73 End of Battle

There were 3 main points to which this plan of Baron's were to succeed. The first would be that Yue Fei would be able to hold on for another week, maybe two weeks. Secondly would have to be the fact that Meng Yi would not lose and be able to repel those attackers that were attacking their main base. The last and most important factor was that the enemy's main base was weak enough that they would fall to Baron's army fairly fast. There was one thing that still bothered Baron though. This battlefield was supposed to be testing the 5 of theirs aerial prowess, so where were the enemy's aircraft?

Though Baron, Meng Yi, and Yue Fei had also refrained from using aircraft in this sim so far, that was only to give the pilots more time to train and become better fighters once they had to come and fight. Baron's pilots were mostly stationed within the various bases, with about 3 in 10 being used as reserves and kept in the main base. Baron had given orders to have half of their pilots be on alert for any orders that Baron would give at a moments notice.

Baron had rendezvoused with his 100,000 strong army by morning and they were making haste towards the enemy main base at breakneck pace. It would take another 2 days to reach if there were nothing to block them, but the many bases that they passed were already pretty much empty. It was likely that they were the army that had been pestering Yue Fei's battlefield the past few days or they had retreated closer to their main base.

This situation was likely to be the case up until the main high quality bases of which the enemy had only a handful of. Once Baron was only a few hours from one such base, he ordered the pilots that were on standby and had them get to the base as fast as they could and begin dropping bombs upon the base. Once that task was completed, Baron and the men on the ground would mop up what was left and quickly move onto the next one.

They only had to fight through 2 such fortifications until they reached the main base. Thanks to the refueling that they managed to do while at the two felled bases they were able to move faster than the enemy had predicted and immediately began to attack the main base of their enemy.

Baron was out of radio distance so he couldn't receive any messages from either Meng Yi or Yue Fei, but he knew something was still off. Where were the enemy planes? He had seen some fight back at the main base but those were only meant to act as reserves. Now that he was suspicious about all of this, he noticed something else that he did not pick up sooner. The amount of soldiers that he had witnessed within the bases and those that went to do battle elsewhere did not add up.

Baron was in a little too deep now to turn back, especially with the enemy main base right in front of him. The base that they were attacking now should have the best defense out of any he had faced before in this sim, they held out for the first few days before a messenger from Yue Fei reached Baron's ears.

(M) "Sir, bad news, in the few days you were absent we have lost over half of our bases and counting." The messenger reported.

(BM) "Over half?"

(M) "Correct sir, apparently the enemy had made a base within our territory that was quite well hidden and that was where the majority of their aircraft were. They launched a full scale aerial raid with the previously evenly matched army that was already targeting one of our bases."

(BM) "No wonder, I was quite confused as to why the enemy had such an army attack one of our bases out of the blue. Seems like the stalemate that the two had was nothing more than a ploy to get us to focus our forces elsewhere."

(M) "Indeed, after that base fell, they went on to target the next base. The string of victories in such a one sided manner beggars belief."

(BM) "That can only mean that either Meng Tian or Guan Yu is with them as we have predicted earlier. No matter, is there anything else?"

(M) "One more thing. A rough estimate from Yue Fei and Meng Yi suggests that the number of enemies on our territory now exceeds 600,000."

(BM) "What? We should have killed or transported close to 100,000 enemy soldiers. Why would they bet so much soldiers on one battle?"

Baron now has more questions than answers, but it did not matter since he only had one task that he had to achieve. That was to destroy the base that was before him, if he could manage to destroy it before the enemy could get to Meng Yi then victory is assured. Baron decided to push the men to continue fighting long into the night utilizing as many tactics as he could to quicken the pace.

That base managed to hold on for close to another week, this was after all a base designed by Meng Tian, who was from a family of architects and also helped in designing the Great Wall of China. His designs were never shoddy, and always made every use of his advantages that surrounded his domain to build near impregnable defenses. Only a few minutes after the base fell to Baron's army was there a system announcement.

A voice rang out in everyone's ears. [SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT] "The simulation has ended since one of the main bases has been felled. The winners of this simulation is Guan Yu and Meng Tian for destroying their enemy's main base of operations."

Baron and the others were quickly transported back to their HQ and Baron couldn't help but look at the victorious grins of Guan Yu and Meng Tian in a mix of confusion, surprise, and even more confusion.