Tyranny of Steel

The war in the Caucasus continued to wage on, as the Crimean Khanate sent its forces into the lands of its neighbors in an act of conquest. Altan led the army through the territory once populated by the Uzbeks with rapid speed. Because the enemy was not equipped with weapons that were as mobile as those which the Crimean Khanate wielded, they could not easily keep up with the pace that Altan's Horde maintained.

Battle after battle, the various Uzbek tribes had been utterly defeated by the Crimean Horde. Those men who were captured alive were enslaved just like the women and children, where they would be brought back to the Crimean Khanate to begin their training as laborers.

After all, the expansion of the Crimean Khanate into the lands of their neighbors meant that they would be acquiring vast new territories. Ones which were sparsely populated by nomadic horsemen. If Altan wanted to expand his empire into a significant state in the middle of Europe and Asia, then he would need a vast amount of manpower to complete his construction projects.

At the moment, Altan was loading one of his automatic carbine's magazines. The relatively small 8x33mm Kurz cartridges were easily placed into the thirty-round magazine. While the thirty-round magazine of this weapon was difficult to use in the prone position, that was not a concern for Altan and his men, who waged war on horseback.

In fact, the minor recoil from the shorter cartridge, as well as the relatively high rate of fire, was perfect for the mobile warfare strategy that the Crimean Khanate imposed on their enemies. Thus, after finishing loading the last of the magazines which he carried via a chest rig, Altan racked the charging handle, thus loading a cartridge before putting the weapon on safe.

The war had been waging for well over a month at this point, and he had only suffered minor losses when compared to his enemies. He had not deigned the Uzbeks worthy of a declaration of war and had invaded their territory in a surprise attack.

By now, half of the vast territory which the Uzbeks held control over was now under Crimean control. The soldiers of Altans army were dressed quite professionally, in Second World War pattern uniforms, and were armed with a mixture of submachine guns, automatic carbines, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, and pack howitzers.

The brown fur lined greatcoats which the war, along with the matching Stahlhelms, gave off a civilized impression, especially when compared to the Uzbeks who still mostly wore medieval armor, albeit with more modern weapons they purchased from the Indians.

After looking around his camp for some time, the first light of dawn began to shine over the Caucasus, and thus Altan, who had not gotten a wink of sleep the night before, immediately awoke his army.

After a quick breakfast, which consisted entirely of German MREs. The Army was once more on the march. Where they swiftly made their way to the next tribe, which inhabited the region. However, this time the enemy was ready for them, as apparently word has spread of a foreign invasion from the west.

Thus, the moment Altan's army appeared within the line of sight of the enemy, they began to unleash fire from their 7.5cm field guns. Realizing that his forces were under attack, Altan gave an order to his army, which would help mitigate casualties.

"Fan out and surround the enemy!"

With this command given, the Crimean forces began to separate, where they did as commanded. And while the Uzbeks did their best to hit the charging Crimeans, the reality was that although they had purchased some modern weaponry from the Indians; they hadn't the slightest idea how to use it effectively, nor did they have the mathematical skills to properly calculate their shots.

Thus, while the power of the Uzbek field guns was on par with what the Crimeans wielded, they were anything but precise in their shots, which varied widely by ranges of several kilometers. Some of the charging Crimean horsemen were caught in the blast, however, the damage was minimal due to the orders that Altan had given.

Instead, the Crimean pack howitzers deliberately targeted the enemy's artillery and took them out with precision shots. After all, the Crimean Khanate had been given twenty years to develop into a functional nation-state. Which under the guidance of Khorijin, who was the lover of the Kaiser, allowed for an entire generation to be educated on modern mathematics.

It did not take long for the Crimeans to eliminate the field guns that their enemy wielded, where they then began to target the encampment, where the Uzbeki tribesmen recklessly fired their machine guns into the vicinity of the charging Crimean horde.

Of course, a lack of training with their new weapons had also limited their capacity to precisely hit their targets, as they did not even know how to properly aim down their sites, and while this was an issue at a distance, the closer the charging horsemen came to the blind spray of automatic fire, the more likely they were to be hit.

Altan of course, led the charge, where he aimed down the sights of his automatic carbine and sprayed a controlled burst of three shots straight into the chest of the nearest enemy. He was not alone in his precision, as his comrades also accurately sprayed their targets with lead.

What had started out as an advantage for the Uzbeks, quickly turned into a massacre, as the men of the tribe quickly threw away the weapons they did not know how to wield, and instead unsheathed their swords, hoping to meet the enemy in melee combat.

But was such a primitive tactic capable of contending with modern weapons? Of course not! Instead, the Crimean horsemen simply evaded the oncoming hostiles and continued to kill them at a distance with their automatic weapons.

What was initially a fierce battle suddenly came to an end, as Altan stood among those who remained, most of which were women and children. He quickly gave an order to his highest ranking general, which nobody found surprising.

"Take the survivors back to Crimea. As for the rest of you, loot whatever weapons and munitions you can! We could make use of these more static weapons to defend our homeland!"

The soldiers beneath Altan's command did as they were commanded, and thus the semi-automatic g-27 rifles which were chambered in 8x57mm Mauser were taken back to the Crimean peninsula, along with all the munitions they could carry.

Not only were the small arms seized, but so too were the surviving field guns, which the Uzbeks did not even have the slightest knowledge of how to properly wield in combat. With this petty tribe out of the way, Altan could shift his attention to the rest of the Caucasus, which was swiftly falling into his hands.

What was abundantly clear to him was that he, like his father, would have to legalize polygamy. Because the amount of men who survived their conquest was vastly disproportional to the women. This was just one of many concerns that came with a brutal conquest like the one Altan was waging against the Caucasian people.

As Altan was searching through the wreckage of his onslaught, he began to think about his mother and siblings, who had left the borders of the Crimean Khanate to go live a life with the German Kaiser in his home.

When he finally got back to Crimea, how would he cope with such a large and empty home? Perhaps he would have to take a few wives of his own. After all, he was already a man, and yet, he had taken no woman as a wife, nor had he sired any children.

If his father's legacy was to endure the test of time, then he, like all the man's children, would have to do his part in having children. Perhaps a few of the young women who he had captured in his conquest would make fitting brides.

It was a curious thing to think about, while sifting through the ruins of a conquered person. How many lives would drastically change as a result of this war, and how would this help benefit his own Empire into becoming a force to be reckoned with?

Thus, after spending a long time thinking about the great philosophical questions in life, Altan sighed heavily and looked up to the skies, where he heard a voice that sounded almost like the whisper of the wind.

"Your dynasty shall rule these lands until the end of time. Go forth and spread your seed, oh great Khan...."

Altan looked around to see who the voice had come from, only to find that he was all alone. Perhaps he was losing his mind due to the stress of combat, or maybe what he had just heard was the voice of the spirits which his mother had always talked about. Regardless, what the voice had said was true, and Altan planned to make it a reality.

I wanted to thank you all for supporting Tyranny of Steel up to this point. From here on out, until the very end of the novel, updates are going to be less frequent with one chapter a day. Instead, I would like to invite all of you to read my new novel Interstellar Age, at https://www.webnovel.com/book/interstellar-age_ 26235247006730205

Which will be receiving my primary attention from here on out. Thank you all for the support you have shown me, and I look forward to writing novels for you all for years to come!