The chilly sea breeze blows through the coastal city of Dalian, and the bell tower rings again in the China Square in the center of the city. The majestic clock tower www.biquge.info the Pen & Fun & Pavilion, which has been a landmark of the city for many years, has been working from spring to winter since its completion, and the sound of the bell has never changed since the sun rises and sets.

Almost every day, people under the bell tower hold their chests up, head held high, rushing for life or ideals, this bell tower has been silently witnessing everything, witnessing everything staged on this land. At this time, the rotation of the needle seems to carry a strange atmosphere.

In the past ten days, the war machine in the northeast has been quietly started, running at full power without any hindrance, hundreds of thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of tons of supplies have been transferred north along the railway to the front line, which has not even attracted the attention of the outside world, at least for the people of the northeast, they are still preparing for the coming New Year.

After eating laba rice, I will do it for the year.

Thousands of years of habits have made Dalian in Layue extremely lively, the streets are full of women handling New Year's goods, but more are still those children who have just had a winter vacation, not only on the streets, but also in the military villages in the suburbs of Dalian, the same is true, the families and children of the officers and soldiers living in the military villages are also doing accurately for the upcoming Spring Festival, even as the families of soldiers, they also do not realize that the fate of many of them will change fundamentally in the next few days.

February 1, morning, Naval Spaceyard. Hundreds of Marines are counting their weapons. Compared to ordinary army units. The Marine Corps is undoubtedly the elite of the elite, although it is not one in a hundred elites, but it is also one in ten elites that has undergone rigorous training, and the search battalion directly under the Marine Command is the elite of the elite, so to speak, on a par with the search battalion directly under the General Staff Headquarters.

At this time, these Marines. Most of them were in the huge airship warehouse, checking their equipment, unlike ordinary troops, their weapons were very simple, a rifle, two riverside box guns, as for the machine gunners, they also used light machine guns with only bipods - this is a symbol of elite troops, in the northeast only real elite troops will be equipped with light machine guns.

In the past few years, after several years of hard work and improvement, the "Shen machine gun" has become the standard equipment of the Northeast Army, and this machine gun using the principle of air conduction is undoubtedly more suitable for the climate of Northeast China than the Maxim machine gun -- there will be no problems such as cooling water and freezing. And in the heath, the Heavy doesn't have to deal with the problem of finding cooling water. The heavy-duty barrel with a round steel fins is more resistant to the high temperatures of prolonged firing. Although the 40-round magazine or 100-round drum makes it slightly less sustained than the Maxim machine gun, its performance is comparable to that of the Maxim machine gun. Compared with the latter, its structure is simpler, the reliability is higher, and there are very few failures, of course, the more important point is that it is cheap enough -- compared with the Makqin machine gun, which is as expensive as more than 1,000 yuan per unit, the purchase price of the "Shen machine gun" including spare barrels and accessories is less than 300 yuan, and it can be said that it is precisely because of its cheapness that the Northeast Army can set up a machine gun company in each elite infantry brigade, and each company is equipped with 16 machine guns. There are even a handful of elite units with a machine gun platoon armed with three machine guns per battalion, giving them more firepower than other armies.

However, for the real elite troops, they are not equipped with the standard model of the "Shen machine gun", but its light version, which has neither a tripod, nor a heavy barrel, nor a 100-round drum, and even the 40-round magazine has been changed to a 30-round magazine, so that it has the ability to maneuver with the soldier's attack.

All along, this light machine gun can be described as the favorite of elite troops, in the Marine Corps is no exception, and light machine guns because of their extremely small range of equipment, has long become a symbol of elite troops, but also their "magic weapon", just like this, officers are urging machine gunners to carefully check the machine gun, although the reliability of the "Shen machine gun" has already conquered the public, but the inspection can always be reassuring, after all, these machine guns will be the soul of infantry combat.

"10 magazines of 20 rounds, two magazines of 10 rounds with the gun......"

When he counted the equipment, he once again picked up the Binjiang pistol and checked it, after checking the weapon, he stuffed the pistol into the wooden shell, according to the experience gained by the Daya Turen who cleared the headhunters in the South Seas, the Binjiang pistol that can fire in bursts is more reliable than the rifle, at close range, he used two pistols to put down nearly thirty Turen in a short time, sometimes, after a battle, maybe the rifle did not fire a shot, the pistol bullet ran out.

"Bring a few more magazines!"

After being reminded by his comrades-in-arms on the side, he threw several 20-round pistol magazines in front of him, and naturally did not refuse, no one would feel that there were many bullets.

"Do you know where to go?"

The answer, of course, was to shake their heads, and no one told them where they were going, but unlike in the past, they had to take either a train or a boat, this time, they were on an airship, a real giant airship, a giant airship with a load of 5 tons, which could carry 45 marines, and without exception were fully armed.

"Hurry, hurry, all on board!"

Ten minutes later, with the order issued, more than 300 marines boarded eight airships -- there were only 12 Type 5 planes in the entire northeast, three in the army, and nine in the navy.

Looking at the marines boarding the airship, looking at the young faces, Li Ziyuan's expression was very solemn, the First Marine Brigade led by him will set off in a few days, now, looking at the swarthy marines who were exposed to the tropical sun, his mood seemed a little heavy, maybe for them, they were just a normal combat mission, but for Li Ziyuan, he knew very well what was waiting for them.

"Sir, when are we leaving?"

"In a few days!"

By the time these words were uttered, the first airship had already taken off, and heavy cameras and movie cameras recorded the scene. This is different from the last war, where only a few hundred photos were taken. This time. In the military, however, there are hundreds of photographers, both professional and non-professional, documenting all of this. In addition to using cameras, there are even the latest movie cameras, they will use film to record the war, just like now, as an army camera, for Du Yang, he has always been eager to be able to use the camera to record the scenes on the battlefield.

"It's so bulky!"

The black cloth covered his head and looked at the take-off airship in the mirror, and Du Yang couldn't help muttering softly in his heart. As a photographer, his biggest impression is that the camera is too bulky. Although he knew that compared with the flat-panel cameras produced in other countries, the flat-panel cameras produced by Seagull Optical Instrument Company in Northeast China were relatively lightweight, but they still could not meet his needs, to be precise, the requirements in his mind.

If only there were lighter cameras!

Thinking so in his heart, when he was changing the glass plate after taking a photo, Du Yang's eyes turned to the camera operating the movie camera in the distance. At this time, he couldn't help but envy the convenience of the cinematographer who didn't need to change the glass piece, and the movie camera used ......

"Lin Haf folding camera!"

Within Seagull Optical Instruments. Faced with the request of his old classmates, Sun Tianbin took out a dictionary-sized leather box from the sample cabinet.

"It's the camera ......"

In Du Yang's surprise, he saw that his old classmate opened the leather box, and it was indeed a "small camera".

"It's a folding camera invented by the company's German engineer Linhaff three years ago, and its bracket design is interesting and space-saving, just a little bit inflexible, but I think it should meet your requirements, compared to older cameras, you can see ......"

As Sun Tianbin explained, compared to the old-fashioned flatbed camera, there is no doubt that this kind of Lin Haf camera that can be held in both hands is indeed very small, the size of a dictionary, the thickness of two dictionaries, and the weight is only two or three kilograms - it is really too light.

"Or use glass panes?"

Except that it was not very flexible to operate without a support frame, Du Yang did not feel that this camera was much different from the camera he used before, so it was easy to learn how to use it.

"We used film, after all, the glass plate is too easy to break, so we borrowed the technology of Selog's film to make this imitation glass plate film, and the shooting effect is very good, although it has not been put on the market yet, but it is ......."

With a smile on his face, Sun Tianbin said with a smile.

"I think the company also needs a photographer to try it, how about it, old classmate, if you are satisfied, we can sign a trial contract! As long as you sign it, it's yours! ”

Signing a trial contract, of course Du Yang will not refuse, however, this is not his main intention, when the old classmate mentioned the film, Du Yang said a little excitedly as if he had found a bosom friend.

"Zitian, I thought that I was the only one who thought so, yes, I came this time to ......"

As he spoke, Du Yang had already taken out his "design drawing", which was more precisely an idea.

"That's what I thought, can we just use motion picture film as camera film, you see, we can put a small film cassette here, and ......"

Pointing to the square box on the drawing, Du Yang talked about his idea one by one, in fact, his idea is very simple, it is a reduced movie camera, using 18x24 mm film as the negative of the camera.

"This idea of yours is a bit like a brownie camera from Kodak in the United States,"

As a camera engineer, Sun Tianbin naturally knew that the Brownie camera just launched last year, in fact, the company is copying this kind of camera, for almost all enterprises in Northeast China, the purchase of prototypes and reverse imitation has always been the basis for learning and absorbing Western technology, and even the most important business of the trading company is not export, but import - to buy the latest Western equipment and instruments.

"I know, but it's different, there's no way to adjust the glue pitch with the Brownie camera, and he's not much different from a cinema camera, he can only shoot images at a fixed distance, I think...... Zitian, do you remember the old-fashioned monoculars we played with when we were in school? ”

Then he flipped through the simple drawings of the box, and this time Sun Tianbin saw a "lens" similar to a telescope, and then only heard Du Yang explain.

"My idea was to take the adjustment of the telescope and adjust the focal length, just like folding the leather cavity, except that the latter is adjusted through the leather cavity, and it is through the expansion and contraction of the front and rear lens tubes, so that maybe it can be made a little lighter, and if I guess correctly, it can even fit into a pocket!"

After speaking, Du Yang raised his head and looked at Sun Tianbin with some excitement, although they both graduated from Tongwen School in Shanghai, but Du Yang was not admitted to the university, but entered the junior college, and Sun Tianbin became an optical equipment engineer, which is why he asked for help.

With his brows locked, Sun Tianbin looked at the design of his old classmates, more precisely, this is just an idea, but this idea is like opening a window, so that as an engineer, he is keenly aware of the advantages, a more compact, easy-to-use and portable camera! If you could build a camera like this, it could change everything, not only make photography very easy, but also make the company very profitable!

"Well, I think I can give it a try, but ...... You know, it's not something that can be made in three or two days! ”

"I'll use this ...... before I build it."

Raising the folding camera that had been boxed, Du Yang said with a smile.

"Still, I hope you guys can hurry, and if you can, I hope you can be the first to try it!"

"Quick, let's do our best, you should already know......"

The voice was slightly lowered, and Sun Tianbin said with some hesitation.

"Now the army's orders have been lined up for a few months, binoculars, artillery mirrors, well, and the rifle machine gun scopes that your army has been urging all day long, in short, as for your ......"

At this time, the company naturally focused more on the production of munitions rather than civilian products, but looking at the face of the old classmate, Sun Tianbin changed the conversation again.

"However, don't worry, I will definitely do it on purpose, well, I'll see if I can give this to the test workshop, if everything goes well, it shouldn't delay you from using it!" Old classmate, that is, you, I can open this back door......"

"Zitian!"

Du Yang, who knew the importance of the military's order, nodded again and again when he heard his old classmate's arrangement.

"That's a real bother......" (To be continued.) )