Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

When Xiaoyun brought the new technology to the command center meeting the next day, everyone was shocked by it.

But unlike Xiaoyun's expectation of everyone being excited with the introduction of sniper rifles that can be used against mutants, they were more excited over the aircraft.

"We have planes now?" Yezi asked the question in everyone's mind.

"Yes, but it's not some advanced plane like you think of. It still needs a lot of time to test. Since they aren't really plane designers or anything. They are just building this blind with not much help..."

After Xiaoyun explained what he saw during yesterday's afternoon visit to the factory, all of them were a little disappointed.

Except Han Bang, who looked a little intrigued when Xiaoyun got to the hot air balloon.

"Commander Xiaoyun, I think the hot air balloon has a very high potential for military use."

"Why do you think that?"

Xiaoyun curiously asked as he had only seen people using hot air balloons on those influences' bucket lists.

"Since the zombies can't shoot down something that is flying at a high altitude, we could use the hot air balloon as a scouting tool...

And if we can upscale it, we can even use it to carry a bomb and drop it on the zombies, or just a floating platform to shoot at zombies."

Almost everyone at the table nodded in agreement as they realized the potential use of the balloon.

"But isn't the hot air balloon too dependent on the wind? What if it goes the wrong way? Not to mention, it's not as simple as just upscaling it.

I'm pretty sure hot air balloons have a weight limit that doesn't allow whatever you are imagining it to be used as."

Wuli raised her concern as she felt Han Bang was overestimating its capability.

"You aren't wrong. They did tell me that the hot air balloon can't scale up bigger without something going wrong.

Still, I think the scouting usage has a large potential." Xiaoyun backed up Han Bang as he felt the potential usage he mentioned was still bigger than the drawback.

Wuli backed down as she didn't disagree with the usage of scouting, and she had fulfilled her goal of calming everyone down on the hot air balloon.

"Ahem, besides the new technology. I want to announce a new military reform that Yezi and I have been working on for the last few weeks."

Tianci and Kate began passing out a piece of paper to each of the twenty Majors at the table.

"As you know, we had expanded from thirty thousand soldiers to forty thousand, which is almost half of the town's population in the military."

Xiaoyun paused for a second to see their reaction. But none of them were surprised by the number.

"But we only have twenty official Majors and ten temporary ones at the table. So we decided to create a new rank of lieutenant colonel commanding a brigades containing five regiments."

Although the room remained silent, Xiaoyun could see the excitement on their face as he began to announce who was becoming the new lieutenant colonel.

"Lingang, Han Bang, Wuli, Li Miao, and Zhen Ren will be promoted to lieutenant colonel. They will total lead twenty-five thousand soldiers, with the remaining fifteen thousand soldiers remaining as separate regiments."

After a round of celebratory clapping, Xiaoyun moved on to the last part of the meeting.

"Since Lingang isn't here currently, I had already sent a messenger to deliver the news... Besides that, Han Bang's brigade will be heading toward Qingyuan to switch shifts with Lingang's brigade."

Han Bang nodded in agreement as he knew Xiaoyun was a little worried that Lingang was staying in Qingyuan for too long.

"And for everyone else, we'll continue looting Guangzhou until further notice."

"You're now dismissed."

All of the Majors left the room with a smile as they preferred looting the city with barely any resistance over fighting zombies any time of the day.

"Yezi, how's the ammo situation?"

"The stockpile is still recovering, but we have been producing more than we can use..."

After their business talk was finished, Xiaoyun decided to ask a personal question.

"Yezi, you look so much more active now. What changed?"

Yezi frozed for a second but then quickly snapped back.

"Everyone in the town is working so hard... I just don't want to be left behind doing nothing." Yezi explained.

"Well, keep it up. At this rate, we might be able to save humanity." Xiaoyun jokingly replied.

"Yeah, sure. We have barely cleared Guangzhou completely yet... Anyway, what are you planning to do with it?"

"To be honest... I don't know. Our biggest threat was the zombie hordes in Guangzhou, and they were mostly killed off now.

Right now, we are just looting resources off the city... Do you think we should expand to different places?"

Xiaoyun kicked the can over to Yezi as he really didn't know what direction the town should go next.

"Of course, we're expanding to other places... Our goal is to end the apocalypse, right?"

Xiaoyun nodded in agreement.

"But the question is, where do we expand?"

Both of them sat still at the table as they looked toward the map laid before them.

In the north was Qingyuan, and even further north was the remnant of the Southern theater.

On the left of them was Zhaoqing City and the route towards Guangxi province, which is still mostly unknown territory.

Meanwhile, on the right was the heavily populated Pearl River Delta, with the industrial hub Dongguan being the first city, and Shenzhen, which is even more densely populated, right below it.

The last direction, the south, was Foshan.

Many of the people who had entered Xiaoyun's town were refugees from Foshan due to its proximity. And going even south allowed them to access more seaports that contained valuable resources.

But all of them were densely populated cities that blocked them from even going outside the Guangdong province at all, with all directions being surrounded by zombies.

"We should clear Foshan first. It's just too close to Guangdong." Yezi pointed out.

Xiaoyun nodded in agreement as the two cities were practically one city being split in the middle.

"Then, after clearing Foshan, we can seriously consider which city to expand to."

"Let's go with that."

---

As November arrived, Lingang's brigade returned to the town once again.

And to Xiaoyun's surprise, Lingang returned with more people than he went with.

It wasn't just a small few hundred people. Rather, it was almost buses on buses of people in between the brigade surrounding them in the middle.

"Who are these people?" Xiaoyun asked curiously as Lingang got out of his car.

"They are people who were willing to leave Qingyuan with us. Zhen Ti requested us to take them as refugees since there has been a sudden influx of people fleeing from the north of Qingyuan."

"North of Qingyuan? Like in Shaoguan? Isn't that where the military control?" Kate pointed out.

"Even more north. They all said they came from Hunan or Jiangxi." Lingang explained.

"Did you ask them why they fled?" Xiaoyun asked.

"They said a war is going on, with even more and more brutal zombie attacks at their settlements.

And apparently, the local power there has completely lost control of their surrounding area of influence."

"Really... Only if we can capitalize on that situation..."

Xiaoyun thought back to the military being in the way as they were located right on the path toward the north.

"We could go around them. But we'll go through Liannan." Lingang suggested.

"Is there any drawback?" Xiaoyun immediately raised his concern as he felt it wasn't just that simple.

"Um, yes. It's controlled by the Yao people... They apparently are extremely anti-outsiders and have a connection to the tribes in Guangxi."

"That's off the table then. We're not trying to make a completely new enemy in a different province.

Anyway, it's not that important... How many people are in the buses?" Xiaoyun asked curiously as everyone was starting to get out of their vehicles.

"Around twenty thousand," Lingang replied.

"Just two thousand? Okay, that's good... Wait, you said two thousand or twenty thousand?"

Xiaoyun immediately started having a bad feeling as Lingang looked down at the ground with hesitation on his face.

"Twenty thousand..."

"What? Lingang, when did I ask you to bring this many people back? Have you thought of giving me a heads-up or something?"

Xiaoyun asked in anger, as there was barely any preparation for this many people moving in at once.

"Zhen Ti shoved them in and forced them to follow me... I didn't have a choice besides bringing them back."

Hearing Lingang's explanation, Xiaoyun calmed down a little.

"It's fine. You didn't do anything wrong... I'm going to need to talk with Zhen Ti again about this."

Xiaoyun took out his phone and proceeded to make a call.

"Babe, what's wrong?"

Yuqi's voice came out of the phone as she asked Xiaoyun the question.

"Twenty thousand people are moving into our town right now. Can you come over and handle it?"

Xiaoyun quietly asked as Lingang went back to directing everyone off their vehicles.

"Not again! How did you get so many people?"

Yuqi's voice sounded extremely irritated as she directed her question back at him.