On this side of the intercom, Zhou You heard Deng Tao's roar, but he was not surprised.
Duke's lie was reasonable, and it was also expected by Zhou You.
"I made a rough estimate. Anyway, I'm afraid there are more than 2,000 people in this factory. It should be around 3,000 or 4,000. Not only the people from Dujia Village are being imprisoned here, but also the human captives from other surrounding areas.
Come here. These human captives have formed a certain hierarchical structure, and there must be a higher-ranking human captive who is responsible for management. I think it is probably Duke."
"The current situation of the human captives... doesn't seem to be too bad. Except for some who are not fully clothed, most of them can move around. They are... making tools! All kinds of wooden tools!
Wooden basins, towed two-wheeled carts... and even pedal-type wooden wheeled chariots! These people are actually helping mice add rubber to the wooden wheels! They seem to have a small laboratory, which is in
Make some small iron products that look like...iron claws?"
"There are many rats wearing wooden armor patrolling near the construction site. The rats are indeed running into the Wood Age, and may even be brought into the Iron Age by these people! There are too many things left by us all over the world now.
Steel is abandoned. Once the rats master the smelting technology, the consequences will be disastrous."
As time went by, Deng Tao continued to update aerial intelligence.
Zhou You just listened quietly at first, but after the convoy passed the fork in the road and turned onto the side road of the county road, Tang Dahe, who was guarding Duke on the MPV side, dialed the intercom.
"Mr. Zhou, Duke said that we are going the wrong way. This is not the direction to Kangyue County. Going this way is going deep into the rat-occupied area, which will be very dangerous."
"Tell Mr. Duke that I already know. Thank you for the reminder. But the purpose of our coming to Kangyue County from Le is to exterminate rats. We will go wherever there is danger."
After Zhou talked, Deng Tao sent another message over there.
"I hovered over the factory at a high altitude. There were a lot of mice moving on the roof of the office building to the east of the factory. I couldn't tell the male and female of these mice carefully, but judging from their size, they seemed to be slightly smaller.
No. I'll turn my direction slightly and try to see if I can look in from the window of the office building."
After waiting for a while, Deng Tao sent back the news, "I saw that there were many mother rats and baby rats in the shade inside the window. These baby rats should have been born recently, and they looked like little worms! The mother rats
Put these little cubs in wooden boxes, and drag them under the sun from time to time to bask in the sun. Now the mice are cultivating their ability to adapt to light from an early age. This... they really want to occupy the ground!"
Zhou You nodded and said, "I understand."
After listening to Deng Tao's description, Zhou You had many thoughts in his mind.
Unfortunately, it is not convenient to contact Huayin at this time.
Otherwise, it would be nice to get remote technical support from the National Research Institute in the capital.
"It is likely that rats are rapidly evolving from underground creatures to phototactic creatures. In the past, rats were accustomed to being nocturnal, and slowly evolved a visual system that focused more on night vision. Correspondingly, many natural enemies of rats,
Owls and snakes such as cats and mustelids are actually mainly nocturnal. So if the eyesight of mice changes and they quickly iterate from nocturnal animals to day animals, they can avoid these original natural enemies in the short term.
With the threat, it can reproduce better and can easily eliminate its previous natural enemies."
At this time, Shen Ling, who was squatting next to the laptop, retrieving and observing the data reports of the previous humanoid robots, interrupted.
Zhou You sighed in his heart. Fortunately, Shen Ling was still around and there was someone with whom he could have academic discussions.
He still remembered the topic he and Shen Ling had discussed.
At that time, the two people first assumed that rats were a form of civilization that humans could not yet understand or empathize with. Then they thought about the rats' perspective and regarded humans as natural disasters to understand the civilization of rats.
At that time, the two of them just thought this kind of empathy was quite interesting.
I really didn’t expect that the civilization of rats that the two of them had imagined so wildly would actually come into reality with such ferocity just over twenty days later.
It's really not interesting at all.
Zhou You nodded, agreeing with Shen Ling's inference, "That's true. If a race wants to transform from an ordinary animal community to a real civilization, it does need better lighting conditions and more refined visual capabilities. After all, it has to be during the day. Only by being able to see clearly under strong light conditions can we invent and create better.”
"This is also determined by the characteristics of the earth. After all, the time of light on the earth is actually longer than the time of night. If we only use one generation of mice to breed mice, we can quickly iterate from dark vision to light vision, which will really benefit us. It’s bad news. But...the rat’s behavior now leaves us with an excellent opportunity.”
While the two were talking, Deng Tao over there had already made his own high-altitude analysis.
"I am now certain that this is indeed the core nest of the rats trying to dig the mountain. There are at least tens of thousands of mother rats and more than 200,000 young rats in this office building. In this case, we can still try to use Fire attack, knocking out all the rats in the building."
Deng Tao said this.
Zhou You also thought it was okay, and he had originally considered it this way.
In fact, since the beginning of the war between humans and mice, Zhou You has already used fire attacks twice, and each time he used fire attacks, he achieved outstanding results.
At present, the most powerful weapon in the hands of human beings is neither various nail guns nor various swords and crossbows, but it is still fire. Just like the ancient humans used fire to drive away wild beasts such as lions, tigers, leopards and bears. Same.
But Zhou You himself was not sure how long the fire would last and how many times the rat would make such low-level mistakes.
But what is certain is that as long as all the rats in the world cannot be burned out with one fire, rats will sooner or later understand the principles of fire prevention, and sooner or later they will no longer make these stupid mistakes. Combustible materials that are easy to spill and used for fire attacks will be consumed sooner or later.
These are all hidden dangers in the future.
The habit of always thinking the worst about things naturally turned in this direction.
Of course, no matter how worried he was, the current battle plan would not change much.
Ever since, the marching team started the second round of filling gasoline bottles again.
Deng Tao, who was at the front, repeatedly checked the distribution of humans in the factory. After confirming that there were no humans in the office building, he temporarily left the sky above the factory and flew back in the direction where the remaining rat army fled.
Deng Tao's current task is to track and observe the movements of the mouse deserters and report to the convoy at any time.
After the drone squadron on the convoy takes off while traveling, Deng Tao will seamlessly take over the command post and begin directing the enemy-baiting operations in the field.
The mission of this highly mobile team is to intercept and delay the return of the defeated rat army to the factory as much as possible.
Three minutes later, after simple preparations, twenty drones took off from the moving car almost simultaneously.
These drones are fully loaded with ammunition reserves, and top sharpshooters such as Luo Xun and Yin Yan are hoisted below.
Next, this drone squadron will retreat slightly and attack from the rear of the defeated rat army, pretending to be pursuing them from the direction of the high-voltage power tower.
The purpose of this operation was not to cause severe damage to the defeated rat army.
After all, there are only twenty drones, so even if they use full firepower, they probably won't achieve much results.
The real purpose of the operation is to mislead the commanding rat king among the defeated rats, forcing him to misjudge the situation and make him think that humans have not found his lair, and then actively issue instructions to make the rats temporarily change direction and escape to other places.
, in an attempt to mislead humans so as not to expose their lair.
Then, this will naturally further delay the return of the defeated rats to the factory.
This method really worked, and the convoy arrived at the intersection of Dujiacun almost ten minutes earlier than the defeated army who walked almost in a straight line over the mountains and ridges.
There were more than two hundred rats, both male and female, moving around the intersection, presumably serving as sentinels.
As soon as they spotted the convoy, there were at least dozens of rats running away in different directions.
Some rats wanted to go in the direction of high-voltage power towers, while others headed toward villages and towns, presumably to warn other rats in the factory.
This time the combat team did not adopt the strategy of pulling out nails in advance, mainly because the terrain in the villages and towns was too complex and it was impossible to achieve it.
For example, those sewer pipes along the streets built by humans are simply natural mobile trenches for rats.
In the command car, Gao Zhanying expressed concern about the situation.
Zhou You shook his head and said: "It doesn't matter. The rats' main fighting force is at the high-voltage power tower, and they have been reduced to a defeated army by us. The people left behind in the factory are not a worry."
Gao Zhanying shook his head helplessly, "But I'm worried about those people trapped in the factory."
"It doesn't matter, we will arrive before these so-called sentries. Pass it on and let Big G get to the front of the team. The whole army will speed up and rush forward to arrive at the gate of the factory as quickly as possible."
Two minutes later, the team drove straight to the entrance of the factory by re-repairing the lines, focusing on strengthening the pure steel plate hood and using a large G-shaped collision angle welded with a large number of I-beams and angle steels.
Just as Zhou You predicted, humans did arrive first.
At this time, even the fastest rat sentinel could only run half the distance.
The rats in the factory did not have time to react in advance to the dangers outside.
Subsequently, the rear compartment doors and windows of twenty cars were opened at the same time.
Two thousand soldiers, already fully armed and ready, filed out.
Zhou You, who controlled the humanoid armor, opened the door of the off-road vehicle and took the lead.
Behind him, various small and medium-sized electric armored vehicles drove down one after another along the electric telescopic truck unloading board.
For example, electric-driven tanks, mini armored vehicles, multi-functional combat robot dogs, and even multi-legged robotic arm robots.
Behind these electric armored vehicles are elite warriors wearing powered exoskeletons.
Behind the elite warriors, there are infantry troops all wearing alloy armor and carrying both cold weapons and hot weapons.
When attacking high-voltage power towers, due to inconvenient transportation, it is the air combat power that really shows off its power.
But now that vehicles can drive directly to the vicinity of the combat area, it is naturally the turn of the ground combat power to be used.
The candidates for the battle are basically the same group of people, but the main equipment used is very different.
It is this batch of ground armaments that the human army needs to adapt to.
Although these equipment have been verified many times in previous small-scale battles, large-scale battles and small-scale battles are different concepts.
This is both a combat operation and a military training exercise.
At this time, the large iron gate of the factory area was tightly closed.
I don’t know whether the door was closed like this before humans shrank, or whether it was occupied by rats and then found a way to close it.
Although one can crawl in through the lower edge of the big iron door while lying on one's stomach, it is obviously not necessary.
The wandering humanoid robot walked to the front of the iron door and first casually raised his hand to try to push it.
There is indeed a blockage inside and it cannot be pushed.
At this time, Luo Xun, who had completed the work of misleading and luring the enemy in advance, drove the high-end drone that was traveling around and came here. It was suspended at low altitude inside the factory and could see the scene behind the door.
Luo Xun shouted on the portable intercom: "There is a steel wire tied to the door lock... otherwise..."
Before Luo Xun finished speaking, Zhou You controlled the humanoid robot to use a little force and broke the steel wire inside.
After that, the gate opened and the human army pressed on.
After walking in from the factory gate, the first thing that comes into view is a small rectangular square that is not large in scale.
On both sides of the small square are parking areas, and on the inside is the lemon warehouse.
Placing the warehouse in this conspicuous location was a small thought of the owner who originally invested in building this factory. The purpose was to place fresh lemons in front of customers who came to visit the factory to show the solid materials used in the factory.
To the right of the warehouse is the four-story office building.
At this time, there were about ten to twenty thousand rats scattered in this small square.
The average size of these rats is slightly smaller, but most of them are covered in wooden armor.
Next to some of the adult mice were several smaller mice that could barely crawl at a slow speed.
I think these are the baby mice that were born one after another after humans shrank.
At this time, the sentry at the street entrance had not returned yet, and the rats in the factory did not know that humans had invaded the territory.
These 20,000 or 20,000 of them all acted urgently in just a few dozen seconds upon hearing the noise outside the door.
As for those human drudges, they are not here in the square at this time.
You know where the human drudges are, so you have to go around the warehouse and go inside.
He didn't waste any time, just waved his hand, strode out, stepped on the No. 9 electric kart next to him, and quickly jumped inside.
The ground troops behind him were divided into two sides, and at the same time they pushed open the two large iron doors facing each other.
After that, the human army's march route was divided into two columns and began to advance toward the inside.
In the middle of these two columns is a gap area with a width of six meters.
A truck had already changed its position in advance and came to the front.
This truck should now be considered a special vehicle to a certain extent.
Its past identity was as a sweeper used to clean streets.
It's just that the two disc-shaped electric brooms with brushes on top of the front end of this sweeper have been completely transformed.
Nowadays, the contact between the electric broom and the ground is no longer a plastic fiber brush, but a jungle-like 4 mm diameter iron wire.
After the cargo truck entered the door, he placed two brushes on the ground, then started to move with a bang, charging forward.
The two wire brushes plowed through the ground like iron plows, sucking in the rats that blocked their path.
Wherever the cargo card passed, there were only broken corpses and countless blood stains on the ground, as well as blood splattered all over the ground.
As the cargo truck took the lead, Zhou You also controlled the No. 9 electric kart at his feet and began to charge forward.
Dozens of armored vehicles of various types, multi-legged robots, and hundreds of infantry followed closely behind, rushing towards the inside.
This human team went straight to the area where the human laborers were observed by Deng Tao from high altitude, which was the area on the left side of the large warehouse.
The remaining rats finally understood the purpose of this human army.
The enemy is out to save their compatriots!
I don’t know what kind of order the Rat King hiding in the dark gave. After a brief pause, the rats in the square ran to both sides without hesitation, as if they were about to give up their defense, and seemed to be planning to let humans rescue them.
companion.
This is indeed a reasonable choice.
But the Rat King who is sitting here may have another intention, which is to first put the human army in, and then use the numerical advantage to surround this army and the previous hard workers from all directions, and catch all the humans in one fell swoop.
However, when the truck in front and Zhou You and others passed by the warehouse and started to turn, nearly three hundred single-person airships and three Langya No. 4 airships took off almost simultaneously above the other box trucks at the door.
, and then drifted away in the direction of the office building along with the wind.
If it were a normal situation, so many aerial units taking off at the same time would definitely make the rats more vigilant, and they might even warn their companions in the office building.
But at this time, most of the rats present had just escaped into the underground passage and had no idea what was going on above ground.
Only a few took the risk to lurk near the gate. Some of the rats who were closer to the convoy and were responsible for monitoring the scene saw that the situation was not good and immediately scurried back to the ground, preparing to go to the office building to give a warning.
There are about dozens of these rats, they are quite large and they all look male.
But at about this time, all the drone units previously responsible for luring the enemy and misleading them arrived, and following the orders given by Zhou You in advance, they were suspended in the low sky above the rectangular square.
Under the obstruction of powerful sharpshooters represented by Luo Xun and Yin Yan, in the end not a single mouse was able to break through the defense line, and they were all nailed to death in the square.
As for the rats that were already in the office building, they didn't understand the situation and didn't know how to act.
In the past tense, the eyesight of rats had advantages, but it also had shortcomings. The most typical shortcoming is the origin of the idiom "rat's eyesight is short-sighted."
Rats can only see moving objects within ten meters. For stationary and relatively stationary objects, they have to get extremely close to barely see them clearly.
But now, as humans have shrunk in size, the intelligence of rats has also improved. At the same time, the body structure of rats is gradually undergoing some subtle microevolutions that are more in line with the needs of civilized creatures.
The eyes are the biggest change.
As early as during the battle of the substation, Zhou You noticed rats hiding in the high-rise buildings of the abandoned cotton spinning factory and watching the situation in the substation and the city.
Zhou You didn't think much about it at that time, because he already regarded rats as beings like humans, and instinctively felt that rats could see things clearly at long distances.
Later, I read around the autopsy reports from the National Academy of Sciences and found a clear answer to this question.
The eyes of mice are indeed different. In addition to maintaining the original super photoreceptor and ultraviolet vision capabilities, the structure of the mouse's eyeballs itself has undergone some changes, allowing them to respond more acutely to changes in distant light.
It can also better adapt to strong light environments, and it also has an adjustable pupil size change ratio that is close to that of a cat's eyes.
For this reason, mother rats in office buildings let their pups bask in the sun from time to time when they are still young to better adapt to daytime vision.
Now, the female rats in the office building and a small number of strong male rats responsible for security have indeed seen these airships.
But it is a pity that these mice have not yet been able to join the remnants of the high-voltage electricity tower at this time, and they have not realized the horror of the flames, nor have they thought that they and their cubs are all in the same building, which is perfect for humans to set fire to.
In their instinctive thinking, they may still be thinking, hurry up and fly over, just in time to remove all your bones and add some meat to the children.
At about this time, the Rat King, who was leading the remaining soldiers towards Dujia Village, met up with the sentry who came to report the news.
After the Rat King hesitated for a moment, he decided to continue leading his remaining soldiers and run back.
It actually wanted to come back for help instead of simply escaping.
The reason is very simple. The number of baby rats in that office building did reach more than 200,000!
Although according to the strict hierarchical social system of rats, the superior rats, especially the rat king, who occupy a high position in the group should not care about the life and death of the lower rats.
But the baby rats are different. These little guys represent the future of the group and must not be given up easily.
The most important thing is that the Rat King is actually not convinced.
The previous disastrous defeat under the high-voltage power tower was really a crime other than war.
Humans simply did not give the Rats a fair chance to fight. Instead, they relied on their skillful use of the sacred flames in nature to put the Rats into a desperate situation surrounded by flames from the very beginning.
But now, the battlefield between the two sides has changed from a mountain forest full of flammable trees to a reinforced concrete built by humans, and there will no longer be so many flammable materials.
So, we can have a fair fight! I can win!
Just as Zhou You feared before, rats are always burned with fire. Rats have indeed become more and more aware of flames, and now the Rat King already has the concept of combustibles in his mind.
But it is a pity that this rat king still does not live enough to realize from the previous lessons that what humans rely on when setting fires is not the natural substances in nature, but a chemical product called gasoline.
.
On the other side, human workers who were busy in an open-air construction site suddenly heard the roar of cars coming from ahead.
Then, everyone raised their heads and looked into the distance.
At a glance, they saw the sweeper with red blood all over the wire brush in front of the car.
I don’t know who was the first. The people who looked numb just a moment ago and looked like zombies suddenly threw away the tools in their hands and began to run towards the car wailing.