As Yin Yan said, rats have entered the Wooden Age and started using tools.
This is just the beginning.
What is certain is that the mouse will give him more "surprises" in the future.
Although Zhou You didn't want this so-called "surprise", the matter obviously would not change due to his personal will.
There are rats in far more than just Lelai and Kangyue counties around the world.
Zhou You even speculated in his mind that maybe the rats in neighboring countries in South Asia had entered the Stone Age, or even started the agricultural age.
In today's world, no matter how bizarre a development is, it seems reasonable.
Before this, Zhou You had imagined many times that the so-called fire-raiser would appear among the mice.
He knew this day would come sooner or later.
He has also been doing psychological construction for this.
But even though he told himself countless times in his heart that I was ready, when the day finally came and a mouse using self-modified tools with obvious civilized characteristics appeared within the scope of his cognition, wandering around
There is still a lingering strong throbbing in my heart.
Now, you no longer need to go to the front to explore in person to know how the base of the high-voltage power tower moves.
Obviously, the mouse has known the significance and value of high-voltage power towers to humans early on, and has always wanted to get rid of this thing.
However, due to the characteristics of the UHV power transmission network, it is unrealistic for rats to try to cause a ground short circuit with their own animal bodies and then stop the power grid.
After all, the power tower is so high, and at the same time it needs to maintain a large enough amount of electricity for a long time, rather than being burned and carbonized by the ultra-high voltage electricity, and then immediately stopping the short circuit.
So if you want to use your body to destroy an ultra-high-voltage line, I'm afraid dozens or millions of rats will die at one time, and you may not be able to succeed.
Even though mice are capable of reproducing, they simply cannot withstand such consumption.
At present, the mouse may not have grasped the principle of metal conduction. Of course, it may also be that the mouse has not been able to find it for a while, or it may have thought of attaching a long enough piece of metal to a high-voltage wire to lead the current directly to the ground.
In short, the rats in Kangyue County adopted a seemingly clumsy method.
That is to use the natural burrowing ability of rats to hollow out the soil under the base of high-voltage electricity towers.
Then, naturally, the hated electric tower can be allowed to fall down on its own.
But it was precisely because of this stupid method that these mice figured out a wooden pull cart, a tool that could take them officially on the road to civilization.
Perhaps during the process of digging a hole, or perhaps when the Rat King first ordered to dig a hole, the rat realized that it was too inefficient to transport soil with its mouth alone.
At this time, it may be the Rat King, or it may be some "inventor" among ordinary rats, who thought of using the method of dragging wooden boards to increase the amount of soil that each mouse can move when entering and exiting the mouse hole.
Then, this wooden cart may have gone through some iterations and became what it is today.
Fortunately, the mouse has not yet realized the principle of circular rolling, or it may be that the bearing has not been manufactured for the time being. Otherwise, if the mouse now learns to add wheels to the bottom of the flatbed truck, the team led by Zhou You and Deng Tao will collapse.
A few people were lost.
"Oh my god! I feel like the base moved downwards just now. It might really fall over!"
Yin Yan's startled shouting came again from the intercom.
Zhou You turned to look at Deng Tao, about to ask him where exactly this high-voltage transmission line controlled the power supply.
At this time, Shen Moxin guessed Zhou You's idea and said proactively: "This line is the backbone network. In addition to managing the power supply in Lelai County, there are also power supply centers for several counties and prefecture-level cities going forward. It has something to do with it. This is what Shen Ling’s mother told me.”
Shen Ling's mother, Lin Youli, originally worked as an engineer at Fanyang City Thermal Power Station, so it made sense that she was familiar with the line network.
Lin Youli usually talks about work matters with her husband at home after work, probably because of Shen Shen's new personal hobby. Sometimes Lin Youli encounters some small troubles at work. This snake oil electronics enthusiast also Can give some reliable suggestions.
In short, after being reminded by Silence Xin, Zhou You and Deng Tao only thought about it for less than ten seconds and immediately made a new decision.
"Lao Gao, please stop the convoy."
Zhou You gave the order immediately.
Gao Zhanying immediately raised the red flag, turned on the intercom at the same time, and issued a parking order in the fleet command system.
On the other side, Yin Yan originally wanted to descend further to see the situation, but she finally attracted the attention of the mouse below.
The mouse pulling the cart looked up at Yin Yan's drone above and let out a squeak.
The next moment, a bunch of rats swarmed out from the upper area.
Yin Yan discovered that the heads of some of the rats were actually covered with large helmets that looked like wooden boards.
This large helmet has two holes for the eyes, and there is a wooden thorn protruding from the top of the helmet, which is about half a decimeter away from the front of the mice's heads.
The spikes on the wooden helmets on some of the rats' heads have even been dyed red.
Of course, there are also some mice that are not wearing any equipment.
As soon as these mice appeared, the first action they took was to immediately run towards the big tree next to them, seemingly to gain height and obtain favorable terrain.
Fortunately, Yin Yan reacted in time and immediately raised the height of the drone.
Because just when her drone passed over an upper branch, a rat that had been lying in wait jumped up into the air and tried to hit the drone's rotor with its body.
Seeing this, Yin Yan exclaimed repeatedly, changed directions urgently to barely avoid it, and then quickly raised the height of the drone.
Just a few seconds away, her drone was hit.
On the other side, Zhou You and Deng Tao have returned to the car and are preparing to plan the next attack plan.
Gao Zhanying acted on his own initiative and decided to let Yin Yan continue to rise to the top of the treetops, out of reach of mice. When Yin Yan was safe, Gao Zhanying immediately put his head on the skylight and looked at Zhou Youer inside. people report the situation.
Zhou You and Deng Tao looked at each other and were shocked by the mouse's organization and careful planning.
"Now that our existence has been exposed, the rats will probably speed up their actions! There is no way to plan carefully! We can only set fire to the mountain! Burn all the rats on the hill! We can only pray for high-voltage electricity. Tabie was damaged because of this!”
Deng Tao said this.
Zhou You nodded.
He approved Deng Tao's proposal.
At this point, I can only take a gamble.
If you don't gamble, sooner or later the rats will completely collapse the base. When the electricity tower falls, the result will be the same.
If you choose to burn the mountain, you may be able to burn the "smart rats" who organized the operation inside, which can be regarded as a serious damage to the rats in Kangyue County.
After just ten minutes of emergency preparation, this elite force of 5,000 people immediately entered a state of combat readiness.
Three Langya IVs are deploying airbags on the roof of a box truck, preparing to take off.
Under these cargo cards, there are people one after another putting gasoline into mineral water bottles.
After taking off, there will only be seven to eight combatants on each Langya IV, and the remaining nearly ten kilograms of load will be used to carry gasoline.
The UAV squadron responded faster and had already set off in advance with a small bottle of gasoline.
At this time, the heavy-duty model aircraft helicopter that Silent Xin spent a lot of effort and hard work on and could retract the rotors with a total hoisting load of more than 30 kilograms finally came into use.
Three hundred single-person airships are also being inflated urgently and are taking off one after another from the open top covers of each box-type cargo card.
In addition, ground troops also began to dispatch after a slight integration.
Since there is no usable road from the highway to the hill, all wheeled vehicles cannot be used.
As for the multi-legged robots, after a simple balance, Zhou You and Deng Tao also decided not to dispatch them, and only let these armored vehicles patrol near the convoy, responsible for defense, and prepare to meet the army of rats that might come to dig out their nests.
The core combat power of the ground forces mainly comes from fifty elite troops equipped with deformable individual exoskeletons, as well as the humanoid armored robot used by Zhou You himself.
Of course, there is also the modified flamethrower carried on the back of the Zhouyou robot. The fire-breathing power has been reduced a lot, but the flamethrower can last for several minutes.
Next, the entire army of 3,000 people will be dispatched.
The remaining two thousand people will be responsible for the defense of the convoy.
Since this support force is here to perform combat missions, of course it will not just drive ordinary vehicles that have been simply modified.
The twelve trucks and eight family cars of various types held by this fleet have all undergone complete war modifications.
In addition to the installation of steel plate armor and steel wire mesh on the bottom of the vehicle, air intake grilles, heat dissipation vents and many other locations for sealing purposes, the vehicle itself has also been heavily weaponized.
Take box trucks as an example. These trucks not only serve as fortress motherships, but also have a large number of holes in the carriage. These holes are used for machine gun turrets, howitzer turrets and skirmisher shooting positions.
As for the modifications of those family cars, although they are not so exaggerated, they should not be underestimated.
Especially those hybrid vehicles with strong discharge capabilities use the principle of electromagnetic fly swatters to install electric shock blocking nets on the car body shell, which is definitely enough to give a drink to rats who try to climb onto the car.
Under the ceilings of these family cars, various launch pads and operating platforms are now installed. After lowering the windows to the appropriate position, there are at least three combat positions in each window.
In addition, most of the recruits and reserve members participating in this operation stayed in trucks, and those in these family cars were basically elites from the Zhou family and the county government.
This arrangement certainly has its purpose.
For example, when going to some relatively narrow areas and it is inconvenient for trucks to enter due to width issues, then you have to rely on these relatively low-width small vehicles to go deep into the area.
The combat members in the car should have been more elite.
In short, once they enter the combat posture and have people in the combat positions, these vehicles can immediately transform from transportation vehicles into war fortresses.
Just as Zhou You and Deng Tao speculated, after the rats digging in the mountain realized that their actions had been exposed, in addition to trying to kill the spy Yin Yan but failing, they did take other actions.
Rats have become more efficient at transporting soil.
In addition, there were indeed a small number of rats that looked more elite and began to move along the ground in the distance. They probably wanted to verify how many human troops were coming and whether these humans were elite.
Yin Yan, who was low in the sky, saw clearly the movements of the rats and immediately reported them back.
On the human side, the drone squadron that took the lead immediately received new instructions.
Their new mission is to kill the rat spies and blind the eyes of the rats to prevent the rats on the mountain from escaping early.
The drone squadron immediately dispersed and advanced in a straight line at low altitude.
Each drone is kept about twenty meters away from each other.
A total of twenty drones formed a horizontal formation about 400 meters long, with a height of about five meters above the ground.
Such a formation would allow these elite combatants to use their naked eyes to spot all the rats' spies.
After just five minutes, they were divided into three teams. Each team's reconnaissance team, consisting of about ten elite rats, was completely wiped out, and not one of them escaped.
At this time, the fleet of three hundred single-person airships had all taken off and were advancing towards the hill in a denser formation.
The three Langya No. 4 airships have also been fully deployed and are about to take off.
As for the ground troops, their movements are not slow, even faster than the Wolf Fang airship.
The average advancement speed of ground troops is about two meters per second in long-term rapid marches, advancing about 120 meters per minute.
Only five minutes have passed, and the ground troops have advanced 600 meters and are expected to arrive at the bottom of the hill in twenty minutes at the latest.
By that time, the drone squadron must have finished pouring gasoline and returned to replace the ammunition reserve type.
Some of the Langya 1 single-person airships should have started dumping gasoline at about the same time.
There are also some single-person airships with particularly high pilot skills, which should almost reach the base where the rats are hollowing out the foundation.
As for Langya No. 4, due to its large size after deployment, it is inconvenient to turn. The steering is not as flexible as a single-person airship. Moreover, the skeleton structure of the detachable airbag uses aluminum alloy, a material that is easy to conduct electricity. It is rashly close to high voltage.
Electric towers may suffer from breakdown effects, posing greater safety risks.
Therefore, the main task of the Langya 4 airship is to use its stronger carrying capacity and faster speed combined with the dual power of manpower and electric drive to first go to the back of the hill. One is to observe the terrain, and the other is to detect possible dangers of mice
Choose an area to escape and pour gasoline on it in advance.
Unfortunately, it is a relatively hot summer. It rained heavily a few days ago and the air humidity is high. Therefore, if you want to set fire to the mountain, you really have to rely more on a large amount of gasoline to heat up in advance.
If it is a dry winter, the cost of setting fires will be much lower.
But there is no way now.
The only good news is that due to the continuous sun exposure, the ground has been dry enough, and some parts of the ground have even been exposed to the sun to the point of cracking.
Another five minutes passed, and the drone squadron had replaced its equipment and ammunition, turned into a pure long-range killing mode, and started firing again.
This time the main mission of the drone squadron became to kill the rat spies.
In front, airships No. 1 and 4 have arrived at the bottom of the hill one after another and begun to take their positions.
However, the various flight units did not start pouring gasoline at this time, and were only circling and observing in the air.
In another ten minutes, the ground troops will arrive at the foot of the hill.
Zhou You gave the order, and many flying units began to pour gasoline.
In just three minutes, more than 300 flight units poured gasoline into a circular line with a total length of more than three kilometers, which happened to be a line at the foot of the hill.
After the outer layer of gasoline was poured, the low-speed air units immediately took off and left. The drone warriors carrying a small number of rockets slightly lowered their altitude and approached these oil lines.
Immediately afterwards, the soldier on the drone lit the rocket and shot it out lightly.
The flaming rocket drooped to the ground and immediately ignited the gasoline.
Watching the flames at the foot of the mountain spread rapidly, more than ten single-person airships suspended above the base immediately poured gasoline.
The gasoline happened to be sprinkled on the area below where the rats had made dense rat burrows.
Yin Yan, who had been waiting for a long time, shot several arrows accurately in succession.
Dots of fire spots sprinkled down, like barnyard grass seeds sprinkled in early spring.
Then the seasons changed, and in an instant blue and orange barnyard grass grew all over the mountain.
This area immediately burst into flames.
The mice near the hole immediately became confused and began to wander around like headless flies.
But the chaos only lasted a very short time, and the mouse outside the hole suddenly froze, as if it had received a new order at the same time.
The mice immediately turned around and ran into the mouse holes they had dug.
At this time, Yin Yan was controlling the drone to rise in height, and dodged to the side directly above the flames to avoid being caught by the rising thermal air.
Of course, Yin Yan did not forget her reconnaissance mission. She kept her eyes on the ground and just used the corner of her eyes to observe the general environment around her.
Now that her height has reached above the tree canopy, her main defenses are wires and the one-man airships of other comrades.
Yin Yan was minding her own business, complaining on the intercom, saying that even if these mice hid in the ground, when the mountain fire really burned out, they would still be able to burn the cave into a vacuum.
The rats inside will most likely die from lack of oxygen.
This kind of hiding makes no sense at all.
Zhou You and Deng Tao were thinking the same thing.
But soon the mouse in the hole slapped Yin Yan in the face.
About thirty seconds later, a mouse's head emerged from the first hole below.
As soon as the mouse poked its head out, it was immediately burned by the flames next to the hole, causing its hair to curl violently, and the pain made it squeak.
If the mice at this time were still ordinary animals in the past, they would inevitably succumb to their animal instincts and shrink back into their burrows, just like an ostrich that buries its head in the sand but exposes its butt when it is in danger.
There is no difference between self-deception and others' escape.
Even though the temperature in the cave will indeed be relatively low at this time, as time goes by, the air in the cave will indeed be taken away by the rising thermal airflow.
Even if the mouse in the hole continues to burrow deeper, and then buries itself in soil to isolate itself from the high temperature as much as possible, and seeks air from the gaps in the soil as low as possible, the mouse in the hole will still die of suffocation.
There is not one out of ten.
However, now this mouse immediately showed something unusual.
It actually jumped out of the hole against the high-temperature flames, then pressed its chest and abdomen to the ground and sprinted forward along the sea of fire composed of burning gasoline immersed in the surface of the soil.
This guy actually knows that the temperature of the flame inside the flame is relatively low, which can support it to run farther.
But it still failed to succeed.
Even if the temperature of the inner flame is slightly lower, it is not something that animals can withstand.
It only ran about three or four meters, and then fell head-on to the ground.
At this time, all the hair on its body had been burned away, and the surface of its body had begun to bubble with frying oil in the flames.
But its desperate charge was not in vain. On the road it stepped on with its four legs, the height of the flames became shorter.
At this time, Yin Yan in the sky understood that this mouse was putting out the fire.
But unlike humans who always subconsciously look for water or sand or other things to put out the flames when faced with a fire, this mouse used the stupidest of stupid methods, which was to use the hair on the bottom of its body to soak up the gasoline.
to reduce the intensity of the fire.
After the mouse fell, the next mouse immediately followed.
Unlike the first one, this mouse is covered with a thin layer of slightly moist new underground mud.
However, this new layer of mud seems to have little effect.
As the mouse ran, the soil kept falling. Before the mouse could run far, which was less than two meters away, almost all the new mud had fallen.
This second one stepped on the traces of the first one, and also rushed forward, and rushed over the body of the first one. In the end, it rushed forward another two meters.
The moment the second one fell, the third one appeared again.
Unlike the first two, this third one was actually dragging a fully loaded wooden cart.
Previously, Yin Yan had noticed that the mice that pulled the wooden cart out of the hole were taking very cautious steps, for fear that the soil in the wooden cart would accidentally be lifted up and dumped on both sides of the hole.
But the third mouse did the opposite, running very fast, as if deliberately spreading dirt to both sides.
The third mouse didn't make it far, and barely reached the spot where the second mouse fell. Then it also rolled into the sea of fire and turned into a teppanyaki.
But the third mouse has left the most results so far.
At this time, the wooden cart that was making loud noises and bursting with flames was already empty.
The soil was thrown unevenly on both sides of the road that the two mice in front had worked hard to cut out, slightly blocking the fire, and barely gaining access to life for the group of mice who were still stuck in the hole.
During this period, Yin Yan in the air also tried to shoot to hinder the mouse's movement, but unfortunately the flames caused the density of the air to change. When light passes through air of different densities, refraction occurs, similar to water flow.
But this refraction is more complex and irregular.
Yin Yan's three consecutive shots missed.
This passage still has scorching heat and little air, which can suffocate mammals. The flames can also damage the eyes of animals and confuse their vision.
If it were a human, it would probably still be impossible to get through.
Even if humans can hold their breath for tens of seconds without breathing, the burning of the body surface and the reaction of the eyes to the high temperature will cause humans to subconsciously close their eyes and then fall down.
But mice are different.
Rats naturally walk on their stomachs, and there is no such thing as falling.
The fourth and fifth mice from behind also came out, also dragging the cart, but each one rushed further than the other.
Finally, when the fifth mouse fell, a life passage was established that led directly from the hole to the edge of the small fire area, with a distance of ten meters from the hole.
Immediately afterwards, a neat group of rats rushed out of the hole in a long snake formation.
Yin Yan, who was high in the air, tried to fire the machine gun again.
However, it is too difficult to aim.
Although she also hit several times, she was not able to completely block the advancement of this long snake formation.
After the rats rushed out of the fire area, they immediately dispersed and ran towards the foot of the mountain.
Yin Yan controlled the drone and flew down, starting to chase.
Outside the fire zone, without the interference of refraction, Yin Yan's marksmanship became much more accurate, and her hit rate began to rise linearly.
But these rats are scattered and fleeing. Even if the sharpshooters Yin Yan and Luo Xun arrive together, they may not be able to annihilate them all.
Not only that, after getting away from the innermost fire area, Yin Yan looked back again, only to find more rats rushing out from different places behind her.
It seems that the rats in other underground tunnels have followed suit and found a way to escape from the fire area.
In the process of hunting and killing rats, Yin Yan never stopped reporting intelligence to the rear.
At this time, the UAV squadron had already changed its equipment, and returned again, crossing the fire line at the foot of the mountain from high altitude, and then plunged directly further inside, and began to enter low altitude to continue hunting the rats that came out.
The small number of single-person airships that were originally responsible for dropping gasoline on the inside had a small bomb load, but now they flew completely to high altitudes, preparing to return to the direction of the convoy for resupply.
As for the three Langya No. 4 airships and nearly 300 other single-person airships, they continued to lower their altitude outside the line of fire, taking considerable risks and maintaining a near-ground encirclement.
Although the ammunition in the hands of the soldiers on these airships is not much, it is impossible for all the airships to go back to resupply.
Their task is to consolidate the encirclement as much as possible.
As for the ground troops, which numbered more than 2,000, they had all dispersed and were advancing from both sides, preparing to form an encirclement around the entire hill along the fire line.
Currently, Zhou You himself is controlling the humanoid and walking at the forefront of one of the advancement routes.
Behind him were only a small number of exoskeleton warriors.
On the other advancement route, there was an elite combat team composed of Jiang Chao, Tang Dahe and a total of more than thirty Awakened Awakeners from the county who were wearing exoskeleton equipment.
Time passed bit by bit, Zhou You calculated silently in his mind, and speculated on the fleeing speed of the rats.
Finally, Zhou You shouted into the intercom system embedded in the combat robot to remind everyone to prepare for battle. Then he saw the first big black head popping up above the rocks in front of him. It was a hairy beast.
I was half feverish, but I didn’t know where I found a mouse rolling around in a puddle.
After the first mouse appeared, more and more mice appeared on the rocks on both sides, centered on the rock.
At this time, the humans and mice were facing each other across a front line of fire that was about two meters deep.
The flames were still crackling, and the burning line was slowly moving up the foot of the mountain.
Although it is summer, and although the air and leaves are moist, high temperatures can always dehydrate the environment and make the environment dry and flammable. Sooner or later, the fire will still have to burn.
The rats over there knew they couldn't delay, so they only paused briefly to organize their formation, and then charged towards the line of fire brazenly.
Some rats stepped on the line of fire and fell, their bodies lying on the ground still sizzling in flames.
But the rats that fell one after another used their bodies to build a relatively spacious road to the outside world.
More rats stepped on the corpses and still rushed out, and their speed did not slow down at all.
This demonstrates the advantages and strengths of four-legged animals like mice in running quickly on relatively rough roads.
The first mouse breaks out of the line of fire.
After that, the humans and the rat army immediately came into contact with each other, and the war was about to break out.
The torrent formed by countless rats rushed towards the not-so-thick group of roaming and exoskeleton armored warriors.
After this encounter, Zhou You immediately noticed that this group of rats was completely different from the rats he had faced in the past.
These rats have a more rigorous organization, and equipment of this kind has begun to appear on them!
For example, the wooden armor has been burned to black but has not actually burned, or there is a thick layer of yellow mud that acts as mud armor.
The rush of these mice is no longer the extremely simple swarm style of the past, but is happening in twos and threes, each with its own coordination.
Although the number of rats still held an absolute advantage at this time, they were not willing to fight at all. At most, they only pretended to launch a feint attack, and then their real purpose was to escape far away.
Even if occasionally a mouse frantically tries to climb onto the human exoskeleton and launch a fatal attack, its real purpose is still to cover other companions around it and continue to escape.
The powered individual exoskeleton armored warriors who were traveling around him had pounced on them one after another, but the disparity in numbers between the two sides was too great.
The humans were unable to form a dense defense line, and there were still more rats rushing out of the gaps in the human defense line.
However, Zhou You was not in a hurry at this time.
Behind him, there is a second line of defense composed of one-man airships.
After the one-man airship's defense line is breached, soldiers from other ground forces will form a third layer of defense.
Behind this third layer of defense, there is a fourth layer of defense composed of UAV squadrons that patrol and search over a wide range of areas in the air.
Even if there really is a mouse that is so powerful that it can pass four levels in a row, it doesn't matter.
Because there aren’t too many such cheating mice.
Zhou You never expected to be completely annihilated from the beginning to the end.
Even if only 60% of them were killed, it would be enough to call it a great victory, and this high-voltage electricity tower could be temporarily protected.
At this moment, Zhou You's eyes turned and were fixed on the center of the group of rats.
There he saw a very special mouse.
This rat is huge, with a body length of at least 40 centimeters.
The strange thing is that there is a person sitting on the back of this mouse!
It was a middle-aged man who was dirty and his clothes were in tatters.