Chapter 447: Consecutive Battles

"Boom—!" A thunderous roar erupted, and from the iron chest at the center, a mushroom cloud rose straight up from the ground.

Due to high energy density, virtually all shells and explosives of later generations can produce a mushroom cloud effect; the only difference is the scale.

Every kilogram of TNT explosive can generate 4.2 million joules of energy, equivalent to the lethality of 200 frag grenades. The 20 pounds of TNT inside the iron chest produced a total energy of 38 million joules... The minimum lethal standard for a single bullet is only 78 joules.

In the blink of an eye, a blindingly bright ball of light rose, accompanied by a violent explosion. Within 0.1 seconds, a ferocious shockwave burst outward in the form of a fireball; a large pit five meters across appeared in the ground, and every living thing within twenty meters of the blast center was blown to pieces.

At the first moment of the explosion, Namutai, who was closest to the chest, was vaporized — America's standard-issue TNT contains combustion aids, and at that moment, all that remained of Namutai were the iron plates of his armor, still burning fiercely.

To a distant observer, the blast wave after the explosion pushed outward as a wall of fire, like a legendary archmage casting a Ring of Fire Resistance. This kind of terrifying explosion could, in later generations, blast armored vehicles flying and flip tanks — there are roadside bomb videos online, extremely violent.

Blasting the nearest circle of people to pieces was only the first step; in the following 0.1 seconds, the fierce shockwave swept up all the Tartar soldiers and horses a bit farther away.

At this moment, even the ground beneath their feet rippled like water; the earth undulated like a carpet, and the gunpowder smoke and dust clearly marked the shockwave's destructive radius.

After blowing away the men and horses in the middle, the Tartar soldiers farther away fared no better: the colossal energy knocked down every man and horse within a hundred meters. Those who appeared unharmed had in fact suffered ruptured internal organs; many Tartar soldiers bled from the mouth and nose, collapsing limply to the ground just like their mounts.

The luckiest ones were those at the tail of the column.

Because they were far away, these men kept their lives. But the immense sound wave and shockwave of the explosion still inflicted injuries on them. Many were howling in agony, clutching their heads with both hands, rolling ceaselessly on the ground.

Everything described above happened in the blink of an eye. In an instant, 400 Tartar soldiers went from a neatly arrayed cavalry column to a field strewn with broken troops and shattered remnants.

By the time the shockwave swept past the distant tree line, its energy had mostly decayed; the remaining force was only enough to rustle the leaves into a chaotic clatter.

Even so, the 50 Flying Tiger Battalion members lying in ambush in the woods were still badly startled: earlier, these men had already been dumbfounded by the gruesome scene in the distance; they would never have imagined, even if beaten to death, that the two iron chests always tied to the horses' backs were such terrifying things.

"All of you, mount up! What are you standing there dumbstruck for, waiting to piss yourselves?"

Although Chen Erye's whiskers were gone, his voice hadn't changed a bit — still just as rough and booming. Jolted awake by Erye's roar, the team members hastily swung onto their horses and charged out of the woods, faces brimming with excitement.

This time, Mei Fuxi once again charged at the very front.

While charging, he pulled the long gun from his back. Arriving at the explosion site, the young man reined in his horse and, without a word, fired a shot.

What lay before Mei Fuxi was a long, sprawling scene of a massive pile-up, composed of men, horses, and wounded.

Inside the official road, which sat a section lower than the ground on either side, it was packed full of corpses and ceaselessly struggling wounded men and horses. Near the blast point on the right-hand side, no one was left alive; the position Mei Fuxi and the others were at now was at the tail of the Tartar column, where quite a few people still capable of movement remained.

The one hit by the shot was a Tartar soldier holding a knife, seemingly still intending to resist. Unfortunately, although this man had assumed a stance to meet the attack, his steps were staggering; he could not even walk a straight line.

Ever since that brush with death last time, Mei Fuxi had been training his marksmanship constantly. Now, the young man sat steadily on horseback, firing steadily, chambering rounds steadily — every inch the posture of a veteran hunter.

In a team of fifty men, the five squad leaders each had one gun; add in the three Special Operations Team members' assault rifles, and the firepower was sufficient.

Of the original 400 Tartar cavalry, fewer than 100 could still move now, and among those, fewer than 50 could walk a straight line or make the motion to mount a horse. So when Chen Huoding and the others' three assault rifles joined the fight, the Tartar soldiers, utterly bereft of morale and scared out of their wits, could only wail for their parents and flee.

In the end, only a dozen or so men managed to keep their agility, leap onto horses amid the bullet rain, and successfully escape. A full 400 Tartar soldiers who had rampaged across the Great Ming's territory were thus written off by a single chest of TNT.

After finishing off all the Tartar soldiers, Chen Erye swung his hand, and the team members dismounted in unison, beginning the familiar work of cleaning the battlefield.

Because time was tight today, cleaning the battlefield involved only one task: cutting off heads. The heads of all Tartar soldiers were chopped off without exception, including the lightly and severely wounded... Heavy combat missions lay ahead, and there was no way to handle prisoners.

While the team members were cutting off heads, the Special Operations Team member who had been responsible for the remote detonation switched on the radio and established communication with Qian Tieshan to the north.

After Chen Huoding took the walkie-talkie and reported the battle situation here to the Command Post, he received new orders.

Not long after, roughly three hundred Tartar heads were collected. It must be said, the negative side effect of this blast was pretty damn frustrating: at least a hundred Tartar heads were of insufficient "quality" — either unfindable or smashed to pulp — and could not be sold to the Emperor as a commodity.

After chopping the heads and hastily rounding up a few dozen uninjured horses, Chen Huoding issued the order to the Flying Tiger Battalion members: head north immediately to Qian'an and rejoin the main force.

Once the order was given, one of the Special Operations Team members led the Flying Tiger Battalion toward Qian'an. Meanwhile, Chen Huoding and the team member responsible for signals and demolitions, two men with six horses, headed directly toward Luanzhou, following the path of the Tartar soldiers who had just fled in rout, to continue their monitoring mission.

Just as the Flying Tiger Battalion was cutting off heads here, the main force under Xiancheng was also cutting off heads.

At Qian'an County now, the Tartar soldiers had been nearly wiped out; the city gates were wide open, and the drawbridge had already been lowered. So at the first moment after victory, two columns of cavalry surged straight into the city.

The mere twenty or thirty bondservants left in the city had long since been scared out of their wits; they had mounted horses and fled out the East Gate. So when the Transmigrators' men entered the city, they found no resisters or troublemakers rushing out — the battle had ended too quickly, and the Ming people in the city were all still huddled inside their houses, trembling.

Then an enormous voice rang out through the city: "The Great Ming army's vanguard has recovered Qian'an County today! Natives in the city, hear this: a two-hundred-thousand-strong King's Rescue Army will arrive within days. All of you, obediently shut the four gates and quietly await the new magistrate's assumption of office!"

While shouting through the electric megaphone, the cavalrymen made a circuit around the county, ensuring no one dared come out to commit arson or looting, and then withdrew from the county.

During this period, the Tartar heads outside the city had also been chopped off, and Qian Tieshan was already assembling the troops, preparing to depart.

As for the next objective... the reinforcement-intercepting unit to the east had just sent a message: "The Tartars in Yongping City have already mobilized. Do you need us to intercept them?"

Qian Tieshan's reply was: "Let the enemy come."