Thousands of sparks

Chapter 103 The Empire Strikes Back

Dusande was going crazy.

On the way to the car factory, Duchamp finally revealed who he was going to meet under his repeated questioning.

General Horn is a guy who doesn't accept his old age at all. This can be seen from the fact that he pretended to be a captain and went directly to the front line, wearing steam knight armor and losing an arm.

He is not only rebellious, but also brave enough to be almost reckless.Had it not been for General Horn's insidious tactic of blocking two minefields in the defense of Fern County to show off his "tactical quality", Dusand would probably have directly regarded General Horn as a foolhardy Reckless.

Now, in Dusand's eyes, General Horn is a rough but subtle and very cunning old fox.

Hearing that he was going to meet this old fox, Dusand himself was actually quite happy.After all, the two were comrades-in-arms who fought together, and the naval commando represented by Horn was now the largest purchaser of the entire Belford Automobile Factory.In public and in private, and in love and reason, Du Sande welcomed the arrival of General Horn very much.

As a result... After Dusand and Dusan's vehicle arrived at the depot, they failed to find General Horn's trace.

According to the navy captain who brought General Horne over, after the General got off the car outside the gate of the depot, he asked him to drive back to Upper Albin.

The guard at the gate said that according to the registration materials, General Horn did not enter the depot.He himself did remember that an old man with a white beard who was missing an arm swayed twice at the door, but the other party did not propose to enter the garage.Instead, he walked slowly to other places.

Dusande and Dusan looked at each other, wondering where Horn had gone—a big living man, a rear admiral, so it wouldn't be so unreliable to just wander off and disappear?
Dusande and Duchamp's guards suddenly became tense, and a dozen or so young men began to trot all the way, looking for people around the fence of the depot.

Ordinarily, Horn, a rear admiral with a very distinctive appearance, might not look so conspicuous, but the result of the final search is still "not found".This really made Du Sande very confused and anxious.

That was a Rear Admiral, the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Navy Commando!
As a result, the Newsail Garrison Navy also joined the search range, and also brought the red-clothed postmen from the Coat of Arms Management Office.

Since the guards had already ruled out the possibility of His Excellency General being in the factory area in advance, everyone began to turn their attention to a wider area.

Dusand is anxiously waiting for the news, while the Navy and the Newsale Heraldry Administration have expanded the search area three times in a row.All take-offs and landings at the Oberalbin interstellar landing site were suspended, and all four railway lines leading from Oberalbin to other cities were also terminated.

Every star shuttle leaving Newsail, every train car leaving Upper Albyn had to be double checked by the Office of Heraldry and by the Navy.And the long-standing departmental "hostility" played a huge role at this time.The navy felt that the relationship between the heraldry management office and the army was too close, and there would definitely be intentional or unintentional omissions in their work.So be extra careful when checking.

The Coat of Arms Management Office feels that the Navy is a group of "old men" from top to bottom. It may be wrong to ask them to sit in the office and press the buttons. .So the work is more serious and careful than usual.

As a result, the Heraldry Management Office and the Navy arrested 740 people within half a day.Rescued 56 coerced persons and seized a batch of unlicensed arms and smuggled items.And arrested 31 allied spies who could not produce legal and reasonable documents.

The Heraldry Office and the Navy are doing well, and the Upper Albyn Constabulary is in disgrace.

But His Majesty the Major General is still missing.

After a day of searching, His Majesty the Major General has not yet been found.Dusande was so anxious that he was going crazy, he drove to the factory overnight, and was going to devote his last bit of strength to the work of finding Major General Horn.

The forces under Rosen are very familiar with the streets of Upper Albin, and they are the best choice for finding people on the streets.

Then, Du Sande saw a very sumptuous dinner in Rosen's office.And Major General Horn, whose beard was soaked in oil and beer.

A quarter of an hour later, after venting his worries, fears, stress, and many other negative psychological effects by shooting the floor with pistol bullets and kicking over the table to scold Rosen, Dusand kicked the door behind him with a heavy breath.

"I told you, you will be in trouble if you leave me here." Major General Horn wiped his mouth with his sleeve with a smile, and stood up unhurriedly.He said to Rosen, "Mr. Lord thinks highly of you—these six shots actually hit the ground instead of your head."

Rosen's face was bloodless, and it took him a long time to react and asked, "You... didn't you say that you are a veteran?"

"I just haven't retired from active service yet." Horn smiled, squatting beside Rosen and asked, "Are you interested in joining the army? I think you are a good candidate, at least you can bring out a regiment. Into the Navy Come commando. Within five years, I'll give you the rank of major."

Rosen shook his head without hesitation. He looked at the bullet holes on the ground and said, "Follow Mr. Lord, even if I get into trouble, it's just a few holes in the floor." Rosen looked at Horn, then cautiously Said, "If I get into trouble in the Navy, I'm afraid these holes will be opened in my head."

For Rosen's answer, Horn was a little surprised at first, and then smiled with satisfaction.

"Mr. Lord has a good eye for seeing people." Horn stood up and said to Rosen, "I'm going to talk to Mr. Lord—I think we will meet often in the next period of time."

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Major General Horn stayed in the training ground for almost two days, and he was very interested in this "gizmo" that Dusand was working on.

Duchamp didn't talk nonsense, Dusande really came up with a set of very interesting things.Major General Horn judged based on his own experience that if such a weapon is put into use on a large scale, it can at least achieve excellent results in ground combat on two to three colonial planets.

If the assault ship can be used for large-scale delivery, with [-] to [-] tanks, he is even confident that he can take down all the ground strategic strongholds of the allies on the Bomir colonial planet within five days.

The combat situation on Bomir was very unfavorable.Relying on more advanced reconnaissance equipment, the allies are conducting pre-strikes on all Imperial Royal Guard Fleets entering the vicinity of Bomir.The success rate of their jumping and ramming operations is almost as high as 22%. The two imperial royal guard fleets have lost twelve capital ships, [-] large cruisers and hundreds of destroyers under the attacks of the allies.

Attempts by the Royal Guards were repulsed, and the Confederate ground offensive had been going on for over a year.On the entire Bomir colonial planet, more than 25% of the land is controlled by the allies, and a large number of cities have been occupied.Bomir Colonial Hall is almost completely non-functional.

The allies did not know where to gather so many fleets, and the number of their fleets even shocked Major General Horn—according to the current information, just around the Bomir colony, the allies have summoned more than seven main fleet.

Seven main fleets means more than 105 battleships, 280 large cruisers and thousands of destroyers.This is only the size of the alliance's navy. If the ground troops are counted, the alliance's attack on Bomir's colonial star has assembled at least more than 180 million people.

In the past 400 years of war, the largest Confederate attack has assembled only 120 million men.And that attack was to counterattack the colonial planet occupied by the empire.

This time, the allies seemed to be really impatient.

The scale of the empire's counterattack is also rapidly expanding, and three of the four imperial guard fleets have been sent to the front line.The mobilization of garrison fleets from other colonies was also discussed.For the first time, the Imperial Navy was shocked to discover that they had been completely suppressed by the Freedom Alliance in terms of power balance.

The fifth imperial guard fleet is being formed at an unprecedented speed, but it is obviously too late to wait for the new ships to enter service one after another.As a result, the Ministry of the Navy directly withheld all the ships that were going to be supplemented to the garrison navy—from capital ships to destroyers. Finally, it was enough to gather a fleet of 20 capital ships, 45 large cruisers, and 105 destroyers. .

In other words, it is impossible for Dushan to get reinforcements from Olin at all, and the three capital ships in his hands are all missed by the Olin Navy Department.

Due to the particularity of the fleet, it is impossible for Olin to pull all the fleet to the Bomir orbit, and have a cannon confrontation with the allies in the era of sailing battleships.If the imperials really did this, the alliance will definitely make a collective leap as soon as they complete the pre-strike, and the destination is likely to be Olin or other important colonial planets.

They don't even need to occupy these colonies directly.Just a few rounds of shelling on the important ports, factories, mining areas and cities on the colonial planet is enough.

The entire Upper Albin probably couldn't bear three salvos of 945 21-inch main guns.This is not counting the number of artillery pieces on the numerous cruisers and destroyers.

If, if such a fleet has grasped the coordinates of Olin, then after this round of salvo, the entire empire may be doomed.

Based on this, the Imperial Military Department judged that the most effective solution to prevent such an extreme situation from happening was to achieve great achievements on the ground battlefield.As long as more than 100 million allies are completely killed in Bomir, the only option left for the seven main fleets of the allies is to retreat.

As the third in command of the naval commando, General Horn felt that the "tank" invented by Dusand was indeed a good thing that could reverse the balance of ground combat.

You see, there is a genius little inventor who is good at this point.General Horn thought happily that the load-carrying vehicle invented by Dusand has changed the combat mode of almost the entire naval commando.Now, naval commandos can easily carry out long-distance raids without following rivers or lakes.And after the tanks are finalized and installed, the naval commandos can also gain the ability to easily break through the defensive positions of the allies.

It's just... General Horn looked at the experimental tank behind him, and muttered thoughtfully, "It's not a good idea to use this thing in combat."

(End of this chapter)