Chapter 145: Chapter 131, Battle of the Three Ponds
After receiving the telegram about Morgan and others escaping, Perbov realized the road to Sanchi Town would certainly not be peaceful.
To be honest, he was somewhat annoyed.
His troops had spent more than two days in Sanchi Town and yet had failed to recognize it as a den of thieves!
In hindsight, there were indeed some signs. But at that time, he was entirely focused on planning the subsequent operations, considering how many settlements could be taken over through intimidation, and where some military measures might be necessary…
Put simply, he hadn’t paid enough attention to Sanchi Town, which had already been secured, and that led to this huge blunder.
The escape of the seven civil affairs officers was good news. The intelligence they brought back was also of great importance to him.
In the wastelands, plunderers had always been a major problem.
The reason why he decided to relocate all the population except the essential agricultural labor was not only because there was a significant shortage of manpower in Weixing City, but also there was another major issue, as Gu Hang had previously mentioned to him: they lacked the capacity to manage those less valuable small settlements.
Those places weren’t entirely without value, but the input-output ratio was seriously unbalanced. If you wanted to run them, you would need to input a large amount of materials and support industries, which basically meant engaging in “poverty alleviation” work.
Besides poverty alleviation, military forces had to be invested for protection. Otherwise, settlements that became even slightly wealthier would become targets for looters.
Plunderers, monsters in the wild, these were all major threats in the wasteland.
And now, in addition to consolidating various settlements, Perbov’s forces had another mission: bandit extermination.
The three agricultural settlements that were left behind needed a stable environment to expand production; this region was also an important trade route from Weixing City to Rubbish Town. Rubbish Town was a crucial source of raw materials for the industrial base of Weixing City, and it also needed to ensure the security of this transportation route to import food.
According to the governor, he wanted to see every power in this region fly the flag of the New Alliance, and that included the plunderers’ forces.
Originally, Perbov was unaware of the severity of the banditry in the area, and he had planned to settle the survivor settlements first before dealing with the bandit suppression.
Now, it seems that action had to be taken ahead of schedule.
Similarly, Perbov could tell that those plunderers definitely didn’t have the guts to confront him head-on, otherwise they would have attacked when he entered Sanchi Town unguarded.
But since they ultimately chose to rebel, they must have had something to rely on.
Urban ruins… guerrilla warfare… Perbov subsequently thought of these and made a judgment: he couldn’t let this band of plunderers get away. A few thousand people dispersing and running into the pre-war ruins to then launch intermittent strikes at the trade routes would leave him with very few options to counter them.
The entire bandit suppression operation would turn into a prolonged counter-guerrilla campaign.
He almost immediately made a decision.
“All forces, attack immediately! To Sanchi Town!”
Apart from his main forces’ swift and fierce advance, he also gave orders to several other deployed squads.
Following his instructions, the two mechanized infantry companies that could move the fastest were to cut into the back of Sanchi Town. The ‘Strider V’ armored vehicles had exceptional off-road capabilities, allowing them to maintain a relatively good speed even off the road.
The orders he gave to the two company commanders were to block Sanchi Town’s retreat routes. If the evacuation had already started, they were to attack immediately, delay their retreat, and wait for the main forces to arrive for an encirclement.
The two motorized infantry companies advanced rapidly along the roads in two different directions, with trucks carrying soldiers charging toward Sanchi Town from the connected routes.
Perbov himself led the headquarters along the main road towards Sanchi Town, with the tank battalion and the artillery battalion possibly moving slower, but they were also the strongest units.
And a day later, Perbov’s main force, still two days’ march from Sanchi Town, received two pieces of news.
The fight had already begun at the front.
The mechanized infantry companies he sent to cut off the rear arrived just in time. Each of them caught the tail of a retreating band of plunderers and launched an immediate attack.
The enemy clearly had a lack of understanding of the mechanized troops’ marching speed. The bandits, relying on foot travel and ox carts for transport, were caught completely off guard.
The ‘Strider V’ played an enormous role in the open field. The 40mm autocannons, firing without restraint, made it difficult for the plunderers to withstand, even using ox carts and various goods as temporary cover; the grenade machine gun substituted for the twin machine guns on the armored vehicle’s weapon station acted like a rapid-fire small grenade launcher, bombarding the enemy forces relentlessly.
The dismounted infantry, following the armored vehicles and sweeping through the area, were mainly tasked with finishing off the survivors.
The enemy had artillery. The caliber of those mountain guns wasn’t large, but a few direct hits could potentially damage a few armored vehicles if they got unlucky.
Unfortunately, those few mountain guns didn’t even manage to set up a firing formation before they were destroyed by concentrated fire from the autocannons and grenade machine guns.