chapter fifty - the oolong

　De Lornay was on the ground, his head buzzing, and he tried to get up, but he was too weak to make a move. He tried to call for help from those next to him, but those next to him were also on the ground, unable to move. Moreover, he couldn't even hear himself shouting.

　　"It's over, the powder magazine must have exploded." De Lornay thought so.

　　The powder magazine in the Bastille certainly didn't contain the hundreds of thousands of pounds of gunpowder capable of blowing up the entire Bastille; in fact, the total amount of gunpowder there was less than 10,000 pounds. But if that ten thousand pounds of gunpowder did blow up, it would be quite deadly.

　　"Damn, I wonder if the walls are down yet." De Lornay thought.

　　After an indeterminate amount of time, de Lonay finally regained a bit of strength, and holding onto the table, he reluctantly climbed up and stumbled to the city wall.

　　There was a long crack in the city wall, wide enough to fit a fist. Most of the defenders on the wall were still on the ground, and only one or two were struggling to get up with their hands on the palisade.

　　"What's going on? What happened?" De Lornay asked loudly.

　　No one answered him, and even a soldier who had already gotten up was just looking at him with confused eyes, as if he didn't understand what he was talking about at all.

　　De Lornay realized that this must be because he couldn't hear himself speak at all - the explosion earlier had damaged his hearing. In fact, de Lornay himself couldn't even hear what he was saying.

　　De Lornay stumbled over to the palisade wall and looked down.

　　Not far from the trench, there was a very large pit from which smoke was slowly rising. Within a range of thirty to forty meters around this pit, all the houses had been knocked down. In places further away, the streets, and even the roofs of buildings that hadn't collapsed yet, were filled with people.

　　"What ... is ... going on here? Did a meteorite fall here?" Such strange thoughts even popped up in De Lone's head all at once.

　　This was certainly not caused by a meteorite, but rather the result of a passionate collision between a large explosive packet and a bullet.

　　Just now, a wagon had been rushed with a "new type of dynamite" that was said to be used for mining.

　　"We are the Duke of Orleans' men, and this is the dynamite we use for mining. We've wrapped the dynamite and put in the fuse. All it takes is one warrior, a real one, like Enomaeus (the character in the play Spartacus, the one who ends up singing the 'Slave War Cry' on the cross.) A warrior like that, braving the tyrant's bullets and sending this thing under the walls to ignite it, could blow a whole section of the walls into the sky with one blow." The one who drove the wagon here exclaimed.

　　"These things can blow up city walls?" A man asked, not quite believing it.

　　"As long as there are enough explosives, it's a mountain that can be blown down." The man driving the carriage replied.

　　At this time, a large man came over and shouted "I'll do it, I'll do it" while reaching out to pick up a dynamite packet from the carriage.

　　"So light?" The big man bristled, "There's only a little more gunpowder in here, what can it do?"

　　"What we have here is dynamite, much more powerful than gunpowder. And it's not light either, there are twelve pounds of explosives inside!" The carriage driver said.

　　"Don't be cheap, add more." The big guy said, "It might take several people to be sacrificed to send one of these over. If the power isn't enough, and putting one over there isn't enough, then won't more people have to be sacrificed? So, the more powerful the better, and the more explosives it contains, the better. I say let's just pool the contents of these few things together and send the entire Bastille up to the sky at once, what do you guys say?"

　　The people around then roared together in response.

　　"That's right!"

　　"Send them all to heaven!"

　　"Let them go up there and ask God for forgiveness themselves!"

　　Seeing that everyone was supporting him, that big guy became more and more energized, and simply went straight to work on his own and started to dismantle the explosive packages.

　　"Hey, hey! Don't move, let's do it, let's do it, you don't know how to do it, you'll blow it up!" The man driving the carriage hurriedly said.

　　Soon, the five explosive packets on the carriage were synthesized into one.

　　"This thing is more than sixty pounds. Can you hold it?" The one driving the carriage asked.

　　That big man grabbed that large explosive packet with one hand and lightly tossed it in the air, scaring that carriage driver almost to the ground.

　　"It's okay, it doesn't weigh much. Someone give me another torch!" That big guy shouted.

　　"Yes, yes!" Someone shouted and shoved a lit torch in front of the big guy at once, almost poking the explosive pack directly.

　　"Be careful!" The big guy took the torch with one hand and held the explosive pack under his armpit with the other, "Aren't you afraid of a 'boom' that will send us all flying into the sky?"

　　"'My brothers, what have we to fear? We have nothing to fear! For what can be more painful, more terrible, than the life we have lived in this life?

　　What is there for us to fear when we live like pigs and are trampled like dirt? Do we have anything more to lose? Is there anything left for us to hold on to in our lives?

　　Friends, brothers, if there is anything we can lose in battle, the only thing we can lose is the chains that bind us, but once we are victorious, what we have won is a whole world! A new, new world where no one can oppress or enslave anyone anymore!'' (Spartacus' line)" The man replied instead.

　　The big guy laughed, "Well my brother, stop reciting lines, we all know those lines! Well, if you're brave enough, follow me, and if I fall down before I get to the city walls, then you'll take the dynamite packs and torches I'm holding and keep fighting instead! How's that, any questions?"

　　"No problem!" The hairy guy replied loudly.

　　"Good then! Let's get going!" The big guy said.

　　"Wait a minute! Wait!" The one driving the car suddenly shouted, "You can't just charge like that, you need cover. Let's get some more men and charge upwards from different angles so we can distract them. Everyone else fire on the Bastille at the same time to cover them."

　　"Hey, that's a good idea of yours!" Everyone shouted together, "Let's do it!"

　　"I'll charge too!"

　　"Pack a fake explosive pack for me! I can attract their attention too!"

　　And so the militia began to crackle and fire towards the Bastille, and more than a dozen men took the opportunity to charge towards it.

　　The guards on the walls opened fire, and the big man was even targeted by several rifles because he was so big. However, although the big man's target was large, he also ran fast, and several bullets landed behind him, missing him. On the contrary, the hairy guy running after him was instead hit by a bullet that flew towards the big guy but hit him crookedly.

　　"Big guy, forward!" The hairy guy shouted as he fell down.

　　By this time, however, the big guy had already rushed to the front of the trench, and he had to slow down in order to safely leap into the trench. But just as he was slowing down, a threadbare shotgun aimed at him.

　　"Bang!" The shotgun went off. To the eyes of the Swiss soldier who fired it, the tall big man looked like a big brown bear in an Alpine forest. In his anticipation, with the sound of his gun, this big guy would definitely fall to the ground like the brown bears he had hit before, maybe even rolling twice.

　　However, to his surprise, the brown bear did not fall down and roll, but instead exploded all at once.

　　Yes, the bullet he shot hit the explosive packet held by the big man.

　　The amazing explosive power of the high explosives was revealed at this moment, a huge circular shockwave visible to the naked eye swept across this large area in an instant, a few people who were not far away from the big man were torn to pieces and thrown apart by the shockwave almost in an instant. Then came the surrounding buildings, under the attack of the shockwave, they were like models made of playing cards encountering a super typhoon. As soon as the circular shockwave touched them, they were immediately torn into pieces and scattered.

　　Immediately after this shockwave hit the walls of the Bastille hard, the tall walls shook violently, like a small boat in the middle of a shocking wave.

　　Those soldiers standing on the walls were almost instantly overturned by the shockwave, and then were stunned by the explosions that followed.

　　If another pair of militiamen had rushed up at this time, then they would surely have been able to easily cut through the iron cables hanging from the drawbridge, crashed through the gates, and stormed into the Bastille. But by this time, the militiamen were in even worse shape than the defenders. Because of the closer to the explosion point, the militia suffered more casualties, the shock wave destroyed a few houses behind, are hiding in the shooting to cover the offensive action of the militiamen, after the explosion, almost none of them were spared.

　　The militia fighters who were farther away were also stunned by the loud noise of the explosion, and they naturally could not be put into the attack. As for the farther away militia, they simply didn't know what was happening in front of them, and the militia didn't have a clear command system, they were in a mess at this moment, and didn't even think of taking advantage of the opportunity to attack. So such an opportunity passed through their fingers.