Chapter 223: 【International Public Opinion, the Commonwealth

Shen Yan's screen plunged into darkness.

He exited the training pod and sat up.

However, he still wore a pained expression on his face.

It was too brutal.

Calling in artillery support to blanket one's own position.

This was something he hadn't encountered before, so he hadn't anticipated it.

The image of the Volunteer soldier growling "Fire on my position!" into the radio kept echoing in Shen Yan's mind; he was thoroughly impressed, and he climbed out of the training pod.

Shen Yan glanced over and saw that Staff Qu Guang had already left.

He walked out of the training room.

The sentry on duty at the door ran over.

A short while later.

Inside the brigade headquarters.

Shen Yan walked into the room; Staff Qu Guang was writing something on the projection, and Shen Yan walked over, curious.

"How come you got out so fast?"

Staff Qu Guang looked over and said,

"I got a bullet to the head."

"It was simply absurd."

"From several hundred meters away, I was headshot by a Mosin-Nagant without a scope."

Shen Yan's eyes widened:

"Are you sure?"

You have to realize.

Even if you calculate it at 400 meters.

A person at 400 meters away is only the size of a grain of rice, and to headshot an object the size of a grain of rice—it would be one thing if you had a scope to magnify it.

Without a scope...

*Hiss*—

This was also the reason for Shen Yan's shock.

Staff Qu Guang nodded and said,

"I had that same expression at the time."

"Because I saw such a scene through the sniper scope, and I didn't believe it either."

"But it was almost instantaneous."

"The screen just went black."

"How about you?"

"What kind of scenario did you start with?"

Shen Yan recovered his senses and gave a bitter smile:

"Don't even ask."

"A siege scenario."

"I finally charged onto the Volunteer position under American artillery fire."

"As a result, the last remaining Volunteer soldier called in artillery support to bomb his own position."

"Who could have expected that?"

There was no need to say anything more; Staff Qu Guang already understood.

Mutually assured destruction.

Staff Qu Guang thought for a moment and said,

"When we train tomorrow, bring all the soldiers in."

"This 'Cold Gun, Cold Cannon' scenario is perfect for honing tracking techniques."

Although he knew they might not be able to track the Volunteer sniper.

After all, even he himself only realized it at the moment of death, and then he was taken out by a single shot.

But under that kind of pressure.

The soldiers' progress would surely be rapid.

More importantly, it was randomized.

It could train the soldiers' reactions to handle rapid changes in different battlefield situations.

Shen Yan had no objections and said,

"When do you plan to start the Battle of Triangle Hill?"

"Some should already be training on it."

Shen Yan had been in meetings for a while, and Staff Qu Guang had been handling the brigade's affairs; hearing Shen Yan's words, Staff Qu Guang said,

"Let's train on the 'Cold Gun, Cold Cannon' scenario for a while first."

"There aren't any activities lately, so we'll just go in order."

Shen Yan nodded:

"Fine."

"We'll do as you say."

A few days later.

Tian Sha Streaming Platform.

As the battles on the peninsula progressed, the first batch of battlefields had finally reached the Battle of Chorwon scenario.

In Yu Feng's stream.

Yu Feng and Fang Ming teamed up and were randomly assigned to a Volunteer position.

As soon as they entered the stream.

It was nothing but artillery thunder; there was no combat to be seen.

There was only the scene of Yu Feng and Fang Ming holding their heads, hiding in a trench, resisting the shock of the explosions.

After nearly 20 minutes of artillery bombardment.

The two, nearly deafened, scrambled up at the first opportunity and picked up their rifles to fire at the charging American soldiers and tanks.

The exchange of fire lasted less than 10 minutes.

*Boom*—!!

*Boom*—!!

The position was covered by artillery shells, and both their screens plunged into darkness.

They were ejected from the battlefield and returned to the main menu.

Fang Ming's stream was filled with comments mocking them for not being tough enough, and Fang Ming helplessly rubbed his face and let out a long sigh:

"Absurd."

"Too absurd."

"I've been playing 【World War II】 for so long, and I've never fought such an absurd battle."

"Do the American taxpayers know the American troops are wasting money like this?"

"Damn it?"

"They used artillery to bombard a small hill only a few dozen meters high for 20 minutes?"

"And that's not even counting how they do it for every single position."

"I've been randomly assigned the Volunteer identity three times in the last two days, and every time I was blown up like this."

"Hard, it's too hard."

Fang Ming sighed.

Compared to the dedicated scenario for the Great Xia Federation troops, where soldiers saw their comrades die one after another on the forward positions, feeling heart-wrenching pain.

Ordinary Blue Star players only had individual or team experiences.

So they could only feel the difficulty of the Battle of Chorwon.

It was simply absurd.

A group of Blue Star players had discussed and researched it for a long time before, but they hadn't figured out how to defend Chorwon.

Now they finally had their answer.

Can it be defended?

From the current situation, it seemed fine.

It was just incredibly brutal.

Yu Feng asked over the voice chat:

"Going again?"

Fang Ming looked at the time and said,

"Not anymore."

"I've been playing all day."

"My ears are about to be deafened."

Yu Feng laughed and said,

"That's just auditory hallucination."

In the game, it felt like they were being deafened, but that was just a virtual sensation; it vanished once you exited the game.

Fang Ming shook his head, leaned back, and stretched:

"Let's rest for a while first."

"I'm going to browse the forums."

Yu Feng didn't insist on starting another round; he had also been playing all afternoon and needed a break.

However, Yu Feng returned to his 【Single-Player Story】 mode and began using his reporter protagonist identity to collect game intelligence and skip cutscenes.

He tried to catch up to the timeline of the 【Battle Against the Americans】 mode; fortunately, although he hadn't played the 【Single-Player Story】 mode often, the time difference was only about 20 days.

Yu Feng quickly collected intelligence, and after standing still for a moment, the skip button appeared.

In less than two hours, he had caught up to the latest timeline in the 【Battle Against the Americans】 mode, which was the ongoing Battle of Chorwon.

At this moment.

The data Yu Feng had in his hands had been collected.

Among them was the current situation of public opinion in the United States; he flipped through it for a few seconds, and a smile appeared on Yu Feng's face. He waved the intelligence in his hand and said to the stream:

"Brothers."

"The Americans aren't having a peaceful time at home either."

Looking at the many curious comments, Yu Feng flipped through the intelligence and said:

"Before the start of the Fifth Campaign."

"Public opinion in the U. S. had been temporarily suppressed due to a series of counterattacks."

"But with the start of the Fifth Campaign."

"The Volunteers' large-scale counterattack has exacerbated the casualties of American soldiers."

"All the mainstream newspapers have begun calling for peace negotiations."

"After all, the cost of military victory is too high; how many days has the Fifth Campaign been going on, and already over 10,000 American soldiers have died."

"And then there's the British Commonwealth."

"Just two days after the start of the Fifth Campaign, the British 29th Brigade was shattered, and the British ace unit, the 'Gloucester Battalion' ('Royal Gloucestershire Regiment'), was annihilated."

"There are already anti-war protests in the UK."

"Including the British high command, they are also more inclined toward a ceasefire."

"The British Prime Minister and the French Premier have already submitted a ceasefire proposal to the U. S., but Washington hasn't replied."

"Now it all depends on the Battle of Chorwon."

"The importance of the Battle of Chorwon has already been analyzed."

"The current situation is that the U. S. still wants to hold on for a bit."

"If they break through Chorwon, then it's an American victory, and they can ignore those opposing voices."

"But if they don't break through, then they have to consider the consequences."

"Because if they can't break through, it means they can't sever the Volunteers' supply lines, which means this war of attrition will have to continue."

"Then they have to consider public opinion."

"After all, the current situation is opposition at home and opposition from allies abroad."

"The key point is still Chorwon."

"If the Volunteers hold it, the U. S. will have to stop and negotiate."

"Because they can't afford to keep spending."

"Actually, ever since the Volunteers entered the war."

"The first three campaigns had already extinguished the war sentiment in the U. S."

"From that point on, they were all discussing whether to stop the war."

"It's just that the American high command wanted to struggle a bit more, but didn't want to make things too crazy."

"So they replaced MacArthur, who was always threatening nuclear bombing, and brought in Ridgway."

"And then there was the Fourth Campaign, where they pushed back a bit."

"But now, with the Volunteers' counterattack, public opinion in the U. S. can no longer sit still."

"Taking advantage is fine, but losing even a little bit is unbearable."

"Losing even a little bit makes them consider a ceasefire, completely forgetting how domineering they were before."

Yu Feng said, then looked at the intelligence in his hand and suddenly laughed:

"Actually, it's also because the British and French can't hold on anymore."

"Now, on 'Earth', who is most afraid of the U. S. losing?"

"It's not their opponent, the Soviets, nor their opponent, the Republic, but their allies, Britain and France."

"Because once the U. S. loses the Fifth Campaign."

"The Soviets will inevitably take major action and strike at the entire European continent."

"At that point, Britain and France won't be able to resist."

"The European continent is flat, enough for the Soviets to strike from east to west without any obstacles."

"And the only empire in Europe capable of contending with the Soviets has now been crippled, not even allowed to have an army."

"So as long as the Soviet Union exists for one day, Britain and France must rely on the U. S."

"If the U. S. aura is shattered, the Soviets will inevitably move."

"So Britain and France want the U. S. to negotiate quickly, because as long as they haven't completely failed, the U. S. aura won't be shattered."

"The Soviets won't move easily."

"Looking at the current situation, Chorwon can be held, so now it depends on the various countries continuing to exert pressure to urge the start of negotiations."

Yu Feng explained the current situation, and the Blue Star players in the stream watched the intelligence in Yu Feng's hand with great interest.

On the other side.

As the 【Cold Gun, Cold Cannon】 training scenario had been going on for several days.

Basically every Great Xia Federation soldier had experienced all kinds of torture, either being headshot by a Volunteer sniper, or being killed in hand-to-hand combat, or being blown up along with their position.

The Great Xia Federation soldiers were tortured to the point of misery.

Some confident ones wanted to compete in sniping skills with the Volunteer sniper, but without exception, they were countered and killed.

Especially when some Great Xia Federation soldiers saw the situation on the other side through their sniper scopes.

The Volunteer sniper without a scope caused another wave of shock.

At this moment.

As the training was nearly finished, the Great Xia Federation's 7th Special Operations Brigade began organizing soldiers to enter the 【Battle of Triangle Hill】.

Inside the training room.

The soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Special Operations Battalions had already lain into the training pods, and Shen Yan and Staff Qu Guang were explaining from above:

"This 【Battle of Triangle Hill】 is different from the previous training."

"Previously, we only trained the 【Hu Xiudao】 scenario, but this time it's the entire battle."

"According to the Polaris Company."

"The difficulty of the battle is extraordinary, perhaps exceeding past battles, and you might even need a bit of luck; you will be randomly assigned to battle locations after entering."

"Get ready."

After Shen Yan finished speaking, the soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Special Operations Battalions lay into the training pods to start.

Staff Qu Guang and Shen Yan also lay in.

For the past few days, they had been hearing from military academy comrades in the chat group that this battle was, without exception, extremely difficult.

It was just that they hadn't experienced it personally yet.

As Staff Qu Guang and Shen Yan lay into the training pods, Shen Yan entered the key and started.

The screen flashed.

The whole person appeared on the battlefield in the story.

Shen Yan looked around; there were only a few soldiers from the 1st Company of the 1st Special Operations Battalion nearby.

*Boom*—!

An artillery shell landed.

Shen Yan and the other Great Xia Federation soldiers crouched down along with the other Volunteer soldiers in the trench, waiting for the bombardment to end.

Because the Americans would absolutely not just bombard once.

It was just that what Shen Yan didn't expect was... the duration of this bombardment was a bit long!

30 minutes... 50 minutes... 70 minutes...

Shen Yan only felt that his internal organs had already shifted, but the artillery shells falling from the sky never stopped for a moment; Shen Yan calculated based on his experience that the density of the shells had reached over 6 per second.

And that wasn't all.

On the "real-time map" in front of him, the area of this part of the Volunteer position was about a little over 3 square kilometers.

But the planes overhead.

Had already flown at least 300 sorties, dropping an unknown number of bombs.

Every breath felt like being in a scorching hell, with the nose filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder and heat waves.

Although he had heard it was very difficult before starting.

This difficulty also shocked Shen Yan and the soldiers of the 7th Special Operations Brigade.

It really was like money was no object.

This was only the first day of the Battle of Triangle Hill, and the Americans were bombarding like this; he didn't dare to imagine how difficult the situation would be later, and this was only one of Shen Yan's positions.

Shen Yan estimated that if all these positions were added together and bombarded like this.

The Americans were firing at least 300,000 shells a day, and as for the number of plane sorties... at least 3,000 as a baseline.