While Wang Yao and the newly commissioned officers were en route to the 87th Division Headquarters in Bopa City, Hu Hao was sitting in the dense forest on the outskirts of Santong County, waiting patiently for the massive Allied Corps to arrive.
The Allied marching speed was incredibly slow and cautious, drawing the wait out agonizingly. Hu Hao sat calmly beneath a large tree, waiting for reports from his forward observation posts.
Bo Gang and Ye Zifeng, however, couldn’t sit still. The prospect of actually annihilating two full Allied Divisions was intoxicating. If they actually pulled this off, their merit would be astronomical. Of course, they didn’t care about the official merit assigned by the aristocratic High Command; they cared about the merit assigned by the civilians and the soldiers in their hearts. None of the frontline officers had any respect left for the aristocrats in the Capital anyway.
“Can you two sit down? Honestly, if you’re really this anxious, go find somewhere to sleep! Aren’t you exhausted? We haven’t really slept since last night,” Hu Hao sighed in annoyance, watching them pace back and forth in front of him.
“Hao-ge, how could we possibly sleep right now?! Are you kidding me?! The Allied forces are marching two entire Divisions right into our trap! Two Divisions! If we actually annihilate them without losing a single soldier… our achievement will be legendary!” Ye Zifeng exclaimed, his hands trembling slightly with adrenaline.
“Oh my god, please just sit down! I’m getting neck cramps looking up at you pacing back and forth! Sit! It’s going to be at least another hour before they even reach the city limits; are you trying to torture me to death before they even get here?
If you have to pace, go pace somewhere else! Get out of my line of sight!” Hu Hao rubbed his temples in frustration.
“Uh… no, we’re sticking right here with you!” Bo Gang immediately sat down on the grass. Seeing this, Ye Zifeng quickly sat down next to him.
“Sigh. The more critical the situation, the calmer you must remain. It’s just two Divisions, barely twenty thousand men. Is that really enough to make you this frantic?” Hu Hao scolded them gently from his seated position.
“Hao-ge, you… you… Fine. I’m not going to argue with you. You aren’t a normal human being!” Ye Zifeng opened his mouth to retort, but thought better of it. He realized arguing with Hu Hao about warfare was pointless; Hu Hao simply operated on a completely different level of reality.
“I don’t care what you two do. If you want to sit here and agonize, go ahead. I’m going to catch a nap,” Hu Hao muttered, leaning back against the broad trunk of the tree and closing his eyes. He truly hadn’t slept properly since the previous morning.
“You can actually sleep right now?!” Bo Gang stared at him in utter disbelief.
“You two are senior commanders. You must realize that your soldiers are constantly watching your every move. If you panic, they panic. If you project absolute calm, they feel secure! You’re both grown men in your thirties; why are you acting like jittery recruits?! Neither of you is allowed to stand up until I say so!” Hu Hao ordered, his eyes still closed.
“Alright, Hao-ge. Whatever you say, you always have a perfectly logical explanation to back it up. I concede,” Bo Gang sighed. He leaned back against the grass as well, but his eyes remained wide open, staring intently at the canopy above.
For the two Regimental Commanders, the wait was absolute torture. But for Hu Hao? Less than five minutes later, a soft, rhythmic snoring echoed from his direction.
“Holy shit!” Bo Gang and Ye Zifeng jolted upright, staring at Hu Hao in shock.
“He’s… he’s actually asleep?!” Bo Gang pointed a trembling finger at Hu Hao, completely lost for words.
“I yield. I completely yield. This is exactly why he’s the Division Commander, and we’re not. I am in total awe,” Ye Zifeng shook his head in profound reverence.
“What time is it?” Bo Gang whispered.
“Just past 16:00. It’ll be over an hour before they even arrive!” Ye Zifeng checked his watch.
“Motherfucker… why is time moving so slowly?!” Bo Gang cursed under his breath.
“Can you two shut the hell up and let me sleep?!” Hu Hao growled, his eyes still firmly shut.
“We’ll be quiet! We’ll be quiet!” Ye Zifeng quickly whispered.
The two commanders immediately stood up and tiptoed away from Hu Hao. They realized Hu Hao was a monster, and they couldn’t operate on his wavelength. They moved a safe distance away and silently prayed that the Allied forces would march directly into the city center so they could blow them to ash.
“Commander, how much longer?” Li Jiahang, the Commander of the 1st Battalion, walked over and asked Ye Zifeng in a hushed whisper.
“Don’t ask me! Don’t you have a watch?!” Ye Zifeng snapped quietly.
“I’m afraid my watch is broken! The second hand is barely moving!” Li Jiahang raised his wrist, staring at his watch in frustration.
“My watch is moving even slower. Motherfucker, why won’t they hurry up?!” Ye Zifeng muttered. He sat down on a log, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and stared anxiously toward Santong County in the distance.
In truth, there was nothing to see. Hu Hao hadn’t deployed a single recon soldier inside the city limits to avoid detection. All the forward observation posts were positioned in the forests surrounding the city, ordered to report back only when the Allied main body had fully committed to entering the urban zone.
Time crawled by agonizingly slowly. Eventually, the Allied vanguard finally reached the outskirts of Santong County. The recon posts immediately radioed Hu Hao’s comms team.
“Hao-ge! Hao-ge! The Allied vanguard Regiment is entering the city limits!” a radioman yelled, sprinting over to Hu Hao.
“Ah?!”
Before Hu Hao could even react, Ye Zifeng, Bo Gang, and the other officers had already sprinted back over.
“They’re here? They’re entering the city? Yawn…” Hu Hao sat up slowly, stretching his arms high above his head with a massive yawn.
“Yes, sir! They’ve breached the city limits!” the radioman confirmed.
“Mmh. Tell the recon posts to maintain observation. They are to notify me the second the entire Allied main body is fully inside the urban perimeter!” Hu Hao ordered, remaining seated.
“Hao-ge, then it’s only another half hour of waiting! Within half an hour, the entire rear echelon will definitely be inside the city!” Ye Zifeng said eagerly.
“Half an hour? Try an hour, at minimum. Do you think tens of thousands of heavily mechanized troops can instantly materialize inside a city? A marching column of that size stretches for nearly fifteen kilometers; it takes time to funnel them all through the streets!” Hu Hao corrected him.
“Oh. Right,” Ye Zifeng realized his error.
“Don’t panic. They aren’t going anywhere,” Hu Hao reassured them lazily.
“How can we not panic?! There are two elite Divisions marching into our trap! If we actually blow them to pieces, it solves all our strategic problems!” Ye Zifeng paced nervously. Hu Hao ignored him, lying back down and closing his eyes to rest again.
“You’re going back to sleep?!” Bo Gang asked, incredulous.
“What else am I supposed to do? Listen to you two babble endlessly?!” Hu Hao retorted.
“Sigh… let’s go. Let’s go chat somewhere else. Hao-ge has… Hao-ge has ascended beyond human comprehension,” Ye Zifeng said, unable to find any other way to describe Hu Hao’s terrifying calm.
The officers retreated again, continuing their agonizing wait. Hu Hao drifted back into a light sleep, unaware of how much time was passing.
“Hao-ge! Hao-ge, wake up! The Allied main body has fully entered the city! The entire column is inside the perimeter, and they are currently dispersing to establish local security cordons!”
The radioman sprinted over, screaming the report. Ye Zifeng and the others were immediately on his heels.
“Oh? They’re finally all in. Good. Order the combat engineers to immediately launch the observation drones! I need a real-time visual of the city center! Simultaneously, order the demolition teams to stand by! When I give the order, they push the plungers instantly!” Hu Hao ordered, snapping fully awake and jumping to his feet.
“Yes, sir!” The radiomen immediately began establishing the secure connections.
Across the forest, the Imperial soldiers who had been resting were instantly jolted awake by the sudden flurry of activity. Word quickly spread down the line that the Division Commander’s massive trap was about to start. The soldiers silently turned their eyes toward Santong County in the distance.
Among them were the newly conscripted recruits who had survived the purge of Santong County the previous day. They had enlisted purely for revenge, and they were deeply invested in seeing if this legendary ‘Hao-ge’ the veterans worshipped so fervently could actually deliver the vengeance he had promised.
“Hao-ge! The drones are airborne! They are currently flying toward Santong County!” the Combat Engineer Platoon Leader yelled from his mobile command vehicle a short distance away.
“Good!” Hu Hao quickly walked over to the vehicle and stared intently at the bank of high-definition monitors displaying the live drone feeds.
“The drones will cross the city perimeter in approximately two minutes!” the Platoon Leader reported.
“Increase altitude! Push them higher! We cannot risk them being shot down by Allied anti-air fire! I don’t need granular detail; I just need to see the broad distribution of their forces! Also, ensure the comms link to the demolition teams is secure! The second I say ‘detonate,’ they push those plungers!” Hu Hao ordered his radioman.
“Yes, sir!”
Ye Zifeng and the other officers clustered tightly behind Hu Hao, staring breathlessly at the main monitors. Two minutes later, the screens flickered, and the sprawling urban landscape of Santong County came into view.
“Motherfucker… the Allied troops are already firing at the drones! They spotted them! Push higher! Keep moving forward! I need to see the central plaza!” Hu Hao ordered, noticing the faint muzzle flashes of small-arms fire directed upward from the streets below.
“Understood!” The drone operators immediately commanded the drones to climb rapidly, angling the cameras downward as they flew toward the city center.
“Hao-ge, look! The main body of the Allied forces has completely flooded the central plaza! They’re already pitching command tents!”
“And look at the park! It’s completely packed with infantry! Thousands of them!”
Ye Zifeng and Bo Gang pointed excitedly at the screens. The massive central plaza and the adjacent park were swarming like an anthill with densely packed Allied armor, transport vehicles, and tens of thousands of infantrymen. Hu Hao stared intently at the screens, analyzing the precise distribution of the enemy forces.
“Hao-ge, give the order! We can detonate now! Look at them, they’re completely funneled into the kill zones! The density is incredible! If we blow it now, the casualty rate will be catastrophic!” Ye Zifeng urged frantically, seeing Hu Hao remain silent.
Hu Hao didn’t answer. He continued to meticulously study the drone feeds for another agonizing thirty seconds. Finally, he reached out and snatched the receiver from the radioman’s hand.
“This is Division Commander Hu Hao. Prepare for immediate detonation! Counting down from ten!” Hu Hao’s voice was icy cold as he stared at the screen, the radio pressed to his mouth.