153: Baptism of blood and fire

Before Yun Dongliu launched his attack, two hundred 75mm mortars were already prepared at a safe location one kilometer to the rear.

These mortars were collected by players within the unit, in addition to those Li Xiao produced himself and those bought from the trading center.

Although there were two hundred mortars, there were only 1,500 shells, meaning each mortar could only fire six or seven rounds.

Liu Nian drove over personally and said to the commander in charge of the mortars: "In the shortest time possible, smash all 1,500 shells onto the heads of the armored unit!"

"Yes!"

Within minutes of Yun Dongliu's third echelon being ready, people heard volleys of artillery fire from far behind them, followed by a dense whistling sound in the air, and then shells blossomed across the Black Hawk Empire's armored defensive line, smoke instantly covering the entire battlefield.

In one minute, these hundreds of infantry fighting vehicles and main battle tanks were baptized by 1,500 shells, directly shaving off 10% of the infantry fighting vehicles' durability, and even the main battle tanks lost a significant chunk of HP, leaving them with around 70%.

"Hahaha! You liked bombing us? Well, I'll let you taste what it's like to be shelled too!"

Liu Nian looked at the enemy's position, now a sea of flames, and felt immensely satisfied.

But before he could be happy for even a few seconds, the enemy's rocket artillery streaked through the sky again, and the landing point was actually the mortar position.

"Damn! We're done for!"

Seeing this, Li Xiao and Liu Nian both realized something was wrong; they hadn't expected the enemy to lock onto their target so quickly. In less than a minute, the mortar unit certainly hadn't evacuated.

As flames shot up into the sky behind the mountain, they soon received news that the mortar unit had been destroyed.

"Third echelon! Attack!"

Yun Dongliu said in a low voice on the squad command channel, and the 200,000-strong army with 30,000 vehicles launched another charge against the imperial troops.

The armored unit, which had been battered by the mortar shells, reorganized its defense and immediately regained its ferocious firepower.

Yun Dongliu's tactics were even more ferocious; he placed all 20,000 civilian vehicles in the center to draw fire and placed 10,000 military off-road vehicles on the flanks for a flanking maneuver.

These civilian vehicles each had only one driver, and their purpose was to launch suicide attacks, while nearly 100,000 infantrymen would charge forward on foot.

Although Yun Dongliu's assault method was nearly cold-blooded and ruthless, treating soldiers' lives as expendable, it was indeed an effective human-wave tactic to disperse enemy fire and create a breakthrough.

Sure enough, the Black Hawk armored unit still thought those civilian vehicles were fully loaded with assault troops, and they turned their autocannons toward the motley collection of civilian vehicles advancing at full speed across the flat, open ground outside the city.

Although the military off-road vehicles on the flanks also faced intense fire, it was much easier for them than for the vehicles in the center.

Having suffered deeply from C4 explosives and various other explosives, the Black Hawk Empire's armored unit feared nothing more than infantry getting close and plastering their vehicles with explosives.

In their view, while the heavy machine guns on the military off-road vehicles would cause damage to their vehicles, it wasn't fatal; it was those infantrymen who were truly terrifying.

Thus, after losing only 10,000 to 20,000 vehicles and 20,000 troops, Yun Dongliu's main force of military off-road vehicles successfully pushed to within just over a hundred meters of the Black Hawk defensive line.

This gave the soldiers carrying rocket launchers on the off-road vehicles a higher hit accuracy, and hundreds upon hundreds of rockets flew toward the armored vehicles, mixed in with the overwhelming rain of bullets.

"Brothers! Charge and take them out!"

Nearly a thousand of the third echelon's military off-road vehicles finally charged in front of the Black Hawk Unit, but just as the soldiers on the vehicles were about to rush over and start attaching C4 explosives, countless soldiers wearing black uniforms and bulletproof helmets with the Black Hawk emblem suddenly surged out from behind the infantry fighting vehicles.

They were all armed with light machine guns, and in the first exchange, they unleashed violent firepower that instantly wiped out the Xiao Yao Unit soldiers who had gotten close.

"Damn it! It's a mechanized infantry division!"

Yun Dongliu punched the mound in front of him; they were just a little bit away from completing the demolition.

With their vehicles completely lost, the 110,000 to 120,000 infantrymen who followed were left without any cover, suffering dual strikes from the mechanized infantry division and the armored division, while heavy artillery and rocket fire fell from the sky, causing them to fall in swathes like wheat.

However, the widely dispersed skirmish line made the armored division's autocannons somewhat overwhelmed, and after consuming quite a bit of ammunition, they seemed to realize they had been tricked.

So, they sent out the mechanized infantry division. The two mechanized infantry divisions of the 129th Group Army had been used to assist in defending the armored division, and as the backup force for the armored unit, they could only drive military off-road vehicles to go out and wipe out the large number of enemy troops on the plain.

Moreover, there were only over two thousand military off-road vehicles deployed on the front line facing Li Xiao.

Seeing a large number of military off-road vehicles come out, Li Xiao felt confident.

"Liu Nian, it seems the enemy armored unit doesn't have much ammunition left. They'll probably need to resupply soon. Call the armored unit up!"

Liu Nian pinched his nose and cursed under his breath: "Damn it, finally going to break their defense!"

Soon, the forty Lynx infantry fighting vehicles from Xi City entered a forest in the rear, and Li Xiao had Li Le notify Di Yun, Yang Chao, and Leng He to have their three armored companies begin entering the battlefield.

This time, he was taking a risk by pulling out all his home-base forces. Currently, only Zhao Feipeng's reconnaissance platoon and Ye Ming's engineering company were defending the base, and even the six members of the Shadow Special Forces were currently on guard not far behind him.

"Lao Xiao, the troops have arrived!"

Li Xiao did not answer Liu Nian; the battlefield ahead had already entered a state of bloody slaughter. The elite mechanized infantry division of the Black Hawk Unit drove military off-road vehicles into the plain, attempting to rely on their vehicles to carry out a one-sided massacre.

But the Xiao Yao Unit soldiers attacking from the prone position on the plain were not afraid at all, because at the very least, their rifles could blow up these military off-road vehicles.

Thousands of soldiers from the mechanized infantry division spread out their military off-road vehicles and used heavy machine guns and rifles to clear the Xiao Yao Unit soldiers on the battlefield one by one.

But how could the remaining 60,000 to 70,000 soldiers let them have their way? They endured the grenade artillery fire, lying on the ground and firing wildly at the oncoming vehicles.

Many soldiers even lay on the ground pretending to be corpses, or ambushed behind wrecked vehicles, and as soon as the enemies passed by, they immediately threw C4 explosives with lit fuses at the vehicles.

You could see vehicles exploding at every moment on the pre-dawn battlefield, the orange-red flames looking just like the morning sun about to rise on the horizon.

After half an hour of intense fighting, the mechanized infantry division ultimately relied on superior firepower and protection to wipe out the tens of thousands of Xiao Yao Unit troops on the plain, but they were left with fewer than a hundred surviving vehicles.

The sky was already bright, and the fiery red morning sun rose from the horizon. Smoke billowed across the vast plain, and countless corpses and countless vehicle wrecks turned this area into a death zone of blood and fire.