You are ordered to support the War of Resistance against Japan; China enters Level 1 combat readines

Eighth Route Army Headquarters.

The battle report lay spread out on the table; the two thin pages felt incredibly heavy.

The room was so quiet you could hear the wind outside the window.

Then, a loud shout exploded out.

"absurd!"

A large, rough hand slammed on the table, causing the teacup to jump up and spill tea all over the table.

The vice president's face turned bright red, his eyes almost bulged out, and his chest heaved violently.

"shame!"

Another voice followed, equally unable to contain its anger.

The vice president slammed his hat on the table, then paced back and forth in the room with his hands behind his back, his boots thumping loudly on the floor.

"Killed and captured, 77,000!" His voice seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth. "Twenty days! Twenty days and it's come to this! Zhongtiao Mountain! That's the gateway to North China! And it's fallen just like that!"

The vice president took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to calm himself down, but his hands were still trembling slightly.

"We tolerated what happened in southern Anhui at the beginning of the year; we accepted the troop deployments to guard against us. But what about now? The Zhongtiao Mountains have been lost! Lost in just twenty days!"

"If the Fourth Army were still intact, if they hadn't left 40,000 to 50,000 elite troops outside the Taihang Mountains to watch us, and if we had sent another 30,000 to 50,000 to reinforce them, that would have been a total of 100,000 troops! Could we have achieved this?"

The executives remained silent, their eyes fixed on the map, saying nothing for a long time.

The vice president is right.

Zhongtiao Mountain is so important.

It is not just a mountain, not just a defensive line; it is the southern gateway to the entire southeastern Shanxi base area.

With the Zhongtiao Mountains intact, southeastern Shanxi would have room to maneuver, forming a strategic triangle with the Taihang and Taiyue Mountains to fight against the Japanese invaders.

However, once Zhongtiao Mountain was lost, southeastern Shanxi was surrounded on three sides.

The Taihang Mountains are to the east, the Taiyue Mountains are to the west, the north is the Japanese-occupied territory, and now the south is also lost. It's a complete dead end!

The chief of staff looked away from the map and onto the battle report.

Next to the battle report, there was another report.

That was the latest supplies statistic from the Jin-Southeast base area.

He looked at the report, his brow furrowing even deeper.

The vice president noticed his expression, leaned over for a look, and then fell silent.

"food."

The chief of staff spoke slowly, his voice so deep it seemed to be forced from his chest: "That old devil Okamura, although his previous bombing plan was thwarted, the farmland he destroyed can never be recovered."

The vice president nodded, his expression equally grave.

They won the previous air battle.

The plane that Mr. Shen brought took off and utterly routed the Japanese bombers.

But how many crops were burned to ashes by those incendiary bombs and the overwhelming sea of ​​fire?

This year's harvest is ruined.

"It's not just farmland."

The deputy general pointed to a few lines of numbers on the report: "During this period, we've been engaged in massive construction projects—arsenals, airports, warehouses, barracks…all of which cost money? All of which require supplies?"

The chief of staff replied with a wry smile, "The good news is, we have more weapons now, we have planes, we have tanks. The bad news is—"

"We're running out of food," the vice president said for him.

Silence fell over the room again.

The vice president walked to the window with his hands behind his back and looked at the sky outside.

The sky was still the same, overcast and gray, making it impossible to tell whether it was sunny or cloudy, but he knew that this autumn would be hard to endure.

"From this side of the Taihang Mountains, and the other side of the Taiyue Mountains, plus the newly incorporated troops, plus the workers and laborers..."

"Every day, just those who need to eat are hundreds of thousands of people. If each person eats one jin (500 grams) of grain a day, that's hundreds of thousands of jin, and over a month, it's several million jin."

"Several million kilograms?"

A senior official in charge of logistics shook his head: "You're underestimating us. The workers in the arsenal, the laborers at the airport, the road builders, the cargo transporters, and the military dependents... all added up, it's more than two hundred thousand."

The vice president turned around and looked at him.

"How long can our current food reserves last?"

The big boss didn't speak. He looked down at the report again, then looked up, his eyes filled with an indescribable complexity.

"Three months," he said. "Three months at most."

Three months.

It sounds like a long time, but what about winter? What about next spring? What if something unexpected happens during these three months?

"With the loss of Zhongtiao Mountain, southeastern Shanxi was completely besieged."

The vice president's voice was very soft, as if he were talking to himself: "We used to be able to transport some grain from the south, but now that road is completely cut off."

"The Japanese devils are to the east, to the west, and to the north! We're like trapped beasts."

He spoke the words "trapped beast" very softly, but when they landed in the room, they felt as heavy as stones.

The chief of staff remained silent for a long time, then walked to the map, looked at the area surrounded by three mountains, and suddenly smiled.

His smile was ugly.

"We've fought so many wars, what hardships haven't we endured? What difficulties haven't we overcome?"

"But this time..."

He didn't go on.

The vice president looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

"This time, we have more weapons, a stronger army, and we have airplanes and artillery."

The chief of staff's voice was low, tinged with an indescribable bitterness.

But alas, the food is gone.

He turned around and looked at the vice president.

"Tell me, what kind of mess is this?"

The vice president couldn't answer.

Silence fell in the room once again.

Birdsong drifted in from afar outside the window; the calls of unknown birds were cheerful, as if mocking the absurdity of humankind.

"We have to think of something," the vice president suddenly said. "We can't just sit here and starve."

The chief of staff nodded: "Send work teams to the countryside to collect all the grain they can. If all else fails, we'll have to reduce rations."

"Reduce rations?" The deputy commander gave a wry smile. "The army is expanding; how can we fight if rations are reduced? How will the workers in the arsenal work if rations are reduced?"

The CEOs fell silent.

They knew the chief of staff was right.

But they also knew there was nothing they could do.

In the past, this wouldn't have been a big deal; we could have just gone into the mountains, broken up into smaller groups, and fought a guerrilla war.

But now, people can go into the mountains, so how can airplanes and tanks go into the mountains?

More importantly, what about those captured counties? Are they just going to abandon them and let the people starve to death?

The bosses would never allow such a thing to happen!

But... what can we do?

Food doesn't just fall from the sky, does it...?

. . .

2025, Jingzhou, the old port.

The warehouse door slowly opened, and Shen Wang stood at the door, looking at the mountain of supplies inside, a smile involuntarily spreading across his face.

Grains, cabbage, potatoes, pork, salt, oil, sugar... stretching from the ground all the way to the depths of the warehouse, with almost no end in sight.

More than a dozen warehouses, all fully stocked.

"More than 100,000 tons..." Shen Wang murmured to himself, a sense of indescribable satisfaction welling up in his heart.

With these, things should be a little better over there, right?

A moment later, he went to the control room and shut down all surveillance.

Then close your eyes and let your mind wander.

The mountain of supplies piled up in the warehouse vanished completely in an instant.

The system's built-in storage space seems to be infinite!

A bold and crazy idea suddenly occurred to Shen Wang:

"Tsk tsk tsk... If I get the chance, I'll go to the US and see if I can bail out the Federal Reserve!"

Just imagining that scene is pretty exciting.

But now is not the time to think about that.

With a sudden thought, he vanished.