The traditional Chinese New Year is getting closer and closer.
During this period, in order to eliminate the influence of the news that Tang Zheng had captured Daliao soldiers, Liu Yibang broadcast news about the attack on Hezhou on TV every day.
The progress of the attack is updated every day, and it seems that Hezhou will be completely recovered in no more than ten days.
Liu Yibang himself even went to battle in person during this period and visited the front line of Hezhou, saying that he wanted to witness this historic and great moment with his own eyes.
In Zhuguang City, the New Year atmosphere is getting stronger and stronger.
Necessary things for the New Year such as Spring Festival couplets and firecrackers are also being put on the shelves in the streets and alleys.
Now Tang Zheng's material reserves can be said to be extremely rich.
The two county towns of Qingquan and Shuanglin were defeated. The materials in the two counties were more than enough to supply Zhuguang City and the surrounding bases.
Tang Zheng has not even announced these two pieces of news to the outside world, otherwise the supplies in the two counties will inevitably attract frenzied plundering by groups of adventurers or mercenaries.
Tang Zheng would only announce the news to the outside world after he had collected almost all the valuable items.
Tang Zheng now has a huge amount of gasoline, diesel, steel, copper, coal, building materials and other materials in his hands. It is more than enough to build two more light-seeking cities.
But the only thing Tang Zheng lacked was money.
Although the battle with Daliao was successful, and Tang Zheng even captured a lot of arms, these things could not replace gold and silver after all.
Moreover, the construction of prisons, railways, and the expansion of armored forces this time also made Tang Zheng's hands no longer easy.
Of the 15 million in funds, there is now only a little over 5 million left.
This money is not even enough to fully recruit the entire regiment, not to mention that upgrading the brigade commander requires a large sum of money.
After the troops defeated Daliao, Tang Zheng sent them to Caiqi County.
Caiqi County is the last county with zombies within the radar range of Zhuguang City. As long as this county is captured, the zombies within the radar range will be completely cleared.
However, this time without the help of Chen Feilong, the progress of the killing was much slower. It seemed that the colorful flag would not be taken down before the Spring Festival.
Moreover, the main source of gold and silver in Caiqi County is the core business district of the county. There are few gold shops in the surrounding area, so Tang Zheng cannot get much funds before the Spring Festival.
This incident troubled Tang Zheng a little. After staying in Zhuguang City for a few days, he started to make plans for the city.
The closest urban area to Light Chaser City is Lombard City in the north.
A little further away are cities like Fengcheng and Hezhou.
Every prefecture-level city in Hanyue is not small in size. Lumba is considered small, and the number of zombies in it is more than 20 million.
Going to a place like this is of course a big risk. If it was just to pick up a certain jewelry store, Tang Zheng would not go there.
But there is another place that Tang Zheng has always been thinking about.
That's the bank's vault.
The banking system of the Han Dynasty was as follows: savings offices were set up at the township level and branches were set up at the county level.
However, neither savings banks nor branches have internal gold reserves.
Only the royal branches in prefecture-level cities have gold reserves and often issue gold bars, commemorative coins and the like.
Tang Zheng's previous strength had never allowed him to go to prefecture-level cities. That was simply not a place he could go.
In fact, even now, Tang Zheng's strength is difficult to win a prefecture-level city. The Fifth Army has been fighting for more than two months with more than 100,000 people, and it has not yet captured Hezhou.
But now Tang Zheng's goal is not to win over prefecture-level cities, but to win over branches in prefecture-level cities.
He tore through the maps of several surrounding prefecture-level cities, and finally settled on Lombard City.
Compared with other cities, the Royal Branch in Lombard City was relatively easy to win, so he thought he could take the risk.
If this operation is successful, the gold obtained by winning the prefecture-level city branch will be enough to take his strength to a higher level. At least the whole group can be fully staffed easily, and there may even be some leftover.
After making the decision, Tang Zheng saw that it was snowing again today and the wind was blowing fiercely, so he led the team to set off.
The large army is currently attacking the colorful flag. This time, Tang Zheng led the guard company and the paratroopers from the Army Aviation Battalion and headed straight for Lombard City.
Lumba is located northeast of Zhuguang City, with a straight-line distance of more than 300 kilometers.
The plane flew for more than an hour and arrived over the city of Lombard.
Looking down from the plane, the city is gray and white.
White snow covers the city, and the gray buildings reveal the unique color of the end of the world.
Strong winds were blowing, the cold wind was howling, raging over the city, and the visibility was not high.
In fact, such weather is not conducive to travel, but Tang Zheng deliberately chose this day to go out.
The reason for this is because in this kind of weather, the zombies' perception is obscured to the greatest extent, and unless there is a particularly loud noise, they will basically not be alarmed.
Arriving near the branch, Tang Zheng discovered that the bank was a dome-shaped building and could not accommodate helicopters.
He directed the helicopter to land on the roof near the Lombard City branch of Hanyue Royal Bank, so as not to disturb the zombies on the ground.
After the helicopter landed, sure enough, the city was still relatively quiet, as if it were dead.
After scanning the ground with radar again, no level 2 zombies were found, so Tang Zheng was relieved.
"Paratroopers, first send a team to rappel from the top of the building and slide to the ground to see if the zombies will move. If not, then a large force will follow and enter the bank."
"After entering the bank, use a silent pistol to eliminate the zombies in the bank, and then the scientific research soldiers will open the vault. Can this be done?"
Guo Yun and some scientific research soldiers who followed nodded, and Guo Yun even patted his chest and promised: "General, don't worry, I am already a five-star scientific research soldier. Opening a bank vault is definitely something I can do easily. I will definitely give you a bumper harvest today."
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Tang Zheng nodded. With Guo Yun's guarantee, perhaps today's operation can really bring a huge surprise.
The paratroopers began to rappel from the building. After all, it was very windy and snowy today, and it was very unsafe to parachute.
Fortunately, rappelling is also one of their training subjects, and a group of soldiers descended smoothly.
Untying the ropes, the soldiers moved toward the Royal Branch.
On the road in the wind and snow, zombies stood there like human sculptures, their whole bodies covered with snow, motionless.
There were not as many zombies on this road as Tang Zheng had imagined. He originally thought that the zombies in this area would be very dense, but there were not many on this road.
Although he didn't know the reason, Tang Zheng was very happy that the troops could move faster.
When soldiers pass near zombies, they try to stay as far away as possible without making too much noise.
Under the cover of wind and snow, this method was quite effective, and we actually found a safe path.
It's less than a hundred meters away from the bank.
A soldier carrying a flamethrower stepped on a sewer manhole cover.
Perhaps because the flamethrower is relatively heavy, the sound is slightly louder.
Everyone around was startled, stopped immediately, and looked at the zombies carefully.
Even Tang Zheng on the rooftop was aware of it and looked nervously at the zombies on the road.
Although there are not many zombies here, once they are alarmed and start roaring, a large number of zombies will be attracted very quickly. Today's operation will be considered a failure.
The soldiers were also motionless. If zombies broke out, they would retreat immediately.
Time seemed to stand still, and ten seconds passed.
The zombies didn't move.
Everyone let out a long breath. The situation just now was too dangerous, but fortunately there was no danger.
But before Tang Zheng had finished taking a breath, he suddenly realized something was wrong!
The radar screen showed that countless red light spots were swarming towards this area!
The red light spot was like a river, moving very fast, but Tang Zheng did not notice any zombie movement.
"No! What's going on?"
Tang Zheng was stunned for a moment and hurriedly started to rotate the angle of the radar on the system page to turn it into a three-dimensional pattern.
Tang Zheng had rarely used this kind of three-dimensional map before, because the conditions on the ground were easy to observe, and it was impossible to use the three-dimensional map to scan the ground all the time.
But the situation was special at this moment. As soon as Tang Zheng rotated the radar screen, he immediately discovered something unusual!
Massive red light spots come from underground!
Tang Zheng didn't have time to say anything and directly gave the order: "Retreat! Run back as fast as possible!"
This paratrooper team was all five-star soldiers. After hearing the general's order, they immediately ran back desperately.
Just as they ran back, something happened!
The manhole cover of the sewer seemed to have been blown open by some powerful force, and it flew directly into the sky more than 20 meters high!
And flying along with the manhole cover were countless big rats!
Each mouse is about the size of a medium-sized dog before the end of the world, has a round body, and weighs at least thirty kilograms!
Their rat teeth have become extremely sharp at this moment, even sticking out of their mouths.
The black mane stood on end, the eyes were blood red, and it made a squeaking sound when it rushed out of the ground!
The torrent was so huge that it roared to the ground, like a fountain that kept erupting.
Rat tide!
A flood of rats rushed out, immediately alarming the nearby zombies.
The zombies seemed to be resurrected in the ice and snow, shaking off the snow from their bodies, howling and rushing towards the mice.
However, their sharp teeth and claws, as well as the terrifying zombie virus, were completely useless in the face of the rat tide.
Countless big rats howled and rushed over, and the zombies instantly turned into skeletons.
Tang Zheng even saw an iron-armored zombie that didn't even last ten seconds in front of the rat tide before being chewed into bones.
Seeing this situation, Tang Zheng was greatly surprised.
He had indeed seen rats among the mutated beasts of the last days in the past, but the rats were only in small numbers and did not have a climate at all. When had he ever seen such a large-scale rat tide?
"Quick, quick, quick! Go faster!"
The soldiers of the small team ran towards the way they came, using all their strength to run.
Fortunately, these five-star warriors are all super physically fit and can run faster than the world champions before the end of the world.
Moreover, the zombies along the way did save their lives and delayed the speed of the rat tide.
They then ran all the way back to the rappel place, grabbed the rope, and were pulled up.
The last soldier, who was a little slower, was immediately bitten by two big rats on his calf.
Fortunately, the comrades around him shot in time and knocked down the two rats. However, two pieces of meat were torn off his legs and he was seriously injured.
Looking at the soldier being pulled up, Tang Zheng breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he felt a little chilly in his heart.
He thought the world was like this, but he never thought that the world was also changing rapidly.