Munitions Empire

"You seize the opportunity during a disaster, capitalize on the flood to declare war on us… and now you turn around and talk to us about reason and justice?" The big-bearded commander laughed at his own words, amused by such nonsensical arguments.

"I…" Li Ping felt his mouth dry, words stuck in his throat, unable to come out.

However, since he had braved coming here, he couldn't simply give up; giving up would mean Fengjiang City was lost, and the Dahua Empire was doomed!

So he persisted, enduring, searching for more words to make his case more persuasive.

"If that's the case, then how about we make a trade? The Dahua Empire promises… to stop any sabotage activities targeting the southern oil fields! How about that?" Finally, believing he couldn't convince the Tang People on moral grounds, Li Ping brought out his second proposal.

The oil production bases of Tang Country, or rather, those of the Dahua Empire occupied by Tang Country, were still within the bombing range of the Dahua Empire's bombers, a bargaining chip offered by General Feng Kezhi for negotiation.

"A joke, your bombing attempts a few days ago were already thwarted!" The big-bearded commander had, of course, heard about the recent fierce air battles and immediately refuted Li Ping's statement.

This exchange was impossible because the conditions for the exchange did not hold: Tang Country's Air Force was stronger, and the Dahua bombers had no chance of returning from their missions, rendering further attacks unfeasible.

"You can ask your higher-ups about this... better yet, ask your King himself!" Li Ping felt a surge of triumph, thinking he had regained the upper hand.

In fact, over the past two days, at General Feng Ke's behest, Zhao Chen had organized several more bombing raids targeting the southern oil fields from Sword Pavilion.

Since daytime raids were easily intercepted by Tang Army fighter jets, Zhao Chen had switched to nighttime raids, stealthily bombing the southern oil fields.

However, these few stealth bombing raids, on a traditional scale, had a bit of a... gap in magnitude.

After all, the Dahua Empire lacked the technology for night formations and corresponding radio navigation, so organizing dozens or hundreds of planes for nighttime raids was out of the question.

Thus Zhao Chen could only send up a few planes at a time, at most a dozen, relying purely on luck to carry out nighttime stealth attacks on the southern oil fields.

The entire process could be described as fantastical: During the first raid, all bombers lost their way and none returned.

The next day, they tried again, and a dozen bombers failed to locate their target, while half were shot down by Tang Army anti-aircraft guns.

The third time was finally a success! Yes, a success! But only one plane lucked out and flew over the southern oil fields, dropping bombs to complete the raid.

Unfortunately, those bombs only destroyed a section of the pipeline and ultimately delayed Tang Country's oil production by just over two hours.

But General Feng Ke believed that such bombing would deter the Tang Army leadership, making them wary. It was perfect as a bargaining chip to exchange for a promise from Tang Army not to use white phosphorus bombs.

With the discussion reaching this point, indeed it was not a decision that a mere commander could make. So the big-bearded commander, who had a status equivalent to Tagg in the Northern Ridge, immediately sent a message to Bolton.

Bolton was baffled, not expecting the other side to behave so shamelessly, all for the sake of securing a ban on the Tang Army's new weapon, the white phosphorus bomb.

Yet the proposed exchange was too enticing, so Bolton had no choice but to pass the message on to Chief of Staff Luff.

Luff immediately took the message to Tang Mo and solicited his opinion, and Tang Mo was surprisingly generous in his response, "Agree to their terms!"

"But, we take the lead in getting the whole world to sign a treaty, prohibiting the research and use of white phosphorus bombs!" Tang Mo said this with a triumphant smile on his face.

"Your Majesty! We can solve the problem with nighttime air defense very soon… agreeing to this now, won't we be at a loss?" Luff was privy to many secrets; he knew that the Air Force had a hush-hush plan for a nighttime air defense weapon, and he also knew that the plan seemed to be taking shape.

"At a loss? No, not at a loss! When have you ever seen me lose out?" Tang Mo smiled even more, waving his hand and saying, "Go on! Proceed as I've instructed! And then release it in the papers, set the tone high! Say we are considering the common people, for humane spirits, to reduce slaughter, we voluntarily give up the victory at our fingertips!"

"With the moral high ground, we alone can berate others!" Having said this, Tang Mo bowed his head and continued to draw up a schematic for a new type of weapon.

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I only wrote this much today, and it's not enough for three chapters, so it won't count as a makeup update.