The soldiers who stayed behind had no other choice. They couldn’t desert because the moment they were discovered, their families would be ruined by property confiscation. They could only bite the bullet and march back to the front.
But even though they had accepted their fate, they still desperately wanted to live. When Hu Hao ordered them to begin scavenging and preparing vehicles for an escape, it gave them a tangible lifeline. For the first time all day, the veterans felt a genuine sense of hope.
Within minutes, the squads fanned out across the city, scavenging for civilian cars, trucks, fuel, and whatever food they could carry.
“Hao-ge, how do we fight this? How are we setting up the perimeter?” a Regimental Commander asked Hu Hao.
“Mmh. Get me a map of the city. Let me see it,” Hu Hao said, turning to Li Jingsong. Li Jingsong immediately ordered a guard to fetch one.
Hu Hao spread the map across the wooden table. Using a ruler, he measured out a five-kilometer radius from the Langcheng Train Station and drew a defensive perimeter.
“Dammit, that’s massive! We barely have 10,000 men combined. How the hell are we supposed to hold a line that long?” Li Jingsong cursed as he looked at the sprawling circle on the map.
“Holding the entire line is impossible,” Hu Hao agreed. “We have to figure out exactly where the enemy is going to push from and concentrate our defense there. Dammit, this map is outdated with all the destruction. Division Commander, you and I are going to take a car and scout the train station and the surrounding area right now to see what it actually looks like.”
“Alright. Let’s go,” Li Jingsong nodded immediately.
“When the boys get back with the vehicles, have them rest. Also, call the Division Commanders from the 28th Army. Tell them to meet us at the station so we can finalize the deployment on-site,” Hu Hao instructed the Regimental Commanders.
“What do I do?” Li Tianyuan asked, realizing he hadn’t been given a task.
“You? You go pack your things for the retreat,” Hu Hao said after a moment’s thought.
“Fine,” Li Tianyuan nodded.
About twenty minutes later, Hu Hao, Li Jingsong, and a few other Division Commanders piled into a scavenged civilian car and headed toward the train station.
Their bunker wasn’t far from the station; under normal circumstances, it would be less than a ten-minute drive. However, the streets were choked with rubble from the relentless bombing, forcing them to navigate slowly. Furthermore, other Imperial units were already moving through the streets as the general retreat began. By the time Hu Hao and his group arrived, over half an hour had passed.
Upon reaching the station, Hu Hao didn’t stop. He ordered the driver to circle the perimeter, expanding the loop outward block by block. Hu Hao kept his eyes glued to the streets and intersections, observing the terrain until they finally reached the designated five-kilometer limit near the city’s edge.
“Dammit, the entire city is practically a ruin, and almost all the civilians have fled,” Hu Hao muttered as they pulled into a residential complex and took cover in its underground parking garage.
“So what’s the plan?” Li Jingsong and the others asked, looking to him.
“We blow it up. The roads are already half-blocked by rubble anyway,” Hu Hao said, pulling out the map and a pen. “If we rig the high-rises at key intersections to collapse into the streets, we completely cut off the avenues of approach.
If we block the roads, their armored divisions can’t push through. If they try to assault us with just infantry, it’ll be a bloodbath for them. Look here… here, and here,” Hu Hao said, drawing several tight circles on the map.
“Every circled location gets rigged and blown. We bring those buildings down to barricade the roads. It will take the Allied forces an eternity to clear the rubble. It’s incredibly difficult for them to clear a path, but it’s incredibly easy for us to create one. As long as we neutralize the threat of their armor and tanks, their infantry alone won’t pose a lethal threat to us. What do you think?” Hu Hao asked, looking up from the map.
“That works. Blowing buildings is simple; we just need enough explosives. But the enemy still has several corps parked out there, which means massive infantry reserves. If they decide to swarm us with foot soldiers, won’t we still be in trouble?” asked Lü Chengxiang, a Division Commander from the 28th Army and the son of Corps Commander Lü Liqian.
“They won’t commit to a swarm,” Hu Hao said, shaking his head as he pulled out a cigarette. The Division Commander beside him immediately leaned in with a lighter.
“Thanks,” Hu Hao nodded, exhaling a plume of smoke. “The enemy knows we aren’t going to hold the city forever; they know we’re going to break out eventually. They’d much rather wait and ambush us on the open road. Therefore, their attacks on the station won’t be furious assaults—they’ll just be probing actions to keep us pinned.
Hell, once we blow the roads and barricade ourselves in, they might not attack at all. They’ve already realized that fighting us in urban combat is a losing proposition. It was different when the city was full of green recruits; back then, they attacked fiercely because they wanted to draw in more Imperial reinforcements and bleed them dry in the streets. Urban warfare favored them then. Now? It favors us. War is about calculating the cost. They won’t pay the butcher’s bill for a city they’ve essentially already won.”
“Mmh. Then we blow the roads. But after that, how do we deploy the troops?” another Division Commander asked.
“Your 28th Army will hold the Western and Eastern perimeters. Our 27th Army will take the South. Any objections? The enemy is most likely to push from the South,” Hu Hao proposed.
“However, there is a strict condition: if one sector comes under heavy attack while the other two are quiet, the unengaged sectors must immediately dispatch half their forces to reinforce the active line. We don’t have many men. If the enemy throws a single full-strength division at us, they’ll outnumber our entire combined force.
We are all tied to the same rope now. If we don’t coordinate, we die. If the line breaks in one place, you all know exactly what happens to the rest of us. Understood?” Hu Hao looked hard at the Generals.
“Don’t worry, Hao-ge. Whatever you say goes. My old man already gave the order: the 28th Army answers entirely to you for this operation,” Lü Chengxiang confirmed.
“Good. Come look here,” Hu Hao pointed to the map. “For the 28th Army’s Western perimeter, the main defensive line will be set about four and a half kilometers from the station, right here. See this? It’s a large park, and right next to it is a lake. We just drove past it; the water is deep, so the enemy can’t push armor or heavy infantry through it.
On this side, there’s a dense cluster of commercial buildings. Deploy a portion of your men to the third floors of those buildings and establish heavy machine gun nests. Don’t bunch them up—spread them out to create a wide, overlapping field of fire from the high ground. Wait until the enemy pushes deep into the kill zone before opening up. Once the heavy guns thin their ranks, the infantry on the ground can engage.
As for the park itself… use dirt, concrete slabs, and rubble to build barricades. Again, prioritize heavy machine guns. Dammit, we have more weapons than we have men right now; use them all! Set up the guns, and use chainsaws to fell all the trees in the park to clear your firing lanes!” Hu Hao instructed the 28th Army commanders.
“And for the East…” Hu Hao continued, detailing the deployment block by block.
The Division Commanders listened intently, marking their own maps according to Hu Hao’s precise instructions. Once the planning was complete, they drove back to the bunker. By the time they returned, it was past 5:00 PM, and the massive Imperial retreat was already underway across the city.
“Report! Telegram from Zone Command: We are ordered to immediately deploy to the Langcheng Train Station and establish the rearguard defense!” a staff officer announced, handing the slip to Li Tianyuan. Li Tianyuan simply looked at Hu Hao.
“Alright, brothers! Mount up! Let’s go!” Hu Hao shouted.
The veterans immediately grabbed their gear, poured out of the shelter, and piled into the civilian vehicles they had scavenged and fueled. Some squads chose to drive their armored personnel carriers, as the APCs would be useful as mobile pillboxes for the initial defense.
The 28th Army received the same order and began moving out to their designated sectors. Half an hour later, Hu Hao’s forces arrived at the southern perimeter. While Li Jingsong organized the defensive line, Hu Hao took a squad of men loaded with explosives to rig the high-rises. They had to collapse the buildings to blockade the avenues of approach before the enemy made their move.
Meanwhile, completely unknown to Hu Hao, a furious discussion about him was raging in his Academy graduating class’s group chat.
“I burned paper money for Haozi last night. I dreamt about him—he was covered in blood and said he had no money to spend in the afterlife, so I burned some for him!” Wang Yao typed in the main chat.
“Can you shut your damn mouth? We haven’t heard any official news yet! How do you know Haozi is dead? Dammit!” Mo Qin immediately shot back.
“It’s not looking good, man,” Dong Qipeng chimed in. “I heard the 27th Corps was basically annihilated. Actually, not just the 27th—every unit that held the front line took catastrophic casualties. The rumors say hundreds of thousands are dead. That’s why the Ministry hasn’t released the KIA lists yet. Fuck!”
“Good riddance. Hu Hao deserves to die!” Zhang Liangqiang suddenly typed. The sheer venom in his message was palpable.
“Zhang Liangqiang, you brought this on yourself! Are you happy now? Why are you doing this? We’re all classmates! Hu Hao’s life is hanging by a thread on the front lines, and you’re still acting like you’re the victim here? Who suffered more, you or him?” Liang Wanyu fired back.
“Hmph! Who is he to compare to me? A hundred of his lives aren’t worth one of mine! And Liang Wanyu, now that he’s dead, are you still pining over him? It seems sending him to the 27th Corps was the right call after all!” Zhang Liangqiang gloated in the chat.
“You are sick in the head!” Liang Wanyu cursed.
Seeing the chat devolving, Wang Yao and Mo Qin quickly created a private group chat and pulled in the classmates who were actually close to Hu Hao, wanting to speak freely without Zhang Liangqiang’s toxic presence.
“Pull Liang Wanyu into this chat too. We still don’t know exactly what her family background is, but it’s clearly powerful. Ask her if she has any real intel on Hu Hao’s current situation!” Wang Yao told Mo Qin, who was moderating the private room.
“Done!” Mo Qin replied.
“That psycho Zhang Liangqiang is out of his damn mind!” Liang Wanyu typed furiously the moment she joined the private room.
TN:
Haozi (Rat) = Hu Hao nickname