Munitions Empire

The Gobur Kingdom is vast and expansive, a major country in the South. Although it considers itself a kingdom, its strength rivals that of the Dorne Empire.

There had been wars at the border, but with the full support of Shireck, Dorne couldn't even seize a single city of Gobur Kingdom, and the war ended hastily. Dorne the First, who aspired to unify the southern part of the Eastern Continent, didn't achieve his lifelong wish.

In such a regional power, gunshots suddenly rang out from the Royal Palace on an otherwise peaceful afternoon.

No one knew why King Gobur the Seventeenth unexpectedly drew a pistol and personally shot his youngest son dead.

No one knew what this youngest son said or did to his father, who had always adored him, to provoke such wrath in the old King, leading him to shoot his son dead without hesitation.

Everything has become a mystery, as soon no one who witnessed the incident firsthand was left to explain what happened that day.

The entire court fell into chaos, and while the Imperial Guards prepared to defend their King amidst the confusion, the City Defense Forces suddenly took action.

A sudden air raid alarm echoed above the Gobur Kingdom's King City, and armored vehicles from outside the city drove in right afterward.

Today, almost no city in the world has old fortifications like city walls anymore, as urban development has rendered walls meaningless.

Everyone desires convenient transportation. If you build a ring of walls around a central area, where's the convenience in that? Fewer roads cause traffic jams, and you still want to build walls? What a joke!

Without the protection of city walls, the City Defense Troops, obeying unknown orders, moved into the streets, setting up barriers at crucial intersections and inspecting passing vehicles, not knowing why they were doing it.

Shortly afterward, His Highness, the First Prince, suddenly announced over the radio that his King father had gone mad, and that he would now exercise royal authority and take over the entire nation.

Subsequent cannon fire immediately sent residents of Gobur's King City into a panic. No one knew what was happening; everyone instinctively sought ways to escape the city.

However, the turmoil quickly subsided because the artillery breached the palatial walls, and then the City Defense Forces loyal to the First Prince stormed into the Royal Palace, bloodbathing the beautiful place.

In an unusual move, the City Defense Army opened fire inside the Royal Palace without restraint, engaging in fierce battles with the Imperial Guards. Without hesitation, they used heavy weapons like machine guns.

Armed with only light weapons, the Imperial Guards were no match for the City Defense Army, and their equipment could not withstand attacks by machine guns and armored vehicles.

Thus, the defense line of the Imperial Guards quickly collapsed, and blood flowed like a river within the Royal Palace. The City Defense Forces killed indiscriminately, sparing not even the maids or the chefs.

The First Prince's many mothers were gunned down in their chambers, and soon, the grievous news arrived that His Majesty the King was also hit by bullets amid the chaos.

After "rescuing" him for several hours, the old King was declared dead, allowing the First Prince to take control of the entire nation.

Sadly, the chaos did not end there. On the very day His Highness the First Prince ascended as His Majesty the King, an assassin publicly killed him during his coronation, in front of numerous ministers and generals.

The assassin declared that the First Prince had betrayed the old King, and that he was avenging the old King by sacrificing his life to assassinate the First Prince. However, the assassin was then shot dead by the City Defense Forces who arrived on the scene, turning the coronation into a farce.

This was merely the beginning; the leaderless contention for the throne in a chaotic Gobur Kingdom ensued, and the previously unnoticed Second Prince stepped onto the historical stage.

Previously overlooked by many, he unexpectedly became a strong contender for the throne. Yet, he did not laugh last; for some reason, the officers of the City Defense Forces found his involvement in the First Prince's assassination and summarily avenged His Highness the First Prince.

The old King's body was still displayed in the mourning hall, yet not buried, when his sons had already died three. Frightened, the Third Prince fled overnight, while the Fourth Prince was blocked and captured before leaving the King City.

The fleeing Third Prince met with an accident on the road; his driver survived, his secretary in the car survived, but he and his guard both mysteriously died in the luxurious Rolls-Royce car.

Held by the City Defense Forces, the Fourth Prince was again declared king, and this Fourth Prince, almost terrified to the point of wetting his pants, managed to complete the coronation.

He fortunately became the 18th King of the nation, becoming rightfully Gobur the Eighteenth. Everyone thought this turmoil was finally over, but no one expected that it was far from finished.

After only two days as King, Gobur the Eighteenth mysteriously drowned in the swimming pool of his Royal Palace. Those who knew him were aware that he could swim, yet he strangely died in shallow water this time.

The ministers had become numb to such events; they merely conducted a cursory investigation and then hurriedly buried this King.

Legitimately, Gobur XVIII's son, who was only a mischievous four-year-old, became the new King, and then a coup began.

The new King Gobur XIX's uncle, another son of Gobur XVII, coveted the throne and bribed the generals of the City Defense Forces, once again bathing the Royal Palace in blood.

Even the envoys stationed in the Gobur Kingdom were caught off guard by the rapid change of several kings in this powerful nation of the Southern Region.

The uncle killed his nephew and seized his throne, subsequently reaching the pinnacle of his life as Gobur XX.

But his joy was short-lived; on the fifth day after becoming the king, he was poisoned. By the time doctors arrived, he was already dead, unable to announce his successor on his deathbed.

In reality, his sons were even younger, and even if they became kings, they likely wouldn't be able to suppress the ministers who had already disrupted the social order.

Everyone now had their own agendas and their own forces; the sanctity of royal power was long gone, and everyone secretly coveted the bloody throne.

The various factions, blinded by bloodlust, gambled all their chips; the bloody struggle for the throne had left the few remaining royal family members trembling in fear.

They wished to ascend the throne to become the ruler of this country, but they didn't want to die immediately upon sitting on it…

The events unfolded so suddenly, taking less than half a month in total, leaving even the intelligence department of the Great Tang Empire surprised and unable to respond to events in this distant land.

There was nothing they could do; this had been Shireck's sphere of influence, and the distance was great enough that the intelligence department of the Great Tang Empire had not yet deployed forces to exert sufficient influence here.

Most of the intelligence work of the Tang Country here relied on Shireck's original intelligence personnel, and it turned out that Shireck's intelligence personnel were not particularly competent...

Eventually, the Gobur generals stationed at the border joined the power allocation feast, announcing their allegiance to the Dorne Empire! This was the most explosive climax of the entire farce!

The Dorne Empire received what they couldn't acquire through war, gifted to them on a silver platter! Dorne the First gladly received an entire nation, expanding even faster than the Qin Country and the Great Tang Empire!

As the border region became new territory of Dorne, Dorne's army marched south, sweeping through the entire Gobur Kingdom.

Two evenly matched nations, united overnight! The whole world was dumbfounded by this farce, except the intelligence agency of the Great Tang Empire, which vaguely detected a scent of Sofia in the air.

If Sofia hadn't been fanning the flames from behind the scenes, the farce likely wouldn't have contained so many twists and turns. The development traces of the whole situation were somewhat significant, and the Great Tang Empire decoded Sofia's cipher, finding some clues in the communication contents.

Originally, overthrowing a country was not an easy task, but concerning Gobur, it all seemed reasonable.

Firstly, this country was originally under Shireck's control, where Sofia had operated for so many years, making it deep-rooted.

With Sofia's intentional management over the years, planting some Dingzi and creating some trouble here seemed incredibly simple.

Accounting for the Dorne Empire's push behind the scenes, it became unsurprising that the Gobur Kingdom met this fate.

After all the commotion, the Laines Empire was left dumbfounded: they had already been under considerable pressure in the Southern Region, and now the Dorne Empire's territory more than doubled! Owning much of the industrial foundation of the Shireck Consortium, their strength had surpassed that of Laines.

Having such a neighbor was not a good thing! The Laines Empire had to begin deploying more troops to the Southern Region and start constructing more defensive fortifications.

Moreover, Leines I also phoned Sussas I, and the two emperors discussed the threat of the Dorne Empire for a long while.

The world order saw slight changes due to this Gobur palace coup: the Northern part of the Eastern Continent's wars were no longer the focus of attention; everyone was watching, wondering what the already-rising Dorne Empire would choose to do next.

Without the constraints of the Gobur Kingdom, Dorne the First was geographically unburdened from concerns. Upon acquiring Shireck's industrial foundation, how much bolder would his ambitions grow?

On the other hand, the Laines Empire and the Suthers Empire, always focusing their attention northward, along with the Empire of Nanla…how would they face the new challenges emerging from the South?