After receiving a request from Shen Ruihui, Xiao Fan immediately connected with him.
Now, he had Shen Ruihui's visual perspective.
Shen Ruihui was currently inside a multi-functional infantry vehicle, positioned at a relatively high elevation. From this vantage point, he could look down and observe the situation on a highway.
In the view, Xiao Fan saw the boundary marker between Yunzhou City and Yan Yun City.
This was the border area between the two cities, about 700 to 800 kilometers away from Xiao Fan's Kaoshan Farm.
But these details were not the main point. The critical issue was the overwhelming horde of zombies in the view!
Within the visible range, there was no end in sight to the massive zombie army, and it was impossible to estimate their numbers.
However, just the towering iron-armored zombies alone at the front of the horde numbered at least five to six thousand!
These were third-level mutants, and the countless first and second-level mutants were too numerous to count.
Agile zombies were also present in overwhelming numbers that were impossible to quantify. Xiao Fan even caught glimpses of two reddish figures among the zombie horde.
If he wasn't mistaken, those could be the colors of Lickers.
This scene made Xiao Fan gasp in disbelief.
"This... The number of zombies in this horde is probably at least two to three hundred thousand."
"Why would such a massive horde appear? Where did they come from, and why did they travel so far to reach this place?"
Xiao Fan didn't know the answer, but he knew that a huge trouble was coming.
If this zombie horde was indeed heading towards Kaoshan Farm, it was uncertain whether his base could withstand the onslaught.
After all, with hundreds of thousands of zombies, the sheer piling up of corpses would surpass the height of the city walls. Once the walls were breached, no matter how valiant his soldiers were, they wouldn't be able to hold off hundreds of thousands of zombies in close combat.
After observing for a while longer, Xiao Fan ordered Shen Ruihui to return, while he himself sank into contemplation at the official residence.
Based on the speed of the zombie horde's advance in the footage, it would take them about ten days to travel from the border of the two cities to their location.
So, what could he do within this time frame?
Mobilizing troops was certain, but he didn't plan to mobilize too many ordinary troops at the moment.
He was currently a regiment commander, and it would be very difficult for him to be promoted to a battalion commander.
According to the system's promotion requirements, to become a battalion commander, he needed a fully staffed regimental combat unit, all buildings constructed, and a fund of 500,000 yuan.
He didn't have 500,000 yuan yet, and even if he did, his personnel were not fully staffed.
Moreover, he still needed to construct buildings like the tank factory and several other facilities. Without at least one million yuan, he feared he wouldn't be able to be promoted to battalion commander.
In this case, he might have to face this zombie crisis with only the forces of a regiment. Therefore, he had to follow the path of an elite force.
The immediate priority was to construct the tank factory and munitions factory to produce a batch of powerful troops, which would be the only way to deal with this crisis.
All of this required a large amount of money.
Currently, he had some fixed daily income, such as from recruiting survivors in the City of Dawn and income from the mining plant, totaling around 10,000 yuan.
However, this was still far from enough. He needed much more money.
It seemed that going out to hunt zombies was necessary, but there might be better methods.
Xiao Fan noticed the papers on the table left behind by the Survivor Alliance.
After some thought, a smile appeared on Xiao Fan's face.
He called for the communications officer: "Broadcast an announcement stating that the City of Dawn is willing to join the Survivor Alliance. Request that they immediately send people to assist in defense and welcome Alliance members to come and trade."
"We have abundant fuel, food, daily necessities, and construction materials, as well as firearms and mutant beast meat. As long as the Alliance brings gold and silver, they can get anything they want. Go and broadcast this now."
The communications officer went to broadcast the message, and Xiao Fan then summoned Lu Ping, the company commander of the city defense company.
He told Lu Ping that if the Alliance military sent people for joint defense, all personnel except those manning the watchtowers and machine gun bunkers should be withdrawn to the second city wall. The defense of the entire outer city area would be handed over to the Alliance.
However, the second city wall was an absolute line that could not be crossed—this was the bottom line.
Lu Ping accepted the order and left.
Xiao Fan then instructed that once people from the Alliance arrived, everyone should avoid conflicts with them.
The only objective was to trade and acquire as much gold and silver as possible.
With all the arrangements made, Xiao Fan began to deploy his troops.
Time was tight and the task was urgent. He had to acquire as much funding as possible before the zombie horde arrived, so going out to clear zombies was inevitable.
His target was to clear Qingyang County Town.
There was a river blocking the way, perfect for him to defend the bridge and engage in combat. It would be a waste not to seize this opportunity.
Under Xiao Fan's command, there were now over 550 soldiers. He spent over 30,000 yuan to replenish the strength of the third company.
Meng Qiang's original platoon was reorganized into the first platoon of the third company, and two more platoons with vehicles and personnel were added.
After the reinforcements, Xiao Fan's forces reached 630 soldiers, just 70 short of being fully staffed.
Even his three main companies only had 120 soldiers each, not reaching the full strength of 140.
Xiao Fan didn't replenish some logistics troops for the time being, leaving some personnel slots open to fill after the construction of buildings.
After reinforcing the third company, Xiao Fan ordered the city defense company, the engineering platoon, and the support troops to remain and defend the city and work. The remaining three fully staffed combat companies, one security platoon, the mess team, the medical team, and all mobile heavy firepower units would follow him on the campaign!
Four armored vehicles, three infantry fighting vehicles, three assault guns, one attack helicopter, and one mountain cat, all equipped with vehicle-mounted machine guns.
The Jeep 212s didn't have machine guns, but ten heavy machine guns were loaded onto the vehicles!
Some accompanying heavy trucks also joined the expedition, forming a vast convoy carrying Xiao Fan's 400 soldiers, marching out of the City of Dawn!
The inner and outer city gates were wide open, with one military vehicle after another swarming out, each carrying fully armed and equipped soldiers.
Although the residents of the City of Dawn didn't know what the soldiers were doing, they knew these people were protecting them.
Some residents even voluntarily offered homemade food to the soldiers, but without exception, all were politely declined.
Not taking a single needle or thread from the people—every soldier was capable of this.
Because they didn't need it; the overall commander would arrange everything for them.
Xiao Fan, seated in a helicopter, also took off from the city.
He knew that by the time they returned, the skies over Yunzhou would likely have changed.