99: Chapter 99 Small-scale airstrikes destroy military facilities

Looking at the meager funds remaining in the Multiverse Arms Trading System, Li Yi decided to sell all the collected oil and natural gas to convert them into system funds.

With the current international oil price at $70.08 per barrel, Li Yi's sale of the newly collected 70 million barrels of oil would yield $4.9 billion. At the China exchange rate of 6.9585 RMB per USD, this amounted to 34,136,359,318 RMB, or approximately 34.1 billion RMB.

Natural gas was priced at $664.75 per thousand cubic meters. Li Yi's sale of the newly collected 180 million cubic meters of natural gas would yield nearly $120 million, which converted to 832,619,900 RMB, or 830 million RMB.

The price of Phosphate was $345 per ton. Li Yi's sale of the newly collected 300,000 tons of Phosphate would yield $103.5 million, which converted to 720,214,353 RMB, or 720 million RMB.

After the sales, the system funds of the Multiverse Arms Trading System became 36,848,674,489 RMB, or 36.8 billion RMB. It had once again broken the 10 billion RMB mark and surpassed 35 billion RMB.

Seeing the rapidly increasing system funds of the Multiverse Arms Trading System, Li Yi felt even more confident.

With so much system funding, the amount of weapons and equipment he could purchase would not be small, allowing him to sell weapons and equipment even more and faster.

Li Yi was in no hurry to deliver the first batch of Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles to Iran; the delivery of anti-aircraft missiles to the Glass House only needed to be completed by next month.

The backlog of matters suddenly dwindled to just one, and Li Yi could finally rest in peace.

...

Hera Joint Military Base.

After receiving General Maitang's order to conduct airstrikes on Syria's military facilities, Lieutenant General Green did not act immediately. Instead, he waited until the replacement fighter jets were in place before formulating an airstrike plan.

During this period, the process of the USA and Raqqa Military Base exchanging the Conoco Gas Field for the wreckage of the crashed fighter jets and the remains of the officers and soldiers had some twists and turns, but it went quite smoothly.

Even though the Opposition Armed Forces were unwilling to hand over the Conoco Gas Field, they obediently withdrew under pressure from Lieutenant General Green.

Although a small number of disobedient Opposition Armed Forces personnel remained at the Conoco Gas Field, they were quickly annihilated by the troops sent by Major General Zaha to take over, allowing Major General Zaha to successfully take control of the Conoco Gas Field.

When Major Jafari saw that Major General Zaha's army had controlled the Conoco Gas Field, he did not break his word and directly handed over all the wreckage of the crashed USA fighter jets and the remains of the officers and soldiers to Colonel Wall.

This secret under-the-table deal was completed successfully. No one had any intention of making a scene, and the outside world did not learn of this secret transaction.

Although Lieutenant General Green lost the Conoco Gas Field, causing their 'oil-stealing units' to lose a source of income, obtaining the wreckage of the crashed fighter jets and the remains of the officers and soldiers quickly quelled the negative impact caused by the crushing defeat at Raqqa Military Base.

Lieutenant General Green was questioned by General Maitang, but there was no further punishment. He was merely urged to launch the airstrikes on Syria's military facilities as soon as possible, so as not to let Syria underestimate the USA's vengeful nature.

The airstrike plan against Syria was also finalized during this time. This airstrike was not intended to be large-scale, but rather small-scale strikes to destroy military facilities.

After all, the number of fighter jets at the Hera Joint Military Base was not as plentiful as it was when they first invaded Syria, allowing for a comprehensive airstrike.

To launch a full-scale airstrike, at least several Air Wings would need to be transferred from the US Central Command. But that was impossible under the current circumstances.

Therefore, the overall arrangement for this airstrike was to first use drones for exploratory reconnaissance. If Syria was found to have anti-aircraft missiles, that location would be skipped in favor of the next. Only when military facilities without anti-aircraft missiles were found would they swarm in for a carpet bombing.

The successive crashes of six helicopters and one F-16 Fighting Falcon forced Lieutenant General Green to proceed with caution.

If he lost fighter jets on a large scale again in this airstrike, he believed General Maitang would definitely kick him out of the Syrian battlefield and dump him in an unimportant department to sit on the sidelines until retirement.

The first airstrike target selected by Lieutenant General Green was the military facilities in Zarzur. Most importantly, it was close to the Hera Joint Military Base, allowing them to first test whether Syria's air defense forces had been strengthened.

As a Reaper Drone took off from the Hera Joint Military Base, it headed straight for Zarzur. The officers and soldiers operating the drone stared tensely at the intelligence being analyzed, checking for any hidden Syrian anti-aircraft missiles along the way.

Fortunately, they didn't find any Syrian anti-aircraft missile positions all the way to a military base in Zarzur.

Just as the Reaper Drone was about to approach the military base, a suddenly appearing anti-aircraft missile launcher was exposed to the operators' eyes.

The operators quickly maneuvered the Reaper Drone away from this military base and headed for the next military facility.

What was deployed at this military base were exactly the Tianlei Type II Anti-Aircraft Missile and Tianlei Type III Anti-Aircraft Missile. Seeing the Reaper Drone approaching, they prepared to use the Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missile to shoot it down.

Unexpectedly, the Reaper Drone sensed something was wrong and immediately fled the airspace.

This left the Tianlei Type III Anti-Aircraft Missiles staring helplessly; after all, the target had already exceeded their range, and launching the missiles would have been useless.

The soldiers at this military base were gnashing their teeth in hatred as they watched the prey escape their grasp, but there was nothing they could do. Who told them they weren't equipped with the longer-range Tianlei Series Anti-Aircraft Missiles?

The Reaper Drone circled Zarzur again, but the several Syrian military facilities it found one after another were all more or less deployed with anti-aircraft missiles. The operators didn't dare to approach for reconnaissance and had to give up on these military facility targets.

After some maneuvering, it seemed there were no military targets in Zarzur that could be easily bombed. The operators had to temporarily abandon Zarzur as an airstrike target.

Lieutenant General Green heard the report that Zarzur had yielded nothing. He did not forcibly order the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-35 Fighter Jets to take off for bombing. With the threat of anti-aircraft missiles, it was better to switch to other targets for safety's sake.

The second selected airstrike target was Gaeta, southeast of Zarzur. Syria had several military facilities built in Gaeta. After the Reaper Drone flew over Gaeta for reconnaissance, it found no sign of anti-aircraft missiles.

The operators were not at ease and maneuvered the Reaper Drone for detailed reconnaissance, confirming that there were indeed no anti-aircraft missile positions.

Seeing that a bombable target had finally appeared, Lieutenant General Green did not hesitate this time and ordered five F-16 Fighting Falcons to head straight for Gaeta, letting the military facilities there feel the power of USA bombs.