Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 388 Steam Tank
Early in the morning at the No. 3 closed test site, the air was filled with an unpleasant smell of coal.

This place is completely surrounded by towering gray rock walls, making it one of the most secretive areas in the entire Red Tide City.

At this moment, the center of the field seemed to have been set up as a vicious trap, with a muddy moat half a person deep, sharp barricades arranged in an interlocking pattern, and several thick stone walls imitating the structure of a city wall.

Louis's gaze fell on the massive structure covered by canvas in the center of the field.
Half a step behind him, Knight Commander Lambert stood like a silent statue.

The extraordinary knight also looked at the behemoth, his eyes showing no doubt, only the scrutiny unique to soldiers.

He knew that Louis never did anything in vain, and since the adults called this place the "new era," there must be something under the canvas that could change the rules.

On the other hand, the two young knights, Gray and Sakho, who were standing on the other side, were somewhat unable to contain themselves.

Gray tugged at his collar, looking at the muddy mess on the ground: "How much longer?"

“Be patient, then you’ll talk more,” said Will.

The clumsy little knight who used to follow Louis around is now seventeen years old.

Serving as Louis's bodyguard for many years has shed his youthful naiveté, and his once somewhat thin shoulders are now ramrod straight.

He ignored Gray's restlessness, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword, intentionally imitating his most admired Lord Louis.

In the center of the field, Hamilton was nervously wiping the fog off his goggles.

He and the dozen or so mechanical crew members behind him looked extremely disheveled, their faces covered in grease, their eyes darkened, and their work clothes covered in coal dust and patches.

But these craftsmen, who usually just stare blankly at blueprints, now had a mixture of excitement and unease shining in their eyes.

"Are you ready?" Louis asked.

Hamilton took a deep breath and nodded to the apprentices behind him.

"Unveiling!"

The thick hemp rope was pulled down, and the huge waterproof canvas slid off.

The words that Gray was about to say stuck in his throat, not because he was amazed, but because she was too ugly.

There was no streamlined, elegant armor, nor the mysterious glow of alchemical runes.

What appeared before everyone was a short, clumsy, wedge-shaped steel lump.

Its surface is covered with a dense array of rivets, and the black armor plates still bear hammer marks and oil stains from the forging process.

The huge V-shaped clearing shovel on the front of the vehicle looks like a wild boar with a shovel-like face.

“This thing…” Gray frowned, “Excuse my bluntness, sir. It looks like it has trouble even turning around. If this were a battlefield, I could ride my horse around it three times.”

Lambert turned his head and gave Gray a calm look.

No words were needed; those battle-hardened eyes silenced the young knight instantly.

Hamilton heard Gray's taunt, but he didn't refute it. He simply patted the cold rivet silently, as if soothing a sleeping beast.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Louis said calmly. “Hamilton, first round of testing.”

Hamilton waved his hand, and a probationary knight of the formal knight class raised a steel lance and thrust it fiercely at the front of the chariot.

"when--"

The spear snapped, and the knight was thrown backward by the recoil.

"Isn't this over the top?" Kosa, who had been itching to chime in, finally couldn't hold back any longer.

The boy strode forward and bowed to Louis: “Sir, that force isn’t even enough to tickle me. Mr. Hamilton doesn’t need to put on this show to demonstrate its hardness. Let me try.”

Louis nodded: "Then give it a try."

A glint of excited ferocity flashed in Kosa's eyes. He was now a high-ranking elite knight, and dealing with a lump of iron should be a piece of cake for him.

He grabbed a heavy, pure steel javelin from the weapon rack, took a deep breath, and his arm muscles bulged like rocks.

"drink!"

With a thunderous roar, the spear transformed into a black afterimage, hurtling towards the chariot with a piercing shriek that tore through the air.

This strike was powerful enough to pierce through three layers of iron-clad tower shields.

"Boom!"

It wasn't the crisp sound of steel tearing apart, but a dull thud, like a heavy hammer hitting a rotten wooden stake.

Kosa jolted violently and slid back two steps.

On that ugly armor plate, the spear was twisted and deformed. Only a thumb-deep dent remained on the armor surface, gleaming white.

“This is impossible…” Kosa ignored the excruciating pain in his hand, rushed over and touched the dent, his eyes filled with disbelief. “This feels wrong, like hitting some kind of… springy stone.”

“This is composite armor.” Hamilton stood beside the tank, straightening his originally hunched back, his voice carrying the pride of a technician. “The surface is made of cold iron steel, and the innermost layer is riveted steel plates.”

But the key is in the middle; we sandwiched in three inches of resilient teak soaked in tung oil. Your strength is great, but it's all been absorbed by the wood.

The mechanical engineering team members behind them also stood tall, proud of their masterpiece, the result of countless experiments.

“My lord.” At this moment, Lambert, who had been silent all along, suddenly stepped forward.

“This armor is truly extraordinary.” Lambert’s voice carried a hint of respect. “May I test its limits?”

Hamilton's expression changed, and he looked at Louis with some concern.

Composite armor can stop elite knights, but against extraordinary knights... that's uncharted territory.

Louis nodded, a hint of inquisitive interest in his eyes: "Go ahead. Don't hold back."

Lambert took a deep breath and accepted a specially made two-handed hammer.

Pale red extraordinary battle aura coiled around the hammerhead like flames, and the surrounding air was distorted by the high-density energy.

"break!"

Lambert swung his hammer.

"boom--!!!"

A tremendous roar echoed within the enclosed arena, and the twenty-ton tank was jolted backward by the impact.

A piercing alarm sounded from inside the tank.

Hamilton rushed forward as if burned, lay down on the armor to inspect the cracks, and shouted to the driver inside, "Report on structural integrity! Is the main beam broken?"

"The main beam is intact! Only the external armor is deformed!" came the apprentice's trembling but excited reply from inside.

The smoke cleared.

The tank's frontal armor was not penetrated. However, at the point of impact, a terrifying, enormous crater, the size of a washbasin and half a foot deep, appeared.

Hamilton breathed a sigh of relief, turned around and shouted excitedly to Louis, "It's blocked! Sir! The structure is intact!"

Lambert put down the hammer, looked at the dent, and his expression was grim.

“I used all my strength.” Lambert turned around and looked at the knights who were also shocked. “A full-force attack only dented it. I’ll probably have to do it again to break through it.”

Gray felt his throat was dry.

Even the extraordinary knights couldn't destroy it in one blow?
“That’s enough,” Louis’s voice interrupted everyone’s thoughts. “Let’s move on to the next test.”

Hamilton immediately roared at the craftsmen, "Press it! Open the valves to the max! Make that beast howl!"

As high-energy coal was shoveled into the furnace, a thick plume of black smoke billowed from the large exhaust pipe at the rear of the vehicle.

“Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!”

It was a loud, brutal noise, like a giant beast roaring like a lion.

The tracks began to turn, churning up mud. It wasn't as fast as a warhorse, but the visual oppressiveness was devastating.

It then crashed into the barricades that were specifically designed to block cavalry.

"Click, click."

Those sharp, hard wooden stakes that were a real problem for the knights were as fragile as instant noodles in the face of the shovel and tracks.

The tank didn't slow down at all, it ran straight over the muddy ditch, and then, accompanied by the roar of its engine, it crawled out.

"It's too stupid." Gray gritted his teeth, making a final act of defiance. "As long as I don't ram it and keep moving, its main gun is stationary and can't hit me at all!"

Louis glanced at him and spoke coldly:
"Hamilton, load the iron shot. Sweep the 120-degree fan in front."

The tank stopped turning.

The short, stubby, and utterly unattractive cast iron cannon barrel was slightly raised.

With a crisp "click," the driver pulled the massive loading lever, shoving a sealed iron canister filled with lead pellets, scrap iron, and flint oil into the gun barrel.

The sound of the locking mechanism snapping shut was like the teeth of a steel behemoth closing.

"Fire."

There was no trajectory of the shell flying out.

In that instant, everyone felt a sudden thud in their eardrums, as if someone had struck a gong in their heads.

"boom--!!!"

A storm of orange-red flames erupted from the cannon muzzle, accompanied by billowing flames.

Hundreds of lead pellets, each the size of a thumb, mixed with sharp iron pieces, were instantly transformed into an impenetrable net of death under the violent thrust of the alchemical gunpowder.

That was a true metal storm.

Within thirty meters ahead, fifty iron targets, pulled by ropes and simulating a cavalry charge, were struck head-on by the metal storm.

In the same second, they completely lost their original form.

There are no blind spots, no gaps.

The ground was plowed into a pitted and uneven state, and the soil was blown up to a depth of half a foot.

Those iron men... their breastplates were pierced, their limbs were torn off, and shattered metal pieces scattered and fell in the smoke, clattering as they landed back on the muddy ground.

Even the stone wall at the edge of the field, which was used for testing, was riddled with bullet holes, and rubble was scattered all over the ground.

The whole place was dead silent.

Gray stood frozen in place, his face as pale as paper.

His lips trembled slightly, and his hands instinctively protected his chest, as if the scorching heat wave would tear him apart at any moment.

The dodging maneuvers he had just practiced in his mind, the riding skills he was so proud of... all seemed so ridiculous in the face of this absolutely violent metal net.

No need to anticipate. No need to aim.

Even a fly would turn to dust in this fan-shaped surface.

Lambert's lips twitched slightly. As a superhuman knight, his dynamic vision allowed him to see more clearly than others; the lead pellets were so fast that even their afterimages were invisible.

Even for him, if he were to enter this distance without any warning...

Lambert closed his eyes, and an image flashed through his mind: rows of chariots advancing, spewing out endless storms of lead pellets and fire, while his knights fell like stalks of harvested wheat.

There are no glorious duels, only industrialized slaughter.

This thing deprived the knights of the battlefield space they depended on for survival.

But that wasn't all. Without giving them a chance to catch their breath, Louis ordered again, "Continue to the next item."

"Fourth round of testing, the city breaker." Hamilton gestured to the chariot.

The driver pulled the control lever, and the tank shook violently. Thicker black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe at the rear, clearly building up pressure for some more intense attack.

The cannon barrel opened, and the still-warm iron shot cartridge case was ejected, falling into the mud with a hissing sound.

This time, the two loaders worked together to push a cone-shaped shell marked with a red danger symbol into the breech.

The tank slowly adjusted its angle, pointing its cannon at the thick granite wall two hundred meters away.

"put!"

"Boom!!!"

Unlike the explosive bursts of the shotgun shells that tore through the air, this time the cannon fire was muffled and powerful, like a heavy punch slamming into the earth's chest.

The crowd's gaze couldn't even follow the black shadow that shot out of the gun.

next second.

Two hundred meters away.

"Boom——!!!"

The granite wall, which was at least two meters thick, seemed to have been crushed from the inside by an invisible giant hand.

The rubble shot out in all directions like shrapnel, and dust rose several feet high.

When the smoke cleared, the once sturdy fortifications had become a huge breach, and the broken stones still bore the charred marks of the explosion.

Lambert's pupils contracted violently.

This is what Hilko is so proud of; the magic explosive bombs are fired from inside.

Immediately afterwards, the tank roared, its tracks kicking up mud as it accelerated its charge.

It was like an angry bull, using the huge V-shaped shovel on the front of the vehicle to smash into the ruins.

"Wow--"

The remaining walls collapsed completely under the impact of the steel, and were razed to the ground.

The area was deathly silent, save for the clicking sound of the tank engines cooling down.

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, making people's throats dry, but no one dared to cough.

“It’s strong,” Louis broke the silence, his voice calm yet somewhat cold. “But it’s not perfect.”

Lambert took a deep breath, forcing himself to regain his composure from the shock he had just experienced.

“The sides and rear are blind spots, and the visibility is very poor.” Lambert’s voice was a little dry. “If someone gets around to the side and attacks the tracks or the observation seams, it’s useless.”

“We need to fix this,” Hamilton jotted down quickly, sweating profusely. “We can add firing ports on the sides of the vehicle, but…”

“Heavy cavalry,” Will, who had been standing behind Louis, suddenly spoke.

The boy's voice was not loud, but it was unusually calm. He looked at the steel monster, his eyes showing no fear, only contemplation.

"Sir, since it is an anvil, someone needs to wield the fly swatter for it."

Wel pointed to the side of the tank, "We can't let this thing fight alone."

I suggest deploying the strongest heavily armored cavalry to form a dedicated escort to follow the chariots. The chariots will be responsible for breaking through the defensive lines, while the knights will be responsible for eliminating any enemies attempting to approach the chariots' flanks.

Louis turned his head and looked at the boy who had been following him for two years with some surprise.

The child who used to just stand there dumbly with his sword has now learned about tactical coordination.

“Well said, Will.” Louis nodded approvingly.

He looked at Lambert: "Did you hear that? This is called 'tank-riding cooperation'."

Lambert nodded, his gaze still fixed on the chariot.

But Hamilton, standing beside him, didn't appear relaxed. Instead, he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't: "Sir, I don't understand tactical matters. But..."

Hamilton scratched his oil-slicked-back hair and turned to a frail young man behind him carrying a thick ledger: "As for costs and logistics, let Toby report to you. I'm having a real headache with those gold coin figures."

The clerk named Toby was called out and was so startled that he quickly ran forward with the ledger in his hand.

"M-Sir!" Toby pushed up his glasses, which had slipped off his nose, his voice trembling, "According to...according to the mechanical engineering team's calculations..."

“Just give me the numbers,” Louis interrupted him.

“Yes!” Toby swallowed hard and opened the ledger. “This prototype alone cost a total of 9,800 gold coins in research and development and material consumption. Just that one round of testing cost 60 gold coins in fuel and ammunition.”

Upon hearing this number, the young knights around him gasped in shock.

Nearly ten thousand gold coins? That's enough to buy a wealthy town!
“As for the cost of the vehicle…” Toby’s finger traced across the ledger, “the current manufacturing cost of this Red Tide Type 1 is 1,200 gold coins. This… this is equivalent to a lord’s total income for a whole year.”

Gray couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "This is insane... a thousand gold coins to build an iron lump? That's enough to buy a territory in the North."

"That was just a prototype."

Hamilton chimed in, "Once the design is finalized and mass production begins, many parts can be cast using molds, eliminating the need for blacksmiths to hammer them one by one. This will reduce costs."

Toby quickly nodded and added, "Yes! If... if we can establish an assembly line like the adults said, the estimated cost of the first ten units can be reduced to around six hundred gold coins."

"Six hundred gold coins..."

Lambert repeated the number in a low voice. It was still an astronomical price for ordinary people, but for weapons of war…

Louis took the ledger, didn't even look at the numbers, closed it, and handed it back to the clerk.

"Is it expensive?"

Louis turned around, his gaze sweeping over everyone present before finally settling on Lambert.

"Lambert, how much does it cost to train an extraordinary knight like you, starting from the age of six, to hone his skills, the potions he drank, the renowned teachers he hired, the damaged weapons... plus that one-in-a-million luck?"

Lambert was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "It cannot be calculated, sir."

"now it's right."

Louis patted the tank's rough armor plates, making a dull thud.

"As long as we have the blueprints and raw materials, Red Tide's workshops can build three of these a month. As long as we feed them fuel, they won't get tired, they won't be afraid of dying, and they won't run away due to a collapse in morale."

“I have money and I have railways. I will set up maintenance depots at all the train stations and transport them to the front lines by train.”

Louis's voice became unusually firm, "Even if one is blown up, I won't feel bad. It's only six hundred gold coins, which is the profit from selling two carts of spices."

"But if a knight like Lambert were to die, or a hundred young men like Gray were to die, that would be a loss that the Red Tide cannot afford."

With all worries resolved, Louis looked at everyone present.

"Khosa, how long have you been practicing with the spear?"

"Fourteen years, my lord."

Louis pointed to the driver who crawled out of the tank, an apprentice whose face was covered in grease and who was as thin as a monkey.

"His name is Bill, and he was a farmer two months ago. But he could have riddled you with bullets in one shot."

These words shattered the young knights' last shred of pride.

Many of the knights present had complex expressions in their eyes.

The excitement stemmed from the fact that the red tide now possessed a powerful weapon, but there was also an indescribable sense of melancholy.

Unless one is an extraordinary individual like Lambert, the glory of an ordinary knight seems utterly worthless in the face of such a steel torrent.

Lambert took a deep breath and knelt on one knee.

The commander was not distressed. As a soldier, he knew that with the empire in dire straits and the threat from the south growing daily, such ruthless efficiency was the only guarantee for the Red Tide's survival.

“My lord,” Lambert’s voice was resolute, “times have changed.”

For young people like Gray and Kosa, who had trained hard in martial arts since childhood, the sense of loss they felt looking at the monster that was still spewing black smoke could not be filled by a few slogans.

If ten years of hard training in marksmanship is not as effective as a farmer pulling a lever, then what is the point of all that sweat?
Louis keenly sensed this sentiment. Instead of leaving immediately, he stepped down from the observation platform and waded through the mud to the side of the chariot.

He reached out and patted the scorching hot armor plate, feeling the rough vibration.

"What, are you feeling wronged?"

Louis turned around, his gaze sweeping over the dejected young knights before finally settling on Lambert, who had just stood up.

“Raise your head.” Louis’s voice was calm, yet carried an undeniable command.

He pointed to the behemoth beside him: "Take a good look at it. It's tough, and its firepower is certainly fierce. But Hamilton, tell them, how long have you been preparing to get it running here for these ten minutes?"

Hamilton, standing nearby, quickly wiped the oil and sweat from his face and said with a wry smile, "Two whole days, sir. We have to preheat the boiler, check more than two hundred valves, and we also need a special convoy to transport water and coal for it."

Those shots were really satisfying, but they were expensive. The high-purity coal alone would have been enough to buy that whole bunch of spears.

"Did you hear that?"

Louis looked at the knights. "It's blind, deaf, and a picky money-devouring beast. It can't see the assassins sneaking up from the side, nor can it hear the sound of bowstrings being drawn in the shadows."

Once the tracks break or the coal runs out, it's just an iron coffin placed by the roadside. In a one-man fight, a skilled assassin has a hundred ways to kill it.

Louis walked up to Kosa and looked at the big barbarian.

"Khosa, this thing can break through city walls, but can it climb cliffs? Can it infiltrate enemy camps and decapitate commanders? Can it fight the enemy hand-to-hand in the ruins of urban warfare?"

Kosa paused for a moment, then instinctively shook his head: "No, sir. It's too fat."

A few scattered laughs came from the surroundings, and the atmosphere eased a little.

Louis turned his head: "It was not created to eliminate you, but to liberate you."

"Think back to the wars of the past. Even the most elite knights had to brave a hail of arrows and use their bodies to charge into the enemy's spear formations. That was suicide, a waste of their talent."

Louis pointed to the chariot behind him.

"Now, let it handle the dirty and tiring work."

"It's responsible for drawing fire, it's responsible for smashing through the defenses, and it's responsible for eating dirt in front of it."

Louis walked up to Lambert and helped the commander straighten his slightly crooked shoulder armor.

"And you...you will be transformed back into 'scalpels' from 'consumables'."

"When it has shattered the enemy's formation, you will flank them and use your swords to harvest the panicked commanders and hunt down the fleeing remnants."

"The chariot is a hammer that smashes all obstacles; while the knight is a sword that pierces the heart with precision."

Louis's voice carried clearly to everyone's ears on the morning breeze: "As long as war exists, human instinct, reaction, and courage will never be outdated. It needs you to protect its flanks, just as it needs to shield it from the rain of arrows from the front."

The last trace of melancholy in Lambert's eyes disappeared.

He looked at the ugly machine, then at Louis. Only now did he truly understand the young lord's intention: this wasn't replacement, it was complementarity.

"Together we will be arms." Lambert repeated in a low voice, then gave Louis a standard military salute, this time with only pure fighting spirit in his gesture. "Understood."

At this moment, the rising sun finally pierced through the high wall, and golden sunlight shone on the muddy testing ground.

On one side are rough, heavy industrial monsters billowing black smoke, and on the other side are a square of knights clad in steel armor and wielding sharp blades.

These two originally incompatible forces miraculously merged together at this moment.

“Alright, stop standing there.” Louis waved his hand and turned to walk towards the exit. “Clean this big guy up. Hamilton, don’t forget to make a few vents for firing. Bill’s face turned purple when he got out of the car.”

"As you command, my lord!"

Laughter finally erupted on the test field. But this laughter no longer contained contempt; instead, it was filled with anticipation for the future.

(End of this chapter)