Chapter 35: Failure

Wang Yuehan and Zhang Xiaoyu ran over at this time and were shocked when they saw the ruins in the tunnel.

"Regiment, regiment commander..." The two of them saw me sitting blankly next to the entrance of the tunnel without saying anything, and then walked up and asked hesitantly: "Is it the American's special sniper force?"

I nodded silently.

"Dog Damn American!" Zhang Xiaoyu threw his hat, got into the tunnel and joined the team to rescue the wounded.

"Captain!" Wang Yuehan sat next to me silently and handed me a cigarette.

I took the cigarette and put it in my mouth, and sucked several big mouthfuls at Wang Yuehan's ignition match. A choking smoke poured into my lungs, making me cough a few times. But that's what it was, which made me feel a little better.

After a long time, Wang Yuehan stood up, patted my shoulder and said, "I'll count the number of casualties!"

"Yeah!" I nodded.

Wang Yuehan is a careful person and knows me very well, so he knows that at this time, any words of comfort are redundant and useless.

Because soldiers never need to make excuses for their failure.

The courage of a soldier is not only reflected in fighting on the battlefield, but also in the daring to face his own failures. However, sometimes it is much more difficult to face his own failures than to fight on the battlefield.

Now I can't face this bloody fact. Even my beloved sniper rifle was thrown aside from me, and I didn't even have the desire to pick it up.

The sanitation officers and soldiers kept coming in and out in front of me, and soon carried the bloody soldiers out. But after a while, the tunnel became quiet, leaving only a bunch of red and black blood, and some messy red footprints...

"The statistics are out!" Wang Yuehan slowly walked out of the tunnel entrance and said heavily: "The third squad has suffered eight casualties, and only two people escaped unsuccessfully. Two casualties in the second squad, one in one, and a total of eleven casualties!"

Eleven people, this number may not be anything to the volunteer army's hundreds of thousands, but the cold gun troops in my hand are only thirty in total, and now there are almost half of them in one night...

"Captain Cui!" At this time, a correspondent ran up and saluted me: "The phone number from the division headquarters is called to find you..."

"Yeah!" I responded, stood up and walked towards the company command center.

Wang Yuehan immediately followed me, looking at him, as if he was worried that I would be scolded and wanted to say a few good things for me. But he didn't know that at this time, I wish someone could scold me, and it would be better to beat me up so that I would feel better.

After walking into the tunnel of the company command center, I took the phone call from the correspondent's hand and said weakly: "Report! I am Cui Wei!"

"Call Commander Cui!" The voice of Commander Wang came from the other end of the phone.

"I am!" I thought Commander Wang didn't hear it clearly.

"Call Commander Cui to me immediately!" Commander Wang repeated again in an orderly tone.

"Report!" I replied loudly: "I am Cui Wei, the leader of the 538th Regiment!"

"Are you Cui Wei?" The sound of a fist hitting the table from the other end of the phone.

"You are not!" Commander Wang continued, "You are not Cui Wei. Cui Wei is a soldier, a revolutionary soldier who cannot be defeated or crushed! What are you? You are a Confucian scholar, a Confucian scholar who has only a dozen casualties overwhelmed you! Commander Pang is right, you are not worthy of being a cadre at all, and you are not worthy of being a regiment commander! No, you don't even have the qualifications to be a soldier! What a bullshit leader of the 538th Regiment, you will get back to me immediately..."

"It's not about the 538th Regiment!" It's okay to scold me, but it's untolerable to scold my troops.

"You are not convinced?" Although Master Wang usually looks good-tempered, he still feels scary when he gets angry. He scolded loudly in a tone of killing: "You are the leader of the 538 regiment. It's not about 538's business, but who else does it have to do? The leader of the 538 regiment is so easy, no one will defeat him. How good can the 538 regiment be? The leader of the 538 regiment is a coward, so 538 is nothing..."

"They are not cowards!" I shouted at the phone almost hysterically, shocking Wang Yuehan and the correspondent beside me.

"If you are not a coward, stand up!" My voice was louder, and Commander Wang's voice was even louder. He shouted at the other end of the phone: "If you are a soldier, just pick up the gun for me and shoot those damn Americans!"

Both ends of the phone were silent. I didn't speak, and Commander Wang didn't speak. It was like a storm suddenly lost its trace, and the peace around me returned to its previous recession.

After a long time, the voice of Commander Wang turning soft came from the other end of the phone: "What's the matter?"

After thinking about it, I replied: "I don't know what the situation is yet, but one thing is clear. The enemy can see us in the dark night, and without searchlights or flares. According to my estimate, the US military should have a new equipment that can see us in the dark night without any auxiliary light source!"

"Well, is there such a thing?" Commander Wang was shocked when he heard this. Wang Yuehan and the correspondent beside him also looked at me with incredible eyes.

Night vision devices are not new now. Because Germany had invented night vision devices long ago at the end of World War II. However, the night vision devices that were just developed have many shortcomings, so even if Germany has such advanced equipment, it still cannot reverse the situation of their defeat.

Night vision instruments were not useful in the hands of the Germans. The US military that seized them was as if they had been treasured. They soon continued to develop and then pushed them to the battlefield on the current Korean battlefield.

However, night vision devices were not used in large quantities before, so not many people knew about them, let alone the volunteers who had been poor for decades.

So when the soldiers heard that there was actually a kind of equipment in this world that could see things in the dark without using light sources, it was like listening to myths. If it weren't for their belief in my character, I would be afraid that if I took it for granted, I would think that I was making excuses for my failure.

"No wonder they are so mysterious!" Commander Wang had no doubt about my words. He suddenly realized on the other end of the phone: "The intelligence personnel of the People's Army could not find out what the special unit of the Americans was. It turned out that they were equipped with such high-tech things and could see things at night! That's right! Commander Cui, the enemy has equipped this high-tech equipment, and even though we defeat You Rong, we can't blame you for this matter. Don't have too much ideological burden!"

I didn't answer. What Commander Wang didn't know was that I felt guilty because I could have thought earlier that the enemy would use night vision devices on the battlefield to avoid this casualties, but I didn't...

"The information you get is very important!" Division Commander Wang continued: "If the enemy is really equipped with this weapon, then our cold gun troops on other defense lines should be vigilant. This is not a trivial matter. I will report the situation to my superiors immediately and notify the entire army to be prepared! Your cold gun troops should not act rashly for the time being!"

"Yes!" I stood up and slowly put down the phone.

Although Commander Wang did not blame me much, and even heard the meaning of "explainable" in his tone, I could not forgive myself.

What I can't let go of the most is the lives of the eleven warriors. Yesterday they were still fighting with me, and they were still a living life. Their laughter, their confidence, their courage... are still in my mind. But now, all this will be the past.

Although I had experienced countless times of comrades dying around me before this, I never felt so sad. Because I felt that I was the one who harmed them.

If I could think of it earlier...

In a daze, I returned to the warriors' tunnel. After I went out to make a phone call, someone had already cleaned the tunnel. The blood cloth with blood was sorted out and buried. The blood in the tunnel was cleaned, and the blood on the ground was covered with new soil.

I know that this was done by Zhang Xiaoyu to his soldiers. This is not to say how careful Zhang Xiaoyu is, but a tradition among the soldiers of the volunteer army. If any unit suffers major casualties, other units will help clean the blood stains as soon as possible, in order to make the unit worried about the loss "feeling affectionately" and miss its comrades.

The tunnel was very quiet. Yang Zhenshan, Hu Zudi, and other soldiers all sat silently in the tunnel with guns, without saying a word. Most of the soldiers were still wearing bloody military uniforms and were unwilling to change them.

"Captain..." After a while, Yang Zhenshan raised his head, looked at me with his blood-filled eyes and said, "Captain, tell me! How can we kill those guys!"

I was silent because I didn't know what to do.

The enemy is a sniper, a sniper with a night vision device.

This is a totally unequal war because they will see us, but we cannot see them.

In the sniper matchup, even a little advantage can determine the outcome of both sides, not to mention that their advantages are so great that they are so unimaginable. So if we have to go up and fight them head-on, it will basically make the situation happen again tonight, or even worse!

Maybe, I can use the flares.

Because I know that the light of the flare can temporarily cause the US snipers wearing night vision goggles to suffer from temporary insomnia, but what's the use of it? They are snipers, and they lurk in the snow and we can't even find it during the day, let alone under the short light of the flare.

"Comrades!" I sighed and said slowly: "After this battle tonight, I think everyone has guessed what kind of weapons the Americans are using! That's right, they installed a kind of equipment on their guns, a kind of equipment that can see us in the dark!"

After hearing what I said, the soldiers all looked at me in surprise. Although they had doubts before, they still couldn't believe it was true. At this time, I heard that I was so sure that I finally believed this fact. However, this was still a bit beyond their imagination, just like the ancients who had always thought that the sky was round and the place suddenly discovered that the earth was round.

"I don't know what this equipment is called!" I said heavily: "Let's call it a night vision device!"

I wouldn't dare say that if I were in front of Commander Wang, but it would be harmless to say something positive in front of the soldiers.

After a pause, I continued, "It's not been a day or two for you to shoot cold guns. Think about it, if we can't see the enemy at night but the enemy can see us, then how can we fight this battle...?"

"But the leader!" Yang Zhenshan was anxious. He stood up and said, "Can we just let go of this account? Our eleven comrades were so idle? This tone... I can't swallow it! Even if I die, I will go up and fight with those damn gods!"

"What's the use of you if you die?" I couldn't help but feel angry: "If you die, don't you let our troops lose more money and make more contributions to those Americans? If all of our volunteers are like you, one by one, and they take turns to let the Americans practice shooting skills, then they'll be a big fuck! Don't think that you can't swallow this. I'll tell you, you have to swallow it even if you can't swallow it!"

After I said this, Yang Zhenshan took off his hat and threw it hard on the ground, and sat on the ground with a frustration.

"Captain!" Hu Zudi asked in disbelief: "What a night vision device in the American man... can he really see us at night?"

"Yeah!" I nodded helplessly.

The soldiers are also veterans who fire cold guns, and they all know that I was right after hearing this. If you go up like this, it will be no different from dying.

"Or..." Hu Zudi said hesitantly: "This can't be fought at night, let's fight them during the day!"

"If they don't come out during the day, what can we do with them?" I said with a wry smile: "What's more, if they rush to change a group of people into the lurking position before dawn, it will be difficult for us to enter the lurking position during the day!"

After I said this, the soldiers had no voice. This principle is actually very simple. In the past, no one could see anyone in the dark, and both sides could ride in the dark to enter the lurking position. But now the darkness belongs to the Americans. Their night vision makes our army unable to enter the lurking position in the dark, forcing us to enter the position during the day, so all the initiative will be in the hands of the US military.

"Captain Cui!" At this time, Wang Yuehan appeared at the entrance of the tunnel, waved to me and said, "Telephone number of the division headquarters!"

"Um!" I couldn't help but wonder when I heard this. I had just finished talking to the division headquarters. I didn't expect to call again so quickly. I think it was related to this night vision device!

Following Wang Yuehan, he ran into the tunnel of the company command center in three steps. As soon as he received the phone and said a report, the voice of Commander Wang rang out on the other end: "Captain Cui, I have reported this situation to the military headquarters. The military headquarters attaches great importance to this information, because it will involve the issue of launching all future battles in the future. Our army has always been good at night fighting in order to narrow the gap in equipment with the enemy, but unexpectedly, those American imperialists have invented this equipment that can see us at night. If this information is confirmed, it will have a great impact on the arrangement of all future battles of our army. This is a big problem!"

"Um!" I couldn't help but be surprised when I heard this. Before, I was thinking about the soldiers who died, but I hadn't thought of these things.

"In a sense... your failure today is another kind of success!" Commander Wang continued: "According to the analysis of the military headquarters, if the enemy has this kind of equipment, the US military can play their role better. It should be suddenly used on the battlefield when our army launched a large-scale attack. At that time, if our army knew nothing about this new equipment and launched a night battle against the US military as usual, the losses would be inestimable!"

"That's right!" Hearing the words of Commander Wang, I gradually came out of my guilt. At least their deaths are still valuable.

"Military analysis!" Division Commander Wang continued: "It is very likely that your cold-gun troops beat the enemy's snipers too hard, which forced them to use this secret weapon in advance. But now there is another problem, that is, all of this is just assumptions, and it is just doubtful. The so-called seeing is true, it is still unknown whether the enemy has such equipment. Only when we really get such a set of equipment can we make a decision! So the Military Command ordered us to get such a set of equipment. How about it? Can it be done?"

"Teacher..." I couldn't help but be shocked when I heard this.

If this was the usual, if it was an ordinary task, I would definitely answer "Yes!" mechanically as usual. But now this task...

"Teacher Wang!" I replied hesitantly: "This enemy can see us, we can't see them, and it's difficult to shoot cold guns. Isn't it too..."

"Of course there are difficulties!" Commander Wang interrupted me: "But Commander Cui, you also know that the current situation is still going on. Our large army cannot attack the enemy's positions unless it is absolutely necessary, otherwise we will be able to give people a handle at the negotiating table and fall into a passive situation. So we can only use small troops to complete the task, so who else can we use besides your cold gun force?"

"But we..."

"As for the issue of your cold gun troops reducing their personnel!" Commander Wang did not give me a chance to speak, and continued: "You can choose the elite of our division, and the artillery can also do your best to help you! Even if you want to let me, the old man, I won't say anything!"
Chapter completed!