Chapter 1652: Chapter 1569: A Massive Port
After Frid finished his breakfast, he felt alive again. He was previously an air force pilot, so his treatment in Dorne was quite good, but clearly, the POW meals here in the Tang Empire were better.
He was able to move freely yesterday, but after reading the newspaper content, his mood couldn’t improve: the Tang Empire has expanded its landing zone again and seized a large area of dwarf grounds to the south.
That area used to be the station of the 1st Corps of the Ice Cold Empire, with robust defensive fortifications, but the severely damaged 1st Corps could not hold their ground.
The strong defensive positions were surrendered, and now only one-third of the dwarf’s 1st Corps is still holding its southeastern defense line, while the rest of the areas are occupied by the Tang Army.
If the Tang Army advances further, they might threaten the crucial Eternal Winter Port from the flank. Once the Tang Army occupies Eternal Winter Port, Tang Country’s troops, having a large port, can easily resupply, making it ten times harder for the Ice Cold Empire to push the Tang Army back into the sea.
Everybody is making decisions around this goal; the Tang Army is attempting to move south to seize Eternal Winter Port, while the Ice Cold Empire is reinforcing its defenses.
In Moss’s view, as long as he holds Eternal Winter Port, there’s still hope and room for maneuver.
Frid, before departing to fight, also heard this notion. His commanders told him that as long as the dwarves held the port, the Tang People’s supplies couldn’t land en masse, and the Tang Army’s offensive would definitely be curbed.
In fact, the Tang Country’s landing troops have indeed weakened their offensive in recent days. From all aspects, it seems the Tang Army’s logistics supply line indeed has some problems.
Of course, Frid didn’t know about these matters; he was shot down two days ago, so he couldn’t have known the Tang Army’s offensive has slowed down.
However, he received a notification today that he might not be able to loiter around the frontline battlefield hospital any longer. As a POW, he would be sent to the rear, leaving this land of Eastern Continent.
This was Frid’s first time leaving the Eastern Continent, but his destination wasn’t the Western Continent, rather the northern islands, the northern archipelago of the Great Tang Empire... It once had another name, Mirage Country.
So after breakfast, Frid stretched at the tent’s entrance and carefully looked at his surroundings once more.
Outside his ward were more tents. Their field hospital as pilots belonged to the Tang Army’s own field hospital: generally, the injured Tang Army Infantry would be sent here, enjoying the same treatment as the POW pilots.
As for those dwarven infantry captured by the Tang Army, their detention conditions weren’t as good. Most of the Ice Cold Empire’s infantry POWs had to fend for themselves; they had to repair their own shelters and wait for their POW doctors to treat their wounded.
The only upside was that their medicines were still fairly sufficient. The Tang Army had seized a large amount of dwarven self-use medications in the occupied area, with basically nothing in shortage.
Even a large number of weapons and ammunition were left behind in the occupied area; the Tang Army had no use for them, so they laid stacked in warehouses, unattended.
"It looks like you’re recovering well." The dwarf Fokke walked behind Frid and said, making a stretching motion as well.
Because he performed well, he was left to continue maintaining this small POW camp of pilots. Some people were handy, and the Tang Army was too lazy to change them.
Seeing these pilots were to be sent to the rear, Fokke was actually a bit reluctant because with the evolving battle situation, it was evident there wouldn’t be so many pilot captives anymore.
That day’s tense air battle cost the Ice Cold Empire too much; the frontline air force was completely out of contention, and under such circumstances, it was unrealistic to expect the Ice Cold Empire to organize troops for another aerial counterattack.
Without aircraft dispatch, naturally, there wouldn’t be a large number of pilot captives anymore; thinking that this small battlefield hospital probably wouldn’t restore the bustle it had experienced these days.
"Yeah, it’s a pity... wondering when I’d be able to come back." Frid was a bit rueful, sighed deeply before speaking slowly.
He wasn’t particularly attached to the Ice Cold Empire; he just thought about how long it would be before he might return to his hometown, Dorne, and made this lament.
"Though it’s regrettable, I still wish you a smooth journey." The dwarf Fokke consoled him and then saw the Tang Army vehicles arriving to take these pilots away.
Today’s coastline still presented a bustling scene, everywhere busy soldiers, countless tent construction sites, and areas stacked with materials.
As they passed these locations, Frid was stunned by the scale of the Tang Army’s landing; he truly hadn’t realized the Tang People had already piled up strategic materials here.
He saw various building materials displayed outdoors, saw rows of barracks, and various ammunition depots transformed from dwarven leftover fortifications.
Helicopters occasionally passed overhead; as Frid saw a huge cement bunker destroyed by artillery through a gap in the truck’s canvas covering, he vaguely heard the sound of a whistle.
The slightly jolting truck passed through the checkpoint and then stopped in the dock area. When Frid lifted the curtain and saw everything before him, he almost fell back into the truck.
It was an entire thriving port, a dozen docks constructed somehow were arranged before him, like giant arms stretching into the sea.
On one side of the docks, there were temporarily constructed cranes, large hoists unloading goods from ships, placing them beside waiting transport vehicles.
Countless soldiers were disembarking from the gangways extended from the ships, carrying their luggage, in neat rows.
Frid didn’t know how many soldiers he saw, but he was very sure that the Tang Army wasn’t lacking in attacking force or resources! Just the soldiers disembarking at the docks exceeded 2,000; they were well-equipped, morale high, and there was an area on the dock filled with hundreds of tanks and artillery, like a large armed parking lot.
He could see various transport ships across the sea surface, almost filling the entire horizon; ships were so frequent, Frid hadn’t seen so many in his life, his mouth agape, wanting to make a sound, but surprisingly unable to speak a word.