Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 1271: Chapter 42: Morning Light (Part 3)

”That Fatty! Show-off!”

Watching that white Mecha bounding up and down among the two armies locked in a death struggle on the rolling slope below, Li Cunxin stood akimbo, cursing with a beaming smile.

The command posts of the 1st and 2nd echelons had already merged; the officers, high-spirited, stood on the hillside, hands behind their backs, spectating. Hearing Li Cunxin’s laughing curse, Pei Litong’s eyelids drooped a little, the officers exchanged glances, and their expressions all turned a bit odd.

Nobody knew the Old Marshal’s temper better than they did. In this tone, never mind ordinary people—even his own son Admiral Li Hongwu had never enjoyed it. Just looking at the old man’s cheerful face, you could tell how perfectly that Fatty, who glared at him big-eye to small-eye all day long, suited his taste.

It was like a grandfather seeing his mischievous grandson! Even scolding him twice carried a bit of indulgent connivance.

The battle to encircle and annihilate the Jiepeng 221 Armored Division had already entered its final phase. Over three thousand Jiepeng Mecha Warriors had been pinned here by the 1st echelon; several attempts at full-force charges had failed, costing them a quarter of their strength. The remaining more than two thousand, caught in a pincer between the 2nd and 1st echelons, were either dead or had surrendered; at this moment, fewer than three hundred were still putting up a last-ditch resistance. And these three hundred Mecha had already been chopped into disjointed segments by two Chuckna Armored Camps repeatedly interpenetrating their formation. Their destruction was only a flip of the hand away.

This battle was fought clean and neat!

Knocking out the 221 Armored Division was like opening a door of light for an otherwise unknowable future!

To be honest, before this, nobody had any real confidence in Fatty’s plan.

Surrounded by a total of thirty divisions, instead of retreating, they advanced; with the combat power of just two divisions, they thrust straight into the enemy’s core rear area, cut off its retreat, and penned all thirty divisions into this Northern Mountain Region. No matter how you looked at it, such a plan was too risky, too crazy.

No one had imagined that that Fatty, who trailed behind Milan with a fawning face, looking all chubby and utterly harmless, would actually risk his life to put forward a plan that ”bold to the point of insanity” couldn’t even begin to describe. Even more unexpected was that the Old Marshal Li Cunxin gave this practically fantastical plan his full, unreserved support.

The entire plan had been driven all the way forward by this lawless, reckless pair of lunatics—one old, one young—both with atrocious personalities.

Thinking back now, the officers themselves didn’t even know how they’d agreed to such a crazy plan and executed it with such iron resolve.

Perhaps it was the rage and grief stirred up by the slaughter committed by the Jiepeng people; perhaps it was their trust in Fatty; or perhaps, deep in their bones, they were born with an adventurous nature. It was just that this nature—scorching like lava—had long been suppressed in their marrow by reason, only to erupt uncontrollably at that very moment!

As soldiers, born into this tempestuous great era, who didn’t harbor the ambition of making military exploits and having their names go down in history! A hundred-year life passes in a blink; since one has come to this world, who wouldn’t want to carve his own iron-boned name into this era and this land.

Life and death, to soldiers of this era, were no longer important. What mattered was that even if they died, they would die gloriously, die with value, die in a way that shook heaven and earth!

Everyone had stepped onto this northward road with the resolve to die!

Yet now, the first great victory on the northward road was already laid out before their eyes!

The forces split into three columns, attacked three towns to startle the snake in the grass, drew the Jiepeng encircling forces into changing routes and converging on three directions; then they destroyed SkyNet, shrouded the Jiepeng Forces in an electronic blackout, force-marched through the night to complete the penetration, and annihilated the 221 Division deployed on the outskirts of Beiguan City... It was like a dream. Step by step, all of it had been within that Fatty’s calculations, not off by a hair!

Especially this encirclement attack on the 221 Division: from the 1st echelon deliberately posing as if caught off guard in a hasty engagement and colliding head-on with the 221 Division’s route of advance, to the choice of blocking position, the construction of the defenses, the allocation and deployment of forces, the coordination of electronic attacks, the timing of several counterattacks by the Armored Camps, and then the moment the 2nd echelon was committed—every detail had been laid out clearly in Fatty’s plan.

His control of the battle was so precise it opened everyone’s eyes. Comparing the current battle to the previous simulation plan, they even felt a strange illusion of time looping back on itself. It was as if the scene now unfolding had already taken place in another spacetime, and Fatty was merely guiding everything back onto the rails to be reenacted once more!

This victory had already pushed the army’s confidence to its peak. The battle wasn’t even over, and the regimental and battalion commanders on the command channel were already asking about the 3rd echelon and the enemy’s 232 Armored Division. Their thirst for battle was written all over their words.

This kind of morale, this fearless confidence, could only be seen in an army that had won a hundred battles! No one would believe that this force was a fleeing unit surrounded by thirty Jiepeng Armored Divisions!

Now, the 3rd echelon had already swung around from the east and drawn the Jiepeng 232 Division, which had been deployed parallel to the 221 Division, over to a point sixty kilometers east of the Flyns Agricultural District. After wiping out the 221 Division, within an hour the 1st and 2nd echelons would be able to wheel around to the 232 Division’s left flank and rear, launch a sudden attack, and encircle and annihilate this division.

To destroy two Armored Divisions with even greater strength while under deep encirclement—such a record would be earth-shattering, a monumental feat in any country!

Their thoughts were cut off by a sudden burst of cheers from the line, louder than before.