My Imperial Advisor is ChatGPT

Chapter 61 The Roar of the Heartless Cannon, and Where Did the Stolen Rails Go?

The setting sun, like blood, dyed the Gobi Desert of the Hexi Corridor a chilling dark red.

The "Black Dragon" train, like a giant beast with its spine severed, lay paralyzed on the dried-up riverbed. Only the dozen or so armored carriages still parked on the tracks, lined up end to end, formed a long, steel serpentine formation, appearing particularly lonely and sturdy amidst the swirling yellow sand.

"collapse--!"

A dull twang of a string broke the deathly silence of dusk.

On the flatbed carriage in the middle of the train, the giant spring catapult, which Hu Hai jokingly called "Thor's Hammer," suddenly sprang up. A tightly bound explosive charge, the size of a millstone, drew a clumsy but deadly parabola in the air and whistled as it crashed into a sand dune five hundred paces away.

A group of camel riders were gathering there, ready to launch a charge.

"BOOM!!!"

The earth trembled violently. There was no earth-shattering fire, only a shockwave carrying countless tiny stones and iron nails, which instantly swept across an area of ​​several dozen feet in radius.

The screams were swallowed by the deafening explosion. Several frightened camels foamed at the mouth, frantically throwing their riders off their backs, then rolling on the sand, dragging their broken legs.

Standing on the roof of the chariot, holding the windproof lighter he used to light cigarettes, Xiang Yu looked at the horrific scene in the distance, a cruel yet satisfied smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"This thing... it's fucking heartless."

Xiang Yu patted the thick cannon barrel, as if he were patting his beloved warhorse.

"No accuracy or skill is needed. Just throw it, and that area of ​​land will be flattened. That scholar Zhang Liang was right; this is called 'area-effect damage.'"

Beside him, Meng Tian was observing the enemy formation through a telescope, his brow furrowed.

"General Xiang, use them sparingly. We don't have many explosives left. These bandits have become too clever; they're too spread out. One blast won't kill many, but it has scared away quite a few camels."

"It's good that they've scared them away." Xiang Yu sneered, drawing his shotgun from his waist. "Without camels, let's see how they can outrun my bullets in the sand."

……

While the generals on the roof of the carriage were discussing their efficiency in killing the enemy, the atmosphere below the carriage was bleak.

Zhao Gao, wrapped in a tattered blanket, sat on the gravel of the roadbed, shivering as he held a bowl of hot water mixed with sand in his hands. His usually well-maintained, plump face was now swollen, with patches of black and white, resembling a bloated pig's head.

"What a tragedy... what a tragedy..."

Zhao Gao slurped up hot water while muttering to himself with a mournful face.

"Our family is destined to serve others, why did we have to come to this godforsaken place to build the railway? And shovel coal for that damned boiler? Now look what's happened, the locomotive has crashed, and my old back is about to break..."

"Shut up."

A cold voice interrupted his complaint.

Zhang Liang walked over, holding an iron ruler and a blueprint. Although he was also covered in dust, his scholarly arrogance remained undiminished.

"Prefect Zhao, instead of lamenting here, you should get up and get to work. His Majesty said that if you can't come up with a road repair plan before dawn, he'll throw you out to feed the camels."

Zhao Gao shuddered and quickly got up, which aggravated his wound, causing him to grimace in pain.

"Repair the road? What are we going to use to repair it?" Zhao Gao pointed to the bare roadbed ahead. "Those damned bastards stole all the rails! They even pulled out the spikes! The spare rails we brought on board are only enough to lay ten zhang (approximately 3.3 meters)! This is a gap of hundreds of miles!"

Zhang Liang pushed up his crystal glasses, a glint of shrewdness flashing in his eyes.

"Who said it was stolen?"

Zhang Liang pointed to a low wall in front of the enemy's position in the distance.

The wall gleamed with an eerie metallic sheen in the setting sun.

"Take a closer look, what is that wall made of?"

Zhao Gao squinted his swollen eyes, took a closer look, and immediately gasped.

What was that wall? It was clearly a series of dark iron rails, piled up haphazardly, with sandbags filling the gaps, forming an impregnable defensive line!

"My goodness..." Zhao Gao trembled with rage. "These spendthrifts! That's high-carbon steel! His Majesty spent a fortune to forge it! And they actually used it... used it to build pigsties?"

"This is humiliating."

Zhang Liang's voice was cold. As the chief engineer of this railway, seeing his hard work being wasted like this, his anger was even greater than Xiang Yu's.

"They not only blocked our way, but they also used our way to block our bullets."

"Zhao Gao, His Majesty wants to build a road. The road materials are right across the street. If you want to live, you have to find a way to... steal those rails back."

Zhao Gao's legs went weak: "Rob? That's Xiang Yu's business! I'm just a boiler operator!"

"No."

Ying Zheng's voice suddenly came from behind.

Before anyone knew it, the First Emperor had stepped off the train. He wasn't wearing heavy armor, but rather a black wool cloak, and he was still holding that thermos in his hand.

"Xiang Yu is in charge of killing. You are in charge of 'collecting trash'."

Ying Zheng looked at the defensive line made of iron rails in the distance, his eyes showing no anger, only a calmness that seemed to have seen through everything.

"Little G".

"Tell me, aren't my enemies a little too 'honest'?"

Your Majesty, this is called "resource misallocation."

They knew nothing about metallurgy or railways. In their eyes, these heavy iron bars were utterly useless except as cover.

However, this also gives us an opportunity.

The rails are conductive. Although there's no generator right now, what if you could make use of that locomotive that's fallen into the ditch…?

Ying Zheng raised an eyebrow.

"locomotive?"

He walked to the edge of the huge crater and looked at the locomotive, half-buried in the sand, now turned off and cooled.

Although it was deformed from the fall, the huge boiler remained intact and was even emitting a slight hissing sound because it was still warm.

"Zhao Gao."

"Yes, sir!"

"I remember there's a pressure relief valve on this locomotive? If the pressure gets too high, steam will spray out from there?"

"Yes...yes, Your Majesty." Zhao Gao was puzzled. "That was to prevent the barrel from exploding."

"very good."

Ying Zheng pointed to the locomotive and then to the enemy in the distance.

"Tonight, I want you and the Mohists to work through the night."

"Fix that boiler for me. Remove the pressure relief valve and connect a long pipe."

"Pour the tube with the 'fierce fire oil' we brought from the Epang Palace."

Zhao Gao was stunned: "Your Majesty, what are you trying to do?"

A cruel smile curled at the corner of Ying Zheng's mouth.

"I want to turn it into a... larger 'sprayer'."

"Since they like to hide behind the railway tracks like turtles, then I will give them a 'hot bath'."

……

As night fell, the temperature in the desert plummeted.

On the enemy's position, bonfires were lit.

The commander of this hunt was not a Xiongnu, but a middle-aged man dressed in a Persian robe with a curly beard. He was Surun (a pseudonym), the leader of the Parthian rebels. Invited by Modu Chanyu, he led his camel army, equipped with matchlock muskets, specifically to ambush the Qin army.

"That iron serpent has stopped moving." Suren sipped his wine, gazing at the dark train in the distance. "The Qin people have run out of water and roads. They can't hold out for three more days."

"General, you are wise," the adjutant flattered. "Those iron bars are really useful. The Qin muskets can only make a sound when they fire at them. As long as we hold this wall, we can starve them out."

Suren sneered, "Tell the brothers to be on high alert. That madman named Xiang Yu might launch a sneak attack."

However, that night was unusually quiet.

The Qin army did not launch an attack, nor did they throw those terrible explosive charges again.

Only from the direction of the locomotive that had fallen into the ditch could one faintly hear the clanging and banging of the bellows.

"What are they doing? Repairing a car?" the adjutant asked, puzzled.

"Hmph, a desperate struggle." Suren scoffed. "So what if the car is fixed? If there's no road, does it think it can fly over?"

Time passes little by little.

The darkness before dawn is the deepest.

Sudden.

"Huffing and puffing—"

A strange panting sound came from the bottom of the ravine.

The sound grew more urgent and heavy, like a sleeping giant awakening.

Suren jumped up: "What was that sound?"

Before he could react...

"Ughhhhhh!!!"

A piercingly mournful whistle rang out in the silent desert.

Immediately afterwards, a blinding burst of fire erupted from the direction of the abandoned locomotive.

That's not a cannonball.

It was a fire dragon.

After Zhao Gao and the Mohists worked through the night to modify it, the huge steam boiler was reignited, and the pressure was pushed to its limit. Through a specially made pressurization pipe, scalding steam mixed with high-purity flammable oil was ejected under high pressure.

"Zzz—Boom!"

The fire dragon, tens of feet long, instantly crossed the dried-up riverbed and directly licked the defensive line made of railway tracks.

"ah!!!"

The screams instantly tore through the night sky.

The burning oil adhered to the rails and burned fiercely. Steel conducts heat extremely quickly, and the once impregnable defense line instantly turned into a red-hot iron wall.

The camel soldiers hiding behind were either burned to death or scalded and their skin torn open.

"What is this?! Hellfire?!" Suren was terrified, his beard was singed by the heat.

"charge!"

Ying Zheng stood on the roof of the chariot, drew his sword, and roared angrily.

"Tick-tock tick-tock—"

The stirring bugle call to charge sounded.

The Qin soldiers, who had been lying in ambush on both sides of the carriage, charged out like tigers descending a mountain.

Xiang Yu took the lead. He didn't ride a horse (the horse was still on the chariot), but galloped on foot. He carried the "Breaking Formation" giant sword in his hand, and in the firelight, he looked like a god of war.

"Open it for me!"

Xiang Yu rushed to the red-hot iron rail wall, unafraid of the high temperature, and kicked it with all his might.

"Boom!"

The already crumbling railway wall was kicked open with a large gap. Hot rails scattered all over the ground, sizzling loudly.

Xiang Yu charged into the enemy ranks, stepping onto the red-hot iron rails.

"die!"

The long sword swept horizontally.

Those camel soldiers, still in a state of chaos and terror, were as fragile as scarecrows in front of Xiang Yu.

Following closely behind were Qin "special forces" armed with shotguns and repeating crossbows.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Gunfire erupted.

This is a massacre.

Suren tried to organize a resistance, but he found that his men had completely collapsed. Faced with this fire-breathing monster and this invulnerable killing machine, their psychological defenses were more fragile than the iron railroad wall.

"Retreat! Retreat now!"

Suren turned his camel around, intending to escape.

But at that moment, a bullet (actually a crossbow bolt) struck him precisely in the back.

He screamed and fell to the ground.

……

Its daybreak.

The battle is over.

The battlefield was filled with the smell of burning and blood.

Zhao Gao slumped down next to the completely wrecked locomotive, his face covered in soot, but his smile was more like a grimace.

"Your Majesty...this servant...this servant did not disgrace you, did I?"

Ying Zheng walked over and looked at the old servant who had almost blown himself up in an attempt to increase pressure, and a rare, gentle smile appeared on his face.

"I'm not ashamed."

"Zhao Gao, you have done a great service this time."

"When we get back, I will reward you... I will reward you with the best bomb suit."

Zhao Gao: "..."

Ying Zheng turned around and looked at the scattered railway tracks.

After being burned by the fire, these rails were deformed and twisted beyond recognition.

"The road is ruined." Meng Tian walked over, somewhat regretfully. "These railway tracks are ruined and can't be laid anymore."

"Is it ruined?"

Ying Zheng picked up an iron bar that was still warm.

"No."

"The road is under your feet."

"Since the railway tracks are no longer usable, let's... turn them into something else."

Ying Zheng looked at the soldiers who were cleaning up the battlefield; their armor was mostly damaged in the battle.

"Little G".

"Is this considered 'backfire'?"

[Yes. After being heated to a high temperature and then naturally cooled, although the hardness decreases, the toughness increases.]

[Your Majesty, although these rails cannot be used to pave roads, they are excellent materials for forging weapons and reinforcing war chariots.]

Ying Zheng nodded.

"Pass on the order."

"Collect these rails. Have the blacksmiths accompanying the army start a furnace on the spot."

"Turn them into 'bulletproof plates' and hang them on our carriages."

"Since the train can't move, let's switch to a horse-drawn carriage."

"I want to assemble a... 'armored vehicle convoy'."

"Even without the railway, I will still crush this desert, all the way to the walls of Dayuan!"

Under the sunlight, the artisans of the Qin Dynasty began to wield their hammers.

Those railway tracks that once carried civilization and speed have, amidst their clanging sounds, transformed into thick armor plates.

Although they lost speed, the Qin army became even more invincible.

Meanwhile, in the city of Dayuan, far to the west...

Maodun looked at the battle report in his hand, his face terribly gloomy.

"Fire dragon? Iron armor?"

"Ying Zheng... just how many more tricks do you have up your sleeve?"

He gripped the Uzi steel knife tightly in his hand.

"it is good."

"Now that you've turned into an iron turtle, I'll show you what... wolf pack tactics really are."