Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 328 One Hundred Thousand Tons of Spoils

But those US Marines who jumped into the water didn't fare so well. Some who weren't quite dead yet, trying to surface for help, were killed by their own bullets.

There was no way the US soldiers, armed only with daggers, could get close to the underwater version of the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow. Although the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow required a press to fire once, it had a magazine to hold arrows.

Unlike ordinary crossbows that require loading and firing arrows, the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow omits several steps, including the maximum number of arrows that can be loaded. Its firing speed is roughly equivalent to that of a semi-automatic pistol. With fast hands, it can fire two or even three shots per second. Such a firing speed is unmatched, not to mention ordinary single-shot crossbows, even bows and arrows cannot achieve this speed. Ordinary bows and arrows are considered to be firing rapidly if they can fire one arrow every two seconds.

As more and more US Marines dared not go into the water, Wang Gensheng's process of placing underwater bombs went very smoothly.

After being bombarded with even more underwater bombs, the US military had no choice but to retreat by boat.

Wang Gensheng only smiled with satisfaction after watching the US fleet retreat a full hundred kilometers away from Xingnan Port.

After the US fleet left, the 26th Army changed from a feint attack to a direct and real offensive.

Of course, Xingnan Port was deserted at this time, with no American soldiers left in the port except for supplies.

Under Wang Gensheng's prior arrangement, the 26th Army began frantically moving materials from the port's warehouses. Of course, there were many materials in the port, and it was impossible to transport them back in a short time.

Therefore, Wang Gensheng's request was very simple: to move the materials in the port out of the factory warehouse and then distribute them around the port.

This way, the US military can avoid bombing them. Since the supplies are not piled up together, even if the US military sends bombers to bomb them, they won't destroy much of the supplies.

The 26th Army acted swiftly, and within just over an hour, they had moved out one-third of the supplies piled up in Xingnan Port.

That is roughly 30,000 tons of supplies. Although 30,000 tons of supplies seems like a lot, with the efforts of more than 40,000 soldiers in the 26th Army, 30,000 tons of supplies is actually not that much. After all, it is not to transport the supplies back, but to distribute the supplies in the warehouse to the open beach areas around Xingnan Port.

Therefore, the distance is not far. It only takes ten minutes to move a batch of supplies. A soldier can easily move seven or eight hundred kilograms of supplies per hour, if not tons.

However, at that moment, a U.S. military reconnaissance plane dropped a red smoke flare at low altitude. Upon seeing this flare, Wang Gensheng, who had just come ashore and changed out of his sharkskin diving suit into his ordinary military uniform, naturally understood that this was definitely preparation for a bombing raid by U.S. bombers.

It seems that the US military, having realized the situation, was unwilling to simply hand over the supplies at Xingnan Port to the Chaozhou army, so it prepared to send bombers to bomb the port.

There was no other way; the fleet had already retreated to a distance of over 100 kilometers. At that distance, even the largest caliber cannons couldn't bomb Xingnan Port, so the only option was to send bombers to bomb it.

However, it is not so easy for bombers to hit their targets at night. Large bombers are not so flexible, and if they want to bomb at night with extremely low visibility, they must first send out flexible reconnaissance aircraft to drop beacons to guide the bombers' bombing.

Immediately after the beacon-guided bomb was dropped, several soldiers from the aid-to-Chaozhou army came over to try to move it away.

Clearly, they are well aware of the US military's use of beacon flares to guide bombings at night.

Perhaps having learned from past mistakes, the US military improved the beacon bomb by using a heavier counterweight. One soldier from the relief force wrapped his cotton-padded coat around the beacon bomb and tried to lift it, but couldn't manage it after a long struggle. Seeing this, Wang Gensheng immediately pushed the soldier aside and took over himself. Only after trying it himself did Wang Gensheng realize that the beacon bomb weighed a staggering 500 kilograms.

Such weight is beyond the reach of ordinary people. Not to mention ordinary soldiers, even Wei Dayong and Duan Peng couldn't lift it. Fortunately, Wang Gensheng's physical fitness is now seven times that of an ordinary person, and his maximum weight is 700 kilograms. Therefore, carrying a 500-kilogram beacon guidance missile is not a problem.

Wang Gensheng carried the beacon flare, which was still emitting red guiding smoke, for about a hundred meters before reaching the seaside. He then threw it into the sea. With the dilution and obstruction of the seawater, the red guiding smoke flare, which could not be extinguished by water, could no longer emit smoke.

When the reconnaissance plane found that its beacon bombs had no effect, it prepared to drop them again at low altitude. However, this time Wang Gensheng did not tolerate it and immediately picked up an M2 heavy machine gun and shot it to death in mid-air.

After resolving the bombing issue, Wang Gensheng continued to have his soldiers move supplies.

There's nothing we can do. Although the bombers can't bomb now because it's dark and the reconnaissance planes have been taken down, if we don't move and wait until daytime when visibility is better, the bombers will still bomb us.

Now they've moved to the beach, even though Xingnan Port doesn't get snow because it's close to the sea and has a different climate and altitude.

However, the beach provides a very natural cover.

Move all the supplies to the beach, and then cover them with sand. Even during the day, bombers won't be able to bomb the supplies on the beach.

Soon, as dawn broke, all 100,000 tons of goods piled up at the dock and port were moved away.

Of course, all the types of spoils and materials from these 100,000 tons of war have also been tallied.

They can be divided into three categories: food, ammunition, and fuel.

Indeed, in addition to food and ammunition, fuel also accounted for a considerable proportion, with more than 100,000 oil drums occupying a significant portion of the beach.

This is quite normal. After all, hundreds of tanks and thousands of transport trucks are fuel guzzlers. Without fuel supply, the US military's mechanization would be nothing but castles in the air, turning into lumps of iron.

Besides fuel, there are also firearms and ammunition, with ammunition accounting for a huge proportion. There are shells for howitzers of various calibers, as well as bullets for firearms, such as .45 bullets, .308 bullets, and 12.7mm bullets, and carbine bullets, which are so numerous that they are counted in the hundreds of millions.

There's no way around it; the US military prioritizes sustained firepower and doesn't care about ammunition consumption. In their view, even if it takes a thousand or ten thousand bullets to eliminate an enemy, it's worth it.

With these munitions, there will be no need to worry about a shortage of ammunition in future battles.

As for transportation, Smith had just delivered more than two thousand trucks, and with the fuel here, there would be no problem transporting goods to any destination.

However, besides fuel and ammunition, food was even more crucial, and in Wang Gensheng's view, food was the most important thing.

(End of this chapter)