In the weeks that followed, all parts of the United States, from coast to coast, were plunged into grief, people spontaneously organized in various ways to mourn the assassination of the former president, and diplomatic institutions and envoys of various countries expressed their sincere condolences and condolences to the United States government on behalf of their heads of state and government......

On the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean, William. McKinley became a focal point, the center of all activity. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

But on the other side of the vast ocean, not many people focused on McKinley, except for the departments, organizations, and individuals who should care about him: the emperor and his bureaucracy were more preoccupied with the constant protests against the state-owned railroads and the riots created by the anti-government groups at home, and for Tokyo—and as far away as St. Petersburg, the white-hot strategic decisive battle that was taking place on the Liaoyang line was the most preoccupational.

At the same time, this battle is also the main concern of the UMBRELLA mercenaries hired by the Russian Army. Everyone was aware that they would soon be given the order to take part in the battle and engage in a face-to-face exchange of fire with the Japanese troops, a task they were unwilling to perform.

According to UMBRELLA's rules of engagement and the personal experience of the mercenaries, a large-scale battle involving 300,000 soldiers is by no means a small mercenary can participate, even if they are equipped with armored vehicles, but in the face of the destructive power of field artillery, it is only a matter of time before these war machines with steel shells that are only a few millimeters and not much different from egg shells are reduced to a pile of burning scrap metal. As manipulators, their chances of survival are no higher than those of the infantry, and possibly even lower - at least the infantry can dig a trench or a foxhole for themselves.

In other words, "to fight" and "to kill yourself" are synonymous.

Unfortunately, they could not refuse the orders of the Russians: as a means of selling armored cars, St. Petersburg received authorization from the Pentagon to send mercenaries to participate in a number of small-scale, no more than battalion-level battles. The terms of the contract are well written, and the mercenaries still seem to have sufficient guarantees, but, firstly, only God knows whether the Russians will strictly adhere to them, and secondly, and only God knows, whether the scale of a battle is limited only to the battalion level.

A battle that begins as a battalion-sized battle is likely to turn into a fierce exchange of fire among tens of thousands of men at the end of the battle.

Every mercenary remembers the phrase that on the battlefield, accidents can happen at any time.

It's a frustrating fact, and when the mercenaries take it a step further and think that they will be fighting with the "grey animals" who are lazy, drunk, always stealing engine coolant as a substitute for vodka, and have little experience working with armored vehicles, they lose faith in their prospects.

The mercenaries were left to act on their own to save part of the situation, for example, by strengthening the armor with sandbags - although everyone agreed that this was a better measure than nothing, and that its greatest use was only self-comforting - but there were still some problems that they were extremely worried about while they did so.

Artillery support, this is one of them.

"I have a strong suspicion that when we go into battle, the Russian artillery will drop shells on our heads." Butz expressed his distrust of the Russian soldiers, tying the mouth of the sandbag tightly and throwing it to his companion standing on the hood.

The mercenary, who was using a rope to secure sandbags to the shell of the armored vehicle, temporarily stopped his movements and gave Butz a mocking smile. "The premise is that we can get artillery support from the Russians."

Butz raised his head, thought for a moment, and then let out a long breath. "You're right, maybe we won't get Russian artillery support at all, my worries are unnecessary."

"But I'm starting to worry." A third member of the crew joined the conversation, "Without artillery support, what are we going to do to defeat the Japanese?" ”

"Maybe they'll be frightened by these mechanical monsters and run away, like the Chinese bandits who attacked the Russians' railways."

"The first time, they might be scared away, the second and third, too." "But in the end, the Japanese will stay where they are and engage us in fire, especially when they realize that these mechanical monsters are not indestructible." ”

"Even if it turns out like that, it's much better than if we were bombarded with friendly fire." Butz accentuated his tone on "allies" in a way that expressed his sarcasm.

However, he did not see the expected results, and his companions still held their own opinions. "We may or may not be bombarded by Russian fire, but we may not - in fact, I think the latter scenario is much more likely than the former. It would be extremely unwise to give up artillery support just because we had a very slim chance of being harmed by Russian fire. ”

"What do you think?" Butz turned his head to another companion.

"My opinion is that whether we have Russian artillery support or not, we will always have to rely on our own strength to win the battle." He suddenly raised the volume and urged, "Sandbags! ”

"Yes, sandbag ......" Butz suddenly stopped moving, both in his hands and in his mouth, as if petrified, completely frozen and motionless.

His anomalous reaction startled the two mercenaries. They exchanged glances, then leaned over at the same time.

"William?"

"William. Butz? ”

To the relief of the two, Butz was immediately out of his stiff state. "What?" He asked.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing...... Butz shook his head and said slowly, "I just had an idea." ”

"Thoughts?" The two mercenaries exchanged glances again, and they could both see each other's surprise: they didn't understand why Butz was imitating Qin Lang - everyone in the company knew that their boss had a habit of thinking of a good idea whenever he was distracted while talking to someone - but before they could ask a question, Butz had already put down the sapper shovel and sandbag and walked to the front of the armored car.

He stood there, facing the armored car, with his left arm wrapped around his chest, holding the elbow of his right hand, while his right hand stroked his chin, carefully observed, thought about it for a few more minutes, and finally smiled with satisfaction.

"I need something." He turned his head and told his two companions, "A few brushes, and red, white, and black paint, or paint." ”

He didn't get what he wanted, only a barrage of questions. "Where are you going to find these things? Where are the Russians? I think you're going to be disappointed...... Wait, what do you want to do? ”

"Draw a pattern on the front of the car."

"What's the use of that?"

"Scare the Japanese."

"Don't you think that's redundant? These mechanical monsters are enough on their own...... Hey, William, where are you going? ”

Butz didn't answer the question, just raised his right hand and waved it, and walked away. Obviously, he was going to find the things he needed. His two companions stared at his back in confusion, and finally shrugged their shoulders together, and returned to the work of making and securing the sandbags; And when the two of them were done with it, their partner came back with a brush and a few buckets of paint.

Without giving the mercenaries a moment to ask where he had found the objects, Butz climbed onto the hood and began to draw the pattern he had in mind on either side of the front of the machine gun tower: a pair of vicious-looking eyes, and the eyeballs were unbelievably red.

Then he jumped down and drew a huge red mouth on the bonnet from right to left, with all its white teeth exposed—what looked like a crocodile, or a shark's mouth.

His two companions weren't entirely sure what he wanted to draw, but they had a feel for it.

"It does look a little scary." One mercenary commented, "But do you really think this mouth can scare the Japanese away?" ”

"And it's redundant." Another guy reiterated his point.

"It's always good to have one more means." Butz replied, adding, "The combination of this mouth and our mechanical monsters, if not to scare the Japanese away, can make them stunned for a moment to the point of forgetting to fire at us, so that we can reduce our dependence on the unreliable artillery of the Russians." ”

"Are you sure?"

"It is said that the Indians would smear oil paint on their faces to scare their enemies." Butz replied, however, that the answer didn't make any sense to his two companions.

"Scots also put blue and white paint on their faces, but so what? They were still crushed by the English, just as the savage Indians were crushed by us. One of the mercenaries said disapprovingly, then issued a warning, "And if the captain sees your work, he will definitely scold you for ......"

"I don't think so." A voice with a thick Scottish accent sounded behind them, startling him, "Mr. Butts will be complimented." Only those who openly claim that the Scots were defeated by the English, and who put them side by side with the Indians, will be rebuked. ”

Hearing this, Butz immediately flashed a teasing smile at his partner, who had changed into a bitter gourd-faced partner, and then turned with him and saluted their commander.

"Captain!"

"You're very creative, William." The commander nodded at him and said, "I'll roll it out to all crews." ”

"Thank you very much, sir." Butz replied loudly, smug smile on his face - as a mercenary who liked to complain and was therefore not liked by the commanders, he rarely received such a reward.

"But I hope your approach really works." The commander went on to say, half complaining, that "we cannot count on the Russians to provide timely and accurate artillery support." Hell, I miss our own artillery ......"

Perhaps realizing that he shouldn't mention this in front of his subordinates, he stopped, coughed twice, and started over.

"Gentlemen, prepare for battle, tomorrow morning we have a task to cover the attack of an infantry regiment of the Russians on the positions of the Japanese troops...... Damn it. He ended his speech with another complaint, "Those damn Russians really didn't keep the contract." (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )