Jiang Ye sighed inwardly.
Yu Xiangyang was truly terrifying.
Enemies feared him, and even allies did, with only his own ruthless will hovering over the battlefield like the god of death.
The nickname "Wu'an Jun of Wheeler Star" was indeed well-earned.
As the old saying goes, names can be mistaken, but nicknames are rarely wrong.
Third, regarding the quantity and types of weapons sold.
The quantity was substantial, with an estimated 1.9 billion worth of weapons sold.
Fortunately, the types were not advanced, mostly infantry-operable weapons, nothing too cutting-edge.
The reason for not selling advanced weaponry to the Gante army wasn't due to the timidity of the officers involved—these were men who would sell nuclear bombs by the pound—but simply because there weren't any.
Jiang Ye had initially been cautious. After all, these were newly incorporated troops, and entrusting them with heavy weaponry immediately was a concern. Thus, the first batch of weapons allocated consisted mostly of outdated infantry arms and static defensive weapons, even including some nearing their expiration dates.
As it turned out, Jiang Ye's caution was highly effective. Had heavy weaponry been issued from the start, it would have all ended up with the Gante army, and the situation on Wheeler Star would likely have reversed rapidly.
Fourth, the process of weapon sales.
The two most common transaction methods identified so far were face-to-face exchanges and buried cache transactions.
Small quantities of common infantry weapons were often traded face-to-face.
Both sides would send a contingent of men to a secluded location, meeting to exchange money for goods.
To ensure the transactions went smoothly, both parties had similar numbers of personnel and were armed, ready to fight if anything went awry.
However, it was quite miraculous that no major altercations had occurred in these face-to-face trades thus far.
The reports analyzed that the smooth transactions might be due to mutual apprehension of each other's reinforcements, or perhaps it was related to Wheeler Star's civilian culture. Such arms deals between warlord factions were common on Wheeler Star, and over time, strict unwritten rules had formed, considered a cultural difference.
As for buried cache transactions, they were used for large-scale and valuable arms deals.
The defending forces would secretly bury the weapons to be sold in various locations within the rainforest, not all in one spot but dispersed.
The Gante army would then bury their money chests or gold and silver in other locations within the rainforest, also scattered.
Once everything was buried, both sides would contact each other, informing each other of the coordinates.
One side would dig up the money, the other the weapons, and upon confirming the quantities, they would communicate the next set of coordinates until the entire transaction was complete.
These transactions could last for more than ten days, as the back-and-forth travel and the transportation of large quantities of arms required time.
Through these staggered transactions, the losses for both sides were minimized. If one party reneged, the other would only lose a portion.
Fifth, some tragedies and chaos.
Numerous chaotic incidents occurred surrounding the sale of weapons to the enemy.
Internal conflicts broke out in four military bases.
At Godwin Mountain Base, a squad leader named Shangqi Hezhen, upon learning that his battalion commander intended to sell weapons to the Gante army, revolted. He led six soldiers, armed with automatic weapons, into the officer's building and opened fire. The officers returned fire. In the end, forty-two people died before the situation was quelled. Shangqi Hezhen and his six soldiers were all killed, their bodies buried in the rainforest a kilometer outside the base. Two days later, the weapon sales continued.
At Little Fan Mountain Base, two companies engaged in a brawl in the mess hall. The reason, however, was not the sale of weapons to the Gante army, but a dispute over the division of spoils from the sales. It started with verbal arguments and escalated to physical combat using stools and food bowls. When a deputy company commander, Samson Quint, drew his pistol, intending to fire a warning shot to stop the conflict, a platoon leader on the opposing side was quick-witted. Before Quint could fire, he was shot in the head. The officers of both companies began firing at each other, ultimately resulting in a vicious incident with thirteen casualties.
Incidents involving casualties also occurred at City Down Base and Conan Forest Base.
Other bases might have experienced internal strife, but either it didn't escalate to fatalities or it hadn't been discovered yet.
Vast quantities of expensive supplies were sold to the Gante army at shockingly low prices.
During the initial phase of Jiang Ye's army, they provided the incorporated troops with "poison needle" anti-tank missiles, each costing thirty thousand yuan, but they were sold to the Gante army at a unit price of one thousand yuan, with a total of nearly 120,000 missiles sold. Most of these 120,000 missiles were used by the Gante army in offensive operations, resulting in the deaths of at least three thousand defending soldiers, some of whom were killed by the very missiles they had sold.
Dual-cycle individual gas masks, valued at 800 yuan, were sold for fifty yuan each, with seventeen thousand units sold.
Minefield wide-area detectors, valued at ten thousand yuan, were sold for five hundred yuan each, with 4,600 units sold.
Small silicon batteries for energy-concentrating guns, each worth 10 yuan, were sold in batches of one hundred thousand units by the local defending forces for twenty thousand yuan.
In addition to these, large quantities of ammunition, firearms, grenades, combat drones, fuel, and spare parts were sold in bulk, with prices generally cut by more than half.
Beyond weapon sales, intelligence was also being sold, often with frontline defending troops betraying information about neighboring bases in hopes that the Gante army would attack them.
The quantities of weapons sold were still being tallied and investigated, with direct losses estimated to be as high as 14 billion.
Furthermore, within the incorporated troops, there was the issue of ghost soldiers. Many independent units claiming to have five hundred men actually had just over two hundred. Due to the rushed timeline, Jiang Ye's army found it difficult to verify the specific situations on the front lines and had to disburse military pay and weapon supplies based on the reported numbers of the incorporated troops. The direct losses from ghost soldiers alone were estimated to be ten billion.
There were also some utterly absurd situations that almost made Jiang Ye laugh in anger.
A few days prior, while confiscating illicit funds from the incorporated troops' weapon sales, Jiang Ye's army discovered over ten million yuan in counterfeit currency and over a hundred gold bars with insufficient purity, mixed with large amounts of zinc, iron, copper, tungsten, and other impurities.
Some of the counterfeit currency and fake gold bars were the result of deception by the Gante army; the transactions were too hasty, and the goods were not thoroughly inspected. It was only discovered many days after they were brought back.
Some of the counterfeit currency and fake gold bars were actually swapped by low-ranking soldiers. Before the transactions, the soldiers had prepared fake currency and gold bars, mostly purchased from nearby civilians. During the transportation of the goods after the transaction, the soldiers would steal the real currency and gold bars, replacing them with the fake ones they carried.
Some companies had buried supplies for sale days in advance, but for some unknown reason, the opposing Gante army suddenly backed out of the deal. When these companies dug up the buried supplies and brought them back, they discovered that a large portion of the goods had been ruined by the rain.
"Damn it, I have no words," Jiang Ye said, throwing the report heavily onto the sofa. "I regret incorporating these Wheeler Star warlords; they are both stupid and wicked."
"It's truly too chaotic," Su Yueming agreed.
"My head hurts, oh, my head hurts," Jiang Ye said, rubbing his temples.