Chapter 318: Sun Dongping’s Cunning Schemes
The Blue Army’s use of electronic interference on their own frontline proves that the Blue Army has clearly confirmed the arrival of Red Army scouts nearby on the frontline.
The reason for choosing to act in the middle of the night is definitely to avoid surveillance by Red Army scouts.
In order to figure out exactly what the Blue Army is up to, Shi Jin has no choice but to pause the previous plan and concentrate efforts to first investigate this group of mysterious Blue Army troops clearly.
“You two go over there, leave this side to me.”
After Shi Jin quietly assigned the mission, the Vanguard Squad split into four parts.
Gan Xiaolin is responsible for leading people to monitor the First Defense Line, Bai Tie Jun leads people to monitor the Second Defense Line, Xie Chong leads people to follow the Blue Army on the left side, and Shi Jin leads people to track the Blue Army on the flank.
Although the desert grassland terrain has more undulations, there are no large herbaceous plants or shrubs for cover.
Therefore, Shi Jin and his team dare not follow too closely, nor dare they stand up and run wildly along the road; they can only select the backsides of hillsides or gullies under moonlight shadows.
Although tracking this way is very tiring, it is indeed more concealed and safe.
They were not discovered by the Blue Army throughout the entire process!
Even though the Blue Army seemed to have some counter-reconnaissance awareness and conducted multiple brief observations during the march, they did not discover the Red Army scouts tailing behind.
Thinking they were not targeted by Red Army scouts, they proceeded straight to the destination as per the orders.
The Blue Army that Shi Jin’s side is tracking is driving vehicles, and there is no way to catch up in a short time, so they can only follow the tracks on the ground from behind.
The Blue Army that Xie Chong’s side is tracking is on foot, and they figured out the Blue Army’s intentions first.
The Blue Army got out of the vehicle and walked forward about two hundred meters to a very open area, took out the things they brought, and started busying themselves.
Seeing the Blue Army troops stop, Xie Chong and his companion immediately advanced in a low crawling posture.
The two crawled on the ground like a caterpillar, wriggling forward about sixty or seventy meters, and finally stopped less than fifty meters from the Blue Army.
With the not very bright moonlight, plus the two sides being very close.
Xie Chong finally saw it clearly!
The Blue Army troops were holding pickaxes and shovels, using extremely professional techniques to first draw a circle, then lift off the entire plot of land along the edge of the circle, dig out the soil below, and place a round bulging thing inside.
Then sprinkle a layer of loose soil on top, and finally cover it with the lifted iron plate.
The dug-out soil was all packed in bags, leaving no traces on site; not to mention at night, even during the day it would be impossible to spot anything unusual.
As a professional scout, Xie Chong is all too familiar with this set of actions.
This is the standard procedure for laying anti-tank mines!
Moreover, by carefully identifying all the Blue Army troops and accurately recording the position of each mine they laid with a pencil in a notebook.
Xie Chong discovered that they laid them very methodically, leaving only one path in the middle.
“This place is not the main attack route; the Red Army attack won’t go through here. Laying a minefield in this place wouldn’t it be useless effort?”
Xie Chong couldn’t understand the Blue Army’s operations and could only record what needed to be recorded, then continue monitoring this group of Blue Army troops.
Striving to figure out their intentions.
However, this group of Blue Army troops stayed here for a very long time, and the minefield they laid was extremely large, to the extent that even a tank company entering would be completely wiped out.
“Could it be that the Blue Army commander predicts that under the deputy battalion commander’s command, our Red Army won’t take the usual path? So they preemptively judged our tactics and laid a minefield here to make our Red Army suffer a big loss?”
Xie Chong suddenly became nervous at this thought, only because Chen Jun’s tactics are indeed famous for being unconventional.
Other battalion commanders commanding a tank company attack would definitely only take the easier paths, but if it were Chen Jun commanding, he might really take this detour.
“If the Blue Army really guesses right, then our Red Army is in trouble; this minefield is so large, the losses would be an entire tank company.”
The more Xie Chong thought, the more afraid he became, wishing he could immediately report this important intelligence to the battalion headquarters for prevention.
Unfortunately, the radio is jammed and unusable, leaving Xie Chong with no way out no matter how anxious he is; there’s no way to transmit the intelligence back in a short time.
“Before dawn, if communications aren’t restored, I’ll have to risk running back.”
Xie Chong didn’t want to watch the tank company get wiped out helplessly and could only take the initiative to think of a method: cross the two Blue Army defense lines again to send someone to deliver the intelligence back.
Even though this carries extremely high risk of exposure, he must attempt it despite the risk.
The Blue Army troops that Xie Chong’s side is tracking are actually Blue Army engineers; the purpose of coming out in the middle of the night is to lay a concealed minefield.
Meanwhile, after chasing for nearly half an hour on the other side, Shi Jin finally caught up to another batch of Blue Army troops.
Because walking is much slower than driving, by the time he and his team arrived, the Blue Army was already in position, and more than twenty Blue Army troops were busily working away.
Shi Jin quietly sneaked over for a look and immediately figured out their intentions.
They were also laying a minefield!
Moreover, the position they chose was even more insidious, far from the Blue Army’s First Defense Line and Second Defense Line, seemingly completely unrelated to the positions.
Without the Blue Army’s detailed topographic map, one would definitely think they were a bunch of fools.
Fortunately, Shi Jin has rich reconnaissance experience, and drawing topographic maps is second nature to him; just one glance tells him seventy to eighty percent.
Earlier, Shi Jin was wondering about the Blue Army’s deployment, which had an iron-head tofu-waist layout.
Turns out the killing move is here!
If this Blue Army engineer unit hadn’t been discovered, or if Shi Jin hadn’t risked following for reconnaissance, it might have led to an irreparable disaster.
Suppose Shi Jin hadn’t discovered the Blue Army engineers and continued to investigate the Blue Army unit structure in depth.
Then smoothly obtained all intelligence on the Blue Army structure, main position location, frontline deployment, etc., and finally successfully brought it all back to the Red Army Battalion Headquarters.
The Red Army, based on the collected intelligence, would discover the Blue Army flank defenses were weak.
They would be overjoyed!
Thinking this is an opportunity to break through the Blue Army, they would immediately dispatch a tank company from here to launch a surprise attack on the Blue Army, attempting to charge straight to the Blue Army main position.
The result would be falling for the Blue Army stratagem, plunging headlong into this minefield laid by the Blue Army in the middle of the night.
A tank company entering an anti-tank minefield, and on the Blue Army position at that—even if not completely destroyed on the spot, they would be trapped inside unable to escape.
With engineers unable to cross to clear the mines, the consequences are predictable.
Attack helicopter strikes, heavy artillery bombardment, infantry close assaults…
There are countless ways to annihilate a tank company!
Even without seeing it, Shi Jin could guess that the twelve teams that lost to the Blue Army earlier definitely suffered similar huge losses.
Sun Dongping, who is cunning in interpersonal dealings, is equally full of stratagems on the battlefield.
Without being cautious.
One might really fall into his trap.
“No wonder so many troops ahead couldn’t win; this place is really full of traps everywhere. I need to quickly find a way to send the intelligence back.”
Shi Jin was genuinely a bit worried; the Blue Army’s methods were too ruthless.
They had just entered the Blue Army position, and the insidious tactics he had already seen were so cunning—what about those he hadn’t seen? Surely more?
Shi Jin had no choice but to take it seriously!
Unfortunately, being wary of what he saw before his eyes, no matter how anxious he was, it had no meaning; he and Xie Chong were in the same situation, completely unable to contact the Red Army.
“What to do?”
As the person in charge of the Vanguard Squad, Shi Jin had more to consider than Xie Chong; for a moment, his thoughts were in turmoil, furrowing his brows.
Shi Jin was at his wits’ end with the Blue Army’s deployment, but the anxiety of this night was far from over.
Whether it was the flank Blue Army on Shi Jin’s side or the frontline Blue Army on Xie Chong’s side, after deploying the first area, they did not return.
Instead, over the next three hours, they continuously moved to multiple areas to deploy minefields.
And the positions they chose grew more insidious one after another.
Pairing these minefields with their main forces under the three positions—one main and two auxiliary—formed a tight iron-barrel formation for the Blue Army.
If these key intelligence items, these minefield positions, could not be brought back to the Red Army.
Shi Jin didn’t dare imagine the losses the Red Army troops would suffer from these minefields when charging to attack the Blue Army positions after the battle began.
Amid Shi Jin’s growing anxiety, the east gradually turned fish-belly white.
The sky…
is about to brighten!
The Red Army Battalion Headquarters, lit up all night, had not resolved the communications issue, so all officers’ eyes were bloodshot.
Gao Cheng had turned into a “grim reaper,” calling the Information Company every half hour on average.
More than a dozen calls in one night.
More exaggerated than Yue Fei issuing twelve imperial decrees in a row.
The entire Information Company bore immense pressure, battling through the whole night, all turning into “pinkeye,” but fortunately, they finally had results.
With the Central Military Commission as its backer, the Blue Army absolutely has the highest level of informatization currently.
Their electromagnetic interference equipment is inevitably the best in the entire army.
Although Steel Seventh Battalion also has electronic warfare troops, their equipment is certainly not as advanced as the former; direct confrontation would definitely not be a match.
The Information Company had already tried various direct methods in the first half of the night.
The result goes without saying: nothing but failure.
Chen Jun knew the Information Company was fighting head-on and clearly understood that with Steel Seventh Battalion Information Company’s equipment, they definitely couldn’t win head-on against the wealthy Blue Army.
All they had were wooden boats; how could they beat steel ships head-on.
In order to restore Red Army Command Post communications, Chen Jun had no choice but to personally go to the Information Company and gather the company commander and a group of technicians for a meeting.
The core of the meeting was one thing—
The orthodox path definitely won’t work; to break the deadlock, they could only take unorthodox methods.
Blaze a new trail from the wild paths.
While giving the Information Company a new combat direction, Chen Jun also shared his years of accumulated military experience with them through indirect guidance.
Even though Chen Jun didn’t understand information warfare, he had at least eaten pork if he hadn’t seen a pig run.
Various experience cases were highly enlightening.
With Chen Jun, the deputy battalion commander, taking the lead, the Information Company completely changed its combat thinking and began trying the wild methods Chen Jun mentioned to break the situation.
The entire night was spent on various attempts, seeing what wild methods could bypass the Blue Army interference.
After one night’s effort from nearly a hundred people, by combining two wild methods together, this tough nut was finally cracked.
The Information Company used two methods simultaneously to counter the Blue Army’s communication jamming.
The first method was “setting fake targets.”
Set up a fake command post in the Red Army’s own rear, concentrating all shortwave and ultra-shortwave radios under Information Company control to issue a large volume of command information.
And launch a frenzied offensive against the Blue Army, putting on a stance of “deciding victory or defeat” with the Blue Army information troops.
The Blue Army only dispatched one battalion-level unit; no matter how advanced the equipment of their Electronic Warfare Company, its structure absolutely couldn’t exceed one company.
With a structure of only one company, their equipment wouldn’t be much more than the Red Army’s.
As long as the Information Company emptied their entire stock, they could definitely pin down the Blue Army’s interference forces—even if outmatched in equipment and comprehensively suppressed by the Blue Army, it didn’t matter.
As long as they could pin them down, that was enough!
With the Blue Army’s interference forces drawn over to engage in electronic warfare confrontation with the Red Army in this area, the Blue Army would have no interference forces left to target the Red Army command system.
The Red Army command communications could then smoothly “shed the golden cicada shell.”
After completing this first step to attract the Blue Army’s main interference forces, it still wasn’t fully resolved—just half solved.
Because the Blue Army’s communication equipment was too strong, they could intercept Red Army communication signals at any time.
If the Blue Army intercepted Red Army command communications and discovered they had been outwitting a fake target all along, they would definitely react and redeploy.
Then all the efforts made would turn into bubbles, a waste of time.
Therefore.
To avoid being discovered by the Blue Army as being “played,” the Information Company pulled out a second “unorthodox” clever move.
Have all subordinate companies use fixed frequency, effectively turning the communications of eight companies into part of the bait to further pin down the Blue Army’s communication reconnaissance forces.
Only the Battalion Headquarters communications all switched to frequency hopping, maximizing evasion of Blue Army monitoring.
Frequency hopping can, within a certain range, continuously change communication frequencies across multiple frequencies at a regular rate, possessing strong anti-jamming capability.
With the Blue Army’s Electronic Warfare Company distracted across multiple fronts, locked in a life-and-death struggle with the fake target.
They absolutely wouldn’t have the spare capacity to invest large equipment and manpower against frequency hopping, making the probability of spotting the trick minuscule.
When the east turned fish-belly white, the Information Company formally began executing “shed the golden cicada shell.”
As soon as the concentrated all shortwave and ultra-shortwave radios, the specially crafted “fake command post,” appeared, the Blue Army electronic warfare forces came sniffing after it.
Under the fake command post’s deliberate constant provocations, the arrogant Blue Army indeed fell into the trap.
They began a fierce battle with the fake command post!
The Battalion Headquarters, which had long been prepared, under Chen Jun’s personal command, switched its radio to frequency hopping and began attempting to contact the reconnaissance squad deep in the enemy rear, which had been out of contact for over ten hours.
“Calling Vanguard, calling Vanguard, this is the Arsenal, respond if received.”
Vanguard is the codename for the Vanguard Squad, Arsenal is the codename for the Red Army Battalion Headquarters; codenames are used to confuse the Blue Army, preventing them from determining which Red Army unit it is.
And as Chen Jun personally gripped the microphone to call, the entire Battalion Headquarters fell into a tense atmosphere.
Everyone was so nervous they hardly dared to breathe, all eyes fixed on Chen Jun.
If after all this they still couldn’t contact the lost reconnaissance squad, it would absolutely be bad news for the Red Army.
Every second of waiting felt like a year, constantly tugging at everyone’s tense hearts.
But after nearly five full seconds, no sound came from the radio, just like the past ten-plus hours last night.
“Could it have failed?”
Thinking of this unacceptable result, some people’s hearts sank to the bottom.
But at this crucial moment.
“Hiss hiss~”
The radio, which had shown no reaction, suddenly emitted two distinct bursts of static noise.
