Arc of Fire

Wang Zhong stared at the captain riding the white horse, his head fuzzy and unable to recall his name, so he asked, “You… what did you just say your name was?”

"Lubokov.”

Wang Zhong, “I am Count Rocossov, and I command…”

It was only then that he remembered he needed to fire a signal flare to notify the troops to come, so he reached for the gun holster at his waist.

At that moment, two more soldiers came over from the direction of the tank and immediately raised their guns and shouted, “Danger, Captain!”

The captain, “Keep calm! This is the Count! He is now our commander! Send someone back to inform the tank that friendly forces that have captured Prosen trucks are coming, and tell them not to fire!”

Immediately, a private first class turned and ran toward the hilltop, while a sergeant continued to look at Wang Zhong with suspicion.

Wang Zhong couldn’t care less, he took out his signal gun, shakily loaded the signal flare, used all his strength to raise his hand, and pulled the trigger.

A red flare slowly rose, illuminating the still-dimming sky.

Wang Zhong took a deep breath, discarded the signal gun, and asked in a weak voice, “Do you have a stretcher? I think I won’t be able to make it to the tank by myself.”

The captain said, “You can ride a horse, come on, let’s help you onto the horse.”

Wang Zhong, “My driver jumped out of the car, bring him here dead or alive.”

The captain to the two soldiers, “Sergeant, did you hear that? Why not search along the road?”

The sergeant, who had been suspicious of Wang Zhong, started jogging along the highway. Just as Wang Zhong was being helped onto the horse by the captain, he saw the sergeant pulling up Captain Sergey from the ground.

That fellow had a gashed head, but he seemed to be in better shape than Wang Zhong from the way he stood.

"Sukabule,” Wang Zhong cursed.

At that moment, a Prosen Army truck approached at full speed; the wheels seemed to hit a rock, making the vehicle bounce as if it would fall apart the next second.

When it reached the white horse, the truck swung its tail and came to a stop just before crashing into the debris.

The passenger door opened, and Ludmila jumped out, “Alyosha!”

Wang Zhong barely raised his hand.

Just then, Sergeant Major Grigori, leading the reconnaissance squad’s veterans, jumped out of the back of the truck, holding a submachine gun, “Count!”

Wang Zhong, “I’m fine. It’s good that the tank units are alert. I ordered them to retreat into the town, set up an observation post at the hilltop. Attack may come at dawn from the Prussians.”

Grigori looked at the captain holding the horse, and said with the tone of reporting military information, “At about three o’clock this morning, we passed through the village of Kurasovka to the west, where we saw about a battalion of infantry, and at least 20 number three tanks.”

Wang Zhong’s eyebrows lifted imperceptibly; Prosen used numbers to name their tanks in this era too.

Captain Lubokov’s voice trembled slightly, “Twenty tanks! My God, we nearly exchanged fire with them on the exposed hilltop.”

Wang Zhong, “I have already ordered you to retreat into the village, proceed with haste. For the hilltop, only leave Grigori’s observation post.”

Sergeant Major Grigori asked, “Should we pull back into the village of Upper Peniye?”

Having no idea which village that was, as he had only seen a village behind them from his overlooking view, Wang Zhong could only reply, “The village behind the mountain.”

"It’s Upper Peniye village. We can take you there first in the truck, you and Miss Mailehovna.”

Wang Zhong, “Ludmila, you should be with the Divine Arrow cohort.”

Ludmila pouted, “I know, I’ll wait here for Monk Yeca Neiko and the others, then.”

Wang Zhong nodded, allowing Grigori and another reconnaissance man to lift him into the truck’s passenger seat.

The truck started up, following the highway forward, circling around the east side of the hill, and there was Upper Peniye village.

Lubokov’s tank platoon came down from the hill, smashing through the stone walls of the fields, and drove onto the highway from diagonally across, following behind Wang Zhong’s vehicle.

Wang Zhong switched to an overhead view and found he had acquired a new identity tag: Fourth Tank Army, 31st Tank Regiment, Second Battalion, the commander being Captain Lubokov.

A tank battalion with only four tanks left, all of them are the thinly-armored T28 multi-turreted tanks, how can we fight with these…

Wang Zhong looked up at the village of Upper Peniye, and it took him several seconds to realize that the village actually had a number of two-story buildings, and it seemed that there was even electricity.

Looking carefully, there was a fairly large factory building on the east side of the village, with a sign that read “Tractor Station”.

Wang Zhong asked the sergeant driving, “What is a tractor station?”

The sergeant was surprised, “According to the new agricultural law, the local lord has to pledge his property for a loan to set up tractor and seed stations, haven’t all villages with lords in residence had them over these ten years?”

Wang Zhong was shocked.

However, Upper Peniye village was more modernized than he expected, which gave Wang Zhong some ideas about defeating the enemy.

These two-story buildings and the streets all reminded Wang Zhong of the “anti-tank gymnastics” performed by some villagers before he traveled back in time.

The tanks of this era were not like Merkavas; molotov cocktails could take care of them, and you didn’t even need “anti-tank gymnastics”, just throw the cocktails from the second floor was enough.

As for where to find materials to make cocktails—what a joke, in this Ante Empire, which was closely related to the Russians (Muscovites), Wang Zhong didn’t believe he couldn’t find high-proof alcohol in the village.

Thinking of this, Wang Zhong smiled.

The sergeant driving the car looked at Wang Zhong’s side face with suspicion, as if he wanted to ask something but didn’t dare.

————

Just as they entered the village, Wang Zhong saw an old woman with her grandson standing at the doorway, looking around.

Wang Zhong, “Stop the car!”

The vehicle screeched to a halt, and Wang Zhong rolled down the window, shouted to the old woman, “Run! Don’t stay here! The Prussians will slaughter you!”

The old woman, “Sir, you don’t look well, why don’t you come in and rest a bit?”

Wang Zhong, “Go quickly! Take your family and leave!”

The old woman, “Sir, you tell us to go, but where can we go? Those in the village who had relatives elsewhere have already left. But we have been in this village for generations and have no relatives to turn to.”

Wang Zhong, “They will slaughter you!”

The old woman showed a somewhat sad smile, “Then let them kill us, at least we die on the soil of our homeland. Now running away, being displaced, perhaps we still end up dead, but in a foreign land.”

With Wang Zhong’s now impaired thinking capacity, he couldn’t think of any words to refute, he was at a loss on how to persuade the old woman to take her grandson and leave.

Just thinking that in the near future they might be killed by the Prussians in their own latrine, a surge of sorrow rose in his heart, lingering heavily in Wang Zhong’s chest.

At that moment, Captain Lubokov jumped down from a tank behind and ran to Wang Zhong’s door, saluting, “We have received orders from the Fourth Tank Army to hold Upper Peniye at least until tomorrow night before retreating to Bogdanovka.”

Wang Zhong, “Tomorrow night?”

He checked his watch, and by calculating nightfall at eight o’clock, Lubokov’s four tanks had to hold out here for thirty-eight hours.

Lubokov with a gloomy face, “We might be done for here.”

Wang Zhong, “Don’t worry, with me here, we’ll teach the Germans a lesson!”

Lubokov asked in confusion, “Germans?”

Wang Zhong was so muddled that he didn’t even think to correct the term.

He pointed to a big house on the roadside, “I’m setting up the headquarters here!”

Actually, he was just pointing randomly.

Lubokov, “But… once the battle starts, that building will become the target of the enemy’s first wave of artillery fire. It would be better to choose a house inside the village!”

Wang Zhong raised his voice, “Get Yegorov to come to me!”