Chapter 627: Punishing Rebellion (VII)

In the humid April, as the temperature rose, both banks of the Zheng River suddenly felt stiflingly hot.

Under these oppressive conditions, the two defensive lines on the southern bank that would decide the fate of Annam were also locked in a suffocating standoff.

The first defensive line had been completely broken through on April 6th and occupied by the Northern Vietnam Pacification Rebel Army.

Of course, since the central core fortress complex had already been breached, the Southerners did not desperately resist at the auxiliary defensive facilities on either flank. After all, the opponent could now circle around and attack from the flank and rear, so rather than an occupation, it was more of a planned abandonment by the Southerners.

Now, the grim confrontation had begun once more, and the Southerners, now on the defensive, saw without a doubt the dawn of victory in the war: the April rainy season could begin at any moment from here on, at which point the Northern army would be caught in a dilemma with no good way forward or back.

Time was on the Southerners' side.

The Southerners had one hundred percent confidence that they could use the second defensive line to hold off the Northerners until the rainy season arrived.

Even in the absolute worst-case scenario, if the rainy season came a little late this year, the Southerners were equally unconcerned: a third defensive line had already been built under the city of Shunhua.

For all these reasons, in the early morning of April 8th, the defending troops inside the Southern defensive line were actually looking across at the busy Northerners opposite them with the superior attitude of people watching losers.

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The Northerners' movements were the same as the previous few days, nothing new: the main army marched out of camp, formed ranks, and secured their footing, then civilian laborers stepped forward in front of the formation to dig out several shallow earthen mounds.

Previously, they had dug one mound; later, to save time, the Northerners dug one every set distance apart, to make it easier to relocate the mortars.

The earthen mounds could block cannonballs fired from the opposing battle line and also block the defenders' prying eyes — though this latter function was now useless. After so many days of this, every last man in both the northern and southern armies knew that behind the earthen mound a cannon with its muzzle pointed upward would appear.

Today, everything seemed to be following routine.

But unlike previous days, the group gathered behind the earthen mound today was one the defenders had never seen before.

These people wore front-buttoned short jackets and strange hats on their heads. Although their uniforms were similar in style, their colors varied. Judging by their generally young, robust physiques and movements, they were clearly soldiers as well.

What the Southern defenders did not know was that, behind the earthen mound where they could not see clearly, a conversation concerning them was underway.

"My dear Mao Daoxue, this 'Type 80 Mortar' is Army equipment — what are you Navy fellows doing here joining the fun?"

The speaker was the tall, long-legged Staff Officer Yang Er, Yang Weili.

At this moment, Yang Weili was grinning as he raised a hand, winking and making faces at his colleagues while placing it on the shoulder of Captain Mao Wujian, who stood beside him dressed in a white Navy uniform.

"Mind your military bearing and discipline! The Army is so lax — what kind of image is that!"

Although short in stature, Captain Mao Wujian, who always stood ramrod straight and maintained the model bearing of a soldier, frowned upon hearing this and, with disgust, slapped Yang Weili's paw off his shoulder: "Never mind that this Type 80 was shipped here by the Navy, the crew conducting the test firing right now is also a Navy gun crew. I am a Navy Captain — why exactly can't I come observe?"

Yang Weili, who had long been accustomed to this brother's attitude, paid no mind and put his hand back on his shoulder, calling out the private nickname he had given Mao Wujian: "Daoxue, don't be so serious. Weren't we brothers who ate sand and took lashes together on the beaches of Dayuan? Don't go back to the ship tonight — I'll treat you to the Annamese grilled sea turtle."

"I'm on duty tonight."

"Request leave."

"Active-duty military personnel may not request leave without cause!"

While this group of future Imperial Claws bickered, the artillery position before them had already been completed.

The much-anticipated divine weapon of a generation for the Empire, the Type 80 gasoline barrel — no, the Type 80 Mortar, colloquially named the Conscienceless Cannon, was already half-buried in an earthen pit, ready to fire.

The cannon was as its name described. This barrel, welded from standard thin steel plate, had a diameter of exactly 80.

The so-called Conscienceless Cannon was truly renowned in the later generations' War of Liberation.

This thing was simple and crude in structure; to put it plainly, it was not a cannon at all, but actually an explosive pack projector that used a gasoline barrel as the cannon barrel.

When the Conscienceless Cannon was used, a propellant charge was packed into its base, and then an explosive pack bundled into a disc shape was placed inside. Once ignited, it could project the explosive pack to a distance of 150 to 300 meters.

During the War of Liberation, although this improvised explosive pack projector had neither accuracy nor range, whenever it was used in concentration, it could inflict massive casualties on enemy fortifications, becoming a famously formidable siege weapon of the Liberation Army.

Today, an upgraded version of the barrel projector was half-buried like this on the front lines of the seventeenth century.

Unlike the Conscienceless Cannons of the later Liberation period, which had inconsistent quality and non-uniform standards, the cannon today was an industrial oil barrel manufactured by the Transmigrators using electric furnaces and electric welding techniques.

This large barrel alone had a diameter of 80 centimeters, with external steel wire reinforcement ribs that could withstand a certain amount of propellant gas pressure — top-notch quality.

Furthermore, considering that in the future there would be countless foreign cities that would need Barrel-kun's help to assault, the explosive packs and propellant charges for this cannon test had also been standardized, all for the purpose of controlling the trajectory as much as possible.

Once all preparations were complete, following a sharp whistle blast, the Southern defenders suddenly discovered that all the Northerners had withdrawn back to their camp.

This move was somewhat unusual. According to the previous script, shouldn't the Northerners be hauling out their cannons to bombard? Why had they gone silent and returned to camp? The defenders therefore heightened their alert, and the troops originally prepared to withdraw from the fortress also temporarily held their positions.

What the Southerners did not know was that a gasoline barrel did not require a massive mobilization of men shouting work chants to set up. Unbeknownst to the defenders, the firing preparations on this side had already been completed.

At this moment, apart from the gun crew members, all the staff officers who had been cheerfully observing up close earlier had sprinted back to the rear camp to watch the fire from behind the gate. These were all military elites capable of calculating the explosive yield of black powder; they knew that if anything went wrong, there would likely be no one left alive in the vicinity of that "mortar."

Meanwhile, on a tall observation tower behind the camp gate, the Northern Vietnam Qingdu King, Zheng Zhuang, was holding a monocular telescope to observe the firing position, accompanied by Commander Sheng, who had made a special trip to be there.

The solemn-faced prince — it would be a lie to say he was not nervous. He had already staked everything and had even agreed to some additional demands from the Ming People; he was, so to speak, operating on debt.

If this bizarre mortar today still failed to produce immediate results, then the prince would be bankrupt on the spot and would have to dive headfirst off the observation tower.

In the prince's lens, the gun crew leader responsible for firing checked the cannon one final time, then bent down and pushed a thin slice of propellant charge into the base of the cannon.

Since the "shell" was merely an explosive pack, and the "barrel" was very thin, not much propellant was needed. This slice of propellant was wrapped in silk, and the amount used was very small.

Next, the gun captain stuffed a hemp "disc," also 80 in diameter, into the cannon barrel.

This disc was the standard-issue explosive pack, packed full of black powder, weighing eighteen kilograms.

Next, the critical moment arrived: the gun captain, using a military lighter, calmly lit two fuses.

The first one lit was a long fuse on the surface of the explosive pack inside the barrel. The length of this fuse had been cut to size, pre-calculated based on the target distance, so that the explosive pack would detonate roughly after flying over and landing on the enemy fortifications.

The second fuse was the propellant charge fuse pulled out from a hole in the cannon's breech. This fuse was much shorter. After lighting it, the gun captain sprinted backward for a dozen or so steps and jumped into a pre-dug shelter trench.

The gun captain jumped into the moat, and the battlefield fell deathly silent. Both the northern and southern armies held their breath, everyone enduring seven or eight oppressive, uneasy seconds together.

Suddenly, with a muffled "Boom—," the large oil barrel belched a thick cloud of white smoke. At the same time, under the gaze of tens of thousands on both sides, a pitch-black object tumbled through the air, "wobbling" its way toward the Southerners' second defense line.

Unlike the iron balls that had flashed by before, this "lump" of a pitch-black thing seemed to move very slowly in the air; everyone could clearly see its trajectory.

A few seconds later, the tumbling black object had already flown over the defense line. Defenders with good eyesight could even make out that what was flying over was actually a hemp sack?

The sack, still emitting green smoke as it tumbled, finally landed with a soft "thud," without any deviation, right on top of a stone fort in the middle section of the defense line.

The badly startled defenders first scattered and dodged. After discovering that this green-smoke-emitting sack seemed to be making no major commotion, everyone curiously took a few steps forward, intending to get a closer look.

The next moment, the fuse burned down to its end, and the powder pack exploded.

The instant the eighteen kilograms of black powder detonated, a small explosive mushroom cloud, a mix of white smoke and black mist, rose into the air. The white smoke was the smoke inherent to black powder, while the black mist was the dust, stones, and rubble blasted from the top of the fortress.

As the cloud rose, the defenders atop the stone fort were also reduced to fragments. The fortress itself, built of bamboo, stone, earth, and wood, completely lost its defensive function in that moment, blown apart by the immense energy, collapsing with a roar into a pile of rubble.

The stone fort was like this, and the defending troops around it could not escape this calamity either. Many of the soldiers in the nearby positions on both sides were literally shaken to death alive; those who survived had blood streaming from both ears, screaming as they rolled in the trenches.

That brief instant seemed like an eternity. Only then did the enormous, muffled roar slowly travel from the opposite side to reach the ears of the Northern Army.

Prince Zheng, who had witnessed the entire actual explosion effect through his telescope, now steadied himself against the railing of the observation tower with trembling hands. His face was pale, his arms shaking uncontrollably, as if on the verge of collapse—he realized that previously at Shenglong Prefecture, the Ming people had indeed held back. Otherwise, Shenglong Prefecture would have long since been reduced to dust by this demonic artifact that could level a city.

Turning his head to glance at Sheng Nan, who remained as steady as a mountain, the Prince could not help but silently sigh in admiration. What the Prince probably never imagined was that an explosion of this magnitude was far too commonplace in the eyes of Sheng Nan, a person of later generations—he could see it every night in anti-Japanese war dramas.

"General Sheng, this item truly lives up to being Lord Cao's house guardian treasure! In my royal opinion, with this divine weapon in hand, even the descent to the underworld would be within reach!"

General Sheng was a loyal and patriotic soldier of Great Ming, a man of his generation, and naturally had to refute the Prince's heartfelt remark. So he waved his hand dismissively and smugly changed the subject: "Your Highness, with this Human Realm Cannon deployed, in less than three double-hours, by this very afternoon, we shall be encamped under the city of Shunhua!"

"Hahaha, all thanks to the General's mighty prowess!"

Seeing his grand dream of founding a dynasty coming true, Prince Zheng was brimming with pride and satisfaction at this moment. As he laughed heartily, the gaze he cast toward Shunhua was filled with venomous malice.