Rebel Surprise Attack
「Bang! Bang! Bang! Boom boom boom」
The boom of cannons mixed with the crack of gunfire — it seemed the soldiers keeping watch over the fortress had finally begun to fight back.
"There may be more infiltrators hiding inside, so leave some guards behind!"
"Yes, sir!"
When I stepped outside, the guests had all come out as well and were milling about anxiously.
"Le Tu Thanh!"
"Ha-eun! What's going on?"
"We interrogated them — they're rebels. Can your bodyguards be trusted?"
That was the thing I was most worried about here. If everyone else died and only this guy survived, we'd have won; the other side figured that if they could somehow just kill the emperor, they'd win too.
"They can be trusted."
"They're after you, so be careful."
"And you?"
"I'm going to go take a look at those bastards' faces."
Scratching up my new house? I'll have to beat them senseless, won't I?
「KABOOM」
A shell landed inside the fortress? It was so large that ricochets were coming down in here too, huh?
This was getting dangerous.
"Shells are falling outside! Gather the people and get them inside!"
"It's dangerous — you stay here too!"
「Grab」
What now? I'm trying to go, why are you grabbing me? Can't you read the room, you blockhead? Don't you have thirteen wives waiting for you at home?
"Huh? The guests have arrived — the host ought to greet them, no?"
"Then we're coming with you!"
Like there's anything for you to do once we get there.
"Why?"
"Because they're our rebels. I think we should fight too!"
This guy? He knows how to fight and he's saying that? More hands are always welcome, but still...
"You barely brought any weapons with you. What are you going to help with?"
He'd come with plenty of bodyguards since he was an emperor, but with bullets and shells flying everywhere, was he planning to charge in with a sword?
"We'll fight with bows, of course?"
"...Huh?"
Most countries were still using early matchlock rifles, after all. He was at the stage of thinking a gun and a bow were roughly the same thing. Though once he climbed up there, his self-esteem was going to take a hit.
"Do whatever you want. Just try to survive, Your Majesty."
"Naturally!"
He was so stubborn that I had no choice but to put him in armor and take him up top with me, along with his bodyguards, who spread out and took up positions with their bows.
「Bang! CLICK-clack! Bang! CLICK-clack!」
"Huh?"
"That's what I said — you're not needed."
I went off to deal with the cannon crews way in the distance, and here he was, sitting down and gaping like a fish?
「SHREEEE boom」
But this was genuinely dangerous.
When we angled the walls to deflect shells, they'd ricochet off and go soaring into the sky — and every so often, they'd bounce right back into the fortress walls.
"Watch out for the shells, you idiot! Don't just stand there gawking — go hide somewhere!"
"Uh! Uh-oh!"
「Clatter-clatter CRASH」
"Oof!"
Ah... and what am I supposed to do about that?
He'd taken a tumble and now he was squirming on the ground, unable to get up under the weight of his armor.
"Ugh! Seriously! I told you not to follow me! Why did you come all the way out here just to flail around!"
"Emperor though I may be, couldn't you speak a little more nicely?!"
I'm the one who's annoyed, so why is he whining about my language?
"Shut up! Get up or just lie there, I don't care!"
"Grrk..."
His bodyguards would look after him, right?
I hurried off toward the searchlight. The lookout post had a high-performance bulb fitted with a reflector.
「CLUNK」
"Is the light not ready yet?"
"No, sir! The steam pressure hasn't built up yet!"
"Hurry it up, then!"
The enemy had all the advantages right now. They could see us, but we couldn't see them.
Though black powder smoke came in handy at times like this, didn't it?
Everyone was firing rough counter-shots toward wherever the noise was coming from, but there was no way any of it was hitting anything.
That's why we needed the searchlight we'd built — but it drew so much electricity that it had its own dedicated generator attached.
That too was a steam generator, so it looked like there was no way around the wait.
"This is so frustrating..."
"Still, with the walls holding firm, aren't we all right, my lady?"
In a few more years, this trick wouldn't even work. Everyone would be crawling around on the ground by then?
「Whoosh CRACK」
While I was waiting for the searchlight to power up, there was a sound of something slicing through the air, and the firing slit suddenly collapsed?
"Gahk!"
It just had to be the spot I'd been peering through, and I took a hit — the pain was so intense my head went blank.
"My lady!"
"Are you all right?!"
"The Agassi got hit!"
Wow. Everything was spinning. Good thing it was me who took it. If an ordinary person had been hit, they'd have been wiped clean off the face of the earth.
Lucky for me it was a shell that had already smashed through the wall and lost its force. A direct hit would've launched me a good fifty meters, wouldn't it?
"Ugh... everyone quiet down, my head's spinning..."
"Hrk..."
"Wow! You still look completely fine, my lady!"
Something had flashed past, and apparently I'd been flung clean into a wall. There was a hole in the wall I'd been looking through, and I was sprawled out on the opposite side of the room.
"Ugh... I really do go through everything."
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah. Don't any of you get hit — it really hurts."
"As expected of the Agassi... incredible!"
The impact was so great that the aftereffects lasted a good while.
"Hahaha. The Agassi might be the only person alive who gets hit by a cannonball and just calls it 'painful.'"
Well, fair enough — anyone else would've departed this world before they even managed an "ouch."
「VMMMMM」
"Electricity's coming through, my lady."
Along with the hum of machinery, the incandescent bulbs began to glow, little by little.
「FLASH」
"It's on! Quick, aim it out there!"
And then all at once the light surged on, and the face of the searchlight blazed bright.
Without proper curved surfaces or precise angles, it wasn't enormously bright, but it was enough to illuminate the silhouettes of the enemy far off in the distance.
"I can see them! Open fire, now!"
"Kill them all!"
「ratatataTA-TA-TA」
Now that the shooting had started in earnest, it felt like actual rapid fire.
This fortress had ten thousand soldiers alone, after all.
They had cannons, we had rifles — but a rifle in the right hands was a truly fine weapon.
"Keep the light steady — we'll concentrate all our firepower on that spot."
"Yes, sir!"
I'd leave this to them and go have a look at that damned emperor. Time to talk about what to do with those bastards.
When I went back to the spot where I'd left him, Le Tu Thanh was sitting against the wall, taking in the sights.
"Hey now~ living the high life, aren't you?"
"Hm? Why are you covered in dust?"
"Got hit by a cannon shell."
"...Huh? PWAHAHA!"
Yeah, of course he doesn't believe it. How could he? Even if someone told me 'I got hit by a cannonball and I'm walking around just fine!' I wouldn't believe it either.
"So, what's so interesting over there that you're sightseeing?"
"Daehan's weapons are truly impressive, aren't they?"
Everything in use here was a good three or four centuries ahead of his stuff, no?
"That's exactly why we can strut around like a great power wherever we go, isn't it?"
"I'm envious... Do you sell weapons like those?"
What the fellow was eyeing was the rifle — the one you could load with a quick, simple snap of a cartridge.
"Selling them isn't the problem. You people couldn't even maintain them. It looks simple, but that thing is very hard to make."
Not that I could openly hand over primer technology — even if I did, they couldn't build it. All that would happen is a staggering number of people dying to accidents.
"Then what about buying them?"
"Even if it's possible up to a point, you don't really think your entire army could be equipped and maintained with weapons bought from another country, do you?"
"Ah..."
No matter how much money a country made, buying weapons and running them entirely on imports was something that, even in the modern era, only the oil-gushing Middle Eastern nations had managed.
"Take it step by step. Start with what you can do."
"Ha... that's going to be difficult."
Not easy, sure. But Vietnam as it stood now — couldn't they manage second place?
"You can do it, you know. First place is out of the question from the start, but if you work hard, second place isn't beyond you."
The wall separating you from first place was simply impassable now. Daehan was already the number one power in the world on the strength of the Original Continent's territory alone.
And now we were taking over the Eastern Continent too...
Even if the granddaddy of America himself showed up, he wouldn't amount to more than a corner-shop kid, would he?
"Really? Could we do it?"
"It's possible, if enough wise kings rise up."
Trouble was, wise kings didn't come along very often. Hang in there! As long as you don't screw it up, I'll look after you a little.
"What are you going to do with them?"
"I'll handle the cleanup myself."
"So we're heading back to the capital, then?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
It was a civil war — no reason for us to march all the way down there ourselves...
"If handling the prisoners gives you trouble, send them to us. We'll make sure they never see the light of day again."
"You're going to kill them all?"
"Do we look that barbaric to you?"
We weren't the sort of country that went around killing people willy-nilly?
"We put them in the mines, where the light never reaches. A lifetime underground, nothing but digging."
No dynamite or anything of the sort down there — just picks and shovels, the hard way.
"Men and women alike. Equal treatment for all."
With both men and women in there, somehow they still kept up the population while continuing to dig, too.
"Isn't that even crueler than killing them?"
"Isn't being alive better than being dead?"
Whenever they were given the choice — death or labor — every last one of them chose labor, you know.
"Besides, there are hospitals down there, and schools too. It's not a bad life, honestly."
The only catch was that they couldn't set foot past the fence... Come to think of it, that is pretty cruel, isn't it? Maybe I should give some thought to the children and their descendants.
「BANG-bang bang」
While we talked, the gunfire kept growing sparser — it looked like things were getting wrapped up.
"The cannon fire is dying down?"
"Yeah, all I hear now is our own rifles."
Their cannon technology wasn't up to much yet, so they were firing from well inside our rifles' range.
We had plenty of folks just spraying shots into the air too, but we'd been raising snipers from early on, you see? So the enemy's numbers were steadily and reliably shrinking.
"What a fortress, hm? To withstand a bombardment like this."
"That's only because they came underprepared. Give it a proper pounding and this would break too."
Still, from a cost standpoint, it was the other side bleeding more money. We'd just piled up earth and faced it with stone.
This was why wars in the age of gunpowder came down to money. Cannon ranges would only keep growing, and victory would hinge on one simple question: could you keep firing until the enemy's walls came down?
"Shouldn't we go on the attack?"
"It's a civil war — you'll handle the rest, won't you? There's no need for us to go out and take damage."
They weren't even asking for help, so why should we? Sure, part of the fortress was smashed up, but in the end we'd be billing them for all of it.
"Ah..."
"Doesn't look like anyone's hurt, so we'll take the repair costs for the damaged walls."
"Wha..."
"Did you think it was free?"
Planning to freeload, were you? There's no such thing as a free lunch, my friend?
"At least give me a discount..."
"Then hand over the prisoners — we'll use them as laborers."
"We can pick out who to send, right?"
Right? Shipping off their own soldiers would drain their manpower far too much.
"Make sure you send the leadership, though?"
"I suppose it's only those men who should go."
Treason was high treason, after all — they'd haul in relatives out to the seventh cousins, so there'd be quite a lot of them.
"Fine. Send the bastards. I'll ship them off to the coldest region we have."
"Cold region? Is that the hardest place to work? Wouldn't it actually be better for labor, being nice and cool?"
"...Huh?"
Hold on. This place? Was he some country bumpkin who'd never even seen snow or ice?
"Do you know what snow or ice even is?"
"What's that?"
"Cold white powder that falls from the sky."
"Don't know it. I've heard tell there's something like that in the mountains up north, but that's all."
Wow. A man who doesn't know cold.
"Hmm. There are plenty of places so cold that if you stand still, your body chills and you die."
"Hm? You don't mean a pleasant chill that gives you goosebumps?"
Wow. The southern folk really did live in a land of blessings, didn't they.
"Just know that you were born lucky, all right?"
"Hm..."
Once the refrigerator gets invented, I'll have to send him one. Letting him find out what cold actually is — he'd be flabbergasted.
"Those rebel bastards are running. Do you want to take the cannons and weapons for yourselves?"
"Are we allowed?"
"We have no use for weapons like those, do we?"
No one uses clunky little muzzle-loading cannons like those anymore. If they took them, they'd have to melt the junk down or refurbish it and sell it off somewhere else — better to just sell it here, right?
"How much will you pay?"
"Huh? You're charging money for those?"
What now? Thought they were free, did you? Even between friends, the accounts have to balance?
"They're our war spoils!"
"They were made for our country's army!"
And how exactly are rebel troops your country's army?
"We captured them, so they're ours!"
"Ha... you're unbelievable. Truly..."
Thrift is how you get rich, after all!