Cannon Fire Arc

Chapter 970: Chapter 19 Don Quixote_2

“You’re a traitor too!” The Emperor slammed the table. “You refuse to carry out this order! You’re still thinking about reducing sentences!”

At this moment, the Minister of Propaganda raised his voice: “The 9th Army Group has been treated kindly, which shows that Ante is already planning for the post-war era. They are trying to establish a secular Prosen to oppose the United Kingdom and Carolus.

“We easily defeated the United Kingdom and the Carolus Army. We have valuable experience, and Ante needs our expertise to deal with their future enemies! Your Majesty! If only…”

The Emperor: “If only I die, right?”

Minister of Propaganda: “We will all die, but the Prosen people will be saved, the army will be saved!”

“Ridiculous!” The Emperor slammed the table. “The Prosen people also enjoyed the fruits of our victory; they too dreamed of Great Pulosen! Now they must pay the price with me! They cannot claim to be Great Pulosen advocates only when we are victorious!”

The Emperor turned to the Minister of Internal Affairs: “Has the scorched earth policy been implemented? Destroy all heating systems, burn all fuel and food, make Ante’s army have to supply these people, to highlight their so-called justice.

“This will cripple their logistics, buying us at least half a year! In half a year, we will complete the atomic bomb, and the war will be rewritten!”

In fact, the Imperial Academy of Sciences had already reported that the critical mass of the atomic bomb might have been miscalculated. But evidently, the Emperor had either forgotten this point or deliberately ignored it.

Minister of Propaganda: “Your Majesty!”

At this moment, the earth suddenly trembled.

The chandelier in the office started swinging like a pendulum, causing the shadows in the room to sway back and forth.

Fragments of fine gravel rained down like hail, landing on people’s hair and shoulder decorations.

The Emperor raised his head, only to have gravel fall directly onto his glasses.

Holding onto a slim hope, he asked, “Is it thunder?”

However, the tremors intensified, and everyone in the room struggled to stand steadily.

The Emperor: “Are the enemy’s artillery firing? How is this possible! Have artillery positions already advanced so close to us? Find out immediately where the shells are coming from!”

Only then did the Emperor remember that there was a telephone right on his desk. He picked up the phone: “Connect me to the City Defense Command.”

A moment later, the voice of General Hoppe, Commander of the City Defense, came through: “This is Hoppe, Your Majesty, please speak.”

“Artillery shells have hit my royal palace bunker! Where is your headquarters now?”

“At the Noske Fortress directly east. If the enemy’s artillery units had bypassed the fortress, I would know.”

The Emperor: “They have bypassed it! Listen to this earth-shaking noise; it’s heavy artillery bombardment! Find out where the artillery positions are immediately, then dispatch troops to annihilate them!”

Hoppe paused noticeably before replying: “Understood, I will send out troops.”

The Emperor hung up the phone, exhaled deeply, and said to those present: “Hoppe is unreliable! The enemy’s artillery has come right to the city, yet he’s still stationed in a fortress 20 kilometers away from the city center! This proves he’s useless!

“Now all we can rely on is Steiner. Two weeks ago, he began mobilizing forces; as long as Steiner launches an attack, everything will turn around!”

The Prosen generals exchanged glances, and finally, everyone focused their eyes on Celtic Marshal.

Celtic Marshal loosened the discipline buckle on his collar as if doing so allowed him to breathe freely, then he said: “Your Majesty, Steiner…”

The Marshal’s deputy interrupted: “Steiner lacks sufficient troops. He has only gathered ten battalions, not even enough to make a ripple. That’s why he hasn’t launched an attack.”

The Emperor’s hands trembled as he took off his glasses and placed them on the table.

“Everyone except the Minister of Propaganda, Celtic, and Mayer, get out.”

The room’s occupants exchanged glances.

The entire subterranean bunker was still trembling continuously.

Finally, someone turned and opened the iron door, and the next moment, the generals and civil officials filed out, leaving behind only the Emperor’s three most trusted associates.

Suddenly, the Emperor bellowed in rage, slamming his pencil onto the table: “You’re all traitors! All these years, you people have been holding me back!

“You learned nothing from the military academies except how to eat with knives and forks!

“I conquered all of Europa; Blitzkrieg was so brilliant, so brilliant!

“And now we’ve ended up like this! I should have sent all you surrender advocates to be executed, like Rocossov did!”

The Minister of Propaganda couldn’t help but interject: “Your Majesty, Rocossov only executed two generals; punishment of surrender advocates was the Tribunal’s work…”

“What’s the difference? If Siegfried were still here, I wouldn’t have to rely on you incompetent fools!”

After speaking, the Emperor slumped into his chair, remaining silent for a long time before finally saying: “At least I sent my sister to the southwest. She should already have been captured by the Allied Forces.

“This way, my sister won’t fall into Rocossov’s hands and become his concubine.”

After speaking, the Emperor again descended into silence.

The room continued to shake under the heavy artillery bombardment; the chandelier swayed noisily as if it could fall at any moment.

After what seemed like an eternity, the shelling ceased, but the chandelier still swung back and forth, occasionally flickering due to unstable electrical voltage.

The Emperor finally spoke: “Go. The war is lost; we are defeated; Prosen is defeated.”

The three individuals in the room exchanged glances, and ultimately it was Duke Mayer who took the lead, turning and walking out the door.

The other two followed his bulky frame.

Outside the door, the others waited nervously, the Emperor’s newly appointed typist secretary covering her mouth and crying softly.

Celtic Marshal: “Everyone may disperse. Soldiers can leave Pulosenia and head west to surrender to the Allied Forces. However, Rocossov’s forces are already within striking range; the units that broke through upstream of the Oder River are encircling Pulosenia. Their advance is swift, more than sixty kilometers a day.”

“Thanks to our highways.”

“If you’re going to flee, you must leave right now.”

Several officers did not hesitate and turned around.

Yet some remained motionless.

Celtic Marshal: “Don’t stay behind. The Anteans will hang us if you do.”

Finally, those individuals also turned to leave.

Duke Mayer moved his bulky frame with an unexpectedly quick speed through hallways and civil officials, disappearing into the garage door.

Minister of Propaganda: “I’ll try to make contact with the United Kingdom; perhaps they’ll accept our petition for political asylum.”

With that, he too left.

The Marshal’s deputy asked: “Marshal, what about you?”

The Marshal: “Someone has to sign the surrender papers. Or are you thinking His Majesty will sign them?”

The deputy shook his head: “Hard to imagine that we would surrender earlier than the Empire of Fusang.”

Just then, the secretarial officer emerged from the adjacent decoding room, saluting the last two individuals in the hallway: “Marshal! A cipher message from our military attaché in the Empire of Fusang has arrived.”

The Marshal brightened: “Have they surrendered first?”

“No, they are still preparing for their ‘One Hundred Million Honorable Deaths’ strategy. However, their final trump card—aviation battleship converted from the super large battleship class—was sunk at Hachijojima by Admiral Tom’s Special Composite Fleet.

“And last week, the Changmen Battleship was sunk by a submarine off Wu Port anchorage. The Ise and Hyuga aviation battleships ran aground deliberately, becoming fixed artillery platforms. The Fusang Imperial Navy now has no large-scale operational warships.”

Celtic Marshal sighed: “Damn it, they managed to drag it out to the bitter end. Whether in technology or combat willpower, Prosen’s greatness far surpasses that of Fusang. Yet we… forget it; it’s all over.”

From the Emperor’s office next door, a gunshot rang out.

It seemed that the Emperor’s palace steward had taken his own life.

Celtic Marshal and his deputy turned their heads to look at the door behind them.

The Emperor, however, remained unmoved.

Deputy Officer: “What do you think His Majesty will do?”

Celtic Marshal: “Maybe he’ll don his ancestral armor, mount a white horse, and charge Ante’s tanks. After all, the Prosen Royal Family is descended from the Teutonic Knights.

“At least that would have some aesthetic value.”

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