U-38 floated like a crocodile in Qingzhou Bay, and the deck was overgrown with weeds. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info The waves crashed against the hull, but it didn't respond, as if it was asleep. From the green Baltic Sea to the blue coast of the East China Sea, from the German shipyard in Lübeck to the Mandarin Duck Island at the junction of Fujian and Zhejiang, it has sailed more than 20,000 nautical miles, and now it is time for it to rest.

The submarine broke anchor, but the crew was not allowed to go home, this was Li Kongrong's death order, fortunately, everything was arranged in advance on the Mawei side, and the parents of some officers had already taken it over, and they also prepared all kinds of Fuzhou snacks for the crew -- fish balls, flat meat, shrimp cakes, fried Xinghua noodles, braised pork with braised pork ......, as long as they were available in the Navy Club before, Lieutenant Colonel Ye Xinchuan of the Mawei Command brought them over. They couldn't go home, but they had food and drink, and the crew finally found some comfort.

“…… The mouth of the Min River is now blocked, and this matter has been done since the year before last, and under the personal command of Brother Kaitao, a total of six merchant ships, more than 60 dock ships and sailing ships, and two million square stones were sunk to roughly block the route. "Ye Xin is a legend about the blockage of the Minjiang River estuary." Originally, we still had four gunboats, Chutai, Funing, Zhengning, and Suning, but unfortunately these three ships were bombed and sunk by Japanese planes a few months ago......"

"What about the Chutai ship, which was also sunk?" Li Kongrong interrupted impatiently, of course he knew that the Chutai ship, which was a gunboat ordered by the former Qing Zhangzhidong in Japan, a total of six, Chutai was the first, she had a displacement of more than 700 tons, two 120mm main guns and other secondary guns.

"No, but it was wounded. Warships can't resist airplanes," Ye Xin said about the lessons of the Chinese Navy since the beginning of the war, and his face was full of bitterness. "Now it has been dragged into the Wulong River, hidden in the port of Luozhou Township, and it is also planted with grass."

Ye Xin also pointed to the U-38 leaning on the reef, there is just a notch on Yuanyang Island that can accommodate a submarine more than 70 meters long, and wild grass is planted on the deck, and you can't see a submarine here if you don't walk in.

"Will the horsetail dock still work?" Li Kongrong asked another question.

"The dock is still there, but the factory building has all been blown up, and some of the machines have been transported to Sanduao, and some have been transported to Nanping." Ye Xin preached, "Last year, Xiamen fell, the provincial government moved to Yong'an, and the Pacification Office and the headquarters of the 25th Group Army were also moved to Nanping. ”

"Can you fix the Chutai?" Li Kongrong asked a little eagerly, "After the repair, can Chutai sail out of the Minjiang River estuary?" ”

"You want to get the Chutai out?" Ye Xinchuan was a little surprised. "If it is repaired, it can only open twelve sections, and when it goes out, it is meat buns and dogs."

"No, no, it's not." Li Kongrong shook his head, he stood up and walked a few steps before saying: "The navy does not have warships now, there is only a 400-ton Jiankang, which is not enough, very insufficient." I mean equip the Chutai with steam turbines and oil-fired boilers and let it go faster than thirty-five knots so she can go to sea. With the right opportunity, it can escape. ”

Li Kongrong's plan surprised Ye Xinchuan, he didn't expect that the current Li Kongrong regarded the ship as his life, although Chutai is an old ship and an inland gunboat, but after all, it has more than 700 tons, install a new power system for her, and then modify its seaworthiness appropriately, and then the aircraft carrier fleet can have one more errand boat, don't underestimate these small boats, they are indispensable.

"Let me ask you, what if the Japanese occupy Fuzhou, what will happen to the Chutai?" Li Kongrong asked.

"The Japanese occupied Fuzhou ......" Ye Xinchuan thought of the Japanese plane, he shook his head and said: "In order to avoid the enemy, we can only blow her up." It's just that the mouth of the Minjiang River has been sealed, so why didn't the Japanese occupy Fuzhou before? ”

"In two years, the Japanese will occupy it." Thinking of the actions of the Japanese army before the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Li Kongrong said with certainty. "We have two more years to revamp the Chutai. Guilin was about to be occupied by the Japanese army, and equipment was brought in from the Yunnan-Burma Highway...... It's too far away, we ....... That's right, that's right, seaplanes can be transported, it doesn't need an airport yet, it doesn't need an airport yet, as long as it's in ......, Liu Yongren! Show me a map of Fuzhou right away! ”

Li Kongrong fell into his own imagination, he must get the Chutai ship out of the Minjiang River estuary to become part of the aircraft carrier fleet, and he never thought that for the Chutai ship, which is more than 30 years old, it is better to build a new gunboat in the United States than to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight once, so that the risk is much smaller.

Liu Yongren, who was eating shrimp cakes, heard Li Kongrong's shout and hurriedly ran over, and when he came, because he didn't take the map, he immediately ran to find it, and Ye Xin preached: "Hansheng, if you go to sea and encounter the Japanese and are sunk, it will be ......."

"It's impossible to sink." Li Kongrong insisted, "We can equip the submarine with radar and cover it with submarine pathfinding, and it is impossible for the Japanese to sink her." It was 41 years since then, and we were able to do that. ”

"Sir, here's the map." Liu Yongren ran over with a map of Fuzhou, which was not what Li Kongrong wanted at all.

"What is Hansheng looking for a map for?" Ye Xinchuan saw that Li Kongrong was incoherent, and also talked about the seaplane, "Are you going to fly the seaplane in?" How big is that plane? ”

"It is thirty-three meters long and forty-six meters wide." Li Kongrong said the size of the Boeing 314 seaplane, and as soon as he opened his mouth, Ye Xinchuan was frightened. "Its take-off distance is normally 3,200 feet, which is 1,200 meters, and the landing distance is within 1,000 meters. The aircraft has a payload of more than 10 tons and a range of more than 4,000 kilometers, which can be increased if the range is shortened. It will be put into service next year, and this is the time of year when the shipyard can be built and the machines ready. ”

"If you only take off from the surface runway of one or two thousand meters, it is still easy to find on the Min River, but it is just ......" Ye Xinchuan thought of the current situation, shook his head and said: "But there are many traitors in Fuzhou, either traitors or spies, where are you hiding when the plane comes in?" ”

"Come in at night, take off before dawn, unload in one night, you can always do it." Li Kongrong really did not understand the situation in Fujian, and he thought that Fuzhou, as the old nest of the navy, would always be able to control some places by the navy.

"I have to discuss this matter with Brother Kaitao before I know if it is feasible." Ye Xinchuan thought for a moment, and finally felt that he had to discuss it carefully, so he said and said, "If it's really feasible, then you can bring in some other things......

Ye Xinchuan thought about the two conditions of carrying more than ten tons and having a range of 4,000 kilometers, and began to think about it. Li Kongrong looked at him but suddenly thought of smuggling, there are many people who grow and smoke opium in Fujian, and he doesn't want to smuggle opium in front of him.

"The artillery shells of the Minjiangkou Fort have always been insufficient, and we originally wanted to buy them, but Nanjing did not give money, and when we had the money to buy them, Guangzhou was sealed by the Japanese again, and now a batch of shells is piled up in Hong Kong, if there is such a seaplane, can it be transported in?" Ye Xinchuan didn't think about opium, he thought about shells, he continued: "If the navy can have a piece of territory, and the marines can expand the army by transporting weapons in, Brother Kaitao and I both feel that we can't hold Fuzhou with 100 troops." ”

"Can the Marines hold Fuzhou?" Li Kongrong was a little surprised, the history of Fuzhou was given up on its own initiative, and the recovery was also because the Japanese army took the initiative to retreat, of course, he did not know whether Fuzhou was abandoned by the Marine Corps or the 100th Army stationed in Fuzhou.

"There are only 4 regiments in the Marine Corps now, and the 3rd regiment has long been transferred." Ye Xin preached, "If the Marine Corps does not expand its army, whether it is defended or not is in the 100th Army. ”

"How many of these 100 troops are there?" Li Kongrong asked. "Is it a miscellaneous card or the Central Army?"

"In a place like Fujian, of course, it is a miscellaneous brand, the 100th Army has three divisions, 75, 80, and 20, and the new 20 divisions, but there are many empty salaries, and the number will not exceed 30,000." Ye Xinchuan sneered, "The military commander Chen Qi is from Zhejiang, and he is from the central department. This person watched and listened to dramas every day, and he didn't know how to fight at all, but Han Wenying, the commander of the 75th Division, heard that the battle was brave, and when the Japanese army attacked Xiamen, he took the lead and led his troops to counterattack. ”

"Han Wenying?" Another unfamiliar name, country. There are too many army troops, hundreds or thousands of division commanders, and I can't remember anything other than the famous ones. "As a division commander, why did he personally lead the troops to counterattack?" Li Kongrong was surprised.

"I don't know." Ye Xinchuan is a navy, so he naturally doesn't understand the affairs of the army. "I heard that he is the person of Wan Xuancai, the chairman of Henan Province, and he used to be the guardian of Wan Xuancai."

"It turned out to be Yu Jun?" Li Kongrong didn't mean to look down on the Yu army, he just roughly understood the origin of the 100 army. "The Japanese army is definitely going to attack Fuzhou, if we can hold this Han Wenying, we can add a batch of weapons and ammunition to him, but as a division commander, he led the team to charge, how can this battle be fought like this?"

"Hansheng, you want to add them?" Ye Xinchuan and Li Kongrong didn't talk for long, but they were surprised one after another. "It's not as good as the expansion of the Marine Corps to supplement them, and they are outsiders no matter what they say."

"Do we have a staffing?" Li Kongrong asked rhetorically. "How can the Marine Corps be expanded without an establishment? Can there be an establishment of the security corps? If the security corps had been strengthened, these weapons would have been able to expand the security corps. ”

"There is no regular army, there is always a security regiment." Ye Xinchuan was sent by Li Shijia, so he naturally knew Li Kongrong's ability.

"What about the officers? What about the technical classes? Li Kongrong asked. We don't want infantry trained for three months to shoot dozens of bullets, we want officers, staff officers, artillerymen, and machine gunners. Of course, the 75th Division is not complete, but it is still much better than the Marine Corps. ”

"He Zhixing can definitely do it!" Ye Xinchuan stood up suddenly, he was a little angry, and felt that Li Kongrong was turning his arm out. "The Marine Corps is actually not bad, they just don't fight hard. If it really doesn't work, wouldn't it be better to invite an officer to come? ”

"Okay, wait ......" Li Kongrong wanted to say that Huang Baitao would rectify it, but Huang Baitao was not from Fujian, so he had to say: "Let's take a report on the expansion plan of the Marine Corps first." If you really want to expand the army, those who smoke opium, those who only know how to listen to operas, play mahjong and sing songs, and those who are afraid of the enemy like tigers and have no fighting spirit, they don't want them at all. ”

The Marine Corps was expanded in the hands of Yang Lizhong, and it happened to be the period when the navy was self-funded, so the Marine Corps was responsible for growing opium, and the navy was responsible for selling opium, and there were many opium smokers in the army. Li Kongrong set the rule very early: The first rule when he joined the new navy was that he could not smoke opium, but this was simply impossible, and the commander of the fleet, Chen Jiliang, smoked opium, so in the end, it became that the officers and men who were fighting on the ship could not smoke opium. Now Ye Xinchuan thinks that the Marine Corps should be expanded instead of arming the 75th Division, and as soon as Li Kongrong mentions that he should not smoke opium, he will blush on the spot -- as an old man, he also smokes opium.

He stood up angrily, and just as he came out of the tent, he was stunned when he saw the submarine overgrown with weeds at sea. Navy! Navy! He is also in the navy, why didn't he want to be ashamed of himself when he was in the Naval Academy? After standing at the mouth of the tent for a long time, Ye Xinchuan turned around and sat down, he said: "I will discuss these things with Brother Kaitao when I go back, He Zhixing is a third-term student in Baoding, and he will definitely be able to come up with a way to expand the army." Opium has been accumulating for a long time, and it does not mean that you can not do without these people. ”

"At the very least, all those who smoke opium are not allowed to enter the combat units, and their military status and benefits can be retained." Li Kongrong also took a step back, and he planned to raise those opium smokers in the Marine Corps like the Navy.

"Okay." Ye Xinchuan agreed. "The transformation of the Chutai, the expansion of the Marine Corps in the name of the security regiment, and the seaplane, these are three things. I remember it all, and I will discuss it with Brother Kaitao when I go back. ”

"Also, two years later, the Japanese army will come over, and we have to make up our minds: Fuzhou will be defended or not?" Li Kongrong said again.

"Will the Japanese really come?" Ye Xinchuan was still a little suspicious.

"Definitely coming." Li Kongrong said. "If you don't defend it, there's no point in expanding the army."

"We'll have to go back and discuss it." The Japanese-style occupation Ye Xinchuan understood that it was nothing more than controlling the key points, blocking the port, etc., and killing people was only at the beginning of the occupation. Whether he wants to destroy the city of Fuzhou because he is stubbornly defending Fuzhou is a question, and this is not something he can answer now.

When Li Kongrong heard that he was going back to discuss, he was immediately a little disappointed, and he also gave up the idea of expanding the Marine Corps -- if he spent so much money to expand the army instead of holding Fuzhou, he would withdraw it, and it would be better not to spend this money.

"What else does Hansheng have to explain?" Ye Xinchuan didn't know what Li Kongrong was thinking, he now felt that Li Kongrong had all the ideas in his head.

"Nope." Li Kongrong pondered for a while, but in the end he only spit out these three words. However, when Ye Xinchuan was about to leave, he said again: "There is a Mr. Li who will come to me from Shanghai, please bring him to see me." ”

"Mr. Li?" Ye Xinchuan is unknown.

"Yes, surnamed Li. He knows how to connect with us, and I have important things to see him. "The Mr. Li that Li Kongrong said is Li Fanshuang, who used to be difficult to expose his identity in Germany, but now he has no such concerns. (To be continued.) )