Chapter 310 Trench Mortar (1/2)

Chapter 310: Trench Mortar

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

This was the first time Li Du had attended a silent auction. It was a new and refreshing experience.

The auction was a lot quieter and definitely faster than the usual ones he attended. Everyone swiftly took their turns to view the units and then estimated the worth, or discussed it with their team, before deciding on the bid price. They would then write it down on the bid sheet and slip it into the designated box.

Li Du had no intention to win the first four units; he wrote a low offer on the bid sheets.

When they reached the fifth unit, Li Du adopted a serious attitude toward it. The stout cannon inside seemed to be worth a lot; he used the little bug’s ”Relive the Past” ability so he could derive a more reasonable bid price.

The scene then changed before him. The first thing he saw was the cannon being assembled and placed inside a warehouse. The warehouse contained at least a dozen other cannons that all looked exactly the same.

There was some German lettering on the wall of the warehouse, which was the same as the lettering that Li Du had seen on the base of the cannon. He still couldn’t understand what it meant.

The next scene changed to a battlefield. The cannon was placed in a trench; its stubby barrel fired deafening shots across the sky.

The subsequent scenes showed that all the cannons were hidden in military trenches. Li Du was dumbstruck for a moment, as he did not know that there were cannons made for use in trenches.

He took out his smartphone and searched the Internet. The speed was slow so the image could not be shown. But from the search results, such cannons did exist and were called ”trench mortars.”

From the search results, the trench mortar was a short, smoothbore cannon that had a wide firing angle, a low velocity, and a steep angle of descent. Although they were short-range cannons, they were powerful weapons for destroying fortifications.

After reading through the texts, Li Du confirmed that the stout cannon was a trench mortar.

This type of cannon had a long history. It first appeared during the 13th century and subsequently got replaced by better mortars.

In general, these cannons were older and very popular before World War II, especially with the Germans, but they still developed it even during World War II.

In the introduction to the weapon on the web page, the Karl-Gerät, a giant cannon developed by Germany during World War II, was specially mentioned as it was the last trench mortar cannon ever made.

The Karl mortar had a terrifying caliber of 600 millimeters. It used artillery shells that weighed 2 tons each and charge a maximum firing range of 2.5 miles. The Germans had created such an incredibly powerful cannon to break the French’s strong siege and defense forces at Marcheno, Italy.

However, what was inside the unit was not the ferocious Karl mortar. Li Du guessed it was created during World War I. As he recalled the original scene, the soldiers were wearing the German artillery troop uniform.

After determining the cannon’s age and approximate identity, he was bent on winning the storage unit.

As they finished viewing the unit, Li Du spoke to Hans in a low voice, ”Generally, how much do we need to win this type of unit?”

Hans furrowed his eyebrows in thought and said, ”From what we can see, this unit is not a valuable one. The old, broken parts of a car and frames of a machine are not special items—at most, 1,000 dollars.”

Li Du pondered for a few seconds and said, ”Okay, let’s bid 2,000 dollars.”

Hans whispered, ”This unit is good?”

”I can’t tell specifically, but it should be worthwhile,” replied Li Du. ”Look at that stuff inside that’s wrapped with oilskin—and that wooden chest, there should be valuables inside. So, let’s set it at 2,000 dollars?”

Hans shook his head and said, ”Let’s go with a safer price: 4,000 dollars!”

Such was the charm of a silent auction. Nobody knew how much their rivals would bid for a unit. If someone wanted to win a unit, they would bid with an amount that they thought was reasonable. There would not be cases of winning a good unit with a lower price.

If this was the usual type of auction, they could have won the unit for a thousand dollars, or even lower, for a few hundred dollars.