Syringe in One Hand, Gun in the Other 24 (Patreon)

Syringe in One Hand, Gun in the Other

Chapter 24

-VB-

Alan Marris

Our audience with the king got delayed as the man took his daughter’s aggressive and offensive behavior personally. While we were sure that she wasn’t getting beaten for her behavior in front of a foreign dignitary, Princess Jaehwa still got a serious tongue-lashing from her royal father.

While we might have enjoyed the scene if we got the chance to see it, part of the reason why all of our clones had been in our assigned room and not exploring (which we did have permission for) was that half of the hivemind was focused back in our outpost on this Earth because our scouts had seen suspicious movements from the nearest warlord.

We also knew why this particular warlord might be here.

See, we rejected a number of deals powerful people offered.

See, the Qing warlord was not exactly a horrible man. Oh, he still committed some heinous warcrimes, but he wasn’t a corrupt man who used his power to force himself on other men’s wives like the warlord over in Xi’an did (or at least, that was the rumor). The Qing Warlord, Yuan Xuan, was only called a warlord because he chose to rise up against the dominant Han Chinese who took to killing Qing/Manchu when the Qing Dynasty fell. That and the fact that he was a vindictive bastard who took pleasure to harming people who he perceives as his enemy or his people’s enemy.

Yeah, he was better than most of the Chinese warlords in comparison because he was an ethnic - not ethical - warlord who was more focused on a few targets instead of enjoying his position in life and abusing his people on his people.

We just happened to be one of those targets because we 1) rejected his offer of employment, 2) killed Manchu raiders who, while not working for the Qing warlord still attacked us and thus we returned fire and killed them, 3) we were foreigners, 4) we occasionally saved Han Chinese his soldiers, warriors, and horse riders attacked, 5) our first outpost was on Liaoning Province which he claimed as his, 6) the Akitsushima Dominion “supported” them, and 7) we told him no a lot.

So we supposed that he had many reasons to dislike us, which was enough to justify fielding a whole division of armed soldiers to our doorstep while he was still actively at war with the Mongolian warlord, the White Rusky Remnants, and the Chinese warlord in Beijing.

… While that might sound like a lot, a division was, at max, twenty-five thousand soldiers. On top of that, they lacked a lot of the weaponry that made a division formidable. I would be surprised if they had equipped a tenth of their modern (20th century) military equipment.

-VB-

Warlord Yuan Xuan

Xuan dusted himself after climbing on top of the Bishimitsu military truck, one of many that he secured from his cooperation with Akitsushima Dominion, and looked down the mountainside toward the river that separated Liaoning Province from the more civilized barbarians of the Imperial Kingdom of Joseon. Just near the river and still on his side of it was the mercenary band’s base of operations.

While he did not have a bone to pick with the complacent and often docile kingdom, the mercenaries that had been metaphorically digging into his side expanded their operations to their kingdom. But who would really complain about a few shells if his artillery missed and landed on their side of the border? It wasn’t as if Joseon's military mattered with how outdated they were, even compared to what the Qing Dynasty had.

Sure, he might get a bit of flak from his aides and foreign dignitaries, but he was determined to see these mercenaries gone before they accepted a deal too lucrative to attack him in his homeland.

He looked over his shoulder at the 3rd Infantry Division and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Company he’d brought to see these mercenaries dead and gone.

“Alright, move up!” he ordered. “I want a base secured on our side of the river and out of the reach of whatever long-range weapon they have before nightfall!”

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Alan Marris

The clones at our Joseon border base watched with our binoculars as the Manchu warlord and his army made their way down to the flatter coastline. While they tried to set up camp outside of reasonable artillery range at roughly twenty-five miles away from our outpost. This showed that the warlord, or whoever was actually in charge, at least knew how modern warfare was conducted.

Fortunately for him, we didn’t have any artillery piece to call our own. We never needed one before.

Unfortunately for him, we’d heard about him coming a few days in advance so our clones on Earth Nun had tinkered up our artillery.

A large gate opened between our Earth Nun compound and Earth G (the Earth where this was taking place), and the one artillery piece we made using our own tech and a bit of Cyberpunk 2070 rolled onto the courtyard of the wooden compounded outpost.

Once the dimensional gate closed, we adjusted and calibrated our artillery. We waited for nightfall, noting that the enemy had chosen to set up camp.

Then we loaded the artillery up with a wide area napalm spreadshot charge.

Finally… we fired.

-VB-

Warlord Yuan Xuan

Just as he was about to turn in for the night, there was a flash in the sky that shined even through his tent fabric. He quickly left the tent and looked up.

His eyes widened as he found himself looking at a scene unlike any other. Something had exploded high above their camp and fanned out like droplets of oil on the surface of still water. They were bright, yellow, red, and even some orange. His soldiers were muttering among themselves, and they looked tense.

Yuan was about to say something when he noticed that … they were getting closer.

And then his eyes widened.

They weren’t just getting closer. They were on fire.

He made a snap decision.

“Quick, abandon camp! Run, now!” he shouted.

A second later, there was a pandemonium as two thousand soldiers tried to leave camp.

But the flames came too fast.

It was a rain of fire.

Yuan screamed as one of those flames fell on him. He rolled and rolled but the flames refused to go out.

He died screaming as the fire spread all over his body and burned him and his army alive.

-VB-

A/N: say goodbye to the one-chapter character who I named after Yuan Shikai and Zhang Xuan, two men who tried to keep imperial China alive for their profit and loyalty, respectively.