Warhammer, I really didn't intend to form a second empire!

However, the Imperial Dragon Legion and the Fourth Legion did not retreat; they were among the few legions that were able to maintain their formation and advance steadily under such frontal fire.

Bombs and molten metal weapons fired alternately in the narrow underground passages, their advance counteracting the dwarven defensive firepower. The Dark Star weapons were indeed formidable, and the Ironborn were indeed valiant, but that did not mean that the Qin side was an easy target.

On the contrary, the towering Astartes, the imperial dragon legion, always relied on their size advantage and strength to hack the dwarves into piles of bloody, mangled mud underground.

On the ground battlefield, artillery and lasers flew together, and bullets were commonplace. The smoke and fire from the continuous artillery fire had already obscured the clouds in the sky.

Although the Banshee fighters, Stormbirds, and Thunderhawks have a clear air superiority, it will still take a considerable amount of time to slowly advance the front line in a head-on battle of this scale.

But the Qin Dynasty had already made preparations.

The advanced Sky-Covering Tank and the modified Golia Mech have already joined the battlefield, and even later, there are giant war machines following the Imperial Dragon Legion and the Fourth Legion.

The Thor mechs, which are even more powerful than the Titans of the Warlord class, have already begun to be deployed in battle.

The moment the Thor mech appeared at the rear of the battlefield, Fricks, the frontline commander of the Fourth Legion, almost thought he was seeing things.

What kind of weapon is this? How can it be as huge as a Titan?

The colossal objects slowly emerged from the cargo hold of the transport barges, their massive bodies propelled across the scorched earth by two sturdy hydraulic legs that took turns supporting their weight.

Its main structure resembles a pyramid with its tip cut off, with huge artillery arrays hanging on both sides of its shoulders, the caliber of which is twice as thick as any vehicle-mounted weapon equipped by the Fourth Army.

The footage that Fricks saw through the front-line communication channel lasted only a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough for him to raise the mech's combat capability assessment from "heavy support unit" to "strategic siege weapon".

He didn't ask, because Han Xin had already indicated in the battle plan that the Emperor Dragon Legion would deploy some special equipment for attacking strongholds. However, at the time, he thought that the so-called special equipment was professional ammunition for orbital bombardment, rather than some kind of war machine that could be mistaken for a Titan.

The Thor mech's main cannon demonstrated pure power-driven performance in the first salvo.

They fired in precise sequences at the outer side of the dwarven fortress's main armor layer, each shell landing on the same vertical line, peeling away the seams of the armor plates one by one, chiseling deep cuts into the gray armor surface.

The ground forces of the Fourth Legion and the Emperor Dragon Legion accelerated their advance under the attack of the Thor mechs.

The cracks in the gray armor layers continued to widen under the shelling, exposing the alloy support structure beneath and opening more entry points for subsequent troops to penetrate the front.

The dwarves' counter-fire was briefly delayed after the first wave of Thor's volley.

They seemed unprepared for this level of firepower suppression on the front of the fortress, but the gray-armored warriors quickly reorganized a second line of defense, pushing out a batch of smaller but more heavily armed self-propelled guns from deeper tunnels.

The self-propelled artillery had short but very thick barrels, and they formed a dense firing formation at the exit of the passage, pouring high-explosive shells at an extremely high rate of fire toward the advance of the Fourth and Imperial Dragon Legions.

The offensive lines began to show slight signs of slowing down under the sustained firepower. They withstood the blows but were unable to maintain their original pace of advance.

Han Xin's order was transmitted to the command channel as the Fourth Army's lines began to move backward.

"The second echelon of the Thor formation moves forward and locks onto the energy hub node 50 meters behind the enemy's self-propelled artillery array."

"The armored forces of the Thirteenth Army entered the battlefield through the gap on the left flank of the Fourth Army, cutting across the firing range of the dwarven self-propelled artillery in a wedge formation."

His instructions were quickly translated into a series of action sequences within the ground forces.

After advancing to their designated positions, the second echelon of Thor mechs readjusted their artillery elevation, sending the shells over the head of the self-propelled artillery array with a wide trajectory, precisely striking the energy hub nodes behind them. Continuous explosions propagated from the hub nodes deep into the underground structure, melting down the power supply lines inside the gray armored structures one by one.

The rate of fire of the dwarves' self-propelled artillery began to decrease significantly after the energy nexus was destroyed.

Without a continuous energy supply, their loading and aiming systems were forced to switch to standby mode, and their firepower density plummeted to 30% of its original level.

The Thirteenth Legion's wedge-shaped formation surged into the battlefield from the gap on the left flank of the Fourth Legion, coordinating with the Imperial Dragon Legion's heavy armored vehicle formation to cut laterally into the firing range of the dwarven self-propelled artillery. Their armored units took some fire during the charge, but no one cared about those losses. Their goal was to charge directly along the dwarven defenses and use assault fire to create a gap in the firing range.

The Ninth Army Corps completed a new round of airdrops from the flank at high altitude.

They chose to land in an area of ​​anti-aircraft nodes that had been cleared beforehand, behind the main dwarf fortress, and used a high-speed air assault to directly cut into the weak area on the back of the gray armor.

Aerial combat was also underway above the ground. Banshee fighters and Thunderhawk gunships continuously patrolled the skies above the fortress, suppressing the dwarven anti-aircraft positions.

The 19th Army Corps' underground infiltration forces gradually figured out the layout of the main passages beneath the fortress through continuous work, marking the key nodes connecting the underground energy core with the surface defense line one by one.

After several hours of continuous strangulation, the resistance of the dwarves underground began to weaken significantly. They were still resisting, but their organization was far less effective than before. Gray-armored figures moved back and forth in the passage, and the gaps in their coordination were gradually widening.

As the Fourth Army's lines advanced again, Fricks ordered the entire company to charge.

He didn't turn back to confirm the location of his allies, because he knew that those unplanned forces would emerge from a certain direction at the most crucial moment.

Lord Zhao Zheng did not treat them as cannon fodder, but as true brothers.

The gray-white metal walls shattered and crumbled under the continuous bombardment, revealing the wiring layers and supporting beams beneath. The heavy alloy gate at the end of the passage finally began to deform after repeated explosions, several cracks appearing at its hinges.

Frix reached out and pressed down on the outer edge of the gate. The power armor's servo system went into full power the instant he gave the command, and his knuckles embedded themselves in the crack as he pulled it forcefully to the side.

The gate made a screeching metallic tearing sound under his force, detached from the frame, and slammed against the inner wall of the passage with a dull thud.

Behind the door lies a vast underground space, where the dwarf's energy core floats in the central area, its surface covered with a layer of leaping purple electric arcs that power the entire fortress's defense system.

"That's their power source."

Fricks stared at the core in silence for a moment, then transmitted a brief instruction to the communication channel behind him.

The energy core of the dwarven fortress was destroyed in less than forty minutes under the concentrated fire of the Emperor Dragon Legion.

The explosion started deep underground and propagated outwards, cracking the supporting structure of the gray armor layer layer by layer.

The defense systems that were originally maintained by the energy cores were paralyzed one after another after the cores were destroyed. The turrets lost their power supply, and the rotating mechanisms of the anti-aircraft arrays froze at a fixed angle after the last round of firing.

The ground formations of the Fourth Legion, the Thirteenth Legion, and the Emperor Dragon Legion advanced simultaneously from the front and flanks, gradually compressing the dwarven defenders, who had lost their energy support, into the remaining space of the fortress's lower level area.

The dwarven warriors, clad in gray armor, continued to resist for a time after losing their energy, but their numbers dwindled rapidly as they were consumed, and their firepower density dropped to a level that posed no real threat.

These stubborn dwarves will soon be completely wiped out.

Zhao Zheng's first battle to recapture the heart of the river was a success, and good news kept coming back from other fronts, but Zhao Zheng did not celebrate with champagne at the halfway point.

After all, the dwarves are quite powerful and extremely vengeful. This time, the Qin Dynasty launched an attack directly, which will inevitably cause those loose clans and the Wotan Alliance to unite and resist.

That will be the real showdown. Whether the space dwarves, this branch of humanity, are aliens or demi-humans, depends on whether they can see the situation clearly by then.

Zhao Zheng is determined to win the central river area!

The aliens that inhabit this place must be completely wiped out!

The dwarves either submit or be exterminated!

Zhao Zheng doesn't like to reason with aliens.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Rapid Advancement

When the star map of the Milky Way's central region unfolded before Zhao Zheng, the gray-marked star systems resembled a forgotten necklace, meandering along the inner edge of the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Zhao Zheng's fingertip paused for a moment on one of the coordinates. It was the first dwarven fortress planet that Han Xin's fleet had just cleared. The marker had changed from dark red to light green, indicating that the surface resistance had been eliminated and the engineering team was entering the ground repair phase.

But Zhao Zheng's gaze did not linger on that green marker for long.

His gaze followed the direction of the gray markings on the star map outwards, falling into deeper depths.

There are also a large number of star systems there, many of which have been built with similar armored fortresses according to the standards of the space dwarves, forming a loose defensive ring around the outer edge of the river region.

There are also some aliens that inhabit certain planets, and these aliens are also a menace.

After all, anyone who can survive and develop a certain scale of power in such an extremely harsh environment as the river center area must be a tough nut to crack.

Han Xin's fleet only knocked down one node in this ring; most other nodes remained intact and had already learned of the fall of the outer fortress through their respective communication networks.

In fact, Zhao Zheng should not have chosen the River Heart region as the target for the early stages of the Great Expedition, because it was not much worse than the monsters and demons in the Misty Starfield.

But Zhao Zheng still chose this place because of the ancestral core of the space dwarves and the mineral deposits here.

Although Qiankun Star can generate many necessary mineral veins, the formation of Qiankun Star also takes time. Even if a planet is huge enough, its production capacity will naturally be insufficient when the ratio becomes 1:100.

Therefore, Zhao Zheng now uses Qiankun Star more to produce four types of mineral veins: living metal, spirit bone, refined gold, and radiant gold. Qiankun Star is amazing; it can really generate these mineral veins according to Zhao Zheng's ideas.

Therefore, for materials like ceramic steel or other alloys, it is necessary to start mining from other places.

Are there any other planets with more mining opportunities than the River Heart region?

Actually, there are some; the Great Vortex and the Eye of Fear region in the Hazy Starfield are both quite good, but these two places...

Zhao Zheng felt that, compared to the other two places, the river center area was much better, at least the legions of these monsters were still capable of fighting.

Kongming's voice came from behind Zhao Zheng, interrupting his train of thought.

"Your Majesty, Marshal Han Xin has sent back a preliminary post-war assessment. The energy characteristics of the fortress core are similar to some records from before the Old Night Era. It is preliminarily judged that their technological system may have been inherited from the human technology branch of the Golden Age, but has undergone a lot of independent modifications and evolution."

It's not just a suspicion; it's a remnant of the Golden Age. The dwarves were simply a group of miners.

Zhao Zheng didn't say anything immediately, but turned his head to look at Kongming, signaling him to continue.

"In addition, General Han Xin mentioned in his report that when the energy core beneath the fortress was destroyed, we found a set of special alloy components in that passage. The structure was very precise and not quite in line with the dwarves' usual rugged style."

"He believes it may have been some kind of backup communication device independent of the fortress's main power system, which may have sent signals out before it was destroyed."

Zhao Zheng tapped his fingertips lightly on the armrest.

The backup communication device may have sent signals before it was destroyed.

This means that the Wotan Alliance, deep within the river's heartland, has learned of the fall of the outer fortress and must be gathering troops and clans to prepare and coordinate defenses.

This was not unexpected; Zhao Zheng had never intended to dismantle the dwarf forces in the entire river region through external attacks.

But the existence of that communication device indicated that the dwarves were more organized than he had anticipated.

Zhao Zheng originally thought that these dwarves had been scattered for many years, and even if they had contact, they certainly wouldn't be able to gather their forces so quickly. But now it seems that he may have underestimated them.

It seems we'll have to pay a hefty price to take this place.

"How's the arsenal construction going? Are the Thor and Odin mechs being built smoothly? And what about the armored units and weaponry? Are there any problems?"

Zhao Zheng asked.

"Things are going smoothly. Qin's mineral reserves are currently very rich, and various weapons, equipment, and mechs made using living metal and refined gold can be produced as expected."

"Yes, that's good. Don't let your guard down in this regard. Our brothers at the front are fighting bravely. If there are problems with the arsenal and logistics, we won't be able to explain ourselves."

"I understand."

"Oh, by the way, how's your research on the Eight Trigrams Formation coming along?"

"It's still in testing. If it proves effective on the front lines, then we should be able to apply this military formation template to future wars."

"Sometimes I really want to send you to the front lines as a marshal, but unfortunately, I don't think Jingbo and Zifang would agree, and they'd probably argue with me about it."

Zhao Zheng smiled.

"Your Majesty is too kind. I am but a humble subject with limited knowledge and profound understanding, and I am certainly no match for the marshals. The Eight Trigrams Formation is something I have learned from observing the wars of the various marshals. I dare not take credit for it, after all, it is our brothers on the front lines who are truly fighting and shedding blood."

Kongming has always been humble; that's just his nature.

Even though he had mastered most of the skills in the military field in just three years, and even marshals such as Wang Jian, Li Jing, and Xu Da praised the prime minister for his talent as a commander, he still only did his job of logistics coordination in the rear.

The Qin Dynasty already has enough marshals, but those who can truly do logistics well, consistently make no mistakes, and do it very well can be counted on one hand.

Kongming counts as one, Xiao He counts as one, Wang Meng counts as one, and Zhao Zheng barely counts as one.

Actually, this is also Zhao Zheng's fault. Since he developed gene modification, coupled with the Astartes modification surgery that he has enhanced to twenty-five levels, the current size of the Imperial Dragon Legion is already quite exaggerated.

The Great Expedition has just begun, but what does it mean that the legion already has a full 200,000 people?

Zhao Zheng didn't quite understand, but he knew that it was absolutely right of him not to report the number of his legions to the empire at the beginning.

This way, they can still have room for maneuver, and the number of people in the legion will always be in their own hands.

You say there are so many people, and that's the number. Don't believe me? Then send someone to check!

After Kongming left the cabin, Zhao Zheng stood alone in front of the star map for a while.

His fingertips moved slowly along the edge of the gray markings on the outer edge of the river's core region, pausing several times between adjacent star systems.

The dwarves' defensive rings have improved considerably, but overall they remain disorganized, as the river region is not solely the dwarves' home.

Han Xin stood in front of the observation porthole of the command ship, his gaze fixed on the planet ahead, whose surface was mostly covered by gray armor.

This is the second fortress planet in the outer defensive ring of the river region. It is not far from the first fallen fortress. It is just unknown why no reinforcements were sent at that time. Otherwise, Han Xin could have taken another wave of dwarf troops.

The other marshals have already begun their offensive, with the most aggressive Bai Qi having already captured three star systems occupied by dwarves and five by aliens.

The track features here are very similar to the former, the surface is also covered with thick gray alloy armor, and the distribution pattern of turrets and anti-aircraft arrays is almost identical.

But Han Xin's attention was not on those turrets.

He swiped his finger across the tactics panel, bringing up a reconnaissance infiltration record sent back by the 19th Army Corps four hours earlier.

The footage was dark in tone and shot from behind the wreckage of an abandoned mining satellite. The image clearly showed some unconventional welding marks on the surface of the gray armor plate, as well as several reinforced seam areas.

Han Xin compared the location of the welding marks in the image with the orbital scan image and found that they were evenly distributed behind the defensive array, avoiding the line of sight of the frontal turret group, forming an almost straight underground passage.