Chapter 395: Prototype tank and Airforce
"Sure."
As the third Russian brought Xiaoyun all the way to the third factory, he could see several workers and engineers standing in front of blueprints.
"Lin, you made any progress?" The third Russian asked.
"Not yet, Joseph. We\'re still trying to test how to improve it from the last attempt," one of the engineers replied.
"Okay... Here\'s the prototype boss."
The door to the inventory room slowly opened, shocking Xiaoyun as he instantly reconganized what he was trying to build.
It was a T-34, the most mentioned tank in all the history books when he was still in school.
"Can it drive?" Xiaoyun curiously asked, his voice filled with hope that he would say yes.
But much to his disappointment, Joseph shook his head.
"It can move a few miles before breaking down... we just need to figure out how the V-2 cooling system works, but we don\'t have the exact blueprint."
"Don\'t worry about time. I want you to spend all your effort on this. The moment you have it running, tell me, okay?"
"Yes, boss."
---
After walking past a few more factories to satisfy Xiaoyun\'s curiosity, he gave them an invitation to the military parade before leaving.
Next, Xiaoyun decided to check out the pilot location that the three Russians gave.
When he arrived at the destination, he was a little surprised to find that it was just someone\'s wooden house near the training field.
A plane was located in the front, with a runway right next to it, which confirmed that it was indeed the right place.
As he walked up to the porch, the door opened, revealing a middle-aged man standing right at the front with a saw in hand.
"Fei Tian?"
"Commander!"
"When was the last time we saw each other?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as the two of them headed over to the bench nearby.
"Almost half a year ago. I thought the commander had completely forgotten about me."
"What? Of course not... Ahem, how far had you gotten the planes to work?"
"It works perfectly right now. But we don\'t have enough pilots, and the current ones being used just don\'t have a practical use."
Xiaoyun understood Fei Tian\'s first issue, but he couldn\'t understand the second part.
He remembered several pilots in Foshan\'s military base flying the plane as scouts, transferring information on the ground through a radio.
"What do you mean practical? Isn\'t it already being used for scouting purposes?"
"That\'s the issue. It can only do scouting missions... But a few engineers and I got together to work on a bomber."
"Really?" Xiaoyun asked, looking a little surprised.
"Yes, really. However, the issue is that the current pilots we have are domestic or are all beginners.
All the experienced pilots are already scouting rural areas on the Foshan outskirts, so only I can fly it."
Fei Tian suddenly stood up from his bench and signaled Xiaoyun to follow, walking over to his garage.
"I was about to go to Foshan myself to test this plane... But just when I was about to test it, the battle in Foshan was already over."
Xiaoyun listened in silence as he examined the bi-plane bomber right before his eyes.
Rather than the wooden frame like the one outside, it had an aluminum shell with a collapsable storage department near the center of the plane.
It was clearly where the bomb was located, being in the center of the plane to keep it in balance.
"That\'s unlucky. If you had gone a few weeks earlier, you probably would have made it in time," Xiaoyun commented as he padded him on the back.
"I know..."
As the two of them both fell into silence, they both were trying to think of an actual use of them rather than lying around doing nothing.
Suddenly, Xiaoyun had an idea.
"Have you talked to Yiming yet?"
"No. But we had walked past each other in the past before." Fei Tian replied.
"You know his army also has an airforce, right?"
"Um... No?"
Seeing Fei Tian looking a little confused, Xiaoyun immediately knew what he had to do next.
"How about this: You and I go meet him right now, and we can sort out the whole Air Force together."
Fei Tian nodded in agreement as he followed Xiaoyun out of the garage and into the training field.
---
"Yezi, Yiming, you here?" Xiaoyun asked as he and Fei Tian walked into the command center.
"Look who decided to show up to plan the military parade. What took you so long today?"
Yezi curiously asked, with Yiming sitting right next to him and typing something on a laptop.
"I went to visit two main arms factories and made a few orders. Do you guys know who he is?"
Xiaoyun asked as he took a seat, with Fei Tian still standing behind him.
"He\'s Fei Tian. Come on, take a seat." Yezi replied as he pulled the chair for him.
As Fei Tian sat down to the seat, Yiming reached his hands out for a handshake.
"You two are probably confused about why I brought him here. But before I tell you guys why, Yiming, you still have the military planes, right?"
"Um, we do have all the planes here, but most of them are out of jet fuel after we use it to stall the zombies from Shaoguan."
"Dang it... Do you know where we can get more jet fuel?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"I know there\'s a ton of them stockpiled back in Nanning. That\'s where our Southern Command Air Force was originally located before the outbreak."
"That\'s all the way over to Guangxi... How about all the pilots that you have? Are they all gone?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.
"No, they are just merged into the ground force since we cannot fly the plane unless we use commercial plane fuel."
Xiaoyun started to look a little hopeful, but it was quickly crushed as Yiming mentioned the next part.
"But since we don\'t have spare parts to repair, I don\'t want to damage the plane using another type of fuel."
After a short silence, Xiaoyun finally decided to bring it back to his original plan.
"We actually still have planes that your pilot could actually fly. That\'s why I\'m here today with Fei Tian."
"Really?" Yiming asked, looking a little intrigued.
"Xiaoyun, aren\'t those just scouting planes?" Yezi quickly pointed out, recalling seeing them being flown out of Luoping.
"Fei Tian, you explain to them."
A few minutes later...
"So that\'s the issue I\'m facing right now. I just don\'t have enough pilot and a place to get on-the-ground test data from."
Fei Tian finally finished explaining, as Yezi and Yiming were still a little shocked to learn that there was a functional bomber plane.
"I have over a few hundred people who used to be in the Air Force. If I gave them to you, can you train them to fly it?"
Fei Tian immediately nodded in agreement, accepting Yiming\'s offer.
"Perfect, now we got that out of the way——"
"Fei Tian, how many planes do you have right now?" Yezi interrupted Xiaoyun from finishing.
"Um, around ten of them right now."
"That\'s nowhere near enough. How about I help you set up a factory here to mass-produce it?"
"Thank you!" Fei Tian bowed down in gratitude.
Seeing everything working out, Xiaoyun couldn\'t help but smile at how the two worked it out.
However, the smile soon disappeared as soon as Yezi and Fei Tian left the command center, leaving him and Yiming together.
"Come on, Xiaoyun, don\'t leave. I need you to help me iron out this military parade." Yiming stated as he signaled him to sit in Yezi\'s seat.
"Fine..."
Xiaoyun sighed as he began looking over what the two had made so far, getting ready to get into work mode.
---
When Xiaoyun finally arrived back home, it was already nine o\'clock at night.
The entire military parade was fully planned out, and the only thing missing was recalling all military units to Luoping.
Since all the roads connecting to Guangzhou had been repaired, driving to Luoping, even from Foshan, would take less than an hour.
And there were still two more days before the actual military parade began to take place.
Besides finishing planning the military parade, Yiming made an interesting position near the end.
He suggested doing the military parade in Guangzhou as well, as half of the population under Luoping\'s banner was located there.
After considering it, he eventually decided to change the parade\'s start and end locations to Guangzhou and Luoping instead of only Luoping.
Although it was easy for him to say in front of Yiming, he soon regretted it when he brought it up at the dining table.