The expeditionary force began to dominate Southeast Asia by recruiting defeated soldiers

Chapter 588: Will future wars just consist of drinking coffee and pressing buttons?

What's more, Zhang Chi has the ultimate deterrent that transcends his time.

Zhang Chi's eyes swept across the huge crater, and a sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth.

The "Flying Swallow" that accurately smashed Tanabe Moritake's lair is the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of all potential ambitious people.

This is not just about killing a lieutenant general. It represents a new and desperate form of warfare - beyond-visual-range, high-precision, decapitation-style strike capability.

It clearly conveyed a message: no matter where you hid, as long as Zhang Chi was willing, as long as you were within the combat radius of the Nanyang Air Force, the death god from the sky could quietly descend in the darkness of the night and crush you and your ambitions to dust. Anyone who knew of the existence of this weapon had to consider whether they had the nerve to do so.

"After the successful landing, we organized engineers and military police to search the ruins carefully for three days..." Qi Quan pointed to the deep crater and the surrounding rubble, his tone filled with helplessness and disbelief.

"Only a few... fragmentary, unidentifiable pieces of human tissue have been found. Based on the prisoners' confessions and some document fragments, we can confirm that Tanabe Moritake and his core staff were commanding from this building at the time. But... not a single intact body has been found. For now, we can only... tentatively declare Tanabe Moritake missing."

Zhang Chi almost laughed out loud when he heard this.

Missing?

Of course he knew what happened to Moritake Tanabe.

At the moment when the "Feiyan-1" hit, the system kill prompt sound in his mind rang out very clearly.

This old devil and his command center had been blown to pieces by a 2000-pound heavy bomb. The Nanyang engineers were credited with having good eyesight for finding the "fragments".

"That's enough, Qi Quan." Zhang Chi waved his hand, his tone relaxed. "Don't bother looking for him anymore. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, a waste of manpower. Just record it in the battle report. Tanabe Moritake, confirmed kill. Let the propaganda department publicize the combat effectiveness of our Nanyang Air Force."

"Yes!" Qi Quan responded immediately. The doubts in his heart dissipated a lot in the face of Zhang Chi's confidence, but another deeper shock surged up.

He looked at the bottomless crater in front of him, imagining the scene of the bomb falling from the sky and taking his life with precision, and he couldn't help but shudder.

"Commander-in-Chief..." Qi Quan took off his military cap and scratched his sweat-soaked short hair. His eyes were filled with confusion and awe about the future. "You say...will future wars be like this? Commanders sitting in an underground command post thousands of miles away, behind iron walls, drinking coffee, looking at maps, and casually issuing orders.

And then... then the Air Force would silently fly over with these self-locating bombs, or even something even more powerful, and wipe out the enemy commanders, headquarters, and even entire cities... from the map?"

Zhang Chi's gaze became distant, as if he had penetrated time and space and saw the world before he traveled through time.

Roaring cruise missiles, hovering reconnaissance and strike drones, laser-guided precision strikes, and "surgical" attacks guided by satellite...

Even further away, energy weapons and space-based strike platforms...

That is truly the real-life version of the myth of "taking someone's head from a thousand miles away."

"That's right." Zhang Chi paused, deciding to play prophet once again. "The methods of warfare will become increasingly 'detached.' The role of the commander will shift from charging into battle and commanding on the battlefield to more focused on strategic planning, system building, information control, and... the decisiveness to press that final button."

"The sense of security provided by distance and fortifications will become extremely fragile in the face of future weapons. Even..." He paused, deliberately leaving Qi Quan with a suspenseful imaginative space, "It's not completely impossible for it to develop to the stage where a golden light or a spell can take a person's life from a distance of 108,000 miles, like in Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West."

Qi Quan was stunned and swallowed subconsciously, feeling his throat a little dry.

He looked down at his calloused hands, used to holding guns and manipulating maps, and a huge sense of confusion and vague loss came over him.

How much value will his hard-trained tactics, accumulated experience, and proud battlefield intuition have in the face of future "button-pressing" wars?

"Then...then tell me," Qi Quan's voice was dry, even though he himself didn't notice it. "By that time, will we still be needed...will we still be needed as commanders? Or rather, will we still need 'excellent' commanders?"

He asked, revealing the deepest anxiety in his heart.

If war becomes pure technological crushing and remote destruction, what is the meaning of the personal bravery and strategy of soldiers?

Zhang Chi looked at the confusion on his beloved general's face and suddenly smiled.

The rapid development of military technology during the Cold War did indeed eliminate the personal level gap between senior generals, but this was a happy trouble brought about by the rapid development of Nanyang under his leadership, wasn't it?

"Let future generations worry about the future." Zhang Chi patted Qi Quan on the shoulder and said comfortingly, "I only know that Nanyang is in great need of excellent commanders right now. Especially commanders like you who can stand on their own, fight tough battles, and clean up afterward."

He changed the subject and pointed beyond the ruins, at the lush, rolling, endless tropical rainforest and mountains.

"Look at Sumatra. Apart from this old port, there are a few cities like Medan and Padang that represent civilization. What else is there? Endless primeval jungle, miasma-filled swamps, and uninhabited areas surrounded by high mountains and dense forests."

"This place is even more desolate than Pegu and Malay. We crushed the large-scale, organized frontal resistance of the Japanese, but what about those scattered remnants? And what about those diehards brainwashed by militarism? They dive into this endless forest, break up into small groups, fight guerrilla warfare with you, play hide-and-seek with you..."

"They are familiar with the terrain and use brutal tactics, harassing supply lines, killing isolated individuals, and inciting unsuspecting natives... This kind of relentless, sticky clearing operation is the most grueling, testing both patience and command skills."

Zhang Chi looked directly into Qi Quan's eyes as he spoke:

"Eliminate the remaining enemies, restore order, establish effective administration, protect the oilfield facilities, appease the local population, and at the same time guard against those desperate, devastating defeats... This is by no means an easy task. It requires someone who can maintain control, possess both ruthless tactics and gentle wisdom, and who is familiar with my theory of the great unification of Nanyang..."

He paused and clearly saw the flash of astonishment and a hint of imperceptible loss in Qi Quan's eyes.