Republic of Burkina, Nijia.
Hospital.
The day had reached its end. The setting sun hanging on the horizon, together with the bloody smell in the air, dyed the city, now nothing but shattered walls and ruins, blood-red!
"Is this war?"
Old William stood on the hospital roof, gazing at the city billowing black smoke, his heart filled with indescribable bitterness.
A war that had lasted less than a day and a half-and a low-intensity war at that-had nearly reduced an entire city, neither particularly large nor particularly small, to rubble.
"Boom-"
A violent explosion came from the east of the city, as though someone had slammed a hammer against his eardrums. He could even vaguely make out a mangled corpse being blasted into the air.
Another reasonably intact house collapsed amid the explosion, adding frost to the snow for the already dwindling number of intact buildings.
"Aren't these regular troops a little too useless?"
Hearing the explosion and feeling the invisible pressure rushing at his face, Old William, who had been lost in reflection just a second earlier, could not help complaining.
The fact that he had not started cursing their mothers already showed that Old William had reasonably good manners!
Originally, the Aksang Brigade had planned to drive the National Liberation Alliance out of Nijia before the other three brigades arrived, so it could pocket the Ministry of National Defense's entire one-billion bonus.
At first,
with its morale already shattered by the bombers' savage bombardment and the fighters' frenzied ground strafing, the National Liberation Alliance had indeed crumbled across the board when the Aksang Brigade attacked.
But then, somehow, the National Liberation Alliance, whose morale had clearly collapsed and which was about to be driven out of the urban area, had actually begun to stabilize its lines?
It had even pushed the Aksang Brigade back, recapturing a large swath of the eastern city!
Had the Drago Brigade, Ailidun Brigade, and Duojialong Brigade not arrived one after another, Old William had no doubt that the Aksang Brigade might have been driven out of Nijia instead.
"What's going on? A bunch of cops who can only catch thieves and murderers managed to hold out against the National Liberation Alliance's attacks for so long, but your Aksang Brigade can't even beat them? And you lot wanted to pocket a whole billion? What a joke!"
After learning what had happened, the three brigades that arrived later all mocked the Aksang Brigade as a bunch of useless trash, worse than a bunch of cops, and told them to hurry up and get out of the way.
The result...
"This isn't right! Since when was the National Liberation Alliance this strong? And another thing! Are you sure those cops in Nijia held out for twenty-eight whole hours against a bunch of monsters like these?"
The three brigades committed to the battlefield soon received a savage beating from the National Liberation Alliance too, leaving them so battered and bruised that even their own mothers would barely have recognized them.
"Something's wrong! On a scale of one to nine, this is a ten! Could those National Liberation Alliance bastards be fishing for suckers here?"
Full Beard and the commanders of the other three brigades were all beginning to think about beating a retreat.
"Let's keep fighting a little longer and see!"
But at the thought of one billion North African francs, and with their losses so far not actually that heavy, Full Beard and the other three brigade commanders discussed it and ultimately chose not to run.
Although they did not run, none of them wanted their troops to suffer too many casualties in this war, so they all began dragging their feet while maintaining their existing lines.
Seeing no hope of pocketing the entire billion, the Aksang Brigade became even more slack than the other three brigades.
In Full Beard's own words:
"Our Aksang Brigade was the first reinforcement unit to arrive. We withstood the National Liberation Alliance's strongest offensive and have already made extremely heavy sacrifices, so we need time to rest and reorganize. Once we're ready, we'll definitely take over the defensive lines that have been divided among you."
Hearing Full Beard say this, the other three brigade commanders did not know how to refute him.
Although his words contained exaggerations, they also retained some basic facts, so they gritted their teeth and tacitly accepted what Full Beard was doing.
The National Liberation Alliance attacked furiously, while Full Beard and the others used their severalfold numerical advantage to hold their existing defensive lines, or abandoned unimportant positions little by little to avoid losses.
This situation continued until three days later.
December 10, 4:21 p.m.
"Clack, clack, clack-"
Accompanied by the sound of train wheels rolling over the rails, the 1st Light Armored Brigade, 2nd Infantry Brigade, 4th Light Armored Brigade, and 5th Infantry Brigade, all directly loyal to Sankara and numbering more than 27,000 men in total, finally arrived at the railway station in western Nijia.
"Everyone, take your weapons and get off the train immediately!"
"211th Infantry Battalion, on me! Form up around me!"
"Tweet-tweet-"
"[Russian] Oh! My God, forget it. Just let me drive!"
"[Russian] Is this how I normally teach you to drive a tank? Comrade, please translate what I just said for these armored troops in a very angry tone!"
Officers' shouted orders strained their voices, shrill whistles pierced the air, and there were even people from the Soviet Union speaking Russian. All sorts of sounds mingled together, instantly turning the formerly quiet railway station into a vegetable market full of old men and women haggling.
As soldiers wearing dark green camouflage combat uniforms, military body armor, and military helmets, carrying assault rifles and military backpacks, jumped off the trains.
Heavy tanks with dark gun muzzles, wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, and more armored vehicles than anyone could count were slowly driven off the trains by a group of Soviet Union instructors and some armored troops whose skills barely qualified as proficient.
"???"
"!!!"
Full Beard and the others, who had come to laugh at the Central Army after learning of its arrival, were instantly dumbfounded by the scenes before them. They felt as though they had become the joke.
"Give me a slap. Let me see if I'm dreaming!"
"Smack-"
"Fuck you! You actually fucking hit me!?"
"Are we sure this is our country's Central Army? Not some major power's elite troops?"
"Shit! They've actually got body armor for every man? And every rifle they're carrying is fully automatic? Even the French army isn't this extravagant, is it? How much fucking money must this cost?"
"No, look at those soldiers' thighs. If I'm not mistaken, those are pistols, right!?"
"You're actually focusing on these trivial things? Shouldn't the point be those countless tanks, wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, and armored vehicles behind them?"
"Hiss..."
Full Beard and the others all sucked in a breath of cold air.
"I don't know when the Ministry of National Defense got this rich, but at least, look at those soldiers. They've obviously only just enlisted."
"Exactly. So what if their equipment is good? Doesn't it still come down to the men? I dare say, if my troops went up against them, we'd only need twelve hours to completely smash their defensive lines."
"Hah! You actually need half a day? Six hours would be enough for me!"
Feeling as though their souls had taken a critical hit, Full Beard and the others could only use this method to offer their wounded hearts a little comfort.
Because, although they had enlisted less than half a month earlier, the Central Army had comprehensively adopted the Soviet Union military system, and Sankara had also incorporated the political commissar system of a certain great power in the East.
In obedience, discipline, and initiative, they had already surpassed local forces like Full Beard's, which were still old-style armies.
With their weapons and equipment added to the equation, even if they might not be able to crush local forces like Full Beard's in a short time, they were certainly not troops that Full Beard and the others could crush in return.