50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 545 Investigation
In the dead of night, Sun Aiguo certainly wouldn't let his father go out alone to scout out the enemy situation.

But his objections were meaningless; he couldn't win a fight. Sun Zhiwei beat him up like he was beating his own son.

So Sun Aiguo insisted on going with him, and as a result, Sun Aiguo got beaten up again.

Having no other options, Sun Aiguo could only watch helplessly as Sun Zhiwei, dressed in his new military uniform, disappeared into the southern mountains in an instant.

Laoshan is 20 kilometers away from Sun Aiguo's company's location. Sun Zhiwei isn't stupid, so of course he wouldn't walk there.

Once out of sight of the barracks, he took out a bicycle and began speeding along the road toward the border.

There were no checkpoints on the roads near the war zone, because this was already a war zone where small enemy units could infiltrate. Checkpoints in the open would be sitting ducks, and our commanders weren't that stupid.

Sun Zhiwei kept his spatial ability active throughout the journey, and with the spatial detection, he could occasionally spot ambushes in hidden areas around the road.

They don't care about people and vehicles heading to the front lines, but as long as organized troops move from the outside in, they are very likely to be ambushed and surrounded.

Sun Zhiwei approved of the arrangement, but he did not slow down and continued to ride quickly toward the border.

An hour later, Sun Zhiwei had left the main road and entered the mountains and forests. Further ahead was the area that both sides were fighting over, and Laoshan was located in the center of that mountainous area.

The underground part of Laoshan is entirely karst landform, and this geological condition has resulted in a large number of natural caves being widely distributed here.

The Annamese troops were adept at utilizing this type of karst topography, and most of the underground karst caves near Laoshan were transformed into hiding places for soldiers.

At first, we didn't understand this terrain and suffered quite a few losses. Later, after we understood the terrain, we became more vigilant about these hidden caves.

Sun Zhiwei disappeared into the dense jungle just one kilometer from the border, but he did not continue south.

Because if he went any further, he would easily be ambushed. Annam had also laid many landmines in the mountains and forests, and he didn't want to wade through a minefield himself.

Once inside the forest, he immediately began digging a hole and diving down.

There's no way to get through on the surface; the only way is underground. Given the available space, his digging speed would definitely exceed his running speed.

He soon crossed the boundary marker and arrived at the underground of the Laoshan highlands.

The underground here was indeed riddled with caves. Under Sun Zhiwei's spatial illumination, he could clearly see which caves harbored ambushes and which contained weapons and ammunition.

Once an enemy enters his spatial detection range, he cannot escape his surveillance.

Sun Zhiwei used his spatial ability to dig continuously, and soon he had scouted the entire Laoshan area.

The result was quite unexpected. The total number of enemies he saw lying in ambush in the cave exceeded 10, and there were also Annamese monkeys constantly crawling into the cave from further away.

To his surprise, more than one-third of these soldiers were women, which is no small number.

In our military, the proportion of female soldiers is very small. In general, it is considered normal for a unit to have 1/10 or 1/20 female soldiers.

Because there are no designated positions for female soldiers in our military. The only suitable positions for female soldiers in the army are serving tea and water, typing and broadcasting, operating the telephone, and nursing in the medical clinic.

These positions are already few and far between, and they can't absorb many new recruits.

For example, in 1976, it was the only year in our family's history that we had a bumper harvest of female soldiers, with the ratio of male to female recruits reaching 50/50.

Some praised the surge in female recruits back then as "historical progress," claiming it ushered in a new era of gender equality. However, objectively, there were limited positions, and female recruits had nowhere to be placed. So, various units started to use their own methods to find suitable candidates.

Some female recruits were transferred to other units as soon as they put on their uniforms, and some were even selected by sports teams to pursue sports careers.

Annam is different from us. They have mandatory military service. The women they recruit are not for serving tea and water; they are really meant to be used as cannon fodder and dragged to the front lines to fight.

The increase in the number of female soldiers indicates that Annam is experiencing recruitment difficulties.

Historically, there have been countries that recruited female soldiers on such a large scale.

During the later stages of World War II, large-scale recruitment of female soldiers occurred in the countries of Djokovic, the Russian Empire, and the United States.

That's because the country has almost no adult men left, so they have no choice but to implement this special conscription strategy.

He hadn't been to Annam in recent years and didn't know if the population ratio there was changing in this direction.

But upon closer reflection, it's not surprising; Annam had been at war for many years.

They first fought France, then the United States, then invaded neighboring countries, and now they're fighting us.

Over the past few decades, no matter how large your population is, it can't withstand such prolonged consumption.

Soldiers aren't like leeks in a field, which can be harvested and grow back in batches; children need time to grow.

No wonder Annam is implementing such a perverse policy of forced marriage and childbirth.

However, since the M army had used large quantities of defoliant in Annam, this agent could kill plants, and it could also kill animals, and humans are animals too.

As a result, since that period, the number of newborns in Annam has begun to decrease significantly. In order to cope with the population crisis, Annam began to implement forced marriage.

Even now, this negative impact has not been eliminated.

Moreover, the proportion of newborns with congenital defects has been increasing in recent years.

In summary, with war on three fronts, Annam was running out of men.

Although Annam appears to be thriving on the surface due to the annual aid from the Russians, it is all a facade of prosperity.

Once the support from the Russian bears stops, they will naturally be quickly brought back to their original state.

That time is fast approaching, because Russia's economic situation is also not good. How can this kind of aid, which sends hundreds of millions of dollars every year, last forever?

But that's a few years from now. Right now, the monkeys are like fleas, constantly harassing us, which is very annoying. We have to beat them hard to reduce their current fly-like attacks.

After memorizing all the enemy deployments in the Laoshan area, Sun Zhiwei turned back.

Before dawn, he returned to his son's company's post, covered in dust and dirt.

After cleaning up a bit, he started drawing in his son's barracks, creating a three-dimensional map of the entire Laoshan front.

The map clearly marks the geographical distribution of hundreds of caves of various sizes, the location of their exits, the number of soldiers hidden inside, and the ammunition storage points.

(End of this chapter)