The First Order

453 A potential estrangemen

Earlier, more than a dozen units of Fortress 178’s fighting forces had secretly left the forward operating base. For example, Zhou Yinglong had instructed the Razor Sharp Company to launch an attack on the Beiwan River on the pretense of heading out for their cross-country training. Then they never returned to base again. Likewise, the independent regiment Xu Xianchu was previously in was deployed to the western side of Blackstone River.

The deployment of these troops was actually to make it difficult for the spy to figure out the situation. Once these troops left the forward operating base, all communications with them would be handled personally by Wang Fengyuan.

Furthermore, Zhang Jinglin had stopped eating for two days and lost quite a bit of weight in order to deceive the spy as well.

It was also at this time that they locked onto Li Xiang as a suspect. When Li Xiang went to eat, he would pretend to casually ask Lin Yuze, the manager of the chow hall, “How has the commander’s appetite been recently?”

As an infantry brigade commander, Li Xiang was not authorized to participate in the drafting of battle plans. So he could only use Zhang Jinglin’s appetite to gauge whether Fortress 178 had any contingency plans.

This was because it was known to everyone in Fortress 178 that Commander Zhang’s appetite would drop whenever he was troubled.

If the spy were not caught, that plan could only remain hidden in his head. But Zhang Jinglin knew that if he did not reveal his plan, he would not be able to stop Ren Xiaosu.

By the time the spy was caught, Ren Xiaosu had already split from the Razor Sharp Company and could no longer be contacted.

Therefore, Wang Fengyuan immediately consulted with Zhang Jinglin on Ren Xiaosu after they caught the spy.

But it was too late by then. Zhang Jinglin could only hope that Ren Xiaosu would survive by himself.

Wang Fengyuan whispered, “Fortunately, he got the Razor Sharp Company somewhere safe. Otherwise, this would’ve weighed on my conscience for the rest of my life if those glorious troops had gotten wiped out.”

“That was expected of him,” Zhang Jinglin said calmly.

Zhang Jinglin knew this deep down. The moment Ren Xiaosu decided to head to Stronghold 146, he would definitely have arranged for the Razor Sharp Company to be placed somewhere safe. This was just like how the young man had arranged for Li Xiaoyu and Yan Liuyuan to stay at the town’s school back then. Zhang Jinglin understood this young man very well.

Just as expected, Ren Xiaosu went to Stronghold 146 alone. Meanwhile, Wang Fengyuan had received reliable intel from their spy hiding in a residential building that the garrison troops of Stronghold 146 were conducting a citywide search for Ren Xiaosu. However, Ren Xiaosu had fought his way out of the predicament and was nowhere to be found.

Zhang Jinglin looked at Wang Fengyuan and said calmly, “Even if he blames me, I’ll still accept it. I have my duty to uphold, so I can’t be indecisive.”

Zhang Jinglin had a clear picture of what his priorities were when it came down to Ren Xiaosu and everyone else at Fortress 178.

Wang Fengyuan was stunned. He was worried if this would estrange the young man from Fortress 178.

When Wang Fengyuan looked at Zhang Jinglin, he realized he was not as calm as he had claimed.

It was just that he was pretending to fool the spy. Now, he was really worried.

…

The battle in the Gobi did not end that quickly. The Zong Consortium troops who were tasked with crossing the Gobi were extremely tough soldiers. Even though they had been ambushed, they were still able to immediately form a strong defensive line to fight back and retreat at the same time.

This mission was the Zong Consortium’s entire hope for the war. Therefore, every soldier here not only had to go through a strict political assessment but also undergo extremely tough military training as well.

But Xu Xianchu was not surprised by that as he already knew what kinds of troops he would be facing.

Actually, there were still some flaws with Fortress 178’s plans. For example, would the absence of a key supernatural being from the main battlefield like Xu Xianchu impact their plans negatively?

However, Zhang Jinglin was left with no other choice. Xu Xianchu’s mastery of command in small-scale military operations, as well as the application of his superpower in a small-scale engagement’s attack and defense, were outstanding. Therefore, Xu Xianchu was definitely the best candidate to command the ambush troops in the Gobi.

But what Zhang Jinglin and Xu Xianchu had not expected was how Ren Xiaosu had helped to plug that gap.

Of course, it remained to be seen whether Xu Xianchu would feel grateful to Ren Xiaosu after he found out.

The battle in the Gobi continued. The Zong Consortium had waited too long for this day, and so had Zhang Jinglin.

But if the Zong Consortium was staking everything on the Gobi mission as their final resort to turn the tables, it could only be said that they had made the wrong decision.

Actually, Fortress 178 had already gotten closer to winning the war now that it had progressed to here.

After Zhang Jinglin’s plan to catch the Zong Consortium in their own trap was completed, Fortress 178 suddenly made significant progress in the battle at Mt. Wuchuan.

When they were previously trying to capture the summits, Fortress 178 had faced tough battles. At that time, the Zong Consortium generals were even thinking that Fortress 178’s troops did not seem so tough after all.

Actually, Fortress 178’s weapons and equipment were not as good as what the Zong Consortium had. Moreover, the Zong Consortium outnumbered Fortress 178 by more than two to one. However, the Zong Consortium generals consciously chose to ignore those conditions and felt that as long as they could defeat Fortress 178, it would show that they were more powerful than them.

But in that raging storm of a battle, the Zong Consortium suddenly realized the Fortress 178 troops were seemingly undefeatable.

No matter how many troops they piled on them, Fortress 178’s soldiers who were stretched to their limits were still able to go a little further.

Even though some of the positions had changed hands many times, the actual duration it took Fortress 178 to win back a position was only two to four hours. Meanwhile, it might take up to a full day and night for the Zong Consortium to win it back from Fortress 178.

There were clearly far fewer Fortress 178 troops on the battlefield, but even when the Zong Consortium troops barely managed to win back a position, they would find some of the enemy soldiers pretending to be dead while clutching explosives in their arms just so they could perish together with the Zong Consortium soldiers.

This kind of war with no end in sight was like fighting an enemy that could never be defeated. Just the thought of it would terrify anyone.

…

After the successful ambush of the Zong Consortium troops in the Gobi, Zhang Jinglin immediately ordered the mechanized infantry that were reorganizing themselves to fully deploy onto the battlefield. Zhou Yinglong had fought hard to open up safe passage for them to proceed. These mechanized infantry would deal the Zong Consortium troops a fatal blow. It would be the straw that broke the camel’s back!

And surprising many people, the pontoon bridge on the Blackstone River had been rebuilt in just three days. Originally, they had estimated it would take 15 days before the mechanized infantry could cross again.

When Zhou Yinglong went for a break in the rear, he even fell asleep on his meal tray while eating. The medics in the rear quickly carried him away. After cutting open his uniform with scissors, they realized the newly promoted brigade commander had sustained tiny wounds all over his body. There were two pieces of shrapnel stuck in his thigh that weren’t removed until now.

The nurse cleaning his wounds was shocked when she saw his injuries.

There was another nurse working in the temporary medical center who was the wife of one of the troops. She looked at her husband’s wounds and scolded him tearfully for being careless while bandaging it.

The soldier said impatiently, “Can’t you stop crying? I have to rejoin my squad after you’re done bandaging my wounds. We’re the ones who took those positions. Now that we’re close to victory, I can’t let those li’l bastards claim all the credit!”

“Get lost then, go claim your credit! I’ll settle the score with you when we get home.” After the nurse tied a bowknot to finish off the bandage, she chased her husband off tearfully.