Iron Dynasty

Chapter 1148

“Close the city gates!”

Maxim shouted loudly, his voice filled with inner fear. The scene in front of him had gone beyond his understanding of war.

“We must be fighting the army of the gods,” Oleg’s lips trembled. He was terrified.

But their fear was just the beginning. The moment the gate was closed, the steel monsters in front of Yelets suddenly let out a “boom, boom” of cannon fire. Immediately afterward, the city gate of Yelets was shattered, and a large hole was created in the hit city wall.

“Boom, boom, boom…”

The bombardment continued. One hundred and eighty tanks concentrated on bombarding the city walls of Yelets. In a very short time, the front city wall of Yelets collapsed with a crash.

“Advance!”

Inside the tank, Qi Guangyi waved his hand. The soldiers on the military vehicles immediately jumped down and followed the tanks to attack Yelets.

Maxim was completely stunned. He had no idea how to counter the Empire’s attack. Shaking the dust off his body, he could only desperately order his soldiers to counterattack.

But like him, his soldiers also did not know how to effectively deal with the Empire’s strange tactics. They could only charge at the tanks again and again, only to fall in front of them.

Occasionally, some would slip through, but the rifles behind the tanks would also take care of them.

In the Bear King tanks, the machine gun had a reserve of more than 2,400 rounds of ammunition. The 180 tanks were like 180 mobile machine guns.

As for the tanks’ cannons, they were specifically for bombarding the strong defensive points of the Tsarist Russian army.

With the two working together, the Tsarist Russian soldiers in Yelets had no place to hide. Maxim’s confidence was quickly crushed by the large number of casualties. He understood that if they continued to fight, not a single soldier in Yelets would survive.

After careful hesitation, he decisively ordered the soldiers to withdraw from Yelets. He had to personally tell Empress Catherine what he had seen on the southern front of Tsarist Russia.

If they could not come up with a corresponding solution, the future fate of Tsarist Russia would be very tragic.

The retreat of the Tsarist Russian soldiers was quickly noticed by Qi Guangyi. After ordering the occupation of Yelets, he stopped the pursuit.

The Empire’s purpose this time was to force Tsarist Russia to return to defense and resolve the crisis in France. Because of this, he naturally needed these defeated soldiers to go back and report.

Moreover, taking Yelets was not the end of his mission. There were five such fortresses on the border of Tsarist Russia, and he had to take them one by one and transform them into the Empire’s defensive fortresses.

…

Bellegarde.

Henry furiously tore up the joint ultimatum from Prussia, Austria, and Tsarist Russia. In this ultimatum, the three countries demanded that Henry immediately surrender to Andre, the legitimate ruler of France. Otherwise, the three countries’ armies would enter France to intervene in the French civil war.

“Who do they think they are to dare to order me like this!” Henry shouted, venting his inner anger. After more than two years of war, he had controlled the southern part of France and was now officially attacking Paris, the heart of France. Now he was in Bellegarde, only a little more than 100 li from Paris. As long as he entered Paris, he would have won the war, but now the intervention of the three countries had brought uncertainty to his future. Because of this, he was so angry.

“General, although we have the Empire’s material support, it is impossible to defeat three countries. And the Empire is thousands of miles away. Even if they send troops, the war may have already ended in a few months. Besides, sending a large number of troops to Europe would be very costly, so it is impossible for them to send troops.”

The person speaking was Henry’s most trusted colonel, Duman. Now, the sudden turn for the worse had everyone worried.

Henry said, “Are we just supposed to submit to them? Are you just going to watch France be destroyed?”

Shaking his head, Henry said, “No, we cannot do that. This is our France, and no one is allowed to interfere with our ideals.”

Duman said, “Of course, no one is happy to see this, but what should we do now?”

Henry said, “The Empire will definitely not stand by and watch. They have invested so much in France, so how can they just watch us fail? I think they must be trying to find a solution. Let’s first negotiate with them to stall for time and wait for news from the Empire.”

“That’s all we can do. If the Empire abandons us, maybe a coalition government is an option to consider. After all, we cannot gamble with the lives of 300,000 soldiers,” Duman said worriedly. Henry nodded. He was not a fool and would not fight a hopeless war.

…

London.

For the British people living here, the days of the blockade seemed very long, because just half a year after the maritime trade was cut off, a shortage of supplies appeared in London.

Frightened Londoners rushed to buy supplies to hoard at home, which caused the prices of goods on the market to continuously rise. And this made more British people join the panic buying, as no one wanted to starve to death.

Faced with this out-of-control situation, Murphy immediately ordered a ban on food transactions in the market and instead took over all the supplies, distributing them to London citizens according to a quota. Life gradually became difficult, which naturally caused dissatisfaction among many people, especially those in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

These regions had a history of being brutally oppressed by Britain. They joined the United Kingdom only because Britain became powerful and wealthy, and they took the opportunity to enjoy the wealth together. But now the current situation in Britain had obviously aroused their dissatisfaction.

Many people believed that the English were to blame for this disaster. And when Murphy ordered to control the supplies and plan the distribution, they were even more dissatisfied. England had a large population and a high degree of industrialization, so it naturally produced less food, which was why the supplies ran short in a short time.

In contrast, Scotland had abundant food, and the blockade would have no impact for one or two years. But now, Murphy’s order suddenly made them live at the same level as the English. Because of this, the number of people demanding Scotland’s independence increased rapidly within half a year of the blockade.

In their opinion, once they broke away from the United Kingdom, they would be able to negotiate independently with the Eastern Empire, lift the blockade, and even reach a trade cooperation with the Empire from then on, allowing Scotland to surpass England.

This kind of ideology spread as the Scottish independence parliamentarians promoted it, and the call for independence grew louder and louder. In addition to Scotland, the same situation also appeared in Northern Ireland and Wales.

And during this period, Hu Chuan and Kang Ming, who had returned from Britain, came back on an Imperial warship. Looking at the rolling fields on the Scottish coast, he smiled. “After all the commotion, Britain still can’t escape the Empire’s grasp in the end.”

Kang Ming smiled upon hearing this. “Of course. When we return this time, we will add more fuel to the fire.”