I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 311 was intercepted.
As dawn broke, the more than two thousand players dispatched by Chris finally arrived at the west gate of Tavitsky after a fifty-kilometer march around six in the morning.

In the process, they paid the price of more than two hundred people going missing and more than one hundred dead or injured.

It's foreseeable that some players will get lost. Those AFK players follow the main group, and even if someone goes in the wrong direction, the intelligent assistant controlling the character can detect the error in time and correct it.

On the contrary, some online players are overconfident. They follow the group, but they will stop along the way to rest or do other things, such as catching an owl that keeps hooting in the roadside tree or a small nocturnal animal.

The main force had gone far away, but they weren't in a hurry. They felt that the marching tracks were still there, and they could catch up as long as they walked a little faster.

However, the result was that more than two hundred people got lost.

Upon arriving at Tavitsky, Ye Ao and his men had already captured the west gate, but after a night of fierce fighting, their numbers had dwindled to less than fifty. Although they could still hold the gate, they were running out of ammunition and food.

However, due to the fierce fighting throughout the night, the area inside and outside the west gate was littered with the corpses of the Minisians, to the point that the soldiers of the Seventh Legion of the Minisians had refused to continue their attack. Therefore, the defenses of the gate were still quite strong.

However, the soldiers of the Seventh Legion of Miniscia were terrified of the players at the West Gate, but they were not afraid of the reinforcements that had come from afar; in fact, they were full of confidence.

Because of the urgent warning from the border fortress the previous night, the senior officers of the 7th Army Corps already knew that they would encounter the enemy in the early hours of the morning. Therefore, they had prepared an interception force and lined up it in the open area outside Tavitsky.

When the reinforcements approached Tavisky, the Minisian scouts notified the interception force an hour in advance. After waiting for a long time, they immediately began to prepare for the war, eating only until they were half full and drinking little water, just enough to meet their body's hydration needs. Those who needed to urinate did so on the spot.

Once the player's reinforcements came into view of the Minisians, the latter quickly moved closer, and twelve bronze field cannons, spaced five hundred meters apart, began to bombard them.

The players who came to support Tavisky did not have six-pound field guns; they only had ten tiger crouching guns. So, they continued to advance, but quickly spread their marching column to both flanks, turning it into an infantry line formation.

The process of changing the lineup was not smooth, because among the less than two thousand players, two-thirds were new players and only one-third were veteran players.

However, these players lacked experience but were overly reckless. They stubbornly ran forward despite the enemy's artillery fire and ignored the more than one hundred light cavalry approaching from the flank, simply because an experienced player was shouting loudly.

"Never mind the sides, march straight ahead, five rows in a line. As long as we don't get confused, those idiots on horseback won't dare to get close to us. If they do, just shoot them with your flintlock pistols. You'll hit them every time. There are only a hundred or so riders. They're just asking for their lives."

The veteran players took on the role of junior officers, guiding the new players through trial and error to carry out the orders of the elected commander, successfully deploying five large horizontal lines and ignoring the threat of light cavalry on the flanks.

The player's advance under artillery fire and disregard for the cavalry on the sidelines caused the Minisian cavalry, who had originally planned to charge, to abandon their original idea. Like vultures waiting for their prey to die, they circled around the perimeter, but never dared to enter within 150 meters.

The Miniese knew that the Bagnians were already widely equipped with flintlock muskets, which were quite lethal at a range of 150 meters, and whose volleys were extremely deadly against lightly and medium-armored units.

A corpse shell the size of a fist flew over, and Dorok, who was facing the sun, could see the seemingly slow but actually incredibly fast shell hit his companion next to him. He heard the crisp, sticky sound of bones cracking.

The unfortunate man hit by the shell was thrown backward as if struck by a tremendous force.

Dorok whirled around and saw the shell slice into butter like a red-hot knife. After piercing and knocking away three players, it continued its trajectory, embedding itself in the ground with bits of flesh and vertebrae, carving a half-meter-long trench of blood.

"Medical team! Where is the medical team?!"

Someone screamed and tried to pull the player who was only half-dead on the ground, but instead grabbed a handful of slippery internal organs. Among the three who were hit, there was a rare female player who was still alive. She opened her mouth wide to scream, but no sound came out. Her raised arm went limp and fell down. She was still inactive after a while.

Dorok didn't stop walking. He looked back at the scene and felt instinctively scared, but also very excited. He was so excited that he could feel a chill running up from his buttocks to the back of his head, and goosebumps appeared on his skin.

Ah, this female player died so tragically, she'll definitely quit the game.

Dorok thought this way, but he didn't feel sorry for the game, because the game was 18+. When creating a character, the game company reminded players that the game content was particularly bloody, and players with low tolerance could turn the bloody mosaic bar to the maximum.

It's better to have fewer female players. Apart from a few fierce women who are even more manly than men, most female players are just a burden and a pretty face when playing hardcore or competitive games. Except for simp players, normal players will find them annoying.

So, secretly, seeing a female player die so tragically, Dorok even felt a little bit of satisfaction... Oh no, am I a bit of a psychopath?

While lost in thought, Dorok continued to maintain the same level of order as the players on either side. The gaps created by the cannonballs were quickly filled by the players behind him, restoring the first row to its original neatness once again.

The whistling of shells soon returned, and Dorok once again heard the familiar muffled thud of shells hitting human bodies. Amidst the flying blood and flesh, there was even a severed hand smashing onto his helmet, and he watched as crimson liquid flowed down the edge of the helmet.

Strangely, at this point, Dorok was no longer afraid. He was even a little eager to try it out and experience what it felt like to be hit by a cannonball... After all, he wouldn't die, and it wouldn't hurt.

Because the clever Dorothy has now set her pain protection mechanism to the highest level, she will not feel anything if she suffers a fatal injury.

However, Dorok was more devout than the other players. He stood at the very front, and the Minisians in front of him fired three volleys at the players' five rows of three hundred-meter-wide formations. More than a hundred people died, but not a single shell took Dorok away.

"At a distance of 200 meters, the Tiger Crouching Guns will advance and fire freely. Infantry, halt!"

The messengers shouted loudly in unison at this moment. Dorok didn't hear them clearly and was still walking forward subconsciously when he was grabbed by an experienced player next to him and dragged back.

When the artillery players carrying the Tiger Crouching Cannons stopped in the Great Horizontal Formation, they quickly stepped forward, threw the already loaded cannons to the ground, then raised their thumbs to aim briefly, adjusted the cannon angle, and once ready, shouted the signal. The players following behind immediately stepped forward and pulled the fuse on the cannon door, sparks hissing outwards.

The original Tiger Crouching Cannon certainly didn't have a fuse that ignites instantly, but that didn't stop players from modifying it to make it easier and faster to fire.

The ten tiger-squatting cannons fired quickly, and hundreds of lead bullets flew two hundred meters away with the sound of the cannons. The Minisian gunners who were struggling to load the bronze field cannons soon screamed in agony. As they fell, crackling sounds and flying dirt rang out around the cannons, as if it were hailing.

The salvo from ten tiger-squatting cannons swept across the Minisian artillery positions like an iron broom. The lead pellets of the shrapnel drew dense, deadly arcs in the air, and more than twenty gunners were riddled with holes before they could dodge. Blood gushed from their honeycomb-like wounds, staining the bronze cannons red.

"Load! Load now!"

The Minisian officer roared, but the second volley of shrapnel had already come whistling through the air. This time, the lead bullets not only killed the gunners, but also the Minisian infantrymen standing not far behind them; screams and the muffled thuds of corpses hitting the ground were incessant.

The Tiger Crouching Gun's extremely high rate of fire kept the Minisian field artillery pinned down, forcing them to retreat with their gun carriages.

Before the tiger-squat guns fired their third salvo, the Minisian infantrymen began their advance, braving enemy fire.

The first to advance were the Miniese musketeers.

War is the best catalyst for technological advancement. For example, the Miniese, who had been repeatedly defeated by flintlock muskets by players, reflected on their actions and now the weapon that has been brought into the hands of their musketeers is also the flintlock musket.

Although it has a larger caliber and is more cumbersome compared to the player's weapon, it is indeed a flintlock musket that does not require a matchlock to fire. "Ready!"

The veteran player next to Dorok shouted loudly, and Dorok subconsciously put down the flintlock pistol he was carrying on his shoulder and pointed it forward.

One hundred and fifty meters away, the Minisian musketeers stood in three neat rows, their dark blue uniforms resembling a moving city wall in the morning light.

Dorok squinted, clearly seeing the cold glint of light flashing on their gun barrels. They had obviously fixed bayonets, and were using the slide bayonet technique learned from the players, instead of simply inserting the bayonet into the muzzle as Dorok had seen in game videos.

The enemy is also learning and improving in the war, and at a rapid pace.

"First row, get ready..."

Dorok saw the Minisian officer opposite him raise his saber and then suddenly swing it down...

"Bang bang bang bang..."

White smoke exploded in front of the enemy lines in an instant, and lead bullets whistled through the air. Dorok heard a few muffled groans beside him. He looked around curiously, but did not see anyone lying on the ground. The other players were still holding their guns steadily.

"Hold your fire, don't fire yet!"

The veteran player sternly reprimanded the newcomers whose fingers were trembling.

"Wait until they're within 100 meters before you fire. Shooting now is a waste of bullets... Don't worry about dying. We're wearing armor. As long as we're not hit in the head or neck, we won't die."

After the first rank of musketeers on the opposite side fired, they stopped and reloaded their ammunition. The second rank of musketeers then moved forward ten meters past the first rank and fired again at the player's horizontal formation.

Dorok and his men remained unmoved, silently taking the hits.

At this moment, all ten tiger-squatting cannons fired simultaneously. The shrapnel from the tiger-squatting cannons and the solid shot from the bronze cannons crisscrossed in the air, and a rain of death poured down on both sides' positions at the same time.

A cloud of blood mist erupted from the players' ranks, and the sounds of bones breaking and flesh exploding echoed. Dorok, standing in the first row, saw several players on his left being hit by cannonballs. Their bodies were like rag dolls thrown by a huge force, crashing heavily to the ground, their blood staining the surrounding land red.

A slowly rolling human head came to a stop at his feet, covered in dark reddish-brown mud, its face still bearing a strange calm.

The Miniese suffered more casualties than the players from the hail of bullets. The musketeers in the front and back rows fell like fallen logs, and even the originally dense ranks became sparse.

Dorok remained motionless with his gun raised, standing on tiptoe to observe the enemy's situation, feeling that the casualty exchange ratio was well worth it.

It wasn't just Dorok who thought so; all the players who could see the situation of the Minieses ahead felt the same way. So they stood still, like tourists on a battlefield, unhurried and unperturbed.

Players can be fearless, but the Minieses cannot stand by and wait to die.

"Forward! Run forward!"

The hysterical Miniserian officer brandished his saber, while on either side of him, Miniserian musketeers with bayonets shouted in despair. Like wounded beasts, they charged forward recklessly, followed closely by the Miniserian swordsmen and shieldmen, their trump card.

"Fire!"

The veteran player wearing the red disc helmet finally shouted this, and the long-awaited Dorok couldn't wait to pull the trigger. The player formation erupted with a deafening volley, and the smoke wall formed by the white smoke instantly obscured the view.

Through the smoke, he saw at least thirty Minisian soldiers on the other side fall backward as if struck by an invisible hand.

After firing that shot, Dorok turned and retreated, the second column moved forward to become the first column, and he stopped at the third column to begin reloading ammunition.

As gunfire erupted from the front ranks, the light cavalry that had been lurking in the distance suddenly accelerated. Unable to contain themselves any longer, they spurred their horses and launched an attack from the player's right flank.

The players were prepared for the light cavalry charge, and the players in the fourth and fifth columns at the back changed formation in response to the shouts of the veteran players.

This is not easy, but it is not difficult for players either, because everyone has undergone military training offline, so they are familiar with changing formations.

"Right flank, turn, bayonet charge!"

Under the command and coordination of the veteran players, the players in the fourth and fifth columns quickly spread out to the right, forming a diagonal defensive formation to prepare to meet the charge of the light cavalry.

"Aim, prepare!" The veteran player's voice echoed through the ranks, and the players quickly aimed their flintlock muskets at the charging light cavalry. The light cavalry were incredibly fast, their scimitars gleaming coldly in the sunlight, like streaks of deathly lightning.

"Fire!"

At the veteran player's command, the players in the fourth and fifth columns simultaneously pulled their triggers, and the sound of flintlock guns erupted like a storm.

The light cavalry suddenly encountered fierce fire during their charge, and their charge was instantly disrupted.

Horses struck by bullets neighed in pain and fell to the ground, throwing their riders off their horses. Some players' flintlock muskets accurately hit the riders' breastplates, not penetrating them, but enough to make them lose their balance and fall off their horses.

The light cavalry charge lost momentum instantly, their once orderly formation turning into chaos. Some players, after taking down a cavalryman, quickly reloaded their ammunition, preparing for a second round of fire.

Meanwhile, the players in the first and second rows in front also finished reloading. They quickly turned around and aimed their flintlock musketeers at the Miniese musketeers in front of them.

"Fire all at once!"

The veteran player gave the order again, and the flintlock muskets fired once more, unleashing a hail of bullets, denser than ever before, onto the ranks of the Miniese musketeers.

The Minesian musketeers fell one after another under the intense fire, their charge was forcibly halted, and their morale was severely damaged.

"Load ammunition, quick!"

(End of this chapter)