Chapter 51: Summing Up the Experience, the Expeditionary Army Prepares to Move (Part 1)

Li Fengyi ordered the General Staff to increase research into contingency plans for combat against humans.

“As planned, we should be able to finish clearing the entire area between Hepingli East Street and Subway Line 13 within the next two days,” Li Fengyi announced from the head of the long table in the Armed Forces Department meeting room. “It’s time to reclaim the machinery plant and improve our equipment. The situation for the survivors is deteriorating, and some have already starved to death. We need to pick up the pace.”

“In the past, limited manpower meant we could only advance from one direction,” Li Fengyi began laying out the specific deployment. “But now, with more people, a single direction can only accommodate so many. We can clear both the west and east sides simultaneously, and once we have even more people, we’ll consider a four-pronged approach. For now, the plan is to reclaim everything within the Fourth Ring Road of Beijing and use the ring roads as defensive lines.”

“We need to start redeploying expeditionary troops, let them rest, and prepare supplies,” Li Qiang said. “This time, our target is outside the East Fifth Ring Road, the Dongba area, which is about ten kilometers away as the crow flies. Considering future transportation by vehicle, it’s roughly thirteen kilometers. We’ll need to clear roads along the way, eliminate zombies, and rescue survivors we encounter. It should take about two to three days. Survivors we find will be sent back, retrained, and reorganized. If we take them along, it will slow us down, increase casualties, and make resupplying harder.”

“This expedition will establish a direct safe corridor from the Dongba machinery plant to our base,” Commander Liu agreed. “We reclaim one area, we stabilize one area.”

The gathering of supplies had already begun. Steel pipes from all kinds of buildings had been stripped, and all the crossbows made were allocated to the expeditionary force—a total of five hundred. Almost every protective steel railing had been dismantled to make crossbow bolts, numbering no less than one hundred thousand.

“At last, we’ll be able to provide large-scale suppression,” Li Fengyi thought with satisfaction. Having never served in the military, he didn’t realize that a mere hundred thousand bolts would not be decisive on a large battlefield.

The thought of zombie hordes numbering in the hundreds of thousands—even millions—roaming the wilderness was enough to strike terror into the heart. The sheer numbers felt woefully inadequate. If zombies used the newly cleared corridor to counterattack, there’d be nowhere to cry. Therefore, he ordered the provisional First Army’s staff to develop extensive contingency plans for zombie horde assaults.

During the preparation and assembly of the main force, the reconnaissance battalion took on a vital task. They would move out ahead to scout the route. Li Fengyi himself would lead the team, and all task force documents would be sent to him daily along the newly secured corridor. This ensured that work would not be delayed and that he could provide frontline guidance for major operations—a fine tradition of the PLA, one the task force committee didn’t intend to abandon.

“Brothers,” Ma Xiaoshuai stood atop the old performance stage in the training ground, facing the reconnaissance battalion lined up before him, launching into a pre-battle pep talk. “This is our battalion’s first mission. We’re the best, but so far we’ve just been playing second fiddle. This time, we’ll prove ourselves! Are you confident?”

“Yes!”

“Haven’t you eaten? Are you confident?” Ma Xiaoshuai followed military custom, rallying morale.

“Yes!! Yes!!!” The soldiers had been through this routine many times, and even the survivors had seen it in countless films and shows, so Ma Xiaoshuai’s third attempt at stirring them up died on his lips.

“Bunch of slackers!” he snorted, undeterred. “Let’s move out!”

The reconnaissance battalion was currently the best equipped in the army. The dozen or so combat knives found at the veterans’ home had all been issued to them. In recent action, these knives had proved far superior to steel pipes, but unfortunately, they lacked the equipment and resources to forge more.

Sun Xiaoshan had tried building a forge himself, but no one he could find had any real experience with traditional methods. The resulting blades were poorly made and unreliable. This only strengthened the committee’s resolve to seek out machinery and steel stockpiles. The reality, masked by Beijing’s image as a political, economic, technological, and educational center, was that it was fundamentally a vast consumption hub—most industry had been relocated to the outer suburbs or even to other provinces, and all resources were imported from outside.

This meant the survivors had a surplus of brainpower—frontline troops included undergraduates, postgraduates, even PhDs—but they were empty-handed, unable to conjure things from thin air. They were relegated to basic labor. Ironically, those with less education—the hands-on workers—could farm, repair equipment, inventory supplies, and were entrusted with key roles, living comfortably within the base. Even two women from a hair salon, skilled in massage, had been transferred by the Health Department to the wellness clinic, which led to a sudden rise in complaints of back and leg pain.

Each soldier was armed with a rifle, lieutenants were issued binoculars, and everyone wore standard uniforms—mostly Type 99 and Type 07. Steel pipes were custom-made to a length of 1.8 meters, suitable for both close and ranged combat.

“Of course, they’re neither as long as a long pipe nor as short as a short pipe,” Sun Xiaoshan remarked when handing them over to Li Fengyi, but the reconnaissance battalion’s operational style made it impractical for them to carry two.

Each was issued a single shield, measuring 500 by 700 millimeters, also custom-made.

The only set of special forces equipment was also in their hands. Aside from firearms, they had everything—knives, compasses, ropes, backpacks, even a rope-launching device capable of firing lines up to 200 meters. The army had envisioned connecting Beijing’s high-rises with ropes to speed up clearing operations and reclaim major buildings first, but the industrial department made it clear there simply wasn’t enough rope. The military academy also objected—not everyone could clamber about hundreds of meters in the air, not even all professional soldiers, let alone the hastily assembled First Army of civilians with no basic training. There was no way to train everyone, so the idea was dropped.

Beijing’s outskirts were dotted with industrial parks converted from old villages. Among them, Dongba was the area with the highest concentration of machinery plants.

The attack route needed to be convenient for future transport and easy to defend against zombie hordes. The General Staff pored over maps of Beijing and consulted several survivors familiar with the southeast of the city. The final route was as follows: Start by breaching the subway bridge under East Tucheng Road on Line 13, pass the international exhibition center, reach the Third Ring Road, then take the Airport Expressway. At Jiangtai Bridge, turn southeast, follow Jiangtai Road, then Jiangtai East Road through the Fifth Ring Road, onto Jiangtai Village Road, follow it to Dongba Road, then along Dongba Road to Binhe Road, and continue east to Juzi Fang Road. That’s where the machinery plants are most concentrated in the outskirts of Beijing, with every kind of equipment imaginable.