Wang Zhong this side.
As soon as he entered the headquarters of the 401st Temporary Infantry Division, he frowned slightly, “Why are there so few staff officers?”
The person who looked to be the chief of staff stroked his chin awkwardly and said, “The shortage of staff officers is too great. A temporary infantry division like ours only has so few staff members, and not enough clerks are assigned, so they all have to take care of logistics, striving to ensure that everyone in the division gets something to eat.”
Vasily: “General, have you forgotten about our situation when we were still the 151st Temporary Infantry Division?”
Wang Zhong remembered; back then Pavlov was almost worked to death, and his already bald head had become even balder.
“You can recruit clerks from the local offices.”
The chief of staff shook his head: “They’ve all been hired away. Now, except for the regular troops, we’re short of personnel everywhere.”
His words had hardly fallen when Sergey, the division commander of the 401st, said, “Did you come here to reinforce our defense?”
Wang Zhong: “Reinforcements? I guess so, but first, we need to wipe out the enemy vanguard under our noses, to create opportunities for a large amount of enemy annihilation later.”
Sergey seemed not to have accepted this shift at once, “Eh? Annihilate the enemy? Wasn’t it about defense?”
Wang Zhong: “Eliminating the enemy is also a form of defense. If the enemy advances like this, it wouldn’t matter too much if there’s no disconnection in their ranks, but if there is, wouldn’t that give us the chance to concentrate our superior forces and eliminate the separated enemy troops?”
Actually, there were issues of disconnection during several of the Prosen offensives last year, but at that time, the Ante forces were too weak, planning to trap and attack the enemy only to be overwhelmed by Prosen themselves.
In the first week of the war, the sharp discovery of a gap by an Ante forward commander had occurred. Commanding the tank units, he tried to penetrate it, only to run into the self-propelled artillery battalion assigned to the infantry division. Mistaking them for Prosen tanks, they fired furiously, exhausting their shells without destroying the enemy artillery. In the end, their morale collapsed, abandoning their tanks and fleeing.
Wang Zhong himself had once commanded a reversal “retreat,” capturing an enemy supply station, feinting a strike and then turning tail to flee — and that was his first battle after being transported to this world.
Therefore, Wang Zhong was clearer about the likelihood of Prosen disconnection than others.
Finding vulnerabilities, quickly annihilating the enemy; to do that required swiftly concentrating superior forces locally.
Wang Zhong’s cheat was naturally suited for identifying where the enemy was disconnected, as for quickly concentrating superior forces for a battle of annihilation — laughable, he’d never had enough forces before, even concentrated they’d been far fewer than the enemy’s.
Now, things were different.
But the commander of the 401st Temporary Infantry Division couldn’t understand Wang Zhong’s thoughts. He said worriedly, “We have never learned these tactics. In military school, defense was digging trenches and repeatedly contesting the enemy in a tug-of-war.”
Wang Zhong: “That’s certainly a part of defense. In fact, that’s what I did last year, and I even compiled a few booklets about it.”
Commander Sergey: “I actually have your booklet, and I’ve read it. It’s just that when we set out, it was so hurried that I didn’t bring it with me.”
“But you haven’t applied the content of the booklet to the arrangement of defense positions,” Wang Zhong pointed out without any niceties.
Sergey: “I… I didn’t think of it at the time. I only took over this division a week ago, and then I had to come here immediately to set up defenses. I was so stressed yesterday that I couldn’t eat. So, I really didn’t think to do things according to your book.”
The chief of staff of the 401st said, “He fainted from hunger last night. I think our division, from soldiers to officers, all falls short. When the enemy comes — we can only bravely arm ourselves with grenades and go for a suicide attack.”
Sergey immediately chimed in, “Right, these past few days everyone has been singing ‘The Last Courage’. I’ve seen the soldiers discussing how to choose their targets for a suicide attack when the enemy comes.”
As the original author of “The Last Courage,” Wang Zhong twisted his brows into knots: “No, I didn’t write that song for you to commit suicide with. I was praising the courage that bursts forth from soldiers in despair.”
The original version of “The Last Courage,” titled “Devouring Sands,” was a somewhat post-punk-flavored rock song, rather morose, but when Wang Zhong copied it, Vasily did the arrangement, having never heard the original version, and thus transformed it into a war song based on the lyrics.
As a result, the likelihood of Ante soldiers using a ‘Grenade of Glory’ before being captured significantly increased.
There were even reports from military chaplains about soldiers choosing to use the ‘Grenade of Glory’ even when they could have survived, which was contrary to Wang Zhong’s original intention.
His original intention was for them to fight for survival to the bitter end, and only use the ‘Grenade of Glory’ when there was absolutely no way out.
But now there was no time to worry about that; given the situation of the 401st division, if the enemy really came, the entire division would become suicide bombers.
Wang Zhong shook his head: “Let it be; your will to fight is commendable, and I won’t say more. I’ll have my personal guard, Senior Sergeant Grigori, guide you in establishing defense works.”
Grigori saluted and turned to leave.
The chief of staff of the 401st immediately pointed to one of the few staff officers and said, “Follow him, tell the troops to do whatever the sergeant major says!”
The staff officer ran to catch up with Grigori.
Just seconds after Grigori had left, two guard squad soldiers entered to replace the sergeant major.
Wang Zhong continued, “My vanguard combat group should be arriving soon; we need to quickly understand the movements of the enemy vanguard, then pounce on them with the speed of lightning. Do you have a generator?”
The chief of staff of the 401st nodded, “We do, providing power for the telegraph and other things, right over there.”
Wang Zhong pointed at Vasily, “Connect our high-powered radio to it and use code to send a telegram to the vanguard, telling them to move out immediately to this location. Strive to arrive tonight; by tomorrow, we will set out to eliminate the group of enemies we’ve spotted with the new tanks.”
Vasily immediately ran outside; Wang Zhong stopped him, “Wait a moment, also contact the Air Force, ask about the effectiveness of the attack, and the enemy movements.”
Vasily saluted and hurried off.
Only Wang Zhong and the guards, along with the entire senior leadership of the 401st, were left.
Division Commander Sergey hesitated before asking, “Was it the same for the provisional 151st Division when you were there?”
Wang Zhong shook his head, “Our situation was better, we had NCOs and officers with combat experience, and the backbone personnel supplemented to us were military academy students, temporarily conscripted to deal with the emergency.”
“I see,” Sergey clicked his tongue, “We had no experience whatsoever, and suddenly we were told that the enemy had broken through the front and were ordered to set up defenses here. I asked the Front Army staff who gave us the orders, ‘Who exactly is our enemy?’ and the staff mentioned some sort of Sedd Division; only later did I realize they were the elite of the enemy’s elite.”
Wang Zhong instantly understood Sergey’s feelings back then—it must have been just like that viral meme from before he time-traveled: “You go kill Sun Wukong!” “Me?”
Wang Zhong reassured, “No need to worry, my Army Group has arrived—although it’s only a vanguard party. Of course, in critical moments, we would still use you as a reserve to be deployed on the defensive line, but we would not send a provisional infantry division to fight against the enemy’s Asgard Knights.”
“That’s reassuring,” Sergey, the division commander, sighed with relief.
At that moment, Vasily entered, “Report, the Air Force said they’ve conducted three waves of attacks, judging from the wreckage and the craters on the ground, the enemy hasn’t moved.”
Wang Zhong asked, “What do you mean ‘judging from the wreckage and the craters on the ground’?”
Vasily replied, “That’s just what they said. They also mentioned that a Pe-2 reconnaissance plane took off with a camera, and they’ll send us the photos today.”
Wang Zhong hesitated, “Send over?”
Vasily spread his hands, “Don’t ask me, I’m just relaying the message, I have no idea how they’ll send it. But the airfield is less than 50 kilometers from us, a fast horse could get there in no time.”
Wang Zhong thought about it and realized this was indeed the case.
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Vasily continued his report, “The vanguard has already left Yarvik, aside from the old school’s Army Group forward station work team, almost everyone is here.”
Wang Zhong said, “As long as the Vortexes have arrived, we’ll have a chance against the enemy’s latest tanks with their AP shells. Otherwise, we’d have to incur tremendous losses to make up for our deficit in AP shell capability.”
After finishing, he suddenly felt like Vasily had more to say, so he asked, “What’s the matter?”
Vasily scratched his head, “All the office clerks stayed in Yarvik, and now I’m doing the entire staff’s work alone.”
Wang Zhong said, “You’ll have to make do for now, when the vanguard arrives, the current Chief of Staff of the Guards Motor Rifle, Alexander Alexandrovich, should be here. Then let him take over.”
Vasily had black lines on his face and touched his own hair, “That’s it then, seems I’ll have to find a wife before I turn into the second Pavlov.”
Wang Zhong said, “Pavlov has a wife, and he’s fathered a bunch of kids.”
Vasily shrugged, “Well then, the reason for his baldness is found.”
————
On the night of July 11th, in Trinka Village where Rocossov’s temporary headquarters were located.
The vanguard’s vehicles rumbled into the village.
Wang Zhong looked at the convoy and suddenly thought if the enemy conducted fire support raids like his own from time to time, his losses would be significant.
Fortunately, the enemy’s heavy artillery should have all been left behind.
The vanguard’s Chief of Staff, Alexander Alexandrovich, came up to Wang Zhong and saluted, “Army Group Commander Dawa, on the march here, five of the Vortexes broke down, I ordered tractors to tow the ones with serious malfunctions back to Yarvik, two with minor issues are being repaired on the road, and I left a Crusader anti-aircraft gun to cover them.”
Wang Zhong returned the salute and said, “Well done. Have the soldiers put some extra effort tonight into checking the Vortexes that have arrived here. Tomorrow we’ll head out to hunt the enemy’s latest tanks.”
Alexander replied, “Yes, sir!”
Just then, the sound of an engine came from the sky.
Wang Zhong switched perspectives and saw a Po-2 biplane night bomber.
It seemed to be planning on landing on the highway at the entrance of the village.
Wang Zhong said, “Vasily, could this be to deliver the photos? The Air Force did say they were sending photos, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” Vasily confirmed.
Wang Zhong instructed, “Have the troops at the village entrance turn on the lights. If they’re looking to land, they’ll definitely head for the highway by the entrance.”
In truth, he was acting; from his overhead perspective, he had already seen the plane land smoothly on the highway and glide toward the village.
It was no surprise that the Po-2 could land on such a rough highway. The field airstrips that the Ante People used to launch their fighters weren’t much better than this, simply flattening a patch of ground and using it as an airstrip, with not even the weeds removed from the runway.
In fact, the Po-2 biplane bomber even had slightly lower requirements for airfields than a fighter plane.
When the plane came to a stop, Wang Zhong saw two female pilots disembark.
Wang Zhong switched back to his own perspective, then looked at Vasily, “The Po-2 might be piloted by female pilots, you might want to seize the opportunity!”
Vasily shook his head, “Unless you’re not around, General, I don’t stand a chance.”