Munitions Empire

Chapter 609: I’ve been playing 568 for quite some time.

Donghe Bridge, or Donghe Grand Bridge, was a modernized megabridge newly constructed by Qi Country this year. It was made of reinforced concrete, with its main components ordered from Tang Country, constituting a double-track railway bridge of considerable spectacle.

This great bridge spanned the Donghe River and served as the most vital transportation chokepoint in Qi Country as well as the gateway to the eastern side of the King City.

During its construction, to ensure the absolute safety of the bridge, defensive fortifications were built on both sides of the bridge, the most impressive of which were the four five-story bastions at each end.

The construction of such colossal bastion towers was in part for aesthetics and also had practical value.

These four massive bunkers could house troops tasked with guarding the bridge, maximizing the security of Donghe Bridge.

Qi Country had stationed four companies here, an entire battalion’s worth of troops, to ensure the bridge would not be sabotaged by infiltrating Tang Army.

And this place was the primary objective of the Tang Country Paratroopers’ operation. They aimed to seize control here, ensuring that Qi Troops could not pass through Donghe Bridge to reinforce the vulnerable King City.

“Were those Tang Army planes dropping people or bombs just now?” a Qi Military officer stationed at the bridge questioned, as he had witnessed the airborne threat from several kilometers away but was uncertain how to react.

“They probably weren’t bombs. If they were, there’d be no need for white parachutes,” the responding soldier obviously didn’t know the correct term for “parachute.”

There was no helping it; Tang People had come up with far too many novel contraptions in recent years, and the most entertaining daily activity for those from Qi Country was to gather together to learn these new terms.

Their previous ignorance even extended to not knowing the correct terms for radio and concrete; only in the past few days had they finally picked up words like “airplane” and “tank.”

In short, the people of Qi Country had grown accustomed to seeing strange devices they couldn’t identify, then belatedly learning the new terminology to appear less ignorant.

“Could it be they dropped something to sabotage the railway?” one company commander asked somewhat nervously.

They were stationed at this bridge because of the railway, weren’t they? Sabotaging the bridge was theoretically the same as sabotaging the railway.

“We’re not railway guards. It’s not our job to deal with a broken railway!” The battalion commander snorted, indicating that other matters were none of his concern, “Tell the men to hold the bastion! As long as we don’t lose this position, we can’t go wrong!”@@novelbin@@

As of now, the Qi forces stationed here remained unaware that part of the Tang Army’s paratroopers had initiated an attack in the opposite direction and were close to capturing the King of Qi Country.

“Damn Tang People, how do they always manage to come up with such muddled contraptions?” the irritated battalion commander complained to the company commander standing beside him.

“You’re telling me! I heard that the front line… seems to be in a rough spot,” the company commander lamented in agreement.

He had a friend on the southern defensive line who had died a few days ago. The death notice was sent directly to him because that man’s wife had already run off with someone else…

“When the enemy has pushed this far, how could the front line be anything but troubling?” the battalion commander was resigned, with an air of having seen through it all.

As they chatted casually, the muzzle of a G43 semi-automatic rifle peeked out from behind distant shrubs, silently taking aim at the Qi gunner within the machine gun emplacement.

The nearby grass trembled slightly, as one paratrooper after another cautiously advanced, inching ever closer to the position of the bastion.

As time ticked by, it was only when the Tang Troops could almost hear the Qi Soldiers’ faint conversations that they were finally spotted.

“Who goes there!” a Qi Soldier shouted instinctively upon seeing a Tang Country Paratrooper approaching his position. The response was the crisp sound of gunfire, reminiscent of a typewriter, and bullets whizzing towards him.

“Enemy attack!” the surprised Qi Soldiers shouted to alert their comrades. As Qi marksmen at the rear machine gun emplacement tried to turn their guns towards the enemy they spotted, their heads were shattered by a bullet from afar.

The Qi Soldiers lacked something like a steel helmet; they merely had cloth caps, and officers even liked to adorn the side with a perfectly straight feather.

Unprotected, they were practically defenseless against stray bullets and shrapnel; without appropriate tactical gear, the Qi Soldiers were starkly disadvantaged compared to the Tang Army, looking no different from beggars.

Like in the past, their scarce ammunition hung on either side of their belts, alongside a bayonet, a canteen, and a food pouch dangling behind them.

All sorts of clutter like mess tins, tents, cups, and more were stuffed into their backpacks, swinging wildly with every movement…

The Qi Soldier whose head had been blown off fell backward onto the ground, while the remaining Qi Troops scrambled to locate the enemy attackers.

In fact, the enemy was already upon them! Several grenades flew into the Qi trenches, the brutal explosions scattering limbs and body parts throughout.

Before the smoke had dissipated, the Tang Country Paratroopers had charged into the trenches, mercilessly sweeping through the remnants of the Qi Army soldiers.

The crisp sound of a typewriter continued without end, as one after another, the wails of fallen Qi soldiers filled the air. It wasn’t until they had lost several trenches that some of the Qi soldiers realized the enemy seemed to be entangled with them.

“Blow up the bridge! Blow up the bridge!” the platoon leader shouted, seeing his position descend into chaos, with the Tang Army possibly breaking through to the bridgehead at any moment.

The company commander from Qi Country beside him wound up his arm and delivered a slap across his face, spinning him around with the force: “What’s all the racket for! Idiot! Hurry up and get out there, block the enemy! Don’t let them get near the bridgehead!”

After that, the company commander hurriedly shouted to the Qi country machine gunner firing next to him, “Hit them hard! Hit them hard! Suppress them! Suppre—”

Before he could finish, the Tang Army’s MG-42 machine guns deployed on the perimeter began to roar, their distinct uninterrupted sound immediately drowning out the Maxim machine gun’s growl.

A hail of bullets hit near the firing ports of the bridgehead bunker, pocking the cement walls with marks and chipping away the plaster on the walls.

At once, the machine gunners inside the ports were too afraid to fire. Due to the narrow field of vision, they simply couldn’t find the enemy machine guns pouring ammo on them. They felt that if they kept firing, they’d likely be killed by the enemy.

For a time, all Qi Army machine gun fire facing the Tang Army went silent, leaving only the relentless echo of Tang gunfire on the battlefield.

The discarded Maxim heavy machine guns by the Tang Army were hot commodities among other nations’ militaries, as they were important indicators of a unit’s combat effectiveness.

Under normal circumstances, a Qi Army infantry company should be equipped with four heavy machine guns, with elite units often having five or six.

But the reality was that by the time war broke out, the Qi Army hadn’t completed the full rearmament, and in the western part of the southern defenses under the command of the third prince, a portion was still equipped with Shireck Flintlock Guns.

So most Qi Army infantry companies were only equipped with one Maxim heavy machine gun, and it was considered not bad to be allocated two.

Some of the main force units, like the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Armies, could barely get three heavy machine guns per company (additional machine guns on the defensive line not included).

Since many machine guns were installed on the southern defensive line as points of fire support, Qi Country had always been short on machine guns.

At this moment, the Qi Army stationed here was suffering the same shortage. Though it appeared they had four companies, each was only equipped with two machine guns.

The Tang Army paratroopers were different, however, as each of their squads had their own machine gun teams, and almost every member was equipped with automatic weapons. The firepower density was on a completely different level.

Now that the two sides were embroiled together, the Tang paratroopers’ superior firepower density immediately became evident. They rampaged through the trenches, the Qi Army, no matter how hard they tried, couldn’t get the Tang soldiers to pause even for a moment.

“Hold the line! Hold the line!” outside the bridgehead bunker, a Qi Army company leader waved his arms, hoping his men would be even braver.

However, he was quickly taken down by incoming bullets, and the Qi soldiers around him immediately scattered. Interestingly, because of the chaos on the battlefield, the Qi soldiers on the other side of the railway bridge, unaware of what was happening, were firing at their compatriots taking hits.

In the confusion, some Qi soldiers mistook their comrades for Tang soldiers, firing incessantly, and forcing those holding their positions to face enemies on both fronts.

Consequently, a downright absurd scene unfolded: the Qi soldiers being fired upon waved at their distant comrades, signaling them not to shoot, but they were quickly taken down by the Tang Army from behind.

Yet when those caught in the crossfire turned to engage the Tang soldiers, their allies behind them shot them in the back of the head…

This back and forth ignited the fire in these embattled Qi soldiers, who turned their guns towards their compatriots on the other side of the railway and started firing back.

The whole scene was in utter chaos, to the extent that even the Tang Army had a hard time figuring out what was going on.

Thinking the Qi people were in-fighting, they ignored the Qi soldiers firing at each other and charged toward the bridgehead bunker, which was within arm’s reach.

The Qi soldiers on the outskirts of the bunker were so frightened they dove inside, while those inside had to take on the role of executioners, firing at the Qi soldiers outside…

At this moment, the Tang Army paratrooper commanders were bewildered, watching from the safety of their trenches as Qi soldiers beat up on their own, the fight raging fiercely.

“Have they gone mad?” The company commander of the 2nd Paratrooper Battalion of Tang Country, leaning on the edge of a trench, watched the Qi soldiers continually firing at their own and incredulously asked those around him.

“Don’t know, it’s been going on for a while now… but it does save us the trouble,” one platoon leader replied, checking his magazine as he spoke.

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