Thunder Strikes Back

Chapter 546
New Delhi ushered in the coldest December in the memory of most residents. The West Station of New Delhi recorded the lowest temperature at night on December 12, which was 4 degree Celsius lower than the great cold wave in 2006.

Hundreds of thousands of homeless people on the street can only be wrapped in various pieces of cloth that can be found, as well as plastic films distributed by rescue stations, and burn old tires under the bridge hole and huddle together in a pile to survive less than 5 degrees Celsius. 20° cold night.In December of a normal year, the average temperature in New Delhi is close to [-] degrees, and almost no one stores warm clothes.

The average daily power outage time in the capital and nearby towns has increased sharply from 10 hours in early October to 6 hours now; this is not entirely caused by Chinese missiles. The power plant and power transmission and transformation facilities are only used as an assessment of New Delhi's ability to withstand air strikes.However, the limited number of attacks caused a large loss of power plant personnel. In addition, the daily maintenance of these power plants needs to rely on a large number of Chinese parts, which cannot be ordered because of the war.

The shortage of fuel oil and other fuels is another fatal situation. India's oil reserves are seriously insufficient, and the drastic action of trying to block the Arabian Sea has finally hurt itself. On the one hand, high oil prices have made India's finances difficult. The instability of the current situation makes coal from Indonesia and Australia also tend to avoid the war zone and flow to Chinese ports that are calm and have guaranteed payment.In comparison, China has the fifth largest oil output and the first coal output in the world, and its energy self-sufficiency rate is much superior, while the oil supply lines between Russia and Venezuela are not within the control of the Indian Navy.The Chinese government may not be willing to soar international energy prices, but this double-edged sword has caused more serious damage to India, and the damage to India's war potential can even be expected in the short term.These factors were completely beyond the foresight of the Indian decision-makers before they decided to launch the war of aggression. They originally expected that the war would end in a complete victory before September.

In New Delhi, only the middle class can rely on diesel generators to withstand such severe cold.Of course, the upper-class people who really see things clearly have fled to the south or abroad as early as September.While angry mobs surrounded the Chinese embassy throwing Molotov cocktails and excrement, the rich were packing up their belongings and sneaking away, a trend that became increasingly apparent after China's first cruise missile hit the southwestern suburbs of New Delhi.

In the "Wartime (Capital) Public Opinion Monitoring Report" submitted by the Ministry of the Interior to the Supreme Command, there will be new social unrest and other signs of crisis every week, which are concentrated in the outbreak of various political rumors and gossip superior.Popular sentiment is building and increasingly elusive.

The latest issue of this report reads: As the temperature continues to drop, new horror stories have appeared on the streets, most representatively, the legend that the Chinese have blown up a gap in the Himalayas in an attempt to take advantage of the cold weather. The air froze the Indians.Although the meteorological authority of the University of New Delhi categorically refuted this nonsense on TV, the people are still more willing to spread such uninformed conspiracy theories. Of course, due to the continuous reduction of power supply time, the public opinion on TV dominate effect is diminishing.However, the speed of rumors is changing rapidly. The latest version of rumors is that the Chinese have used weather weapons, which will cause the cold weather to be postponed until June next year. By then, the entire Ganges Plain will have no harvest.According to the analysis of the public opinion monitoring team of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, behind these rumors, there are already shadows of the enemy's public opinion warfare troops.

The number two rumor is that some people claim to have witnessed the paratroopers of the Chinese Communist Party 20 kilometers east of New Delhi.On December 12th, some even more frightening rumors reappeared on the Internet-New Delhi has been surrounded by enemy forces.

Rumors that Prime Minister Kahan has passed away or was assassinated appear every ten days, which will cause panic as usual. In fact, Kahan has to go on TV every few days to dispel the rumors, but with The power supply time is getting shorter and shorter, and the chance of him appearing in front of the public is greatly shortened.

The war cabinet did not have a good solution to these situations. For the time being, it could only send various spies to investigate the source of the rumors, but found nothing. Singer suggested temporarily shutting down the Internet, but the analysis report of the CIA believes that completely shutting down the Internet may only lead to more A large number of civilians panic. China's cyber psychological warfare capabilities are limited after all, and its ability to penetrate social networking sites in non-English languages ​​is very weak. It is better to stop with silence first.The only plan for now is to stabilize the pace on the battlefield and wait for positive changes in the international situation.

The largest meeting of the Indian government on war countermeasures (larger than the meeting before the invasion of Pakistan) began in such a gloomy cloud of panic.

The main content of the morning meeting focused on the next step of military deployment. Due to health considerations, Prime Minister Kahan did not come forward.Due to the opposition party's pursuit of the war defeat, the military review meeting will also liquidate the responsibility for the war defeat, and all speculations are focused on personnel changes.

Singh arrived at the meeting venue 10 minutes early - the underground headquarters of Safford Joan Airport. This is part of the unfinished Indian Strategic Forces Command. It is tens of meters deep underground and can resist nuclear bomb attacks.Compared with the basement of the Prime Minister's Office, it is more than ten times safer.Under the current situation, China's cruise missiles may break through the air defense circle and enter the sky over the capital at any time, so it is not an exaggeration to plan for the worst.

The generals of the army have already arrived and are gathering in small groups to discuss the current situation.Singer stopped at the door, and he could see that most of the people had grave expressions and were whispering to each other. Only Lieutenant General Spanga looked calm. The division commander, Manila, nodded frequently. Finally, Spanga made a gesture of clasping his hands near Amritsar, as if to encircle the enemy?
Sitting about 5 meters away is the expressionless Lieutenant General Meneam, smoking a cigarette in silence, squinting at Spanga's performance in front of the map, and occasionally showing a sneer of disdain.

No one paid much attention to the Minister of Defense coming to the front. Meneam even just glanced at Singh coldly, and continued to smoke without getting up.

"Silence, I think we can start early." Singer shouted. He waited for a while, and all the officers finally returned to their seats. As the commander of the southern group, Spanga's seat was on the side of Meneam , but they see each other as nothing.

"Okay. Let me announce a personnel change first. Due to some mistakes in the previous stage of the battle, the wartime cabinet proposed a new command model. General Pasade will return to the command system. This is the prime minister's proposal Yes. The general will probably be filling the Army chief of staff within the next day or two."

Singer pretended to be calm and said that this was the most painful moment for him. If the battle situation was not out of control, he would never allow his enemy to regain control of the army.In fact, if Pasade had not been used to distract attention, the fire of this meeting would have been focused on him.Even Singer himself began to wonder whether it would be more suitable for the current situation to let a conservative faction go out?
Sure enough, among the nearly [-] army generals who participated in the meeting, a huge commotion began to appear, while the chief of staff of the air force, Biafrata, just sat there without showing much expression.

The officers of Spanga, who were the most optimistic and calm before, and the officers of the Southern Armored Group began to whisper to each other, while the chief officers of the Northern Group and the mountain divisions relaxed a lot. The hilltops of the troops are quite different.

"Where is Admiral Paisade? Didn't he come in person?" the commander of the 21st Mountain Division asked happily, as if the war had been saved.

"Admiral, he can't make it in time to attend today's meeting. He is currently inspecting the front line and will report directly to the Ministry of Defense in a few days." Singer said coldly, hiding the disgust in his heart.

"I don't think he's the most inappropriate candidate," Spanga said suddenly.He waved his hand in annoyance to drive away the smoke from his neighbor.

"Perhaps you have a better candidate to propose?" Meneam said with a puff of smoke.

"I have no better men, but I know Pasade. His theory is completely outdated. He just divides his forces evenly on fortified areas, and our enemy has high mobility and reconnaissance capabilities. This way A passive defense without focus will fail."

"Maybe you think you are more suitable to be the chief of staff of the army?" Meneam said with a squint.

"I hope you can go to the smoking area outside the corridor to smoke your cigars. If an officer can't discipline himself, how can he ask his subordinates to obey military discipline?" Spanga suddenly increased his voice.

"It is because of aggressive soldiers like you that we are where we are today. My troops are fighting daily against the brutal climate and the fear spread by the enemy air force, while your men are in the balmy climate of Mumbai. Accept new toys."

"Your current passive situation is entirely because throughout July and August, your troops are like rats digging holes everywhere, wasting energy on building bunkers, while the enemy's satellites can be seen clearly."

"The Chinese army is gathering in the north, and only a blind man would blindly disperse his forces."

"The enemy must be happy to see your men concentrated in rat holes, where they can more easily annihilate them."

"Okay, stop fighting." Singer finally decided to interrupt the two generals' sarcasm, but it was a bit late, and the cracks between the main generals had clearly emerged before the war.

"Admiral Paisade is only the chief of staff of the army, not the commander of the front army. Someone has to fill such a vacancy."

He spoke to Spanga, as if to imply that Pasade might not really be in command.However, the first thing Pasade did after leaving the mountain was not to participate in such a high-level military meeting, but to inspect the front line in person, which seemed to indicate his urgency to rejoin the war.

"What should the Air Force do?" It turned out that the chief of staff of the Air Force, Biafrata, spoke in a very peaceful tone. "Now the number of squadrons capable of combat has been reduced by half compared to June, and there are fewer and fewer combat aircraft available."

"There will be a way. French and Russian arms deliveries are accelerating, and there will be new contracts soon, with the Americans."

"Even if the aircraft can be replenished, the loss of pilots cannot be made up for a while."

"It will be resolved, please believe me." Singer said with wide eyes. He knew that Biafrata was not a entangled person, and he would always let himself go.Sure enough, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force listened to his empty guarantee, stopped asking questions, and just did it.

"Okay, let's talk about the situation. At present, the enemy is constantly advancing towards our defense line in the forward area. They mainly rely on the long-range firepower that gives them an advantage." Singer boldly introduced the current situation among a group of professional soldiers. Come.Anyway, everyone knows these harsh facts, the point is whether these generals can come up with any way to turn things around.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, the front of Leh ushered in a new shelling.Almost every day, the Chinese army will fire artillery fire of various calibers from behind the mountain not far away, continuing to test the endurance of this frontier fortress.The Indian soldiers stationed here have already fallen into deep despair, but the Chinese army has not easily captured this stronghold.

The artillery from the north extended to the end of the runway riddled with holes, but the dense firepower stagnated in the center of the runway. Obviously, the curved firepower was restricted by the firing range.

A Polaris helicopter scrambled to the other side.Two capable figures got off the plane, dropped money on a new row of shells, bent over and took two quick steps, and jumped down the traffic ditch.

The person in charge seemed to be very proficient in the layout around the airport and knew where the most advanced observation post was.In fact, Leh's defense system is engraved in his mind, and he knows every trench and every bunker.

Wearing a white winter jacket and a telescope around his neck, Pasade rushed forward through the icy trenches, leaving his only entourage behind.He probably knew the blind spot of howitzer fire on the opposite side. This was the experience accumulated from long-term mountain artillery battles. In fact, the distribution of craters on the runway also explained this speculation.The last time a senior army general visited here was five months ago, and he was actually the one who came here.Nemeyam never dared to come here, for fear of being killed by the opponent's artillery.

The general didn't want to go to New Delhi to participate in the combat conference. Now is not the time to make trouble for Singh. He doesn't have much time to waste.After receiving the news that he might be reinstated, Pasad immediately rushed to Amritsar on a small transport plane, and then randomly found an unremarkable Polaris helicopter. Come and see for yourself at the forefront of the attack to verify one thing - is the Chinese army's offensive in the north real or fake?Intuition told him that this was very strange.He has studied the entire operation of the Chinese army in Assam. It is not an army that easily reveals its intentions. If anyone thinks that he has guessed the Chinese army's conspiracy at a glance, perhaps he is not far from suffering.

(End of this chapter)