machine Battalion soldiers were indeed a well-trained elite force; all sixty-five shells landed precisely on the position where Meng Yifan was located.

However, the trenches Meng Yifan and his men had dug were only 1.5 meters wide; trying to make the shells follow a parabolic trajectory from over four hundred meters away and land in a 1.5-meter-wide trench was extremely difficult.

Many shells landed outside the trenches, kicking up clouds of dust, but they could hardly harm Meng Yifan and his men inside the trenches.

Some shells, after tracing their parabolic arcs, landed right inside the trenches and exploded directly within them.

But this was also fine; the trenches Meng Yifan designed had a unique feature: the inner side was designed with recessed Cat-Ear Holes, just enough for a soldier to turn sideways and hide inside, with a layer of thick wooden planks shielding the outside.

This way, even if the Divine Machine Battalion's explosive shells detonated near the trenches, the fragmented shrapnel could not harm the soldiers hiding in the cliff-holes.

Zhang Shagen hid in a Cat-Ear Hole, listening to the series of explosions outside; one explosive shell landed in the trench just three meters away from him, sending over a massive blast.

That section of the trench was blown to collapse, the ground shook violently, and the dozens of shrapnel fragments from the explosive shell flew in all directions, hitting the shielding wooden planks with a pitter-patter sound that left Zhang Shagen terrified, his body trembling incessantly.

Five days ago, Zhang Shagen was just a refugee in the Labor Camp, and now he was enduring the bombardment of enemy artillery on the battlefield; the contrast between then and now was so great that it felt like a dream.

Zhang Shagen did not regret becoming a soldier to fight, nor did he regret risking his life for Lord Meng; his family had been nothing but a group of helpless refugees with no food and no shelter, and it was Lord Meng who gave them food, gave them shelter, and showed concern for their well-being.

This made Zhang Shagen's whole family feel a long-lost warmth and the dignity of being human; his entire family was very grateful to Meng Yifan, and Zhang Shagen also swore in his heart to be loyal to Meng Yifan until death.

The cannons roared and shrapnel raged; Zhang Shagen had originally been very afraid, worried that the Cat-Ear Hole would collapse and bury him inside, worried that the shielding planks would shatter and the raging shrapnel would pierce his body.

But after the explosions outside ceased, Zhang Shagen discovered that he had not been injured at all.

The Cat-Ear Hole where Zhang Shagen was hiding was built very sturdily, supported inside by wooden stakes, and the outer shielding planks were made of thick pine wood with triangular supports behind them; the whole structure was like a solid fortress, and the soldiers hiding inside were very safe unless a shell hit the shielding planks head-on, which could kill the soldiers hiding behind them.

Unfortunately, the shielding planks were on the inner side of the trench, and for a shell to land inside the trench, the trajectory had to be similar to a parabola, meaning it could at most explode near the shielding planks.

The shockwave formed by the explosive shell was blocked by the shielding planks, which meant that as long as the soldiers followed Meng Yifan's requirements and hid behind the shielding planks in time, they could almost all save their own little lives.

"Ha! Ha! Lord Meng is truly a genius; the trenches and Cat-Ear Holes he designed are truly effective."

Zhang Shagen was filled with emotion; if he hadn't been hiding in the Cat-Ear Hole with the protection of the shielding planks, that explosive shell just now would surely have blown him into pieces.

"Shagen, come out quickly, we're changing positions!" Xu Le crawled out from another Cat-Ear Hole, called out to Zhang Shagen, and according to Meng Yifan's pre-battle deployment, they bent their waists and ran toward another trench in the rear.