Above the minefields, fighter jets shrieked as they darted back and forth. Flying slightly lower than the jets were the shells exchanged between Chinese and British batteries, each side desperately attempting to suppress the other's artillery positions.

Within the minefields, the battle raged at the level of infantry squads and platoons. Although squad-level tactics were the bread and butter of the Chinese military, the British, as the defenders, held numerous advantages. The Chinese infantry had no knowledge of the British mine layouts and were forced to provide cover for combat engineers as they cleared paths, which significantly slowed the pace of operations.

Sergeant Obama had never experienced such intense combat. Even during the siege of Johannesburg, a major city in South Africa, he had never witnessed a bombardment this fierce.

The artillery on both sides never ceased its pounding. Thick smoke and pulverized sand choked the air, creating a dense, suffocating haze. Combined with the massive amount of smoke grenades launched by the 11th Army to mask the engineers' work, visibility within the minefield was severely limited.

Initially, the newly promoted Sergeant Obama felt his limbs go weak under the shelling. At one point, his grip faltered from a lack of strength, and a mine he had just unearthed began to slip through his fingers. In that split second, Obama’s sharp instincts suddenly returned. He didn't lunge for the mine; instead, he dropped into a quick crouch, flicking his fingers upward as he moved. This upward motion cushioned the mine's descent. Obama released his fingers and used the height difference from his lowered posture to reach out again. As he landed hard on his backside in the sand, he managed to catch the mine just in time.

The mine did not detonate. Sergeant Obama felt as though he couldn't breathe, but he forced himself through the suffocating pain to gently set the mine down on the sand. He then rolled sideways into a nearby crater.

He lay in the depression for a long time before he could finally catch his breath. He had never imagined death could be so close. Breathing the dusty air with painful gasps, Obama even wondered for a moment if he had already died.

Half a minute later, he crawled back toward the mine. Despite his body shivering as if electrified, he resumed the clearing work.

Just a few hours ago, his squad leader, Liu Zhaoji, had been killed. The deputy squad leader and the rest of his comrades were gone as well. They hadn't died from a mine detonation while clearing; they were vaporized by a sudden, concentrated British artillery strike. Obama was only alive because the squad leader had heard the ominous whistle in the air and screamed, "Everyone down!" while simultaneously shoving Obama to the ground.

As the shells rained down in succession, Obama felt the very earth vibrate. Dust and sand showered over him, and he lost consciousness. When he was finally dug out from the sand that had nearly buried him alive, he saw that the spots where his comrades had been were now littered with human fragments coated in thick grit.

Obama knew that if he continued to fight, he would likely die. Yet, he applied to return to the line anyway. He didn't even know why he felt compelled to keep going, but he simply couldn't stop.

Finally, he found a reason for himself. That morning, Squad Leader Liu Zhaoji had told them that once the mine-clearing was finished, they could go to the rear for a rest. The day wasn't over yet. To earn that rest, Obama had to finish the day's work.

In the hours that followed, Obama felt he had regained his former agility, yet he was not quite the same. Previously, his agility had included a sharp awareness of his surroundings; now, his mind was focused solely on the mines. Only this singular focus provided him with a sense of peace.

As a child, Obama had not been strong and often came out on the losing end of scraps with the local kids. His older brothers and sisters were the tough ones on the street, and they would always step in to help him. But every time his siblings won a fight and bragged to their father at home, the father would smile and praise them before turning a stern face toward Obama. "Why did you run away?" he would ask.

After he joined the military, Obama saw a look of gratification on his father's face that he had never received before.

On the battlefield, Obama had been paralyzed by the sound of gunfire many times, even wanting to retreat. But his squad leader and comrades had protected him, carrying him forward with them.

Now, the squad leader and his friends had gone to their rest ahead of him. For the first time in his life, Obama truly did not want to run. Even if he were to leave this place, it would only be after the day's work was done.

After that, Obama had no clear memory of what happened around him. He simply kept his head down, desperately clearing mines while small units around him engaged in skirmishes with the British. Comrades from these units seemed to appear in front of him constantly, but Obama didn't care; he just kept working. Occasionally, he had to stop because the smoke stung his eyes so fiercely he had to wipe away the tears to see the sand in front of him.

At some point, he could no longer find any more mines. The small units that had been moving around him somehow converged, surging past him with a roar of shouts.

Obama heard the sound of the charge bugle. Instinctively, he shouldered his magnetic detector and tried to run forward with the main body, but someone grabbed him from behind and forcibly dragged him back.

Waiting for him at the rear was his company commander, a tall man from Shandong who was said to be a fellow provincial of Chairman He Rui. The commander looked ecstatic. He slapped Obama on the shoulder and shouted, "Kid, you're too damn brave!"

Obama could no longer process the meaning of the sounds around him. Even though he seemed to understand the commander's words, he couldn't comprehend them. After the commander shouted for a bit longer and then stopped, Obama finally spoke: "Commander, if there's nothing else, I have to go back to clearing mines."

The commander’s expression turned strange. His excited shouting ceased, replaced by a look of shock. "Are you... are you ill?"

Obama roughly understood the implication—the commander wanted to remove him from the unit. Due to his exhaustion, Obama wasn't even angry. He tried to explain but didn't know what to say. Finally, he fell back on his earlier reasoning. "The squad leader and the others have already gone to rest. Once I'm done, I'll go rest, too."

The tall commander froze. This grown man suddenly burst into tears. Seeing that he had made the commander cry, Obama felt guilty and wanted him to understand that he was just trying to finish the job. Once the work was done, he would definitely go back to sleep. The guys in the squad had joked many times that Obama slept like a pig, so soundly that he wouldn't know if someone carried him off to be sold.

Obama really wanted to sleep now. As soon as the work was finished, he wanted to lie down and sleep for three days and nights. But the work was as irritating as those damned homework problems—it never seemed to end. If he didn't hurry up now, he might not finish even if he worked all night.

Before Obama could think of how to say it, the commander placed both hands on his shoulders and said solemnly, "Comrade Obama, I am telling you on behalf of Comrade Liu Zhaoji: your work is complete. Now, go to the rear and rest."

"Really?" Obama asked, hardly daring to believe it.

"Really. I wouldn't lie to you."

The commander's voice was gentle yet filled with a firm conviction that Obama found believable. Finally certain that his work was over, Obama’s vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

When Obama woke up, it was already January 5th. Only then could he truly process the fact that Squad Leader Liu Zhaoji and the entire squad had been killed. He sat on his bed in a daze. Whenever the grief pierced his heart like a knife, he would weep. After a few cries, he would find himself unable to produce more tears, and he would return to sitting quietly in a stupor.

On January 6th, the commander brought men to help Obama out of bed. Several individuals wearing complex, patterned rank insignia appeared before him. The leader of the group pinned a medal to Obama’s chest, offered a few words of comfort, and then departed with his entourage.

The commander stayed behind. He sat next to Obama and explained that this was a Chinese Gold Star Medal, an honor awarded only for first-class combat merit. He noted that it was extremely rare for this Chinese medal to be granted to a foreign soldier within the World People's Liberation Army (WPLA).

Although the commander tried to speak with great excitement, he himself was actually quite drained of emotion. Finally, he said to the still-silent Obama, "Comrade Obama, the organization has a task for you. You will represent the organization in returning the personal effects of your fallen comrades to their families. Prepare yourself. You'll head back with the logistics personnel tonight. You will first deliver the effects of the African comrades to their families, and after that, you will go to Asia."

At the thought of having to face the families of his fallen friends, a surge of fear rose within Obama. He shook his head repeatedly, finally choking out a single sentence: "I won't go."

The commander stood up and dropped a final line: "You're the only one left alive in the squad. If you don't go, who will?"

With that, the commander turned and left. As Obama watched the commander's retreating back, he thought he saw the silhouette of someone fleeing under immense pressure. It was a feeling both familiar and strange to him.

In the Second Battle of El Alamein, Sergeant Obama was the only soldier in the WPLA to receive such a high honor. During the fierce fighting, he had braved British artillery fire to persist in clearing mines, opening a corridor over 400 meters long that allowed the infantry to storm the British positions and open the door to victory.

This news triggered a heated reaction among the committee members from other nations. The 11th Army had utilized a direct-assault method to annihilate the Anglo-Italian forces at El Alamein, which had already surprised and unsettled other units.

The fact that the one who achieved this great merit was a Black sergeant was even more shocking. The battle reports stated that while far from the main body and supported only by a few infantry squads, Sergeant Obama had helped hold off several British platoons. At the height of the battle, he had completely disregarded his own life, maintaining a fearless composure as he rapidly cleared mines amidst a hail of bullets.

The European committee members were not unfamiliar with the Black auxiliary troops of Europe. Those auxiliaries were not cowardly on the battlefield, and a few Black officers had shown remarkable courage and loyalty. However, those men were officers, not technical specialists. In European and American militaries, Black men were not recruited as combat engineers. It was believed their technical skills were insufficient, and more importantly, that they could not endure the constant threat of death under artillery fire. At such times, even white officers and soldiers struggled to hold their ground, let alone Black troops.

"How exactly did the Chinese find such a Black man? Have they been keeping all the elite personnel for themselves?" asked the British committee member, Hacker, with some irritation.

The other members remained silent. The Chinese comrades had gone deep into the grassroots of Africa and possessed a vast amount of first-hand data. Excellent Black soldiers would certainly be prioritized for selection by them. Unless the volunteers from other countries also immersed themselves in the grassroots as the Chinese did, China would inevitably pick the best soldiers first.

Finally, the French member said, "We should conduct a personnel exchange with our Chinese comrades."

Personnel exchanges could efficiently improve the quality of unit personnel, and the other members eventually agreed to the proposal. However, when this suggestion was raised at the general committee meeting, it was rejected by the Chinese representatives.

"Conscripts are different from volunteers. Especially when dealing with our African comrades, we cannot do this," the Chinese representative explained.

"In our China, any officer or soldier who performs excellently in fierce combat is, in practice, eligible for discharge. Of course, our military will ask those servicemen if they would consider becoming volunteers, but we will respect the choice of the soldier in question. If they wish to be discharged, we will not compel them."

The British member, Hacker, immediately retorted, "There are so many Chinese people, how could you possibly lack soldiers?"

The Chinese representative shot back instantly, "Africa has a massive population; it doesn't lack conscripts either. I must emphasize that in the culture of New China, military service is but a stage in one's life. For soldiers who have already participated in fierce combat, they must be given the right to choose!"

Initially, both sides intended only to have a discussion, but it quickly escalated into an argument, with emotions running increasingly high.

This was unavoidable, as the cultures of different regions varied greatly. And as Hacker had pointed out, the size of Britain's population meant it could not implement the same policies as China. Furthermore, the common soldier was viewed as a consumable by the British upper class; the better a soldier performed, the more value there was in continuing to consume them. Not only was this the British way, but it was also the same across all of Europe.

The argument grew so heated that the news eventually reached Li Runshi. There was no need to disturb He Rui with an issue of this level. Li Runshi quickly convened a CMC meeting and presented his views: "The scale of the World People's Liberation Army has reached as many as 12 million. Among them, the number of Black officers, soldiers, and personnel has reached 7 million. Non-Chinese Asian soldiers and personnel number 3.7 million, while the number of volunteers from Europe and the Americas is 1.3 million.

"I believe that at this stage, a unified personnel utilization plan must be formulated. If we continue along the current path, the situation may spiral out of control to some extent."

The CMC members had long been concerned. Now that the matter was being discussed seriously, they asked frankly, "Do the European volunteers possess excessively strong racialist sentiments?"

Li Runshi did not wish to dwell on this point, for any discussion would inevitably lead to unfriendly conclusions. He replied immediately, "The environment in which the European volunteers were raised means they will inevitably carry the marks of their upbringing. Our task is to turn their perspectives through the revolutionary life. To achieve this, we can only rely on the system. Given the composition of the WPLA, no discussion could ever yield a satisfactory result."

Hearing that Li Runshi's solution was based on the fundamental concepts of European racialism, the CMC comrades did not object. It had to be said that the fact the WPLA had developed to its current state had already exceeded the CMC's imagination from two years ago. Back then, the WPLA was seen as little more than another name for an Asian alliance. They had not dared to believe that the WPLA could become an army capable of independent operations.

After deciding on the solution for the WPLA's current issues, Li Runshi turned the discussion to recent developments in the North American theater. Although the General Staff of the Chinese National Defense Force (CNDF) had long ago formulated military plans for the liberation of North America, those were routine matters. Now that the war had actually progressed to the point of landing in North America, the perspectives of the comrades had shifted several times.

"At present, production in the Western United States has basically ground to a halt under our continuous air strikes, which has placed immense pressure on the US military's logistics. Consequently, the US military has begun to use a large quantity of weapons brought directly from Germany. I didn't expect that the US, which adheres to imperial units, and Germany, which adheres to the metric system, would face so many issues regarding sizing and units," Li Runshi said, making a small joke to lighten the mood.

However, the CMC members only offered a light grunt, refraining from joining the mockery. This was because the weapons the US had introduced were those that Germany had found very effective in practice during the war—mines, for example.

Because Germany advocated and practiced armored warfare, it had led to the rapid development of mine warfare. Beyond the experiments from the First World War, Germany had developed some of the best anti-tank mines of the conflict before the outbreak of WWII. These included four types of plate-shaped mines, a single one of which could destroy a tank or shatter its tracks. Many of these models were equipped with overall anti-handling devices or secondary fuse wells, which greatly increased the danger and difficulty of bomb disposal.

The Canadian region of North America was now covered in ice and snow, and US logistics were under heavy strain, leading to the massive use of mines. These damned German mines could be used against both tanks and infantry. The units deployed in the North American theater were the elite of the CNDF, and the losses suffered by these elite units triggered a more intense reaction.

Furthermore, China would launch an even larger-scale offensive next year. By then, the Anglo-American forces would certainly use more defensive weaponry, which would significantly increase the CNDF's casualties.

Thinking of this, one comrade indignantly proposed, "Can we transfer some Black units to fight in North America?"

The intent behind this suggestion was too obvious, and the other CMC members rolled their eyes at him.

Li Runshi, however, felt his mind open to the idea. He said, "I think there is merit in this approach."

The CMC members were stunned. Using Black units transferred from Africa to fight the Anglo-American forces... it seemed strange no matter how one looked at it.

Li Runshi continued, "Among the white US military, there is a widespread issue with reading disabilities... No, reading disabilities are very common among Americans in general. I don't believe a Black unit would be any worse than a group of white soldiers who can't even understand written English."