Chapter 56: The Fierce and Brutal General Engagement (Part Nine)

"Present arms, aim, fire!"

Volley after volley cracked through the air, felling the charging dwarf soldiers. Having no other choice, the Song soldiers on the right flank swung their muskets around to engage the incoming dwarves first. The main dwarf army in the center had already been driven back in disarray, leaving no need to worry about a counterattack; even if they managed to regroup and strike back, the more than 10,000 Song soldiers on the right would have already finished off these charging dwarf reinforcements!

Led by Marshal Eagris, the 20,000-plus dwarf reinforcements surged forward with towering morale. Having weathered the deadly storm of three-rank volleys and wave after wave of hand grenades from the Song soldiers, they crashed into the enemy lines without a shred of hesitation!

Stirred by their commander, the dwarf soldiers cast aside their fear of the Song soldiers' grenades and even the human-bomb tactics!

Many dwarf soldiers brazenly grabbed the smoke-emitting, grenade-strapped Song soldiers and shoved them right back into the ranks of the Song formation!

Deafening explosions erupted one after another, but it was no longer just dwarf soldiers being blown sky-high—many Song soldiers were blasted into the heavens alongside them by these human bombs!

In this manner, relying on sheer courage and plate armor, the dwarf soldiers utterly annihilated the 10,000-plus Song soldiers on the right flank. This was annihilation in the truest sense of the word!

Under the dwarf soldiers' desperate charge, the battle line of the 10,000-plus Song troops on the right was swiftly breached and shattered, followed by isolation and encirclement, until every last one of them was butchered and hacked down by the melee-superior dwarf soldiers!

Marshal Eagris had pulled off a miraculous reversal!

Buoyed by the massive victory of Marshal Eagris's reinforcements, the remaining dwarf troops in the center—numbering fewer than 30,000 and teetering on the brink of collapse—rediscovered their fighting spirit. Following Marshal Eagris's orders, these dwarf soldiers abandoned the civilized formality of exchanging volleys with the Song troops. Combined with the over 40,000 dwarf soldiers brought by Marshal Eagris, a total force of more than 40,000 dwarves launched a simultaneous bayonet charge against the Song army's positions on the left flank and in the center!

It was a frantic, suicidal charge, driven by a willingness to embrace death for the sake of victory!

The defending Song soldiers naturally refused to be outdone. They threw everything they had at the enemy, including massed grenade barrages, while the Song artillery positions in the rear, disregarding the danger of barrel explosions, continued to fire desperately into the charging dwarf infantry!

The Minie riflemen had fallen back. Their close-combat capabilities were extremely weak, and they knew precisely where they could inflict the heaviest casualties!

These two thousand-plus Minie riflemen undoubtedly became the bright spot on the battlefield, operating on the outer perimeter to pick off the close-quarters dwarf soldiers with long-range sniper fire!

Marshal Eagris, holding his command saber, shouted repeatedly from the center of the battlefield, directing the dwarf soldiers in combat. He refrained from joining the fray personally this time; he knew all too well that he was the ultimate anchor for these 40,000 dwarves!

From the outbreak of battle in the morning until now, merely half a day had passed, yet the original 80,000-strong dwarf army had been whittled down to 40,000. In half a day, their casualty rate had reached a staggering fifty percent!

Marshal Eagris could not help but marvel at the devastating power of the Song artillery and the lethal efficiency of massed flintlock volleys.

Naturally, the casualties suffered by the opposing Song soldiers were equally immense. Even if their death toll was lower than that of the dwarves, they had suffered tens of thousands of casualties!

The killing machines of the Dwarf Empire's infantry had put the Song soldiers through more than two hours of relentless torment!

The dwarf soldiers' full suits of plate armor were undeniably formidable in close combat. Having conquered their terror of the human bombs, they relentlessly pressed the attack against the Song soldiers, despite the support of Song artillery and Minie riflemen!

If the slaughter continued at this rate, the Song army would undoubtedly be the first to be wiped out. Once the main dwarf army annihilated this core Song force, victory in this battle would be theirs!

The remaining Song artillery and cavalry stood no chance against tens of thousands of dwarf infantry!

While the dwarf soldiers were engaged in the close-quarters slaughter of the Song soldiers, what was Sun Li doing?

At that moment, Sun Li had just wiped out the dwarf artillery position. Turning back, he saw Ryan's cavalry force deeply entrapped in the encirclement of the dwarf infantry, with their numbers plummeting from several thousand to barely over a thousand!

Naturally, Sun Li led his cavalry to reinforce their allies. Spearheaded by Sun Li's ferocious assault, the 10,000-odd dwarf infantry were quickly broken, and then cut down in a river of blood by the revenge-fueled Song cavalry.

Yet, on the main battlefield, the dwarf army had driven the combat into a frenzied close-quarters melee. Watching the brutal carnage, which differed little from the era of cold steel, Sun Li let out a cold sneer.

"Hmph, let's see how many men Marshal Eagris has left after this bloodbath is over!"

Seeing that the artillery position was secure and that the dwarf army was entirely committed to the melee, posing no further threat to the massive firepower output of the guns, and noting that despite their battlefield advantage the dwarves were suffering continuously mounting casualties from the artillery and Minie riflemen, Sun Li chose not to throw himself into this meat-grinder of a battlefield. His most crucial mission right now was to hunt down and slaughter every single one of the routed dwarf soldiers!

These dwarf soldiers were battle-hardened veterans. Brainwashed by the racism of the Dwarf Empire, if these men successfully made it back alive, they would undoubtedly serve as prime replacements for the main legions!

Consequently, Sun Li dispersed his cavalry to scour the area and hunt down the fleeing dwarf troops, while he himself roamed the outer periphery with a detachment of cavalry, cutting down any dwarves who strayed from their formation.

The main battlefield had transformed into a literal flesh grinder. Everyone's eyes were bloodshot as tens of thousands hacked and slashed at one another. Sun Li simply lacked the capacity to alter the course of the main engagement, and his cavalry had already suffered severe casualties, leaving fewer than 5,000 men. He did not believe this handful of troops could break the blood-crazed dwarf soldiers!

The best possible outcome would be to cut down a few thousand dwarves and then, like everyone else, get sucked into this crimson meat grinder!

In Sun Li's view, he needed to wait until the routed dwarf soldiers were completely wiped out before throwing his remaining force into the fray to maximize their impact...

"Why—why aren't these Song soldiers collapsing even when suppressed to this extent? Do these people place zero value on their own lives?!" Marshal Eagris stared at the meat grinder, utterly bewildered as the opposing Song soldiers stubbornly held their ground despite taking disproportionately heavy casualties.

The dwarf soldiers could sustain the slaughter because they were essentially massacring the enemy in close combat, and combined with racist indoctrination, they were naturally fearless of death. But why on earth weren't the endlessly butchered Song soldiers breaking and fleeing?!

Once nearly all of the Song artillery pieces had suffered barrel bursts, Sun Li's cavalry finally completed the eradication of the dwarf stragglers. Almost no large formations of dwarf soldiers managed to escape with their lives—cavalry efficiency in pursuit operations was exceptionally high.

Assembling over 4,000 cavalrymen, Sun Li gazed across the battlefield, where the acrid smell of gunpowder had begun to dissipate.

"Let me write a fitting conclusion to this battle—or rather, this slaughter! Song cavalry, charge!"