Chapter 139: Li Qiang's Expedition to Caofeidian (6)

Standing atop the armored command vehicle, Li Qiang held a pair of binoculars, watching the rapidly approaching horde of corpses that seemed to stretch endlessly into the horizon.

This time, as soon as the horde crossed the one-thousand-meter mark, the 155mm heavy artillery opened fire. There were simply too many of them; the predetermined encirclement zone could not contain them all, leaving the troops no choice but to annihilate as many as possible. Although the remaining segments of the horde would inevitably attempt to flee toward the end, they could no longer afford to worry about that. Furthermore, their escape would impart new tactical lessons in dealing with humans to any other zombies in the regions they traversed.

According to reports from various bases across the Northeast, the horde that had escaped from Siyuan Bridge in Beijing and fled toward the Northeast had journeyed along the Chengde route to Shenyang, passed through Changchun, and then slipped past Harbin all the way into Siberia.

In the territories they passed through, the local hordes clearly realized they could no longer engage tanks in direct combat. They understood that in such situations, they should bypass armored vehicles and charge straight at isolated humans. This was not born of genuine fear, but rather of a rudimentary military strategy: avoiding the enemy's strength and striking their weakness.

They repeatedly slipped past the encirclement nets set up by the advancing forces along the Chengde line, lunging from the flanks and inflicting casualties among the human soldiers.

The firing continued with industrial-standard precision.

Personnel, military hardware, and ammunition operated like a well-oiled assembly line, forming a devastating firepower grinder that pulverized the flesh and blood of the zombie horde.

Soon, the zombies breached the first riverbank. The soldiers began dismantling the heavy machine guns and retreated behind a triple line of trenches, each trench system spaced at a standard width of five hundred meters. As they fell back, heavy machine guns positioned behind the third line of trenches provided long-range indirect fire interception. The bullets emitted a distinct whistling sound as they soared over the soldiers' heads, tracing parabolic arcs into the midst of the zombie horde and striking down individual corpses one by one.

Because the horde was exceptionally massive this time, the weapon deployment had to fully unleash the firepower of every single gun and piece of artillery.

The battle raged continuously for a day and a night. When the final five hundred thousand corpses began to flee, the heavy machine gun fire ceased first, while the 155mm heavy artillery continued firing, persisting until they reached their absolute maximum range.

Armed reconnaissance vehicles pursued them from a distance. After assessing the situation, they reported that a total of three hundred thousand zombies had ultimately fled in a northeastern direction, with Shenyang expected to be their first destination.

The radio station promptly reported the situation to the Shenyang survivor base, warning them that the lessons learned by the zombie horde were being mutually transmitted. This intelligence was simultaneously broadcasted to the entire world. To everyone's surprise, an American radio station smugly declared that they had noticed this long ago, and expressed astonishment that the foolish Chinese had only just figured it out.

The radio announcer from the Special Committee was stunned for a moment and asked, "Why didn't you report it so the whole world would know? Think of how many lives that could have saved!"

"That's none of you Americans' damn business," replied the smug American from that base, leveraging the fact that Chinese had become the default language across global radio stations due to the Special Committee's vigorous promotion of zombie survival experience and Chinese-language education. "What is there to discuss with a bunch of fools like you?"

The rest of the radio stations were thoroughly displeased, including several American survivor bases themselves. They cursed furiously, "What the fuck! If you've got the guts, don't listen when everyone else is exchanging zombie survival tips!"

"Hah, you bunch of idiots, block us if you have the ability! Come over and bite me if you've got the guts, wahahaha..." The Americans at that base burst into wild laughter.

Naturally, a few other survivor bases echoed the Americans from this particular base, continually making excuses for them and provoking widespread outrage. Some of these complicit bases were located within China's borders, with the Shenyang base among them. According to the United Front Work Department's records, they were slated as primary targets for consideration in the next phase of the united front work—which essentially meant the department recommended them as targets for military strikes.

However, the intelligence from the United Front Work Department was buried beneath a blizzard of requests for the resumption of production, military supplies, and troop redeployment following the recent liberation of the Tangshan region, and was thus not promptly noticed by the Special Committee.

The arrogant Americans at that base had thoroughly infuriated survivor bases across the globe. From that day onward, the Americans at that base and the bases defending them were treated as non-existent within the radio network; not a single survivor base worldwide was willing to answer their questions or communicate with them.

To prevent the northeastern zombie horde from staging a counterattack, Li Qiang commanded his troops to establish defensive lines along the Luan River northeast of Tangshan, constructing extensive fortifications and conducting systematic sweeps to clear out sporadic zombies within the defense perimeter.

On September 25, 2015, the Special Committee's People's Congress passed the *Anti-Corruption Law*. The Cangzhou survivor zone began investigating, executing, and sending to labor reform the government corrupt officials from before the apocalypse. The leaders of the Special Committee, who had merely been ordinary citizens before the end of the world, gleefully listened to reports arriving every few days detailing how many corrupt officials had been executed.

Although Army Commander Liu had held a high-ranking position prior to the apocalypse, the old man had lived through too many political movements and felt this was entirely normal. After all, what was a political movement if it didn't purge a few batches of people?

Li Fengyi, Li Qiang, and other members of the Special Committee who possessed notoriously poor political sensitivity completely overlooked the danger this law might pose to their advance toward Shenyang and their eventual reunion with the survivor base there. They remained intoxicated by the eager expectations previously expressed by the leaders of the Shenyang base—after all, ordinary citizens could not possibly elevate their political awareness to the level of seasoned politicians the moment they ascended to high office.

On October 1, 2015, National Day, Sun Xiaoshan held his grand wedding. Li Qiang sent his congratulations via video link.

On October 10, 2015, the Special Committee held a hearing regarding fallen women, and on the eleventh, promulgated the *Law Concerning Fallen Persons*. Disregarding the fact that he was unmarried, Li Qiang flew into a rage, cursing vehemently, "What the fuck! While the rest of us are risking our lives on the front lines, those sons of bitches in the rear are encouraging our wives to fall into depravity! This is a direct sabotage of military marriages!"

The morale of the frontline troops was not overly shaken, largely because one-third of the Special Committee's current armed forces consisted of female soldiers. They were encouraged to marry their comrades-in-arms, and upon becoming pregnant, would gradually be withdrawn to various bases to settle down, leaving future combat strictly as men's work.

These female soldiers felt the law was quite fair and playfully taunted their soldier husbands, "Hmph! If you lot dare to visit places of ill repute, we'll go visit them too!"

The remaining single soldiers made up the majority and watched with schadenfreude, "Hmph! Just got married and had a kid only to end up separated? Haha, time to check out the fallen persons venues!"

Before the apocalypse, morality in China was in a state of reconstruction. Aside from extremely remote areas with very low literacy rates, sexual chaos was so rampant that even the birthplace of the sexual revolution would have been astonished. Foreigners frequently boasted on the internet and blogs about how easily they managed to get three hundred Chinese girls into bed, completely unaware that these very girls routinely exchanged tips on how to toy with him—he was essentially being taken advantage of in a relay of seduction.

On October 15, 2015, after Sun Xiaoshan's wife, Lü Cuifeng, became pregnant, Sun Xiaoshan bid farewell to her and headed to the Tangshan region to take full charge of the resumption of production at the Caofeidian heavy industry base.

Li Qiang welcomed him in Tangshan. Before they could even exchange a few pleasantries upon reuniting, Li Qiang complained, "Sigh, what on earth were you guys in the rear thinking? How could you possibly pass such a damn law?"