area51novel #254 - Preparation
#254 - Preparation
"Folks, keep up! We have 35 li to walk today, but don't worry about tonight. Someone is up ahead, preparing hot water and hot meals for us!" Li Xiaoming, the cadre dispatched by the township office, shouted loudly.
He was in charge of this migration of over a thousand people. The villagers carried their valuables and livestock, stretching the line out quite long. However, Cadre Li was well-organized, and so many people, young and old, were moving forward in an orderly fashion.
Although the speed of the procession was relatively slow, only about three or four li per hour, the people of this era were typically hardworking and wouldn't complain too much about walking all day.
It would take about three days and three nights to get from Qinyang to the destination of Ze Prefecture, but it was already almost May, and the weather was getting warmer, so there wasn't much of a problem with camping outside. At most, as long as they could ensure hot water and hot meals every day, the migrating people wouldn't have too many issues.
Ren Zhong's scorched earth policy, under the vast local organizational capacity, was being carried out intensively. In just over ten days, the people of Henan were completely relocated.
According to the plan, these people would not be able to return to their old homes until after the war ended.
However, the local cadres promised them that after they returned, regardless of the harvest in the fields, each family would receive enough food for a year. So, they didn't need to worry about the farmland; they could just pack up some valuables and go to other places to work.
Even for some elderly people who were reluctant to leave their homeland, someone would reason with them, explaining that the Japanese devils would be coming back to kill again, and that staying in their hometown would likely lead to a new period of chaos. These elderly people were then helped onto carts and sent to several relocation and evacuation sites.
In this way, the brigade commander no longer had any constraints in Henan and could begin to fully deploy according to the tactics of positional warfare and mobile warfare without any scruples.
Now, those remaining in Henan were local guerrillas, regular main force regiments, and the five newly equipped mechanized infantry brigades of the Taiyue Military Region!
This time, the brigade commander evacuated the people because he wanted to fight the Japanese southern line forces in Henan without any worries.
However, the five mechanized infantry brigades were all kept secret, quietly entering the city of Henan at night. Outside the city, trenches began to be dug.
Now there was a new type of machinery called a bulldozer, so the excavation of trenches was much faster than manual labor. This newly produced machinery was very fast at building trenches on the soft soil of Henan.
Although the Japanese devils had not yet arrived, the brigade commander would not take it lightly. The construction in Jin had now exceeded anyone's imagination. Whether it was in the cities or the countryside, many things brought by Ren Zhong were quickly realized after the liberation.
The current organizational method was very conducive to concentrating and mobilizing manpower to accomplish major tasks. Everyone's enthusiasm was also very high. In addition, the water conservancy projects and high-yield farmland built by Ren Zhong in the countryside essentially improved everyone's interests. Although some people did not yet understand it, after being mobilized, biogas projects, irrigation canals, simple rural roads, and large-scale small hydropower projects were all being constructed.
These infrastructures, coupled with the large-scale construction of the "Five Small Industries" in various places, meant that Jin was actually changing rapidly every day. Although, in Ren Zhong's eyes, these were nothing compared to what he had seen in the main world, in the brigade commander's eyes, these were remarkable changes.
If there was even the slightest possibility, the brigade commander would not allow the Japanese devils to enter Jin and destroy anything!
The Divine Eagle Brigade now had nearly 200 pilots, and more than 20 PT19 trainers were taking to the skies for more than 8 hours a day in the border area. For the ground support brigade, each of them was under immense pressure.
Fortunately, aviation tires could now be produced locally. The landing gear and tires of the trainers were being updated strictly according to the take-off and landing cycles provided by Rogue Eagle. After all, if this thing flew away, it wouldn't be easy to get it back down once it was in the sky.
Now, the training base in the border area had expanded more than threefold. The number of field runways that could simultaneously take off and land fighter jets had increased to five, making the border area airport one of the largest field airports in the north.
"Team Wang, what good stuff do we have today? It's all covered with tarpaulin," Liu Feng, the driver, asked curiously as a Willis Jeep carrying pilot Wang Zhihang and two mysterious objects arrived at the airport.
"Don't ask what you shouldn't ask. Have you forgotten the basic principles of confidentiality?" Wang Zhihang, sitting on the side, said lightly.
"I'm sorry, Team Wang. I was being nosy," Liu Feng blushed and quickly admitted his mistake.
As the captain of the first squadron of the border area air force, Wang Zhihang was now not only responsible for training new pilots but also for the trial use of new fighter planes, weapons, and equipment.
Since the advent of the border area-made Mustang fighter, the border area Aviation Research Center had been producing new things almost every month. There was no other way; the current border area-made Mustang fighter was somewhat rushed. The initial version had only a simple radio for conversation and a very small number of instruments necessary for flight.
Even the weapon system had not yet had time to be installed.
Because at that time, they had to seize the pilots' training time and put these newly baked border area-made Mustangs into actual training flights after test flights by elite pilots like Wang Zhihang.
What Wang Zhihang was going to test today was a new weapon, a seven-tube rocket launcher.
It had finally been developed and was ready to be equipped.
What Wang Zhihang had to do today was the first test.
If there are no problems, all 20 Mustang fighters on the border region will be refitted and flown to the Jin-Sui front-line airport to prepare for battle.
The Mustang fighter has two hardpoints on each wing, theoretically capable of carrying two 454 kg bombs or six 127 mm rockets. Now, Ren Zhong has chosen the more commonly used 90 mm rocket launchers from the main world. These use a symmetrical six-unit configuration. In terms of weight, they are much lighter than the 454 kg bombs, but their dispersed attack range is wider than that of two bombs. For infantry formations charging in clusters, the lethality is also much stronger.
With the assistance of ground support personnel, Wang Zhihang loaded the newly transported weapons and successfully took off. Then, he flew to a target range more than 10 kilometers away, where a conspicuous target area had already been set up.
Wang Zhihang piloted the Mustang fighter in a dive, aiming at the target area. He lightly pressed the launch button on the left side, and immediately, the left rocket launcher began to emit flames and launch rockets!
One rocket after another streaked towards the target area. Then, Wang Zhihang pressed the rocket launch button on the right side, and six rockets were launched accordingly. Soon, plumes of smoke erupted in the target area. From the Mustang fighter, Wang Zhihang saw that the area covered by the smoke was several thousand square meters.
Although the coverage was not uniform, it roughly and relatively evenly bombarded the target area. Compared to bombs, the area-of-effect damage was obviously much greater.
For enemies marching or charging in the open, this strike was much more powerful than machine gun strafing.
It can be said that it increased the fighter's lethality against the enemy in terms of order of magnitude.
Wang Zhihang successfully completed the new weapon test and flew the plane back to the border region airport. On the ground, a group of test personnel sped towards the test area in a jeep.
They were going to realistically assess the rocket's lethality against the ground.
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However, compared to what Ren Zhong had prepared, this rocket launcher was just a small dessert.
Now, the most powerful weapon in Ren Zhong's hands is still the Dongfeng 1A, this great weapon. Although the Japanese devils are now very careful and have dispersed their fighters, they still have to park them at the airport no matter what.
The Japanese devils do not have the ability to dig so many hangars to hide their fighters.
Therefore, before the real war begins, Ren Zhong needs to carry out a blanket strike on several major airports of the Japanese devils. This time, there is no need to get close to observe, so the scouts can just count the planes flying over from afar for a few days, greatly reducing the difficulty and risk of them sneaking into the vicinity of the airport.
Ren Zhong carefully analyzed the information they sent back, needing to compare the photo data with the historical data that could be found.
Not only that, but after returning to the main world, Ren Zhong also had to visit and measure the precise latitude and longitude information of these airport addresses in historical time and space.
Although the airports are no longer so secret now, it took Ren Zhong many busy days to complete the survey of more than a dozen airports in the North China region in the main world.
Fortunately, he can now fixedly travel through several addresses, which allows Ren Zhong's movement in the main world to smoothly travel back to the research institute near Taiyuan in the Bright Sword world.
Of course, these things are completely unnoticed by the people in the Bright Sword world. They are just setting up several observation posts a dozen kilometers away from the Japanese devils' airport according to Ren Zhong's requirements, constantly observing the take-off and landing of the Japanese devils' airport fighters.
Then, they feed this information back to Ren Zhong in Taiyuan for centralized processing.
Now, the underground armed work teams in North China are booming. Because the Japanese devils' main energy is now focused on the Jin area, although they are also carrying out sweeps of the local guerrillas from time to time, because the main force is now gathering to attack the Jin area, the local military police and local puppet troops cannot organize large-scale sweeping operations. In addition, the source of weapons for the armed work teams is completely different from the self-sufficiency in history. A large number of weapons and ammunition can be transported from the Jin area through secret transportation lines.
This leads to the very strong combat effectiveness of the underground armed work teams.
Landmines, grenades, and machine guns are basic configurations.
Even more, in the hands of armed forces such as district squads and county brigades, there are often mortars and RPG rocket launchers!
For the Japanese devils' military police, this is a great threat.
Therefore, wherever the guerrillas did not press down on the strongholds and launch fierce attacks, the Japanese devils' county town military police hid like ostriches, not daring to easily go down to the countryside to provoke the guerrillas.
Outside of transportation lines and strongholds, large areas are now the territory of the guerrillas, making intelligence observation and transmission relatively simple.
Therefore, after Ren Zhong received the local two-week observation results, he had a clear understanding of the distribution and take-off and landing patterns of the Japanese devils' fighters at each airport.
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