After a heart-stopping tremor, Liu Zhian brushed the dust off his hat. His command post was already within the range of the Tang Army’s artillery fire. The Tang Army fired at the old Imperial Palace of the Dahua Empire without the slightest psychological pressure.
To be honest, if this palace once had so artistic or archaeological value, after several rounds of destruction and renovation, there was almost nothing left worth lingering over.
If a subterranean bunker were dug beside the Forbidden City, with the palace having collapsed for a long ti without repair, and its contents having long since been emptied, it’s hard to say what value it still holds.
To speak of sacrificing the lives of Great Tang Empire soldiers for such epheral things, Strauss had never even considered it.
His current goal was very simple: to take down this so-called old capital of the Dahua Empire at the lowest cost, and let the entire Dahua battlefield be completely controlled by the Great Tang Empire.
Clearly, his efforts were about to succeed: Liu Zhian’s troops were collapsing, and the old capital defense line built by the Qin Army at great cost was now riddled with holes and on the brink of destruction.
"Have the docunts been burned?" Liu Zhian looked at his adjutant and asked a question he had asked many tis today.
The adjutant nodded and confird, "General! All the docunts in the command post have been burned, and for the remaining docunts in the various army departnts, I’ve also supervised the burning of the most crucial parts."
The correspondence, backups of orders, troop data, personnel details—a unit’s docunts are quite extensive and substantial in quantity.
These docunts are very important for examining a unit’s history, proving its existence, and tracing its achievents... many things require these written docunts.
Burning these docunts at a critical mont will cause imasurable damage to a troop. Its past would be sealed in history, perhaps never to see the light of day again in the future.
Therefore, burning a troop’s flag or destroying its docunts are choices not made lightly. Such actions are taken only when a unit is in utter despair.
Li Zhian had to order many Qin Country troops to do this: if he didn’t, perhaps so docunts would be used to prove that the use of mines had been tacitly approved by the Qin Country’s high-level officials, which would implicate more people.
Therefore, he must ensure that all relevant records are burned, or at least a large part of them. By doing so, the remaining parts have no value for cross-reference or mutual verification, keeping Emperor Qin Ying Duo and other Qin Country officials safe.
As for the fact that the archival docunts have been burned, leaving no way to verify which Qin Country units participated in the battle and their outcos, they could only consider themselves unfortunate.
The air was filled with a burnt sll, and many secretarial officers continued burning archives and docunts. For them, the old capital at this mont could no longer hold out.
Local Dahua people had already begun cooperating with the Tang Army in combat, guiding the Tang Army, reporting areas where Qin Country troops were hiding, and so even took out hidden weapons, ambushing the Qin Country’s logistics supply teams.
Under such circumstances, the Qin Army’s operations within the old capital had completely fallen into chaos. They had lost a third of the residential areas, and the outer factory zones were already under Tang Army control.
Now, the contact between the Qin Army inside the city and the Qin Country field troops outside the city was intermittent, and all roads leading out of the city were dangerous, with gunfire echoing everywhere.
"It seems this place ultimately doesn’t belong to us." With a bitter smile, Liu Zhian surveyed everything around him, stood up, and placed the hat back on his head.
His adjutant handed him a steel helt, a classic model M35 steel helt once discarded by the Tang Army, which looked very nice.
Liu Zhian paused, then smiled as he removed his military cap and replaced it with the steel helt. As a frontline commander, he certainly knew how to protect himself; he just wasn’t used to being at the front line.
"Let’s go!" Having decided to retreat, Liu Zhian didn’t linger. He led his adjutant and guards out of his office.
In the outer hall, so officers were gathered, smoking. Beside them, a few soldiers were burning outdated maps.
These maps were of the areas surrounding the old capital, now completely obsolete. They had beco Tang Army positions, and many places were even safe zones.
The Qin Army’s artillery fire could barely reach those factory ruins, which had now beco refugee camps, crowded with native Dahua residents seeking refuge.
The situation was better than the Tang Army had imagined; they smoothly controlled most of the streets, and in reality, the Qin Army within the old capital had no more space to struggle.
They could only control so buildings and streets, overall compressed into a narrow area, barely holding on like trapped beasts.
"Attention!" Seeing Liu Zhian, all officers and soldiers saluted him. At least in the cluster command headquarters, such ceremony could not be dispensed with.
Liu Zhian returned a hasty salute and then, along with his adjutant and guards, walked out of the underground bunker into the garden of the Dahua Imperial Palace.
A few model 113 armored vehicles were parked there, covered with camouflage nets. Not far away, craters were still emanating heat, and so Qin Country soldiers were constructing machine gun positions.
The Tang Army was already very close to here, and the nearby Qin Army was on alert, prepared for battle. Their uniforms were covered with dust, and so soldiers even had traces of blood faintly visible on their bodies.
"How much longer can we hold out here?" Liu Zhian asked a Qin Country regint commander who had co to take over the defense, next to his awaited armored vehicle.
The regint commander, anxious, thought for a few seconds before replying, "General, I think it depends on how long the Tang Army is willing to let us hold here."
"Thank you for your efforts... your bravery will not be forgotten! Qin Country will ultimately win this war," Liu Zhian patted the shoulder of the other, saying words of encouragent that nobody believed.
Then, he climbed into the middle armored vehicle, and the other guards got on as well. The armored vehicles started up, rolling over broken debris, passing through collapsed garden walls, leaving the old Imperial Palace of the Dahua Empire.
About ten minutes later, intensive gunfire erupted next door to the palace. Tang Army tanks ramd through palace walls under a rain of MG42 machine-gun fire, covering Tang Army soldiers as they launched a final assault on the place where Liu Zhian had just left.
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