Munitions Empire

"Boom!" Compared to the artillery preparations of the Kingdom of Gemalin, the firepower of the Northern Ridge Troops was obviously far more intense.

The terrifying artillery fire engulfed the entire position, with black smoke billowing everywhere. There were craters seething with heat and trenches that had been blown apart.

The soldiers of the Kingdom of Germelin thought that the firepower they used when they attacked the Leite Kingdom's border defense line was the strongest in the world, but only now did they realize their ignorance.

It turned out they severely lacked imagination—the ferocious artillery barrage in front of them completely overturned their expectations.

The Northern Ridge Troops had 30 cannons, all of which were new-model artillery with higher rates of fire, better accuracy, farther ranges, and more powerful shells.

Despite the Kingdom of Germelin possessing 130 mm caliber recoilless guns, their slow rate of fire of a few minutes per shot, along with their annoyingly heavy weight, prevented them from providing timely and effective fire support.

They were good enough for hitting some fixed targets on the border, but once it came to accompanying troops in an assault, they became utter trash.

Now, the Northern Ridge's quick-firing 105 mm caliber howitzers were the true kings of the battlefield.

"Boom!" Another shell, following a high, arcing trajectory, landed almost vertically on the Germelin Troop's position, lifting a cloud of dust and shaking the earth.

The aggrieved Germelin soldiers could do nothing but curl up in hastily dug trenches, tragically waiting for the enemy to end their barrage.

Their trenches were mere scratchings on the surface, equivalent to digging ditches in the ground, offering almost no protection.

However, compared to when they launched their attack on the border area, they obviously had learned quite a few lessons. At least, they wouldn't crowd together and form square formations to collide head-on with the enemy on open plains anymore.

Unfortunately, it seemed the Northern Ridge Troops had no intention of engaging them with traditional tactics. After a round of intense artillery preparation, their infantry began to advance.

Following a shrill, somewhat heart-throbbing whistle sound, a succession of roaring commands rose from the trenches: "Attack!" "Attack!"

All of the soldiers of the Kingdom of Germelin were waiting, waiting to greet the soldiers of the Leite Kingdom with a painful blow using the trench crawling and shooting techniques they had just learned.

But what they were met with was a scene that left them stunned: the Northern Ridge Troops didn't form square formations for their assault but rather dispersed their formation as soon as they arrived, resembling a group of irregulars.

However, these damned irregulars... really weren't that easy to aim at. They split into small groups, covering each other, some firing from temporary cover, others advancing bent over, without a hint of so-called courage.

After finally lining up a target, the enemy would quickly throw themselves down into the dirty mud, disappearing from sight.

"Damn, what kind of tactic is this?" A veteran from the Kingdom of Germelin managed to fire off a shot, missed his target, and complained furiously.

The enemy quite obviously had trained for this, running zigzag patterns with no discernible rhythm, and in most cases, they were simply crawling on the ground.

Soon, many of the soldiers on the Germelin defense line had realized the tactics of their opponents. One soldier, with a mixture of laughter and tears, asked his comrade, "Are they all... crawling on the ground?"

"Damn... we can't even see them!" Another soldier hastily fired off a shot and ducked back into the trench, cursing as he reloaded his rifle.

Reloading a bolt-action rifle was actually quite troublesome as they had to clear the chamber. These weapons had obvious shortcomings but were a significant step up from flintlock rifles.

These poor soldiers from Germelin had never fought such a strange battle and had no experience in dealing with the situation at hand.

Only now did some clever ones realize that the way to attack a trench system was to advance dispersed, just like the enemy was doing...

Unfortunately, they had no chance to try this tactic in return because they had to first repel the enemy in front of them.

"Over there!" A sharp-eyed soldier from the Kingdom of Germelin saw an enemy jump up and rush forward a few steps and shouted excitedly.

By the time he and his fellow soldiers swung their guns to aim at that target, those who had leaped up were already down on the ground, out of sight once more.

"They're up again over there!" On another side of the trench, soldiers from the Kingdom of Germelin shouted once again.

With their shouting, Northern Ridge soldiers who had crouched and made it to closer proximity once again hit the ground, disappearing without a trace.

In front of the positions were craters created by the artillery shells, and once these soldiers got into these natural shelters, the enemy had no way to deal with them anymore.

Meanwhile, inside the craters, the Northern Ridge soldiers skillfully poked their heads over the edge, eying the enemy trenches that were now within reach.

"Fix bayonets! Prepare for hand-to-hand combat!" In the enemy trenches not far away, officers of the Germelin forces had already started giving orders to prepare for hand-to-hand combat. Their commands were very clear, as if crystal clear.

"Roughly 24 meters by eye! Within the covering range!" A Northern Ridge soldier who had ducked back looked at the comrades waiting behind him. As he made his estimation, he also gestured with his fist, flicking out his thumb and then suddenly swinging it forward.

All the soldiers nodded neatly, then they each pulled out a stick grenade from their waists, unscrewed the safety cap, pulled out the fuse, and exchanged a glance with each other.

Once everyone was ready, they yanked at the fuses simultaneously and then sprinted forward, hurling the iron lumps in their hands.

In the horrified eyes of the Germelin soldiers, a flurry of little black dots suddenly flew up before them, and then those dots grew larger in their vision... and hit the ground.

Bowing their heads instinctively, they saw an iron lump with a wooden handle smash at their feet, its tail still trailing faint smoke.

Before they could react, the iron lumps exploded, instantly engulfing everything near the trenches.

Huge explosions continued inside the trenches, turning the world dark; columns of smoke rose left and right, piercing the sky.

The ground itself seemed to tremble as soldiers inside the trenches were jolted haphazardly by the brutal shockwaves. They had just been preparing for hand-to-hand combat when the enemy launched an utterly unreasonable surprise tactic, opening the prelude to the assault.

The Germelin soldiers, suppressed by a barrage of grenades, were now thoroughly disoriented, unable to comprehend why the enemy's artillery fire had suddenly intensified tenfold.

The massive explosions all concentrated near the trenches took a devastating toll on the Germelin soldiers. Some grenades that happened to fall into the trenches caused enormous casualties in the blink of an eye.

The soldiers who were flipped onto the ground by the blasts scarcely had time to get up before they saw figures leaping into their trenches.

What followed was the sound of dense gunfire—the opposing troops were equipped with a plethora of Left-Wheel Handguns, which were far more useful in the confined trenches than lever-action rifles.

Of course, that didn't mean the Northern Ridge troops were without lever-action rifles; on the contrary, the squad commanders of the Northern Ridge troops were all armed with lever-action rifles.

The concentrated fire immediately overwhelmed the Germelin forces, who had thought they were the strongest firing force in the world. But now they realized they were wrong.

The firepower from the other side was so intense that the Germelin soldiers didn't even have time to raise their hands before bullets took them down.

Indeed, the ordinary Northern Ridge soldiers, equipped with KAR98, or K3 rifles, were not much slower in rate of fire compared to lever-action rifles.

They used metal cased cartridges, which gave them a far greater advantage in sustained fire over the mass of Germelin troops equipped with needle guns.

"Bang!" A Northern Ridge soldier with a rifle flipped an enemy soldier with a shot in the trenches, then flashed a gleaming bayonet and flipped another soldier to the ground.

Next, he pulled out another grenade from his belt, detonated it and threw it. Three Germelin soldiers, who were charging forward with bayonets, met their fate when the grenade they stumbled upon exploded, engulfing them in fire in an instant.

After punching a hole in their defenses, the follow-up Northern Ridge forces rushed to fill it. These rigorously trained Northern Ridge soldiers aggressively expanded their victory by attacking along the trench in both directions.

With the support of grenades and lever-action rifles, the trench clearing was even faster than imagined. The forces of the Kingdom of Germelin quickly collapsed, piece by piece their positions rapidly captured by Northern Ridge forces.

A line of trenches that had stalled the Germelin forces for days crumbled in less than an hour under the onslaught of the Northern Ridge forces.

Once the line was breached and both sides became entangled in close combat, the combat training of the Northern Ridge troops shone through even more starkly.

The Northern Ridge forces, seemingly much more adept at small-unit maneuvers, quickly expanded their gains, using squads or platoons as combat units, infiltrating deep behind the Kingdom of Germelin's lines.

Villages that served as command posts or ammunition depots, or the makeshift camps built up, were also hit hard simultaneously.

The entire battlefield was in chaos, with Germelin troops fleeing in dismay. Out of more than 3000 men in two legions, fewer than 500 were killed on the battlefield, with the rest routed during the escape, obliterated while scattering in retreat.

With command already ineffective, the commanders of the Kingdom of Germelin couldn't even discern what had happened, when suddenly they heard news of their defeat.

Then came the complete rout across the board.

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There will be one more update today to make up for the previous one, which I'll deliver later, probably after 12 o'clock.