A courtyard house; Li Yunlong, a subordinate of the deputy director of Harbin Military Engineering I

Inside the coalition headquarters, Ridgway finished reading the statement, slamming his coffee cup heavily on the table. Brown liquid spilled out, trickling down the cup and onto the map.

"Hmph, you can't get anywhere with just words. Let's debate with bombs, cannons, and machine guns."

"The protests in the country have been temporarily suppressed, and we have used these past few months to prepare for war."

Van Fleet, that Third Army that made us lose face, is right at the center line. It's time to make them pay a heavy price!

Van Fleet snorted coldly upon hearing this.

The US 25th Division was his biggest pain. He had only been in command of the Eighth Army for a few days when a division was wiped out. What the hell was that?

He had been a professional soldier for half his life, fighting from the Normandy beaches to the Pacific islands, and had never suffered such a loss.

He's almost sixty years old. He originally thought that this battle would elevate his status in history, but instead, he almost suffered a major setback.

An entire division!! A whole division!!

To be completely annihilated like that? That would be an utter disgrace. Van Fleet's name would be smeared on his original list of achievements. In order to win the victory, he would have to reclaim all the lost glory from the Third Army Corps. Otherwise, he would never be able to hold his head up again.

During this period, he couldn't eat or sleep well. His colleagues back home all mocked him, saying that Van Fleet was a general who ate shit. Even the former Far East Emperor MacArthur participated in an interview program to ridicule him and Matthew's command, saying that when he commanded, at least he didn't let the whole division be wiped out. Now it was Matthew and Van Fleet who were facing an unprecedentedly painful lesson in the history of the US military.

Thinking of all this, Van Fleet was filled with resentment. In addition, his son, Van Fleet Jr., had also died in the air force. For Van Fleet, he hated the Chinese People's Volunteer Army to the core and felt he had to take revenge.

He stood before the map, his fists resting on the table, staring intently at the area along the center line for a long while, his voice low and deep:

"They're just a bunch of crippled beasts who only know how to use sheer numbers. They're starving and poorly supplied, and we keep bombing their supply lines..."

"Given our firepower, they simply cannot hold the 38th parallel. If we eliminate one of the Independent Army, the 12th Army, or the 15th Army, they will inevitably divide the country into North and South according to the boundary we designate. That is their only option."

Ridgway had long realized that the enemy could not be easily defeated. Leaving aside the highest commander of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, the commander of this Third Army Corps was also quite brave, bold and meticulous. In addition, he had some new weapons that gave the Allied forces a lot of headaches.

In short, he is definitely not the kind of "Eastern commander who only knows how to use human wave tactics" that Van Fleet described.

But as the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, he needed a dignified performance, and Duterte was already furious about this major defeat.

Van Fleet, on the other hand, was a complete believer in the supremacy of firepower, thinking that as long as there were enough shells, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army would suffer heavy casualties.

Ridgway sometimes found the old man's naivety endearing, but right now he needed that naive confidence to bolster morale.

A few days later, inside the tunnels of the headquarters, Deputy Commander Deng and Chief of Staff Xie, who had just returned from the Kaesong negotiations, finally welcomed Brigade Commander Chen... The Second Deputy Commander of the headquarters officially took office.

The legion commander was overjoyed to see his former little brother, but I felt ashamed. This little brother didn't give his big brother any face. It's just because I said I would recruit him into the army more than 20 years ago, and then I accidentally killed someone and ran away. Comrade Renfeng is everyone's apprentice, how did he become yours?

He stepped forward, shook Commander Chen's hand several times, and couldn't suppress the smile on his face:

"Oh, you've finally arrived! I've been waiting for you so long my hair has turned white!"

Brigade Commander Chen smiled and shook hands back, his cane propped up at his feet, but his words were anything but polite:

"Don't try to pin this on me. Your white hair is from worrying too much, what does it have to do with me? Besides, here I am."

The legion commander laughed heartily, pulled him towards the tunnel, and stopped in front of the long table, his playful expression vanishing:

"Both sides have now entered a strategic stalemate. This counter-offensive is presumably also to avenge the annihilation of one of their divisions during the Fifth Campaign!"

Therefore, the pressure will be unprecedented. The best time for large-scale, mobile warfare has passed; what awaits us is the most arduous positional defense battle.

Deputy Commander Deng nodded in agreement and continued, "My idea is to hold the 38th parallel to the death. The enemy is desperately trying to push north. In this positional warfare, to be honest, we are completely at a disadvantage."

Everyone present knew that our equipment was outdated, and relying solely on direct confrontation in positional warfare would not be enough to compensate for the loss of countless lives.

This situation requires entirely new combat methods to reverse the passive situation.

Brigade Commander Chen had a serious face throughout. If it weren't for this kind of formal combat meeting, he would have given the corps commander a good scolding and brought up the "Zhang the Demolitionist was trained by me" joke from beginning to end.

Hmph, I used to be bullied by blind men and dwarfs all the time in the Taihang Mountains. Oh, and now you're trying to teach me a lesson? I won't accept it!

Fortunately, I now have a fully automated demolition machine, so who am I afraid of?

It's finally my turn, Old Chen! After this battle, we will surely become famous and renowned both at home and abroad...

He suppressed his arrogance, glanced at everyone present, and finally spoke:

"Haha, our army corps had already repeatedly simulated this before even entering Korea. Combining trench warfare and tunnel warfare is our winning formula."

He paused, his gaze lingering on the legion commander's face for a moment, then his smile deepened.

"Why do you think our army group has to annihilate an entire enemy division? Isn't it precisely to lure the enemy into our presence? If we don't inflict serious damage, will they obediently come to negotiate with us? Ridgway isn't stupid."

The corps commander chuckled and replied, "That's why I insisted on inviting you all here. Your Chen-Zhang Corps is the headquarters' precious darling."

Commander Chen looked at his older brother with a grin, feeling incredibly smug.

Without exaggeration, no one in the entire army can beat their Corps in this kind of earthwork tunneling and blasting operations. If you don't believe me, bring another Corps and try to compare.

He turned and beckoned to his confidential secretary: "Bring me the blueprints!"

The secretary handed over a thick roll of blueprints, which Commander Chen unfolded on the table, his finger pointing to the dense lines and markings, elevations, and so on.

"Commander Zhang and I call this tactic the 'reverse slope tunnel warfare system.'"

"This is not an ordinary cave, but a complete underground military ecosystem. The position is in front, the tunnels are on the opposite slope away from enemy fire, and there are safe passages connecting them in the middle."

When the US military bombarded the area, all troops retreated to the tunnels. Once the infantry charged, the troops would quickly enter the surface positions through the tunnels to block the attack.

In tactical terms, this is called "avoiding the enemy's main force and striking while they are crossing the river."

"Mobilize the entire army to dig deep tunnels, creating an underground Great Wall along the mountains, hiding thousands of troops inside. What can the American planes and artillery do to us then?"

Without exaggeration, everyone here is a master of mobile warfare, but when it comes to positional warfare and defensive warfare, I'm afraid we can't compare to me, Old Chen.

The legion commander picked up the blueprints, examined them twice, and when he put them down, a smile of undisguised satisfaction played on his lips.

"The mountains here are mostly granite; there simply aren't enough steel and explosives to hollow them out."

Faced with this question, Brigade Commander Chen smiled and waved his hand.

"No guns, no cannons, the enemy will make them for us. Has the corps commander forgotten how twenty-year-old Zhang Xiaogui handled explosives during the Hundred Regiments Offensive?"

Give him enough gunpowder, and he could blow Japan to smithereens!

Several months ago, our Commander Zhang established an engineering command based on the 15th Army, and sent troops north to collect unexploded bombs and landmines dropped by the American forces. The engineers were instructed to extract the explosives for use in blasting mountains.

Hey, the American explosives are high purity and powerful. They've been running for almost a month. You guys should go check out the Third Army's defenses; it's practically an underground Great Wall!

There are some things Old Chen won't say directly. Zhang Baobo has envisioned an extremely terrifying yet incredibly beautiful plan for China. In the future, he hopes to gather the strength of all Chinese students and hide the nation's most powerful weapons within the Hundred Thousand Mountains. In the event of war, the land could split mountains and cleave the earth, unleashing a barrage of cannon fire that would cover the entire globe; underwater, they could stealthily advance with thunderous roars; in the deep blue sea, massive warships would race against each other; and in the sky, red flags would fly in unison, sure to shake the heavens and the earth!

What China wants to achieve is never simply to form alliances; it must always be prepared to challenge the world with the power of a single nation!

"In addition, there were all sorts of strange and unusual explosives that guy had equipped: extended-range bombs, high-explosive bombs, modified napalm bombs, as well as landmines, anti-tank mines, anti-personnel explosive mines, cast iron booby traps, wooden-cased booby traps, bounding mines, pine-launched anti-personnel mines, long-explosive shells, delayed-action mortar shells, 107mm rockets, defensive demolition charges, and high-explosive fragmentation shells—in short, everything that kid could come up with in the past few decades of the revolution, we used."

He paused, took a deep breath, and continued pouring out the contents as if counting his own precious treasures:

"Use landmines to form a multi-layered defense, including anti-personnel minefields at the front line, anti-tank mines on key roads, booby traps around tunnels, and construct blockade nets to counter infantry swarm tactics."

Layered bomb and ammunition strikes, long-range rocket suppression and concentration, and medium-range mortar bombardment and assault.

We need to begin preparations now, planning for six months to a year, for the campaign! Ground positions will require repeated and intense fighting...

In short, at the right opportunity, we will abandon several forward positions, then retake them to create a stalemate, buying time for Katyusha and domestic arsenals to manufacture 107mm rockets. Once everything is in place, we will tentatively let Van Fleet in—let him have a go at our Zhang Baozao.

If we take down another division of theirs, even if they don't negotiate, they'll be crushed by public opinion at home! Right now, their parliament and the people are irreconcilable. They're not afraid of death, but those who die are their own people's children—that's what they're afraid of!

Commander Chen slammed his hand on the table one last time, causing the water in the teacup to slosh.

After several days of research and careful verification with engineers from the Engineering Corps Command, he felt that the tactics of the Third Army Corps and Zhang's explosive designs had exceeded his expectations.

As his longtime partner, how could he not admire him? And how could he not support him?

After this battle, Zhang and Chen's army will undoubtedly be recorded as a military miracle in the history of defensive warfare; he had no doubt about that!

If we could annihilate just one more complete US infantry division, the world would surely be at peace. If Zhang were to launch a major offensive against the US in the future, wouldn't that be another opportunity to confront the US head-on?

Youth is an asset! It's terrifying to think about. Zhang Renfeng will only be sixty years old thirty years from now!

With such a young and vigorous general who has experienced countless foreign battles, I, Old Chen, dare to ask all the heroes of the world, "Who else is there?"

"Who dares to fight?!"

The legion commander, beaming with pride, patted his knees: "It's you guys again, Chen Zhang Legion..."

Commander Chen immediately chimed in, laughing even harder: "No, no, no, now we are the Zhang-Chen Corps, led by Zhang Baozao, and I am the corps' political commissar."

He straightened his back as he said this, but everyone could tell that there was not a trace of reluctance in his tone.

The entire corps was united as one, and the former top leader was even willing to let his subordinates take the second-in-command position, which shows how broad-minded Old Chen was.

Zhang, who was clearly the front-line commander, willingly gave all the honors to Lao Chen. With such a partnership, how could they not win?

It's unimaginable how terrifying the energy would be if two unique all-round talents were combined.

Old Hong looked at the radiant Old Chen with eyes full of satisfaction, but in his heart, he kept sighing.

"Alas, if only Old Chen were in good health, with his experience and talent, combined with Zhang Bao's youthful and creative tactics, and finally with my logistical coordination, the end of the Korean War would be just around the corner!!!"

"If this tunnel defense system can be successfully implemented and a great victory is achieved, then Zhang Baozhao will likely be the undisputed champion of our Republic's shield!!"