In the few days before Ye Chen and Xiao Churan returned, Xiao Churan was busy at the company until very late every day. In her words, many projects had been backlog for too long and required overtime to catch up.
However, Ye Chen did not become suspicious. But he did not know that Xiao Churan was already preparing for a month later.
A few days later, Ma Lan and Xiao Changkun returned to Jinling with large and small bags.
The two had a great time in Dubai this time. They had basically spent most of the hundreds of thousands of US dollars, finally making up for the regret of the last trip to Dubai to a great extent.
As soon as Xiao Changkun returned, he resumed hanging out at the Calligraphy and Painting Association. Ma Lan, as usual, spent her days idling around.
Ye Chen thought life had returned to peace. Every day, he only took time to go to the Champs-Élysées Hot Spring Hotel to help Ito Nanako and other martial artists improve their strength. At the same time, he often met with Yun Ruge and Song Ruyu to study how to crack the deadly poison in their bodies.
Lin Wan’er had recently returned to campus life. According to her, she actually enjoyed studying at school very much. Over hundreds of years, she had travelled to universities around the world and studied countless professional degrees. But since entering the information age, fearing exposure of her information, she simply gave up the idea of studying.
But Jinling was different. Jinling was Ye Chen’s territory. She and Ye Chen were both enemies of the Po Qing Society and both targets of Wu Feiyan’s search. With Ye Chen to team up with her for warmth, she felt much more relaxed in her heart.
For so many years, it was the first time she felt a sense of security, precisely because she was in Ye Chen’s city.
When Ye Chen’s life returned to a brief calm, Hamid suddenly concentrated his forces and launched attacks on several nearby oil fields.
A few days ago, Hamid, following Ye Chen’s hint, demanded compensation from the opposition’s core layer. He proposed handing over the nearest oil field to him, and everything would be written off.
But the core layer, not playing by the rules, directly rejected his request.
The core layer felt that although they had been unscrupulous before and directly attempted assassination on him, this was not a reason for him to ask them for money. Every penny of the opposition came from oil, and every drop of their oil was seized through war. Hamid wanting an oil field from them was tantamount to robbing their money.
In their view, Hamid was like a small thief asking a big thief for money. It was simply wishful thinking. They absolutely could not agree. Moreover, they explicitly warned Hamid that if he continued to pester, they would directly send troops to attack his base.
What Hamid feared least was war.
After Ye Chen analysed the situation for him, he realised his current strategic position.
Although his base was in a godforsaken place, the key was that he was in the heartland of Syria.
If the opposition went against him, he would be a nail driven into their heart, a tumour growing inside their body. Moreover, his place was impregnable. After they tore their faces, they could not break in even if they attacked, and they would have to expend a lot of manpower and resources to defend internally. This would leave them beleaguered on all sides.
Therefore, Hamid could not be bothered to analyse whether these people were bluffing or really intended to act. He simply struck first.
Thus, he called Ye Chen and reported the combat plan to him.
He said to Ye Chen, “Brother Ye, I’ve targeted their five oil fields. I plan to knock out one of them first, then surround the other four and negotiate with them, ultimately aiming to get the one closest to me. What do you think?”
Ye Chen asked him, “Where are the opposition’s forces currently concentrated?”
Hamid said, “The current opposition has most of its forces concentrated at the border and in Damascus.”
He analysed, “After all, it’s a regime they’ve just seized not long ago. They haven’t started thinking about how to govern the country as a legitimate government and allocate military forces. What they’re thinking is to concentrate forces around themselves to prevent the things they’ve just seized from being taken away by others.”
“Because of this, these oil fields around me don’t have any decent armed forces guarding them. At most, there are a few hundred armed militants.”
Ye Chen asked him, “How is the morale of your troops at this stage?”
Hamid said with a smile, “My army has been recuperating, training hard for so long, plus the large amounts of funds you’ve given successively to upgrade armaments. Their combat effectiveness has completely surpassed that of other opposition soldiers. The opposition is basically still charging with AK47s. In a real fight, the casualty ratio can at least be controlled at 1:3!”
Ye Chen said, “If you’re going to fight, catch them off guard. Don’t talk about a 1:3 casualty ratio; even 1:10 wouldn’t pass. Take your soldiers and ensure rapid mobility, rapid deployment, rapid combat, and rapid withdrawal. The casualty ratio must be controlled above one to thirty.”
Hamid exclaimed, “One to thirty? This… this is a bit difficult, isn’t it?”
A casualty ratio of one to thirty meant that if he lost one soldier, he had to kill at least thirty of the enemy. This was quite rare in modern warfare.
But Ye Chen did not think so.
Mastering the initiative already gave a huge lead over the opponent. Plus the advantages in soldier status and weaponry, the casualty ratio would inevitably expand further. Although one to thirty seemed unattainable, it was not necessarily impossible. He wanted to set a high goal for Hamid and let him strive for it with all his might. Whether it could be achieved was another matter.
Hamid felt a bit uneasy about Ye Chen’s requirement. He felt like he was not a commander but Ye Chen’s student, and Ye Chen had set an unattainable assessment goal for him.
