Since the start of the war between China and the United States, the density of radio waves over North America had skyrocketed and soon reached dozens of times more than before. These radios in the air sent the news of the railway being destroyed to the 24th Army Headquarters that was besieging Duluth.
After receiving the information, Chief of Staff Qi Rui's expression was very ugly. With the current strength of the Liberation Army, it was not easy to make a railway impenetrable, but Qi Rui believed that it should not be a problem to focus on defense. But in the latest news, a heavily defended railway bridge was destroyed by the Americans. This problem caused the subsequent military plan to encounter a huge problem.
In the original plan, the 24th Army would surround Duluth, and the three armies in St. Paul would then go north to join the battle. After taking down this key point, the tens of thousands of federal troops in the north of Duluth would be surrounded. After this period of fighting, the frontline command believed that the federal troops on the front line were the elites of the United States. This was the advantage of concentrating superior forces to fight a war of annihilation. Not only would this make the federal troops lack sufficient backbone, but it would also make the UA troops that had not yet fought with the Liberation Army confused about the Liberation Army. The follow-up UA troops did not know the true strength of the opponent, which meant that the follow-up troops would make the same mistake as the previous troops that were annihilated.
So far, the wishful thinking had been executed well. But a railway bridge caused a big problem in the calculation. Even though Qi Rui knew it was useless to be angry, he could not help but feel disappointed and angry.
All the young officers were silent, and the headquarters immediately fell into a tense situation. At this time, Commander Zheng Minglun stood up and said, "Let's adjust our plan first. Continue to fight the enemy when the follow-up troops are a day and a half late. "
During this time, the commander rarely spoke, and even if he did speak, it was when he was involved in the planning. Although there were many problems before, overall, there was no unexpected situation, and no one had a chance to ask the commander to speak. The situation was somewhat out of the plan. When they heard the commander's order, everyone in the headquarters was refreshed.
Thinking back to the commander's order, the young people in the headquarters also calmed down. In fact, the worst situation was that the follow-up troops would arrive two days late. As long as there were no large-scale problems with the railway bridges, the infantry could rely on the engineers to build simple bridges. The delay would be two days at most.
Perhaps it was because Qi Rui had regained his composure that he found a reason to be angry. Up until now, the 24th Division had encountered many enemies, but they hadn't encountered a situation that forced them to change their battle plan. He had been advancing like a hurricane, so when he suddenly encountered a setback, he was naturally very unhappy.
"Order the troops to strengthen the patrol of the railway to prevent further sabotage by the enemy." Qi Rui gave an order regarding the railway. The destruction of a railway bridge had a limited effect on the infantry reaching the front line on foot. The infantrymen crossed the damaged railway bridge with their military backpacks and walked to the undamaged side. Regardless of whether it was a train or a truck, the Light Infantry would be able to set off once they boarded the vehicle.
Light infantry could do this, but heavy weapons could not. The 75 mm cannon weighed a ton, and it would take more than ten people to carry it on flat ground. There was no need to consider transportation on rugged terrain. As for the 105 Cannon, there was no need to consider it at all. Heavy equipment could bring a huge advantage on the battlefield, and the Liberation Army relied heavily on heavy equipment. Even if it was friendly heavy equipment, Qi Rui could not turn a blind eye to it.
In the dark outside the headquarters, the sound of guns and cannons began to intensify again. It seemed like the Americans in Duluth had no signs of letting up. They had the intention of disrupting the Liberation Army's arrangements while they had just arrived and had yet to gain a stable footing here.
Even if the reinforcements from the south were slow, Qi Rui still had reinforcements from the north to look forward to. He quickly regained his composure and ordered the communications staff officer, "Inform all the troops. Even if they temporarily retreat, we can't let any problems appear in the encirclement. As long as we can hold on until Tianling, we can let the Americans know the consequences of a local snake going up against a strong dragon like us! "
Commander Zheng Minglun quietly looked at the behavior of the young people in the headquarters. Qi Rui rarely said harsh words, but under the pressure, he still could not hold it in. Was this so-called local snake referring to the American troops in Duluth? Or was he referring to the American teams operating near the railway lines? Zheng Minglun was a little interested in this.
However, Zheng Minglun did not say anything. The current situation of the battle was far from reversing the situation. The 24th Division's marching performance was really outstanding. Zheng Minglun firmly believed that his troops could defeat the enemy alone and take the credit.
The Liberation Army was full of confidence in the war, but the Liberation Army's opposing American Federation Army was very different. Major Pershing's admiration for Lieutenant Colonel Mendez was like the Mississippi River that flowed endlessly. Not to mention the lieutenant colonel's accurate intelligence, just the fact that he was able to take the lead and lead the troops into battle was unparalleled bravery. Although they did not encounter any real danger during the whole process, there were more than ten times or even dozens of times more enemies within 20 meters of the three of them. Lieutenant Colonel Mendez's calm response allowed the battle to be easily successful.
Lieutenant Colonel Mendez did not really like to listen to Major Pershing's praise. Walking five miles in the dark was quite a painful thing. Although he had personally walked this path, Engineer Mendez only felt very worried. He was worried that he had taken the wrong path and led everyone in the wrong direction. As a small path, there were naturally no obvious traces. Some of the turning points completely relied on memories. However, these memories were already quite blurry due to time.
One mile was about 1.6 kilometers, so five miles was eight kilometers. A path that could be completed in an hour during the day would take several times longer now. After walking less than half the way, Lieutenant Colonel Mendez was already panting heavily. His squad was also panting heavily.
"Lieutenant Colonel, let's take a break." Major Pershing wiped the sweat off his face and made a request to Lieutenant Colonel Mendez.
"Okay." Lieutenant Colonel Mendez agreed. The psychological pressure of walking in the dark was something he had never imagined before. The physical exhaustion brought by this kind of pressure was also something he had never imagined.
Just as everyone sat down, Lieutenant Colonel Mendez opened the lunch box and let everyone in the team eat the cold mashed potatoes with salt. At this moment, they could no longer heat up the food. If they started a fire and were seen by the Chinese, they would be done for. They could sneak attack the Chinese, but they could not fight the Chinese head-on. Everyone in this team had been defeated by the Chinese army. If it wasn't for their good luck, they would have been killed by now.
After a few mouthfuls of mashed potatoes, the team immediately regained some vitality. A soldier couldn't help but ask, "Lieutenant Colonel, we're just going to blow up another bridge, right?"
"Yes. Just blow up another bridge. "Lieutenant Colonel Mendez's answer was very certain.
"Why can't we just blow up one bridge or blow up a few more?" The soldier was very puzzled.
Lieutenant Colonel Mendez patiently explained, "If we only blow up one bridge, we can repair the bridge by working on both sides. After blowing up two bridges, we can only rely on the equipment on one side to repair it. That kind of repair speed is about a quarter of the repair speed of both sides. There's not much difference between blowing up a few bridges and only blowing up two bridges. Also, we only have this few people and there aren't many mines. We can't blow up more bridges even if we want to. "
The soldier had no idea about bridge engineering and railway engineering, but they understood that this very capable Lieutenant Colonel had no intention of letting this small team fight the Chinese head-on. For the soldiers, this was enough. The fact that the Lieutenant Colonel didn't force the soldiers to die was like a god descending to earth. As for blowing up a few damned broken bridges, that didn't matter.
The team ate something and then leaned back to back. The three of them wrapped themselves in a blanket and took a nap for a while. Finally, under Lieutenant Colonel Mendez's urging, they got up and continued forward.
Walking in the dark was still as difficult as ever. In order to prevent injury, they had to be even more focused. The team didn't know how long they had walked, nor how far they had walked. They finally saw the lights. The lights weren't very bright, but they were undoubtedly guiding lights in the dark. After walking for a while in the direction of the lights, the team heard the sound of a river.
"We're here!" Lieutenant Colonel Mendez's voice was filled with great enthusiasm. Looking at the terrain, he was sure that he was really on the right path. This was a bridge that had given Mendez incomparable headaches. The contractor's method was simple and crude. He cut down some huge trees to build stupid black and thick pillars. These pillars looked thick and solid, but in reality, they weren't. In particular, the interface was handled extremely poorly, and the position where the pillars were connected was very rough. Engineer Mendez had many times joked with other engineers about how long this railway bridge could last.
Along the way, Mendez had already thought of the position to destroy. As long as he blew up the interface, the other originally unstable positions would be even more damaged. With the practice of the American railway construction, as long as a train passed through, this seemingly fine bridge would be crushed. At the very least, there would be a major structural problem.
However, although this idea was very good, there was a problem. This river was relatively deep, and the railway bridge was built on two high slopes. If he wanted to blow up the bridge, he had to first climb up the bridge and then jump down from the bridge. The previous bridge could be dealt with by building a human ladder, but this bridge wasn't suitable.
After thinking for a while, Lieutenant Colonel Mendez called Major Pan Xing to the side and told him the problem he was facing. Major Pan Xing frowned and thought for a while, then he said awkwardly, "Lieutenant Colonel? How about we climb up. "
"How?" Mendez naturally knew that they didn't have the strength to break through the defense of the Chinese people at the bridge. It would be best if they could climb up.
"Use a rope to wrap around the pillars and climb tightly with your feet …" Major Pan Xing explained his method.
This time, it was Lieutenant Colonel Mendez's turn to frown. He had never used this method before, and it sounded like it required a very high level of skill.
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