While Hu Hao waited for his assistant gunner to load a fresh ammunition belt, Li Jingsong frantically asked him what they should do next.
How was Hu Hao supposed to know what to do? The entire Imperial army was pinned down here, and the enemy was launching a massive, relentless assault. Hu Hao didn't even have time to consider the broader strategic picture—like why the Allied forces were pushing so aggressively. They had already occupied several provinces; the fact that they were still pursuing the Imperial forces so relentlessly meant their true objective wasn't just territory. They wanted to annihilate the Eastern Spirit Empire completely.
"Hao-ge, loaded!" the assistant gunner shouted.
Hu Hao immediately racked the bolt and resumed firing at the river. At that moment, Allied attack helicopters swooped in, laying down covering fire to protect their amphibious assault.
Whoosh—BOOM!
The Imperial veterans knew exactly how dangerous those helicopters were. If the choppers were allowed to linger, they would butcher the defenders. Even before the helicopters could fully align their autocannons, Imperial rocket teams fired off salvos, desperately trying to swat them out of the sky.
"Hao-ge! There are too many of them! Our casualties are too high! What do we do?!" Huan Xingtao yelled. The incoming fire was so intense he could barely lift his head to shoot.
It wasn't just their sector; all up and down the line, Imperial soldiers were dying by the second in a desperate bid to hold the riverbank.
Hu Hao was just as anxious, but anxiety wouldn't stop bullets. They had to prevent the enemy from crossing the river. If the Allied forces established a beachhead, every Imperial soldier on this line would be slaughtered. Running wasn't an option anymore; the Allies controlled the skies with fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters.
"Motherfucker! Where are the reinforcements?! How long are we supposed to hold this line?!" a Brigadier General screamed as he fired his rifle into the dark.
It was barely past 10:00 PM. Hu Hao's unit had only just arrived, but the troops who had originally manned the line had been holding out for over three hours. Their casualties were astronomical. They had been praying for the rear echelons to reinforce them, but there was still no sign of help.
Rat-tat-tat! Hu Hao gripped the heavy machine gun, pouring continuous fire into the assault boats on the river. Around him, the bodies were piling up. In the short ten minutes he had manned this position, three of his assistant gunners had been shot and killed.
But Hu Hao couldn't stop. The soldiers around him knew that if his heavy machine gun fell silent, the river would swarm with enemy boats, and the line would break.
"Hao-ge, we can't hold them! There are too many! They're getting too close!" He Jizhong screamed in panic.
Hu Hao felt the crushing pressure. His position had become a primary target for the enemy because his heavy machine gun simply wouldn't stop firing. The river directly in front of him was a kill zone; barely any boats made it through, and the few that did drifted ashore carrying only corpses.
"Bring me the grenades!" Hu Hao roared. He knew the machine gun wasn't enough to suppress the sheer volume of boats anymore, and staying on the gun was becoming too dangerous. He had to switch to explosives.
"Here, Hao-ge!" a soldier yelled, sliding a heavy sack over to him.
Hu Hao tore the bag open, grabbed the grenades, yanked the pins, and began hurling them out over the water.
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!
A rapid string of airbursts erupted over the river, detonating directly above the packed assault boats.
"YES!" Seeing the dense cluster of explosions shredding the Allied soldiers in the boats, the Imperial defenders cheered wildly.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Hu Hao didn't dare stop. He threw grenade after grenade. Wherever he saw a boat carrying troops, an explosive quickly followed. With a deafening blast, the Allied soldiers inside would slump over, dead or dying.
"Hao-ge! Shift to the flanks! We can hold the center now!" Li Jingsong shouted. Having picked up a rifle himself, he was firing at the river and noticed the pressure directly ahead had eased significantly.
Hearing this, Hu Hao grabbed his sack of grenades and scrambled down the back of the embankment, followed closely by several soldiers carrying additional explosives.
He ran about fifty meters down the line, scrambled back up to the crest, and saw a swarm of assault boats approaching. He immediately unleashed another barrage of grenades. The violent airbursts caught the Allied soldiers completely exposed, silencing the heavy machine guns mounted on their boats and instantly relieving the pressure on the Imperial defenders in that sector.
The Imperial soldiers raised their heads and resumed firing into the boats. Seeing the sector stabilized, Hu Hao grabbed his sack and ran another fifty meters down the line before repeating the process.
Rat-tat-tat!BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
As Hu Hao sprinted along the embankment, he suddenly heard intense gunfire erupting from behind the defensive line, roughly a kilometer and a half away.
"Dammit, they broke through! Quick! Tell the brothers to mount up in the APCs and reinforce that sector! NOW!" Hu Hao shouted to a soldier following him.
"Yes, sir!" The soldier turned and sprinted back toward their staging area, while Hu Hao gripped his grenades and charged toward the breach.
Wherever Hu Hao went, the Allied forces on the river suffered. His throwing range was terrifying, and his precise airbursts left the enemy with absolutely no cover.
On the opposite bank, an Allied Lieutenant General watched the carnage through his binoculars, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"What is causing those explosions over the water? Are those hand grenades or grenade launchers?" the Lieutenant General asked.
"I'm not sure, sir. Unlikely to be grenade launchers; the rate of fire is too high, and their infantry doesn't have that many equipped. They're mostly relying on heavy machine guns and rifles to suppress our crossing.
But Commander... our casualties are taking a horrific toll. We've essentially lost an entire corps trying to cross this river. Why are we pushing this hard?" a Major General standing behind him asked.
"Hmph. This is exactly how we need to fight," the Lieutenant General chuckled darkly.
"Do you not see it yet? The Eastern Spirit Empire's military is broken. They have good weapons and decent soldiers, but they have absolutely no competent Generals. Hahaha! The moment we break through here, the road is wide open for a direct strike on their Imperial Capital, Lingcheng!
If our forces reach Lingcheng, the Eastern Spirit Empire falls. Only then will our coalition nations be able to carve up the real spoils. Right now, we're just fighting over a few border provinces—how much wealth can that really provide when divided among a dozen nations?" the Lieutenant General explained with a greedy smile.
"True, Commander. But couldn't we just break through at a weaker point on the line? The result would be the same, wouldn't it?" the Major General pressed.
"No, no, no," the Lieutenant General shook his head emphatically.
"If we break through elsewhere, the Empire's other combat zones might not send reinforcements; they'd likely just stay put to protect their own territories. But here? Here, they must send reinforcements.
Think about it. No matter how many troops the Empire sends here, won't we just devour them all? Rather than hunting them down province by province, isn't it better to force them to gather in one place so we can slaughter them together? As long as we annihilate the forces from their other combat zones right here, the entire Empire will be stripped of its military manpower. Then, our forces can sweep across the country unopposed. Do you understand now?
This river is bait. It is designed to draw in every last Imperial reinforcement so we can bleed them dry. As long as we maintain a constant, threatening push toward Lingcheng, the Empire will throw every soldier they have into our meat grinder until they have nothing left.
The crucial point is that they don't have the time to conscript and train their reserves properly. Look at those soldiers across the river wearing civilian clothes. They are clearly raw conscripts, rushed to the front lines without a single day of training.
Tell me, isn't this strategy the most advantageous for our coalition?" The Lieutenant General finished his explanation, keeping his eyes fixed on the battle.
"And look," he added with a smug grin, pointing to a sector downriver. "We're already breaking through. Our men have secured a beachhead. The Imperial troops here are about to be swallowed whole. Once they're gone, our army marches forward. I'm very curious to see how many more troops the Eastern Spirit Empire will sacrifice to stop us!"
"Yes, sir! I imagine they will attempt a defense in depth, layer by layer," the Major General laughed, finally understanding the grand strategy.
"We want them to build layered defenses. How else can we systematically destroy their entire military apparatus? In Tianyu Province, we drew in the entire Southwest Combat Zone, along with forces from neighboring zones. After annihilating their main strength there, we conquered several provinces in a matter of days.
Once we annihilate the remaining Imperial forces here, it won't be long before we occupy the entire country. High Command estimates that within a month, the Eastern Spirit Empire will cease to exist.
Haha! What a pity. Such an incredibly wealthy and powerful nation, yet they can only hold us off for a single month!" the Lieutenant General mocked openly.
…
Hu Hao, meanwhile, was in no mood to laugh. He was sprinting along the embankment, hurling grenades over the water as he ran. Far behind him, Huan Xingtao and the veterans had jumped into their tanks and APCs, roaring toward the breach in the line.
They had to wipe out the Allied soldiers who had successfully crossed the river. If they didn't, the enemy would expand the beachhead, allowing massive reinforcements to pour through. If that happened, the entire Imperial defensive line would be enveloped, and there would be no escape for anyone.
Rat-tat-tat!BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Within minutes, Huan Xingtao's armored column reached the breach. The heavy machine guns mounted on the Imperial APCs opened up, tearing into the Allied infantry establishing a foothold. But the Allied forces fought back viciously, supported by several attack helicopters hovering above the river, raining fire down on the Imperial armor.
BOOM! BOOM! Several Imperial APCs were struck by helicopter fire and exploded in massive fireballs.
"Dismount! Everyone dismount! Take out those helicopters! Do not let them line up their shots!" a Regimental Commander screamed. Since Hu Hao wasn't there yet, the Colonels had taken charge of the counter-assault.
"Dismount!" Huan Xingtao roared as he threw open the hatch of his APC. Driving the armor had become a death trap with enemy attack helicopters swarming the sky.