Chapter 1183: 1184The taste of the sea
Looking at the food on the plate, Ming Haiping felt like crying. He could still eat a slender dried fish in this closed environment, but his soldiers had nothing serious to eat.
In fact, Mirage also has some canned food. In order to increase the storage time of food, Mirage has also thought of some ways within its power.
In the beginning, when conditions were the best, Mirage had its own cannery. They would mix meat with starch or select fish with better quality to make cans for long-term preservation.
Later, raw materials began to be in short supply, and the quality of cans was not very good. When metal could not be used, cans and bottles began to be used. After cans and bottles could not be produced... they had no choice but to stop production.
With no energy and raw materials to produce luxury canned food, the Mirage's logistics forces began to consider using bacon or dried fish instead.
They will process vegetables into dried vegetables, dry salted fish into dried fish and store it in large quantities, and pickle some meat to enrich the menu.
But these things are still relatively few in number. In the supply sequence of the Mirage Kingdom, fresh vegetables and grain are the real pillars.
Without the pillars, there is no way for these side parts to continue to exist. Without the supplement of staple food, these dishes simply cannot withstand heavy consumption.
Subsequently, the entire central fortification area began a self-reliance production movement: people went all over the mountains and fields to find wild vegetables to eat, catch mountain rats or other things, and even opened up some places to try to grow food and other crops.
Some caves began to try to raise some animals. Goats or pigs that were easy to raise were also placed in relatively unsafe caves and raised in captivity.
But this is obviously not a good choice, because these animals will bring unpleasant smells and completely ruin the air quality of the entire cave.
The bad smell is only the least important aspect: what is really deadly is the feed consumed by raising these animals, which may keep the soldiers of the Mirage fed for a longer period of time.
This is the most direct reason why the plan to raise animals has failed: the energy conversion ratio of meat is too low. Even though the feed-like plants are very unpalatable, as long as you eat them, you will feel fuller than if you converted them into pork.
Many efforts failed, animal breeding was quickly stopped, and there was no point in cultivating farmland in the mountains. As long as the Tang Empire's bombers drop incendiary bombs or cloud bombs, these crops will disappear completely.
Bombers who cannot find any targets in the first place can easily select these easily identifiable targets and then drop bombs around these targets.
Farmland that takes time and effort to cultivate can be wiped out in seconds, so the option of farming is almost non-existent.
Hunting also became inefficient because the controlled areas were gradually reduced, more and more vegetation on the mountains were destroyed, and hunting became more and more intensive.
It turns out that every time the patrol goes out, they will soon bring back some good things like wild boars, mountain rats, and rabbits. But now, they have to hunt every day, but they have gained almost nothing.
If you finally catch a rabbit or a mountain rat, you have to give it to the officer for enjoyment. Ordinary people do not have the opportunity to eat these wild animals. Only those who catch the prey are eligible to be rewarded with a rabbit head or a "duck neck".
With this kind of thing developing to this day, there is no way for Ping Haiping to eat hares or mountain rats every day... Tens of thousands of people have tens of thousands of mouths, and with this way of eating, the game has been eaten up long ago.
In fact, it is not just people who are eating. Because of wars, wildfires caused by incendiary bombs, as well as the intimidation of shelling and other sounds, and the destruction of vegetation, animals in these fortified areas are actually migrating.
So hunting obviously has no way to feed the large mirage army to continue fighting, and the only things left are eating wild vegetables and some food reserves.
As time goes by, the food reserves have begun to gradually dry up. Under such circumstances, the Mirage soldiers in the fortification area can actually only eat one meal a day.
Hunger spread among the mirage troops, and coupled with the lack of ammunition, the combat effectiveness of the troops was seriously affected. In just two days, as all the troops stationed in the northern mountains withdrew, the orcs had compressed the mirage army into a narrow area of less than 10 kilometers horizontally and vertically.
The Mirage troops inside the encirclement are fighting hard, but the Mirage troops outside the encirclement are desperately digging trenches and building fortresses, turning the Mirage into a huge military fortress.
Mirage Wuk is frantically repairing the fortifications, and has armed all the civilians that can be found near the mirage capital. Mirage has a lot of weapons and ammunition in reserve, which gives Mirage some capital to squander.
It has to be said that it is an irony that these ammunitions were too late, dared and could not be easily transported to the central fortification areas, but are now being distributed to civilians.
The Mirage Army has built complete fortifications around the Mirage City before. Do you still remember how the Mirage Army laid out defenses before? The entire island was divided into four sections: the western fortress, the central fortress, the mirage and the northern section, and corresponding defenses were built respectively. Mirage City is an important part. In fact, before the orc troops landed, a large number of defenses had been built here to guard against possible sneak attacks by the Tang Army.
Now, these defenses are about to come into play: countless bunkers and bunker fortifications will become stumbling blocks for the orc troops to attack.
Don’t underestimate these things, they were built for the Mirage City, and this is the royal city of the Mirage Kingdom! Whether it's the quality of the work or the care, it's clear that this place is second to none.
Even if it is not as good as the fortification area in the central defense line, it is backed by a bustling city, has more supplies and materials, and has more troops... its combat effectiveness is naturally more guaranteed.
However, the defensive deployment of Mirage Wuk in Mirage City is not impeccable. In fact, if the orc troops fight steadily, then Mirage City is actually nothing more than another central fortress.
If the mirage city that has lost its supplies loses contact with the small workshops hidden in the north, they will also be consumed until they run out of gas and lamps.
So, as long as the orcs surround the mirage city, no matter how hard the goblins struggle, they will only choose to starve to death in the mirage city.
This is something that Mirage Haiping can't figure out: Since there is no way out as long as they are surrounded, what's the point of Mirage's troops repeating such demise?
From Mirage Haiping's point of view, defense is meaningful only by holding a line of defense across the island. If it is impossible to block all the enemies and establish a solid rear, then the current resistance trapped in one city and one place will only delay the time of destruction.
Since everything is doomed, why retreat? Concentrate all your strength in one place and fight to the end with the orcs...or in other words, the Tang army, and it will be a dead end!
It's a pity that this is just his idea. The Mirage Emperor obviously doesn't think so. The King of the Mirage Kingdom has now pinned almost all his hopes on the negotiations between the two countries far away in the Lions Empire.
As long as you hold on, there will be a way! As long as his troops can hold their position, the Tang State may agree to the conditions offered by the Mirage State.
Although the news from the Lions Empire has confirmed that none of Tang Guo's conditions will be cancelled, Mirage Emperor still has a glimmer of hope that he can use resistance to increase the casualties of the orcs and force Tang Guo to accept Mirage's conditions. Mirage surrendered.
This logic actually doesn’t make sense, because even the Mirage Emperor himself couldn’t explain why the heavy casualties of the orcs caused great pain to the Tang Empire.
It is precisely because this logic does not make sense that the negotiations are still continuing. The Tang Empire is not in pain or itchy, and the Mirage State also pretends to be "I can hold on if I push harder."
A mouthful of salty and bitter dried fish reminded Mirage Haiping of the smell of the sea. He seemed to breathe in the sea breeze and feel the moist atmosphere at this moment.
But the next second, he frowned, because this was not an illusion, but when he was eating fish, he really smelled an unnatural musty smell.
Just when he put down the cutlery and chopsticks that had been handed down from the Tang Empire to the Mirage Kingdom, and raised his head to ask what was going on, the door had already been pushed open from the outside.
An army officer hurriedly walked in, stood at attention and saluted and reported the situation: "General Ping! There is a problem with the ventilation system here. Please come with me..."
This kind of fortifications hidden deep underground is very safe, but there is one disadvantage. That is, such fortifications generally require a ventilation device to ensure internal air circulation.
Since it is a ventilation system, no matter how hidden it is, there must be a ventilation fan connected to the ground. No matter how hidden this device is, it will eventually be placed on the ground.
As the battle progresses, such a device will become more and more vulnerable to attack: because the area of orc bombardment will become smaller and smaller, so in such a small area, a certain piece of land will become increasingly vulnerable to artillery fire coverage attacks.
Even though there is a lot of vegetation and it is built on a reverse slope, the ventilation systems in the mirage fortification areas have gradually begun to be found one after another.
Aerial strikes are becoming more precise and effective. Bombs and artillery shells cannot hit tunnels and caves. Isn’t it easy to hit ventilators exposed to the outside?
The round of shelling just now came from the southeast, because this direction is the direction where the mirage is located, and it is the originally safest direction in the central fortification area, so most of the ventilation fans and corresponding devices are facing this direction.
Now the central area has been surrounded, and the originally relatively safe directions are also enemy-occupied areas. In this case, those exposed devices... become more and more vulnerable.
With the help of several guards, without even having time to pack up his things, Xu Haiping evacuated his office in embarrassment and moved to another relatively safe place.
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Happy Army Day everyone!