Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 204 An Absurd Farce

Wang Gensheng's words made Ding Wei smile awkwardly. Decapitation is not such an easy thing. The right time, the right place, and the right people are all indispensable. For example, this time, it was because Liao Binglu's troops were already engaged in a fierce battle with the Fourth Field Army. The corps commander and the army commander had no troops around them, which is why it was possible to do so.

If it were a normal situation like in Jinzhou or Shengyang, where the area was surrounded like a fortified iron gate, and they were going to behead someone? Dream on!
Even though Wang Gensheng's assault team was all wearing bulletproof vests, they still had to kneel down when faced with concentrated firepower.

Therefore, large-scale open-field battles were the best strategy for Wang Gensheng to carry out a decapitation strike, using radio positioning and then taking advantage of the cavalry's speed to launch a direct surprise attack.

After all, a cavalry charge can cover 30 kilometers in just a few tens of minutes without wasting the soldiers' energy.

However, running 30 kilometers on two legs, plus carrying dozens of kilograms of weight, would be extremely exhausting. So, the Yamamoto Commando's initial operational direction was correct, but it was a pity that they chose the wrong mode of transportation.

Why not ride a convenient warhorse instead of a car? Do they really think this is a few decades from now when every village will have road access?

Without corps command and then army command, Liao's corps was basically a disorganized mess, which made the battle proceed very quickly, and it was over in just over a day.

Furthermore, the resistance of the lower-ranking soldiers weakened considerably after the loss of high-ranking commanders, since they joined the army simply to earn a living.

The old man doesn't distribute rations to the soldiers here, and due to the economic crisis, he's still in arrears on military pay!
However, just as Wang Gensheng was implementing a decapitation tactic against Liao Bingtuan, Fu Jiaozong, far away in Beiping, disobeyed Lao Zi's orders and secretly devised a decapitation plan as well.

That's right. This decapitation plan was to take advantage of the fact that the main force of the Huabei troops was advancing towards Taiyuan and that the defense of the General Headquarters was weak, so Zheng Tingfeng's 94th Army was dispatched to take advantage of the situation.

Of course, these tens of thousands of soldiers from the 94th Army were nominally sent to reinforce Taiyuan.

However, the actual plan was to take a detour and launch a surprise attack on Shijiazhuang and Pingshan County. The purpose was simple: to directly destroy the Jiefang Army's headquarters.

Clearly, Fu's move was intended to kill three birds with one stone. First, it aimed to take down Shijiazhuang; second, it was a siege of Wei to relieve the siege of Zhao and lift the siege of Taiyuan; and third, and most importantly, it aimed to eliminate the commander of the Jiefang Army.

However, these are all superficial. There is an even more important reason: this would give them an excuse to avoid sending troops to Dongbei and preserve their own strength.

After all, the fate of Dongbei is now quite clear. With the capture of key locations like Jinzhou and the annihilation of Liao's army, the remaining Changchun and Shengyang can no longer cause any trouble.

If Fu were to listen to Lao Jing now and continue to send reinforcements to Dongbei, it would be tantamount to pushing his own troops into a fire pit. Therefore, Fu would not be foolish enough to listen to Lao Jing, but would instead use this plan to deceive him.

Furthermore, the 94th Army was also Lao Zi's trusted confidant, so even if they failed, it wouldn't have much impact on Fu.

Of course, such a decapitation plan was kept highly secret, but the Liberation Army General Command already knew about it when the 94th Army was in action.

That's right, the reason they knew this was because Fu had spies among his close associates.

Even Fu knew the identity of this intelligence agent and deliberately leaked the plan to him.

That's right, Fu was actually betting on both sides. In fact, Fu himself was quite opposed to this civil war, but Lao Zi insisted on doing so, so Fu had no choice but to do it.

In response, the General Command employed a clever ruse, a simple one: they openly announced their plan to launch a surprise attack on the General Command. The announcement detailed Fu's plan to attack the General Command.

This tactic was extremely effective; with the broadcast, it became largely pointless for the 94th Army to launch a decapitation strike.

Wang Gensheng also heard the broadcast and was very impressed with the commander's empty city strategy.

Without firing a single shot, a simple broadcast could ruin this plan.

After hearing the broadcast, Duan Peng asked with some confusion:

"Si Ling, is this old fox sending such a large force of tens of thousands of people to launch a surprise attack and behead our commander-in-chief?"

In response to this, Wang Gensheng smiled and said:
"Yes! I really admire him! To carry out a decapitation strike with tens of thousands of regular troops, I really don't know what this old man was thinking to agree to such an absurd plan. I would find it too difficult to hide my thousand-strong cavalry force when it comes to a decapitation strike!"

Indeed, Wang Gensheng was also speechless. Special operations like decapitation strikes are not conducted in this way!

Tens of thousands of people—this is not just a few hundred. They could easily hide their marching route by simply finding a place to lie low. Tens of thousands of people!
Such a large-scale operation could not possibly be hidden. And if it could not be hidden, and the military operation of tens of thousands of people was not fast enough, what would be the point of such a sneak attack and decapitation?

In Wang Gensheng's view, only small-scale special operations teams could carry out such missions as sneak attacks and decapitations.

However, to Wang Gensheng's surprise, despite broadcasting the news in plain language, Lao Jing's actions made his sneak attack and decapitation plan an open secret.

However, instead of ordering a retreat, Lao Zi directly ordered the sneak attack and decapitation strike to be turned into a full-scale attack.

This order immediately enraged Zheng Tingfeng of the 94th Army.

The plan was to ambush him, but now that everything's out in the open, what's the point of ambushing him? It's just feeding him kills!

After all, the plan to launch the attack had already been leaked, so who could be sure that the General Command of the Liberation Army wasn't protected by the main force here?
The claim that the General Command of the Liberation Army is weak is probably just a false rumor!
Once Zheng Tingfeng actually rushed in, what awaited him was a large encirclement by the Jiefang Army!

As a result, the 94th Army led by Zheng Tingfeng also began to slack off. Basically, whenever they encountered an ambush, they would run away immediately, regardless of their troop strength.

Even a county-level brigade could scare away an entire enemy regiment.

Old Jing was furious upon hearing this battle report. He knew perfectly well that the Liberation Army General Command had no main force, and the 94th Army's 30,000 to 40,000 troops could indeed completely overwhelm the General Command.

But Zheng Tingfeng, the commander of the 94th Army, didn't believe it! After all, it was Zheng Tingfeng who had gone deep into enemy-occupied territory, not Lao Jing. If they were surrounded, it would be Zheng Tingfeng who was surrounded!
Fortunately, Fu eventually gave the order to retreat, and the so-called decapitation operation, which involved sending 30,000 to 40,000 people, came to nothing, like an absurd farce.

(End of this chapter)