Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

Smitt is a regular oil and gas field engineer assigned to the capital, Mogadishu, as a result of a $30 billion oil and gas field development agreement between ExxonMobil and the Somali authorities.

Although he had prepared himself for all sorts of things before coming here, the level of debacle ultimately exceeded his expectations.

He had read in tourist magazines that before the Civil War this place had been known as the white pearl on the Indian Ocean.

Now, a little historical buildings have only broken walls, bullet holes on the walls are clearly visible, most road craters are depressed, and the city is barely greened. With one mouth, you will eat a belly sand.

It's not just about greening that makes people sick.

Due to the local culture, there are no bars here and whipping is punishable for drinking randomly.

While their executives managed to gain the privilege of drinking without being whipped, it was simply not pleasant to confine the privilege to staff dormitories and to supply a fairly limited variety and quantity.

So for their expatriates, the only entertainment here is buying the latest newspaper, sitting in a cafe near the company's premises, consuming air conditioning and air conditioning that locals can't afford, drinking dollar-denominated hand milled coffee, and spending a little afternoon.

It doesn't matter what newspaper it is.

Whether it's the BBC or the Playboy, just have words, because life here is so boring.

As usual, Smitty came to the cafeteria, ordered a bad cup of black coffee for an afternoon, and sat in a safe place far away from the window with the newspaper.

Just as he was about to start his newspaper recreation today, he was stunned for a moment.

Ellwag Daejet! The regular Somali army has won!

What the hell?

Fool's Day joke?

No, there's still six months left.

As soon as I saw the headlines in the paper, Smitty's first reaction was that there must have been a mistake.

The fighting power of the regular Somali army is clear to him, even if trained by officers of various countries, but fights continue to be quite brutal, arguably by replacing rifles with spears that erupt without any sense of discord.

In contrast, the enemies they face are pirates whose heads have been sore for ZF around the world, the demons who have survived the elimination and testing of blood and fire for more than a decade.

In the face of such enemies, let alone them, even inviting American carriers would not necessarily destroy them altogether, let alone the Somali Army, which could not build up several tanks.

In disbelief, he looked down at the newspaper, but it didn't matter that his gaze was glued to the newspaper's drawings.

To be exact, that's four sets of pictures.

Two of these groups are a "black coffin” suspended by a parachute, probably taken with some kind of professional telephotography device.

The other two photographs were taken from the vision of a group of drones flying out of that black coffin, as well as the smoke that floated in a martyred ammunition depot hidden behind the hills.

The moment you see these pieces of equipment, you can be sure in Smitty's mind that the Somali authorities must have asked for external assistance.

These East African natives may not have even seen a drone captain before, but how could they have used high-tech equipment that wasn't even heavily loaded by the United States military?

Indeed, as he read down the text, he quickly found the answer from between the lines.

“The Erwag region, occupied by armed elements of the Somali ZF Army with support from the Chinese side, launched its largest offensive this year, dropping at least hundreds of aerial bombs on the battlefield on the Chinese side of the battle, destroying more than 20 ammunition depots and more than a dozen military-controlled posts. ”

“At the same time, journalists in this newspaper have learned that a small drone suspected of being under AI control, automatically identifying and attacking armed elements has been invested in the battle with the Chinese side. This drone is highly similar in shape to the logistics drones recently promoted in Shenzhen, and it is uncertain whether it comes from the same company…"

“At present, the battlefield has shifted from open areas to alley warfare, where several armed leaders have been killed. According to a Somali authorities press spokesman, the armed forces active on the ground are no longer in a position to maintain control of the area and ZF forces are recovering villages and towns formerly controlled by armed elements. This dong is expected to last until the end of the year, and this report alerts expatriates working locally to travel safety. ”

“In addition, journalists in the present newspaper have consulted the United States military base in the Ethiopian region and asked for more information about the air strike. At present, however, the head of the military base has not revealed the type of aircraft involved in the attack and where it came from, and has refused to respond to more detailed information. ”

“… God. ”

The Americans are helping China keep it a secret?

The Sun has risen from the West!

Smitty would never believe that those American troops would keep their mouths shut about the weapons that launched the air strike on behalf of the Chinese or anything. If they knew, they would want the whole world to know.

Thus, there is only one possibility…

So far, they have not found enough evidence to prove who started the air strike and where it came from.

Just as the expression on his face gradually changed from suspicious to incredible, the voice of several other expatriate employees whispered behind him.

It's quite a coincidence that what they're discussing and what he's not thinking about doubting his life is exactly the same thing.

“Did you see the news yesterday? The Somali ZF has actually won?! ”

“Do you need to see it again? We've been talking about this on Twitter today! Many say that China has used some kind of horrible secret weapon. I heard from our resident bodyguard that his elder nephew, who was serving in the field, was involved in the battle, and that they were prepared to fight the armed elements to their death, and then came in to collect the bodies of those armed elements. ”

Saying, the man with the slag on his chin couldn't help smashing his tongue, as if he were the one who lived the battle, and said with a heavy mouth.

“You don't want to see that picture… it's like hell. ”

“What do you think that secret weapon might be? ”

“I don't know, but a lot of people say it's an orbital weapon… if it's a fighter or bomber, it's impossible to fly this far or escape the radar of a US military base! ”

Listening to the arguments of several expatriate employees, Smitty fell into silence and it took a while to squeeze a sentence out of his mouth.

“This is insane...”

Orbital weapons?

Avoid American radar altogether?

This is ridiculous!

Let's just say the Somali ZF made an epic score with the help of aliens!

After reading the newspaper in his hand, it was too early to see that Smitty drank the last bit of coffee in the cup, threw a dollar tip at the waiter, and then stood up from his seat.

The streets are filled with cheering and celebrating voices, and 35% of the locals gather like celebrating and welcoming something.

For this desperate city, the scene is as untrue as it is from another world.

Though curious as to exactly what was going on to celebrate, Smitty didn't dare go to the locals because his skin tone was a little too eye-catching for the locals and could easily be considered a fat sheep...

Over the next few days, weird things happen one after another.

First they moved a Chinese construction company next door, then a petroleum company, then an import and export trading company...

Later, the Chinese face grew, slowly opening supermarkets, clothing stores and even franchised bars.

Yeah, it's actually a bar.

This makes Smitty's eyes red.

Although their executives had also tried to buy local officials to see if they could come up with an American pub to entertain their employees, those officials had promised when they received the money, but when they were ready to open the pub, they were blind.

I don't know what the Chinese bought them out of, but they lowered their heads about the principle.

Interestingly, however, those Chinese workers don't seem to be very interested in such things as bars, and they're the only American and European employees who work for Shell and ExxonMobil.

This naturally includes Smitty himself.

Although jealousy is jealousy, alcohol is not wrong.

But then something very irritating happened to Smitty. One day he suddenly discovered that the Chinese sold them alcohol at a price that was well over twice that of their employees.

And when he questioned the bartender, he also received only one "exchange rate reason”, without further explanation.

This is a slaughter!

Though his heart did not work, Smitty finally had to bite his teeth to confess.

Can't help it. Who wants this bar?

Thanks to these Chinese natives, even if they didn't like him very much, at least he had more fun in his life and no longer had to drink coffee like an old man.

In the next week, the situation became more interesting.

The face of nearby China is growing and suddenly turning into a Chinatown.

Later, Smith learned from several British oil workers that the Chinese construction companies were preparing to send an engineering team to the Erwag area to rebuild the cities recovered by the ZF forces.

Now Smit is increasingly convinced that the Somali authorities must have entered into some unspeakable deal with the Chinese side to contract all reconstruction work in the region to those Chinese.

But Smitty still can't figure it out.

Is there anything of value there other than stones and sand?

Bringing order to the cactus and the camel makes no sense.

And frankly, a chaotic Somalia can at least help the world to stably deplete a fraction of its surplus of arms and feed at least 20,000 families who depend on it.

Yesterday, while drinking in a bar, he also heard a familiar arms broker complain that construction workers in China had taken their jobs and that several arms giants, such as Lockheed Martin, had paid them sharply less, and now they had to abandon the “market” they had so easily pioneered to travel to the more dangerous regions of Central Africa.

When it comes to that, their eyes flash with exciting light, like sixteenth-century sailors.

The food crisis is said to be breaking out there, with tribal and warlord wars raging.

While they are not as “wealthy” as Somali pirates, there are still untapped diamonds, gold mines, oil, and every inch of land there smells like rotten meat - or money.

They can make a lot of money there before the Chinese open up their markets.

Drinking and drinking, the muddy arms broker fell asleep.

Smitty didn't interrupt his dreams, he just bothered himself with something and drank boring wine.

Now it's not just that newspaper, it's getting more and more out of his mind.

In the vagueness, he felt that the logic of the world running seemed to be undergoing some kind of huge change quietly.

He was unable to describe the feeling, but vaguely felt that the change seemed to have begun a long time ago, although even he had recently begun to be affected.

For example, you can sit here and drink.

For example, being able to stay outside the dormitory until 10 pm… To protect the Chinese, the local military police have at least tripled their presence here, and there have been occasional robbers before, so long as they don't walk out of the street, they can barely see a single local.

But there's no way to figure it out.

After all, there seems to be only so many things that little people like him can witness with their eyes...