The Fourth Calamity never believed in the steel torrent!

Chapter 38 New Mission: Hold Coldwater Town!

After hearing Andrei's words, Lieutenant Colonel Unere nodded and said:
"That's right. Lieutenant General Matvey has given orders to my regiment. We need to stay in this town for three days to cover the retreat of the other troops!"

"The bridge where this town is located is an important transportation hub. If we can stop the enemy here, they will have to take a detour of at least a hundred kilometers to cross this river!"

Then, he looked at Andrei and asked:
"Captain Vorontsov, what is the mission of your unit?"

Andrei gave a wry smile, shrugged, and said:

"Unfortunately, our unit doesn't have any missions right now. It seems our division has been surrounded by the enemy!"

"My company was originally on the front line of the trenches when we suddenly received orders to retreat. Before we could even get back down, we were hit by artillery fire ahead of schedule!"

"The shelling was very rushed and even killed some of our friendly troops. When the enemy attacked, I led my men in a counterattack and luckily escaped under the cover of night. We finally got here after many twists and turns."

"So to be honest, I don't know what mission our unit has now. Our unit is actually just a bunch of remnants cobbled together from various places!"

Upon hearing this, Lieutenant Colonel Unere's eyes lit up.

“Very well, in that case, your troops will stay and help me defend this town!”

"I now wish to recruit you and the troops behind you into my infantry regiment. What do you think?"

After thinking for a moment, Andrei turned to look at Major Yuri beside him and exchanged a glance with him.

Immediately afterwards, the two of them agreed to the conscription.

Unfortunately, Andrei did consider leading his troops to continue retreating, but given the current situation, continuing to retreat was definitely not appropriate.

Putting aside whether Lieutenant Colonel Unere would be willing to let his troops pass by like this, even if they did withdraw, he would have a hard time explaining himself later.

To put it bluntly, the troops at the front are busy fighting, and you just lead your troops and run away from the front. What is this if not desertion?
Andrei couldn't guarantee that the men in the rear would care that his infantry division was surrounded by the enemy, nor could he guarantee that they would regard his troops as heroes who had broken through the encirclement.

On the battlefield, there are far too many people who are inexplicably shot as deserters. Even if he has the trump card of being a player, it is impossible for him to fight the Black Hawk Empire's army at the same time as fighting his own allies.

Moreover, as an officer two ranks higher than himself, Lieutenant Colonel Unere had the full authority to mobilize his troops at this time, and he had nothing to say in rebuttal.

Although the lieutenant colonel spoke very politely, if Andrei were to refuse so casually, it would be tantamount to being disrespectful.

Therefore, he ultimately decided to stay and help protect the town.

It's always good to follow the main force. Even if they retreat, he can be seen as a hero rather than a deserter who deserted without permission.

As the new orders were issued to the entire unit, the more than 300 soldiers led by Major Andrei and Yuri all agreed, and not a single coward wanted to leave.

For players, they don't care about danger; the more intense the battle, the happier they are.

As for the other soldiers, having witnessed the previous horrific scenes, they naturally felt a strong urge to defend their country and seek revenge in the face of national crisis. Looking at the expressions of those around him, Andrei was slightly moved.

He didn't know what his soldiers had done before joining the army; they were probably just ordinary people from various sectors of society.

But when war came, they all chose to take up arms to defend their country.

Regardless of whether they joined the army voluntarily or were forcibly conscripted, at least at this moment, each of them genuinely wanted to fight the Black Hawks to the bitter end.

After giving the order, Andrei and Major Yuri told their soldiers to find a place to rest as soon as possible.

The long march and the numerous skirmishes had exhausted Andrei's troops to their limits.

Many soldiers are able to hold on only because of the adrenaline rush, but this adrenaline rush can't keep them going forever.

Lieutenant Colonel Unere was well aware of the fatigue of Andrei's troops, especially since they were already so exhausted yet still managed to fight so fiercely, which earned the lieutenant colonel's great respect.

So the lieutenant colonel quickly arranged for Andrei's unit to be moved to the rear, allowing them to rest as much as possible and prepare to use them as a reserve force.

However, these players are not the kind of people who are willing to rest. They seem to have inexhaustible energy and are like a group of hyperactive patients on weekdays.

Andrei didn't know how players were calculated to quit the game and take a break, but judging from the current situation, these players didn't seem to experience frequent disconnections and were able to stay online continuously.

He suspected that perhaps these players had some kind of save function when they logged off, so that when they logged back in, they would automatically return to that point in time and continue the battle.

So from my perspective, these players seem to be constantly online, fighting for hours on end.

To Andrei's surprise, even though the fighting was raging, there were still a group of residents in the town!
Even though the outside world was in such a state of chaos, these residents still remained in the town and did not evacuate!

Andrei quickly inquired about what was going on with Lieutenant Colonel Unere, and also gave the player a warning that harassing residents was strictly prohibited, otherwise their favorability would drop rapidly.

Otherwise, he was worried that these players would definitely run over and do something out of the ordinary. He had already seen some players discussing in the chat whether or not they could lift up the skirt of the young woman next door!

"Lieutenant Colonel, what's going on? Why haven't they withdrawn?"

In response to Andrei's question, Lieutenant Colonel Unere simply shrugged and said:

"There's nothing we can do. We've tried our best to persuade these people, and those who were willing to leave have already done so. The rest of us are naturally unwilling to leave."

“We can’t force them to leave here right now, and we don’t have enough vehicles, so we can only let them leave on their own. Since they don’t want to leave, at least they can help us with some logistical work.”

　I recommend a new history book, the French edition of Little Generals.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)