201: Chapter 201 Military Column

At the same time.

Across over a dozen provinces nationwide and hundreds of temporary assembly points, military trains departed simultaneously within the exact same hour.

These trains were not listed in any public scheduling System.

They were absent from timetables and station display screens, and no information about any of these trains could be found on 12306.

However, the internal railway scheduling System knew about them.

At 3:45 AM, the national railway dispatch center issued the exact same directive to all dispatch offices along the routes—maximum priority.

When military trains passed, all civilian and commercial train services were to yield unconditionally.

Station broadcasts used a unified explanation: "Due to temporary dispatch adjustments, this train is delayed. Please wait patiently."

No reason was given, nor was it specified how long the wait would be.

The switchmen along the routes were the first to notice that something was amiss.

On the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway, Old Liu had been working for twenty years. While on duty in the middle of the night, he held an enamel mug and sipped his tea.

When the first military train passed, he put down his mug.

When the second one passed, he stood up.

The third, fourth, and fifth ones—

Standing in front of the signal tower window, he watched as train after train of unnumbered green-skinned carriages roared past his eyes, their headlights dragging into a straight line in the night while the ground trembled in waves.

In his twenty years on the job, he had never seen such a formation.

He picked up his enamel mug, wanting to take a sip of water to steady his nerves, only to find that his fingers were shaking slightly and the tea was swirling inside the cup.

By dawn, he counted them.

Through his station alone, thirty-seven military trains had passed.

Thirty-seven military trains, overnight, all heading in the exact same direction.

Old Liu squatted at the entrance of the signal tower to smoke a cigarette, crushed the butt out on the ground, and muttered to himself, "Something big is about to happen."

Secrets cannot be kept forever.

After dawn, the first video appeared.

The person who filmed it was a passenger trapped in the waiting room by delays, holding up their phone toward the outside of the platform.

The footage shook violently and the focus was off, but a dark green train could be seen flashing past the camera at high speed. Through the gaps in the window curtains, faint silhouettes of people in camouflage could be vaguely made out.

It was just a few seconds of blurry footage.

Posted online, its view count broke one million within twenty minutes.

Then it was like poking a hornet's nest.

Sightings videos from all over the place erupted.

Some were filmed on platforms, some on overpasses, and some from people's own balconies facing the railway lines.

Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan—over a dozen provinces nationwide simultaneously had military trains appearing.

Someone with time on their hands marked all the sighting locations on a map and connected them with a line.

The end of the line converged on the exact same place.

Southern Jiangsu.

But that area had no markings whatsoever on any public maps.

It was just a patch of green contour lines, and not even the name of a village could be found.

The comment section exploded.

"The train windows are completely packed with people in camouflage, densely packed."

"Thousands of military trains running simultaneously, what on earth is going on?"

"Are we going to war??"

Various speculations flew everywhere; some said it was a large-scale military exercise, some said it was border war preparations, some said action was about to be taken in a certain direction, and the most ridiculous one claimed that aliens had arrived.

This comment still had over a thousand likes underneath it.

But what truly ignited emotions wasn't these guesses.

It was the messages sandwiched between the speculations.

"My dad got a phone call last night and left today, only saying it was a matter for the country."

"My husband has been discharged for eight years, and yesterday he suddenly said he had to go on a long business trip."

"My brother left too, and we aren't allowed to ask about anything."

"To the person above, it's the same on my end. Before my uncle left, he only said a single sentence: it might take a very long time."

Tens of thousands of them.

The format was almost identical—someone in the family suddenly left without saying a thing, and all they knew was that it was related to the military.

These messages were screenshotted, reposted, amplified, and spread across all social platforms.

The official attitude was very subtle.

They neither refuted the rumors nor confirmed them.

All related topics were left up and not deleted.

But from beginning to end, not a single official media outlet came out to say a single word.

This kind of silence was more effective than any response.

Everyone knew that something huge was happening.

The real turning point was a comment.

A person claiming to be a railway worker posted saying that they had seen the people inside the carriages up close on the platform.

"They are on the older side, not like new recruits. Many of them have wind-weathered marks on their faces and calluses on their hands. Sitting in their seats, their backs are completely straight—you can tell at a glance they've been soldiers. It looks like discharged veterans are being re-conscripted."

This post was upvoted to trending.

The family members' messages beneath it poured out like an opened floodgate, even more numerous than before.

Within an hour, a topic spontaneously appeared on short-video platforms.

#SeeingVeteransOffToWar#

Two hours, one billion views.

Some people dug out old photos of the veterans in their families and posted them—standing in the barracks, at their sentry posts, crying while hugging their comrades on the day of discharge, and smiling like fools when receiving their discharge certificates.

Someone wrote a passage that was frantically shared:

"When they were soldiers, they protected us. After being discharged, they supported themselves, moving bricks at construction sites, tightening screws in factories, delivering takeout and express packages, and never asking the country for anything. Now, with a single phone call from the country, they went. They didn't even ask why."

The top-voted reply underneath had six characters—

"If there is a war, we will answer the call."

A video rushed to the top of the trending search list.

The picture was very simple, capturing just a dining table.

There were two sets of bowls and chopsticks on the table; the dishes hadn't cooled down completely yet—braised pork, stir-fried greens, and a bowl of egg drop soup. But one of the seats was empty.

The caption was just one line:

"He said he might be back after a long time."

The front rows of the comment section were neat and uniform, with only one word—

"Salute."

Thousands of lines were refreshed, and all of them were just these two words.

Scrolling further down, the style changed.

Someone posted a set of data—

"Last year, Eagle Sauce's military recruitment had a target of 60,000, but actually recruited less than 40,000, a gap of over 30 percent. It was their most severe recruitment crisis in decades. Recruiters chased after young people, offering tuition, relocation bonuses, and loan repayments, yet they still couldn't fill the quota."

"And what about us? Discharged veterans volunteered for conscription; overnight, millions of people got on the trains without even asking why."

Someone replied underneath: "They can't recruit people even by spending money, while our people rush to go even without getting paid."

This comment was followed by over ninety thousand replies.

Another post was even more hard-hitting.

It came with four pictures.

The first: On a street in Eagle Sauce, a discharged veteran sat on a cardboard box, holding a sign that read "I served my country, now I'm homeless".

The second: Veterans of a certain country pulled a banner to protest in front of Congress, demanding that the government fulfill its promises to veterans.

The third: Under a bridge arch, a veteran huddled in a corner, draped in a tattered national flag.

The fourth: A screenshot of Daxia's military train video. Through the gaps in the window curtains, neat silhouettes of camouflage.

Top-voted comment in the section:

"It's not that our veterans have higher political awareness; it's that this country has never mistreated them. That's why they are willing to do it once more."

Someone below started listing—

"Veterans' severance compensation starts at 300,000 for five years of service, adding 60,000 for each additional year, and it's tax-free upon receipt."

"Lifetime medical care is entirely free—not the kind with an 80 percent reimbursement, but entirely free without spending a single penny. My dad's heart bypass cost 470,000, and he didn't shell out a single yuan."

"Look at Eagle Sauce again; discharged veterans wait a year and a half just to apply for disability allowances, with tens of thousands wandering the streets. What about us? Serve as a soldier for a few years, and the country remembers you for a lifetime."

The final reply was upvoted to the top with a single sentence:

"Other countries treat veterans as consumables, throwing them away after use. We are different."

The news spread to overseas networks.

On Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, reposted videos were everywhere.

Foreign netizens split into two camps.

One camp was shocked: "Mobilizing millions of discharged veterans overnight? This kind of mobilization capability is too terrifying; what on earth are they trying to do?"

Another camp was bitter: "This is completely impossible in our country. Our veterans can't even queue up for medical care—you expect them to serve the country again? In your dreams."

An account claiming to be a discharged veteran from Eagle Sauce posted a long thread.

The gist was—I spent three years in Iraq, and after returning, I applied for disability benefits and waited for fourteen months.

For fourteen months, I waited while living in a tent.

If my country treated veterans the way Daxia does, maybe I would also be willing to get on the train after a single phone call.

The comment section under the post turned into a complete mess.

The phrase "If there is a war, we will answer the call" was translated into English and spread across overseas networks.

The number of reposts had already exceeded 30 million.