World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

"We must retreat to the trenches!" Kim Soon-sik shouted.

"How do we retreat? The supervisory team's machine gun is behind us!"

The two exchanged a glance, both seeing the despair in each other's eyes. Moving forward meant death, retreating meant death too. Either way, they were doomed.

Just then, a familiar roar came from the flank of the battlefield.

Kim Soon-sik turned his head to look—about three hundred yards to the right, another German reserve force had entered the battle. The soldiers of that unit were short and stocky, with bow legs, and were using bayoneted rifles to overwhelm a small group of Cao County soldiers in hand-to-hand combat.

It's another case of mercenaries being hired by the Japanese.

And this time the numbers were even greater—at least a battalion, five hundred men. They had clearly received orders to "cleanse" yesterday's humiliation. A Japanese major, brandishing a sword, charged at the forefront, roaring in Japanese, "Kill all these lowly people from Cao County! Leave no one alive!"

That sentence ignited a powder keg.

The hatred that had been suppressed and not yet fully released yesterday found its final outlet in the despair of being crushed by tanks.

"Fuck those Japanese devils—!"

Someone shouted first. Then, like a chain reaction, all the Cao County soldiers on the battlefield went berserk. They stopped dodging bullets and seeking cover, and charged at the Japanese army unit with bayonets raised and machine gun fire in the face.

"kill--!"

"Avenge Yonghao—!"

"Avenge Seoul—!"

Kim Soon-sik also rushed out. He had no time to think, no time to be afraid; blood rushed to his head, and everything before his eyes was bloodshot. He grabbed his rifle, jumped over corpses, crossed shell craters, and charged toward the nearest Japanese soldier.

The soldier had just killed a Cao County soldier and was drawing his bayonet. Seeing Jin Shunzhi charging towards him, he grinned maliciously and met him head-on. Bayonet against bayonet, metal clashed.

Kim Soon-sik had never received formal assassination training, but he had hatred, brute strength, and a determination to die together with his opponent. He didn't parry at all, letting the opponent's bayonet pierce his left shoulder, while simultaneously plunging his own bayonet into the opponent's abdomen.

"Ugh—!"

Both men screamed simultaneously. The Japanese soldier released his rifle, clutching his stomach as he collapsed. Kim Soon-sik staggered backward, the bayonet still embedded in his opponent's body. He looked down at his left shoulder—the blade had emerged from behind, blood gushing out like a fountain. It didn't hurt; he was just numb.

He drew his bayonet, threw it away, picked up the enemy's rifle, and continued charging forward.

The battlefield has once again turned into hell.

But this time, it wasn't just the soldiers from Cao County and Japan who were in hell. German tanks and infantry were also drawn in.

A tank attempted to mow down the fighting crowd with its machine gun, but the distance was too close and the enemy and friendly forces were mixed together, causing the machine gunner to hesitate. In that instant, three soldiers from Cao County rushed to the side of the tank, one of whom, having somehow obtained an explosive charge, lit the fuse and stuffed it into the gap between the tracks and the hull.

"Get down—!"

A deafening explosion. The tank's left track was blown off, the road wheel flew off, and the vehicle tilted to one side. The hatch opened, and the German crew tried to escape, but were immediately riddled with bayonets.

Elsewhere, a Japanese sergeant and a dozen soldiers in a bayonet charge were slaughtering soldiers from Cao County. Li Chengcan flanked from the side, picked up a fallen light machine gun—it was unclear whether it belonged to the British or the Germans—placed it on a corpse, and pulled the trigger.

"Da da da da—!"

Machine gun fire swept through the area. Japanese soldiers fell like wheat being harvested. A sergeant was shot in the thigh and fell to his knees. Lee Sung-chan rushed over and smashed his skull with the butt of his rifle, once, twice, three times.

But individual bravery cannot change the course of the battle.

More German tanks flanked them, machine-gunning the chaotic area. They didn't care whether the dead were Japanese or from Cao County; to them, they were all "Eastern barbarians." Shells rained down, scattering limbs and fragments. Mortar shells rained down like a storm.

"Retreat! A full retreat!"

Finally, the British retreat signal came from the rear. But it was too late. The battle lines began to collapse.

First, on the right flank, a battalion of Cao County soldiers was surrounded by German tanks and infantry, and all of them were killed. Then on the left flank, the machine gun position of the supervising squad was covered by German artillery fire, and Lieutenant Sato had half his head shattered by shrapnel. Without the supervising squad, the Cao County soldiers began to instinctively run backward.

"Sungchan! Let's go!" Kim Soon-sik dragged his injured left arm and pulled up Lee Sungchan, who was in a bloodthirsty frenzy.

"I'm not leaving! I'm going to kill them all—"

"Do you fucking want to die?!" Kim Soon-sik roared. "Young-ho is already dead! You want us all to die here?!"

Li Chengcan paused for a second, then his eyes regained some clarity. He glanced at the battlefield—corpses strewn everywhere, flames soaring into the sky, German tanks crushing everything in their path.

"Walk!"

The two ran backward with the retreating crowd. Bullets came from behind, and people kept falling. Blood gushed from Kim Soon-sik's left shoulder, and every step he took was excruciatingly painful. But he dared not stop; to stop meant death.

As he ran across the second trench, he saw several soldiers from Cao County looting the meat of a dead horse, cutting off pieces of bloody raw flesh with bayonets and stuffing them into their mouths. Some had gone mad, sitting amidst a pile of corpses and laughing loudly. Others knelt on the ground, kowtowing to the eastern sky, and then raised their guns to commit suicide.

Collapse, utter collapse.

In the rear observation post, Major General Horatio looked at the scene through his binoculars, his hands trembling slightly.

"General, the third line of defense has been lost, the second line is falling, and the Germans are launching a full-scale counterattack." The staff officer's voice trembled. "We...we can't hold them off."

"Casualties?" Horatio's voice was unusually calm.

"Preliminary estimates...more than 30,000 British soldiers killed, nearly 10,000 French soldiers killed, and more than 60,000 Eastern auxiliary troops killed. The tank units were completely wiped out."

One hundred thousand. Horatio closed his eyes. One hundred thousand living, breathing people, who were charging and fighting yesterday, were now just cold numbers. And those numbers were still increasing.

"Order a full retreat," he said. "Retreat to the reserve lines. Also... send a telegram to London: The Battle of the Somme has been lost."

"Yes...yes!"

By the time the retreat order reached every unit that could still receive it, it was already 3 p.m.

The rain started again, the cold winter rain washing over the battlefield, but it couldn't wash away the thick smoke and the stench of blood. Kim Soon-sik and Lee Sung-chan followed the fleeing soldiers southward, passing through burning villages, crossing blown-up bridges, and wading through rivers blocked by corpses. Along the way were abandoned equipment: rifles, helmets, ammunition boxes, and even artillery pieces.

There was no organization, no command. The survivors had only one thought: escape, escape as far as possible.

As dusk fell, they finally reached the British reserve defenses—a hastily constructed trench system defended by newly recruited British soldiers from the rear. The young soldiers looked at the group of blood-soaked, vacant-eyed, zombie-like Easterners, their faces showing a mixture of fear and disgust.