Chapter 1234, Taking Up Arms Again

Ren Xiaosu had a long dream.

In the dream, the Potato Shooter that he and Yang Xiaoguan had planted in the small courtyard on Anning East Road unexpectedly bloomed.

In an instant, the whole world seemed to be plunged into a world of birds and flowers, and even their roof bloomed with white flowers.

However, in an instant, the world burst into flames and everything was burned to the ground.

The entire world was filled with a strong stench, as if it was the smell of burnt leather pipes, mixed with a smell of stale vinegar.

Ren Xiaosu slowly opened his eyes, and was seeing the big lug sitting next to his bed picking at his big feet.

Outside the dormitory window, it was already a new morning, and the sunlight was shining in little by little through the window.

Ren Xiaosu said expressionlessly, “Take your stinky feet and get the hell out of here!”

“You’re awake, Major,” Big Snub was full of surprise as he lifted his shoes up, “You’ve slept and woken up for a really long time, I thought something was wrong with your body!”

“How long did I sleep?” Ren Xiaosu asked, as he raised his eyes to see that P5092, Wang Yun, Ji Zion, Xun Nightfeather and the others were surprisingly all crammed into the dormitory of the post.

“Sixteen hours,” said the big lout, “We rushed over when we were notified by Commander Zhang, Miss Xiaoguan and Miss Yingxue were guarding outside, and a few of us big old men were guarding inside.”

“Why did Mr. Zhang call you guys over?” Ren Xiaosu was puzzled.

“He said that you probably haven’t rested for a long time, and that you’ll be more vulnerable when you sleep, so he asked us to come and guard in case anything happens to you,” the big lout said.

Ren Xiaosu suddenly realized that he hadn’t slept for more than forty hours, and after experiencing the intense escape of being evicted by Dusk, he was indeed a bit unable to hold on.

With his alertness, it was surprising that he didn’t even realize that Big Snooze and the others were approaching.

However, Ren Xiaosu suddenly felt that it could also be that he subconsciously felt that Big Lull and the others could be trusted, which was why he himself was not awakened.

When he used to live in the market town, Yan Liuyuan similarly wouldn’t wake him up when he approached.

“Does Mr. Zhang have any instructions,” Ren Xiaosu asked.

“The entire Combat Command is of the opinion that we may have to retreat,” said Big Snooze.

Nowadays, the entire Northwest was cut off from contact with the Central Plains.

Even someone like Ren Xiaosu, who had personally traveled to the Central Plains, couldn’t actually confirm if Zero really controlled the entire Central Plains.

But in things like war, those who like to gamble on a fluke always lose badly, so the Northwest Army immediately decided to formulate a battle strategy with the worst possible intentions under the conditions of not being sure of the specific situation.

East of Fortress 178, such as Barrier 146, Barrier 144, Barrier 145, and Barrier 143, were all located in the plains.

The areas controlled by these barriers were not suitable for large-scale warfare at all, and if they were to be held, the Northwest Army’s losses would have to be increased by an additional 30%.

This 30% was not a mere figure, behind it were tens of thousands of lives!

Zhang Jinglin couldn’t possibly take tens of thousands of lives to gamble on how many enemies there were.

So their best option was to withdraw to the west of the 143rd Barrier.

The terrain there was more suitable for defense.

Big Snooze said, “If the entire Central Plains has been controlled by the AI, then the 143 Barrier is not the end of the road for us, and the retreat plan has to have alternatives.”

“Where is the alternative plan to retreat to?” Ren Xiaosu asked calmly.

“Retreat to Fortress 178,” Big Snooze replied.

Ren Xiaosu frowned, if the situation was really this bad already, it would mean that the Northwest was facing the largest migration since the Wasteland Era.

Not only would the army have to withdraw, along with the people here.

That’s millions of residents and stragglers ah, how can they just withdraw.

However, if we don’t bring the residents to retreat, not to mention whether or not it violates the original intention of the Northwest Army, I’m afraid that if so many people are left to zero, the human civilization will be even more dangerous.

“Where is Mr. Zhang?” Ren Xiaosu asked.

“He arrived at Barrier 144 this afternoon,” Big Snooze said, “The plan for the entire population to migrate and retreat to the west must begin today.”

From this moment on, the entire human civilization would have to start racing against time.

Ren Xiaosu got up, “All follow me back to Barrier 144, inform Zhou Yinglong that the frontline outposts are also evacuating along with them, all report back to their own combat sequences, don’t stay here to increase casualties in vain.”

At this point everyone realized that Ren Xiaosu had already entered the role of Major General.

Zhou Yinglong was the division commander of the Third Field Division, Ren Xiaosu could not command the Sixth Field Division if he was just in the capacity of the division’s chief officer, he would have to use the status of Major Marshal to do so.

However, the big snub froze for a moment: ”That won’t do, Major, these outposts were originally established for the sake of the war, and each of the outposts painstakingly set up a telephone line, which was originally for the purpose of detecting the enemy and buying time for the rear troops. Sacrifices are certainly something no one wants to see, but if they withdraw, we will truly be blind. At that time, no one will know where the enemy arrived and when they will descend on the city.”

Ren Xiaosu shook his head, then shouted out the window, “Zhou Yingxue!”

“Hey!” The big maid outside the window answered, “What is it that the master is calling me for?”

Ren Xiaosu said, “When we leave, you will stay in this outpost and immediately report to the rear if you find any enemy situation, then you will evacuate alone.”

“O,” Zhou Yingxue reluctantly agreed.

With Zhou Yingxue here, no one would be able to keep her even if the enemy arrived.

Big Flip and P5092 looked at each other in dismay as they thought to themselves, “Is it appropriate to put such a big name Transcendent like Zhou Yingxue here as a sentry?

In fact this would certainly cost the least, but Zhou Yingxue would be particularly uncomfortable in her heart, right?

Ren Xiaosu straightened his clothes and walked out the door, he looked at Zhou Yingxue and said, “Don’t look so unhappy, when the war is over, the entire black market of the Barrier Alliance will be given to you.”

“Really?” Zhou Yingxue’s eyes lit up, “The entire Barrier Alliance?”

“Uh-huh,” Ren Xiaosu nodded.

“Thank you, Master,” Zhou Yingxue’s eyebrows rose up in a smile.

At this time, Zhou Yingxue hadn’t fully realized the severity of the problem, and to be honest Ren Xiaosu wasn’t sure if there was still a Barrier Alliance to call it after this battle.

However, Big Lulu and the others did find out, don’t look at how powerful this Zhou Yingxue girl was in the black market and 144th Barrier on weekdays, but when it came to the Major General and Little Miss Hibiscus, she was as well-behaved as a kitten.

On the way back, Ren Xiaosu also saw in the car that someone in the roadside river was driving excavation machinery to dredge some tributaries.

Big lulu explained in the co-pilot, “Seeing that the water conservancy construction project is halfway through, and the area of irrigated farmland has also reached half, it’s really a bit of a pity to just withdraw to the 178th fortress side.”

Ren Xiaosu looked out of the window, thinking to herself that she could really be some kind of a broom star, every time she just wanted to stop down, there would be a new change to destroy the home that she had pinned her hopes on.

As if she had guessed what he was thinking, Yang Xiaoguan suddenly gripped his palm tightly, “We are evacuating this place not because it’s bad luck for us to follow you, but because there is no peace to speak of in this world. This chaotic world was not brought about or caused by you, on the contrary, with you guarding this land, I believe we can definitely win.”

Ren Xiaosu nodded.

As a matter of fact, whether it was Luo Lan, Zhou Qi, and Qing Yi of the Qing Clan, or Ren Xiaosu, Big Lulu, and Zhang Jinglin on the 178 Fortress side, they.

All of them actually felt a sense of powerlessness when they guessed what kind of power the AI Zero held.

That was the feeling of despair when a hundred-meter-high tsunami was coming at you head-on and you had no way to escape.

However, Ren Xiaosu knew that there was another way to resolve the crisis, and it seemed like it was the only way he had left.

Yang Xiaoguan suddenly whispered, ”It might be a bit selfish to say this, but no matter what the situation comes to, I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself to save others, not even to save me, understand? There must be other ways we can find.”

After having been to Barrier 88, there were no more secrets between Ren Xiaosu and Yang Xiaoguan, so Yang Xiaoguan was also well aware of what Ren Xiaosu’s last resort was.

But for her, if saving this world cost was sacrificing Ren Xiaosu, then she was ten thousand times unwilling.

Ren Xiaosu smiled, “It won’t come to that.”

……

The group first returned to the Sixth Field Division’s garrison camp, after all the core members entered the conference room, Ren Xiaosu pointed out the topic, “The content of today’s deliberation is how to arrange for the orderly evacuation of the residents of the entire northwestern part of the country, remember everyone, organizing their evacuation is by no means a woman’s act of kindness, we can’t just leave them to the AI.”

Zhang Xiaoman was puzzled, “Does the AI really have that many nanobots, this Northwest is millions of people, can it control so many?”

“We can only plan for the worst now,” P5092 explained, “We don’t know if it has the ability to do so, but we can only assume that it can. We have to do two things now, one to retreat and one to meet the enemy.”

The work of retreat would involve too many things, the destruction of classified documents, the transfer of food reserves, the transfer of all kinds of materials, the registration of personnel transfer, how to transfer them in batches, and how to set up supply lines on the way to retreat, this was actually a very large project.

It is definitely not as simple as, say, telling the residents to hurry up and run today, and then everyone running for their lives together.

As for the second thing of meeting the enemy, it was even more difficult.

The retreat of millions of people was a long process, according to Wang Yue’s estimation, the entire retreat plan would take a month to complete, however, according to Ren Xiaosu’s estimation, the tide of people from the Central Plains would arrive at Barrier 144 in half a month at most.

This half month’s time must be fought for.

As the closest barrier to the Central Plains, the 6th Field Division was duty-bound as the garrison of the 144th barrier.

Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment and looked at P5092: “You take the original Spark unit and retreat, participate in the construction of the rear defense line, I will speak to Mr. Zhang about this matter, Zhou Yinglong’s 3rd Field Division is on its way south, when the time comes, they will be the ones to complete the changing of the guard.”

Earlier in the day he had reached an agreement with P5092 that after the battle in the Sorcerer’s Kingdom, the combat sequence of the original Fireblood forces would be withdrawn from the battle and would no longer participate in the civil war between the Barrier Alliance.

Therefore, during this period of time, Black Fox took off his command duties to bring in new recruits, and all those Fire Seed soldiers went to help with the construction of water conservancy, while a small portion of them went to help the residents of the Barrier in the work of reclaiming their grain fields.

At this moment, Black Fox should be on his way to pull fertilizer with his new recruits.

However, after Ren Xiaosu finished saying this, P5092 shook his head, ”It’s not the same anymore, this is no longer a civil war between the Barrier Alliance, it was originally a war of life and death for humanity. The soldiers of the original Fireblood troop sequence will return to their posts, I have just informed Black Fox to come back for the meeting.”

As soon as the words fell, the door of the conference room was pushed open by Black Fox.

A strange and incomparable smell of fertilizer filled the entire conference room, and Black Fox looked at Ren Xiaosu and P5092 and asked, “Sir, what do you need me to do to call me back?”

P5092 calmly said, “Need you to bring your brothers to take up arms again.”