Battlefield Contractor

"The defensive crisis of the coastal fortress has just been lifted, and morale is high now. At this time, if you ask him to retreat, I am afraid that General Hodgson may not agree." The actuary shook Kishi's head.

"I can't wait for them to agree. I will go to him myself. I will trouble you about the retreat here. I must rush to the coastal fortress now and ask General Hodgson to agree to withdraw." Lin Rui replied.

The actuary frowned and said, "You...you want to go to the coastal fortress in person?"

"Yes, this time the matter is very minor. On the surface, the enemy is indeed retreating, but in fact they are retreating and waiting for help. New reinforcements will arrive soon, and it is likely to be this one from the Secret Society. Chunlei troops." Lin Rui whispered, "On the surface, we did win a victory. But in fact, the situation of defense along the Kem River is changing quietly, so we must retreat to gain more initiative. "

"Okay, I see what you mean," replied the actuary Masaki.

In the afternoon, Lin Rui and a few mercenaries rushed to the coastal fortress at the fastest speed. Tell General Hodgson what happened.

General Hodgson was a little surprised, "Mr. Rick, what you said is all one-sided words of Yves. This man is a very cunning enemy. How credible is what he said? Let's not mention it for the time being.

But under the current situation, if we retreat voluntarily, it may not make sense. "

"General Hodgson, the situation is very serious. If I hadn't thought about it carefully, I wouldn't have made such a judgment. General, our time is limited and we must hurry up to organize the evacuation." Lin Rui shook his head.

"I don't understand." General Hodgson went to the window and opened it. "You look at our soldiers outside, and many of them are civilians from the port. When the enemy attacked, we organized them and formed a militia to fight with us. And we won, we Successfully pushed the enemy back. Look at the sad smiles on each of their faces.

Many of them have relatives who died in this war. They survived and armed themselves, repelled the enemy, and defended their homeland.

But now we are asking them to leave, which is tantamount to denying their sacrifice. Will they be willing? "

"But if they don't want to, they will die here. Once the enemy's counterattack starts, they will surely die. This will be an asymmetrical war." Lin Rui said very seriously. "I repeat, this is a retreat to safety to redeploy defenses. It is not an escape from the battlefield."

"But there are complete fortifications here. We've had the hardest time, why don't we try to hold on?" General Hodgson hesitated. "It's not that I don't want to retreat. It's that I really can't, face my Soldiers, give this order. They have just experienced a hard battle, and they have defended the coastal fortress under the siege of the enemy. Now, as their commander, I am asking them to abandon this place.

Do you know how many people we have lost here for this fight? How many civilians have died here? How do you want me to say such a thing to them? "

"I know it's going to be tough, but you've got to trust me, it's to protect this unit. Don't let them die here in vain. General Hodgson, you should understand that I'm not a man who fears death. But there is hope. , I will never retreat lightly.

But now the situation is serious, you have to believe me.

If you disobey, you are disobeying an order. I'll give you a day, you have to be fast. To assist with the evacuation, I have deployed all the vehicles and rail capacity of the logistics department. You must evacuate as soon as possible. This is an order, and there is no room for bargaining, General. Lin Rui looked at him and nodded.

"Okay, then I'll give the order now." Hodgson finally agreed.

Because unknowingly, he has begun to gradually believe in this mercenary. At least in the previous battles, the judgments of Lin Rui and others were correct.

Sitting alone in the dim light, General Hodgson's mood was extremely complicated. Although the city outside was already chaotic at this time, no one was willing to go outside the basement to deal with such a panic, and the gloomy bunker was filled with a depressing smell. There is no heating, not even enough electricity,

The lights dimmed again, and the staff officers of the Combat Command outside let out a whimper of cursing. Almost 12 hours have passed since the end of the battle. During these 12 hours, the Anmore garrison troops on the south, east and southeast fronts were almost defeated by the enemy, and they were almost unorganized, and the strong walls of the fortress were broken through in many places.

In comparison, the combat troops on the frontal front are better. At least the soldiers and officers of Anmore know that if they cannot resist the enemy's offensive, the defense of the entire east side of Anmore will be completely finished. .

Although Hodgson is still stubborn, in fact, the current defense of the coastal fortress can probably be described as "terrible".

Anmor's defenders suffered heavy losses under the attack of the Oromi Federation Army. Now that the enemy troops have withdrawn, the energy that everyone has been holding back has also loosened.

As soon as Hodgson's order to retreat was given, all defenses collapsed, and his troops hurriedly retreated to the north in the dark. Although at this time, the troops that lost their unified command were not in chaos and immediately retreated, but it was not far from the time for a complete retreat.

Especially when General Hodgson was afraid of the enemy and the news of his intention to retreat spread below, the troops of the Anmore garrison almost lost their will to fight. Both the officers and soldiers threw away their weapons one after another and fled north in a hurry, and the previous strong offensive of the enemy army deepened the fear of those soldiers.

Hodgson was right, just say evacuate. Both officers and soldiers get frustrated, and morale is at its lowest point.

Even if he didn't come to the battlefield in person, Lin Rui knew what would happen next. The retreating troops completely lost their fighting spirit, and there was a flood of retreat everywhere.

There was no pressure from the officers, no reprimands from the superiors, no matter whether it was a soldier or a junior officer, everyone only thought about one thing: that is to escape, the farther the better.

The left flank lost cover, the troops on the right flank ran away, and the soldiers had to withdraw from their positions, which further aggravated the scale of the rout. On a crowded road, the rout became a road to death.

The car wrecks blocking the road, the charred corpses everywhere, the guns and ammunition discarded everywhere, the abandoned chariots, artillery, and weapons, those documents, materials, and letters flying in the wind.

General Hodgson could no longer hide the desperation on his face. The retreat order he issued was not fully implemented, and the retreat was extremely chaotic.

The current battle situation, especially the battle situation after the evacuation order was issued, brings only despair to everyone, and no one has expectations for this war in the short term. There is also chaos in the commander's headquarters. The staff members have begun to burn some documents. The air is filled with the smell of fireworks burning paper.

Lin Rui shook his head helplessly. At this time, Anmore's headquarters was no longer a battle hub. No one here still had confidence in the future. Some were just utter despair, a kind of despair before death. .

The internal chaos in the headquarters turned into a pot of porridge, and the nervous staff hurriedly threw stacks of documents into the brazier. Hodgson looked deadly at the busy officers.

"General, it's time to go!" A staff officer came over and said softly to the dumbfounded Hodgson, "The preparations for the evacuation of the headquarters are basically complete! Please transfer your command position immediately!"

General Hodgson sighed, shook his head with a wry smile, and walked out of the messy bunker basement. The fire outside was so bright that it almost made him unable to open his eyes.

The gendarmerie has been quickly gathering documents in the bunker headquarters, where they are dousing gasoline on the house. According to Lin Rui's order, this house must be burned down, and the remaining documents must be burned.

At this time, both sides of the north gate of the fortress were covered with barbed wire, leaving only a path in the middle. Anmor's soldiers held up their rifles and took aim, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving.

The officers and soldiers of the other troops who had retreated were making a noise towards them, and there was also the sound of civilians crying, and there were intermittent fires and explosions everywhere. Some items that cannot be taken away must be burned and blasted.

The fire was shining, and there was an endless stream of refugees behind to help the old and the young. On the pier along the river outside the Yijiang Gate, the order was abnormally chaotic. The explosion stopped here and rang again there.

There are thousands of people, but there are only two or three roads. In addition to the road, the port waterway and railway of the Kem River must also play a role at the same time, which has almost become the dividing line between life and death.

As soon as a boat in the port approached the shore, a group of people jumped on it and plunged into the river recklessly. No one paid attention to it, and hundreds of hands were holding on to the edge of the ferry.

The people on the boat scolded the crowd standing on the shore not to let them drive, and some shot into the sky. After some good persuasion, the sailor tried his best to propel the boat.

Many more people still cling to the edge of the boat, and as the ferry sailed into the river, some fell into the water and sank in the river.

The current situation can simply be described as a "disaster". Because these troops are not only Anmor soldiers, but also a huge number of militia who join the battle temporarily. Those Anmor defenders who are so messy that they can be described as "rabble crowd" are already in chaos under the attack of the enemy. , Now that the retreat order is issued, the army is even more defeated.

Of course, from the very beginning, no one expected these miscellaneous combat troops to defend the coastal fortresses, but they actually did.

When it was time to evacuate, no one thought it would collapse so quickly. In just a few days, the tragic Ellesmere Port and the defense of the coastal fortresses came to an end.

The condition of the highway was also not optimistic. The retreating skirmishers, the wounded, the rear troop, baggage, vehicles, family members, the elderly and the weak, women and children crowded the road.

There were constant explosions with a piercing shriek, and the entire evacuation was in complete chaos.

The dull explosions sounded one after another, the cracked fireballs exploded one after another, and thick black smoke rose up in the air. There were fires in some places, and the vehicle was completely burned to a dark pile of debris.

Everything has become so out of order. When life is facing the end and death is cruelly placed in front of it, how many people can be calm and face it calmly. When death came, people discovered that the so-called civilization and the so-called human nature were actually so illusory.

Although the gendarmerie made every effort to maintain order under General Hodgson's edict, it was all in vain. Even some middle and low-ranking officers of the command joined the wave of frantic escapes, and everything got out of hand. Several key officers under General Hodgson even personally led the gendarmerie in the bombing.

However, this cannot fundamentally solve the problem. In addition to the explosions, the entire Ellesmere Port is the loud screams of women and the anger of men...

The gendarmerie did not play any role as the nightmare continued. The disintegration of military discipline has further distorted human nature. This place is like hell, full of darkness and sorrow.

This situation has been completely out of control, Hodgson can only forcibly order the military police everywhere to suppress the riots and control the scene. It is difficult to imagine how to stop the riots from continuing.

Under his orders, some soldiers who fled in the chaos were shot, and the gunfire of the gendarmerie did not stop. General Hodgson showed great nervousness about such a situation.

The people on the piers of Ellesmere Port were surging like ants on a hot pot; there were only boats still sailing in the river, and troops without boats scrambled for boats and fought with each other. Some shot by boats or wooden rafts; some made use of a door panel or a log to go up the river, and some saw no hope of crossing the river and found another way.

There was a chaotic beachhead, and the soldiers who had sailed north were even a little overwhelmed. There are surging crowds everywhere, and the beachhead is covered with black pressure. Although an evacuation field was temporarily set up at the riverside pier, troops and refugees were successively arranged to board the ship and evacuated from Ellesmere Port to the adjacent areas, but the situation was beyond control and was chaotic.

At this time, this water that looks inconspicuous on the map has become an important way to evacuate.

"Keep the troops in good order!" An Anmore officer personally directed the troops to maintain order on the beachhead. Once a big riot occurs at this time, it will be a disaster.

However, in the face of the surging crowd, it is really difficult to control the situation. All kinds of boats are moored randomly by the river, there is no trestle, only some limited docks.

Fearing that the adjacent shallow waters would cause the ship to run aground, some larger ships could only be parked on the river a little further away, and these were used to transport troops and baggage.

As for the fleeing civilians, wooden rafts, boats, and even wooden barrels have become "temporary boats" for evacuation, and some even jumped directly into the icy waters of the Kem River.