After hanging up the phone, Hu Hao took a long swig from the water bottle. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Liang Wanyu staring at him in utter shock.
“What is it?” Hu Hao asked, wiping his mouth.
“Were you… did you just call General Jiang Kai?” Liang Wanyu asked hesitantly.
“Yeah. I called him. Motherfucker! What an absolutely golden opportunity! If he doesn’t order an attack now, what is he waiting for?! I told him last night: if the Air Force managed to destroy their ammo dumps, we could launch a massive counter-offensive!
Honestly, I didn’t expect the Allied forces to actually try and force a river crossing this morning. They were basically committing suicide! Without ammunition, how the hell are they supposed to fight us?! They got arrogant, and now they have to pay the price!
It’s a damn tragedy that Jiang Kai is so useless. He doesn’t have the guts to attack,” Hu Hao muttered, shaking his head.
“Could you please not speak like that? You talk as if you’re the only one in the entire Empire who knows how to fight! If Uncle Jiang—I mean, if Commander Jiang hears you talking about him like that, you are going to be in massive trouble! You need to watch your tone! If you completely offend your Zone Commander, how are you going to survive in the military?” Liang Wanyu scolded him softly. She had almost slipped up and called Jiang Kai “Uncle” again, but quickly corrected herself.
“Ha! You think I’m afraid of him? Ask anyone here. Ask any of these veterans if they are afraid of the Zone Commander,” Hu Hao scoffed, settling back into the dirt.
“Look at what his ‘brilliant’ command has led to. We’ve been retreating, retreating, and retreating again! What kind of war is this?! And now, when we have the perfect opportunity to strike back, we just sit here with our thumbs up our asses! What are we waiting for?!
The Imperial Generals are nothing but squatters occupying the latrines without taking a shit!”
Liang Wanyu couldn’t help but sigh. She walked over and sat down beside him.
“The Commander must have his own strategic considerations. There are things happening at the top level that you don’t know about. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions and complain so loudly!” Liang Wanyu advised gently.
“Mmh. Fine. I won’t talk about it. The more I talk about it, the angrier I get,” Hu Hao nodded. He looked at her. “By the way, are you done? Can you go back now?”
“Do you really hate me that much?” Liang Wanyu pouted. The other soldiers in the trench, seeing the two of them chatting intimately, had tactfully moved away to give them some privacy.
“I don’t hate you. How could I? If I hated you, I wouldn’t have bothered running over to this sector to check on you, would I? All my other brothers from the academy are sitting comfortably in the rear echelons. It’s just me out here, ha! Shaking hands with the Reaper every single day,” Hu Hao chuckled softly.
“Actually… everyone thought you had died,” Liang Wanyu said quietly. “Wang Yao and the others even burned joss paper for you. Wang Yao had a dream where you showed up covered in blood, complaining that you didn’t have any money to spend in the afterlife. The very next morning, Wang Yao went out and bought a massive pile of spirit money to burn for you. Later on, Dong Qipeng, Mo Qin, and the rest of our classmates all burned some for you too.”
“Hahaha! Well, you can thank them for me! Tell them I’ll definitely put that money to good use eventually!” Hu Hao threw his head back and laughed loudly.
“Don’t joke about that!” Liang Wanyu lightly slapped his arm. She looked around at the veterans giving them a wide berth. “From what I’ve seen, you’re an incredible commander. Everyone around here seems to listen to you unconditionally.”
“Mmh. It’s not about listening to me or not listening to me. Everyone here just wants to live,” Hu Hao said, his smile fading. “Seriously, are you done filming? If you are, you need to go back. This is not a place for you to linger, and it’s certainly not a place for us to catch up on old times. It’s not safe. On a battlefield, no one can predict the next minute. Leaving right now is the smartest thing you can do.”
“Mmh. I still need a little more footage. But I’m warning you again: do not speak to Jiang Kai like that anymore. He is your superior officer. If you make an enemy out of him, he will make your life a living hell,” Liang Wanyu reminded him earnestly.
“Do you think I care? If he strips me of my rank and kicks me out of the army, I’ll thank him on my knees! Who actually wants to fight this war? You have no idea. That old bastard has screwed me over several times already, and I haven’t demanded a reckoning yet! But I swear to God, if he refuses to launch a counter-offensive today, I will genuinely look down on him. I’ll consider him absolute, useless trash,” Hu Hao stated firmly.
“Stop running your mouth!” Liang Wanyu scolded, playfully slapping his arm again.
Hu Hao didn’t react, but Liang Wanyu suddenly realized how intimate the gesture was, and her cheeks flushed bright red.
“What am I afraid of? I am genuinely not afraid of him. Ask anyone here. None of us are afraid of the Generals. The Generals do nothing but dig graves for their own men! Look at the state of the Empire! Is there a single General who actually knows how to fight?! The Division Commanders are all pampered young masters! If there wasn’t a war going on, do you think we’d ever even see their faces in the dirt with us? Hmph!” Hu Hao sneered.
“Even so, it’s not your place to say it! You are a commissioned officer! You have a future ahead of you; you need promotions! Offending the brass like this is a terrible idea!” Liang Wanyu chided him.
“Alright, alright. I understand,” Hu Hao nodded in exasperation.
Meanwhile, inside the command bunker, Jiang Kai was screaming into the satellite phone.
“Grand Marshal! It is the absolute perfect opportunity! The Allied forces are completely out of ammunition! If we launch an immediate counter-offensive, we will devour their entire vanguard!
Grand Marshal, if we don’t wipe this force out now, give them a few days to repair the bridges and establish a new supply line, and they will attack again! Grand Marshal, you have no idea the sheer scale of the casualties we are taking on the front line! If we just sit here and play defense, it won’t matter how many millions of troops you send me; they will all be ground into dust!
This is the perfect window! Grand Marshal, I am begging you: authorize the counter-attack!” Jiang Kai pleaded, his voice hoarse with desperation.
“…”
“Why not?! We only need to use the troops currently on the line! I’m not asking for additional forces from the rear!” Jiang Kai yelled, hitting a wall of refusal.
“…”
“We will not lose the line! The Allied forces have no ammunition; they do not dare launch another assault today! But in three days? I can’t guarantee anything! I know! I know how critical this defensive line is!
But the best defense is a good offense! If we annihilate this massive Allied spearhead, our defensive line will be infinitely more secure!” Jiang Kai desperately tried to reason with the Grand Marshal.
But it was useless. The Grand Marshal flatly refused, stating that such a massive strategic shift required direct authorization from His Majesty the Emperor. Furious beyond words, Jiang Kai slammed the phone down.
“Straw bags! Incompetent garbage! MOTHERFUCKERS! A golden opportunity handed to them on a silver platter, and they refuse to take it!” Jiang Kai roared, violently kicking a chair across the bunker. The exact curses Hu Hao had hurled at him, he was now hurling at High Command.
“Someone! Get Hu Hao on the line!” Jiang Kai barked, clasping his hands tightly behind his back as he paced the room.
“Yes, sir!” A staff officer quickly dialed the number.
Back in the trench, Hu Hao was still talking with Liang Wanyu when He Jizhong jogged over with the ringing satellite phone. Hu Hao grabbed it immediately.
“Commander! Are we attacking or not?! If we’re not attacking, don’t waste my breath! I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Hu Hao yelled the moment he heard Jiang Kai’s voice.
Beside him, Liang Wanyu desperately tugged at his sleeve, terrified by his insubordination.
“Hu Hao… I trust your judgment. I want to attack. But… the Grand Marshal refused. I just got off the phone with him; we had a massive screaming match. Motherfucker! He absolutely refuses to authorize it! Sigh!” Jiang Kai’s voice was heavy with bitter defeat.
“Have you never heard the proverb?! ‘A General in the field is not bound by the orders of his Sovereign!’ He’s sitting hundreds of kilometers away in the Capital; does he really think he can micromanage this frontline?! If he actually possessed the tactical brilliance to do so, fine! But he doesn’t! So stop listening to him!
You contact your Regimental Commanders and the newly arrived relief forces. Tell them this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to wipe the enemy out! Order our artillery to displace ten kilometers forward! Have them commence a concentrated bombardment of the city the Allied forces are using as their staging ground!
Simultaneously, order the engineers to deploy the pontoon bridges! We push our tanks and APCs across the river and initiate an absolute envelopment!
Order the Air Force to establish complete air superiority over the sector! Tell them to specifically hunt down Allied transport planes and heavy bombers! At the same time, dispatch a single armored division to blitz toward the captured airports! With our fighters providing close air support, within 2 hours, the Allied air presence in this sector will be completely neutralized!
We will trap the entire Allied vanguard inside that small city! A city with a population of a million, packed with 8 enemy corps, and they have no ammunition! I want to see how the hell they fight us then!
I have given you the exact tactical blueprint! Whether you attack or not is up to you! But Commander… do not make me look down on you!
If a Zone Commander doesn’t even have the courage to shoulder the responsibility of seizing a victory, how can you call yourself a Commander?! How do you expect to lead these men in the future?!”
Hu Hao roared into the receiver, dressing down the full General exactly as he used to berate his incompetent subordinates in his past life.
And yet, on the other end of the line, Jiang Kai didn’t feel a shred of anger.
“Fine! We execute your plan! I know that if we don’t fight now, our casualties in three days will be catastrophic! We need time! The Empire needs time! Let the Grand Marshal execute me for insubordination if he wants! I’ve been chased by the Allied forces for thousands of kilometers; I’ve had enough of running!
I will contact the Corps and Regimental Commanders immediately. I will order the artillery to displace forward, and the engineers will begin constructing the pontoon bridges. Is there anything else you need?” Jiang Kai asked, his voice suddenly hard and resolute.
“Food! Tell logistics to feed the men! The Allied forces definitely haven’t eaten either! We take this opportunity to eat our fill, and then we charge! Even if we don’t shoot them all to death, I’ll starve them and exhaust them to death!” Hu Hao ordered fiercely.
“Understood! Hot rations will be pushed to the line immediately!” Jiang Kai confirmed, hanging up the phone.
“Alright! Brothers! Listen up! Motherfuckers, we are launching a counter-offensive! We are going to wipe out the Allied forces across the river! They’ve chased us and beaten us like dogs for days! Did you really think I wouldn’t make them pay for it?!” Hu Hao roared, tossing the phone back to He Jizhong.
“YES!”
“KILL THEM ALL! Motherfucker, I want revenge! I want to slaughter them!”
“Wipe them out! Hao-ge, you have to lead us!”
The veterans erupted in cheers, their bloodlust boiling over. They had been pushed to the absolute breaking point over the last week; no one wanted to be chased like a coward anymore.
“Good! Rest up! Hot food is on the way!” Hu Hao yelled, smiling fiercely at his men.
He turned around and saw Liang Wanyu staring at him, her eyes wide as saucers.
“What? Don’t recognize me?” Hu Hao chuckled, seeing her stunned expression.
“No… I don’t. Is this really my university classmate, Hu Hao?” Liang Wanyu asked, a soft, amazed smile spreading across her face.
“When you crawl out from under a pile of corpses enough times, you stop being afraid of anything. Anyway, you really need to go back now. I’m not going to escort you. You don’t belong here. But I do,” Hu Hao said, giving her a gentle smile.
Liang Wanyu didn’t move. She just sat there, looking at him with that same soft smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with me,” Hu Hao teased, raising an eyebrow.
“Get over yourself!” Liang Wanyu swatted his arm again, her face flushing a deep crimson.
“Haha! I wouldn’t dare dream of it anyway! I don’t even know if I’ll live to see tomorrow; why would I waste time thinking about romance?” Hu Hao laughed bitterly. He tilted his head back, staring up at the smoke-filled sky, and let out a long, heavy sigh.