Mercenary’s War

Chapter 2386 - 2362: Surprise

After two rounds of shelling, Abdullah left, and he left in a hurry. He just greeted Gao Yang, exchanged a few casual words, and then took off.

When the shelling ended, of course Rebrov had to take the artillerymen back.

Back at the temporary camp, Gao Yang picked up the mutton soup and took a sip, then put down the mess tin and sighed, "It’s good, but if you keep drinking it, it stops being that wonderful."

After putting down the mutton soup and sighing, Gao Yang lifted the mess tin again and slurped it all down—meat, soup, plus half a big flatbread—then sighed again, "But anyway, it’s still way better than gnawing on compressed rations every day."

Glolov chuckled and said, "As long as you know that."

Gao Yang put down the mess tin and spoon, and said to Rebrov, "If Abdullah really handed over all of the Houthis Armed Forces’ artillery for you to command, could you handle it?"

Rebrov said in great surprise, "All of it?"

Gao Yang nodded and smiled. "Not literally all. Abdullah says they’ve got more than two hundred guns total. He’s only talking about the pieces the Houthis Armed Forces have in Sana’a, around forty guns of various calibers. Could you command those?"

Rebrov said without the slightest hesitation, "No. If you gave me enough artillerymen of sufficient quality, commanding forty‑plus guns would be easy. But if you only give me the guns and the Houthis Armed Forces’ current artillery crews, then forget it, I’d never be able to command them."

After he finished, Rebrov said helplessly, "The Houthis Armed Forces’ artillery can only manage direct fire. Forty‑plus guns is at least the size of a reinforced artillery regiment, and without enough Calculator Soldiers, reconnaissance, and signal crews, what kind of unit is that supposed to be? They don’t even have enough gun commanders. Even if you cut me into pieces, I still couldn’t control them."

Gao Yang said with clear regret, "Then we’ll drop it. Abdullah really is thinking about putting all the artillery under our command. I didn’t agree, I just said I’d think about it because I wanted to hear your opinion. Besides, right now it’s just an idea in his head. If he tried to dump all the guns on you right away, I’d turn him down on the spot."

Rebrov said with interest, "Abdullah must’ve realized that artillery only performs the way it should in the right hands. Boss, why don’t you bring up swapping guns with him—get us some pieces with bigger calibers and better accuracy. These four guns we’ve got are too old."

Gao Yang gave a bitter smile and said, "I already mentioned it, but no chance. Those D30s are already the best guns the Houthis Armed Forces have."

Rebrov said with deep regret, "Then forget it. We’ll just keep using these D30s. They’re still usable."

Gao Yang smiled again and said, "Doesn’t matter. If the Houthis Armed Forces can’t provide, we’ll get our own. I’ve already bought six 2A65 guns. They should arrive in about a month. Shipping arms into Yemen is a real pain right now—too many eyes on this place. Otherwise it wouldn’t take so long."

Rebrov’s face lit up with surprise. "2A65s? Six of them? That’s fantastic!"

Gao Yang said with a smile, "Brand‑new guns, too."

Rebrov laughed out loud and said, "That’s even better."

Gao Yang sighed. "Actually, I wanted to buy Self-propelled artillery. Towed artillery is still a bit slow to deploy. If we had Self-propelled artillery, that’d be perfect. But Self-propelled artillery is too expensive—four guns cost at least 20 million USD, and that’s the friends‑and‑family price. The ammo consumption is huge as well. Buy too little and it’s pointless, buy enough and we can’t afford it. So we had to settle for towed artillery."

Rebrov said confidently, "Towed artillery is fine, Boss. Now I see it clearly: in Yemen, even with towed guns, we’re not going to meet a real opponent. It’s just that for six 152‑millimeter guns, we’re a bit short on manpower right now."

After he finished, Rebrov chuckled and said, "But all the people you brought in are technical backbone. To expand the crews we just need to find a few loaders. Boss, where did you find these people? No one is willing to let go of technical backbone like this."

Gao Yang looked pained. "It cost a lot. A whole lot. I lent out a large sum of money that might never come back just to secure these guys. But it was worth it, right?"

Rebrov nodded immediately. "Of course it was! Expanding to a full regiment is impossible, but with these people, scaling up to a battalion is no problem at all!"

Gao Yang stood up and smiled. "I’m going to wash my mess tin. You head back too and stay ready to fight at any time. Abdullah’s had a taste of the benefits, so it’s very likely he’ll come asking you to deploy again. This is a critical phase. If we can help, we should do our best."

Rebrov replied casually, "Yes, Boss."

They’d just dragged the artillery out for a shoot in the morning; by late afternoon, Salim arrived again with a supply convoy. And this time he’d brought some good stuff—half a truck of tomatoes in the supplies, and the meat had been switched to beef.

"Now that the fighting’s started, everything’s chaotic everywhere. It’s really hard to find vegetables. These tomatoes are all we could get."

"That’s already great. Really good."

After thanking Salim for what he’d brought, Gao Yang turned to Liang Dong and said, "Mouse, tomato and beef brisket stew tonight."

Once Gao Yang had handed off the vital matter of what to eat for dinner, Salim lowered his voice and said, "After leaving you, Abdullah went to see Lavagani. He asked Iran to send over some artillerymen."

Gao Yang was quite surprised and said in a low voice, "Oh? Did Lavagani agree?"

Salim said worriedly, "He did. Didn’t even think about it—agreed right away, said he’d send the best artillerymen. If we let Iran send artillerymen, it’ll boost our combat power in the short term, but, but then..."

What Salim didn’t finish saying was obvious: the Iranians’ influence would grow, and their control would be stronger.

Salim didn’t want to see the Houthis Armed Forces completely controlled by Iran. That’s why he was so eager to win over Gao Yang—because he wanted to bring in Russia’s power to balance Iran. If Abdullah brought in a large number of Iranian artillerymen, that would run completely counter to what he wanted.

But for Gao Yang, Iran sending artillerymen was basically a huge windfall. He wasn’t competing with Iran for control over Yemen. If Iran supplied men and guns, then he wouldn’t have to pay out of his own pocket to strengthen the Houthis Armed Forces. How could that be anything but good?

Of course, he couldn’t say that to Salim. So Gao Yang just put on a regretful face and said, "Nothing we can do. It’s not really possible for us to send a lot of people here for now, so this is how it has to be."

Salim was very disappointed, but Gao Yang was quietly delighted. Because if Iran decided to expand its aid and started shipping guns and shells, he might be able to save the money he was going to spend on artillery. And even if he couldn’t save on the guns, he’d gladly accept it—if Iran could at least provide the shells, that alone would be a huge bonus.