Munitions Empire

"Get off the highway! Move to the right!" Liu Guozhu didn't know if there were any of those hidden cannons nearby, so he decided to choose a safer attack route.

Anyway, the infantry following the tank were all on the right side of the road, so moving there at this time would provide good cover for these soldiers.

Thus, Tank No. 4 gracefully turned and charged off the road, its tracks rolling and churning the mud in its wake.

With its dash down from the roadbed, the soldiers of the Qi Army on the other side could hardly see the iron behemoth. They had lost their target and, at the same time, posed no further threat.

For a moment, the Qi troops on this side rallied, gathered the dead, and hastily repaired their defenses, managing to stabilize their position.

But, on the other side, the Qi troops suddenly felt a great pressure. The co-axial machine gun on the tank, which had been targeting the other side, now turned and opened fire towards them, abruptly forcing them to face the fire of two machine guns.

The main reason Liu Guozhu made this choice was to repay the favor of the infantry platoon leader who had risked his life to inform him of the threat.

Under such perilous circumstances, he knew that if he couldn't quickly find and neutralize the threat, both he and his tank were in grave danger.

Since the other party had climbed onto the tank to deliver the message regardless of the risk to their own life, it naturally followed that he would cover the infantry advancing on the village to minimize unnecessary casualties.

Of course, there was another reason: Liu Guozhu wasn't sure if there was another ambush cannon on the left side of the village; since there was one on the right, it was hard to tell about the left.

By driving off the roadbed like this, the potentially hidden Qi artillery on the left would be obstructed by the embankment and unable to aim properly, thus he had avoided a threat!

Bullets pinged off the earthen wall as Qi soldiers wailed and scrambled toward the village. With the tank's cover, the Tang soldiers suddenly found an opportunity to advance; they leapt out from cover and, crouching, moved to positions further ahead.

At this point of the fight, emotions completely took over, with adrenaline crazily surging; no one considered retreating anymore.

Liu Guozhu commanded the tank off the road, and his tank jolted abruptly as it moved, obviously precluding reloading while in motion. However, it wasn't a big deal to stop, reload, and open fire again after.

"Boom!" The fourth shell was fired, and another house in the village suffered the brunt. Shards of flying debris rose high and then crashed down hard, leaving the surrounding Qi soldiers in a pitiful state.

By then, Tank No. 4 had reached the edge of the village. The surrounding Qi troops could no longer hold their ground and started to retreat, sharply reducing the pressure on the Tang soldiers following up.

"Attack! Attack!" Liu Guozhu shouted excitedly, then gripped the handrail beside him, "Charge into the village! Split them apart!"

He knew that once they broke into the village, they'd avoid the enemy's artillery fire—no sane person would set up a cannon pointing at their own people, at least not in most cases!

Seconds later, the tracks of Tank No. 4 collided with the outer earthen wall of the village, breaking through the wall and knocking down the top half.

As the tracks continued to roll relentlessly, the tank crushed the remaining half-wall, raising its front high and then, as its center of gravity shifted, the front crashed down heavily beyond the wall.

This aggressive way of crashing through not only terrified the Qi soldiers who saw it, causing an even more frenzied collapse, but it also boosted the morale of the following Tang infantry.

Almost simultaneously, two Tang soldiers armed with submachine guns followed the tank into the interior of the village, and then two more with hand grenades joined them.

"Ratatat!" From behind a hedge still adorned with the bodies of Qi soldiers, a submachine gunner sprayed bullets at the retreating Qi troops, then efficiently changed his magazine while scanning for enemy movement.

It was only upon breaching the village that they realized just how much material and equipment had been stored there.

Trucks and wagons parked haphazardly were nearly all full. Some were loaded with munitions, while others were piled with food supplies.

A Tang grenadier tossed one of the grenades in hand, and a grid-lined grenade rolled under a parked vehicle.

The next second, a huge explosion lifted the vehicle, which in turn detonated the ammunition stored on it.

The tremendous blast made the earth itself shudder; shredded pieces of the vehicle even struck Tank No. 4 commanded by Liu Guozhu, creating a metallic clatter upon impact.

The utterly disarrayed Qi troops were now confused beyond measure. They hadn't anticipated the Tang Army's swift breach into the village and had severely misjudged the strength of the Tang forces.

Believing they were facing at least a battalion, or perhaps even a regiment of the Tang army, the commanders on the other sides of the Qi army made a bold decision to hold the village.

In a desperate move, the Qi soldiers, who had recently stabilized their position on the other side of the village, were ordered to counterattack, planning to circle around and disrupt the Tang forces from behind.

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Thus, surrounded on all sides, the Tang Army might very well have opted to reverse direction and break out of the village, potentially buying enough time for the soldiers of Qi Country within the village to reconstruct their defenses.

However, the Qi troops' counterattack was soon bewildered by a hail of bullets from the flanking assault! They hadn't expected that in the woods across the highway, another Tang unit lay in ambush, the ominous and terrifying sound of an MG43 machine gun opening fire, tearing through the air like fabric and in one fell swoop claiming the lives of dozens of Qi soldiers.

The botched counterattack threw the Qi Army into complete disarray, and although their officers still urged them to return to the battlefield, the tide of defeat was clearly evident.

Ironically, just then, the support artillery fire from the Tang Army arrived, and in a stroke of misfortune almost hit their own men.

A 60mm caliber mortar behind the lines launched several shells, all of which landed in the village, indeed causing considerable chaos.
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Unfortunately, at this time Liu Guozhu had led his tank into the village, so a 60mm mortar shell fell less than twenty meters away from his tank, startling Liu Guozhu, who was peeking out to survey the area.

Seeing the situation had descended into chaos, and not many of the Qi soldiers were continuing to fight, Liu Guozhu gritted his teeth and pressed the intercom button, commanding, "Stop the tank! Maintain suppressive fire! I'm going to communicate with the infantry! Make sure Qi soldiers don't get close to the tank!"

After giving the command, he took off his headset and propped himself up to climb out of the hatch, flipping over to jump down from the tank.

The moment his feet hit the ground, he unexpectedly came face-to-face with a Qi soldier passing right in front of him. They stood there frozen, looking at each other, then the Qi soldier scrambled away in a panic.

Liu Guozhu instinctively reached for the pistol at his waist, but seeing that the Qi soldier had already run off, he quickly dashed towards the cover where the Tang soldiers following his tank were located.

The entire process occurred without the Qi Army firing a single shot in his direction, as if the battle there had already ended.

Bending over and adjusting his cap, he vaulted over a collapsed courtyard wall and saw the infantry platoon leader who had just climbed onto his tank.

The platoon leader had just taken a fall from the tank but thankfully was uninjured, though he was covered in dust and looking quite dishevelled.

"Sorry!" Liu Guozhu knew he had driven too hastily and seemed to have shaken off this brave comrade, he shouted apologetically.

"Cut the chatter!" The other man peeked across the street, where the Qi Army's position was still in place: "Are you crazy? Running over here like that?"

"Didn't you just go mad yourself?" Liu Guozhu retorted with a smile, then quickly continued, "Quick, send someone back with a message! Your mortar might accidentally hit your own men!"

"I've already sent someone! I have no idea about the situation on the other side!" the platoon leader said somewhat gloomily: "We're down to 5 men now!"

The entire operation plan initially only called for one infantry squad plus the platoon leader, amounting to 13 men at most.

During the recent assault, one soldier was hit in the head and killed midway, and another was wounded in the shoulder and couldn't continue fighting.

Rushing into the village, close-quarters combat claimed another injury, this one less fortunate—the wounded lost his mobility and had to be carried away by another soldier.

Moreover, a squad leader had taken a machine gun team to establish a machine gun position on another side, which had effectively split off four more people.

So now, including the platoon leader, only four infantrymen remained, covering Liu Guozhu's Panzer IV.

"Should we retreat?" Liu Guozhu knew if they continued fighting, they might face a disaster. The soldiers' ammunition was limited, and such intense combat would quickly deplete it. His tank had also used up most of its ammo after fighting its way here.

"Reluctantly, but I think, pulling out of the fight might be a good idea now," the platoon leader told Liu Guozhu.

"Platoon leader! Platoon leader! They... they've surrendered!" A Tang soldier holding a submachine gun shouted excitedly at that moment.

"What?" The platoon leader craned his neck to look at the street, just in time to see crowds of Qi soldiers raising their hands high, their eyes wide with fright as they stared at the Panzer IV blocking the road.

The battlefield fell silent, a few dispirited Qi officers stood in the midst of the crowd; minutes before, they had been engaged in a battle to the death with this steel beast, and now they were ordered to hand over their weapons.

"Phew…" Liu Guozhu exhaled, relieved but still shaken, and looked at the four dusty, grimy infantrymen beside him, then broke into a silent laugh.

The platoon leader who had just been contemplating retreat glanced at Liu Guozhu and laughed along, displaying a row of yellow teeth. Skilled in his motions, he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, placed one in his mouth, but couldn't find a match on his person: "Damn... lost my lighter."

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Well, paying debts…

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