Military career: Starting with a recruitment letter

Chapter 167 A Deceptive Substitution, a Real Trick

Chapter 167 A Deceptive Substitution, a Real Trick or Trick (Part 2)

After the queue was disbanded, the squadrons and student teams quickly began to disperse and regroup in class units.

The classes mentioned here are not distinguished by dormitory number.

Instead, they were divided into classes in the form of platoons. Chen Mo's platoon, the second squad of the second training team, had only two classes.

There were a total of fourteen people. Xie Yong, as the platoon leader, was naturally also the leader of this orienteering event.

While the other teams were making their final preparations before departure.

Xie Yong beckoned, gathering the entire group together. He lowered his voice and said, "Brothers, I know we haven't been together for long and we're not very familiar with each other."

"But the next step is the assessment. We must have the same goal. I hope everyone will work together to win first place, and we must win first place."

"I'm from Xiamen and I'm not familiar with the terrain of Cuiping Mountain in Shimen. Is there anyone here who is a local or who is familiar with the mountains?"

Upon hearing the question, the crowd that gathered around were all utterly bewildered.

Their cadet team consisted entirely of new recruits who had just been promoted to officers this month. They came from various military regions and all over the country; there were hardly any locals among them.

Chen Mo hesitated for a moment. He had been to Cuiping Mountain before, but that was decades ago. It was during a training camp when he was in Commandery Lu, and he was sent to the mountains to learn on-site drawing.

So much time has passed, it might not work.

However, seeing that no one responded, Chen Mo still spoke up: "Class monitor, I've been there before, but I can't say I'm very familiar with it."

"It's alright, it's better than nothing." Xie Yong handed the map he had received to Chen Mo and said, "You will be the deputy captain and lead the way. We will follow your route."

No one disagrees with that.

Although Chen Mo looks young, he can complete the 1000-meter obstacle course, and many people can't say anything about that.

Besides, leading the way isn't exactly an easy job either.

Even the hanging map issued by the college is not as professional as the one drawn by the old lady selling popsicles at the college gate; it's a drawing at most the level of a second-grade elementary school student.

I held it in my hand for a long time and still couldn't figure out where the road was or where the ridge was. But that's normal. It would be strange if you could figure out a map that's only one-twentieth of the way across.

If the difficulty level were too low, they wouldn't have been specifically assigned to reconnaissance specialties.

After a brief meeting, their second team also set off.

The equipment was simple: in addition to the backpacks, the academy provided each person with a loaf of bread wrapped in oil paper and a water bottle filled with lightly salted water.

Each person was given an old-fashioned compass; that would be all the supplies for the next ten hours.

Mid-year assessment: the entire college mobilizes.

The tasks of each department are different. Some were reportedly taken to nearby military units for on-site assessments, while others were kept within the college.

Only their reconnaissance unit was driven into the mountains.

When they set off, the college specially arranged vehicles to take the team members around the college's interior and out through the main gate, seemingly to enter the mountain from the outside.

In the car.

The other veterans all stood up straight, and whenever they noticed someone looking at them on the road outside, they would immediately adopt a posture as upright as a bell, attracting frequent glances from passersby.

It goes on and on, just for fun.

Chen Mo, on the other hand, sat in the innermost carriage, studying a map.

Honestly, I'm a major, after all. My map reading and map-reading skills are no worse than those of veteran scouts.

But even with the small map in his hand, Chen Mo was still a bit of a headache. The map was so bad that he couldn't find any similar reference points for the roads, ditches, power lines, hills, trees, farmland, and lakes.

He's supposed to lead the way? What kind of way is that?

Military maps are the most accurate maps, bar none, but those are drawn up by specialized staff officers during combat operations.

There aren't so many convenient conditions for performance evaluation.

"What's wrong? Are you worried about the upcoming assessment?" Xie Yong asked, sitting next to Chen Mo who was frowning and staring at the map.

"It's not that I'm worried."

Chen Mo shook his head slightly upon hearing this and said, "This kind of orienteering requires finding all the maps first, and it all depends on luck. Cuiping Mountain is not very large, and the area where you can move around is very limited."

"The academy deliberately blurred the map, probably in order to be fairer."

"Yes."

Xie Yong wasn't naive; he certainly understood what Chen Mo meant by "fairness."

According to the squadron leader, the participants in the orienteering event include not only students from the Army Academy, but also soldiers stationed at the academy.

If the map is too accurate, then for veterans who have participated in the assessment before and are very familiar with the terrain, there is no difficulty at all.

With their experience, they can easily outperform those who are taking the assessment for the first time.

Then it would be meaningless.

Although Xie Yong is a veteran reconnaissance soldier, he is now unfamiliar with the terrain, cannot read the map, and is not even sure how many teams are involved.

There's simply no way to schedule the team's mission in advance.

But Chen Mo is different.

He had served as a military officer, and even if his command abilities were extremely limited, he at least understood one principle.

That is, when faced with a difficult problem and having no clue how to solve it, don't try to figure out how to solve it.

Instead, we should consider what circumstances might lead to a significant increase in the difficulties they are currently facing.

If you change your mindset, things become much simpler.

The prerequisite for orienteering is knowing where the finish line is, and to know the finish line, you need to collect all the maps you have.

These important maps are scattered in the mountains, so to win, you must first find more maps before most teams do, and seize the initiative.

Thinking of this, Chen Mo's eyes lit up, and a smile appeared on his lips.

"Bros."

"Let me assign the tasks."

The sudden sound startled the veterans who were sitting in the carriage, craning their necks to look at the scenery outside.

"What tasks will you be assigned?" Ding Zeliang was taken aback.

"Do you know what to do next?" Xie Yong asked, somewhat puzzled.

It's no wonder people have doubts.

After all, the clues provided for this orienteering trip were too few, and everything could only be arranged as appropriate after entering the mountains. What good ideas could Xiucai possibly have?
Facing the gazes around him, Chen Mo smiled confidently and said, "Brothers, you've all seen the map the academy gave us, right?"

"Yes, we've seen it," several veterans nodded in response.

"Just look at it." Chen Mo said, getting up from the carriage and waving the map in front of everyone.

“This drawing technique can be imitated by a five-year-old. Now, anyone who carries a pen or notebook in their bag should immediately take it out and start drawing according to this standard.”

"It doesn't matter if it's rough. Just make a few rough strokes and make sure it looks decent. Everyone should draw at least thirty copies before getting off the bus."

"quick!!"

After Chen Mo finished speaking, he took off his backpack first, took out a notebook and pen from the small cloth bag inside, and tore open the pages of the drawing.

With just a few strokes, he completed the incomplete drawing and began working on the next one.

There is one advantage to being a veteran.

Since the scholar was chosen as the vice-captain, even if they had doubts or were unwilling, no one questioned him. They all started to unpack their backpacks, take out paper and pens, and draw in the same style.

This thing wasn't difficult at all, and soon the sound of tearing paper could be heard in the carriage; it was quite efficient.

As Xie Yong drew, he looked up at Chen Mo and said, "Scholar, can you tell me your plans now?"

"this is very simple."

Chen Mo laughed and said, "Brothers, what's the key to this orienteering assessment?"

“It’s definitely about collecting all the maps.” Wang Bo curled his lips: “Didn’t the squad leader say that the destination is the same? But even if it is the same, we still need to collect all the maps to know where the destination is.”

"The team that collects all the items first is most likely to win first place."

“Yes, we’re looking for a map,” Chen Mo said. “No matter how fast we are, we can’t necessarily beat others by relying on luck.”

"The assessment starts this morning, which means the academy needed to arrange for people to place maps in the mountains at least last night."

“The fog is heavy and the wind is strong in the mountains at night, so they definitely wouldn’t just throw the remaining map on the ground. They would most likely put it in a bag and there would be obvious markings.”

"After we go into the mountains, everyone will split up to find these markers. Remember, once we find a map, all we have to do is take the real map and put our nonsensical drawings in it."

"If possible, it would be best to draw a five-pointed star on the bag containing the map to prevent us from going to the wrong place again."

"We'll discuss the specific directions for dispersing once we get into the mountains."

After Chen Mo quickly finished explaining the plan, he suddenly felt the atmosphere in the carriage become quiet.

Looking up, he realized that all the veterans were staring at him with strange looks.

"What's wrong? Is there a problem with my arrangements?" Chen Mo chuckled and raised his hand to touch his cheek.

"It's not that there's a problem, it's that you're too wicked." Ding Zeliang shook his head, but as he spoke, he quickened his pace in drawing the map.

"Damn it, you scholar, are you poisonous? You're full of bad ideas, not any real knowledge!" Lai Wei complained.

Indeed, the most important part of this orienteering assessment is collecting maps, but everyone is thinking about how to find maps as quickly as possible.

That damn scholar actually thought of forging documents.

Their team had a total of fourteen people, and each person had thirty fake maps, which meant there were four hundred and twenty maps in total.

Even if only half of them flow into the assessment area and are collected by other teams as if they were treasures, that would still amount to more than two hundred.

What is this concept?
If you encounter a team that's incredibly unlucky and slow-moving, they probably won't have a single real map from start to finish. The only real map they'll get is the one they're given at the start; everything else they'll have is fake.

Even if you spent ten days in the mountains, it wouldn't make a difference, let alone ten hours.

This approach will not only slow down other teams, but may also cause serious problems for many people.

People born in the 1990s were mostly innocent and had not experienced the baptism of the internet explosion era that followed. Even if they were malicious, many of them were simply bad.

Chen Mo, the kind of person who would harm someone to death without any repercussions, is extremely rare.

"Damn it, scholar, I am ashamed to be associated with you. To make up for the wounded hearts of the other brothers, I have decided to draw forty more paintings to make amends."

As Wang Bo spoke, he began to speed up his drawing, basically just scribbling randomly to lead people astray, without any technical skill involved.

This fatso has finally found his niche.

Of course, there were also kind-hearted people, such as Liu Mujun, who frowned and hesitated for a moment before saying, "This method is good, it can delay the progress of other teams."

"What if the academy finds out when the assessment is over?"

"Is this considered cheating?"

"The assessment is the battlefield, and the opponent is the enemy." Chen Moyi said righteously, "They are all preparing to compete with us for first place, Lao Liu, you can't back down at this time."

"I'm not backing down, I mean if the academy really wants to investigate, we'll probably be found out."

Liu Mujun was still somewhat worried, but he didn't stop drawing. Discussion was discussion, and task was task.

Veterans can still understand these principles.

"What are you afraid of? Even if we're going to investigate, you're the captain, aren't you?" Chen Mo retorted.

“I’m not.” Veteran Liu nodded in sudden realization.

"Neither do I." Chen Mo chuckled. Xie Yong: ? ? ? ? ?

In the end, Xie Yong did not refute Chen Mo's arrangement and silently endured the criticism that might come later.

After all, even the squadron leader said that as long as the police officers don't make arrests and no one complains, the teams participating in the assessment are allowed to compete for the positions.

Compared to the severity of the fighting, releasing a few fake maps doesn't seem so unreasonable.

The reconnaissance personnel were dispersed.

It took Chen Mo and his group more than fifty minutes from boarding the bus to arriving at their destination.

As everyone disembarked from the vehicle, many soldiers took a deep breath as they gazed at the rugged mountains and dense forests in the distance.

Ten hours.

It sounds like a long time, but almost a tenth of that time has already been spent on the road. Next, we need to find a map, piece it together, find the final destination, and then rush there.

That means there's not much time to spare.

After getting out of the car, everyone looked around and then turned to look at Chen Mo.

Even some veterans had a hint of excitement in their eyes.

If it's just about finding coordinates or map fragments, these veterans might need to encourage each other. But when it comes to scamming people, they're all incredibly energetic.

Looking around, each of them was holding more than thirty fake maps.

"Scholar, you make the arrangements. What's next?" Xie Yong raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead and asked.

"Alright, class leaders, let's get started."

Chen Mo grinned and said, "Whoever has a watch, check the time. We'll meet back here in four hours."

"I reckon that since the course is orienteering, the finish line won't be at the top of the mountain. All the teams will be searching for the finish line from the foot of the mountain to the top, so it won't be that easy."

"Let's split into seven groups of two, each heading uphill in a different direction."

"Search as large an area as possible. Based on my deduction, the places where the maps are placed must be clearly marked, so we can't be slow. We must get ahead of other teams and take most of the maps."

"Give it a quick scan. If you don't see any signs, don't look for them too carefully. Try to replace most of the map on this mountain."

"Set off!!"

"Got it."

A group of veterans tightened their backpack straps. Some stood still, untied some bread, tore off pieces, and stuffed them into their mouths to replenish their energy. Others simply grabbed familiar faces and rushed straight up the distant hillside.

Their objective was to get up the mountain before all the other teams and inspect a large area.

As for whether the map in hand can be pieced together to form a complete destination map, that's something for four hours later.

For now, there's no need to worry about that.

This allows them to focus more intently and act freely.

Seeing how enthusiastic the group of veterans were, Chen Mo mixed some lightly salted water with bread and shoveled in a few mouthfuls.

This is when we started.

If you skip breakfast, climbing a mountain won't be so easy.

Xie Yong and Ding Zeliang, two members of the Night Tigers, naturally formed one team, Liu Mujun and Lai Wei formed another, and Sheng Donghao, a veteran of the anti-aircraft artillery brigade's reconnaissance company, originally wanted to team up with Wang Bo.

Seeing Wang Pangzi approaching Chen Mo, he simply ran over and teamed up with the people from dormitory 401.

Anyway, with fourteen people, it's easy to assign them.

Chen Mo ignored Wang Bo, who had followed him, and continued climbing the mountain while quickly searching around.

After all, speculation is speculation, and confirmation is confirmation.

He just thought that the place where the academy kept the fragmented map wouldn't be particularly hidden, but he still needed to verify it.

After climbing for about ten minutes, Chen Mo noticed a small red flag stuck in a pile of rocks in the distance. The flag was bright red.

It doesn't look like it's been sitting there for too long.

"found it."

Chen Mo smiled, then quickly walked towards the pile of rubble.

"Where is it? I can't see it."

Wang Bo was about ten meters away from Chen Mo, shaking his big head and searching around.

But this time.

Chen Mo had no interest in paying attention to him. He went to the little red flag, casually removed the stone, and saw a yellowish-brown oil paper envelope under the stone.

There was no glue on the seal, and inside was a folded map. Chen Mo didn't even open it to look at it. He got up and stuffed the map into his pocket.

He put his lousy drawings back into the envelope and drew a distinct five-pointed star on the surface of the envelope.

Only then did they place the envelope under the stone and return the little flag to its original position.

Wang Bo, who had followed from a distance, watched as Chen Mo calmly carried out the substitution without even opening the map, and prepared to continue the search.

He asked curiously, "Scholar, aren't you going to compare it with the map?"

"What are you comparing? Let's keep looking."

Chen Mo said irritably, "It takes twenty fragments to piece together one map. There are probably many duplicate maps here. You only have two. What can you possibly compare?"

"It's a complete waste of time."

"Damn, what you said makes a lot of sense." Wang Bo rolled his eyes; he was getting a little anxious too.

After all, Chen Mo was able to find even a private and successfully change the map.

This made Fatty Wang feel very unbalanced.

At the same time, he also had some doubts: was the scholar really just a private?
Damn it, which private can be better than a veteran, finish the 1000-meter obstacle course, and even serve as the deputy captain in the Army Academy's mid-year assessment?
Being a vice-captain is one thing, but fabricating maps and switching things out is something he does so skillfully.

Furthermore, finding a new map and being able to resist looking at it—is that something a private would do?
Fatty Wang glanced at Chen Mo in front of him, then turned to look at the small red flag behind him, which had returned to its original state.

He simply couldn't believe that the person who had received a third-class merit award, was commended by the military region, and was a second-class meritorious soldier for sniping spies, was actually such a scoundrel.

That's incredibly dark-hearted.

Time passed little by little, and the sun became increasingly intense. This year may be particularly hot, especially given the favorable ecological environment of the 1990s.

By the end of May, the sound of cicadas filled the entire mountain.

Normally, Cuiping Mountain is a deserted mountain with hardly anyone around, except for the reception area. However, with the start of the military academy's mid-year assessment, things have changed.

In this remote mountain valley, groups of young people in military uniforms appeared under the blazing sun.

Just as Chen Mo and his group climbed halfway up the mountain, and the dog was still secretly carrying out their plan...

On the other side, a group of young people in camouflage uniforms, wearing blue armbands, appeared at the foot of the mountain.

If Chen Mo were here, he would definitely recognize this group of people as students from the Bethune Military Medical College, which was renamed in May 1999.

The college was previously called Shimen Medical College, which later became the Army Medical University.

In May, the Military Medical College was renamed Military Medical College. It took the initiative to send a group of students to Cuiping Mountain to participate in the mid-year assessment jointly conducted by the Army Academy and the Army Command.

The military medical academy had only one team, with a total of fifteen people participating. The team leader was Li Min, a heroic and spirited woman.

After wandering around in the mountains for half a day, the whole team was dizzy and their lips were chapped from the scorching sun.

Li Min rested her right hand on her forehead, glanced at the sun in the sky, and turned back to encourage them, "Comrades, we only need one more map to collect twenty maps."

"Keep up the good work, and once we've collected enough, we'll start piecing together the map. We need to do our best in this year's exams and crush everyone from the Army Academy and the Army Command."

"Yes, Captain!!"

A group of young people were enthusiastically chanting slogans, their eyes filled with clear excitement, as if they were really going to win.

"Captain, there's a small flag over there."

The military medical school team had only gone a few steps when a young man pointed to a pile of rubble in the distance and shouted loudly.

Liu Min looked in the direction her teammate was pointing and indeed saw a small flag fluttering in the wind. Her face lit up with joy.

He quickly ran to the pile of stones, carefully picked up the rubble and moved it aside, then took out the oil paper envelope inside.

Pull out the folded map inside.

"Huh? The paper used for this map is different from the ones we were given. We've found more than a dozen of these kinds of paper today."

"It's ok."

With a smile on her face, Liu Min confidently waved her hand: "Let's go, let's find a shady spot to start piecing together the map."

"We've collected all twenty tickets; we must get to the finish line before the other teams."

Victory was within reach, which made the team from the military medical academy extremely happy.

A group of people excitedly went to do the jigsaw puzzle.

Don't they realize that if all the maps on the mountainside end in the same place, then there must be a lot of duplicate maps?

With only twenty cards collected, and more than half of them fake, victory is still a long way off.

at the same time.

Throughout Cuiping Mountain, many teams discovered that the paper used in the envelopes seemed to be different.

But not many people really suspected it. After all, if the distributed map was drawn so poorly, how good could it be if it was found in the mountains?
More and more people who had collected all twenty maps found they couldn't put them together, but none of them doubted it.

They assumed the academy had increased the difficulty of the assessment by deliberately including a lot of useless and repetitive maps.

Time is still passing.

Chen Mo and his group are causing more and more harm, and they are more than a dozen veteran scouts.

Don't be fooled by their less-than-ideal performance on the 1000-meter obstacle course; it's because there are too many obstacles, and their physical endurance simply can't keep up.

If this were in the mountains, it would truly be home.

In just four hours.

A group of people ran all over the mountains and fields, and managed to give away more than half of the nearly 500 fake maps they had.

The appointed time has arrived.

A group of veterans, acting furtively, began to sneak down the mountain to assemble, avoiding the other detachments.

Get ready to take the map in your hand and start piecing it together.

Chen Mo, the mastermind behind all of this, had already hidden under the shade of a tree, holding the six maps that he and Wang Bo had found.

While piecing it together.

While waiting for the others, bring the other fourteen maps to join us.

Chen Mo and his companion had six cards in their possession; it wasn't that they only found six.

However, the maps do have many repetitions, and the probability is quite high.

Their change is significant.