Otherworld Advance Team -
Chapter 1367 - 1360: Breaking the Rules
Chapter 1367: Chapter 1360: Breaking the Rules
Cheng Ziang’s motivation strategy was simple: first enticement, then intimidation. He would stabilize the soldiers’ morale with their families and then threaten them with the Dongsheng Empire’s attitude towards them, ensuring they completely abandoned any thoughts of defecting during battle.
In truth, it wasn’t so much about intimidation but rather clarifying the facts, for experience had taught them that the Dongsheng military forces would certainly not spare those from Kyushu who had defected to the Demon Clan.
This was almost beyond doubt, so even if they defected to the Dongsheng military forces, they were likely to die, unless there was a severe shortage of Dongsheng troops.
Under Hu Daoke’s threats, these Kyushu people quickly became compliant. As former members of the Dongsheng military forces and conscripts, they were well aware of the Dongsheng military’s methods.
Some acts, which appeared utterly ruthless to Luo’er and others, were simply routine to such a feudal army — such as the brutal killing of prisoners of war or the massacre of entire cities.
This was why, with such people from Kyushu, only a little bit of kindness was needed to easily win them over. And due to the Dongsheng military’s feudal nature, they had no hope of returning home and had to devote themselves fully to fighting for Abisien.
Having dismissed the idea of defecting to the enemy among these people, Hu Daoke’s propaganda mission didn’t end immediately. According to Cheng Ziang’s plan, he still had an important task: to boost these Kyushu people’s morale through propaganda.
The ones who knew themselves best were often their own kind. These people from Kyushu were either conscripts of the Dongsheng military forces or captured soldiers, so they were well aware of the Dongsheng military’s combat strength, yet they knew nothing about the combat strength of the Demon Clan’s army.
During the year they had joined the Demon Clan, they had been learning how to march in formation and how to use weapons that could produce a loud noise and smoke. They didn’t understand the significance of such formations, nor did they comprehend the power of the weapons known as guns.
Therefore, when they faced the Dongsheng military forces for the first time, they inevitably fell into tension and unease. If such sentiments weren’t dispelled, it could easily lead to the collapse of their front lines.
After a pause, Hu Daoke continued to shout loudly, "Brothers, now we face a formidable enemy. Only by fighting to the death can we hope to survive. Don’t beg for mercy from the enemy. Only by defeating them can we ensure we won’t be slaughtered by them. Everyone, shout it with me: resisting doesn’t guarantee death, but surrendering does!"
Although these Kyushu people had only just started learning the Demon Clan language, they understood this sentence. With Hu Daoke’s continued encouragement, slowly some began to shout along with him, and then the sound spread like wildfire until it could be heard throughout the entire military formation. The morale of the Demon Clan’s army reached its peak at this moment.
Not only did the people from Kyushu boost their morale, even the members of the Demon Clan were inspired by this phrase and began to shout loudly.
Witnessing Hu Daoke’s success, Cheng Ziang smiled slightly and turned to look at Yunji. Yunji met his gaze and showed a satisfied expression, nodding her head repeatedly.
Soon after, a Military General from the opposing Dongsheng military forces rode forward on horseback. He held a long pole weapon and came to the frontline of both armies, beginning to loudly taunt them. Understanding the Kyushu language, Cheng Ziang knew he was challenging them to a duel, but at this stage, the Demon Clan’s army had already abandoned the formalities of single combat with military generals, so he planned to give the Dongsheng military forces a taste of their own medicine.
Facing the challenge from the Dongsheng Military General, Cheng Ziang sought and received authorization from Yunji. He summoned a few mounted troops whose role was to protect Du Du, instructing them to aim their guns at the Military General while he himself began to assemble an Origin Submachine Gun and adjust the optical sight for accuracy.
Soon he had assembled an Origin Submachine Gun, and after making minor adjustments to the sight, he turned his head to the Demon Clan’s mounted troops and said, "When my gun fires, open fire simultaneously!"
These elite Demon Clan mounted troops were equipped with percussion rifled guns, which relied on a percussion cap to ignite the gunpowder within the chamber. Although the cost of percussion caps was still quite high at the moment, the Demon Clan had equipped their troops with them for trial purposes.
Compared to Flintlock guns, the greatest advantage of percussion guns was that they fired as soon as the trigger was pulled, while Flintlock guns had a delay of a few tenths of a second. This slight delay should not be underestimated; many musketeers missed their opportunities to fire in that brief moment.
Cheng Ziang raised his Origin Submachine Gun, lining up the sights with a Dongsheng Military General who was shouting in the distance. He opened fire first mainly to shatter that general’s Dantian, rendering him incapable of using Magic Defense.
The distance between him and the general was no more than a hundred meters. For a traditional rifle, this distance normally meant hitting whatever you aimed at. A smoothbore gun might have been a bit of a stretch, but with a rifled gun, there would be absolutely no problem. Besides, the gun in his hand was an Origin Submachine Gun which didn’t require ballistic calculations, so its accuracy went without saying—he could guarantee a hit even with mechanical sighting.
"Bang!!" After making a slight adjustment, Cheng Ziang pulled the trigger. The Origin projectile precisely hit the general’s abdomen.
Immediately after, a series of loud gunshots erupted beside him. Several rifled guns fired at the same time, and a white cloud of smoke instantly enveloped everything before him.
When the white smoke cleared, Cheng Ziang saw that the general had already fallen to the ground, and his mount, over two meters tall, also lay in a pool of blood. At this point, the formation fell into a tacit silence. Once Hu Daoke started cheering, the entire Demon Clan army immediately boiled over with excitement.
In some ways, this act by the Demon Clan army signified a farewell to their past. When facing the Dongsheng army, they no longer fought by the old rules. They were willing to use any method as long as it led to victory.
Although Zisu had also said that when the Beast-Ear Race faced defeat, they wouldn’t engage in single combat with the Dongsheng army either; they’d just start the battle directly.
But it should be noted that the war between the Beast-Ear Race and the Dongsheng Empire was almost completely one-sided. Typically, the Beast-Ear Race’s army would collapse and the Dongsheng army would pursue them. There were very few instances where the Beast-Ear Race’s forces had been directly and decisively defeated by the Dongsheng army in a face-to-face confrontation.
It wasn’t until they fell back to defend Lingyuan City, until Luo’er and the others arrived, that the Demon Clan army began to engage in a true battle with the Dongsheng army. And as Luo’er and the others also witnessed, they started with single combats between generals, and then the troops clashed.
This time, the Demons resolved to break tradition. They no longer respected any tacit understanding of single combat between generals because they simply did not have high-powered generals to match the Dongsheng Generals.
The tragic death of this Dongsheng General enraged the commanders of the Dongsheng army, who promptly ordered their forces to launch an official attack on the Demon Clan’s army.
As before, the Dongsheng army advanced in well-arranged columns towards the Demon Clan’s forces. With over a hundred meters between the two sides, the commanders of Dongsheng naturally did not dare to order an immediate charge, as this would lead to chaos.
And the result of chaos would be that if the front lines couldn’t hold and started to run back, those behind, due to herd mentality, would also flee. At that point, it would be unrealistic to think about reversing the tide of battle.
For this reason, even in previous battles, facing the dense volleys of the Demon Clan’s artillery, the Dongsheng army still maintained formation and pressed forward. If they did not keep such a tight formation, they probably would have begun to retreat at the first onslaught.
However, this time, they might still have to take another blow. The first to take the stage was the Demon Clan’s Artillery. After over a year of development, the Demon Clan’s army had equipped a large number of cannons, ranging from medium-caliber infantry cannons to large-caliber mortars.
Upon seeing the Dongsheng army begin their assault, the Demon Clan’s artillery launched their first round of bombing. Over three hundred cannons fired in succession, creating a tremendous noise, and the battlefield was shrouded in white smoke.
Infantry cannons could be thought of as large-caliber, ultra-long-range muskets. Before the enemy came within musket range, the Demon Clan’s forces would continuously bombard the enemy with this type of cannon. On the other hand, mortars were different. As mentioned before, the Demon Clan’s mortars mainly fired Fragmentation Grenades, specifically targeting the enemy’s dense formations.
Under the constant bombardment of the cannons, the Dongsheng army had advanced less than ten meters when they began to experience severe casualties. The kinetic energy of the projectiles fired by the infantry cannons was immense, easily tearing through the Dongsheng army’s intact formation, carving out a bloody path. Anyone hit by the projectiles was basically torn open with no chance of survival.
Even more terrifying than this to them were the Fragmentation Grenades whistling through the sky. These bombs, which relied on timed fuzes for detonation, exploded unpredictably—some took a long time after hitting the ground, while others detonated directly above their heads. The resulting shockwaves and shrapnel from these explosions could easily bring down a large number of soldiers.
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