Chapter 6: Surrendered
Although this cannon shot successfully fired, Li Muzhi did not become proud; on the contrary, his expression was very calm.
He took out paper and pen and quickly wrote.
He recorded all the data from that cannon shot, including trajectory, range, lethal range, and so on.
This was merely one cannonball; the data from multiple cannonballs needed to be synthesized before the best finished product could be modified accordingly.
Lao He and the workers from the arsenal all quickly stopped cheering, afraid of disturbing Li Muzhi’s writing.
Zhang Dabiao came over to congratulate Li Muzhi, but Lao He stopped him: “Battalion Commander Zhang, our Factory Director is recording data; don’t disturb him.”
“Oh, sorry, I was a bit abrupt.” Zhang Dabiao was sensible enough and did not disturb him.
He also ordered the troops that no one was allowed to make a sound.
While Li Muzhi was writing down the data, the Sunjiabao Stronghold side was clearly in chaos.
Sunjiabao’s Puppet Soldiers were lying comfortably in the stronghold when suddenly a loud explosion sounded, startling everyone.
When they saw the large crater on the ground and the three collapsed gun towers, everyone was scared silly:
“My God, a cannonball with such great power—this is a heavy cannon.”
“Did the direct lineage troops come over, or is it the Jin Sui Army?”
“Whether it’s the Jin Sui Army or the direct lineage troops, if they brought heavy cannons, it must be a large force coming; we’d better run.”
……
As expected, the puppet soldiers of this company immediately came out of the gun towers, wanting to scatter and flee.
“Fire at them.” Without needing Zhang Dabiao’s order, the three company commanders saw the puppet soldiers running out of the gun towers and immediately ordered to open fire.
Rat-tat-tat!
Rat-tat-tat!
Rat-tat-tat!
……
The machine guns of the three companies opened fire together, along with old barrel rifles shooting; the puppet soldiers left behind more than a dozen corpses, not even caring for the injured, and immediately shrank back into the gun towers.
“Company Commander, the opponents don’t look like regular troops; they look like Eighth Route Army.” A puppet soldier platoon leader said to the puppet soldier company commander.
The puppet soldier company commander angrily rebuked: “Bullshit, can the Eighth Route Army have heavy cannons?”
“Company Commander, but the opponent’s soldiers are indeed using all sorts of weapons, not standardized issue weapons.” The puppet soldier platoon leader said.
“Damn it, the local Eighth Route Army at most has a few mountain cannons, yet today they wheeled out a heavy cannon—has it become a spirit or something!” The puppet soldier company commander cursed loudly.
“Company Commander, look over there.” Soon someone shouted to the puppet soldier company commander and pointed in the direction, “I saw the Eighth Route Army’s cannon; it’s beyond the range of our guns.”
The puppet soldier company commander and the others immediately looked over, and upon seeing the Eighth Route Army’s big cannon, everyone’s expressions became somewhat strange.
This thing didn’t look like ordinary artillery; it seemed like assembled goods.
Someone said to the puppet soldier company commander: “Company Commander, the Eighth Route Army is poor, so this big cannon is probably temporarily assembled by their arsenal.”
“Nonsense!” The puppet soldier company commander didn’t believe it. “The Eighth Route Army has no cutting machines or welding machines, no machinery and equipment at all—how could they assemble it, with their pair of industrious hands?”
“Company Commander, exactly how the Eighth Route Army made this big cannon—I don’t think that’s important. What’s important is that this cannon has terrifying lethality; one shot took out three of our gun towers. We’re pinned down and can’t get out; we need to think of a way quickly.” Someone said to the puppet soldier company commander.
“Company Commander, the Eighth Route Army hasn’t fired the second shot yet; I don’t know what they’re up to. We still have some time.” The puppet soldier platoon leader said to the puppet soldier company commander.
“Do you think the Eighth Route Army might only have one cannonball?” The puppet soldier company commander thought of something and said, “They’ve always been poor; they can’t even make bullets, let alone cannonballs. They haven’t moved now—maybe they have no cannonballs…”
Well then.
Before the puppet soldier company commander finished speaking, someone shouted in fear: “Company Commander, Company Commander, the Eighth Route Army is loading a cannonball; you need to make a decision quick.”
Upon hearing this, the puppet soldier company commander immediately went to a firing slit to look.
The Eighth Route Army was indeed reloading a strange cannonball; the puppet soldier company commander was instantly scared out of his wits and immediately howled: “Brothers, we put on this uniform just to make a living; who really wants to risk their lives? Fire the white flag right now—we surrender! Hurry up and surrender before the Eighth Route Army fires the second shot. Grandma, this is deadly!”
After all, no one dared guarantee that the second shot wouldn’t land on their own heads.
“Yes.” The puppet soldiers immediately raised the white flag.
Seeing this, Zhang Dabiao was stunned: “Sunjiabao surrendered just like that? Unbelievable.”
Zhang Dabiao had previously considered attacking Sunjiabao Stronghold, but helplessly, he had no artillery for assaulting fortifications; even with the whole battalion mobilized, there was no way to take the stronghold.
And now, the Border Region Arsenal so easily shattered the morale of the Sunjiabao Stronghold defenders; Zhang Dabiao couldn’t help suspecting—Factory Director Li Muzhi from the Border Region Arsenal said he didn’t know how to fight wars, but did he really not?
On Li Muzhi’s side, he had just finished loading the second cannonball and was about to ignite it when Zhang Dabiao shouted to him: “Factory Director Li, don’t ignite it; the puppet soldiers have surrendered.”
Li Muzhi paused, looked up, and sure enough, the bunkers and gun towers of Sunjiabao Stronghold had all raised white flags.
Lao He couldn’t help saying to Li Muzhi: “Factory Director, these puppet soldiers were so arrogant bullying civilians, but now they’re completely useless; we’ve only tested one cannonball and they surrendered. Can we continue test-firing?”
In Lao He’s view, continuing the test-firing was most important; with Sunjiabao surrendering, wouldn’t that delay our further experiments?
“No problem.” Li Muzhi said calmly, “Sunjiabao has surrendered; we’ll just find another target to continue the experiment.”
“Factory Director, I may not know how to fight wars, but I do know that shelling Sunjiabao side will definitely alert the Japanese invaders; they’ll surely send reinforcements. Do we still have a chance to find other targets?” Lao He said. “Battalion Commander Zhang only has one battalion; I’m afraid he can’t hold off the enemy’s reinforcements.”
“Don’t worry; we have reinforcements. As for other targets—well, they’ll be the enemy’s reinforcements.” Li Muzhi laughed.
Li Muzhi had even seen Zhang Dabiao call the communications soldier back; how could the thoughts in Zhang Dabiao’s mind escape Li Muzhi?
Once the Independent Regiment’s Regiment Commander Li Yunlong learned that we really produced a big cannon with powerful lethality, this Li Yunlong would immediately come out and bring his troops to borrow our Hell Cannon for a strike.
After all, Old Li wasn’t the type to sit idle.
By then, we could use the enemy’s reinforcements as test subjects without delaying the experiments at all.
Our cannonballs still had another kind.
That was the one packed with a large amount of iron beads and nails; we needed to test what the lethality effect would be when this cannonball exploded in a crowd.
The Hell Cannon couldn’t just be used for assaulting fortifications; mass slaughtering enemy infantry—that was what truly matched the Hell Cannon’s fearsome reputation!
