Castle of Black Iron

Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory neighbored Gaoping Prefecture in Yanzhou Province. It only took Commander Cheng’s airboat 3 hours to arrive at Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory from Ninghe Prefecture in Yanzhou Province.

Even though nobody reminded him, Commander Cheng had already known when the airboat entered the air territory of Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory.

A team of 9 silver airplanes flew over from below the airboat of Commander Cheng in a tidy herringbone formation over 2,000 m high with the booms of engines.

Compared to the airboat, airplanes were much smaller and slower. However, at the first sight of those airplanes, Commander Cheng was indeed attracted by them.

Soon after Commander Cheng entered the air territory of Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory, he had relieved his slight frown.

“Are these airplanes being driven by Fiery Oil?” Commander Cheng asked Gao Tianqi while gazing at those airplanes flying across the clouds below with shiny eyes.

“Yes, they’re airplanes!” Gao Tianqi also seriously watched that team of airplanes below the airboat. Although Gao Tianqi was Commander Cheng’s chief guard nominally, he was always trained as a provincial governor. Therefore, Gao Tianqi also served as Commander Cheng’s secretary. He also paid attention to the military and political affairs in the northeast military region. Of course, Gao Tianqi had channels to acquire the messages about Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory in late months. He replied, “These airplanes are Air Cavalry Type-I. Over the past 2 months, all the cities in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory were building and renovating the universal airports for airships, airboats and airplanes. Additionally, they established an air cavalry academy outside Xuantian City, which drove the youngsters in Youzhou Province mad. Youngsters from other military regions and prefectures also went to learn how to drive airplanes over there…”

In this age, besides knights, nobody else could fly; therefore, it was very attractive for these youngsters to fly in the sky by driving a set of machine.

“Air cavalry academy? Where do their coaches come from?”

“It’s said that coaches were recruited from the crew of airships who could drive gliders. Nice treatment. The manipulating and flight principles of airplanes are not too much complex than that of driving gliders. They could attempt to drive an airplane only after being familiar with that. Aww, the teaching material of Iron-Dragon Air Cavalry Academy is called “Pilot Driving Manual”. It’s said that it was compiled by Qianji Hermit himself!”

After hearing that, Commander Cheng became really surprised, “Zhang Tie compiled that?”

“Commander, don’t forget that Qianji Hermit was known as Selnes Eagle before promoting to a knight and coming to Taixia Country when he was in the fiercest battlefield between humans and demons in Waii Subcontinent. It’s said that Qianji Hermit was the only air cavalry on the battlefield. He could drive the only artificial man-powered airplane on that battlefield. At that time, Qianji Hermit protected the entire airship troop in the sky alone and was regarded as the patron of many crews of airships in the sky!”

When Zhang Tie was a black iron knight, Gao Tianqi might still be jealous of Zhang Tie. However, due to the increasingly greater difference between them, Gao Tianqi only admired him.

“Let’s take a look downside there…” Commander Cheng became interested in the airplanes.

In this case, Gao Tianqi could only notice the crew of the airboat before following Commander Cheng off the airboat.

…

When the 9 airplanes were flying below the airboat, Cheng Honglie and Gao Tianqi suddenly appeared to one side of the first airplane. Being a few meters away from that airplane, they started to observe that airplane seriously. Meanwhile, they started to assess the performance and value of this airplane.

Thankfully, it was not the first time for the pilot to meet knights in the sky. Although the appearance of Cheng Honglie and Gao Tianqi shocked him a bit, he recovered his composure soon.

The pilot made a hand gesture to tell the other pilots to fly as scheduled.

The pilot of the first airplane was the team leader of this formation.

Behind the cockpit of the first airplane, the crew member who was responsible for manipulating a crossbow was only over 20 years old. He was watching Cheng Honglie and Gao Tianqi with widely opened eyes who were a few meters away.

Common fighters could barely see two flying knights in such a short distance.

When he found that this flight formation was not in a panic after seeing the two knights, Commander Cheng nodded inside.

Compared to the prototype that Zhang Tie once tried, the Air cavalry type-I was slightly modified in the cover of the cockpit, the chair in the cockpit, the rearview mirror, breathing system and the type of the steam crossbow behind the shooting cabin according to the opinions of the pilots and the bowmen after large-scale training over the past 2 months. After making these modifications, the 9 Type-I air cavalries were finally produced as the fixed type for mass production.

Just now, Commander Cheng and Gao Tianqi didn’t see the item below the abdomen of these airplanes due to visual angle. When they approached, they saw an item which was similar to that of white phosphorous gel incendiary bomb under each airplane.

The airplanes flew rapidly. Like that in Ninghe Prefecture, the land in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory was also golden all over. It was the season for summer harvest in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory.

Ninghe Prefecture’s summer harvest turned into a big fire on the fertile land. By contrast, the summer harvest in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory was ongoing fervently. When the prices of grains were rising across Taixia Country, the bumper harvest in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory made all the major clans and commoners in farming villages across Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory happy and spirited as if they were in a Shangri-la.

Farmers were busy reaping ears of wheat in farmlands. When they saw airplanes flying over, those people would raise their heads and wipe off their sweat as they waved their hands and cheered towards those airplanes.

In the half past month, Commander Cheng had inspected all the main grain producing areas across the entire northeast miliary region except for Youzhou Province. Wherever he was, he would always see miserable scenes. This summer grains failure was absolutely a large-scale catastrophe. Facing such a miserable situation, both officials and commoners were frightened, sad and restless. Therefore, the moment Commander Cheng saw the vigorous and hopeful scene in Fire-Dragon Bounty Territory, Commander Cheng felt pretty good immediately.

Although with two uninvited guests on their side, the formation of airplanes still stuck to their flight route as they were not affected by it at all.

After over 1 hour’s flight, the 9 airplanes finally entered the air territory of Yangui Mountain Range after passing by Wugong City and Dongyang City. After flying another half an hour over Yangui Mountain Range, they saw a valley being covered with mud, rocks and few shrubs and weeds within 100 miles under the formation of airplanes.

In the sky, they could see a huge, round area being drawn by lime whose diameter was hundreds of meters. Many people in military uniforms were waiting for something a few miles away from the other side of the round area.

When the 9 airplanes entered the air territory of this valley, all the airplanes suddenly tilted their wings as the entire formation divided into two groups. Closely after that, they dove down from thousands of meters high at high speed, causing wuthering sounds.

When the two groups of airplanes were hundreds of meters high above the round area, they suddenly dropped off the item which looked like white phosphorous gel incendiary bomb which flew towards that round area. When those bombs were dozens of meters away from the ground, all the bombs burned while giving out raging flames. In a split second, hot waves rushed into the sky. As a result, the greater part of the round area was covered by the hot flames. The land, weeds, shrubs even rocks in the white round area were burning heavily. Weeds and shrubs were burned into ashes; rocks were collapsed; mud was hardened. In the center of the white circle, the air turned thin due to surrounding flames…

When those airplanes started to dive down, Cheng Honglie and Gao Tianqi suspended in the sky. Actually, at the sight of the huge white circle on the valley, they had realized what these airplanes were doing.

It seemed like a live military drill. The achievement of this drill was really out of the imagination of the two people. The 9 incendiary bombs turned the round area into a purgatory in a split second. Even being thousands of meters high, Cheng Honglie and Gao Tianqi could still sense the hot wave.

Ordinary white phosphorous gel incendiary bombs could never be that powerful. That was not a white phosphorous gel incendiary bomb, but a more powerful and destructive incendiary bomb which had never existed in Taixia Country before…