Munitions Empire-Chapter 1233 - 1153 The First Night
Some people act clever. If you talk to them about resisting the Japanese, they’d start whining about how their guns and artillery were inferior, claiming they simply couldn’t win. But if you switch the topic to "stabilize the internal before expelling the external," suddenly their drowsiness vanishes.
The commanders of Mirage Country are just about the same: suggest launching a counteroffensive against the Tang forces, and they might hesitate. But if you propose hitting the orcs instead, they honestly might dare to try it.
That night, before 11pm, Mirage troops hidden in trenches charged out under the cover of darkness, launching an attack on the orc forces who had set up camp before nightfall.
Illumination flares lit up the sky, and the Mirage artillery that had gone silent during the day roared back to life. The orc forces, caught off guard, were thrown into chaos.
For a moment, the battlefield was everywhere — Mirage troops everywhere, gunfire everywhere, shouting everywhere, explosions and flames everywhere.
Shan Lu was in a temporary command post planning the next day’s attack arrangements when he received the news of the Mirage counteroffensive.
He was stunned upon hearing it: he personally saw the Tang forces capture South Island, and then personally witnessed the Tang forces crush New Island… For crying out loud, in both campaigns, he’d never heard of a single successful Mirage counteroffensive!
Now they were treating his orc troops like soft targets! Shan Lu was infuriated at the thought and immediately ordered all orc forces to fight to the death.
The enraged orc troops finally exploded in retaliation. Under the ghastly white light of the flares, they clashed with the goblin divisions of Mirage Country, ratcheting up the slaughter to gory extremes.
"Fix bayonets!" Seeing the crazed goblins charging at them, an orc officer roared as he drew the dagger from his belt.
Exhausted after a full day of floating at sea, the orc soldiers had their savagery ignited. They pulled bayonets from their backs and mounted them onto their rifle barrels.
The gleaming bayonets reflected an eerie light under the artificial glare of the flares, as tall orcs and short goblins collided in waves of flesh and steel.
"Kill!" One blood-soaked orc soldier embodied the image of a war god, impaling a goblin and lifting them into the air.
Before he could withdraw his bayonet, several Mirage soldiers stabbed him full of holes with their weapons.
In the distance, the heavy machine guns on the orc defensive positions erupted in fire, their muzzles flashing brightly in the night. Tracer bullets carved straight lines into the Mirage troops’ ranks.
Both sides suffered heavy casualties. Unlike the daytime landings, no one was holding back anymore, no one remained polite. The darkness seemed to fuel the bloodlust, making brutality and violence the center of the stage.
Gradually, the Mirage counteroffensive forces began to falter. On one hand, they were few in number; on the other, the orc main forces began to engage.
The outer orc patrol forces were just filler troops, non-main combatants equipped mainly with Mauser 98K rifles and few automatic weapons.
But Shan Lu’s elite main forces were outfitted with Type 56 assault rifles, the same automatic weapons used by the Great Tang Empire troops, perfect for ferocious close-quarters combat.
Once these forces entered the fight, Mirage troops began to suffer greater losses. To preserve their strength, Mirage commanders opted for a strategic retreat.
In reality, their nighttime counteroffensive was quite successful, with a casualty ratio close to one-to-one. Even though the goblins had a clear physical disadvantage, their knowledge of the terrain and rested condition posed significant trouble for the orcs. ƒreewebɳovel.com
After a night of bitter fighting, the orc commanders gained a clear understanding of Mirage Country’s combat effectiveness: the goblins may seem weak against the Great Tang Empire forces, but the Mirage troops were actually quite formidable.
If Mirage Country’s forces weren’t strong, they wouldn’t have once intimidated Qi Country and overpowered Zheng Country with ease. Combat effectiveness really is relative; losing to the superior Tang forces wasn’t something to feel ashamed about.
After leaving approximately 2,000 corpses behind, the Mirage troops withdrew to their starting positions. Although they hadn’t forced the enemy back into the sea, they did achieve certain results.
Shenwu Ke reviewed the reports and tallied the results: he confidently estimated they had wiped out about 6,000 orc soldiers who had landed, heavily damaging the orc forces that came ashore that day.
This result wasn’t completely accurate; in reality, the orc forces had lost about 4,000 troops, and not all of them were from the 1st Infantry Division. Some belonged to the 2nd and 3rd divisions as well.
Indeed, the goblins had miscalculated Tang’s landing fleet unloading capabilities: the lightly armed orc landing forces didn’t rely much on docks, meaning those who landed weren’t just one division but three — not 20,000 troops, but a full 40,000!
Shenwu Ke, believing the orc forces had nearly lost their combat capability, had no idea that the forces before him hadn’t even touched their foundation.
The fierce battles that night didn’t just occur on land — the navies clashed heavily at sea too.
Mirage Country’s last two destroyers were sunk by Tang anti-ship missiles about 100 kilometers outside Shen Capital’s port during the night.
Things unfolded completely against Shen Haiping’s expectations, as the battlefield became dominated by radar, advanced auto cannons, and missiles.
The Tang destroyer fleet equipped with new naval guns on its flanks left no room for Mirage Country’s suicide speedboats.
The naval firefight erupted at midnight and lasted until sunrise. Mirage Country deployed 300 various suicide speedboats and two destroyers.
Tang forces dispatched 40 destroyers and three cruisers to intercept the lunatic vessels: the final result saw two Tang destroyers heavily damaged, two slightly damaged, and 20 soldiers killed; Mirage Country lost all participating vessels, sunk or self-detonated, killing nearly 4,000 personnel.
Even without Tang’s destroyers equipped with Oto Melara auto cannons, Mirage’s suicide speedboats couldn’t breach the radar-equipped Tang destroyer line.
Despite the disparity in numbers, Tang’s landing fleet had around 60 destroyers and cruisers in the battle — this wasn’t a trivial amount compared to Mirage’s speedboats.
Although Bofors anti-aircraft guns weren’t as specialized as Oto naval cannons in dealing with these boats, they performed adequately. Hence, this massive suicide speedboat raid was doomed to yield few gains.
After a night of continuous bombardment, Tang destroyers’ main cannons roared non-stop. By dawn, Mirage’s remaining speedboats scattered like birds, leaving four smoke-spewing Tang destroyers to testify the sheer brutality of the naval battle.
By this point, Mirage Country’s navy had been essentially annihilated: its core sailors and fighting vessels had been completely lost.
Over the previous six months, the suicide speedboat stockpile was nearly depleted, with no way to restore production. The fanatics borrowed from the army were wiped out; finding new recruits of their kind would prove challenging.
That morning, Shen Emperor heard the joyous report of Shenwu Ke’s great victory over the orc landing forces, as well as the grim news of the navy’s near-total destruction.
Naturally, Shen Haiping also learned of the army’s success: while the navy fought bitterly all night and failed, the army heavily damaged the enemy landing forces, wiping out over 9,000 foes!
Indeed, Shenwu Ke had exaggerated the outcome somewhat — after all, it was a hard-earned victory, and he deemed it necessary to promote the achievement.
Shen Haiping’s shame came from the navy’s greatest contribution being merely preventing Tang warships from firing even one shell to support the orc forces ashore during the entire night.
The Shen Emperor understood clearly: his navy had lost the ability to decimate the enemy fleet and could no longer hinder Tang Country’s invasion of the main island.
Truthfully, when the South Island campaign failed and his meticulously built main fleet was utterly destroyed, he foresaw this result.
Yet he still held onto some faint hope, a bit of wishful thinking… But now, the continuous defeats left him with no illusions: those opportunistic tricks ultimately couldn’t solve the real problems.
After a night of upheaval, the orc forces’ landed manpower had climbed to nearly 60,000. The brightly lit landing grounds ignored the chaos of both sea and land battles, as diligent transport fleets used the night to bring the orc 4th Division ashore.
By morning, the orc forces’ total landed troops approached 100,000. They pushed the defensive line toward mountain rivers, placing their positions before Mirage Country’s main defensive lines.
Shan Lu mobilized and ordered assaults on strategic locations, but ultimately failed: the orc troops’ lack of heavy weapons limited them, unable to breach the carefully prepared goblin strongholds.
However, the orc forces achieved some gains: extending along the coastline, they occupied two small fishing villages, expanding the landing zone.
During this day, Tang forces continued bombing Mirage Country’s main airfields, ensuring no enemy aircraft appeared on the battlefield.
The Mirage navy, devastated the night before, similarly vanished that day and would remain absent in the coming days without harassing Tang’s landing fleet.
By the second afternoon following the landing, Tang’s old Mark IV tanks, provided for the orc forces as aid, finally made it ashore. These armored corps would become key assets to aid the orcs in breaking Mirage Country’s defensive lines.
Yet, orc commander Shan Lu had no clue that the previous night’s goblin counteroffensive had given his opponent Shenwu Ke a "grasp of the orcs’ weaknesses."
This goblin commander was drafting plans for a second nighttime counteroffensive… intending to drive the orc landing forces back into the sea!
Indeed, Shenwu Ke planned to launch an assault under the dark and windy night, deploying Mirage Country’s armored corps into battle!
------
Additional chapter update.
