Wasteland Commander-Chapter 405 - 96: Promoted to Army Commander

Ye Fan originally planned to take Qin Sibei to the seaside for Xiaoba to identify something, but soon a major event occurred.

Zhu Wenming died!

Ye Fan had Yuri control him, which relieved the crisis in Dawn City and reversed the situation in the north.

Then Yuri sent Zhu Wenming to attack the Mountain River Base, which was almost a success. Under the siege of Zhu Wenming’s division, Su Qiao’s division, and part of the Dawn Army, the Mountain River Base and Huaihai Base were about to fall.

But unexpectedly, at this critical moment, Zhu Wenming was assassinated!

No one knows who assassinated him, but Zhu Wenming’s deputy now holds power and has defectively joined Zheng Jinnan.

Moreover, this unit suddenly launched an attack, catching Su Qiao’s troops off guard and causing heavy losses.

Su Qiao’s troops had to retreat and have now withdrawn to Yuanjing. The original plan to visit Dawn Island was also put on hold.

The situation north of the river, which was about to be victorious, was suddenly reversed.

The Mountain River Base and Huaihai Base received a respite and began to strengthen their defenses, preparing to continue the standoff with the Dawn Army.

Upon receiving this news, Ye Fan was also enraged.

Zheng Jinnan is indeed clever to have such a backup plan.

Without Su Qiao’s support, the Dawn Army has to face multiple enemies alone.

There are a million enemy troops in Jiangzhou, with Mountain River and Huaihai bases to the north, and Jiangnan Base to the south.

The total strength of the Dawn Army is now about 140,000 people, which is somewhat inadequate.

With a brief thought, Ye Fan decided to replenish his forces.

He set the full strength of the division at 180,000, now short by 40,000.

Continue to reinforce and bring the division to full capacity, then upgrade the military chief.

This is the first time Ye Fan did not think about natural growth, but rather was eager to rapidly build up troops to full strength.

The situation cannot wait, and it is clear Zheng Jinnan is planning something big, with over a million troops gathered in Jiangzhou yet showing no movement, he must be holding back a big move.

Ye Fan doesn’t know what the big move is, but it will undoubtedly be detrimental to him.

Fortunately, he still has 150 million funds on hand, so he might as well elevate his troops to full capacity to avoid last-minute scrambling.

Upgrading the military chief would obviously require more than these funds, but Ye Fan has assets.

In this period of campaigning, Ye Fan has accumulated a large amount of military supplies.

Not to mention the light weapons, there are plenty of those.

He has a lot of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and even aircraft.

The Engineering Corps has been busy every day, collecting these damaged vehicles and bringing them back to the repair factory on Dawn Island for restoration.

A large area of Dawn Island is now used to store these items.

Ye Fan decided to upgrade and decided to cash in on these items, otherwise, the funds are truly insufficient.

Having made up his mind, Ye Fan made a call and began to instruct his subordinates to send heavy weapons to the market,

while he immediately started rapidly building up troops.

The Dawn Army currently consists of five field brigades of 100,000 people, plus two Engineering Corps, a City Guard, two Land Air Force Groups, an Armored Group, an Artillery Group, and two naval aircraft carrier battle groups, along with three air force squadrons.

And several other various troop types, all totaling just over 140,000.

The primary troops able to be supplemented are the navy units, as Ye Fan originally set the naval personnel at 40,000, but it is currently less than 20,000.

Ye Fan considered and directly supplemented the navy’s third aircraft carrier battle group.

Currently, a naval aircraft carrier battle group is equipped with one aircraft carrier, two destroyers, two battleships, four frigates, and three dock landing ships.

An aircraft carrier costs ten million, a destroyer six million, a battleship three million, a frigate one million, and a dock landing ship one million.

The total cost of these ships is thirty-five million gold, plus the expenses for the carrier-based aircraft, which require six million, totaling forty-one million gold.

Including some assault boats and hovercraft, the total is approximately forty-two million gold, with a total force of about 7,500 people.

Ye Fan has already constructed five destroyers in Liancheng, now only needing to supplement one more to complete it.

So the cost of the third aircraft carrier battle group is thirty-nine million gold.

Ye Fan swiftly made his selection and then proceeded to augment a combat brigade.

This combat brigade was designated by him as the Marine Landing Brigade.

After unlocking the dock for construction, the option for Marines was added to Ye Fan’s list of soldiers.

The cost per Marine is 200 gold, the same as an Army Soldier.

Marines are more adaptable on ships compared to Army Soldiers, as they do not get seasick, and their other skills are about the same.

Ye Fan’s three aircraft carrier battle groups now have more than 23,000 crew members combined.

He has now set the size of the Marine Landing Brigade at 15,000 people, consisting of five regiments of 3,000 each.

The main combat vehicles are Type 15 light tanks and some armored assault vehicles.

All of these vehicles are amphibious, capable of disembarking directly from the dock landing ships and entering shallow waters.

The cost of each regiment is about 3 million gold, and Ye Fan has directly built up four regiments, maxing out the Marine Landing troops at once.

Having spent nearly sixty million, Ye Fan still hadn’t stopped.

For units like the Guard Corps, Ye Fan directly upgraded them to the Guard Regiment this time.

In terms of manpower for the Military Intelligence Bureau, Ye Fan directly supplemented with a thousand men.

Then, both the Navy Special Forces and the Army Special Forces were expanded to a regiment size of four thousand people.

The Navy unit was named the Deep Blue Special Operations Brigade, and the Army unit was named the Blaze Special Operations Brigade.

One represents water, the other represents fire.

This was Ye Fan’s intention, so both units could compete with each other to enhance combat capability in the future.

Afterwards, Ye Fan supplemented the garrison on Dawn Island, just like in Dawn City, forming a City Guard to handle daily defensive tasks.

This way, all field units can be freed up, as their mission is to fight battles, not perform daily defense.

After completing these tasks, Ye Fan realized his troop numbers had already increased to over 177,000.

There’s only a shortage of a little over 2,000 to reach full division strength.

The money in hand is also being spent rapidly; now only seventy million is left.

He then reorganized the Air Force and Armored units.

The Air Force had a total of three operational brigades, comprising 300 aircraft.

Including 150 Attack-16 fighters, 30 Attack-10 fighters, and 120 White Bear Bombers.

Each brigade is equipped with 50 Attack-16, 10 Attack-10, and 40 bombers.

Additionally, there are two early warning aircraft, two refueling aircraft, and 20 transport planes.

Ye Fan supplemented with one early warning aircraft, one refueling aircraft, and 10 transport planes, respectively distributing them to the three Air Force brigades.

With this, all three Air Force brigades possess significant combat power independently.

Originally, there were 1,800 tanks and armored vehicles of various models in the tank unit, and Ye Fan directly expanded to an armored brigade.

The full brigade consists of five regiments, each should have 500 tanks and armored vehicles.

Including 300 Apocalypse Tanks, 100 Type 99 tanks, 100 multifunctional infantry vehicles, and five electronic jamming vehicles as standard.

With originally 1,000 Apocalypse Tanks, Ye Fan directly supplemented with 500, spending fifty million just like that.

He further supplemented the Type 99 tanks, infantry vehicles, and electronic jamming vehicles, spending an additional six million.

Sixty million was spent in the blink of an eye, leaving only five million, nearly out of money.

There is only a shortfall of a little over 400 to reach full division strength.

Ye Fan continued by supplementing with 100 Engineers, dispatching them to various Combat Laboratories to accelerate technological research and development.

Seeing a shortfall of over 300, Ye Fan considered before supplementing with 150 Honor Guard members and 100 cultural troupe members.

These troops are useful, as the Honor Guard can add prestige—after all, the Dawn Army’s scale isn’t small anymore, needing some show.

The cultural troupe can perform for the troops, enriching officers’ and soldiers’ leisure lives, and can enhance morale.

With over 70 shortfall remaining, Ye Fan supplemented with 50 Magnetic Storm Infantry, all led by Hero Level Magnetic Storm Infantry Udyr.

Originally, there were already 50 Magnetic Storm Infantry; these 100 will demonstrate greater power, staying by his side, stationed in the parliament building for security.

With 20 remaining shortfall, Ye Fan considered and chose to supplement with over 20 Rocket Flying Soldiers.

Previously, some Rocket Flying Soldiers were already supplemented to the Military Intelligence Bureau.

Now, the Military Intelligence Bureau is strong and thriving, well-equipped with Scouts, Special Forces, Snipers, Electronic Warfare Soldiers, Spies, Rocket Flying Soldiers, and more.

This batch of Rocket Flying Soldiers is also for the defense of the parliament building, as his sister and Qin Sibe also live here now.

After completing the Rocket Flying Soldier supplementation, Ye Fan still had over three million to use for constructing ground-to-air missile silos scattered across key locations on Dawn Island and around the parliament building.

After everything was done, Ye Fan could be described as having spent to the bone, leaving only tens of thousands of gold in hand.

The expenditure of 150 million resulted in a full division strength, reaching a total troop count of 180,000!

At this point, the system prompt sounded.

[Commander-in-Chief, your forces have reached full division strength, would you like to upgrade to Major General?]

Ye Fan glanced at the meager tens of thousands of gold remaining in hand but decided to upgrade anyway. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Upon upgrading, let’s see what types of troops a Major General commands, then rely on the arms market to earn money to supplement new forces, using these to handle the imminent war.

"Upgrade!"

[Confirming upgrade... upgrading... upgrade complete!]

[Congratulations Commander-in-Chief, officially upgraded to Major General, now please determine full army staffing.]

Ye Fan had thought about this long ago; now, a division of 180,000 people is a composite division, typically an Army division of 110,000 is enough.

However, other units need to be considered, so the total troop strength shouldn’t be too small.

"One million!"

[Staffing completed, Dawn Army total troop count is set to one million, please check the gift package and new troop types, General.]