Chapter 343, Four Years
Four years have passed in a flash, and this is already Ruggie Likosi's fifth year fighting on Koroja.
Looking at the ruined city of Fino from afar, he couldn't help but recall their meeting and conversation four years ago when the Governor passed by Koroga on his way back to the Angry Owl Star after the engagement ceremony.
At that time, he had only been fighting in Koroja for less than a year. He remembered that he told the Governor-General some of his views on the war.
He was a soldier, but before that he was not even a soldier. He was just a small businessman in Junk Town, reselling some daily necessities and minerals. It was not until his wife and children died at the hands of green-skinned aliens that he picked up a gun and vowed to kill all the greenskins.
The formation of the Beast Killing Group was something that happened later. At that time, he was just driven by hatred and did it out of rage.
At that stage, he never thought that just to be able to kill more greenskins, he would join the alliance and actually kill all the greenskins in a short time. The skyfire that fell from the sky and seemed to destroy everything is still fresh in his memory.
It was from then on that he became determined and changed his mindset to that of a soldier to serve the alliance.
He experienced the entire war process of the unification of the Angry Owl Star, and then was sent to Koroja without stopping to fight against the evil demons. From the acting commander in the beginning, he now almost commands the entire Angry Bear Legion of one million troops, and was even promoted to the official rank of Imperial Brigadier General in the past few years.
But no matter how his identity has changed over the years, he always considers himself a soldier and can only look at things from a soldier's perspective.
This was how the so-called military needs for resolving the Koroja issue that he had presented to the Governor-General came about.
But he also remembered that after Governor Gu heard what he said, he smiled bitterly, sighed, and said to him:
"It looks like you'll be staying in Koroja for many years."
A saying becomes a proverb.
As a soldier, Li Kexi did not understand many things. For example, he did not understand why the governor knew that the solution he proposed was impossible to implement.
Isn't that a simple thing?
Fifty million Astra Militarum troops, or one billion native troops, these numbers seem astronomical at first glance. But if you put them in the context of the human empire that spans the Milky Way and Koroja, which has a population of 40 billion, it doesn't seem like much.
In the Dragon Eagle star field, there are nine army groups named after the Dragon Eagle Legion alone. There are also many other named star army units, similar to the Angry Bear Legion. Now only the 3rd army group is in the Pegasus star field.
According to Li Kexi's idea, there is always a way to squeeze out an army group from other places.
As for the one billion troops, it sounds exaggerated, but for Koroja with a population of 40 billion, it only needs to mobilize 2.5% of the troops.
He did not ask the Governor General about this question at the time, but over the years, he gradually thought of some reasons. For example, although the Empire has a large army, the Empire has even more enemies, and no army can be squeezed out; for example, it is relatively easy to achieve a high mobilization rate for millions or tens of millions of people, but it is difficult for Koroja's 40 billion people. The mobilization capacity required of the government is not at the same level, not to mention that Koroja's finances cannot afford to support an army of 1 billion people to fight.
But after figuring this out, Li Kexi's questions not only did not decrease, but increased instead.
The difficulties in reality do exist objectively, but... this is a life-threatening moment! You are still talking about this difficulty and that difficulty when you are about to die!
Wait until 40 billion fucking people fall, and the elegy played by the flesh, lives, and souls of 40 billion people echoes in the subspace, turning the entire Koroja into a super devil's cave, and then radiates outward to engulf the entire star region and even several surrounding star regions, evolving into a star field-level threat that is no less powerful than the Iron-Tooth Greenskins. Only then will we not talk about those difficulties, right?
He admitted that he was resentful.
He was not a Korojan, but he had fought here for so long and watched countless Korojans suffer. As long as he was a person, his heart would always be touched. Even if it was just from a soldier's perspective, he needed to know what the meaning of what he and his soldiers were fighting for was.
But no matter how much resentment there is, it cannot change the situation.
The power he expected to solve the problem never arrived in the past four years.
And he could only watch his soldiers send countless bullets and shells to those monsters; watch his soldiers fight bravely, one group sacrificed and another group replaced...
Although the Angry Bear Legion has been expanded, most of its troops now come from Korojia. Every two years, the Military Affairs Department will allocate a portion of the population portion of the imperial tax received from Korojia to the Angry Bear Legion. On the one hand, it is to make up for the losses of the Angry Bear Legion in previous battles, and on the other hand, it is to further expand the army.
Four years ago, the Angry Bear Legion had already expanded to 500,000 people; and now the Angry Bear Legion has directly reached a million people, which means that the number of people is increasing as the battle goes on.
With this number, only 20% of the soldiers in the Angry Bear Legion came from the Alliance, which is roughly the same as the total number before the expansion, and the rest of the newly expanded troops basically came from Korojia.
At the same time, the Angry Bear Legion also followed Gu Hang's request and maintained at least 10% of the Alliance troops in the newly established troop numbers.
As for weapons, equipment and logistical supplies, the Alliance accepts orders from the Imperial Military Affairs Department and directly supplies them.
But even after several rounds of military expansion, the Angry Bear Corps' personnel are mainly Korojia people, but they are still the best performing army-level force in the entire Korojia. Under the command of Lieutenant General Hans, the Angry Bear Corps always undertakes very important tasks.
Li Kexi asked himself, they have fought hard enough. At the same time, he also had a high opinion of the soldiers of the Dragon Eagle Legion-3rd Army Group who fought side by side with them. The Star Army and some planetary defense forces are indeed not the same concept.
But they still retreated step by step.
Four years ago, they were still able to control the top floor of the hive city of Fino, and could launch military operations on the ground from time to time to seize some resources, evacuate some uninfected civilians, or attack enemy clusters mentioned in the intelligence.
Two years ago, they had almost withdrawn from the ground part of the hive, and even the top part of the hive began to be severely eroded.
A year ago, the Astra Militarum was already overwhelmed. The city of Fino has now become a dead zone, with almost no troops or living people serving the army. Normal residents had either been evacuated in the past few years; the rest were basically hopeless.
In addition, a year ago, there were more and more reports of plague infection and plague cult incidents in other nests. Even in Mingyan City, the capital of the planet, the bottom nest area had begun to show signs of being out of control.
The Koroja defense force, which was seriously understaffed and had only just expanded to 200 million, could not control so many large-scale nest cities. In some serious places, the Astra Militarum had to split up its forces to deal with them.
This also seriously weakened the Astra Militarum's control over the situation in Fino City.
So, a year ago, Lieutenant General Hans made a decision to completely withdraw all forces from the city of Fino and no longer waste time here.
All the troops left the hive within a month, taking with them all the healthy people they could.
Immediately afterwards, a navy cruiser, together with several destroyers, began to coordinate attacks on the city of Fino.
This attack was carried out in an extermination manner. There was no more room for reservations. They planned to completely destroy the entire city of Fino and eliminate this largest demon den and source of infection.
In this way, the freed-up Astra Militarum and local defense forces can be put into other hive cities to solve those problems that can still be solved.
Anyway, the city of Fino is beyond saving.
However, later facts proved that this decision was made too late.
The skyfire fell, and the orbital strike was even more magnificent than the one that Li Kexi had seen on the Wrathful Owl Star when he attacked the green-skinned orcs. After all, in addition to a cruiser, there were also several destroyers involved in the strike. They were not just carrying out one round of strikes, but were planning to carry out multiple rounds of super-saturated orbital bombardment.
If we are going to destroy it, we must ensure that it is destroyed completely.
However, after the bombing started, the first few rounds had a relatively good effect, and the upper area of the entire Fino City was basically destroyed. Then, above the half-ruined Fino City, a layer of purple and green light film emerged, blocking the attack from orbit.
Although it was a little different from the usual ones, in the end, they confirmed that what appeared over the city of Fino was the Void Shield.
A special void shield powered by the evil magic of the Warp.
This was too surprising. Even at this time, people realized that in the past few years when they were out of control, under the festering wounds that even the Star Army could not solve, those plague evildoers had actually developed to this extent!
When Lieutenant General Hans convened an emergency meeting to discuss how to resolve the void shield covering the city of Fino so that the orbital strike could continue, things changed further.
From the hole that leaked out from the destroyed upper area of Fino City, dozens of dark green missiles successively pierced through the pale yellow atmosphere of Koroja and rushed straight into the sky.
Vice Admiral Hans immediately sensed something was wrong and contacted the Imperial Navy in orbit.
Sure enough, they were hit.
The plague cult in Fino City not only has the void shield to protect the city that already belongs to them from orbital strikes, but has even developed countermeasures. This anti-orbital firepower is undoubtedly a direct threat to the Imperial Navy's fleet.
The Imperial Navy had not anticipated this at the beginning. The cruiser "Concerto" did not even open its void shield and was hit hard.
It was understandable that they didn't use the shield. They weren't fighting a naval battle with others, and they didn't expect to be beaten. Whether it was a void shield or an energy shield, it required a lot of energy to support it, and that was all money.
But it was just this negligence that caused considerable losses.
The cruiser was strong enough to be damaged by one shot, which was not a big problem, and it was just a matter of repairing the ship. However, a destroyer that also did not have an energy shield was unlucky enough to be hit by six shots, one of which penetrated the engine compartment and caused an implosion.
So, on Koroga, people who were in the right position could look up at the sky and see a huge firework exploding in the sky.
Losing a destroyer is definitely not a small matter. The cost of building any of the Pegasus Fleet's combat destroyers is no less than 1.3 billion.
Based on the calculation of ten tax coins for one soldier, this means the lives of 130 million soldiers.
What's more, there were more than 40,000 naval soldiers on that fully crewed destroyer.
This time it was all blown up.
In the chaos, the naval fleets immediately opened their void shields and energy shields one by one, and then fired more fiercely at the surface.
This bombardment between orbit and the surface lasted for three days.
Li Kexi and other people who were surrounding the city of Fino only watched the extremely brilliant "fireworks display" for three days.
This ground and orbital bombardment war ended with the Imperial Navy giving up.
In the final decision-making communication, the commander of the Imperial Navy, in a rather embarrassed manner, made it clear to Hans that they would not continue fighting.
For one thing, they were running low on ammunition.
The other, and most important, reason is that they see no hope of winning.
Although the Imperial Navy always had the initiative during these three days, after all, they could fight if they wanted to, and fly to the other side along the planet's orbit to avoid the artillery fire and return when the energy shield was not overloaded. It was precisely because of this initiative that the Imperial Navy never suffered further losses.
However, they obviously couldn't do anything about the city of Fino.
As more and more ships were driven away by the Plague Evil's anti-orbital firepower, the orbital firepower in these three days could never reach the saturation state at the beginning, and it was impossible to completely break the void shield of Fino City.
Vice Admiral Hans was also quite dissatisfied. He questioned the navy why they did not dare to risk their lives to completely destroy the Void Shield?
The naval commanders on the opposite side were unwilling to be outdone. Losing a ship was already a huge loss, and they were absolutely unwilling to accept the risk of losing another ship.
In their words, "The value of any one of these ships is more valuable than all the lives on earth combined. Instead of letting us fight to the death, you should launch a ground attack. As long as you destroy their anti-orbital firepower, I will continue to bombard the surface."
These words made Lieutenant General Hans furious, but even if what the other party said was not true, it might not be much different.
The two sides could only engage in a fierce war of words and spray each other, but the final result was obviously that no one could convince the other to make the sacrifice.
This matter has been delayed until now, a whole year.
(End of this chapter)
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