Chapter 270 Qing Zhen set me up!
Sometimes when enemies made their attacks, they would have to rack their brains for several days just to find a breakthrough point. Even with heavy firepower, they still would not know where to start attacking. Even if they wanted to carry out a full coverage attack, they would not be able to do it.
In normal circumstances, the more ruthless commanders would just send in cannon fodder to get an understanding of the actual situation. Thousands of lives would be wasted just to find out where the heavy weapons were located on the defensive grounds.
But it seemed like the Qing Consortium was fully aware of that right from the beginning. They even knew where the SHORADs at Position 313 were deployed. The SHORADS were very expensive and should only be deployed at strategic locations in case the front got bombarded with artillery fire.
But the moment Qing Zhen began his attack, he ordered a barrage of mortars to be fired at the strategic locations like they didn’t cost money, effectively making a “one-for-one exchange” by destroying the Li Consortium’s SHORADs with his cheap mortar shells.
If Ma Kai and his men had known their defensive deployment map had been leaked, they would have been more conservative in their deployment of the SHORADs. But they didn’t know!
How could they have known that the so-called commander of the Heroes Battalion would turn out to be the most important spy of the Qing Consortium? He even gave away the defensive deployment map just like that.
Just one round of unexpected mortar bombardment had nearly destroyed all the SHORADs at Position 313!
This move by Qing Zhen was disgustingly effective.
The defensive deployment map was simply too important. Qing Zhen had intended to break through the defensive line at Position 319. But with the emergence of this deployment map, he immediately changed his strategy.
If Qing Zhen did not have the defensive deployment map, a large quantity of those mortar shells would have been wasted. But with it, he could achieve a closer and more accurate strike, forcing the SHORAD forces to be up to their ears in work.
Although the Li Consortium’s development of armaments had been going well and their talent pool was bulging, they had basically not fought in any large-scale battles in recent years. Even a talent like Ma Kai, who had a thorough understanding of warfare, was nothing but a novice.
No matter how much theoretical knowledge a person had, it would still take some time to put this knowledge into practice and gain valuable lessons.
It was unfortunate that they were facing Qing Zhen who did not have any intention of affording them time to grow.
At this moment, Ren Xiaosu led the Heroes Battalion to their position located on a small hill on the mountain. There was a small bunker with heavy fortifications around it, while a 43-degree slope laid in front of them.
As Ren Xiaosu looked down from up here while lying prone behind the defensive fortifications, the soldiers of the Heroes Battalion were trembling next to him while holding their guns.
Listening to the continuous artillery fire that was booming in the distance, Li Qingzheng asked in a quavering voice, “Battalion Commander, will the Qing Consortium bombard us with their mortars? We won’t be able to hold them off!”
“What are you afraid of?” Ren Xiaosu said, “It’s not like they’ve started bombarding us!”
At this moment, the Qing Consortium’s soldiers could faintly be seen approaching at the foot of the mountain where their battalion was positioned. Ren Xiaosu roughly estimated there to be over a 1,000 of them. This was an infantry regiment!
“Are we going to fight them?” Li Qingzheng asked.
“Yes, of course we’re going to fight. Why shouldn’t we fight when we have the terrain advantage?” Ren Xiaosu said, “Let’s wait for them to get a little closer!”
“Any closer and they’ll be within distance of hurling their grenades over,” Li Qingzheng said anxiously.
“There’s no need to panic. Everything is well within my control,” Ren Xiaosu said calmly.
When the Qing Consortium’s infantry regiment got halfway up the mountain, Ren Xiaosu suddenly shouted, “Open fire!”
The four heavy machine guns in the bunker spewed tongues of flame. The machine gun bullets hit the mountainside and splashed mud all around. When one of the soldiers got hit by a bullet in the arm, his arm broke!
Although the Qing Consortium soldiers wanted to rush up, they could not do so. They tried shooting at Ren Xiaosu and his men’s location, but the advantage of the defensive fortifications was simply too great.
In order to tackle this kind of high ground in modern warfare, the most common method was for troops to charge forward until they were within distance of the enemy. Then they could choose to bombard the target accurately with artillery fire using precision laser guidance.
This laser guidance was used to point out the target’s location accurately so that the supporting troops could send in missiles from the rear.
They had already tried their best to charge up the mountain. A soldier was holding up a laser guidance device, but no supporting fire came from behind even after he pointed it at the bunker for a long time.
The regimental commander lost all hope and lamented, “Qing Zhen set me up!”
Actually, he understood that Qing Zhen definitely wanted to get rid of him quickly since he was in Qing Yun’s camp and was not cooperative with Qing Zhen in his battle plans either.
But he did not expect Qing Zhen to be this treacherous. He was brave enough to use the outcome of the war to trap him? If they could not secure this front, what would happen if it affected the big picture?
But what he did not know was that Qing Zhen had absolutely no intention of securing this front, because he had already made a deal with Ren Xiaosu!
“Regimental Commander, what should we do now?” a soldier shouted out amid the heavy fire coming from the mountain.
“Use the rocket launcher!” the regimental commander roared.
With a loud boom, a soldier who was carrying the rocket launcher was blown away by an explosion. The rocket had exploded before it could even be launched!
“Regimental Commander, what are we gonna do now?!”
“Charge!” The regimental commander clenched his teeth and said, “After we charge up, we’re gonna blow up this position with our grenades. That’s the only way we can survive. There shouldn’t be too many soldiers defending this position, so we still have hope!”
A stupid way to storm high ground was by throwing hand grenades. After the attacking soldiers advanced to a close enough distance, they would throw the grenades to blow up the defensive position. When that was successful, the soldiers at the defensive position would no longer be able to stand.
So grenadiers in the military used to play an extremely important role. Whoever could throw grenades most accurately would survive and enjoy the spoils of war.
Of course, this method was gradually eliminated with the advancement in firepower. Unless it was a desperate situation, no one would do it this way anymore.
They had been issued with an unserviceable rocket launcher, and after charging halfway up the mountain, they realized they had no supporting fire.
This left the regimental commander in despair. Qing Zhen had even pushed him to the point where he had to resort to such an obsolete tactic.
Several of the brave grenadiers in the troops immediately continued to advance. After they got to the designated distance, they threw their grenades over!
Everyone midway up the mountain became quite excited. It seemed like the troops who were guarding this position on the mountain were quite inexperienced for them to get close enough to throw their grenades!
After waiting for a short while, the grenades that were thrown over detonated. However, the explosion sounded very soft.
The regimental commander was a smart person. So when he heard the sounds of the explosions, he growled, “Qing Zhen, you treacherous fool, you’ve gone too far! How could you issue us with dummy grenades!”
Although the training grenades were not dummy grenades, their explosive power was extremely weak. The explosions would only produce a sound but were not enough to kill anyone. Moreover, they looked exactly the same as a real grenade.
The regimental commander was nearly in tears. It was only then that he realized how unscrupulous Qing Zhen really was. He did not even leave a way out for them!
As Ren Xiaosu kept firing on the hill, he was treating this as practice for his Advanced Firearms Proficiency. He was using the automatic rifle in such a way that it felt like a sniper rifle in his hand. One shot, one kill, that was how accurate he was!
Ren Xiaosu said to Li Qingzheng at this moment, “See, we’re the Heroes Battalion after all. The opposing Qing troops are not a threat to us at all.”
Li Qingzheng believed it immediately. That was because he also felt very relaxed when dealing with the enemy.
At this moment, the other soldiers of the Heroes Battalion also realized that war did not seem that terrifying after all.