Chapter 252, Across the Night Sky
After Pei Desi hung up the interstellar communication with Gu Hang, there was another one open next to him.
This was a communication with his younger brother, Little Pedes. Just now, his brother heard clearly the conversation between him and a pair of uncles and nephews from the Gu family.
"The Gu family, which has always been known for its 'unity', has also had a day of internal strife. This is going to make me laugh to death!"
His frivolous younger brother was quite insolent and gloating in his words.
However, this time, Pei Desi did not scold him, but couldn't help but smile as well.
Yes, the unity of the Gu family has collapsed. Does he still need to worry about the Gu family leaving the "Iron Triangle" and breaking away from the alliance with their brothers and the Fofana family?
No need at all.
Gu Ming had expressed his loyalty to him and reiterated their friendship many times.
And that stubborn Wang Qi, her son, was even helped to become the Governor of Angry Owl Star by herself. Now, that little guy also clearly promised that he would stand firmly on her side in the future.
All he had to do now was to choose the one between the two of them who was more to his liking.
"I suggest choosing Gu Ming," said Little Pei Desi. "Wang Qi is not easy to deal with. Even if her son agrees to all our conditions, in the end, it is very likely that Wang Qi will still be in power in the Gu family. She may not be so honest as to fulfill the conditions she agreed to with us."
Mr. Pedes himself does not agree with this.
He asked in return: "Do you think Gu Ming is honest? A man who launched a violent coup in the 'United Gu Clan', will he honestly listen to our arrangements after he has power?"
"Uh..." Little Pedesi thought about it and realized that it was true.
Mr. Pedes said earnestly: "Don't treat others as fools or tools. Generally speaking, we don't have any way to check and balance the Gu family. We can't treat the Gu family, including Fofana, as chess pieces. We are supported by them, and they are helped by us to develop better. Mutual benefit is the only way for things to last long."
Little Pedes rolled his eyes: "It's the same thing again..."
Although he looked disdainful and even felt that his brother could be pedantic at times, little Pei Desi had to admit that at least one point was right: they really did not have the ability to check and balance the Gu family.
No matter who they support and who wins in the end, as long as the Gu family does not completely fall apart and half of the power is left, it will still be the largest inter-star zone chamber of commerce in the recent star zones. They don't have to pay taxes to the star zone government, nor do they need any support from the star zone government. What else can they do?
The Gu family would be uncomfortable with the complete separation, as it would become inconvenient for them to do anything in the Tianma star region, after all, their headquarters is on the Feiyi star; but at the same time, without the support of the Imperial Chamber of Commerce and the lack of financial support, the star region government would also be uncomfortable.
If we unite, we both benefit; if we separate, we both suffer. What else can we do? Just make do with it.
Although he was unhappy with the Gu family, little Pei Desi still understood this truth.
He listened quietly as his brother continued talking.
What Pei Desi said to his brother was essentially his thought process: "Gu Hang can agree to any conditions that Gu Ming can agree to. Gu Hang can also do one more thing. We asked Gu's and Fachers to draw a clear line between them. He has a specific action to take: abolish Blackbird Heavy Industries on the Angry Owl Star. This will inevitably greatly deteriorate the relationship between Gu's and Fachers."
"Moreover, we also have to consider the cost of making a choice. If we help Gu Ming, Wang Qi will die without support, but is there any way we can deal with Gu Hang? If we push the eight Chamber of Commerce fleets that used to stand on Wang Qi's side to Angry Owl Star, we can still make Wang Qi's son the head of the family. Do we have to send the Imperial Navy to help Gu Ming control the Chamber of Commerce fleet? Do we have to send the Army to Angry Owl Star to eliminate Gu Hang? That's impossible. The Imperial Navy and Army are not completely under our command, and we can't find a suitable reason to attack the Imperial Chamber of Commerce and a planetary governor."
"By helping Gu Ming, we can indeed achieve the goal of splitting the Gu family, but we can only gain the friendship of half of the Gu family at most, and will turn the other half, plus a governor in the star zone, into enemies. It is impossible to form the most ideal situation where both sides have to befriend us."
"What's more, the cost of helping him is so high."
"On the contrary, if we help Gu Hang and Wang Qi, we will have very little to do. Although these two will be more difficult to control, and the power of the Gu family will not be weakened too much, but the mother and son, to fulfill their promise, will inevitably stand on the opposite side of the Fachers family, and our goal will be achieved. What's more, for a good cooperation, don't they want to be grateful? This lays more foundations for future cooperation."
…
Listening to his brother's long chatter, Little Peidesi curled his lips and concluded, "So, you finally made a decision to help that kid Gu Hang, right?"
Pei Desi smiled slightly and said, "Probably."
"Okay, then just do it." Little Pedes yawned and stood up, "I'll go first."
Watching his brother leave, Mr. Pedes gave a helpless smile.
He didn't even say a word about his brother.
In the past, he didn't know how many times he had said it, but it was useless, he always looked so careless. Alcohol, sex in various forms, various exciting entertainments...
There's no point in talking too much. I'm not a child anymore. Now I'm the governor of Feiyi Star. How can I keep talking?
Gradually, he stopped talking.
Most of the planetary affairs are handled by him as the head of the sector.
He didn't want to seize power, because he had pushed his younger brother to take over the position. On the contrary, he often thought that if little Pedes could take on more responsibilities and help him more, he would be able to relax a lot.
However... in the end, I still had to shoulder everything by myself!
My younger brother is having a life of luxury and debauchery, but he still has to work.
With a sigh, he thought about the wording and made an interstellar communication to the Fofana family and General Tillemans respectively.
…
Seven standard Terran days later, on the Black Arrow planet, in the town outside of Pinser, the capital of the Luman Kingdom, the headquarters of the Alliance Expeditionary Force.
Although it was called the headquarters, in reality, it had long been in a state of disrepair. For the sake of practicality, nothing else mattered.
Originally, this was just a basement, and then the engineers reinforced the structure to prevent it from collapsing. These reinforcements were very crude, and the brothers in the engineering company had a heavy task, so they had no time to do any design, and just had to make sure it didn't collapse.
It was here that Perbov and Leroy commanded their troops to resist the joint attack of the Luman Kingdom Army and a part of the Gu security forces led by Gu Ming.
It blocked the way for seven full days.
At this moment, neither of them had any manners to speak of. Dried sweat, mixed with dirt and blood, was on their faces and clothes; they had no conditions to take a shower or change clothes, and they were still sweating, and they stunk all over.
But no one dislikes it.
Everyone is like this.
Messy hair, unshaven beard, dusty face, sweaty and smelling of blood... This is the appearance of every Angry Owl Star person who is staying here.
The two of them are just a little heavier, with the added special features of dark circles and red eyes.
In recent days, the two of them may only sleep about two hours a day.
They were definitely tired, but they still tried their best to persevere.
They knew very well that this war was extremely difficult. They had no support or supplies, and had to rely on their existing strength to hold out for eight days.
During this period of time, the two partners had some rough idea of the number of enemies.
King Ness Luman assembled an army of more than 100,000 troops on the battlefield; two Ranger-type Knight Titans; and more than 300 Sentinel mechas.
During these seven days, he estimated that his troops had wiped out at least 30,000 enemy troops, but the number of the enemy never seemed to decrease.
Those enemies have been attacking almost every moment in the past seven days, day or night, rain or shine.
Perbov always used a very contemptuous tone to belittle the soldiers of the Luman Kingdom when he was boosting the morale of the army.
What about "holding scrap copper and rotten iron", "being treated as cannon fodder instead of human beings", "purely coming to die", "no discipline, weak fighting will, poor fighting ability"...
But what he said was also true.
This is the level of conscripted soldiers from the Kingdom of Luman.
In particular, the continuous attacks and large numbers of casualties made the conscripts feel that attacking the fortified town was purely a suicide mission. Their morale was so low that when they attacked, if there were no knights to support them, they would collapse as soon as they suffered the slightest casualties.
But here’s the thing… there are a lot of knights.
If it were just the 100,000 Luhman cannon fodder, Perbov would not have taken it seriously. However, Luhman's Royal Knights brought them a lot of pressure.
Especially the two Knight Titans.
When these two Knight Titans were bombing from a distance, the Alliance Army's means of counterattack were very limited, and they could only passively take the bombing.
And when these two Titans personally led the team into the front-line battle, it was even more of a nightmare.
Having learned from the previous lesson of the destruction of the two Knight Titans, the Luman military will never allow the Knight Titan to be separated again. Ordinary Luman infantry cannot be trusted, but those sentinel knights still have sufficient fighting spirit. They will guard the feet of the Knight Titan tightly and not give the Alliance soldiers a chance to take advantage.
As a result, every attack led by the Knight Titan would be a nightmare, and the Alliance Expeditionary Force would pay a heavy price. It would require concentrated heavy artillery bombardment, and soldiers would need to take risks to launch fire strikes. Only after paying a large amount of ammunition and even the lives of a large number of soldiers could the opponent's energy shield be temporarily overloaded.
However, at this time, the enemy would often retreat, not giving us any chance to take advantage. Two days later, when the shield system was fully recharged, they would return to the front line.
Luhmann's military fought more patiently.
They knew that the group of people who were holding out in the town could fight, but they had no reinforcements or backup. If they kept fighting, they would definitely be the winners with the support of an entire country.
However, despite such a bad situation, Perbov did not completely passively defend. He still insisted on the so-called "elastic defense" strategy.
During an all-out attack by the enemy three days ago, he risked sending out armored forces disguised behind some dilapidated buildings, with artillery support and the addition of Lacroxia's special forces. They successfully destroyed the shield generator of a Knight Titan, but at the cost of six Lion tanks, thirty infantry fighting vehicles, and more than two hundred soldiers.
Moreover, due to the high losses, although they created an opportunity, they were unable to deliver the final blow, and allowed the Knight Titan without the shield generator to successfully retreat.
But despite this, the results are still acceptable.
The Knight Titan suffered some damage and later dared not appear on the front line and could only fire missiles from the rear.
We only need to face the impact of one Knight Titan head-on, which reduces a lot of pressure.
However, after fighting for seven days, they were almost at the end of their rope.
"Report to Comrade Commander, the enemy's attack has been repelled."
"Report casualties."
"Yes! The 37.5.2 Company in the south is gone. When the 3rd Company went up to support, no one was found alive... There are only 17 people left in the 3rd Company... According to the previous request of the political commissar, the number has been retained and the command has been merged into the battalion headquarters. At present, the 37th Brigade no longer has a complete company-level unit, and all are under the command of the battalion. The engineering battalion and the logistics support battalion have also all gone up..."
"The main force of the 34th Division guarding the east and north was severely damaged. The acting division commander, Major Gale, was killed. Currently, Major Meyev has taken over the command. This is the third acting division commander of the 34th Division..."
Perbov listened expressionlessly.
Apart from the enemy being repelled, there was no other good news.
But his heart had become somewhat numb.
This has been the news all along, especially in the past two days.
They fought off the enemy's attacks time and time again, fighting for house after house, even ruin after ruin. Now, they were really at the end of their rope.
Of the 30,000 troops he brought with him, there are less than 13,000 who may still be alive, and most of them are injured.
But while the human toll was heavy, other aspects were even worse.
The two combined brigades had a total of 36 Lion tanks, of which only the last one was still operational; a total of 400 artillery pieces, 320 of which had been destroyed. Even with the remaining 80, with the existing ammunition reserves, they could fire at most six rounds.
There are less than a thousand shells left.
All the rocket launchers have been used up, and there are not many mortar shells left. Even the bullets need to be carefully collected from the bodies of the dead soldiers, otherwise we will not be able to hold on.
It can be said that except for the food reserves, which are still sufficient for the time being because the residents of the suburban towns were driven away and all the food was left behind, all other war materials have reached their final limit.
However, it is only the seventh day.
There is still one day left before the eight days requested by the Governor.
what to do?
Pobov didn't know either.
He left the command post when the fighting paused.
Leroy did not try to persuade him, for the commissar had already fallen asleep beside him. He was deaf in one ear, and had not slept for twenty-three hours, so he needed a little rest.
After coming out, Perbov looked at the night sky, feeling full of guilt.
He couldn't help but reflect on whether his tactics over the past seven days were not well executed in many places. Was it his own mistakes in command that led to the current situation?
"Did I betray the Governor's trust?"
"But no matter what, on the last day, I will personally take up my gun and go to the front line of the battlefield. Even if we can't hold out for the eighth day, even if the Lumans occupy our position, it must be after we are all dead!"
He swore through gritted teeth.
But at this moment, he saw dozens of long flame tails crossing the night sky.
————
4.4k
As for the political struggle part…I still have to write it, I have to write it. But I try to shorten it and speed up the pace.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
