Chapter 1260 Tiger Brigade
three days later.
At 7:20 a.m., the night rain had just stopped, and the world was still shrouded in a misty rain...
The "Crescent" metropolitan area on the outskirts of the city—this newly developed area planned before the apocalypse—is currently shrouded in low, leaden-gray clouds.
Along the wide six-lane main road, glass-walled office buildings, large shopping malls, and residential communities that have not yet been fully occupied are scattered. The haste of the apocalypse has left this place with a more "new" sense of ruin.
Compared to the city center, the buildings collapsed less severely, but the abandoned vehicles, scattered debris, and ubiquitous dried bloodstains on the streets still tell the story of the past tragedy.
The air was filled with the earthy smell of rain, mixed with a faint, distant stench of burnt and putrid odors.
buzzing-
Suddenly, a deep, resonant, and rhythmic roar came from the direction of the night market's urban center, growing louder as it approached.
That wasn't the sound of a few scattered engines, but a resonance like the pulse of the earth produced by multiple high-powered diesel engines working together.
Immediately afterwards, at the southern end of Guanghua Avenue, the main thoroughfare running north-south through the "Crescent" metropolitan area, a moving steel figure broke through the blurred boundary between the morning mist and the ruins and appeared out of nowhere!
Leading the charge were three Type 99A main battle tanks, arranged in an inverted "品" (pin) shaped assault formation.
The lead vehicle had a ferocious tiger head emblem painted in white on the side of its turret, and a small, red battle flag, stained black with blood, was tied to the base of the gun barrel.
Following closely behind were six Type 04A infantry fighting vehicles, positioned on either side and behind the tank, with their 30mm autocannons and anti-tank missile launchers pointing to the sides. At the very back were two accompanying armored recovery vehicles and one command infantry fighting vehicle.
This armored squad is one of the vanguard blades of the 22nd Heavy Combined Arms Brigade, known as the "Tiger Brigade," which traverses the entire city from south to north and has made outstanding contributions. It belongs to the 1st Combined Arms Battalion of the brigade.
As the "Iron Fist of Assault" handpicked by the theater commander and the general command of the campaign, the "Tiger Brigade" received the most arduous and crucial tactical mission from the day "Operation Clean Night" was launched—to disregard everything and break through the core area of the entire night market from south to north!
For the past two weeks, this well-equipped and well-trained information-based heavy force has been like a red-hot forging hammer, smashed hard by Lieutenant General Wang Tiefeng, the overall commander of the campaign, into the "iron felt" of the night market, which is made up of millions of zombies.
Unlike other units that cleared out the enemy street by street and alley by step, they adopted the strongest will to strike, concentrated their superior armored forces and firepower, and launched a continuous, wave-like concentric assault along several main roads!
Their tactical objective was exceptionally clear: not to annihilate every enemy along the way, but to tear apart, disrupt, and penetrate!
Like an incredibly sharp scalpel, disregarding the adhesions and bleeding of the surrounding tissues, it plunges straight into the core of the lesion, determined to forcefully tear open shocking gashes in the tightly packed "necrotic tissue"!
As a result, they encountered unprecedented resistance.
Zombies surged in from all directions like a tidal wave, filling every street and climbing every building. Mutants mingled among them, launching insidious attacks. The mycelial network, which had been temporarily suppressed by artillery fire, began to writhe again deep within the ruins, attempting to entangle and slow the advance of the steel torrent.
The Tiger Brigade's response was an aesthetic of extreme violence!
The 125mm smoothbore gun of the Type 99A main battle tank frequently fired directly into the air during urban warfare, blasting hordes of zombies blocking the road into the sky with high-explosive shells; the 30mm autocannon of the Type 04A infantry fighting vehicle was like the Grim Reaper's broom, repeatedly sweeping away the threats from the windows and rooftops of buildings on both sides; the supporting firepower of the brigade's artillery battalion was on call at any time, turning any area suspected of having a large-scale gathering or the presence of heavy mutants into a sea of fire.
They did not care about the gains or losses of a single city or place, and were even willing to suffer heavy losses in battle.
Under the protection of armored vehicles, the infantry engaged in intense, short, and fierce dismounted combat, clearing away any remaining threats at key intersections, establishing temporary strongholds, and then immediately remounting to keep up with the rolling tide of steel.
The most frequent orders heard on their radios were: "Forward! Forward! Don't linger! Maintain formation! Charge!"
Two weeks of relentless, high-intensity assault left this formidable team utterly exhausted.
On the vehicle body, layers of filth and blood accumulated and solidified, its color and texture resembling thick dark chocolate.
Large amounts of minced meat and indistinguishable tissue remnants, like stubborn bits of meat that an old lady stubbornly shoves into her teeth when gnawing on ribs, are firmly embedded in the gaps between the track teeth, the joints of the road wheels, and every weld and seam of the armor plate.
Each tank seemed like a blood-soaked newborn, squeezed out from the depths of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, its entire body covered in blood, dripping and carrying the most primal and intense aura of death.
This "sharp blade piercing into the swamp of corpses" with astonishing determination and fighting power has carved out several "blood and flesh tunnels" tens of kilometers deep in what was originally a monolithic and interconnected horde of millions of corpses!
They completely disrupted, tore apart, and divided the densely packed horde of zombies in the city center!
The zombie horde, which was originally like quicksand, filling in wherever it collapsed and supporting each other, was forcibly cut off by the steel torrent. The distribution of zombies in the entire night market changed from a stubborn rock to scattered rubble after being smashed by a heavy hammer!
This move created a very favorable battle situation for the other units of the 2nd Army that followed up, as well as for the ground forces of the 1st Army that pressed forward from the east and west flanks.
They can clear the divided and surrounded hordes of corpses more easily, establish a solid defensive line more safely, and expand their gains more efficiently.
It can be said that the "Tiger Brigade" laid the foundation for the entire campaign by bearing the greatest pressure and paying a heavy price.
Today, the vanguard convoy of the First Combined Arms Battalion, as the tip of the "Tiger Brigade" and even the entire northward assault group, has finally broken through the last layer of dense urban blocks and appeared on the edge of a relatively open metropolitan area.
This means that the south-to-north penetration has been achieved!! It also means that the battle to reclaim the night markets has truly come to an end!!
Behind them lay a road of victory forged with steel, flames, and blood; ahead of them lay the suburban area that needed to be cleared in the final stage of the battle!
