Every year on the last Saturday of February, the annual Vladivostok-Cape Town Rally takes place. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Speaking of which, it is not a very good time to hold such a rally on this date, let alone Vladivostok, where the first race of the Cape Town Rally takes place from Vladivostok to Kultuk.

Although the latitude of Kurtuk is not much higher than that of Vladivostok, don't forget that Vladivostok itself is located at a high latitude, and if it were not for the Pacific Ocean, Vladivostok would not be much cooler than Harbin.

At the end of February, in the area south of the Yangtze River, it can already be regarded as the season of spring flowers, but on the side of Vladivostok, it is still a cold and snowy land of minus 30 degrees, and as for Kurtuk, a little north, minus 40 degrees is common.

So, it's really not a wise thing to hold such a cross-country race in such a cold weather.

But the Vladivostok-Cape Town Rally is not a car rally in the traditional sense, but rather a rally that arose in honor of the famous snowfield transport fleet that appeared in the winter of the year after the end of World War II.

As early as after Dahua's great-grandfather established the Dahua Dynasty, the land of Longxing of the royal Dongfang family, that is, Youzhou, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, was not designated as the capital of Dahua. Moreover, when the grandfather later divided the five capitals, Youzhou was not designated as the northern capital.

The northern capital was taken by Irkutsk, far away on the western shore of Lake Baikal.

The reason why the northern capital was chosen in Irkutsk was to facilitate the rule of the vast Siberia, and the other was to take a fancy to the abundant resources of the region.

When Irkutsk was first established in Dahua, it was only a small village, and it was a gathering place for nomadic peoples. But when the grandfather established the Dahua Dynasty, a huge coal mine was discovered nearby, so Irkutsk was directly designated as the northern capital by the grandfather.

To this day, the coal mine is still being mined. And this coal mine, which later proved to be the largest coal mine in the world, is the famous Tunguska coal mine.

In fact, the reason why the grandmaster suspected that Dahua's great grandfather was also a traverser was also a very important reason. After all, Irkutsk was founded in 1661 and was a nomadic settlement. And the founding of Dahua was in 1607, when Irkutsk was nothing.

Moreover, with the prospecting technology of that era, how could it be possible to discover coal mines in such a bitter cold place? This is clearly because he knew that Irkutsk was a treasure land from the beginning, and then his grandfather designated it as the northern capital of Dahua.

It turns out that Irkutsk is a treasure trove. To the west is the Tunguska coal mine, which has the largest single coal reserves in the world, and to the north and south of Irkutsk, two oil and gas fields with reserves of more than 20 billion tons have been discovered.

If Grandpa Tai hadn't traveled through the crowd, how could he have set such an important city as the northern capital in Irkutsk, where there was nothing at that time?

Well, the building is a little crooked...... Back to business.

The discovery of this coal mine west of Irkutsk is only a small fraction of the southeastern end of the 1.7 trillion tons of Tunguska coal mine.

During World War II, Vladivostok was the station of the Great North China Sea Fleet, and in this world, the Sea of Okhotsk is not called this name, but follows the ancient Chinese name - Beihai. Vladivostok happens to be able to control the entire North Sea, so the famous North Sea Fleet base is located in the ice-free port of Vladivostok.

Before the railway from Hohhot to Beidu was repaired through Ulabaatar, the coal produced in Beidu was transported to Vladivostok through the Beidu-Vladivostok railway, and then loaded onto ships to southern Dahua. In the winter of the year after the end of World War II, that is, in the winter of 1945, Dahua was rarely hit by several strong cold snaps in a row, and even Liangguang, which usually does not snow for decades, fell several times in a row.

The entire Northern Capital-Vladivostok Railway was covered by heavy snowfall, and even if it was cleaned, it would not be in a hurry. In that kind of weather, people dare not go out, and it is easy to be frozen to death when they go out. Not to mention sweeping the heavy snow that covers the railway along the railway line.

As a result, the Northern Capital-Vladivostok railway was cut off all of a sudden, but because of the invasion of the cold snap, Dahua was in great need of coal.

The Dahua of this world is different from the Huaxia of the previous life, the main coal base of Huaxia in the previous life was in Jin Province and Inner Mongolia, but the Dahua of this life, although a large amount of coal was also found in those two states, has not been mined, and the main source of coal in Dahua is transported from the northern capital.

This is a bit similar to the protection of indigenous minerals in those developed countries in the previous life.

Several powerful cold snaps almost froze the entire Dahua. Dahua recruited more than 100,000 volunteers and formed a convoy of more than 20,000 trucks to transport coal from Beidu to Youzhou, more than 3,000 kilometers away, and some vehicles to Vladivostok, more than 4,000 kilometers away.

It is precisely because of this powerful temporary fleet that Dahua has no need to burn coal.

The convoy transporting coal to Youzhou was better, after all, it was going further and further south, but the convoy transporting coal to Vladivostok was much more miserable.

After more than three months of coal transportation, less than 1,000 trucks were left in the coal transportation fleet with more than 7,000 large trucks, and in the process of transporting coal for more than three months, more than 200 people were frozen to death on the road because the vehicles broke down on the road.

More than 3,000 people suffered from frostbite of one kind or another.

In order to save Dahua from the cold snap, this team paid a high enough price.

And this convoy is also affectionately called the "Snow Transport Team" by later generations.

Just after the cold disaster of that year, in order to commemorate this famous snow transport team, on February 23, 1946, that is, the day when the snow field transport team successfully completed its mission, a huge volunteer convoy composed of people from all walks of life, formed a convoy of more than 2,000 vehicles of all kinds, set off from Vladivostok, went straight to the northern capital, and relived the vehicles traveled by the famous Yue Yuan transport team in the winter of the previous year.

And among the more than 2,000 cars, there was His Majesty the Emperor of Dahua at that time!

And this kind of commemorative activities, under the leadership of His Majesty the Dahua Emperor at that time, formed the most primitive Vladivostok - the predecessor of the Cape Town Car Rally, Vladivostok - the Northern Capital Winter Car Rally.

February 23, 1946 happened to be the last Saturday of February, so the date of this rally was set as the last Saturday of February every year.

This is where the Vladivostok-Cape Town Rally comes in!