The two Japanese spies on Qinglong Mountain were scared out of their wits, scrambling in a panic to send the highest-level warning to headquarters.
Their immediate superior, Matsui Shigeki, was personally at the front line.
This future Army general was also wearing an inconspicuous local peasant outfit, mingling among a group of similarly disguised subordinates. He held a German-made Zeiss high-powered telescope aloft, his expression grave as he watched the distant battlefield.
This place was farther from Qinglong Mountain and more concealed.
Matsui Shigeki had come in person because he had no other choice.
After the earth-shaking war in Europe ended, the military balance across the world was being reshuffled.
England, Gaul Chicken—who among them wasn't straining every nerve to develop New Weapons?
The empire's Intelligence Department had recently been in a frantic mess, all because the Feng Army had somehow obtained a batch of mysterious Western artillery. Reports were flying everywhere, yet not one of them was reliable.
As a mainstay of the Imperial Army, Matsui Shigeki knew full well that a generational gap in weaponry could erase any tactical advantage.
He had to—and absolutely would—see with his own eyes what kind of demon this legendary new Feng Army artillery really was.
But he hadn't known what he would see. The moment he did, Matsui Shigeki's heart clenched in time with the explosions atop the mountain.
His military expertise was far beyond that of those two lowly agents.
Through the telescope, the dozen or so guns covered by Camouflage Nets brought him a fresh "shock" every time they fired.
"Baka..."
Matsui Shigeki muttered to himself, the fingers gripping the telescope turning faintly white from the excessive force.
"Look at that trajectory!"
He lowered his voice as he spoke to the adjutant beside him, but the horror in his tone was impossible to conceal.
"The shells are falling almost straight down at a ninety-degree angle. That means their maximum elevation is extremely high—very, very high!"
"High-angle fire, curved trajectories... Those are the standard characteristics of a Howitzer."
The adjutant nodded and added,
"No!"
Matsui Shigeki rejected it flatly.
"Didn't you see? A few shells just now were fired almost horizontally at the rock face halfway up the mountain! That means the gun barrel can depress below the horizontal line!"
The adjutant's expression changed instantly.
High-angle curved fire, low-angle flat fire.
What did that mean?
It meant this gun could be used as a Howitzer to smash people from beyond a mountain, as an Anti-tank gun, and it could even be elevated to shoot down aircraft in the sky!
What the hell kind of stitched-together monstrosity was this?!
"Now look at its power."
Cold sweat had already broken out across Matsui Shigeki's forehead.
"Judging from the flashes of the explosions and the size of the craters, the caliber of this batch of artillery is definitely over eighty-five millimeters! It might even... might even be larger!"
He thought of the several impact points with exceptionally immense power just now. The earth-shattering sight left him in no doubt that Heavy Cannons with a caliber of 150 millimeters were mixed among them.
"Our Type 92 Infantry Guns are nothing but fire pokers in front of it!"
"Our Type 1 Mountain Guns are toys in front of it!"
Matsui Shigeki lowered the telescope and slowly closed his eyes, rapidly conducting a war-game simulation in his mind.
The conclusion was despair.
All the artillery currently equipped by the Imperial Army had no match for this monster's range, rate of fire, and power—not even for a single exchange.
The enemy could calmly turn them into scorched earth from beyond their range.
What frightened him even more was the Feng Army's ammunition stockpile.
"They've been firing for almost half an hour, and there's not the slightest sign of their firepower weakening. Just how many shells do they have? Could it be that their shells don't cost anything?!"
A young staff officer couldn't help shouting in shock.
Matsui Shigeki did not answer. He merely stared fixedly into the distance, a stormy sea already raging in his heart.
This battle was no longer about suppressing bandits.
This was the Independent Battalion of the Feng Army—no, that bastard Zhang Xueming—showing off his muscles to him and to the entire Kwantung Army!
At that moment, the artillery fire atop the mountain stopped without warning.
The sudden silence made everyone feel faintly out of place.
On the mountaintop, the surviving bandits crawled out from the shell craters and ruins, each of them covered in dust and soot, their expressions dazed.
"It stopped? The shelling stopped?"
"Where's the chief? Where is the chief?"
Someone shouted, and before long, another person pointed at a heap of charred flesh and mud and began wailing.
"The chief... The chief was blown to pieces!"
With the chief dead, the bandits' last psychological line of defense collapsed as well.
"Brothers, either way, we're going to die! Let's fight them!"
A bandit leader with blood covering his face waved a Boxer pistol and shouted himself hoarse.
"Charge down the mountain—there's still a chance to live! Stay here and we'll just be waiting to die!"
"Charge!"
"Kill them!"
The hundred-odd remaining bandits howled and raised the various weapons in their hands. Like madmen, they launched a suicidal charge from the mountaintop toward the Feng Army positions below.
Yet a strange scene appeared at the Feng Army positions down the mountain.
The soldiers did not panic because of the bandits' charge. Instead, they orderly withdrew into the trenches they had just dug and quietly waited.
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