If the armed forces won’t listen, what else is there to say?
Now, they could only feel relieved that when Kroc spouted nonsense earlier, they hadn’t yet started to make a fuss before Jason Morgan arrived. How embarrassing would that have been now?
Fortunately, Jason Morgan did not pursue the matter further.
He took advantage of the committee meeting convened by Kroc to steer the topic towards how to ensure the supply of materials needed by the Alliance Army, including the militia assembled for centralized distribution.
The southbound Central Group Army consisted of a total of seven division-level units, with over fifty thousand regular soldiers; the militia gathered in the Beiqing Valley Region boasted a scale of about one hundred and fifty thousand. Securing related material supplies was a major issue that required planning supply teams, allocating vehicles, repairing roads, and arranging materials…
It was a head full of concerns.
Jason Morgan had already set aside the episode caused by Kroc and was focused on how to handle the follow-up work. That was what he cared about the most.
The committee members spoke enthusiastically, each offering suggestions. One said they could provide a certain amount of food, another said they could mobilize a number of workers for road construction; one offered their manor as a rally point, another suggested their estate was suitable as a logistics hub…
With clear minds, the members turned into active participants.
Mr. Morgan himself said it: everyone must demonstrate the right way to show loyalty.
And now, our loyalty is certainly absolute!
However, their ‘loyalty’ was soon put to the test once again.
A militia captain burst in from outside.
Initially hesitant upon assessing the situation, but Jason Morgan urged him to speak frankly, so he reported the situation directly.
It turned out that an alarm was sent by an outside patrol: a large-scale wave of Aberrant Beasts was about to attack Crook Manor.
It was either a coincidence or something else, but the timing of these creatures’ arrival was impeccable.
The NorthernGreen Valley Region was less affected by the waves of Aberrant Beasts, but not immune. These creatures mainly resided in the forest.
The dense wilderness spread across the entire Great Qing Valley Region and was accessible from every direction. The mutated creatures grew and strengthened in the forests and launched attacks from within the woods.
In the Green Valley Region, dealing with the waves of Aberrant Beasts was an omnipresent threat, with no distinction between the front and rear. Any place at the edge of the forest, or not too far from it, was in danger.
The Green Valley Region might boast a population of tens of millions, but on a land of over six million square kilometers, that number of people… well, it’s really sparse by comparison. Apart from the scattered plantations and the roads that connect them, most of the area is wilderness, untouched by humans.
A wave of Aberrant Beasts could arise from anywhere under normal circumstances.
Inside the meeting hall, the committee members who had just been demonstrating loyalty and showing their devotion fell silent.
Someone murmured hesitantly, “Shall we… evacuate first? Crook Manor has decent defenses, but us staying here won’t be of much help; we might as well go home first. Let the militia try to hold the Manor, and once support arrives, we’ll work together to repel this wave.”
With someone taking the lead, others followed suit:
“Yes, yes, Mr. Morgan, you don’t have to tough it out here, we can all withdraw together…”
Jason Morgan simply raised his hand: “Gentlemen, gentlemen.”
After repeating himself, they calmed down.
He continued, “We are not going anywhere today; we stay right here. Our work is not finished. Kroc has provided us with an opportunity, and it’s not easy to assemble such a complete committee. We must take advantage of this occasion to finalize some upcoming tasks. Otherwise, getting everyone together like this next time will indeed be difficult.”
He paused, then went on, “As for the enemy we are about to face… we must have full confidence in the militia forces we’ve assembled. I am full of confidence in the defenses of Crook Manor.”
“We will not let our warriors face the enemy alone; we must stand with them. This is also how we show our loyalty to the Governor, and I believe everyone remains unwavering in this belief.”
“Am I right?”
The crowd fell silent.
If you want to court death, why drag us into it?
That’s a wave of Aberrant Beasts!
We also heard the message that the captain came to report!
There are at least over a hundred thousand monsters marching their way here!
How many militiamen are at Crook Manor? Indeed, this place is the headquarters of the Mutual Aid Society, and there are two refugee camps nearby with a population of over half a million in the vicinity. But even so, the Beiqing Valley Region is too vast, and if a hundred thousand militiamen were to be dispersed to hold their positions, currently, there would hardly be ten thousand militiamen nearby.
And the number of militiamen at Crook Manor doesn’t even exceed five thousand!
To face a wave of a hundred thousand Aberrant Beasts, even with walls, it would be very difficult to hold them back!
Generally speaking, in such a situation, you would have the militia hold their ground, then evacuate personnel, and continuously call in reinforcements from nearby to respond.
If it really can’t be held… then whoever can be evacuated will be evacuated, and if this place has to be abandoned, then it will be abandoned.
What else can be done?
Why on earth is Jason Morgan hell-bent on holding on here?
Morgan couldn’t be bothered to explain to them.
Between Crook Manor and the surrounding two refugee camps, there are five hundred thousand civilians, which is a densely populated area of the Beiqing Valley Region. Evacuating and moving people sounds easy, but what does five hundred thousand people mean, and how could it be easy to evacuate them?
These people are just cowards.
The current militia, can they really be the same as the old concepts in their heads? After receiving military aid from the Alliance, their firepower has long been much stronger than the armed forces they had originally organized.
There’s no need to worry too much.
He continued to preside over the meeting, arranging work.
This working meeting would not be short—it wouldn’t be done in just a few hours. Come evening, everyone went to rest with heavy hearts, estimating that they would have to continue the next day.
A couple of days’ effort should be about enough to settle the whole affair.
However, the next morning, something began to feel off.
In just one morning, the front line lost two positions in succession.
This even forced Jason Morgan to temporarily interrupt the committee session, having those committee members discuss among themselves while he pulled aside a military observer who had just arrived the previous night to discuss the front line situation.
In theory, it shouldn’t have been breached so easily.
However, the military observer’s explanation made Jason Morgan, who was somewhat of a military layman, understand a little bit more about the severity of the current situation.
“…This cluster of Aberrant Beasts cannot be looked at with the old fragmented viewpoint. Apart from their large numbers, they have many advanced variant types among them.”
“If they were just ordinary Pus Monsters, it would be easy to deal with; but the number of Pus Spewers among them is very high, and there has appeared a type of super-heavy monster over three meters tall, the lower half of its body wriggling like a rotting worm, acting as some kind of biological artillery, with a shooting range exceeding ten kilometers.
Direct bombardment brings extreme corrosiveness, and even if people aren’t corroded to death, the bombarded area becomes temporarily uninhabitable, which has greatly affected our defensive line.”
“There’s also a type of biohunter that’s grown to over one and a half meters long, moving very fast and spitting corrosive pus. In close combat, the militia are finding it very difficult to confront them.”
After hearing this, Jason Morgan had a headache.
He thought for a moment and said, “I need to go to the front line to see for myself.”
“Okay,” the military observer took him to the front line.
Of course, it wasn’t too close to the actual front line—observing from a distance of about two kilometers behind the third defensive line where the firefight was ongoing, he saw the tragic scene through binoculars.
In half an hour, at least three hundred militiamen were casualties.
Clearly, this defensive line couldn’t hold.
Jason Morgan couldn’t bear to watch any longer, and the military observer pulled him into a car and fled back.
They stopped only when they reached the fourth defensive line.
This was the last line of defense outside Crook Manor, consisting of trenches, foxholes, and small fortresses made of sandbags. Further back, was the manor’s wall.
Morgan’s mood was very heavy now.
Damn it, I just bragged, and now are we actually about to face something big?