On this day, the British frantically projected more than 30 tons of double light at the Boer position. Air cannonballs. The first concentrated use of chemical weapons achieved amazing results, and in just one day, the British army miraculously basically took the core position of the Johannesburg fortress. Although the Boers continued to hold out in parts of the fortress, it can be said that the big picture was settled, and the fall of Johannesburg was imminent. According to figures later admitted by the British, 43,103 Boer soldiers were killed and more than 4,000 wounded on that day, and 70 percent of those wounded died in the following days. The British suffered less than 1,600 casualties in this battle, of which less than 600 were actually killed. And their casualties were almost entirely due to shelling. For the first time, chemical warfare showed its hideous face.

In an autobiographical novel published many years later, Second Lieutenant Henry Darcy, a British officer who fought in the war, described the chemical warfare as follows:

"We got into the starting position, and then those heavy mortars of the wasp unit opened fire. The sound of the cannonball landing was dull, and the vibration was very small, not at all like a seven-inch shell. It even gives the impression that even a 3-inch caliber mortar is inferior, or even a grenade. I had the opportunity to see a Hornet's forced force on a previous occasion. Hit. Cannon. shells, that kind of shells seem to be more pressing than ordinary shells of the same caliber in terms of volume alone. Hit. Cannon. The bullet is even bigger. However, we were not too surprised, because before we set off, the above had already told us that this time we would use gas bombs against the Boers. At that time, the officer of the wasp unit who was in charge of explaining how to use gas masks to defend against this poison gas said to us, 'This thing can kill everyone on the other side as easily as an insecticide.' Therefore, once you enter the battle, you must always wear a gas mask and never take it off, otherwise very terrible consequences will occur. These gas masks are airtight, and it is very stuffy to exercise while wearing them, and it will be harder than normal to breathe while wearing them. However, at no time shall anyone remove it without first receiving our instructions......

As soon as the cannon sounded, we began to talk about putting on gas masks. It looks ridiculous when you put it on, like you're wearing a pig's head. Everyone, you look at me, I look at you, and I can't help but laugh out loud. But soon none of us could laugh.

About half an hour after the shelling, we began to charge. The enemy's artillery in depth was still firing at us, but they were much slower to react on the other side, while the machine guns and mortars in the shallow close positions of the enemy, who had been able to react quickly, were silent, as if they had fallen asleep. It was only about thirty meters from our trench to the opposite trench, and we rushed through it in one go, and the Boers on the opposite side failed to fire even a single bullet at us.

After jumping into their trenches, I saw something that my life will never forget. The trenches were littered with the corpses of Boers. They fell there stretching their necks, and many of them were bloodied from their own hands. Some pink liquid was still pouring out of their mouths and noses, and their eyes were wide open......

This was true not only inside the trenches, but also inside the pillboxes, and the entire position had actually become a large cemetery. Dulles, who was beside me, couldn't hold back any longer, and he jerked off his mask and vomited all at once. I rushed over and ordered him to put on his mask, but in just a moment, he had already inhaled a lot of poison gas, and he began to cough from a distance, as if he could not breathe. Even if he was put on a mask again, nothing got better. So we had to send him to the rear...... Later the guy was in the hospital for two whole months because of emphysema.

The Boers also knew that something was wrong, so their artillery was pouring shells on our side like they were playing with their lives. Even those 11-inch cannons rarely fired endlessly. But the fortifications built by the Boers themselves were very effective in protecting us. There were also some Boers who tried to launch a counterattack against us through the guò communication trenches, but they soon discovered that they would lose their combat effectiveness from inhaling large quantities of poison gas without our hands at all, and then slowly die. On more than one occasion I have seen the Boers who rushed up to the ground in agony unable to breathe, and soon lost their lives......

After taking control of this section of the fortification, the Wasp fellows began to fire poison gas bombs at deeper targets...... And so, in just one day, we had basically taken the fortress, and in one day I had seen more dead people than I had seen in decades before. At one point, I even thought that I would never see anything more terrible, but it turned out that I was naïve. When we release a devil from the seal ourselves, can we really expect to trick it into obediently returning to the seal with a single word? Therefore, the devil we let out to eat people will definitely have a backlash, but at that time, I never imagined that the backlash would come so quickly and violently......"

……

The news of the capture of the fortress of Johannesburg by the British army in one day caused a huge sensation, but the reaction in the market at first was completely different, and the gold market was once again full of optimism, and the Rothschilds, who had long expected this outcome, naturally made a lot of money. And in North America, it was represented by the Morgan consortium. Sales of British government bonds are also getting better.

"I really didn't expect the British to use such a method so quickly! These damn Brits, why is the lower limit so low! Catherine grimaced, gritted her teeth, and scolded viciously, completely forgetting that she was also an Englishman. As for the word lower limit, it was a word that Scrooge coined when he was analyzing the possibility of the British using chemical weapons.

Due to the underestimation of the situation, Catherine suffered a lot in the London gold market. For a while, relying on the MacDonalds' family to have advisers on the Boer side, they were more well-informed than others, and they could get some inside information that others didn't know. And relying on MacDonald's tactical research team that is no less than that of ordinary countries (many retired generals in the United States are consultants to MacDonald, and through their relationship, the research institutes of the MacDonald consortium often conduct joint scientific research activities with major military academies in the United States), and the accuracy of judging the war situation is much better than that of ordinary investors. Catherine commanded her men to call the storm in London's gold market, and even surpassed the Rothschilds for a time, so much so that she earned the nickname "Queen of Gold" in London's gold market.

However, the sudden large-scale chemical warfare of the British, and the achievement of such results, was somewhat unexpected by the MacDonald consortium. Originally, Catherine herself was also very well-connected in the British upper class because of her family relationship. Especially when her mother's family began to act as agents for many of MacDonald's businesses, and made a lot of money as a result, they became friends in the upper class for more and more. So the news was naturally quite well-informed, but this time, Catherine did not get even the slightest information about the British intention to use chemical weapons on the battlefield. Although Scrooge had previously reminded her that the British still had a card to play when it was difficult to open the situation, and that was chemical weapons. And it was informed, and Catherine was also analyzed under what circumstances the British might use chemical weapons.

It's just that when will the British use chemical weapons? Even Scrooge could not give a clear answer to this question, although through the combination of various information, Scrooge could roughly judge what kind of losses the British had suffered, and he could also roughly judge where the limits of the British could bear. But he was still unsure when the British would use chemical weapons. Because, the British are not the second protagonist in Japanese anime, and when facing the villain boss, he must not send out a big move to reverse when he is beaten to the last drop of blood. If it weren't for the influence of public opinion, the British would definitely be willing to make a big move as soon as they came up, throw out the chemical weapons, and kill the opponent in seconds. It's just that this question of public opinion can hold the British back, or in other words, how low the lower limit of the British is, this question, Scrooge really has no way to grasp.

So on this issue, we can only rely on Catherine's own play, which is specifically responsible for this matter. Unexpectedly, the lower limit of the British government was so low that even Catherine, who was also British, could not have predicted it. As a result, Catherine suffered a heavy blow in the gold market, and in just one morning, Catherine lost almost six million pounds in the London gold market, almost losing half of the previous profits in the gold market.

Catherine would not have been so angry if she had only lost six million pounds, winning and losing in business, especially in a zero-sum game like the financial markets, and she had already made a lot of money before. What's more, it's just a small rebound, and the whole picture hasn't completely changed. Scrooge had previously analyzed that even if the British captured Johannesburg, the restoration of order in South Africa would not be a short-term event. When the time comes, she will naturally be able to regain what she lost today. What really made her angry was that she felt that the reason why she had made such an error in judgment was because she was still a little patriotic, and she was still proud of the British Empire, thinking that its lower limit would never be so low, but she was completely "let down" by the British, which was the reason for Catherine's anger. Of course, when she thinks like this, she will never think about what she is doing now, which is actually digging into the walls of the British Empire. R1058