novelAbuy Chapter 36 The Cannons Fire
Chapter 36 The Cannons Fire
boom!
Fire!
Rumble—!
A fireball exploded in Chuwang Town, and the thin wall immediately broke open, creating a gap several meters wide.
A house inside the wall was also bombed into ruins.
The artillerymen quickly changed their submachine guns, loaded the new ones, installed the percussion caps, and then pulled the triggers!
Boom! Rumble—!
Another huge fireball soared into the sky.
Illuminated by the fireball, the mangled human body flying through the air was clearly visible.
Chang Yuan judged that the severed limbs came from at least five people.
The Frankish Divine Might General Cannon had an extremely high rate of fire, firing nine exploding shells in one minute and reducing the cult stronghold town to rubble within three minutes.
Strangely, the Blood Spirit Cult cultists did not rush out, but instead hid in the town and endured the shelling.
The artillery squad's junior officer clicked his tongue in amazement: "How strange! This doesn't seem like the Blood Spirit Cult's style."
"Shouldn't these brutes be able to explode at the slightest provocation, and only feel fear if half of them are dead?"
"Never mind, keep bombarding it!"
"I refuse to believe that even if we bomb the entire town to the ground, they'll still hold out and not come out!"
The artillery then bombarded even more vigorously.
This is the guiding principle of the Embroidered Uniform Guard when they target enemies, not for the purpose of arrest or investigation, but for the purpose of elimination and eradication.
Regardless of the consequences, let's just raze it to the ground first.
During high-intensity continuous firing, the heat dissipation advantage of the breech-loading mechanism is fully demonstrated.
The more powerful General's Cannon, after firing 15 rounds in succession, must undergo a long cooling period.
The Frankish General Cannon fired 150 shells in one go without showing any signs of overheating.
But the bombardment eventually stopped.
Because 150 shells were fired, the small town of Chuwang was plowed up twice, leaving only ruins and no longer any targets worth bombarding.
The Blood Spirit Cult's reaction was quite unexpected.
Even though the shelling had blasted corpses into the air and the strongholds had been reduced to ruins, not a single cultist showed up.
Just then, Qiu Yixin, the most inconspicuous of Chang Yuan's guards, suddenly looked down at the unremarkable ground.
His ears twitched a few times, he closed his eyes to listen, and then shouted loudly, "There's a secret passage here!"
"The enemy is underground, and they're very close!"
Chang Yuan remembered that Qiu Yixin's ability was called "Quiet Rest," and his senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch were ten times more acute than those of ordinary people, with hearing being the strongest.
He asked, "How close is 'very close'?"
Qiu Yixin replied, "80 meters!"
Chang Yuan immediately ordered, "On alert! Protect the artillery!"
Upon receiving the order, Gao Su immediately released a distress signal flare, summoning the surrounding Imperial Guards to provide support.
Just then, a deafening roar of battle cries erupted from the ruins of Chuwang Town. Hundreds of cultists emerged from their hiding places, brandishing their homemade weapons and launching simultaneous attacks in all directions.
The sharp whistles of the Imperial Guards rang out, followed by a dense volley of gunfire like popping beans.
Chang Yuan drew his revolver from his waist and sneered, "Heh, Lao Gao, your distress signal is useless now."
Gao Su grunted in response and drew his revolver, ready for action.
Han Ye did not draw his pistol, but instead pulled out three sections of steel pipe from behind his back and pieced them together to form a long gun.
Chang Yuan pulled Li Hui and Qiu Yixin to his side. One was the superior's child whom he needed to protect, and the other was the living radar he needed most right now.
"You two, don't stray too far from me!"
"Qiu Yixin, where is the enemy?"
Qiu Yixin pointed to the ground not far away: "Right there, they are heading west."
Chang Yuan looked in that direction and saw a simple shack about twenty meters away, which farmers used to shelter from the rain and sun while working in the fields.
He saw it, and the other Imperial Guards noticed it too.
The artillery sergeant cursed, "Damn it, the Blood Spirit Cult must have figured out this is the best artillery position to set up the tunnel exit here!"
"How could a mere cult possibly bewitch artillerymen?"
In the Ming Dynasty army, artillery was undoubtedly a highly technical branch of the military.
They needed to understand gunpowder preparation, be able to drive various vehicles, control oxen, horses, and mules, and also be good at arithmetic, able to read ballistic tables, and skilled at calculating distances and altitude differences.
Training a qualified artilleryman costs dozens of times more than training an ordinary infantryman, and the attrition rate is frighteningly high.
Therefore, artillerymen received excellent treatment, ranking among the best in the army, far exceeding that of ordinary cavalry.
Moreover, artillerymen only need to fire shells from a distance, without having to rush to the front line and fight the enemy, making them incredibly safe.
Such soldiers are virtually impossible to be seduced by cults.
Chang Yuan sneered, "It's not necessarily that a cult has bewitched the artillery; it's more likely that they sent their followers to steal artillery knowledge."
Qiu Yixin's ears perked up again, and he shouted, "Everyone be careful! The enemy is starting to climb up; they're about to break out!"
Rifles and revolvers were aimed at the shack.
The Frankish General Cannon was also turned around by the artillery, its breech raised, and aimed at the shack.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, a dark blue-black iron-clad evil spirit lifted the disguised wooden planks and rushed out of the tunnel.
Suddenly exposed to the sunlight, the monster couldn't even open its eyes and roared in annoyance.
"Aww—aww! Aww? Waaah..."
The roar quickly turned into a squelching sound, as the monster realized it was being aimed at by a dozen guns and a cannon.
Monsters aren't afraid of guns.
But cannons are a different matter.
The dark green iron-clad evil spirit hesitated for a second before deciding to burrow back into the tunnel to avoid trouble.
Although the tunnel was cramped and suffocating, it was still much better than having a cannon pointed at your face.
But when the monster looked down, it discovered that a second bluish-black iron-skinned evil spirit had blocked the tunnel entrance, making it impossible for it to crawl down.
The artillery captain gave the monster no time to hesitate or communicate, and immediately ordered: "Fire!!"
boom!
Wow!
The monster, which used to require five consecutive shots to its brow to kill, was blasted into pieces by the cannon, leaving only its two legs standing at the entrance of the tunnel.
The second evil spirit that emerged was dumbfounded. Its inferior mind could not understand why the first one had broken, but that did not prevent it from sensing the danger of death.
But below the second one were even more monsters and evil spirits, which not only prevented it from retreating, but also forced it out.
When the artillery captain saw the new monster appear beneath the cannon barrel, he ordered the cannons to fire without hesitation.
So the second monster also turned into a shower of minced meat.
Then came the third one!
Only then did the cultists manage to control their monsters and prevent them from continuing to line up and die.
The imperial guards in the artillery unit felt they hadn't had enough, but under the captain's command, they pushed the cannons and began to move.
Sure enough, what followed were streaks of light like yellow lightning bolts rushing towards the moving cannon.
The artillery guards immediately took out their rifles from their backs and fired wildly at the phantom without even aiming.
The yellow phantoms were prepared; they turned back and ran as soon as the guards raised their guns, successfully avoiding all the bullets.
Then they resumed their straight-line charge, heading straight for the artillery escort and the gunners frantically grabbing their weapons.