Chapter 52: Pixiu Goes to Sea Again

The maintenance of the Pixiu took half a month, and the sea was far away, so we hurried and hurried until March 1 before we rushed back to Shixiang Island again.

Recently, Li Guang has been on the Stone Statue Island, and he has not done much except for strict training.

The main thing is that the people of the Su family and the Yuan family are too capable. In just half a month, the 2,000 people have basically been arranged, and they already have the taste of living and working in peace and contentment.

Zheng Xuechang's trip to the Soviet Union went well, and he finally completed the task after staying there for a month. The Soviets still seemed to be very sympathetic, after all, the information provided by Li Guang was to save Stalin's surname. Although the Soviet spies also obtained the same information, it was enough to show Li Guang's sincerity.

Toronov made several trips back and forth between Moscow and the port, and finally got the arms purchase done. Toronov was the contact person of the Soviet embassy that Li Guang had sought in Germany. This time, because Toronov received such important information, he was praised by his superiors. Therefore, he was very concerned about Li Guang's purchase of arms, and he also hoped to get more information from Li Guang. And this Toronov had a good chance of rising to the post of Soviet consul in Brazil. In this way, Li Guang's contact with the Soviet Union will be more convenient, after all, Uruguay and Brazil are adjacent to each other.

The Soviet Union sold six B2-152mm cannons and six 122mm howitzers, as well as a batch of artillery shells, to the Navy. The price is not preferential, but Li Guang is very satisfied with it. This kind of advanced weapon, Li Guang can't buy it at all through normal channels, especially the 152mm cannon. It's a pity that I couldn't buy a 203mmb2 cannon, which is called Stalin's hammer, and it's very powerful.

But the price also made Li Guang grinning very much, one million oceans, just bought these twelve cannons, expensive, really expensive.

Among them, the price of the 122mm howitzer is 35,000 oceans, which is acceptable. And the B2 cannon turned out to cost 100,000 oceans for one. In the years that followed, Li Guang discovered that Soviet weapons were relatively cheap in the world.

And this price does not include the rangefinder. Zheng Xuechang also had to buy a rangefinder from Germany. Of course, Zheng Xuechang and Li Guang also did not look down on Soviet-made optical rangefinders. This kind of product is also produced by Zeiss in Germany, with good quality and high precision. It is estimated that there is no 100,000 oceans, and I am afraid it will be difficult to configure it completely.

When the cannon was loaded, Zheng Xuechang had already gone to Germany to prepare to sell tungsten ore. It is estimated that even if it goes well, it will be April or May to return to the stone statue island.

And Li Guang can't wait that long, now the repair and transformation is completed. All the officers and men of the Pixiu have already made great preparations and are preparing to attack.

The Pixiu attacked, and did not wait for the supply ship PJP.

Li Guang didn't know how to face the two beauties, so he simply left two letters and didn't dare to look at them. And the two beauties who came to Stone Statue Island with the PJP (Play Story) freighter are estimated to take three or four days to arrive.

The target of the Pixiu's sortie this time was not the Pacific shipping route, but to enter the South China Sea. Li Zongren generously paid two million oceans on credit and asked Li Guang to help him get explosives.

Now it has purchased 500 tons of explosives and propellants from DuPont in the United States. But the difficulty lies in how to send it to Guangxi. He said that he had put pressure on the French political axe, and now Vietnam's coastal defense can only transport civilian supplies into China. It was not very easy for Li Guang to smoothly deliver the explosives to Guangxi. You must know that Ben has now occupied Hainan Island, and warships have blockaded the Beibu Gulf.

So the Pixiu decided to explore the path first, carrying the explosives and provisions, and then followed.

After more than a year of development, the Maritime Resistance Force can be regarded as a small scale, and has already owned a Pixiu submarine, a pickup quasi-destroyer, and a supply ship called the Ben. The gradual improvement of the combat system is not a small leap.

This time, in order to strengthen the construction of Shixiang Island and Robinson Island, Li Guang simply allocated a 10,000-ton dry bulk carrier to these two bases.

It is relatively easy to build an airport on Stone Statue Island, but Robinson Island has a complex terrain, and it is extremely difficult to find a flat land to build a small airport. A large amount of building materials such as cement is required.

Although the food processing industry on Statue Island does not require much electricity, coal is indispensable. Relying only on the timber on the island, it doesn't take long to turn a beautiful island into a desert island. Li Guang is reluctant to destroy this future cash cow.

The logistics of a 10,000-ton ship to protect these two small islands are a bit wasteful. After the initial construction period, I am afraid that a freighter of four or five thousand tons will be enough.

Li Guang planned well, but he ignored two points. The first point is that the effect of Li Guang's light fish attraction technology is really good in this era of abundant marine fishery resources. The second point is that under the management of Yuan Ye and Su Maode, the production capacity of the old and weak people is really terrifying.

As a result, in 39 years, this 10,000-ton cargo ship had no idle time at all.

Now there are 615 members of the Naval Resistance Army. Three of them were directly used for combat ships and several freighters occupied more than three hundred, while the marines had less than three hundred. It was organized into three companies by Li Guang. One of the companies was trained in island and mountain warfare on Robinson Island, one company was trained in island defense operations on Statue Island, and the other company was stationed on Nauru Island.

The captain of the Marine Corps was Su Qing, but due to the long distance at sea, the command was very inflexible, and in fact, the three companies were also fighting on their own. At present, the Maritime Resistance Force actually does not even have a qualified company commander, and on the island of Stone Statue and Nauru, they actually rely on a few disabled veterans to lead the troops in training. These veterans are still very qualified in training the basic combat skills of the soldiers, but there are some gaps in commanding operations.

Middle- and lower-ranking officers in the troops, which can only be obtained through two methods. First, fight in actual combat. Second Military Academy Training.

Military academy training, Li Guang has already begun to work on this matter. One of the most basic is that Professor Yuan Ye is preparing to set up a school on Shixiang Island, and 20 of the subjects are related to military teaching.

It seems like a lot, but there are ten ** arms on the Pixiu alone, so the teaching of twenty subjects is not much at all. Professor Yuan trained the teenagers among the refugees, and there were not many literate among them, and Li Guang estimated that they would not be needed at all in three or two years. And even if it is learned, it is only a technical branch, and there is still a lack of commanders.

In fact, there is only one way left for Li Guang, and that is to beat in actual combat. At this time, Li Guang became interested in Xu Zhan's anti-Japanese guerrillas. At the beginning, he allocated thirty-six soldiers to Xu Zhan, and they were all very distressed. Now it seems that he made a good move unintentionally.

Xu Zhan's guerrillas were able to solve not only the problem of officers for the Naval Resistance Army, but also another problem for the Naval Resistance Army, the problem of insufficient troops.

Now Li Guang has no way to get soldiers in Guangxi.

It's not that you can't recruit people, it's that you can't recruit people who have undergone initial training. The fighting at home was extremely brutal, and all the pre-war reserve troops in Guangxi had been sent to the battlefield, and now the militia groups in Guangxi were poorly trained and their quality was uneven.

Guangxi, which is poor in mountains and bad waters, has cultivated soldiers who are flexible and fierce, and they are really rare good soldiers. But Li Guang also found a problem in the past year or so. Guangxi people are still a little shorter, and some types of troops need some tall and strong strength fighters. The most obvious are the gunners and torpedo crews. In these years, the degree of automation is not high, and a lot of work is done by manpower. Like the German 88mm gun, the design did not take into account the size of the Oriental people at all, and the design of the position was relatively high, and it was very difficult for a small man to make such a cannon.

Xu Zhan was responsible for recruiting for the Naval Resistance Army, which here was responsible for providing veterans for the guerrillas. This method has become a good choice for the growth of the Maritime Resistance Army. The training of the naval resistance force is still quite good, and all that is lacking is combat experience. In this way, Xu Zhan has a fighting backbone there, and Li Guang has a guaranteed source of troops here.

So he immediately sent a telegram to contact Xu Zhan, asking Xu Zhan to recruit more recruits for the Naval Resistance Army. When the report was issued, Li Guang added a few words -- the more the merrier.

Li Guang's original intention was to recruit three or two hundred recruits, but how could he know that it was really easy for Xu Zhan to recruit soldiers, and the conditions given by Li Guang were also good, a recruit would be given a settling-in allowance of twenty yuan, and the military salary would be five yuan per month, and the officers would be treated better according to their rank.

A few words added at the end of the telegram - the more the merrier. As a serious consequence, Xu Zhan's guerrillas had less than one battalion of strength before the end of the 39th year, and they actually recruited 5,000 recruits for the Naval Resistance Army. It caused great economic pressure on Li Guang.

At the beginning of the 39th year, although Li Guang did not return to Uruguay, the commercial aspect was progressing smoothly, and the military industry was also making rapid progress. The Baxia has been basically completed, and it will be put into use only when Zheng Xuechang returns from Europe and loads the cannon.

And Pixiu No. 2 also began to pave the keel. However, Pixiu No. 2 is not as luxurious as Pixiu No. 1, and the hull is still an ordinary marine steel plate, and no alloy steel plate is used. It's not that I don't want to, but the price is too expensive to use. Less than a hundred tons of alloy steel plates were left from the last seizure, which was simply not enough.

For the Navy, the temporary economic pressure is not yet obvious. But the construction of a submarine again made Li Guang's economic situation begin to be embarrassed again.

Pixiu's attack this time is to provide explosives for the Gui family, and the other is to find some business outlets, otherwise it will be difficult to support it.

Three combat ships, if you add the Baxia and the Pixiu 2 under construction, a total of five ships. If all of them are dispatched, the cost of one battle at sea is at least 80,000 US dollars. Even the usual training costs 20,000 US dollars to support a month.

Li Guang seems to be rich, but behind the scenery is great economic pressure.

Guano Commercial Group is still in the investment period and is not profitable. And the production of torpedoes and batteries is not selling well now, and for a while there are no big buyers, and they cannot create profits except for their own use.

Several other projects are now all in the investment period, and it is impossible to get a return.

As a matter of fact, Li Guang's enterprise now implements two lines of revenue and expenditure in terms of finance. To put it simply, the looted materials can be used for armaments. However, regular operation and combat consumption depend on the profits of shipbuilding.

The shipyard now launches at least two 4,000-ton dry bulk carriers a month, but it can only generate a profit of $20,000.

However, another business investment of the shipyard is less and the results are quick. The shipyard now has three dry docks and one repair dock (with water), thanks to the addition of a lot of equipment over the past year, especially a 100-ton crane. As a result, shipyards actually monopolized the repair of large ships. It not only undertook the repair of ships in Uruguay, but also repaired ships from many countries in South America, and European ships often chose to repair at Li Guang's dock when they arrived in South America. As a result, this department, which has only a few dozen workers, can actually create tens of thousands of dollars in profits for Li Guang every month.

Of the three dry docks, only one is a small enclosed dock. That was where Li Guang specialized in building warships or submarines.

Therefore, the three ships and three companies of the Marine Corps of the Maritime Resistance Force can actually only rely on the support of two or three hundred thousand dollars in profits, which is really not relaxed.

Li Guang is now under great pressure as the commander of the Naval Resistance Army. It is necessary not only to command operations, but also to take into account the economy. In fact, every time the Naval Resistance Army increased its armament, Li Guang was worried about dragging down the enterprise. This time, I dared to build another Pixiu submarine, and I still hoped that Zheng Xuechang could sell tungsten sand at a good price in Germany.

If it can really be sold according to Li Guang's expectations, it will sell two million more oceans. Then this Pixiu submarine can continue to be built, otherwise, I am afraid that it will have to stop work halfway.

Due to the existence of the navy's escort fleet, it is very difficult to capture the merchant ships on the Pacific route except for sinking. Now Li Guang has set his sights on the seas of Southeast Asia. Here it is said that the navy has no escort for the time being, and there should be an opportunity to take advantage of it.

In short, Li Guang is now forced by money. Relying on submarines not only had to attack the merchant ships of the original country, but also had to think of ways to capture them, otherwise the economy would be difficult to sustain. The dilemma of waiting for the rice to be put into the pot is also one of the most important reasons why Li Guang hurriedly took the Pixiu to attack again.

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