Chapter 927 Road to Death (3rd update, please subscribe)

“…The Grim Reaper has arrived, with an army of 150,000 led by Prince Gaston. The Grim Reaper’s scythe has fallen from the sky, turning the highway into hell.

When it was all over, thousands of carriages on the road were burning in flames, and the exploding shells blew the carriages into pieces. The bodies of people and horses were everywhere within a few hundred meters of the road. No one counted how many people died, but in the end, less than a third of them escaped to Sao Paulo. For Brazilians, this was a "road of death."

Overnight, the name of "Death Road" became famous due to the news reports in the New York Times, and of course it also intensified Americans' fear of airships.

As a weapon that has only been invented for a few years, the power displayed by the airship is astonishing. Although it has not yet destroyed the world, it still caused Americans to fall into "airship panic". After all, the Ming Dynasty... is a potential enemy of the United States!

…

The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., USA.

At this time, a special arms meeting was being held.

"The role of large long-range airships is very, very, very important! Everything proves this point. Since the Ming army invaded Brazil, the Brazilian army was not so much defeated by the Ming army as it was destroyed by the Ming airship force! From the outbreak of the war until now, except for the fierce land battle in Montevideo, the Ming army and the Brazilian army have used bombing as their tactic most of the time!"

General Grant, the Secretary of War, emphasized this.

"Bombing! Non-stop bombing. Finally, before their infantry were deployed on the battlefield, the Brazilian army was actually severely damaged!"

"etc,"

President Hayes suddenly interrupted,

"General, I remember you said earlier that airships are very fragile weapons."

"Yes, Mr. President."

Grant explained.

"It's fragile because it uses hydrogen. As long as we can ignite it, it will be vulnerable. But as long as we can't hit it, it won't fall from the sky by itself! What will fall will only be a bomb!"

The whole world knows that airships are fragile, but the whole world also knows that airships are difficult to attack, because a shell will not explode when it hits the airbag, and a bullet will only make a small hole in the airbag.

"If we can't defeat him, then how can we resist the airship? Even if we build a lot of airships, what's the point?"

"Mr. President, at least as long as we have airships, we won't passively take a beating. When they bomb us with airships, we can also use airships to fight back. Hmm... maybe this is the balance of terror. Of course, it's not just that. We will develop combat airships, like the Ming people, using machine guns to penetrate the airbags, and then using signal guns to ignite the airships. Of course, we are discussing with arms dealers to design a special high-speed signal flare that can not only penetrate the airbags, but also ignite hydrogen."

Grant's words made President Hayes frown. He looked at the report on building 300 airships that was about to be submitted to Congress for review, and then said.

"Since we have this kind of weapon, is it necessary for us to build airships?"

"Balance, Mr. President. We must not only have combat airships that can intercept airships, but also airships that can carry out bombings. After all, the Brazilian battlefield has proved this point. Any army without airships is doomed to fail! We can see that the Ming people turned airships into air cruisers. They searched everywhere for ground targets to bomb. They were like a pack of wolves. After discovering the target, they pounced on it from all directions and killed the opponent. This is how Prince Gaston failed."

After thinking for a while, Grant said again.

"And I have a guess, an educated guess!"

"Oh? What's your guess, General?"

President Hayes asked rhetorically.

"In the past few days, I have been thinking... maybe the Ming people already have a new telegraph, a telegraph that does not require cables!"

"A telegraph that doesn't require cables?"

President Hayes was stunned.

"Can telegraphs be sent without cables?"

"Mr. President!" Secretary of State William Maxwell Evarts responded.

"It's not impossible. Of course, it seems like a fantasy to us. However, considering the existence of the Ming Dynasty's "Imperial Central Laboratory", which has been leading the world's scientific frontiers in the past decade, they may have developed a telegraph that does not require cables! They may even have been using it for several years. Otherwise, there would not be so many coincidences - how did the Ming Dynasty immediately know about the events happening overseas and quickly dispatch their fleet?"

"Yes, Mr. President, if it happened once, it's a coincidence, but it can't be a coincidence twice!"

Before the Prime Minister realized the seriousness of the problem, Grant further explained:

"Mr. President, as we all know, large rigid airships can stay in the air for a long time and fly a long distance. Large airships can fly continuously for hundreds of hours and fly thousands of miles! If they have this kind of telegraph, they can promptly inform the air patrol airships and rear bases of the location of the discovered target... This is also the situation faced by the Brazilians... The Brazilians' every move is always under the surveillance of the Ming airships! When they were marching, they suffered a devastating blow!"

How did the Death Highway become the Death Highway?

That's how the Highway of Death became--an airship spotted, assembled via telegraph, and then bombed en masse!

However, for the world at this time, all this was just their speculation. Even Grant was not sure whether this speculation was true.

"Of course, this is just our speculation, but is there any better explanation besides this?"

Of course, there is no better explanation than this, but mere speculation is not enough, President Hayes asked after thinking for a while.

"Are there any scientists who can confirm this? I mean scientists who know enough about the Ming Dynasty, not scientists who know nothing about it."

President Hayes emphasized this because the vast majority of people in the United States did not know much about the Ming Dynasty. It could even be said that apart from the name and the crimes they committed, they did not have much clear understanding of this empire. Such scientists would certainly not be able to give an accurate answer.

"I do know someone who may be able to give us an accurate answer."

(End of this chapter)