Only nine thousand something hostages were being rescued. When the NAC soldiers saved the pitiful people from the ruins and shambles, they were so emotional that they began to burst out in tears.
Rescuing the Defenders was only a side mission they did but not the obligation of the First Division. So during the rain of destruction, Cheng Weiguo was not concerned about them at all.
It was reasonable because Cheng Weiguo would never risk the soldiers’ lives for strangers. It was a great deed to be able to save them in the first place.
After they captured the Seventh Area, Cheng Weiguo ordered the soldiers to fortify while the supplying trucks returned to Shenxiang for ammo, each squadron reported their casualty numbers. The confiscated the weapons and ammo recorded on the books. The useful ones were brought along, the not useful ones were placed together as junk with the recovered Type C, B, and A steels while these supplies waited for the trucks to be dragged to Shenxiang Colony.
As to the prisoners rescued, Cheng Weiguo ordered the soldiers to settle them into the temporarily constructed camps and provided them nutrient supply. He also recruited soldiers and engineers willing to join the force.
A lot of them were soldiers from the Jia City Defenders. They only needed a rifle without any training to become a capable soldier. When they heard that Cheng Weiguo planned to attack Jia to seek revenge from the mutated humans and free their home, they joined under the banner of NAC without any hesitation.
The First Corp obtained arsenals of weapons from the mutated humans. Cheng Weiguo then scattered a part of the1400 soldiers among each of the infantry battalions while the other part formed their own infantry battalion. They also brought the 1000 engineering soldiers along which could help with repairs and help build the defense fortifications.
After regrouping, the First Corp force instantly expanded to more than four thousand people.
The next morning, the regrouped First Corp continued to head to Jia City.
As to the remaining prisoners rescued, after Cheng Weiguo sought Jiang Chen’s opinion, he temporarily settled them in the Seventh Area and promised that once he captured the city, he would come back for them.
The actual battlefield was in Jia.
And the mutated humans stationed in the Seventh Area were only an appetizer.
…
“Five power armors, 31 kinetic skeletons, destroyed. 110 fatalities, 132 seriously wounded. 210 thousand rounds of ammo and 2200 shells consumed.” Inside the office, Han Junhua reported the battle stats of the First Division to Jiang Chen.
The proverb of as soon as the first shot is fired, million would be spent was indeed true. The first battle cost over 350,000 crystals. Even Jiang Chen who made millions in the food business exclaimed at the amount of money a war burned through.
Of course, he didn’t need to pocket the bill, but rather the war fund from the Sixth Street paid for it.
“What’s the situation at the Sixth Street?” Jiang Chen stared at the hologram map and asked.
“The wall reinforcements are almost complete. At the same time, throwers activity is observed outside of the Sixth Street,” Han Junhua said.
With throwers arriving at the Sixth Street, it meant the zombies and mutants on the outskirt of the city center had spread to the rural areas already.
“Lightning before the thunderstorm?”
Jiang Chen stared at the red dot on the hologram map before he fell into silence.
At the same time, the only thing he could do as a general was to sit in the office and wait for the news from the frontline. Followed by the expansion of the NAC, the number of things he needed to personally do decreased substantially. All the casualties and results were only presented to him as numbers.
He heard someone knock.
“Come in.” Jiang Chen looked at the door.
The door was pushed open, and the director of the Aerospace Technology Research Institute walked in. He had a delighted expression on his face which was unseen on everybody else in the base.
“The thing you needed is now prepared.”
Jiang Chen then looked at the clock on the wall and got up.
“Could you take me to have a look?”
“Okay.” Jiang Lin nodded and headed for the door.
Jiang Chen looked at Han Junhua.
“I’ll have to leave this place to you.”
“Mhmm.”
Her response was always concise.
…
Jiang Chen arrived at the Aerospace Technology Research Institute’s launching field along with Jiang Lin. A few workers were surrounding four-stories-high rockets while busy working on them. The meters high mechanical arm was connected by wires to the tablet as a technician was busy tapping on the screen while controlling the mechanical arm to extend the welding gun to weld the steel boards together.
Other than the useless tools being sent for land reclamation, all the scientists in Fallout Shelter No.27, excluding the people from the Research Institute, entered into the fallout shelter. When Jiang Chen ordered Jiang Lin to start the Aerospace Technology Institute, these scientists moved to the Fishbone base with their families.
They were first unwilling but did Jiang Chen really care about their unwillingness? The benefit was great, excluding the possibility of returning to the fallout shelter. Seeing the objection failed, they had to honestly contribute their knowledge and design rockets for Jiang Chen.
“Dolphin-10 intercontinental ballistic missile, developed in the late 21st century and used till now, it was the most deployed missile type in PAC territory.” Staring at the rocket, Jiang Lin certainly looked proud.
To create this missile, he spent a lot of efforts learning. Although he didn’t know why Jiang Chen needed a weapon that could hit the western hemisphere, he still followed Jiang Chen’s order.
This one missile spent more than one million crystals in supplies. Jiang Lin had repeatedly received rolled eyes from Wang Qin.
Out of all the projects at the base, the Research Institute spent the most crystals because a lot of parts could not be produced, so they must pay expensive commission to explorer teams that headed out of the province.
For example, the propulsion engine of the missile was transported from the shambles of the Taipei launch base six hundred kilometers away from Wanghai. To transport this propulsion engine, the mercenary groups had to take the risk of being shredded to pieces by mutated sharks, so the commission was indeed not low.
But regardless of her rolling her eyes or not, she still had to grant the budget since it was the project personally approved by the general.
“Why is it called the dolphin? That’s a strange name.” Jiang Chen was intrigued.
“Deployed under the ocean, peace ambassador, you know.” Jiang Lin used a welding gun to knock on the base on of the missile as he chuckled.
Jiang Chen first took a moment to process his words before understanding the meaning behind it as he laughed along.
Peace ambassador. (A play on words. Peace is pronounced the same way as nuclear destruction.)
[People from the future were quite humorous.]
“The entire missile is 11 meters long with a diameter of 1.55 meters; the launch weight is 35.1 tons. It could be deployed in nuclear silo 1200 meters deep into the sea with a maximum range of 21,000 kilometers.”
“The launch mechanism is a non-separate three-stage propulsion model, that is, the underwater propulsion ring will advance the missile 100 meters underwater after the missile separation. Then the missile engine ignites and pushes the missile to the near-Earth orbit after the engine flame stalls. After the missile approaches the target, the engine is reignited and strikes the target area vertically.”
“The missile shell is coated with an anti-radar material that reduces the radar ‘s reflected signal to the extent of a seagull, and theoretically only the’ passive coherent positioning system can detect signs of the missile launch.”
In terms of its size, the 11 meters long ballistic missile seemed like a miniature toy compared to the twenty to thirty meters long ballistic missiles of the modern world. But without a doubt, anyone who dared to question its strength must pay for their mistake.