Chapter 134: Smashing Open the Kiln

When the natives on the wall got a clear look at the number of enemies outside the village, the crowd immediately stopped panicking. The enemy's numbers were easy to calculate, even with the natives' poor arithmetic skills — because this bunch was lined up in neat formation. Then the Xiaolong people also realized that the vast majority of the enemy were old friends... the ones they beat up all year round / the Xingang Society weaklings... Fine, they could start planning a counterattack.

As for the negligible handful of people (a dozen or so) holding strange iron tools, those were probably the outsiders. The iron tools in these people's hands didn't look very formidable — because they weren't the same type as the ones the Red Hair people carried that could spew fire and kill.

Once their assessment was complete, the Xiaolong people felt completely at ease. They sent an envoy out the gate to question the Xingang weaklings, while mustering their forces behind the stockade wall, ready to charge out at speed and teach these bird-men a lesson.

However, the Transmigrators were thinking the exact same thing at that moment: end the battle as quickly as possible.

So when a Xiaolong man climbed down from the stockade wall and headed toward the main force 50 meters in front of the gate, Han Bo turned his head and exchanged a few whispers with Wei Yuan, who was standing beside him. When the man reached 10 meters away, Wei Yuan bent down, drew a plain, unadorned black M9 combat knife from the outside of his leg, and in the next instant, the knife flew — the envoy clutched his spurting neck, spun in a circle, and collapsed...

They didn't fire a gun, for fear the natives would learn how formidable they were and refuse to charge out. The Transmigrators, having long since worked out the optimal method for attacking a city, now had the same first reaction whenever they encountered a walled settlement: lure the enemy into charging out and do a deal.

An uproar erupted on the wall. Fine — apparently the Xiaolong Society people didn't normally execute envoys either, so at this moment the natives were filled with fury at these uncivilized hooligans. The next moment, the stockade gate swung open, and the Xiaolong Society warriors charged out like a single dragon.

The sound of AKs rang out.

No gun was better suited to the savage world of the 17th century than the AK. The Transmigrators' extremely backward logistics capability, the extremely complex and harsh environments they encountered, and the enemies charging in dense formations everywhere — all of this made the AK, with its simple maintenance, strong adaptability, and fierce firepower, shine brilliantly. As for the AK's terrible accuracy? It didn't matter — one look at the mass of natives charging toward them made it clear that accuracy wasn't needed here.

Who knows how the heroes in movies who hide behind car doors and windows survive. In any case, the AK rifle bullets, capable of penetrating 6-millimeter steel plate and 15-centimeter brick at 100 meters, easily tore through the bodies of a large number of natives at this moment. With only five or six guns expending a single magazine, the charging dragon of natives was rolled back in reverse, corpses strewn across the ground.

Reaction is fastest between life and death. The warriors who had been crowding at the stockade gate a moment before, waiting to charge, rapidly changed their thinking and, shouting, slammed the gate shut.

At this point the AKs withdrew, and the Marine Corps' MK-17 rifles began to show their power, delivering a string of precise headshots to the natives still foolishly standing on the wall.

It was indeed a quick battle decided swiftly. In under 10 minutes, the battle situation had already undergone a decisive shift. As for the Temporary First Battalion's native soldiers, truth be told, this was the first time they had seen the masters display their might. Most of the natives' legs were trembling slightly at this moment, and the looks they cast toward Gongda could not help but be filled with worship: If the Village Chief hadn't become the Maintenance Association Chief early on, we'd probably have been slaughtered like this long ago!

The battle entered a phase of strategic stalemate.

Watching the natives close the stockade gate and listening to the panicked shouts inside, Wei Yuan and Han Bo exchanged a glance, then turned around and beckoned for the several back-basket soldiers in the rear squad to step forward.

The back-baskets were loaded with gunpowder packs specially made for the bumpkins, lovingly provided by the Kiln District's military black workshop after purifying black powder... square white cotton cloth packs, very crude, very familiar-looking.

Since the few remaining RPGs had become out-of-print collectibles, smashing open kilns in the future would certainly require other methods. Given the Transmigrators' current production capacity, black powder packs were the only option. However, the Kiln District version of the gunpowder pack still had some technological content — an electronic detonator was buried inside the pack, and within a 200-meter range, it would explode at the press of a remote control.

The detonator's structure was very simple: a section of stainless steel tube the size of a finger, with a signal receiver and a single-use electric detonator at one end, and several dozen grams of high-energy explosive packed into the other end. This thing's technology content was extremely low; if you ignored the explosive, any electronics wholesale market could cobble one together.

The Transmigrators naturally wouldn't use shoddy goods cobbled together from a market, because if they imported a case of detonators, it would last a very long time — perhaps even leftover after smashing the kilns in Guangzhou. So this batch of detonators had to additionally account for the corrosiveness of the explosive during long-term storage, as well as sealing, battery capacity, and a whole series of other issues.

In the end, Cao Chuan still custom-ordered this batch of goods from an American mining explosives company — finger-sized, one hundred per case, with a 5-year shelf life.

Wei Yuan held the high-tech black powder explosive pack in his hands, while Han Bo beside him had already taken out the remote control panel and adjusted the detonation reading according to the serial number on the detonator. Now everything was ready — all they lacked was a hero.

Without a doubt, Wei Yuan reached out and yanked Yang Er, who was half a head shorter than the crowd, right out...

"What are you hiding for? What a great chance to show your face!" Wei Yuan wore a kindly smile, patted Yang Er on the head, and then stuffed the explosive pack into his arms.

It seemed an innate sense of danger was of no use whatsoever. Trembling, Yang Er now held the gift pack in his hands, his face crumpled in misery, not knowing what to do — he knew all too well what this thing was; he had been helping out on the side when the instructors tested it.

Seeing the boy's lack of tact, Wei Yuan's face tightened: "Disobeying military orders before the battle — hmm, 10 strokes of the cudgel." His hand moved habitually toward the sandalwood cudgel at his lower back.

Yang Er thus shot out with a "whoosh." He nimbly leaped over the corpses on the ground, as if dodging the stinking cesspools in Hangzhou City. His low-crouched body was full of vitality, his footsteps constantly shifting their landing points, ceaselessly evading the hands extended by the dying on the ground, as if dodging excrement on the ground and the vicious dogs tearing at him. Like an antelope, in the blink of an eye, Thief Yang had already dashed to the main gate of Jiaxi Village. He stuffed the gift pack in his hands into a corner of the wooden-palisade-like gate, turned around, and ran back.

For the powerful natives of Jiaxi Village, war meant warriors going out to make a tribal war pact with foreign tribes, then returning in triumph with heads. As for village attack and defense? They had no concept of it. So the natives in the village were now in complete chaos. Even though they could see Yang Er clearly through the gaps in the stockade wall and had a premonition that the cloth pack in this fellow's arms was probably nothing good, they couldn't organize a counterattack now — the rows of warriors on the wall had all been shot dead.

Fortunately, there were still scattered warriors. Just as Yang Er turned and shot away, half a pair of brawny, muscular shoulders was revealed above the left and right sides of the stockade gate simultaneously. The next moment, two javelins were raised above the wall.

"Bang-bang" — two gunshots rang out. One of the pairs of shoulders was blasted into spare parts and sent flying into the air, while the other javelin, because the gunshot was a step too slow, flew toward Yang Er's back with a sharp whistle.