Chapter 492 - 438: Dawn in the Mind

$10 million US dollars…

It was indeed a big deal.

Until lunchtime, Jiang Feng had not seen Song Heping come out of his room.

For the entire morning, he'd locked himself in.

Finally, when Jiang Feng brought lunch to his room and pushed the door open, he saw Song Heping sitting in the chair, staring at the map on the wall, with his laptop open on the table, also displaying a map.

"Old squad leader, it's time for lunch."

After being called twice, Song Heping came back to his senses.

"Oh…"

Seeing that it was Jiang Feng, Song Heping then turned around to take the lunch handed to him and started devouring it after placing it on the table.

Jiang Feng looked at the various symbols on the map and asked curiously, "Old squad leader, are you planning an attack?"

"It's not as simple as just attacking," said Song Heping, "That night, we intercepted so much AUC military hardware. Intelligence shows that it was actually provided by the government army, which piqued my curiosity. So, I had the company's intelligence department look into it, and it seems that things are going to get worse…"

While speaking, he shoved a piece of braised pork into his mouth and then used his chopsticks to point at the map on the wall.

"Look, the arrows marked in blue are the AUC's direction of attack, green for the government army's direction, and those blue-green dots mark their current concentration of troops. Judging from the current situation, I estimate that within half a month, they'll launch a joint attack on the ELN militia. This messes with my original plans. Now, it's not us who need to attack someone, it's them wanting to wipe out Morins and his men."

Jiang Feng walked up to the map and scrutinized it before exclaiming, "Fuck, the government army and the AUC have over thirty thousand troops combined, but the ELN militia only have slightly over six thousand… How can they fight?"

"They didn't even have that many to begin with," said Song Heping, "That number includes all hands on deck from the villages' self-defense forces, whom the ELN has pulled together with all their might."

He then asked, "Jiang Feng, if you were the commander of the ELN militia, how would you fight this battle?"

Jiang Feng looked for a long while and scratched his head several times but couldn't come up with a good plan.

The battle was a sure loss.

Unless the command of the AUC and government army was flawed.

But that was nearly impossible.

Because both the government army and the AUC militia were military organizations tempered through years of actual combat.

To say they were extremely clever would be an overstatement, but to hope for a victory through their sheer incompetence was a pipe dream.

"There's no way to fight…"

Jiang Feng pointed to the ELN's defense area and said, "Especially with this kind of long, narrow terrain, a Long Snake Formation, it's the easiest to be split, surrounded, and defeated in detail. If you let me command the government army or the AUC, I'd directly deploy several attacking groups to infiltrate in segments. As long as three or four teams succeed, it would cut the ELN militia's defense area into several sections. As a result, the ELN would inevitably fall into chaos, fleeing or waiting for death."

Song Heping nodded slightly.

He knew expecting some brilliant solutions from Jiang Feng was a stretch.

It was unfortunate that Ferrari was in Illiguo, otherwise he might have provided some useful ideas.

"However…"

Jiang Feng suddenly remembered something.

"Captain Li and his men might know."

"Captain Li?"

Song Heping's chopsticks paused.

His mind didn't process it at first, but then he remembered.

"You're talking about Li Sheng?"

Li Sheng currently held the position of the Captain of the school.

The organizational structure and staffing Song Heping implemented at the school were modeled after the PLA's instructional battalion.

The hierarchy went from Battalion - Company - Platoon - Squad.

Each battalion had a headquarters, including an instructor department, within which there were different instructor groups like shooting instructors, tactical research, artillery instructors, etc.

Li Sheng was the current Captain.

Before transferring to civilian work, he served as the Deputy Battalion Commander of a mountain unit, had completed missions, made achievements, and was a promoted officer, with first-class military knowledge but average education, which meant Deputy Battalion Commander was the ceiling for him, no further promotion.

After opting to choose his career, he returned home with the dream of making something of himself.

But he quickly found that the grand vision he had in the military was far removed from reality.

Business ventures failed and ended in losses, and his straightforward attitude at work alienated others.

A former platoon leader, in the end, he found himself unemployed at home.

Although he received a pension every month, the idle days made him feel more and more as if he didn't exist; he always felt inferior and became increasingly irritable, causing unpleasant quarrels with his wife.

When Jiang Feng contacted him through military connections, Li Sheng agreed without a second thought.

The reason was simple: Li Sheng had realized that, aside from the military, he was truly hopeless at anything else.

And Song Heping offered too much.

The average domestic salary was around one to two thousand, in RMB, but Song Heping directly offered a base salary of four thousand per month—in US dollars, no less—exclusive of allowances and bonuses for deployment to war zones or special missions, double salary at year-end plus a bonus, personal insurance, and two months of vacation every year.

Who wouldn't be tempted by such conditions?

Hearing this, Song Heping nodded his approval.

After all, Li Sheng was a retired Deputy Battalion Commander; he certainly had his own unique approach to military command.

Moreover, the man originally came from a mountain unit, and the area of operation this time was precisely in the jungle and mountains, right up his alley.

So, he said, "Alright, call him and the few instructors over to see what good ideas they can come up with."

"Okay, I'll go get them now!"

Jiang Feng hurried off eagerly, while Song Heping sat eating from his bowl and continued to study the map.

If he were to assume command of the ELN armed forces, he had means to cope, but Morins had imposed too many constraints.

He had to maintain the status quo in combat, which meant he couldn't flexibly employ tactics.

So how was he supposed to fight?

Li Sheng and the tactical instructors from the instructors' group were quickly summoned by Jiang Feng to Song Heping's room. As soon as they entered, Jiang Feng pointed at the map on the wall and said, "Captain Li, take a look at this situation map. If you were the Commander of the ELN forces, how would you fight?"

Captain Li greeted Song Heping and went straight to the map, where the instructors gathered and quickly came up with an idea.

Li Sheng said, "This is easy to solve. Both the north and south have vast areas of jungle and mountains. The enemy clearly wants to cut the middle section and strike the 'seven-inch,' so long as we consolidate our forces, group them in one area and drag the enemy into jungle and mountain warfare on a company scale, their high-powered weapons won't be effective, and their mechanized troops will lose mobility. We can fight a war of attrition. Plus, we'll have the home-field advantage and can win."

Just then, Song Heping scraped the last bite of food into his mouth and pointed at the map, "Now there's a premise, we can't move the current troop positions, we can only fight within the present defense zone. How do we fight?"

Li Sheng was immediately stumped and asked, "You mean we can't shrink the defensive area or consolidate the troops?"

Song Heping nodded, "That's right, that's the employer's requirement. Now, I need to devise a combat plan to win for them. All of you are retired officers, let's see how we can fight this."

Li Sheng and company could only return to the map, engaging in a heated discussion for a long time before coming to a final conclusion.

"We can't win. If we must fight within such constraining parameters, it's a senseless battle, a guaranteed loss."

Song Heping asked, "Really no way?"

Li Sheng replied without hesitation, "Of course! The opponent already has superior forces, and now we're supposed to adopt a Long Snake Formation? Isn't that asking to be slaughtered?"

Song Heping conceded that Li Sheng's analysis was correct.

After pondering for a moment, he nodded, "Understood. You guys go ahead with your tasks, I need to think of a solution."

Once everyone had left, Song Heping fell into deep thought.

He felt anxious.

The time was too short.

The constraints too many.

How to fight?

To give up?

That wasn't his style.

What to do?

What to do?

These words kept circling in Song Heping's head.

Even the most skilled cook can't whip up a meal without rice.

Morins had given him a mission impossible.

He continued to click through documents on his laptop, reviewing the intelligence Henry had gathered who-knows-how-many times, trying to find a solution.

Suddenly, his gaze fell on one of the photos, a glint of light flashing in his eyes.

"Interesting..."

Song Heping muttered to himself, a vague idea popping into his mind, becoming clearer and then taking shape...