Chapter 137: 136, Taishan Airlines’ German Drill Instructor, F220 Bomb-dropping Modification
After listening to William’s account, Fang Wen couldn’t help but sigh that history is always full of contingencies.
If that stormtrooper had known Little Mustache’s residence, perhaps the entire world situation would have developed in a completely different direction.
But no, instead six Weimar officers suffered.
He looked at William and asked, “What do you plan to do next?”
“I don’t know.” William was at a loss; he knew German and English, but here, they seemed useless.
And because of fleeing, he had hidden his profit sharing wealth in France; to live here, he needed to find a job or borrow some money from Fang Wen.
But saying this was hard for someone who had once been wealthy, especially borrowing from a partner with whom he had made a fortune together.
Fang Wen saw William’s embarrassment.
“I have a suggestion: come to my company and train a batch of mercenaries in the southwest of this country.”
“Train mercenaries?” William asked in surprise.
“Yeah, I’m preparing to build an airport there, but the area is very chaotic. For that, I’ve recruited a batch of mercenaries daring to fight, but they lack military training. I need someone who understands the military to help train them,” Fang Wen explained.
“But I don’t understand Chinese,” William stated his biggest shortcoming.
“If you don’t understand, you can learn. Our company has three foreign employees, all learning Chinese. Your language ability is better than theirs, so you should master it faster.” Fang Wen paused: “Here’s the deal: tomorrow I’ll find you a language teacher. If you can master basic communication within a month, I’ll hire you. If not, I’ll give you some money personally.”
Hearing Fang Wen’s words, William weighed the pros and cons.
Taking some money for free wasn’t actually useful; he believed that a place called Eastern Paris would have high consumption, and that money wouldn’t last long—what then?
It was better to give it a shot, learn basic Chinese communication, and stay at Fang’s company—that would be stable.
William, weary of unstable life due to fleeing, made his choice.
Taishan Airlines gained another foreign employee, William from the Weimar Republic.
Of course, because he was wanted by the Weimar Republic, he claimed to others that he was British.
Anyway, these days, no one cared.
To learn Chinese, he studied diligently with the hired Chinese-English teacher, memorizing Chinese characters and vocabulary every day.
The more he learned, the more he was fascinated by the profundity of Chinese.
Unlike English and German, Chinese, evolved from ancient script, is a very complex language system.
He even began summarizing this unique script and making notes.
Fang Wen had seen these notes and was surprised by his perspective.
For example:
William believed Chinese is a composite of form, sound, and meaning. English and German are phonetic scripts; Chinese doesn’t require strict grammar and can convey correct meaning through various expressions, even miswritten characters—something impossible in grammar-focused English.
Moreover, Chinese can self-assemble; clearly non-existent vocabulary can still be understood by some people.
There are also idioms and proverbs, phrases representing specific meanings that accurately express particular ideas.
These insights proved William’s talent in languages, so his Chinese language learning progressed quickly.
Time passed bit by bit.
Various things were developing.
The first good news was that Shrike Hao had returned.
Fang Wen specially flew Shrike Hao for mechanical perception testing and found no major issues.
Only then was he relieved.
The second good news was that Shopkeeper Liu had returned.
His return meant the penicillin laboratory was officially operational; two professors from Tsinghua University’s biology department had taken their family members and students to Wuhan.
It also meant Fang Wen could step away from tedious daily company management.
After Shopkeeper Liu took over the work, Fang Wen eagerly flew Shrike Hao to Wuhan.
He planned to check the laboratory progress in Wuhan, then air drop to Xiangxi Airport to inspect local construction, and return to Shanghai.
The airplane took off from Shanghai Airport, flew for several hours, and landed at Taishan Airlines’ own airport in Wuchang.
After parking the airplane in the private hangar, Fang Wen was led by Wuhan Airport staff to the biological laboratory.
Outside the airport, across from it in a three-story courtyard building, was their biological laboratory.
The sign outside read Taishan Airlines Logistics Office, with security guards at the main gate; outsiders had no idea biological experiments were being conducted here.
Fang Wen entered the laboratory to inspect the progress inside.
Tsinghua biology professors explained the situation.
“After moving in the experimental equipment we brought from Beiping and the equipment sent by Taishan Airlines, we began penicillin production work. Relying on the first-generation penicillin manufacturing process and original penicillin strain you provided, we produced the first batch of original strain penicillin. We also learned how to purify this substance from penicillium.”
“So fast!” Fang Wen was surprised.
The professor explained: “This isn’t fast; we just replicated the already successful penicillin production method, but it’s not suitable for large-scale production. We need to create a completely new efficient manufacturing process. Also, the original strain has poor purification effect; we’ve started collecting various penicillium.”
“Any kind of penicillium?” Fang Wen asked.
“Yes, penicillium is a diverse strain, usually appearing on various foods and leather, like citrus fruits, vegetables, cooked rice, meat, leather goods, etc. We need different penicillium for comparative experiments to better understand penicillin production. By the way, best from different areas.”
Fang Wen nodded: “No problem, I have seven airports in the southeast, northeast, northwest, and southwest; employees at each airport can participate in penicillium collection.”
He stayed at Wuhan Airport that day and sent a telegram to his wife that evening, requiring all company employees to participate in penicillium collection.
The next day, this internal company order was transmitted via flights to each airport; all Taishan Airlines employees up and down were collecting moldy items, which, once collected, would be preserved and sent back to Shanghai Airport, then delivered to the biological laboratory via Shanghai-Wuhan flights.
This efficiency greatly increased penicillium variety collection and accelerated experimental progress.
Meanwhile, Fang Wen boarded the refueled Shrike Hao and flew toward Xiangxi Airport in the southwest.
The airplane flew at 4000 meters altitude, passing over Hubei plains into the southwest mountainous area.
This vast region was densely ridged, with rugged land routes; even by water, travel was limited to river paths.
Thus, since ancient times, the southwest has been a defensively advantageous and hard-to-attack terrain.
Musing on this, Fang Wen flew Shrike Hao over Changde city to the airspace above Yongshun County.
From high altitude, Yongshun County Town was a city built on the mountain, but unlike Chongqing, this small county town had limited buildable area, no major rivers, and few developable zones.
Passing over the county town, Shrike Hao reached the plain behind Longzhai Village, the destination.
The airplane descended altitude, circling at two thousand meters; he saw the scene below.
Hundreds of people were busy working together.
Ox carts coming and going transporting supplies.
A bustling scene.
So where was his landing spot?
Fang Wen looked ahead of the construction site.
There was a compacted runway, about three hundred meters long, suitable for Shrike Hao’s landing.
With no ground radio communication equipment, Fang Wen had to look for signalers.
He saw him: by the runway, it should be Fang Shouxin, raising his left hand, right hand waving to point at the runway behind.
This was the safe-to-land gesture; Fang Wen continued circling to adjust position, lowered the fuselage, and landed steadily on the runway.
The airplane stopped steadily, immediately attracting a crowd of onlookers.
All nearby villagers and construction laborers.
It was their first time seeing an airplane, all very curious.
To prevent the airplane from being surrounded and damaged, Sun Debiao brought dozens of Gan Army Security Brigade members to surround the airplane.
One team member shouted in local dialect: “You can look, but don’t touch; this thing is very precious—one village couldn’t trade for it.”
On the other side, Fang Wen descended via the wooden boarding ladder and talked with Fang Shouxin.
“How’s it going here?”
“We’ve bought all the land. We hired three hundred people to build the airport; manpower is sufficient. But the land has some issues.”
“What issues?”
“Much of the land here is rice paddies with deep mud; we have to dig out the mud and fill with stones.”
“Come, show me.”
Fang Shouxin led Fang Wen to the construction site.
As he said, the rice paddy mud was dug out, loaded onto ox carts and hauled away—this was the best farmland soil, which elsewhere could grow many grain crops.
After removing the mud, the farmland left 2-to-3-meter-deep pits.
To fill these pits required fine pebbles mixed with river sand.
Thus, stones hauled by ox carts were smashed into fragments by workers with hammers, mixed with sand, and filled in.
“Are there many such farmlands?” Fang Wen asked.
“Not all farmlands are rice paddies; the areas we need to handle aren’t many. Estimated one month to finish,” Fang Shouxin replied.
“Finish the runway as soon as possible; only with a large runway completed can I fly Taishan One here to transport supplies.”
“I understand; all current work is focused on runway construction.”
The two reconfirmed work priorities; with a runway able to land f.220 airplanes, one landing could bring several tons of cement.
Though airlifting cement was a bit luxurious, it was worthwhile here.
With cement, construction here would accelerate greatly, and the factory could be built faster.
Fang Wen looked at other areas outside the airport: a row of bungalows built in the distance, very rudimentary, stacked with stones, roofs with roof tiles.
“Everyone living there?”
“Yes. Environment a bit crude, but everyone can endure,” Fang Shouxin replied.
Fang Wen walked over quickly, seeing the crude living conditions, inwardly blaming himself: the people he recruited, sent here before formal work even started, already had to learn hardship.
No, he could solve these problems.
He instructed Fang Shouxin: “Turn on the telegraph machine promptly at 8 p.m. these next two days; living conditions here must improve. I’ll go back to prepare and notify you.”
Finished speaking, Fang Wen had no heart to look more, boarded the airplane quickly, turned around, and took off to leave.
He returned to Wuchang Airport to refuel, then immediately took off back to Shanghai.
Back in Shanghai, he went to Taishan Airlines Headquarters, called his wife and Shopkeeper Liu separately, and held a small meeting.
“I checked Xiangxi Airport; their work environment is extremely harsh—they eat poorly, sleep poorly. This shouldn’t be Taishan Airlines employees’ treatment.”
Kuang Mingzhu asked in surprise: “Is it that bad there?”
Fang Wen nodded: “They’re living in stone houses, wooden board beds, thin quilts, damp at night with insects, snakes, rats appearing. My oversight—I didn’t anticipate the supply scarcity there and failed to prepare living supplies in advance.”
Shopkeeper Liu considered supply transport: “Even if we procure enough supplies, how to get them there? The airport isn’t built yet—no landing possible.”
“You handle supply procurement; I’ll figure out supply transport,” Fang Wen assigned tasks.
“Shopkeeper Liu just returned—let him rest; I’ll procure the supplies,” Kuang Mingzhu took the task.
Thinking women were naturally better at procuring living supplies than men, especially shrewd Kuang Mingzhu.
Fang Wen nodded in agreement.
Thus the couple set off separately: one taking Chun Cao and Qiu Ju to the urban area to procure, the other to the airport.
Fang Wen entered the airport, arriving at Taishan Airlines’ self-built large hangar.
There sat the f.220 heavy night bomber, also where the three foreign mechanics usually stayed.
When Fang Wen entered the hangar, the three were chatting idly; he stated the situation directly.
“I want to modify the f.220.”
“How?” Howard asked; they’d been waiting—the modification of such a large airplane was an honor for any mechanic.
“Follow me.” Fang Wen went to the f.220, pulled out the boarding ladder, and entered.
He explained his modification idea.
“The f.220 has 4000 kg external bomb racks and 4000 kg ammunition bay, with internal bomb dropping mainly manual via the bomb bay. The modification I want is to create 3 bomb bays inside the cabin for faster bombing.”
Per Fang Wen’s idea, the original internal ammunition bay had only one bomb bay, requiring bombs placed on slide rails for manual dropping.
This was too slow; air raids needed instant high-intensity bomb barrages, best dumping all bombs at once for a plowing strike.
Thus, adding 3 bomb bays would triple bomb dropping efficiency.
After all, no automation these days—manpower was the only solution.
This modification plan was also designed for supply airdrops.
It could airdrop needed living supplies to Xiangxi Airport and test f.220’s airdrop function.
It could also simulate strategic bombing in advance. After all, airdrops and bombing weren’t much different—both needed accuracy.
