Arc of Fire

Jules, July 6, 914, early morning.

Wang Zhong rolled out of his makeshift camp bed and saw Yegorov sitting on the bed beside him, polishing his boots.

Yegorov: “How did you make it back to the front command last night? We all thought you’d find a vehicle to spend the night in.”

Wang Zhong: “It wasn’t convenient for her.”

“How could she possibly come looking for you when it wasn’t convenient?” Yegorov countered, “No, no, she came to sleep with you. That Natalia, too, don’t believe me? Let B4 fire a shell and as soon as the boom echoes, you’ll see another Alyosha scrambling out of some corner with his pants in his hands.”

Wang Zhong was amazed. Are Westerners really so open about these things?

Yegorov waited a few seconds but got no reply, so he looked up at Wang Zhong and asked again, “So what really happened? Why didn’t you make the lady’s wish come true?”

Wang Zhong could only tell the truth.

Yegorov was shocked, his polishing hand paused: “If the war drags on for three to five years, does that mean you’ll go without touching a woman for that long? What if you get frustrated? Oh, I see, you’re talking about seeing a prostitute, right?”

“That shows my ambition!” He wanted to recite a few frontier verses to Yegorov, to express his own “won’t return until Loulan is conquered” heroic aspirations, but suddenly realized he couldn’t translate the poetry in his mind into Ante language.

Damn, no more showing off with poetry.

Just then, Popov got up too.

All three of them were sleeping on camp beds set up in the large room next to the front command, each bed three meters apart.

Popov looked at Wang Zhong with suspicion: “Aleksei Konstantinovich, this doesn’t sound like something you’d do. Although I’ve indeed heard that you haven’t been messing around with Ludmila Vasilyevna, you’re famous for not being able to control yourself.”

As he spoke, Popov glanced at Wang Zhong’s crotch: “Could it be… that you’re injured?”

Wang Zhong: “Is that something a bishop should say?”

Popov: “I’m from the Secular faction, remember?”

That secular, huh? I think you’re more of the high-speed faction! You go fast!

Wang Zhong decided not to linger on the issue. If he did, Popov might start to think he was possessed—though in reality, he was.

Looking at Yegorov, he said, “I think the enemy will definitely try to remove mines today. They’re going to use smoke to obscure our line of sight and cover the demining.”

“Definitely,” Yegorov replied as he spread new polish onto the boots and then carefully smeared it with the shining cloth, evening it out on the surface, “I heard before the war that the Prussians liked to use smoke. I didn’t expect they’d be such fans of it.”

Whenever the Prussians attacked, there was smoke everywhere, their usage of it was sublime.

Yegorov continued: “In comparison, we’ve neglected the use of smoke. The front-line infantry doesn’t even have Smoke Bombs, we have to capture them from the Prussians.”

Wang Zhong: “There’s so much we need to capture from the Prussians, like field telephones! Why are there so few radios?”

“Because the marshals still prefer using couriers,” shrugged Yegorov.

Wang Zhong shook his head and stood up to stretch his aching body caused by the too-hard camp bed. Unfortunately, he carelessly pulled at a wound on his shoulder, grimacing in pain.

It’d been nearly two weeks. Why hadn’t a simple gunshot wound healed yet?

Yegorov didn’t care whether Wang Zhong was in pain or not; he asked, “Aren’t you going to polish your boots? Don’t you want to?”

Wang Zhong thought, Is it that I don’t want to polish them? I don’t know how! I’ve hardly ever seen anyone polish boots in my life. How am I supposed to polish them when I’ve never even seen a “pig run”!

All he could do was change the subject: “Today, we need to figure out a way to prevent the enemy from demining in the smoke. Any ideas?”

Yegorov looked at Wang Zhong: “You are the White Horse General, and I’m just an ordinary regimental commander, as ordinary as they come. You should be the one to tell me what to do!”

Wang Zhong: “Let’s exercise some military democracy! Crowdsource some strategy, you know?”

Yegorov: “Then you should go ask that eccentric Vasily, he might have some outlandish ideas. Isn’t that why you value him?”

Wang Zhong didn’t reply because he was already thinking of countermeasures.

Since he had received absolutely no military education, he could only start with what he knew from games.

In games, dealing with smoke was simple: use large caliber guns and fire explosive shells at the ground.

When playing “Advance Command,” seeing the enemy deploy smoke, he would unleash a barrage of BM21 “Hail” rockets, which generally could effectively delay the enemy’s offensive and even eliminate quite a few of the attacking forces.

Drawing inspiration from the game—

Wang Zhong asked Yegorov, “What do you think about us blindly firing 76mm guns at the enemy? The firing elements for several preset positions for the 76mm guns were determined the day we set up defenses, ensuring accurate hits on enemy tanks at various distances.

“After switching to explosive shells, the trajectory would be more curved than Armor-Piercing Shells, and the gunners familiar with the gun’s performance could deliver the explosive shells to roughly the same position based on the firing elements of the Armor-Piercing Shells.”

Yegorov nodded: “We don’t have many 76mm guns, but we do have plenty of shells.”

“Pickles, too,” added Popov.

All of them thought of some unpleasant things and frowned together.

Just then, the on-duty new recruit pushed the door open and came in: “Report! Brother Peter called, saying enemy reconnaissance planes are flying towards us from the southwest.”

Wang Zhong: “Has the brother informed God’s Arrow Company?”

“Yes.”

“Then no need to worry.”

Yegorov quipped: “Let’s hope the big sister of the prayer hands doesn’t mispray because her beloved general doesn’t understand human emotions, leading to a misfire.”

Wang Zhong: “That won’t happen.”

He himself wasn’t sure why he was so certain.

A moment later, the sound of an airplane’s engine was heard. Wang Zhong went to the window and looked out; he made a slight shift in his viewing angle and spotted the enemy plane—it was the same Focke-Wulf Fw 189 reconnaissance aircraft as yesterday.

As soon as the plane entered the city area, it was shot down by Divine Arrow and crashed in the residential district to the north of the city.

When Wang Zhong switched back his view, Yegorov said, “It seems we’ve shot it down, so the big sister with the divine hands probably doesn’t want to sleep with you that much.”

Wang Zhong shrugged: “Speaking of which, are the pilots of the two reconnaissance planes we shot down yesterday still alive?”

Answering him was Popov: “One of the captains in charge of reconnaissance survived. He’s been sent to the Tribunal, and any information we get out of him will be relayed to us.”

Wang Zhong nodded and decided to go out to inspect the positions.

He left the large room where several people slept and entered the adjoining operations center, where he saw Vasily frowning and sitting in front of the field telephone, continuously jotting down something in a notebook.

Wang Zhong: “How’s it going?”

Vasily took off his headset and stood up to salute: “General!”

“At ease,” Wang Zhong waved his hand, “What’s the situation?”

Vasily handed the notebook he had just written to Wang Zhong.

The notebook was full of translated content from enemy communications.

While reading, Wang Zhong asked, “It seems you don’t need to refer to the seized notebook for call signs anymore?”

“Yes, I’ve basically memorized them.”

Wang Zhong: “Then why did you look so serious just now?”

“Because I find it strange. Yesterday, the Prussians rarely mentioned their own units’ call signs and locations, even in code words. Today, look at this, so much communication early in the morning.”

Wang Zhong nodded, he too felt something was amiss—perhaps the enemy was deliberately leaking false information.

But he didn’t say it directly; instead, he encouraged Vasily: “Why do you think that is?”

“I think they are intentionally leaking false information. The Prussians are very methodical and wouldn’t suddenly change this much. There must be someone ordering them to change their practice.”

Wang Zhong: “You’re right, I have the same feeling.”

At that moment, Dimitri entered the operations center and saluted Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong: “Dimitri, don’t take over the artillery sight for now. Let me ask you, what’s the trajectory difference between the 76mm gun’s shrapnel and armor-piercing shells? How can we adjust it so that the shrapnel shells land in approximately the same area, based on the armor-piercing shell data that we’ve already determined?”

Dimitri: “That depends on how far away the target is. Do you want the trajectory to end on the ground, detonating the shrapnel shells?”

“Yes, I anticipate that today the enemy will use smoke to cover their engineers laying mines. Our response is to use yesterday’s calibrated data to fire shrapnel shells to disrupt the engineers’ operations.”

“It’s simple; I’ll produce a new set of data immediately.”

At that point, the phone rang.

Wang Zhong picked up himself: “This is Rocossov, what’s happening?”

“You’d better come over to the Brigade headquarters. We’ve received orders from the Front Army command,” said Pavlov on the other end of the phone.

————

Brigade Command.

“Your unit is to hold its current position until 8 pm on July 11th to allow the Front Army to form a new defensive line.” After reading the orders, Wang Zhong looked up at Pavlov, “So the Front Army has finally realized that Bogdanovka has been lost?”

Pavlov shook his head: “Not yet, we’ve received many telegrams from Bogdanovka. But the 23rd Armored Division tasked with the breakout has already been destroyed. What’s left of them is said to have retreated to our north at Dolgy.”

Pavlov tapped on the map where there was a marker for an armored force.

Wang Zhong: “Was the map updated this morning?”

“Yes. The Front Army intelligence department believes the force opposite us is part of the 15th Armored Division, with some auxiliary forces added. They think we can hold perfectly with our fortifications.”

Wang Zhong frowned: “The enemy’s armored division has at least fifteen thousand men. Including our defensive battalion and the reconstituted 5th Bieshensk Battalion, we have just over two thousand men, and we are extremely short of technical equipment with only three anti-tank cannons! The enemy could have hundreds of tanks!”

Pavlov looked distressed: “The Front Army insists we only have a part of the 15th Armored opposite us.”

Wang Zhong was just about to curse when explosions sounded outside.

However, the sound was faint, like distant thunder.

Wang Zhong: “What’s that? Is another area being shelled?”

Grigori rushed into the Brigade headquarters: “It’s mortars, sounds like the 120mm heavy mortars.”

Wang Zhong: “That must be the divisional artillery of the 15th Armored.”

He had commanded the 15th Armored in the game “Steel Division” and was familiar with their capabilities.

He placed his hand over the phone, just waiting for the ring.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“This is Rocossov, go ahead.”

Yegorov’s voice came from the operations center on the other end of the line: “The enemy has started using smoke. They’re likely prepping for mine-laying by engineers. Before the smoke rose, the artillery sight caught one of the engineer tanks moving along the road, probably to clear mines there first—even though we have no mines on the road.”

Wang Zhong: “Open fire first, and remember to cover the front of the 76mm gun position with smoke.”

Since the firing was based on pre-set coordinates for blind firing, it made sense to cover the front of their own gun positions to prevent the enemy from spotting them.

“I’ll head back right away.”

After hanging up the phone, Wang Zhong told Pavlov: “Keep pleading poverty with the higher-ups; we definitely can’t stop an entire armored division with just these troops we have now. It’s up to you!”