Chapter 68: Establishing Contact with the Base (7)

Soldiers with fighting spirit cannot bear provocation. When the reconnaissance battalion commander at Yulinzhuang Bridge observed the actions at Wuyao Bridge, his blood surged with passion. As the red flag waved, he led his men charging into the horde of zombies.

There are always heroes and cowards at any time. The battalion commander at Wuyao Bridge lost his nerve; he shoved aside his soldiers, jumped into an off-road vehicle, and sped away.

Chaos erupted among the soldiers he left behind. Taking advantage of the confusion, the zombie horde surged forward, crowding around the barricade, reaching out to grab the soldiers atop the vehicles.

“Damn it!” Li Fengyi’s eyes were bloodshot as he roared, “Which bastard did that?! Cut him down on the spot!”

He had never forgotten how Jiang Jiangqian had fled the battlefield, causing many deaths. Because he hadn’t acted decisively, trouble had clung to him like a festering wound, and there had been several close calls since—such things weighed heavily on him.

Immediately, several off-road vehicles rushed out to intercept the fleeing battalion commander.

The formation of the zombie horde was shaken. Many of them turned and started moving toward the three bridges to the northeast.

Li Fengyi glanced at the fifty-meter-wide gap beneath the highway. He handed his binoculars to his adjutant, took the gleaming saber, flung it over the high barricade, gathered his breath in his abdomen, and shouted, “Follow me!”

He was the first to drop down from the barricade to the guardrail, then leaped over it, landing hard on the ground and sliding down the sloped embankment in his chainmail armor, barely feeling a thing. He had just picked up his saber when, suddenly, he yelped as several sabers tossed down by his men struck him.

It didn’t hurt—he was just surprised. Was the chainmail’s protection really this good?

The soldiers, stifling their laughter, retrieved their sabers and formed up at the base of the embankment. A few, embarrassed, crouched low and scrambled to grab their weapons.

Li Fengyi said nothing. He’d learned his lesson—he hurried a few steps ahead, then carefully turned to check behind him for any unknown threats.

His caution finally broke the tension, and the soldiers burst out laughing.

The standard-bearer, holding the red flag, stood closely by Li Fengyi’s side.

Li Fengyi straightened up and swung his saber, commanding, “Charge with me!”

Rows of soldiers, sabers in hand, surged forward. Li Fengyi slowed his pace as he advanced, letting the men take the lead—he was no longer the line soldier charging ahead. It was a lesson he’d learned after repeated admonishments from Chief Liu.

Chief Liu had reprimanded him: “Director Li, you must take care of yourself. You can’t always be the first into the fray. Your position is to command.” The criticism was laced with genuine concern.

At the time, Li Fengyi had thought: this is the kind of earnest, caring rebuke that leaders love to hear. Others had summed it up long ago—such methods have deep roots. But he soon realized it was true: in large-scale operations, losing command and letting everyone fight on their own was disastrous.

No matter how far or near, Li Fengyi’s red flag was always seen advancing into the zombie horde. His example inspired the soldiers on the bridge, their morale soaring as they charged ever more fiercely into the enemy.

At Wuyao Bridge, the soldiers, having lost their commander, felt at a loss. They looked around, hoping for someone to issue orders or set an example.

A company commander pushed through the crowd, nimbly climbed the vehicle barricade, and snatched the slanting battalion flag from the standard-bearer’s hands.

Standing atop the barricade, he mustered all his strength and waved the flag at the soldiers.

They calmed, their eyes fixed on the blazing red flag.

With tears in his eyes, the company commander cursed, “Damn it, I won’t bring shame on myself!”

Before the apocalypse, he was an active-duty officer, honor etched into his bones.

“I’ll die, but I’ll die with the battalion flag held high!” He leaped straight off the barricade of three stacked vehicles, red flag in hand.

His figure, entwined with the red flag, fell onto the bridge. Rolling among the zombies, he scrambled up and turned to bellow at the soldiers atop the vehicles, “Are you all cowards?!”

The soldiers stood stunned.

The zombie horde lunged at him, but amidst the tide of blackened corpses, he stood unmoving, holding the red flag aloft, roaring, “Are you all dead men?!”

With a shout, the soldiers jumped down after him, crushing zombies beneath them. Guided by the flag, they charged into the depths of the horde.

The commander’s bodyguards instinctively surrounded the company commander. He laughed heartily, standing unmoving—his legs had shattered in the fall.

Tears streamed down the company commander’s face, seeping through the chainmail. He whispered to his bodyguards, “We are not cowards!”

The bodyguards wept openly. “No, we’re not!”

From dawn till dusk, the four advancing forces made little headway; exhaustion overwhelmed them. Even if the million-plus corpses lined up to be cut down, each man would have to swing his saber over a hundred times without pause, let alone when the zombies could run and charge.

Seeing this could not continue, Li Fengyi quickly organized reinforcements to form up and drag out the exhausted soldiers one by one. Each man, wrapped in zombie blood and flesh, was hauled out like a lump of gore. Only when darkness had fully fallen was the task more or less complete.

A headcount found that over a hundred soldiers had not returned—they were too deep, unable to break through the encirclement.

By moonlight, looking through night-vision binoculars from the barricade, one could see clusters of zombies writhing together here and there. “Let’s hope the Ministry of Industry’s chainmail skeletons are sturdy enough,” Li Fengyi thought helplessly.

Most of the zombies now milled about in confusion. Counting the results, they’d killed fewer than two hundred thousand zombies. The most common injuries among the soldiers were broken bones; when the men jumped from the bridge without a sloped embankment to cushion them, they landed hard, snapping their legs.

The brave company commander was made acting battalion commander on the spot. He refused to leave the front line, determined to reclaim his battalion’s honor. Li Fengyi granted special permission for him to command from a stretcher.

The reconnaissance battalion commander from Shagudui Bridge was promoted to regimental commander, taking unified command of the three bridges—post-battle, assignments would be sorted out.

The head of the fugitive battalion commander was brought back. The returning soldiers reported that the fellow, driving his off-road vehicle like a headless chicken, had fled for over a hundred kilometers before being caught. It had taken great effort to strip him from his chainmail; after the military order was read, he was decapitated on the spot and his head brought back.

Li Fengyi found his name familiar. “Where have I heard that name before?”

“He’s Jiang Jiangqian’s younger brother,” said a staff officer who knew Jiang Jiangqian. “The three Jiang brothers—when the apocalypse struck, he and his brother were both in Beijing…”

“Damn,” Li Fengyi said with a wry smile, “the whole Jiang family are a bunch of characters. Birds of a feather really do flock together.”