Munitions Empire

"Stop shouting! I'm right here!" Tang Mo stood up, looked at the Suthers soldiers before him, who were silent as cicadas in winter, devoid of any courage to resist, and asked with a gentleman's smile, "Would you mind stepping aside?"

It was as if they heard the whisper of the Grim Reaper, and the Suthers soldiers hurriedly retreated, clearing a path for Tang Mo.

Just now, they had witnessed a scene they would never forget—the moment Tang Mo's battle horse was shot by the commanding officer of this Suthers troop, Tang Mo fell from his horse, and then Tang Mo stood up from a pile of corpses, showing these inexperienced Suthers soldiers what it meant to be a descended deity.

These soldiers only saw Tang Mo draw a delicate handgun from his waist and then with one shot, the Suthers officer who was reloading his gun was knocked to the ground.

A few Suthers soldiers mustered the courage, rifles with bayonets at the ready, hoping to achieve glory, only to be met with bullets from Tang Mo that sent them one by one to the underworld.

When the fifth soldier who attempted to charge fell, all the Suthers soldiers abandoned the idea of trying again.

In their view, the young man's weapon contained endless bullets, and no matter how many came at him, the outcome would be the same.

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So, these disheartened Suthers soldiers just foolishly surrounded Tang Mo, even though his Left-Wheel Handgun was actually out of bullets.

Indeed, he had two identical Left-Wheel Handguns, one which had run out of bullets during an earlier charge, and the other he had just emptied while slaughtering six Suthers soldiers who tried to resist. Hence, his sitting there was entirely a bluff.

He had ammunition in his pocket, but in fact, if the Suthers soldiers had swarmed him, he would have had no chance to reload.

But these poor Suthers soldiers, tormented for hours, were already broken. They dared not verify whether Tang Mo's handgun had exhausted its bullets with their lives, so they stood there, like a bunch of clowns.

Then, when Tang Mo stood up and asked them to make way, they instinctively cleared a path, as if they were seeing off the God of Plague, watching Tang Mo walk towards Wes, who was also covered in blood on his battle horse.

"I'm not great at horsemanship," Tang Mo mentioned while walking to meet the approaching Wes with a smile, "Luckily these guys were quite hospitable and didn't make things difficult for me."

"Is that so?" Wes, mounted on his horse, looked down on the Suthers soldiers who, scared by Tang Mo, had dropped their weapons at their feet. "Then I won't kill you; get lost!"

Hearing Wes say this, the soldiers scattered hurriedly without a second thought.

Wes dismounted and walked over to Tang Mo, handing over the reins, "Let's go, back to the woods. I'll look for you there once everything here is finished."

Tang Mo didn't take it, glanced at the scattered troops in the distance and said with a smile, "It's already over. We won."

"Wes! Tang Mo!" Just then, another shouting voice came through, filled with worry and tension.

The two turned towards the source of the shout, and there was Tagg with a cavalry unit, just like Wes before, desperately searching for something.

They, too, were slashing and loudly calling out as if they had lost something most precious, "Tang Mo! Tang Mo! Wes! Where are you?"

"We're here!" Wes raised his longsword and grinned, "He's back, too."

"So you see, we won," Tang Mo proudly twirled the cylinder of his Left-Wheel Handgun out of the frame, pushed the rod in front, and six shiny brass cases dropped out.

He bent down to pick up the cases from the ground, carefully tucked them into one pocket, then took out bullets from the other and rapidly loaded them into the cylinder. He habitually spun the cylinder, making it whirl quickly.

Then, with a stylish flick of the gun, the rotating cylinder clicked back into place with a satisfying sound.

By the time he finished reloading, Wes was still signaling to Tagg in the distance. The four of them gathered together, with no more Suthers deserters in sight.

They had won, a total victory. The entire left flank of the Suthers was routed, and their cannons, left intact, became Tang Mo's spoils of war.

"Let's count how many cannons we've captured... are there 50 yet?" Tang Mo, seeing the cavalry regrouping, rubbed the blood stains on his trousers as he asked.

"About that," Wes, also relieved, responded in a buoyant tone.

"Look closely, everyone, this is all money," Tang Mo said, and the surrounding Cavalry erupted in laughter.

They laughed unabashedly because the victory on the battlefield was theirs. As victors, they had that right.

...

"Father! I'll take only 30 Soldiers over there! At the very least, Tang Mo should know that we haven't abandoned him!" Alice, mounted on her horse, looked to her father beside her and pleaded.

"How could 30 men be enough..." Fisheo's voice, anxious and somewhat hoarse, reassured her as he looked at Alice: "He said he could hold out there for a day, so we should trust him..."

"But you know the pressure he's under!" Alice retorted stubbornly, not wanting that handsome, always lying scoundrel... to meet any accidents.

"Wait a little longer... one more hour," Fisheo gazed at the battlefield, comforting his daughter: "Once we break through Suthers's left flank, we can use that narrow path. Then, when you head out from there, I'll draw 100 Soldiers for you to take... If we can catch them by surprise... we might stand a chance."

"I... understand," Alice knew it was probably the best approach for now, biting her lip and anxiously watching the situation on the battlefield, as if hoping that their own right flank, which had just rested for a while, could hasten their attack.

Then, her brow furrowed, and she called to Fisheo instinctively, "Father! Look over there! Father?"

Fisheo had obviously noticed the change on the battlefield too; he could see that the enemy's left wing seemed to be in disarray. Gunfire came from that direction, and it was a sound he recognized.

Soon, an officer hurried back with more precise news: "Lord Earl! Lord Earl! A detachment of Cavalry has attacked Suthers's Troops from the flank! Their left wing is collapsing!"

"Order the Troops to attack at once! This is a good opportunity!" Fisheo clenched his fist; the moment of battle he had been waiting for nearly the whole day had finally arrived.

If he didn't commit all his forces now, seizing the chance to crush the enemy before him in one fell swoop, then he wouldn't be Fisheo.

"Do you know where the Cavalry came from?" Fisheo took the reins of a warhorse from another officer and mounted it as he asked the officer who had brought the message from the right wing.

The officer shook his head, his face also revealing confusion as he replied, "They're not from the Kingdom's Cavalry, their uniforms aren't bright yellow."

"They're grey?" Suddenly realizing something, Fisheo paused and looked at the officer: "A grey close to green."

"That's Tang Mo's Troops!" Alice, hearing her father's question, remembered the recruits she had seen led by Tang Mo, all in that dull, somewhat unsightly color.

"Who would have thought he'd make such a decision, to send a surprise force to aid us while holding the fork in the road," the officer following Fisheo said in admiration.

"It must have been Tagg's idea, right?" another officer guessed, "He's the only one who knows about this path."

"No matter what, this is our best chance now! Attack! Full-scale attack!" Fisheo raised his riding crop, pointing forward: "For the Northern Ridge!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!" The sound of Northern Ridge's war drums thundered through the sky as the three regiments, which had just rested and reorganized, began advancing again.

On the opposite side, a Suthers General set down his monocular telescope; his face pale, he turned to his aide and said, "The left wing, the left wing has been assaulted! Where did the enemy come from? Where did their Cavalry come from?"

"Lord, this is not the time to worry about that! The left wing has already collapsed; what should we do now?" his aide was nervous because he knew the battle seemed to be developing rapidly beyond their control.

They had already overperformed by holding Fisheo off all morning, but the reinforcements they had been waiting for had yet to arrive.

Just as it seemed that any further retreat would lead to a complete collapse, they finally mustered up the courage, prepared to have a formal confrontation with Fisheo. But just as they were getting ready, their left flank was collapsing from an enemy assault.

As the chief commander, he suddenly felt dizzy and dim-eyed, with the urgent calls of his subordinates in his ears: "General!" "Lord Earl!" "Someone help! The General has fallen off his horse!"

Following this, the three Suthers regiments, which had been holding on since the morning, collapsed completely after the General's fall.

When the army collapsed like a landslide, over three thousand Soldiers scattered, a thousand were captured, and almost all the cannons they owned became the spoils of war for Lord Earl and Tang Mo.

As the night gradually fell, the task of clearing the battlefield was drawing to an end. With the battlefield finally falling silent, the crisis at Northern Ridge was essentially resolved after this battle.

Suthers completely lost the initiative in their strategy; their thirty thousand strong army within Leite Kingdom's territory now faced the imminent danger of their supply lines being cut off by a Northern Ridge offensive at any moment.