Most of the air force units of the 10 th Theater are mainly multifunctional fighters, mainly defending against air raids by the army and navy air units of the Chinese army, and mainly attacking the army and naval air forces of the 10 th theater, and the bomber units themselves are the weak point of the air force construction of the 10 th theater theater, so Zhang Xuewu has some headaches, and among the chemical weapons, there is only one nerve surnamed sarin poison that can be put into actual combat, and there are also reserves of artillery shells and aerial bombs.

Although Zhang Xuewu was also secretly conducting experimental research in the Gannan area, because the number of prisoners of war sent by the Yue army was not large, it was impossible to obtain comprehensive data, and the level of medical care in China was extremely poor, once the virus was introduced, it was easy to cause the unrestricted expansion of the epidemic, and the final result may be that the harm and losses brought to the Chinese people were far greater than those of the army, which was a stupid act of killing 800 enemies and losing 3,000 themselves.

There are indeed heavy bombers in the Soviet Union's aid to China, but the heavy bombers equipped by the Soviet Air Force are not strategic bombers, but tactical bombers, and their range is far less than that of Martin, Prince, Boeing and other products in Europe and the United States in the twenties.

The most important problem was that Zhang Xuewu did not want to be completely rigid because of dozens of bombers and the national political axe, and since then, Chiang Kai-shek has specifically instructed the delegation in the Soviet Union to strive for the purchase of long-range heavy bombers and large bombs of more than 500 kilograms.

In history, Xu Huanzhang, captain of the 14th Brigade of the Chinese Air Force, and Tong Yanbo, deputy captain of the Chinese Air Force, took off from Wuhan Airport and used leaflets instead of bombs to raid the mainland, which is also a famous humanitarian bombing incident!

For Zhang Xuewu, it is one thing whether to bomb or not, whether he can bomb it, whether he dares to bomb it is another thing, in fact, Zhang Xuewu still has a batch of trump cards in his hands, but this batch of trump cards is controlled by the Soviets in his hands, Zhang Xuewu has asked the Soviet side several times to transport 50 "battle fortresses" to Baotou, but the Soviet side, out of suppression and control of the 10th theater, allowed the 10th theater to send pilots to the Soviet Union for training, and always used the excuse that the design of the new model of heavy bombers still has serious flaws in the matter of receiving equipment. It is not easy to hand over the excuse of delay.

In fact, the so-called "Battle Fortress" heavy four-engine bomber is a large four-engine bomber designed by Zhang Xuewu's Baotou Air Force Third Design Institute and the Institute of Fluid Mechanics according to Zhang Xuewu's requirements and basic data, but Baotou does not have the ability and experience to produce and assemble this kind of large four-engine heavy bomber, and the main problem is that several aircraft factories in Baotou are working day and night to produce BF-109K multi-role fighters and Saker fighters. These two multi-purpose fighters can undertake half of the tactical support tasks, and can compete with the Chinese army for air supremacy, and the practical surname is very high, and the strategic bomber is not the same luxury that Zhang Xuewu can afford.

The origin of the U.S. Army's Flying Fortress can be traced back to 1934, when the U.S. Army Air Corps proposed a heavy bomber that can load two tons of bombs and fly 7,500 kilometers one way at a cruising speed of 320 kilometers per hour, with a combat radius of 3,100 kilometers. The tender, known as Plan A, focused on viable research, but if the design proved successful, the military would order a production prototype.

Martin Aircraft and Boeing submitted preliminary designs, and the Model 299 produced by Boeing drew on a lot of the experience of Boeing's Model 247 all-metal commercial airliner in design, basically combining the aerodynamics and structural features of the Model 247 with the quad of the Model 294, and the aircraft was equipped with four 750 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1690-E Hornet nine-cylinder air-cooled star engines that drove three-bladed propellers. The huge and heavy main wing was mounted under the fuselage of the circular profile, the main landing gear was stowed forward in the inboard engine compartment, the main wheels were not fully retracted, and the edges were still exposed to the air flow.

Since the Model 299 prototype belongs to Boeing, it is painted with the U.S. civilian registration number X-13372, the crew is composed of eight people, including the main and co-pilot, bombardier, pilot/wireless telegrapher and four gunners, and four streamlined machine gun turrets are set on the fuselage, one is on the back of the fuselage near the trailing edge of the wing, the second is behind the trailing edge of the wing on the belly, one on each side of the waist of the rear fuselage, and the machine gun rotates freely through the internal brackets, In addition, there is an additional machine gun mount behind the transparent nose, each bracket can be installed with a 7.62 mm or 12.7 mm machine gun, all machine guns are manual, the internal bomb bay of the Model 299 can hold eight 250 kg bombs, but the US Air Force does not have strategic bombing equipment requirements, but only hopes to do technical reserves, plus the lack of funds, at the end of 1936 they reduced the number of finalized YB-17 orders to thirteen.

Just in case of insufficient funds, the U.S. Air Force also decided to order 133 Glass DB-1, military model B-18 bombers, B-18 is much slower than the Flying Fortress, and the flight range is short, the bomb load is small, the defensive weapon is almost equal to zero, the only advantage is that the cost is only half of the Flying Fortress, because its basic design is derived from the DC-2 passenger aircraft, the design risk seems to be much smaller, so the U.S. Air Force gave up the Flying Fortress, so it gave Zhang Xuewu a golden opportunity, Since the U.S. Air Force didn't want it, Zhou Ying bought 20 passenger planes and a large number of spare parts at a high price, and shipped them to Baotou in batches in 1937 for the design institutes, research institutes and other departments that were still very immature at that time to learn and disassemble.

According to the Flying Fortress, the Baotou Flight Design Institute perfected the design of the Battle Fortress and passed the preliminary test in the wind tunnel, and handed it over to the Soviet side for production on its behalf, but the Soviets made a big jump after evaluating it, because this kind of strategic bomber with a combat radius of more than 3,300 kilometers can pose a threat to most of the targets in the Soviet Union, so the Soviets played a scoundrel, which was also greatly unexpected by Zhang Xuewu.

A large number of anti-tank mines, anti-tank guns, long-range 105-millimeter hail rocket launchers manufactured for the 10th theater, a large number of rockets and heavy high-explosive grenades of 150 millimeter caliber, as well as tank alloy armor plates, Xingxing eight-cylinder diesel engines, and so on, all arrived at the Dingyuan camp.

Zhang Xuewu's danger is for the national political axe and the Soviet Union to see, the true meaning of the child who will be called in history to have milk Zhang Xuewu is familiar with the road, as if once Chaoyang, Zhangjiakou and other fortress cities are lost, the tenth theater will fall apart, Zhang Xuewu also sent people to the Soviet Union to contact the tenth theater of war to retreat into the Soviet Union, Zhang Xuewu's actions completely frightened the Soviets, the Soviets spent such a big experience and a lot of materials, if the tenth theater was completely defeated by the Kwantung Army, Then the Soviet Union in the Far East, from Heilongjiang to Mongolia, will be threatened by himself, so the banner of Zhang Xuewu must not fall.

In addition, he said that he actually attacked Baotou from the territory of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet side was also very angry, considering that Baotou could not mass-produce such strategic bombers, so after contact, the Soviet side decided to fill up the 55 battle fortresses with fuel and load a batch of special incendiary bombs ordered by Zhang Xuewu, and return to Baotou after refueling and inspection in Vladivostok.

As the colonel commander of the 1st Strategic Bomber Unit of the 10th Theater Air Force, Zhang Guangyu went to the Soviet Union to greet these fighting fortresses that had been difficult to produce for a long time.

Zhang Guangyu, who was on a secret mission, announced Zhang Xuewu's secret message to all 440 crew members in the hangar in Vladivostok: "It is tolerable and intolerable for the invaders of the Empire to carry out bombing of the peaceful inhabitants of Baotou to exterminate people's surnames and to bomb peaceful targets such as schools and hospitals. In addition to loading five special incendiary bombs, the rest of the planes carry oil barrels, add fuel from the fuel tank in the engine room, the bombing is expected to be carried out at 2 o'clock in the morning on February 5, 1938, after the completion of the bombing, the planes maintain a dense formation to return, the first destination is Chifeng Airport, the second destination is the actual control area of our army! ”

Zhang Guangyu's words made all the crew members present look indignant, saying that he had brazenly bombed the education base in the Baotou Industrial Zone, and that some of the pilots' children and even the women of their relatives had unfortunately been killed in the bombing, and that the chivalry of his army and naval aviation had already been fed to the dogs, so almost everyone was gearing up, because the battle fortress was the only type of aircraft in the 10th War Zone that could attack the aircraft and return home!

Zhang Xuewu took a deep breath, raised his arms and shouted: "Burn the flames of war to the capital!" Blood debt and blood repayment! Burn the flames of war to the book! Blood debt and blood repayment! ”

The personnel of the Soviet Army's ground base in Vladivostok not far away were very strange, why did the Chinese pilots behave so strangely? The commander of the Soviet air base in Vladivostok, Major General Magorotev, also felt a little inappropriate about loading special incendiary bombs made by the USSR for the 10th theater of operations? Because with the range of such a Battle Fortress strategic bomber, there is no need to add a portable oil drum at all? Unless it is intended to fly long distances, and once the special incendiary bomb is loaded with a fuse, its safety is reduced to a minimum, which also means that the battle fortress must be bombed before landing?

And if, the Chinese bombers that took off from Vladivostok bombed the mainland of Yuben? Then the consequences will be unpredictable!

(To be continued)