175: Qianzhou (2)

There was a winery of considerable size here, its tall walls relatively intact, and one could even see traces of later reinforcements. More importantly, through the thermal imager, he could vaguely see a faint but concentrated heat source reaction underground!

"Surround the winery, maintain vigilance! Team One and Team Two, provide support on the left and right flanks!!" Li Yi calmly issued the order. The barrels of several apocalypse tanks and grizzly tanks turned slowly, their heavy tracks crushing broken bricks and debris, emitting an invisible sense of oppression. Armed helicopters hovered at low altitude, their rotors kicking up dust that filled the sky.

The massive roar of the tanks and armed helicopter engines clearly startled the "residents" inside the winery. A moment later, a hidden cellar door of the winery's main building was cautiously pushed open a crack from the inside. Immediately after, two figures crawled out, extremely vigilant. They were wearing police uniforms that were long since tattered and stained with dark brown spots. Although their faces were sallow and their bodies emaciated, their eyes were exceptionally sharp, and they held tightly to rusted police riot shields and riot forks fitted with bayonets.

When they saw the regular army outside, with their neat military appearance and equipment that was unimaginably well-equipped, as well as those sci-fi-looking tanks they had never seen before, the two were first extremely shocked and vigilant, and then, a surge of immense ecstasy and disbelief flooded their hearts!

One of the relatively tall police officers, his voice trembling violently with excitement, shouted almost with a crying tone: "It's the troops! Comrades... comrades in the military!! You... you finally came! You've made us wait so hard!!" He stumbled forward and grabbed Li Yi's hand. Those hands, rough from long-term malnutrition, now erupted with immense strength, trembling incessantly.

The other police officer was also too excited to speak, just saluting repeatedly, his eyes red.

Li Yi immediately returned a standard military salute, his expression solemn and respectful: "Comrades, you have worked hard!" He carefully examined the two. Their damaged, blood-stained police uniforms, sunken eye sockets, and sallow complexions all spoke of the hardships and immense pressure they had experienced over the past few months, and a feeling of sorrow and admiration could not help but well up in his heart.

Soon, as the two police officers signaled safety into the cellar, more than a hundred survivors crawled out from the underground wine cellar one after another. Among them were more than a dozen police officers, and the remaining civilians included men and women, old and young, all sallow and emaciated, dressed in rags. But when they saw the rows of mighty steel warriors and the bright military flags under the sun, the fear, despair, and hardships that had been bottled up for months instantly turned into overflowing tears. Cries, cheers, and unbelievable murmurs rang out. They were truly saved!

After a brief inquiry, Li Yi learned that these dozen or so police officers were from a police station near the winery. When the disaster broke out, relying on the limited firearms at the police station and tools such as police riot shields, batons, and riot forks, they had struggled to clear out their mutated colleagues and the initial zombies, and led the initial survivors to retreat to this winery, which was easy to defend and hard to attack, and had sufficient supplies (a large amount of rice, grain, and finished wine for brewing, as well as several deep water wells).

Relying on their duty and faith as police officers, they miraculously protected these hundred-plus people and survived four months of hellish time. Two of the police officers were even lucky enough to become Evolvers during their battles with the zombies.

"Contact the headquarters immediately!" Li Yi ordered without hesitation. "Report that we have discovered a large number of survivors and request the immediate dispatch of transport helicopters to transfer them to a safe area!"

"Yes!" The communications soldier beside him immediately connected to the channel: "Headquarters, Headquarters, this is the frontline combat unit. We have discovered a large-scale survivor gathering point at coordinates XXX.XXX, with over a hundred people. Requesting immediate dispatch of transport aircraft to receive and evacuate them!"

"Headquarters received, coordinates confirmed, transport aircraft departing immediately!"

...

Before long, several chinook transport helicopters roared and landed on the open space outside the winery. The survivors, supported and guided by the soldiers, boarded the aircraft in an orderly manner. They looked at the winery below, which was gradually getting smaller, and at the soldiers and tanks that had saved them, their eyes filled with gratitude and a longing for a new life.

These hundred-plus survivors were safely transferred to a refugee reception area planned in advance on the outskirts of the city. Here, 4 battalions of engineer troops had demonstrated astonishing efficiency, having already used simple materials to build more than twenty neat color steel houses. Although simple, they were sturdy and durable, and temporary water and electricity systems had already been connected to ensure basic living needs.

What shocked the survivors even more was that on the perimeter of the reception area, ten gun-gray, massive, and powerful-looking Tier 1 destroyer mechs were patrolling and keeping guard, like loyal steel guardians. There was also a company of fully armed Red Alert Soldiers who had built perfect fortifications.

Seeing these massive mechs that had only appeared in science fiction movies, the survivors all wore expressions of bewilderment and disbelief.

"When did our country... get such advanced weapons?"

"Who cares! With them here, we are safe!"

The immense joy of surviving the disaster diluted their doubts, and no one delved into these questions. They took the steaming rice porridge and pickles, which exuded a long-lost aroma of meat, distributed by the troops, and devoured them ravenously. Heaven knows how they had survived these past few months relying on plain rice and drinking strong liquor; at this moment, ordinary pickles and minced meat were better than any delicacies.

In the command room, Jiang Xin coldly watched the real-time images transmitted back by the high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, observing the urban areas occupied by the other two Corpse Kings—the territories of the [Thunder Scorpion Tail Corpse] and the [Swift Blazing Corpse]. The images showed that these two Corpse Kings seemed to possess some sort of simple intelligence. After sensing the death of the Giant Fat Venom and the power of the human army, instead of scattering and fleeing, they were driven by instinct to frantically gather and compress all the high-level zombies and Zombie Horde in the surrounding area into their respective core urban areas, which had a diameter of about four kilometers.

They were attempting to rely on human-wave tactics and complex terrain to make a final, desperate resistance. Within those two urban areas, a massive number of zombies had gathered, dense and packed like a wriggling colony of ants, among which the auras of high-level zombies were countless.

"Heh," Jiang Xin looked at the two huge red spots on the screen, representing extremely high threats, and couldn't help but let out a cold laugh. "I was just worrying about how to wipe you all out efficiently, and you actually gathered together to wait for death yourselves!"

...

Time came to the 8th day. In the central urban area with the municipal building as the core, the zombies within an eight-kilometer radius had been basically cleared. Advancing several dozen kilometers further, they would enter the north and south urban areas.

Jiang Xin no longer had any concerns. The bombing zones in the north and south urban areas had been repeatedly confirmed; there were no survivors present, and the few survivors had long since been taken away by helicopters. Therefore, in order to completely resolve these two major threats with the minimum cost and the fastest speed, the most effective and thorough method was—indiscriminate saturation bombing!

"I want these two urban areas, along with all the zombies inside, to completely disappear from the map! As for the houses, streets... everything can be discarded!"

There was not the slightest hesitation in his eyes. In the apocalypse, one must sometimes make cold and correct choices. With Qianzhou's population of eight million, according to his estimation, it would be an extremely optimistic result if four or five hundred thousand could eventually survive. If he did not make a prompt and decisive decision, the number of survivors would only plummet in an avalanche.

As for the houses, as long as there are survivors, with the powerful infrastructure capabilities of the Red Alert engineer troops, rebuilding temporary shelters would not be a difficult task.

In these 5 days, Jiang Xin used the gold obtained from sweeping and the remaining funds from before to produce 10 apocalypse tanks, 10 peacekeeper bombers (placed at Lujiang Base), 10 tesla tanks, 10 grizzly tanks, 10 rhino tanks, 20 kamikaze military trucks, and 20 armored personnel carriers, totaling 180,000 gold. The spending was complete, and Jiang Xin still had 400,000 gold, which could be said to be ample funding.

And tonight, late at night, would be the doomsday for these two Zombie Hordes.