Chapter 156: Chaotic Battle in Shenyang (9)

"After all, those people are no paragons of virtue with any obligation to help you improve the people's livelihood and national economy; even if they were, they'd still be writing their good deeds in their diaries," Li Fengyi muttered to himself. "So, us swatting flies is entirely with a clear conscience; there's no need to worry about how to answer to those Westernized elites."

Li Fengyi couldn't be considered particularly politically conscious. He felt that before the apocalypse, he and those around him were just ordinary folks. Whether it was the bureaucrats or the foreign-backed critics, they all claimed to be doing it for the good of the Chinese people, yet none of them had ever bothered to ask for the opinions of ordinary Chinese citizens like him and his neighbors. Fine, even if the domestic elections had their flaws, it still wasn't your turn as a foreign flunky to come and wreak havoc, was it?

Before the end of the world, at most, he had watched the corrupt officials—collectively manufactured by the flies and their foreign masters—slice off a few extra pieces of meat from the public. He had simply regarded it as feeding stray dogs and endured it, feeling no need to make a fuss.

Yet now, the apocalypse was here. The birds had flown, the eggs were broken, and these damned flies were still trying to plant maggots in his backyard, as if they were terrified they wouldn't manage to kill him off?!

Damn it, your bosses' bosses' bosses... have been grabbing us by the throat, time and time again trying to murder our bosses' bosses' bosses...

Even a complete fool wouldn't just sit back and agree to that.

After being battered over and over again by our bosses' bosses' bosses..., you lot just keep biting at our heels like rabid dogs and won't let go.

According to your own rules, the actions of your previous boss have nothing to do with your current boss. So what the hell do the actions of your predecessors from generations ago have to do with you lot today?

Yet you keep snapping at us like shameless curs.

And the actions of our bosses' bosses' bosses... are none of your damn business either.

You motherfuckers just don't know when to quit.

It seems this brother is going to have to lock horns with you this time; otherwise, I'll die without even knowing what hit me.

Li Fengyi wasn't foolish enough to discuss a truce with the American big brother; even Pleasant Goat wouldn't be naive enough to make such an absurd request.

His experience in corporate business warfare told him that when faced with a competitor devoid of professional ethics, the only way to make them stop infringing upon your interests was to knock them flat on their back.

Moreover, before the end of the world, China had already become the world's second-largest economy—far from the era of vast disparity in strength when it had to keep its distance to avoid suffering even heavier blows.

He began studying a map, wondering if the military could travel overland to the United States for a visit. He saw that the closest land route was the Bering Strait.

Army Commander Liu was a traditional soldier. He remained silent as he read the report, the twitching muscles on his face the only indication of his inner turmoil. Before you Americans were sneak-attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor in 1941, you refused to acknowledge Japan's war against China, scrambling to sell the Japanese military supplies, oil, and steel—causing the deaths of so many Chinese people.

As the Japanese massacres in China unfolded one after another, you turned a blind eye to every single one of them.

Once the Japanese launched a sneak attack on you, you suddenly realized that China made a convenient scapegoat, capable of helping you draw away Japanese military strength. You frantically shipped military supplies to old Chiang, and right at the end of World War II, you sought to prop up Chiang as a bridgehead against the Soviet Union, backing his suppression of us and directly plunging the country into civil war, causing the deaths of countless more Chinese.

Then came the armed occupation of Taiwan, followed by all those wars stirred up along China's borders: the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Afghan War, and so on.

After the Reform and Opening Up, when subverting China from within failed, you simply resorted to all sorts of overt and covert blockades, while funding countless Western-worshiping elites to sow discord among us.

How many of our fine comrades have been ruined by your actions? Thinking of the dozen or so scars, large and small, across his own body—at least six or seven of which had been left by Americans or American-backed hostile forces—he felt a surge of bitter hatred.

In the past, the central leadership guided us in finding ways to resist, and I simply followed orders. But now, driven to this desperate precipice, I have no choice but to armor up and have a go at you bastards!

"Motherfucker!" Li Qiang roared with righteous fury after reading the report. "While our men are bleeding and fighting at the front lines, those parasites are frantically looting in the rear, and on top of that, there are all these freaks and demons stirring up trouble! Don't let me catch a chance, or I'll make sure to wipe every last one of them out!"

Years of military education had made these soldiers well aware of the dirty tricks pulled by the United States. Their most frequent previous encounters were with various special operations conducted around China's borders—such as funding and arming separatists in Tibet, or funding and arming separatists in Xinjiang, and so forth.

They had less contact with the ideological and social fronts, only sensing a continuous moral decay as corrupt officials scrambled to flee to the United States, which welcomed them with open arms...

This recent rebellion by Wu Nianfu in Shenyang was directly engineered by the Americans, and it had nearly cost him his life within Shenyang city. This was utterly intolerable!

Did you Americans really think you could keep wreaking havoc and exterminating us even in this state?

Li Qiang was a man of action. He ordered the General Staff to draft a contingency plan on how to travel to the United States to eliminate the zombies.

Simultaneously, the Ministry of State Security and the Military Intelligence Department reported that they had already made contact with and preliminarily organized intelligence personnel stationed in the United States, allowing for a coordinated, strategic approach to the matter.

Li Fengyi and Li Qiang were overjoyed. It turned out we weren't just passively taking hits after all! Although China, having been founded later, had undoubtedly borne the brunt of the sabotage more deeply at first, we still had cards we could play.

For the first time, Li Fengyi felt that Jin Chunsheng wasn't quite as gloomy and spine-chilling as he usually seemed. The Special Committee was prepared to formulate a new strategic approach toward operations in America during the apocalypse.

The current situation in the Northeast was as follows: the horde of zombies had split into two types, heading in three different directions.

Roughly seventy to eighty million zombies were lurking in the mountainous regions, twenty to thirty million had headed toward the Russian direction, and ten to twenty million had crossed into the Korean Peninsula.

The mountainous zombies posed the absolute greatest danger. Whether their next move was toward Siberia in the north or the Korean Peninsula to the southeast, if the mountain horde broke out en masse, it would sever the military's rear supply lines. An industrialized military feared nothing more than an interruption of logistical support; once out of ammunition, the weapons in their hands were worth less than scrap.

No quick and easy solution could be found for Wu Nianfu's base for the time being. The work required by the special forces, the Ministry of State Security, military intelligence, and the United Front departments was meticulous and time-consuming; changing human hearts was no simple task, let alone the minds of a bunch of scoundrels who had backed themselves into a dead end.

Wracking their brains, the General Staff broke down the problem and submitted a four-part plan: Wu Nianfu's base still had to be placed under siege. The primary issue with that base wasn't a lack of food or clothing; the Qipanshan base, stocked with massive quantities of supplies, was a situation Wu Nianfu had deliberately engineered to cause starvation and freezing among the common people.

He needed to divide his subordinates into rigid tiers to maintain their loyalty to him.

Encouraged by the validation of American spies, his methods had grown even more extreme. Residents who showed dissatisfaction were stripped naked and left to freeze to death in front of the surviving populace, while those who supported him were given the finest food and drink, and whatever women they fancied could be dragged out on command. Once a person resolved to do something, they often threw all caution to the wind, abandoning any thought of retreat.