Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 225 The White-Haired Girl and Morale
As for the amount of explosives, it certainly cannot be increased, because if too much is added, it might cause the oil drum to explode.

Therefore, increasing the length of the oil drum is the key, for example, by stacking two oil drums together, and the way to stack them is naturally by welding.

After all, an oil drum weighs only 20 kilograms, and two oil drums weigh only 40 kilograms. Eighty pounds is not a heavy weight, and most people can easily carry it. Moreover, don't forget that Wang Gensheng's Marine Corps also has horses for transportation!

Of course, because of its relatively short range, it is naturally impossible to bombard targets from a distance of two or three kilometers, or even seven or eight kilometers or more than ten kilometers, like ordinary cannons.

Therefore, if you want to establish a fire position with unscrupulous artillery, you have to carry out earthworks to dig trenches within 100 meters of the enemy's position.

Large-scale earthwork cannot be completed in a short time, so cultural troupes were established to perform for the soldiers on the front lines in order to boost their morale.

The cultural troupes of this era performed the opera "The White-Haired Girl".

Actually, although Wang Gensheng had heard of the opera "The White-Haired Girl" before, he had no idea about its content.

However, Wang Gensheng also brought members of the Marine Corps to watch the opera "The White-Haired Girl" performed by the cultural troupe.

The story of the White-Haired Girl is quite simple. It takes place in a rural area of ​​Huabei before the lifting of the military defenses. Yang Bailao, a poor tenant farmer, lost his wife early and had a daughter named Xi'er. They relied on each other for survival. Their neighbor, Aunt Wang, and her son, Wang Dachun, often took care of the Yang family, and the two families lived in harmony. As Xi'er and Dachun spent more time together, they fell in love, and the two elders agreed to arrange their marriage in the autumn.

The tyrannical landlord Huang Shiren, desiring to seize the young and beautiful Xi'er, conspired with his steward Mu Renzhi to force Yang Bailao to repay his debts within the year by imposing exorbitant rents. On Lunar New Year's Eve, unable to repay the exorbitant interest, Yang Bailao was coerced by Huang Shiren into signing a contract selling Xi'er into servitude. Overwhelmed with grief, Yang Bailao returned home and committed suicide by drinking brine.

Then, on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Xi'er was abducted to the Huang residence and suffered all kinds of torment. In order to sever Xi'er's feelings for Da Chun, reclaim the Wang family's rented land, expel Aunt Wang and her son, Huang Shiren took the opportunity to rape Xi'er.

Wang Dachun, having failed to rescue Xi'er, joined the Red Army. Xi'er, pregnant, escaped with the help of Zhang Ershen, a maid in the Huang family, but gave birth to her baby en route, which soon died.

She later went into seclusion in a cave deep in the mountains, living a life of hardship and dew. Due to a long-term lack of salt intake, her once black hair turned white. Because Xi'er often went to the dilapidated temple to take offerings to eat, the villagers regarded her as a "white-haired fairy" descended to earth to manifest her power.

Then, after the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan, Da Chun returned to his hometown with the Eighth Route Army. At this time, Huang Shiren, taking advantage of the villagers' superstition, spread rumors about a "White-Haired Fairy" bringing disaster to mislead the public. Wang Da Chun, who stayed in the village to work, went to investigate on the night of the fifteenth of the lunar month in order to promote rent and interest reduction and raise the awareness of the masses. He unexpectedly met Xi'er in a cave.

Then, at a village-wide public trial, Huang Shiren and Mu Renzhi were severely punished. The landlords were suppressed, and Xi'er avenged herself and cleared her name. She returned to her village, built a happy family with Da Chun, and her hair gradually turned black again.

For Wang Gensheng, this simple plot was completely unrelated. Although village bullies might have existed in the era he was born in, he had only ever seen them in news reports. In any case, although he himself was born in the countryside, he had never encountered one.

But things are different in this era, because in this era, landlords and village bullies are all around us. At least Wang Gensheng knew from the sight of the soldiers of the Liberation Army who were excited because of watching the opera "The White-Haired Girl" that 80 or 90 percent of the soldiers here had been bullied by landlords and village bullies.

Therefore, seeing such a situation reappear naturally aroused public outrage, and some soldiers were even prepared to shoot and kill the actor playing Huang Shiren. What could they do? It was a reenactment of the scene! Thus, it was natural for public outrage to occur.

Fortunately, the woman who played Xi'er stepped forward and spoke up in time:

"Comrades, calm down. He's not the real Huang Shiren. He's just like us, a soldier in our cultural troupe. I know that Xi'er, the character I played, suffered as much as many poor people. But now that we've been liberated and we've stood up, we must hold our guns even tighter. We must liberate more places, we must liberate the whole country, and we must ensure that all the people who have suffered will no longer suffer, and can stand up straight and be human beings!"

The speech given by the performer from the cultural troupe who played Xi'er greatly boosted the morale of the Second Field Army soldiers. More importantly, it made the soldiers understand that if they didn't win the war to relieve the country of its defenses, the land they held would be taken back by the landlords.

The end result is that they become landless tenant farmers again, not only working for them but also being bullied by them for generations.

Therefore, when they went to the battlefield to fight, they were not fighting for anyone else, but fighting for themselves.

Among Wang Gensheng's capable henchmen, Duan Peng was alright. After all, his family belonged to Duanjiagou, a village established by a clan, and he was surnamed Duan, so he wasn't bullied.

Wei Dayong grew up in Shaolin Temple, so he was never bullied by any landlords. But Li Xiu was different. Although he was from Li Family Village, he had been bullied by the village landlords.

He even wanted his sister to go and accompany the Japanese devils, so naturally he hated the landlord immensely.

As for Baili Xiu's Baijia Village, it was slightly better, but Baijia Village had little land to begin with. More importantly, Baili Xiu was originally a hunter.

...............

boom! boom! boom!
A 20-kilogram explosive charge has a tremendous explosive power, even though it does not produce shrapnel like a regular artillery shell.

However, its power is comparable to that of a 200mm howitzer.

After all, even a seemingly powerful 155mm howitzer only has a propellant charge of ten kilograms.

The Soviet 2S7 204mm howitzer had a propellant charge of only 19 kilograms.

However, the explosive charge of the "heartless cannon" can reach 20 kilograms, and if the range is reduced, the maximum explosive charge can reach 30 kilograms.

Such powerful artillery shells would easily deal with the makeshift fortifications built by Huang Wei's army in Shuangduiji.

The amount of explosives dropped by the more than two hundred unscrupulous cannons far exceeded the amount of explosives dropped by the howitzers of Huang Wei's army corps.

So, despite the close-quarters trench warfare and relentless artillery bombardment, Huang Wei's army still managed to hold out for twenty days.

There's no way around it; despite having the "heartless cannon," its range is ultimately too short, requiring close-range operations to complete the firing.

To be honest, if the range of the ruthless cannons were doubled, reaching the range of a grenade launcher, then the time it took for Huang Wei's army to collapse could have been shortened by at least half.

This time, Wang Gensheng did not take the initiative to attack like Huang Baitao's army. There was no other way, as Huang Wei's army had a number of machine gun positions built with M2 heavy machine guns.

(End of this chapter)