Chapter 1287: Left behind

Schmidt was an ordinary oil and gas field engineer who was sent to the capital, Mogadishu, for a $ 30 billion oil and gas field development agreement between ExxonMobil and the Somali authorities.
Although he had made all kinds of preparations before coming here, the degree of rundown here finally exceeded his expectations.
He had seen it in travel magazines before it was called the White Pearl on the Indian Ocean before the Civil War.
But now, a bit of historical buildings are left with broken walls, bullet holes on the walls are clearly visible, most of the roads are potty, and the entire city is almost green. As long as you have a mouth, you can eat a lot of sand.
It's not just greening that makes people blame.
Because of the special local culture, there is no bar here, and casual drinking will be punished by caning.
Although their executives have found a way to help them get the privilege to drink without whip, this privilege is limited to the employee dormitory, and the variety and quantity of supplies are quite limited, which really makes people unhappy.
Therefore, for their employees who are dispatched here, the only entertainment here is to buy an up-to-date newspaper and sit in a coffee shop near the company's premises. Spend an afternoon with hand-milled coffee denominated in dollars.
It doesn't matter what newspaper it is.
Whether it's BBC or Playboy, as long as there is a word, life here is really boring.
As usual, Schmidt came to the coffee shop, ordered a black coffee that was hard to drink for an afternoon, and then sat in a safe place far from the window with a newspaper.
Just as he was about to start today's newspaper entertainment, he froze for a moment.
[Elliwage Victory! Somali regular army wins! 】
What the hell?
April Fool's joke?
No, there is still half a year.
At the moment when he saw the headlines in the newspaper, Schmidt's first reaction was that he must have made a mistake.
He is clear about the combat effectiveness of the Somali regular army. Even after receiving training from various officials, the fight is still quite brutal. It can be said that the rifle was replaced with a spear that would spit fire without any sense of disobedience.
In contrast, the enemies they face are pirates that have caused headaches for all countries in the world. The devil survived the elimination and test of blood and fire for more than ten years.
In the face of such enemies, let alone them, even if the US aircraft carrier is brought in, they may not be able to completely destroy them, let alone the Somali Army that even a few tanks cannot make up.
With disbelief, he looked down the newspaper, but that didn't matter, and his sight was instantly stuck on the newspaper's picture.
To be precise, there are four groups of pictures.
The two groups were a "black coffin" suspended by a parachute, probably photographed by some professional remote shooting equipment.
The other two photos are a perspective shot of the drone group flying out of the black coffin, and a thick smoke floating from a blasting ammunition store hidden behind the hills.
咋 The moment he saw these pieces of equipment, Schmidt's mind could be certain that the Somali authorities must have invited foreign aid.
These indigenous people in East Africa may not even have seen drone captains. How could it be possible to use high-tech equipment that even the US military does not have large-scale deployment.
Sure enough, when he read down the text, he quickly found the answer between the lines.
"With the support of the Chinese state, the Elwag area occupied by Somali zf army militants launched the biggest offensive this year. In the fight against the Chinese state, at least hundreds of aerial bombs were dropped on the battlefield and 20 ammunition stores were destroyed. Elsewhere, more than a dozen militants controlled the post. "
"At the same time, our reporter learned that a small drone suspected of being controlled by AI, automatically identifying and attacking militants was invested in fighting the Chinese nation. Such drones and Shenzhen have recently The logistics drones being promoted are highly similar in shape, and it is not yet clear whether they are from the same company ... "
"At present, the battlefield has been moved from open areas to street fighting, and many armed leaders have been killed. According to a spokesman for the Somali authorities, the armed forces active in the area have been unable to maintain control of the area, and the ZF Army is recovering. Villages and towns controlled by militants. It is expected that this dong chaos will continue until the end of the year. This newspaper reminds foreign employees working here to pay attention to travel safety. "
"In addition, our reporter has consulted the U.S. military bases in Ethiopia and asked for more information about the air strike. However, the person in charge of the military base has not disclosed which type of aircraft was involved in the air strike and where it came from. Declined to answer in more detail. "
"……God."
Did the Yankees help China keep secret?
The sun is coming out to the west!
Schmidt would never believe that those U.S. forces would be tight-lipped about the weapons that launched the air strikes for the Chinese. If they knew, they must have wished the world knew.
There is only one possibility ...
That is, so far, they have not found enough evidence to prove who initiated the air strike and where it came from.
As the expression on his face gradually changed from doubt to unbelievable, several other foreign employees murmured behind him.
Coincidentally, what they discussed was exactly the same thing as he couldn't figure out about doubting life.
"Have you read the news yesterday? The ZF in Somali actually won ?!"
"Do you still see it? Twitter is talking about it today! Many people say that China used some terrible secret weapon. I heard our resident bodyguards said that his big nephew serving in the resident participated in the battle They had already prepared for a deadly fight with the militants. As a result, they went and patronized those militants. "
Speaking, the man with scum on his chin couldn't help but smash his tongue, as if he were the witness of the battle, he continued with a heavy tone.
"You don't want to see that picture ... it's just like hell."
"What do you think that secret weapon might be?"
"I don't know, but many people say it is an orbital weapon ... if it is a fighter or bomber, it is impossible to fly so far, and it is impossible to escape the radar of the US military base!"
Listening to the comments of several foreign employees behind him, Schmidt fell into silence, and after a while, he always squeezed out a word.
"It's crazy ..."
Orbit weapon?
Avoid US radar completely?
This is simply ridiculous!
Simply say that the Somali zf has achieved an epic victory with the help of aliens!
After reading the newspaper in his hand, it was not too early. Smit drank the last cup of coffee in the cup, threw it to the waiter for a dollar tip, and got up from his seat.
The streets were filled with cheers and celebrations, and the locals gathered in groups, as if celebrating and welcoming something.
For this dead city, this scene is as unreal as if it came from another world.
Although curious about what happened to be celebrated, Schmidt didn't dare to gather with the locals, because his skin color was a bit too eye-catching for the locals, and it was easy to be regarded as a fat sheep ...
Over the next few days, strange things happened one after another.
First they moved a Chinese construction company next door, and then quickly moved an oil company, then an import and export trading company ...
Later, the Chinese people in the vicinity became more and more faces, and slowly opened supermarkets, clothing stores, and even franchised bars.
Yes, it is actually a bar.
This made Smit envious.
Although their executives also tried to buy local officials to see if they could open an American bar to entertain their employees, those officials promised to collect money, but waited until they were ready to open the bar. When I turned, I instantly turned my face down.
I don't know what the Chinese people used to buy them, but actually made them bow their heads to the principle.
However, it is interesting that those Chinese employees do not seem to be interested in such things as bars, and they are often visited only by those American and European employees who work for Shell and ExxonMobil.
Of course, this includes Schmidt himself.
Although jealousy is jealous, wine is not wrong.
However, something happened that annoyed Schmidt later. One day he suddenly discovered that the wine sold to them by the Chinese people was more than twice as expensive as the price sold to their employees.
When he questioned the bartender, the answer he received was only one sentence, "the reason for the exchange rate," and there was no more explanation.
This is simply killing people!
Although his heart was not good, in the end Smit could only recognize it with his teeth.
No way, who wants this bar to have only such a bar?
Thanks to the Chinese guys who were uplifted by the locals, even if they didn't like him very much, at least he had more fun in his life and no longer need to drink coffee and read the newspaper like an old man.
In the next week, things became more interesting.
There are more and more faces in the nearby Hua Guo, and it suddenly turns into a Chinatown.
Later, Schmidt learned from several British oil workers that the Chinese construction companies were preparing to send an engineering team to the Ellevage region to rebuild the city recovered by the ZF army.
Now Schmidt is getting more and more certain that the Somali authorities must have reached some sort of unspeakable deal with the Chinese side and contracted the reconstruction work of that area to those Chinese people.
But Schmidt still couldn't figure it out.
Is there anything of value other than stones and sand there?
Bringing order to cacti and camels makes no sense.
And frankly, a chaotic Somalia can at least help the world to consume at least a portion of its surplus arms and feed at least 20,000 families that depend on it.
While drinking at the bar yesterday, he also heard a familiar arms trader complaining ~ EbookFREE.me ~ Chinese construction workers snatched their work, Lockheed Martin and several other arms giants paid The rewards for them have plummeted, and now they have to give up the "markets" that have been difficult to develop and go to the more dangerous Central Africa.
When talking about it, their eyes flashed with excitement, like navigators in the sixteenth century.
It is said that there is an outbreak of food crisis and wars between tribes and warlords continue.
Although they are not as "rich" as the Somali pirates, there are diamonds, gold mines, and oil that have not yet been mined. Every inch of the land is full of carrion-or the smell of banknotes.
Before the Chinese people opened up the market there, they could make a lot of money while they were there.
Drinking and drinking, the mushy arms trader with a vicissitude on his face fell asleep.
Schmidt didn't disturb his dreams, he just thought about what was bothering himself, and drunk.
Now it's not just that newspaper, there are more and more things he can't figure out.
Vaguely, he felt that the logic of the world's operation seemed to be quietly undergoing some great changes.
He couldn't describe the feeling, it was just a vague feeling that the change seemed to have started a long time ago, but even he has recently been affected.
For example, you can sit here and drink alcohol.
For example, to be able to stay outside the dormitory until ten in the evening ... In order to protect those Chinese people, the local military and police have at least three times more police forces here. People who occasionally encountered robbery now, as long as they do n’t get out of here Street, basically not even the shadow of a local.
However, you can't figure it out.
After all, it seems that there are only so many little people like him who can witness with their eyes ...
.