Chapter 105: Recapturing Tianjin (10)

The troops within the new encirclement had received clear orders to hold their ground to the last man, by any means necessary—whether inside armored vehicles, tanks, or even bound together in groups. No retreat was permitted; any disobedience would be met with immediate execution.

Fortunately, Li Qiang acted decisively. After executing Jiang Jiangqian and the negligent officials from the Ministry of Industry, he instilled fear and discipline throughout the ranks. Everyone understood that today's situation was a stark choice: persist and be rescued or die on the battlefield. With Li Qiang leading by example, they fought with tragic resolve and unwavering determination, battling the zombies to the death.

The latest weaponry and equipment were all trapped inside the encirclement. The forces could only rely on sealed stockpiles of strategic weapons dating from the 1950s to the 1980s, and even those needed inspection to ensure they weren’t damaged.

The artillery was primarily towed guns of various calibers—122mm, 152mm, 155mm—pulled by a variety of civilian vehicles to pre-assigned positions. Tanks ranged from Type 59 to Type 69 models. Fortunately, the nation's armaments had been well-maintained over the years; after refueling, they could still operate.

Surprisingly, many light and heavy machine guns were found, including those supplied by the Soviet Union during the Korean War and captured American models.

In the new encirclement, at the northwest corner, there was a county town called Xianghe.

Xianghe had nearly 400,000 residents. A large portion of the zombies had been previously lured to the vicinity of Beijing and eliminated. The remaining scattered tens of thousands of zombies were targeted with additional tank units dispatched specifically for this area. These forces eradicated the zombies and rescued nearly 40,000 survivors.

“Alas,” Li Fengyi sighed silently, “destroying tens of thousands of zombies at once is easy, but if we do it this way, with over a billion zombies in the country and more than 7 billion worldwide, we’d be fighting them down to our grandchildren’s generation. We must find a way to annihilate large clusters at once. It’s all about numbers. Even mastering the most formidable secrets won’t help without that. Our resources are completely depleted... strategic warfare is no trivial matter.”

Seeing that the General Staff Department had laid out eight rows of barbed wire at the frontline, Li Fengyi understood what professionalism meant. They had never thought to install barbed wire at the frontline before. Without delving further into the details, he signed off on all submitted documents and ordered their execution.

Within the encirclement ran a railway line. Though behind Li Qiang and his forces, the General Staff had dispatched three armored trains, retrofitted and ready, hoping to provide long-range artillery support and distract the zombies by dividing their groups.

The LCD screen displayed heavy artillery incessantly bombarding the zombies from behind. The gunners were still amateurs; no one dared attempt the Chinese People's Liberation Army’s typical close coordination of infantry and artillery at 100 meters, nor the 15-meter zero-distance coordination. They settled on a 500-meter cooperative operation. Reports from observation posts confirmed their fears: the shells' impact points varied by as much as 3,400 meters, and combined with the shells' power, the bombardment was dangerously close to friendly infantry.

Under the protection of the guard battalion, Li Qiang had retreated to the frontline command post set up at the logistics camp. After receiving the plan issued by the General Staff, the field staff officers handed all documents to Li Qiang for review.

Seeing that the plan was penned by Chief of Staff General Yue, Li Qiang felt even more confident than Li Fengyi. Under General Yue’s command over the years, their exercises had consistently ranked first, so he trusted the strategy.

Infantry that could not fit inside armored vehicles retreated alongside Li Qiang to the logistics camp, which would soon become the new frontline. The order to fight to the death reflected sheer determination; any actual retreat would depend on further commands.

The command center’s screens showed zombies approaching the logistics base.

Last night’s battle had been ineffective, eliminating fewer than 300,000 zombies.

Today’s daylight melee claimed fewer than 400,000. Since hostilities began, roughly 2.6 million zombies had been destroyed out of 13 million, without deploying the main forces. Yet the human forces were already in disarray, with over 10,000 trapped or severely wounded.

Two fully manned armies, totaling more than 120,000 troops, had been deployed. Nearly 40,000 were trapped or gravely injured, and all weapons and equipment were either lost or destroyed.

The logistics camp was not staffed by professional soldiers from before the apocalypse; they were the original forces formed by the Special Committee.

Logistics positions generally offered better pay, benefits, and lower risk, so the Special Committee had deliberately or inadvertently assigned their troops there, partly as compensation for those who had fought bravely at great personal risk.

During preparations, they had dug a trench according to the Committee’s strict instructions. As the frontline situation worsened, they expanded it desperately, fearing it might be useless in a worst-case scenario.

The excavated earth was piled on the camp’s inner side and reinforced into an earthen wall. The trench was three meters deep and ten meters wide; the wall stood six meters high and six meters wide. Barrels of gasoline were placed 100 meters in front of the trench, and unused shells were stacked on this open ground with their fuses facing the camp, ready to be detonated by gunfire if necessary.

They avoided digging deeper to prevent the heavy artillery positions from catching fire. Many survivors were still sheltering inside self-propelled guns, tanks, and armored vehicles.

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