Thirty kiloters north of Bayji, the desolate Gobi Desert glead with a dark red hue in the twilight.
Az stood atop his command pickup, raising his binoculars, a smug smile gracing his lips.
On the horizon ahead, the pursuit force he had dispatched had already latched onto the tail of Song Heping's troops—
At least, that's what he believed.
Dozens of ard pickups kicked up a storm of dust, the tongues of fire from their heavy machine guns blazing conspicuously in the darkening skies.
"Warriors of Allah! Move forward! Crush these heretics!"
Az roared into the radio, spitting saliva everywhere.
His twenty-thousand-strong army spread like a black tide across a front more than five kiloters wide, advancing in pursuit.
Though the previous ambush had cost him dearly, his nurical advantage remained overwhelming.
Moreover, he had received definite intelligence—there were over a thousand troops of the Abu You Brigade stationed at Bayji, the nearest to Song Heping.
In other words, they would not receive any reinforcents.
After capturing Song Heping's thousands-strong force, perhaps his next move could be to convene his forces for a westward march, directly seizing Bayji, and reclaiming control there!
Thinking of this, Az couldn't help but laugh again.
"Commander, the reconnaissance team on the north flank reports spotting unidentified dust clouds."
Suddenly, a slightly hesitant voice transmitted over the radio.
"Dust clouds?"
Az frowned, "This season often brings sandstorms, have them continue their surveillance. Everyone, increase your speed! We must consu this rescue force before Song Heping's main force arrives!"
He lowered his binoculars, taking a deep breath of air laced with gunpowder.
The feeling of victory was close at hand.
Just then, the northern sky seed to suddenly darken.
No.
It wasn't...
That wasn't a change in the weather.
It was more dust clouds, sky-darkening dust clouds, sweeping in from the north like a sandstorm.
But Az, who had campaigned in Illiguo for years, could discern—it was not a natural sandstorm.
It was the dust cloud raised by a large-scale armored force advancing!
"What the hell is that..."
He murmured to himself, an ominous feeling rising in his heart.
In the next instant, his premonition ca true.
From the forefront of the dust cloud, dozens of steel figures suddenly charged out.
T-72S main battle tanks!
Without any markings!
But most certainly not a branch of the 1515 Ard.
These tanks deployed in a wedge-shaped attack formation, the barrels of their 125mm smoothbore guns constantly adjusting as they advanced, searching for targets.
On either side of them were more BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, the 30mm automatic cannons on their turrets raised to firing angles.
And amidst these armored vehicles were hundreds of military trucks, each filled with fully ard soldiers standing in the truck beds.
They wore new bulletproof helts, desert camouflage combat uniforms, and were equipped with replica S-5.56 assault rifles and Soviet-made rocket launchers.
Most striking was that almost every squad was equipped with night vision devices—though the sky had not yet turned completely dark, many soldiers had already mounted the night vision devices on their helts.
In the command vehicle, Avanti lowered his binoculars.
This highest commander of the Persian Revolutionary Guard possessed hawk-like eyes and sported a ticulously grood graying short beard.
"Attention all units!"
He spoke calmly into the radio, "Deploy according to the predetermined plan. Armored battalion will break through the front, chanized infantry battalion will encircle from the flanks, Special Operations Battalion will handle the decapitation strike. We must rout them before sunset."
"Allahu Akbar!"
The deep and resolute responses of the battalion commanders echoed through the radio.
Avanti glanced at the electronic tactical screen, which displayed the real-ti situation across the entire battlefield.
His troops—fifteen thousand of the Revolutionary Guard's elite "Holy City Brigade" soldiers—were poised like a ticulously forged Persian Sword, hacking down from the north to the south, and the blade pointed directly at the unguarded flank of the 1515 Ard.
"General, the reconnaissance aircraft has detected the enemy's command vehicle cluster, coordinates sent." The intelligence officer reported.
Avanti nodded slightly: "Tell the vanguard units, it's their feast."
The 1515 side flank troops first detected the anomaly.
A patrol team composed of twelve ard pickups was on alert heading north.
The team leader was an old soldier in his forties, with experience in multiple battles.
Upon seeing the steel torrent erging on the horizon, he froze for three seconds, then shouted frantically into the radio:
"Armored forces! There's armored forces in the north! Many—"
Before he could finish speaking, a piercing whistling sound approached from afar.
Boom!
A 125mm high-explosive shell accurately exploded fifty ters in front of the leading pickup.
Though not a direct hit, the imnse shockwave and fragntation instantly flipped the vehicle, killing the five ard n on board instantly.
More shells followed shortly.
The T-72S tanks began their first round of volley fire from a distance of twenty-five hundred ters.
These modernized tanks were equipped with new fire control systems, and though considered old-fashioned by Western standards, they spelled disaster for the 1515 Ard, which possessed only light weaponry.
"Tanks! They have tanks!"
"Retreat! Quickly retreat!"
The flank of the 1515 troops descended into chaos.
They had never faced an organized armored assault before.
These militants specialized in urban guerrilla warfare and ambush tactics, completely clueless in confronting regular army armored assaults.
So attempted to counterattack with RPGs, but the frontal armor of the T-72S tanks could completely withstand RPG-7 attacks at such range.
Furthermore, the tanks didn't allow them any opportunity to get close.
"Machine gunners, free to fire!"
The tank commanders ordered calmly.
The coaxial machine guns and roof-mounted heavy machine guns on the T-72S fired simultaneously, the 7.62mm and 12.7mm bullets sweeping through those attempting to resist or flee like the Grim Reaper's Scythe.
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