Chapter 72: Oil Painting

After seeing through the pirates' weak-chicken nature, a chorus of whistles, cheers, and curses rang out above the Shang Hall. At this moment, the Lieutenant loudly issued orders, commanding the gunner square formation to advance toward the enemy with a proud bearing and orderly ranks.

Just then, several strings of "rat-tat-tat" gunfire rang out simultaneously from the rear of the pirate band. The situation was bad; Liu Zhe and the others had no choice but to fire back to stabilize things first. Fortunately, the men all knew the AK in the Shopkeeper's hands was no joke — the moment it fired, everyone instantly calmed down considerably, and then, under the roar of the Electric Megaphone, they barely held their formation and slowly retreated.

While directing the team to slowly turn and advance, Liu Zhe pulled out his Walkie-Talkie and yelled: "Is the fire team in position yet? Damn it, are you all dead? We're done on this end, the men are out, the gun position just opened fire too — did you see all that? Over."

"Seen, seen, Commander Liu, hard work. Action is about to commence on this end, about to commence! Over." Han Bo's voice came through the Walkie-Talkie.

Hanging up the Walkie-Talkie, Han Bo chuckled and said to the person beside him: "I was hoping to hear a line like 'Give your brother a hand here.'"

Wei Yuan, who was directing men to dig sand off to one side, gave a dry laugh: "If he really said that, the fire from above would be raining down on our heads right after."

Han Bo also realized his words had been a bit inappropriate and gave a dry laugh too, then stomped his foot on the sand a few times and forcefully changed the subject: "Say, this wouldn't happen to be the very sand dune where they built Utrecht Redoubt, would it? If it is, that's a bit too fated."

"Judging by the height and distance, it should be that one. Otherwise, we wouldn't have chosen this spot to set up our position," said a fair-skinned, chubby man who, no matter how you looked at him, didn't seem like someone who'd served in the military. This man was called Wang Hui. Before Crossing Over, he had spent time in the military, but in an engineering corps unit — he was considered a technical specialist.

The fire detachment led by Han Bo was at this moment on a sand dune southwest of the Dayuan Trading Post. The dune was slightly higher in elevation than the Trading Post, the distance between them roughly 50 meters. Not far ahead of them to the left, Liu Zhe was leading the main force slowly withdrawing out of the Trading Post's cannon range.

A crude Machine Gun position had already taken shape. Naturally, shooting from a sitting position was impossible on a steamed-bun-shaped sand dune; a standing trench for the machine gunner to fire from had already been dug, and the heavy Machine Gun and spare ammunition were already prepared. Han Bo swung his arms and jumped into the trench: "Forget it, let's just blast them with a few belts first!" So saying, he was about to pull the trigger.

"Hit the square formation first," said Wang Hui, who was observing with binoculars off to the side.

"Not suppress the Fort first?"

"Hurry up, brother, I've got my eye on the Fort, just relax," Wang Xiaohui curled his lip and said with a hint of disdain to Wei Yuansheng, who was standing by ready to serve as assistant gunner: "Our Brother Han in society — all cowardice, all talk."

Hearing this, Han Bo cursed furiously while using his left hand to slightly adjust the elevation mechanism. The next moment, his right hand tightened, and a short burst was fired.

The Browning Machine Gun, back in the 80s, had undergone a phoenix-like rebirth upgrade. At that time, one of the world's finest Weapons Companies — Belgium's FN Company — made a critical modification to the old-style Machine Gun.

1: The Gun Barrel was modified for quick replacement.

2: A high-performance 17mm armor-piercing explosive incendiary Bullet was designed.

It was these two classic modifications that allowed the Machine Gun, already facing obsolescence, to be reborn and keep pace with the Rhythm of modern warfare. Even into the 21st century, this Machine Gun, capable of shooting down Airplanes above and vehicles below, remained standard equipment for over 50 nations, including the US military.

The 17mm Bullet Han Bo fired was manufactured by Belgium's FN Company. In this moment, the Bullet crossed time and space, arriving in Dayuan, gently inserting itself into the upper-left corner of the Dutch square formation.

The brown-haired Soldier from the Belgian territories, Ceulemans, had a bowl-sized hole punched through his chest by this Bullet, exquisitely crafted by later generations. 0.1 seconds later, the poor devil from the Duchy of Luxembourg, his good brother in joint robbery and murder, Müller, positioned to his right rear, had half his shoulder ripped away by this Bullet. Another 0.1 seconds passed, and the Venetian, Perrin, diagonally behind Müller, had his abdomen skewered at an angle, kidney and bone shards spraying from his lower back. The last unlucky soul was Ruud from the country town of Eindhoven; by now the Bullet's angle of incidence was very low, so one of his legs flew into the distance. The poor man, still charging the moment before he fell, only realized his leg was gone the next second.

The muscle and bone of four grown men failed to trigger the Bullet's second effect: detonation. The warhead, designed to punch through the thick Steel Plate of troop carriers, passed effortlessly through four mercenaries clad only in short Dutch Linen shirts, then plunged headfirst into the sand behind them.

However, not everyone would have such good luck. In the following 20 seconds, Han Bo emptied a 100-round belt. More than one Soldier's upper body was blasted into pieces. In less than half a minute, the previous square formation had vanished without a trace, replaced by a neat, classical oil painting of minced flesh and fresh blood. Interspersed were bastards who just wouldn't die, crawling chaotically through the corpse pile, clutching their own severed legs.

Firing a 17mm Heavy Machine Gun into a dense crowd — this is something that would be unlikely to happen in later generations. Even a 5-year-old child in Sierra Leone would drop to the ground on the spot upon hearing gunfire. Yet in 17th-century Shazhou, this scene played out with full emotion. The people atop the Shang Hall's Enclosing Wall were still in a daze at this moment; 20 seconds was simply not enough time for people of the medieval era to grasp what had just happened.

The men at the Machine Gun position had no time to stand around dazed. Wei Yuan put on thick Gloves and used the matching specialized pipe wrench to swiftly remove the scalding-hot Gun Barrel. The next moment, a new tungsten-chromium alloy Gun Barrel was inserted into the barrel sleeve. Once the locking lug was rotated into place, Han Bo lifted the receiver top cover, and Wei Yuan fed the new belt through the feed chute into the receiver. Han Bo pressed down the top cover, pulled the bolt to chamber a round, then raised his thumb to signal OK.

The entire reloading process took 20 seconds. Wang Hui, observing from the side, was already indicating the shooting target — the Fort located at the southwest corner of the Shang Hall.

The scene of the Fort suffering the strike was even more magnificent. Every time a string of 17mm warheads detonated against the Copper cannon bodies or inside the circular low wall, the orange-yellow warhead flames burned with a viscous intensity, like abyssal demon fire.

In the next step, the 20 pre-formed fragments inside the warhead would ricochet back and forth within the Fort. Even in daylight, the vast, brilliant sparks bursting from the Copper cannon bodies were still clearly visible. A storm of metal fragments churned within the semi-enclosed Fort, killing everyone inside within seconds. At the same moment, the Black Powder stacked inside the Fort was detonated, sending flames and White Smoke billowing upward.

A few minutes later, accompanied by the rolling White Smoke rising from the two Forts, the warriors who had just turned and advanced now turned back around and strode forward. Having entered a familiar routine, the warriors regained their confidence. They howled as they marched with great strides, brandishing the weapons in their hands. Occasionally, someone would even fire off a shot with a Bird Blunderbuss; a mere few dozen men forcefully created the imposing momentum of a great army bearing down.

As the pirate formation was about to enter the Rifle range of the Dutch on the wall, the final moment of this Battle had finally arrived.

Wei Yuan straightened up, carrying a mysterious aluminum alloy case as he stood atop the dune. By now, exposing the target didn't matter; the Dutch only had Matchlocks and couldn't hit him.

The next moment, the case was opened: a weapon that balanced concealment and lethality, the embodiment of freedom and wildness, capable of changing social trends, sweeping through Rebels worldwide, bridging the gap between officials and bandits, and elevating the caliber of anti-Government forces — the great name RPG-7, nicknamed "40 Fire" — a single-soldier Rocket launcher was taken out by Wei Yuan.

Attaching an earthy-yellow assault demolition high-explosive warhead, Wei Yuan kept his upper body straight, knelt on one knee, and in a standard proposal posture, fired a scorching-hot shot at the Dutch cowering behind the Shang Hall's Enclosing Wall.

The 6-foot-thick clay Enclosing Wall was utterly incapable of blocking the specialized obstacle-clearing warhead's assault; a steamed-bun-like bulge sent the men atop the wall flying.

Following another subsequent Rocket warhead, dust filled the air, and two breaches were forcibly blasted open in the Shang Hall's Enclosing Wall.

The pirate band roared as they charged through the breaches. From behind, the huge sound of the Electric Megaphone still rang out: "Lay down your arms and you will not be killed! Lay down your arms and you will not be killed! Anyone who randomly harms hostages will be executed! Anyone who randomly harms hostages will be executed!"

After the last few Soldiers on the Enclosing Wall attempting to resist were killed by incoming 7.62mm bullets, the mentally shattered Dutch surrendered.

On the afternoon of October 18, 1627, the Dutch East India Company's Dayuan Trading Post fell.