Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 662

Chapter 660: The Great Trend

The Battle of Wanzhou Star has begun.

This battle is considered the most crucial on the Western Front.

The three participating factions have deployed over ten thousand Space Marines. On the surface of Wanzhou Star, hundreds of millions of elite troops engage in brutal fighting.

Within the system, both sides have over twenty massive warships, with thousands of warships, engaged in mutual attacks.

The battle has raged for two months.

This is actually the seventh month since Martins led his army to the heart of the White Curtain Star Region to support Salilius.

Resolving the initial problem is only the first step. After a military meeting, Martins and Salilius decided on the primary strategy of stabilizing the east while attacking the west. On the

eastern front, facing the Zerg swarms emanating from the Princess Star Region, the primary strategy is to defend.

The basic strategy is to maintain the current force configuration, with approximately 1,500 Space Marines and a fleet stationed there.

Of course, all war resources will be fully utilized.

The key to this strategy rested on the assumption that a Zerg enemy force of a magnitude greater would not emerge from the eastern front of the Empress Sector.

This assumption was made possible by Governor Gu’s actions.

On the eastern side of the Empress Sector, the main Alliance force, led by Gu Hang, entered the Warp shadow that enveloped the entire Empress Sector from the Alfonzo Sector.

Of course, even after entering the Warp shadow, Gu Hang’s force was able to maintain contact with Martins and Salilius.

It wasn’t that Gu Hang had devised some communication method capable of penetrating the Warp shadow; rather, he employed crude methods.

Gu Hang would regularly dispatch ships from the Empress Sector back to the Alfonzo Sector. Any news would be communicated to the western front, two sectors away, through the Star Communication Towers built in the Alfonzo Sector.

Since entering the Empress Sector, Gu Hang’s actions have been measured and measured.

Furthermore, his methods, unlike his previous gentle methods, have become more brutal and cold.

Within the galaxy, the battles between the human fleet and the Hive Fleet were largely steady.

The Hive Fleet was incapable of resistance? No one dared to make such a judgment, and Gu Hang himself wouldn’t make such a claim. But for now, at least the Hive Fleet hadn’t shown any intention of assembling all its naval power for a decisive interstellar battle with Gu Hang.

This had caused the Zerg to cede control of many worlds.

Gu Hang had three options for these worlds: full-scale capture, extermination orders, and abandonment.

The number of these three scenarios decreased in descending order. The number

of planets that would be fully captured was the smallest, even in the single digits.

They were captured to serve as important bases.

The strategy for the attack was definitely not to simply send troops in and attack one by one.

A garrison was necessary, but Gu Hang had the Alfonzo Cult rapidly expand production capacity at full speed, regardless of cost. After months of stockpiling, a considerable number of virus bombs had already been stockpiled.

Fully utilizing this strategy is somewhat difficult, but in times of need, on a few planets, and during key offensive engagements, being more generous and launching more bombardments can not only significantly reduce casualties but, more importantly, save time.

The missiles are the most precise means of delivery aboard a starship: missiles.

While this certainly costs a fortune, the effect is palpable.

After the bombing, the next step is construction.

The Alliance will mobilize its own construction capabilities, as well as those of the Aramita Cult (a significant portion of which is remnants of the Alfonzo Cult), to quickly deploy railguns, star forts, and the like. The former is relatively straightforward, but the latter will certainly not be built on-site; rather, pre-existing star forts, even those already on other planets, will be hauled from these planets and relocated.

Once the defensive forces are complete, large quantities of supplies and reserve personnel will be transported and stored on these planets, providing strong support for subsequent operations.

As for the second category, those ordered to exterminate, they are extremely numerous.

They share two common characteristics: they are in the Alliance’s path, and the planets themselves contain a large number of Zerg swarms or infested.

This planet must be destroyed.

Even though there’s nothing nearby that could break through the atmosphere and enter space, threatening Gu Hang’s forces, after experiencing the previous riot, Gu Hang realized that once the Zerg swarm reaches a certain size, they will self-digest, reorganize biomass, and evolve into bio-starships.

This type of creature must be eliminated.

One of the reasons for the Northern Legion’s downfall was their failure to anticipate this, and no such reports had appeared in previous Imperial war reports regarding the Zerg. The Zerg often build their hive fleets in stable rear areas, or even aboard Hive Motherships after absorbing sufficient biomass.

The Zerg, “collaborating” with the Ironclad and the Cult of Alfonzo, have demonstrated a new capability. It’s unclear whether this capability is inherent in the Zerg, unused or unobserved in past wars, or a newly evolved tactic.

But now that Gu Hang knows, he can’t leave such a significant threat along his route.

Extermination orders are used for times like these.

Whether there were still loyalists left on the planet… that wasn’t a consideration.

However, this action would pose a significant challenge to the Alliance’s inventory of Extermination Order weapons.

Gu Hang had only one of his newly acquired ‘Ground Destroyer’s’, and it hadn’t been used yet.

This one was even pulled from a black box.

All of them used ‘Incineration Torpedoes’.

The production line for these weapons had never been fully operational. After acquiring this technology, Gu Hang felt its applications were limited, so he didn’t ramp up production.

In most cases, that’s certainly true.

But wasn’t this a rare instance?

The need for the Extermination Order was surprisingly high.

Back then, when Gu Hang penetrated the heart of the Irontooth Orc Empire and wiped out the greenskins, he didn’t use so many.

Of course, each situation was different, and generalizations couldn’t be made.

But then again, even so, Gu Hang didn’t regret not mass-producing the Incineration Torpedoes, instead building a single production line and slowly producing them using the mother machine’s black box.

That was the right approach.

The cost of building a Burning Sky torpedo is nearly 2 billion tax coins – not counting the cost pulled out of the black box, that cost is very low.

Expanding its production line is extremely expensive, and so is the cost of manufacturing it. For the price of one Burning Sky torpedo, five could be assembled to build a Moon-class cruiser.

The Burning Sky torpedo only destroys, not captures. Furthermore, it’s easily intercepted. Producing too many of these things is useless.

Currently, the Alliance possesses fewer than twenty Burning Sky torpedoes.

But used properly, this weapon could completely destroy two star regions!

Of course, this number was still far from the total size of the hundreds of worlds within the Empress Star Region.

But Gu Hang had never considered using the Extermination Order weapon to plant mushrooms on every planet in the Empress Star Region.

That would be too expensive and unrealistic.

Furthermore, the conditions on many planets simply wouldn’t allow for the use of Sky-Burning Torpedoes.

This led to Gu Hang’s third approach: if there were planets that weren’t in his route, didn’t block his path, and had Zerg swarms or infested populations that, after a rough calculation, weren’t significant, he could ignore them. He

couldn’t completely ignore them; he could simply station an observation post to keep an eye on them.

He only had to focus on one thing: the sudden appearance of a massive Zerg fleet on this planet.

The probability of that happening was actually quite low. To evolve large-scale bio-ships, the Zerg required a vast amount of biomass. On planets with smaller infestations and Zerg swarms, the natural environment was often quite harsh. It was unrealistic for the Zerg to amass such a large biomass. At best, a few small ships might fly out, but the threat level would be minimal.

If all dangers could be eliminated, that would be ideal. However, the time and manpower costs would be enormous. Even the strongest Alliance could not sustain such a massive investment if they truly had to clear planet after planet.

Comparing their outsourcing to the Zerg swarm is the most foolish of decisions.

From this perspective, we need to have a certain degree of understanding for Marshal Leroy, the Northern Frontier Commander-in-Chief. While he was focused on ending the war as quickly as possible, he couldn’t manage the ravaged worlds in the rear like the Alliance did.

Gu Hang spent over two years slowly clearing the Jingjie and Alfonzo star regions, which were in far better condition than the Lefo and Jianmen star regions in the north.

How long would it take Leroy to clean up Lefo and Jianmen?

Four years? Six years?

He couldn’t wait.

And then he was doomed.

But Gu Hang couldn’t quite believe it. The Northern Front Legion, with its vast fleet, over four thousand Space Marines, and the powerful support of the Inquisition, could be completely annihilated.

Hundreds of millions of troops, many of them elite. As long as the ships weren’t destroyed while still aboard, their entire crew perished in space, it was quite normal for a significant number of them to have managed to survive until now.

Killing hundreds of millions of pigs wouldn’t be easy.

Seeking a scavenger hunt to see how many of the Northern Front Legion remained was one of Gu Hang’s secondary objectives.

His primary goal was undoubtedly to locate the main force of the Zerg, specifically the Void Queen that had been given to the Alfonzo Cult, nurtured, and then released back.

Only by eliminating the Queen could the threat be truly ended.

Of course, this wouldn’t prevent the utter destruction of the Princess Sector.

That was already a foregone conclusion.

Judging from the dozens of worlds Gu Hang had passed, perhaps there were still living, uninfected humans on the planets, lingering. But their numbers are minuscule, likely less than one percent of the total population.

The entire Empress Star Region is likely in this state.

Even if Gu Hang ultimately triumphs in the war and destroys the Zerg Queen, these planets will ultimately be devoured by the Zerg. However, without the Queen, a large number of “hub organisms” will lose their command, or even die outright. Without the Queen’s biostimulant, the incubation pools will cease evolving, operating mechanically according to their current mechanisms until all biomass is consumed and they collapse.

At that point, the remaining cleanup work, while still arduous, will ultimately be just that.

The war is already a victory.

However, this primary objective is not easy to achieve.

Hence, the secondary goal of locating any remaining northern legions is necessary to strengthen our forces.

Another secondary goal also serves this purpose: to attract as much attention as possible from the Void Zerg in the Empress Star Region, creating conditions for a counterattack on the western front.

Thus, the tides of war are entwined.

With Gu Hang penetrating directly into the heart of the Empress Star Region, while a major war hasn’t erupted yet, the Zerg’s vast forces will inevitably be drawn in, and a major conflict is inevitable. Otherwise, the remaining planets will be burned one by one by the Alliance, which would be a huge loss for the Void Zerg.

This ensured that on the western front, there wouldn’t be an order of magnitude more Zerg swarms emerging from the Empress Star Region to assault the defenses arranged by Salilius.

It was precisely because of Gu Hang’s containment of the enemy’s core that Martins and Salilius were able to reserve their relatively small defensive forces in the east and concentrate their forces for a counterattack westward.

On the one hand, completely defeating and annihilating the infested main force of the Ironclad Chapter and opening up the logistical supply routes for the Western Legion was crucial. Furthermore, while completely resolving their rear-end concerns, they could also liberate the Western Legion’s combat effectiveness, allowing them to advance relatively smoothly into the Princess Star Region from the west. They could then cooperate with Gu Hang’s operations to locate the Zerg’s core strength and eliminate the Queen.

The Queen wasn’t one to remain in one place, defenseless. Once threatened, she would inevitably be surrounded by the largest Zerg forces.

A decisive battle was inevitable.

At that point, the stronger the force, the better.

Martins and Salilius fully understood Gu Hang’s intentions.

Their westward counterattack against the Ironclad was resolute.

After several months of fighting, they had achieved considerable success.

The Ironclad Chapter was indeed formidable, even if they were still considered to have a force of ten thousand. However, Martins and Salilius also possessed a significant number of troops.

The main force Martins had brought from the Nepeta Sector alone numbered over three thousand Space Marines. Salilius himself already had over four thousand under his command. Besides his own Ortopis Chapter, there were another three thousand Space Marine Chapters that arrived from various quarters when the expeditionary force was formed from the Solar Sector, as well as reinforcements that arrived gradually during the war. A total of seven

thousand Space Marines was not much fewer than the Ironclads.

Even if they left fifteen hundred to hold off the Zerg swarms pouring from the Princess Sector to the east, they still had at least five thousand Space Marines.

Moreover, their elite strength was undoubtedly superior to the Ironclads.

Martins had confidence in his own Chapter; the Blood Sharks were also a powerful Chapter; the Dragon King’s Spears were rather mediocre.

Meanwhile, the Ortopis Chapter, the darlings of the High Lords, was also incredibly elite, undoubtedly the most elite of all Chapters.

Quality more than made up for the difference in numbers.

The Wanzhou Star Battle was the most important battle in this great counter-offensive.

————

The following is free:

4k

still owes 102.

Yes… I still remember that I owe money…

But I doubt I can even finish this book. The later I write, the more difficult it becomes to write. I really can’t type fast. I stayed up all night today…

I will try to write as much as possible, but if I haven’t paid it back by the time the book is finished, I will move it to the next book… I hope that the big guys who rewarded me, and all of you comrades who have read all the way here, will like my next book!

Of course, the primary goal now is to write this book as well as possible and pay back the debt as much as possible!

(End of this chapter)