Chapter 290: Xuan Chong’s Musings
October 7th, Xian Han calendar 2108, Dayuezhi Fortress. The Han Army’s positions underwent minor adjustments. On this defensive line adjusted by Xuan Chong, several gaps two to three hundred meters wide suddenly appeared indented.
These breaches on the positions made the Han Army’s entire defensive line seem precarious, attracting massive hordes of beasts howling and surging into the area like a magnet. This greatly reduced pressure on other defensive lines. The orcs, like elementary school students experiencing collective dorm life for the first time encountering the canteen opening for meals, clanged their bowls and roared as they charged in.
While the orcs assembled their big brute team, preparing to tear through the human defensive line; temporary firepower positions built from sandbags quietly appeared on both sides of the indented gap unnoticed. This formed a situation of trapping the enemy in an encirclement.
Originally, heavy machine guns on the frontline were very vulnerable to being hit by burning balls thrown by orcs, forcing the heavy machine guns to open suppressive fire from several hundred meters away, while orcs charged in large groups with extremely strong vitality, still howling and charging even after being hit by bullets.
But now in this pocket area, heavy machine guns opened fire at a distance of one hundred meters, sweeping over the orcs like a scythe, instantly breaking into two sections any orcs whose waists could not be encircled by one person’s arms.
Compared to the previous situation where the Han Army used heavy machine guns like whack-a-mole to conduct point suppressive fire on groups of orcs in the outer positions. Luring the orc offensive into key areas and then densely harvesting with concentrated firepower density was like cutting leeks.
A few orcs broke through the firepower net and tried to charge inward, but the second solid defensive line also opened fire.
Numerous beasts in the flat area in front of the positions encountered back-and-forth cleansing by various firepower lines. Ordinary seven-millimeter rifle bullets, twelve-millimeter machine gun bullets, thirty-millimeter infantry fighting vehicle cannons—these firepower lines impacting the beasts produced various effects.
Bullets swept orc corpses to the ground like brooms; while autocannons directly shattered orcs, exploding into huge blood flowers and fragmented limbs on the spot. The orcs’ charge came to an abrupt halt.
The open flat ground formed a perfect killing field.
Even as the beasts roared with steel knives snatched from herders in their hands, they could only watch gun muzzles firing from all directions around them, as brilliant as summer flowers in shrubbery. While in the sky, whistling trajectories uniformly approached from far to near, like a grand chorus.
After the first battle’s victory, Xuan Chong began arranging more flexible elastic defense deployments.
Perfect application of geometry on the battlefield, the diffusion efficiency distribution of high-explosive shell fragments for maximum coverage in the shortest time, all allocated in Xuan Chong’s calculations. Beasts suffered heavy casualties while charging into and occupying trenches.
Two days later, the orcs charging again, even if successfully entering the trenches, still hit a wall. They found rows of chlorine gas mortar shells falling from the sky, filling the trenches with poison gas.
Beasts writhed continuously amid coughing, with a few orcs drilling into the ground like wild boars rooting soil.
However, these trenches were deliberately left for the orcs by Xuan Chong.
The reserved tunnels between trenches only allowed humans to pass sideways; orcs could not get through. A few orcs hid inside the trenches, but the beasts outside had already been harvested by machine guns and cannonballs.
On the fifth day, three days after the elastic defense execution, as the orcs charged in again and the outside of the trenches was cleared, the Han Army’s three-hundred-man daredevil team launched a position seizure war, throwing grenades before entering the trenches, then using close-combat weapons similar to repeating shotguns to eliminate the beasts in the trenches and recapture them.
This position seizure indicated that the Han Army’s morale was beginning to recover, no longer fearing this unknown enemy.
On the seventh day, the orcs seemed excited and launched the largest scale impact, with the entire position under attack. But the Han Army’s artillery divided the offensive. After reaching the positions, the orcs faced crossfire from several firepower points and could only choose easy breakthrough points to enter.
However, the traffic trench passages designed by Xuan Chong were also specifically convenient for firepower positions to shift.
Half an hour later, the first batch of machine guns and mortars completed their massive killing and quietly shifted to another position. The artillery strike on that position had just become sparse, allowing the orcs to find an opportunity to begin charging.
The human positions would appropriately appear “shaky” at a certain spot. Immediately after, the beasts swarmed in, but encountered concentrated deployments of machine guns and mortars for deathly slaughter once again.
Within ten shichen, through four defensive line “loosening” counterattacks, over four thousand such beasts were killed, and the entire Han Army defensive positions were completely relieved. Many began poking heads out of the trenches, gesturing at the retreating orc forces.
Xuan Chong scribbled with pen on the map, continuously calculating defensive focuses.
The brigadier generals who had been arguing earlier gradually stopped, unanimously waiting for the airborne young supervisor’s decision.
The brigadier generals inwardly praised: This young man had a scholarly look on his youthful face; but with the pen tip in his hand, a casual stroke meant mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
As for this division’s expeditionary commander, after receiving the battle results, he could not help but voice his thoughts: “This young man sent from above has the potential to be a general!”
Looking back at the division’s morale during the initial encounter battle.
Due to being caught off guard by the orc tide closing in at the start, two battalions’ soldiers were torn apart alive, and some soldiers who escaped returned mentally deranged, spreading wild rumors crazily during their madness.
This led to the entire division’s soldiers fearing the beasts’ close approach, only daring to hide in defensive facilities and vent fear with firepower, seeking momentary safety now without considering long-term plans for one day or two days later.
As the Han Army’s ammunition consumption speed increased, thinking of the situation after ammunition ran out in a few days, fear remained inevitable.
During group panic, most people would inevitably be swept into the panic emotions.
As a military strategist with “rich command experience,” Xuan Chong, though unable to be as comprehensive as professional generals of this era, knew how to “not make mistakes.” Facing the panic emotions throughout the army, every word and action from Xuan Chong conveyed the information of “don’t panic” and “as long as we use our brains, it will improve.”
After listening to the narratives from various sides of the team that had already “argued,” Xuan Chong took out paper and pen for calm calculations! Finally boldly devising the plan of “leaving gaps, luring in to strike.”
This psychological quality did not seem like that of a young man not yet eighteen, but rather the mentality of a veteran general.
If not for his age being evident, the officers of 013 Division would think this imperial envoy sent from above (Xuan Chong) was a general who had commanded division-level actual combat missions.
Now, for 013 Division, the most dangerous situation had passed. Communications with the rear were reestablished, and 013 Division had found a suitable method to consume the alien beasts, with current ammunition reserves sufficient to hold until reinforcements arrived.
…Buffer period ends…
Up to now, Xuan Chong had perfectly completed the task assigned by Dragon Group, communications connected, frontline stabilized.
Resources were also utilized to the extreme, with his brought troops dispersed into small teams on the positions, serving as tactical information hub nodes.
The key to elastic tactics is team communication degree, i.e., whether firepower can be rapidly mobilized while dispatching troops to timely intercept and divide.
Troops of the telegraph era found it extremely difficult to achieve such rapid reactions; battle tactics often involved continuous days of large-scale artillery preparation, bombarding with thousands of cannons before sending troops to charge.
Now after actual combat, the next step in Xian Han’s army reform is to enhance squad wireless radio communications.
After completing the military task, Xuan Chong could not help but ponder; and the result of pondering was: Xian Han’s army obviously had some biases…
In the past seventy to eighty years, Guangxi Group as the “steam roadroller” was first-rate in both industrial scale and population, basically encountering no opponents in land battles. Moreover, most times military means were not even needed. Land border issues could be resolved through geopolitical diplomacy.
Thus, the long opponent-less Xian Han army, despite leading in productivity technology, remained conservative in military procurement of spark-gap telegraph machines and telephones.
In recent years, Han Army land division and brigade innovations focused on procuring mechanical vehicles. For example, a division’s troop strength, fully equipped, required three hundred combat vehicles, but spark machines were only equipped in the three-hundred-man division headquarters; below division headquarters, it still relied on mounted messengers for transmission.
Xuan Chong: This is the common disease of all complacent armies, pre-WWII Europe’s number one France and Maozi all had this problem. Despite having first-rate vehicle and cannon equipment, looking powerful in military firepower data, intra-legion information and command transmission was a mess.
Because military information transmission is needed in the “dynamic,” only legions thinking about “offense” would realize this.
On the tenth day, the beast group launched another offensive, the Han Army defensive line’s “elastic amplitude” larger; after half an hour of orc offense, two abyss-like giant mouths appeared on the Han Army defensive line, swallowing two charge waves totaling over six thousand beasts, then closing the encirclement for firepower crushing.
…Perspective shifts to Yandu…
In the past fifteen days, Xuan Chong’s required four stages of support were all completed as planned. Batches of airships carried engineering teams to maintain wartime train lines. Thermite flashed on long-neglected railways, steel rails reinforced, heavy freight trains passing rusty lines.
Xian Han’s Dragon Group directly employed cross-era technology, setting up battlefield relay airships, completing understanding of the frontline situation.
In the Imperial Ancestral Temple laboratory beneath the Temple of Heaven, the Emperor was watching the frontline’s latest two campaigns.
The Grand Marshal introduced the current combat situation on the screen.
The Grand Marshal used a bayonet as a club to point on the map: “Previously beast equipment seemed still developing, but due to lack of materials, now they cannot reach the level from stone tools to guns as at the start. On the contrary, due to two campaigns annihilating sufficient charging groups, a considerable number of newly born beasts now include grenade throwers. This group of alien upright beasts is using unknown methods to gather nitrates to manufacture and throw explosives.”
The Emperor looked at the battle report, focusing on the current ammunition reserves in Dayuezhi Fortress, and asked: “So, the situation is temporarily stable, right?”
Zhao Xun, as Ministry of War’s main official, said: “Yes, but we must not underestimate the enemy. From current information, if major failure occurs, these unknown beasts have high uncertainty.”
The Emperor nodded and asked Lin Sima, the true current state administrator: “What does Grand Marshal think?”
Old Lin: Thanks to the frontline officers and soldiers fighting with their lives; also, Your Majesty the person you sent contributed greatly. However, we still need to further understand the root of this calamity, must send people into the meteorite area’s center to gather data.
…War machine activates…
In the northwest base, orc corpses had been sent by airships to the “biology” laboratory.
Xian Han’s dissectors conducted meticulous examination of orc organs.
In the biological base, the physician shifted gaze from the microscope and recorded on the report: This type of alien species’ flesh and blood tissue, after host death, exhibits “spore” characteristics. Original animal tissue cells can transform into microbial spores, then into plant cells. Not excluding re-transformation into animal cells.
Simultaneously discovered that these spores can reproduce asexually. Meaning if even a tiny bit “leaks,” it will proliferate on the ground.
October 30th, batches of disinfection troops entered the abandoned Han-Europe railway line.
Han Army cleared several suspected spots scattered with this “orc” spore fragments. Leading the team was Phoenix Group’s Dragon Power user, whose ability code is “organic resonance.” And orc this organic life, the chemical reactions in the process of “switching from biology to animal” are unique across the planet, so based on special “organic resonance.”
This “organic resonance” Dragon Power user could precisely search within a certain range for the spore diffusion of these extraterrestrial variants after death.
Many herders were mobilized and clashed with newly born, less than half-person-high abominations (little shits), with minor personnel casualties but significant livestock losses, greatly impacting animal husbandry. To the point that southwest local officials requested relaxing the “musket control order.”
Yandu Imperial Court machine saw the report and immediately sealed the news, while ordering various departments to act quickly.
In Gaochang City, Liu Yi who also rushed to the frontline received rear orders and could not help but comment: “What are the people in the rear thinking, the situation just stabilized, accumulate some troop strength for a charge to be prudent. Now—hit a wave while the aliens are unsteady? We haven’t stood firm yet?”
Dragon Group connected to the frontline relay airships. Personnel on these relay station airships immediately stood up, activating electromagnetic equipment to increase communication bandwidth.
With Xuan Chong connecting to Dragon Group’s internal video call, this Dragon Group leader expressed care. While Xuan Chong continued performing “enthusiasm” for serving Xian Han.
Ministry of War brought new appointment, Xuan Chong promoted from original fourth-rank garrison to second-rank Elite Cavalry General.
Liu Yi: “Xuan Chong (style name), congratulations.”
Xuan Chong: “What is there to congratulate, with national calamity at hand, please for the sake of Your Majesty and the state altars, give brother here a hand.”
Liu Yi: “Brother, what words are these, at this moment, serving the nation together. No talk of promotion.”
…Rising star, hot topic…
In less than three short years, Xuan Chong completed a three-level jump and not yet of age, unprecedented in Xian Han’s one hundred years.
As for one hundred years ago, that was the era of thorough imperial power rule; though scholar-officials gained decision-making power over most affairs in court debates, when involving high-level personnel promotions, ultimately the Emperor had the final say.
The case at that time was the current imperial son-in-law favored by the princess, resulting in imperial son-in-law official position three-level jump.
Of course this promotion was criticized by scholar-officials to this day—and now Liu Haoxing today was solidly promoted on the frontline battlefield. Belonging to merit of turning the tide.
The cabinet’s such “exceptional” promotion was already quite restrained.
Ministry of War, to let Xuan Chong do good work on frontline, transferred Wu Xi (local commander) who could check Xuan Chong, to rear Yicheng supervisor, responsible for “more important” logistics.
The military official position of commander over various provinces’ military affairs, corresponding regional civil official prefects, civil and military equal rank. Similar to Journey to the West heaven’s “Kui Mulang” job transfer.
In Xian Han, General Who Conquers Barbarians is responsible for one division’s frontline combat command, while Elite Cavalry General is responsible for operational scheduling in the area (chief of general staff). This appointment arrangement referenced Xuan Chong and frontline 013 Division’s cooperation status, and current task bearing.
According to military camp rules, as long as able to command on frontline and hold this battle, can turn from deputy to formal. At that time, Xian Han’s four hundred years history would have the first “general of weak crown age.”
The reason for such merit is that the previous situation was quite critical.
Western Regions lost contact with two divisions, 013 Division found by Xuan Chong, while 087 Division now in dire straits withdrawing south to Gaotianling area (Afghan) to hold.
Imperial Court after urgently promoting Xuan Chong also issued death order, must hold this west gate.
Xuan Chong clear: If cannot hold this gate, the soldier disaster caused by unknown abomination beasts would reach Governor-General’s Office. —Contemporary cabinet possibly the first in fifty years to be collectively impeached, while west side a large batch of officials stripped of honors.
The eunuch coming to report quietly prompted Xuan Chong: “The current position obtained is strived for Xuan Chong under Son of Heaven’s strong push, otherwise against court system.”
And recently, Xuan Chong’s father was also summoned by Son of Heaven to Yandu.
After Xuan Chong’s father entered capital, still able to get some development chips for Dongtu. —This is imperial clan’s benefit, due to ties with localities, no matter how great the reward, can be invested in remote areas for implementation, no fear of merit overshadowing master.
…At this time rear worry-free…
Xuan Chong looking at latest assignment task and the red spot marked area on map, raised head to ask Liu Yi on screen: “Isn’t the rear stepping a bit too big, maintaining defense now is the most stable.”
Liu Yi: “Your side already in standoff state, your previous several battles massively annihilated this herd of beasts, making beasts start cautious, not daring large-scale charges. So, with your talent, should have thought about counterattack directions, right?”
Xuan Chong facing this goading method (PUA), felt slight resentment inwardly, but did not show displeasure on face.
Facing Liu Yi this Dragon Group senior twenty years older, Xuan Chong cautiously indicated: If not affecting frontline basic situation, will fully cooperate.
On the projected dialogue interface, Liu Yi seemed to anticipate Xuan Chong’s this answer, nodded.
As early as previous meeting, Liu Yi determined: Dongtu’s this heir, age not yet weak crown, but unusually mature, seeming to know from womb how to handle official pleasantries.
And fortunately, currently Liu Haoxing just turned eighteen, no matter how great ability, as senior still able to firmly grasp, and future, to focus grasp. In a few more years probably not so easy to control.
Xuan Chong facing the latest military order “forcing self to take the initiative to attack”, slightly probed, confirmed upper meaning, then no refutation.
Xuan Chong: “This is the materials list I need, best gather within one month.”
Liu Yi: “No problem.” —Took the list and carefully looked, frowned slightly, but still nodded confirmation.
Finally, Liu Yi in half-warning half-joking tone said: “Thanks to sending you to the battlefield, otherwise—” He paused here, “Putting you into politics would absolutely be a major scourge to the Imperial Court.”
After all, crazily noting little notebook, everyone inwardly uneasy whether would finally make a officials’ conduct record.
