Chapter 12: Newspaper Current Events, September 18th Incident, Secret Action
The group got into a vehicle and stopped at the Danfeng Restaurant at the West Gate.
Manager Xie led everyone inside and warmly introduced, “This shop has been around for years; it existed in the Guangxu Era. It started as a noodle shop and later became a restaurant specializing in Hui cuisine. The food is pretty good.”
He was clearly a frequent visitor here, and the people in the restaurant warmly welcomed him.
They took seats in the second-floor private room, where Manager Xie discussed with the restaurant boss what dishes to order.
Fang Wen, however, looked out the window.
A newsboy was running down the street hugging a big stack of newspapers, shouting in his mouth, “Newspapers for sale, newspapers for sale! Read the newspaper to know the world’s affairs.”
Newspapers were the best way to get information in this era, so Fang Wen waved, “Newsboy kid, come up here. I want to buy a newspaper.”
The newsboy looked up and happily ran upstairs, showing Fang Wen the newspapers in his hand.
“How much?” Fang Wen asked.
“Five copper coins each. Sir, buy two and make it an even amount,” the newsboy said flatteringly.
“Here you go.” Yue Jinping took out some loose copper coins from her sachet and gave them to the newsboy.
Then, Fang Wen took two different newspapers and slowly flipped through them.
At this time, the newspapers had lots of advertisements and information from various industries, as well as recent major domestic and international events, even including commentaries.
Looking at this content, Fang Wen gained some understanding of the recent situation.
‘Italy’ invades Abyssinia.
“Where is Abyssinia?” he asked.
“North Africa, roughly here.” Fei Yizhen dipped some tea and drew a North Africa map on the table.
From what she drew, Abyssinia should be what would later become Ethiopia.
It seemed the curtain of World War II had already been raised.
Flipping past this simply described report, Fang Wen then looked at the domestic situation.
“Central Army clashes with the Feng, Yan, and Li factions in the Central Plains region, vying for control of the Central Plains.”
Was there still such a large-scale war domestically in 1930?
Fang Wen was shocked; the newspaper described hundreds of thousands of troops fighting a major battle in the Central Plains region.
This included all of China’s important military forces.
According to the newspaper, there were 300,000 casualties. If the Zhang family from the Northeast hadn’t intervened by entering the pass, the fighting would have continued.
Fang Wen couldn’t help but sigh: next year the September 18th Incident would erupt, the Northeast was about to fall, and yet domestically they were still fragmented, fighting over territory.
It was truly a case of deep-rooted problems that were hard to reverse!
Manager Xie saw Fang Wen’s expression change and asked, “Commissioner Fang, what news did you read that moved you so much?”
“It’s still the Central Plains War; the newspaper says the casualties were heavy,” Fang Wen replied.
“I heard the Central Army sent the Air Force into combat. It’s a pity I didn’t have the chance to pilot a fighter jet into battle to kill the enemy,” Fei Yizhen said with longing.
Fang Wen glanced at Fei Yizhen; he wouldn’t do something like piloting an aircraft to kill his own countrymen.
If he was going to do it, he’d wait until the War of Resistance began and go fight the Little Japanese.
Of course, he wouldn’t reveal such thoughts.
Stable days quietly passed by like this.
Most of the time, Fang Wen spent at the airport or in airplanes.
This monotony was, for him, necessary training, because it wouldn’t be long before he’d face the enemy.
He believed that the flight piloting skills he demonstrated would certainly be useful once the War of Resistance began. If he didn’t consolidate his training now, there would likely be many problems in wartime.
Therefore, besides his daily regular flight schedules, he applied for a test flight every time.
This was allowed by company rules, but no fighter pilot had ever used this rule so frequently.
Taking advantage of these test flights, he tried to lower the difficulty, attempting small-scale ascents, sudden descents, sharp turns and maneuvers, cloud cover transfers, and other air tactics.
He also built good relations with the airport’s security forces, spending some expenses to learn basic firearms shooting.
He also learned aircraft maintenance knowledge from Howard.
Meanwhile, Fei Yizhen and Yue Jinping also benefited greatly from the process of following along on flights and test flights, gradually mastering the piloting essentials of the Detroit model civilian aircraft.
And just like that, the new year arrived.
Fei Yizhen successfully completed flight training and became another Chinese pilot for China Airlines.
But Yue Jinping suddenly disappeared just as she was about to become a civil aviation pilot.
Fang Wen was very concerned and inquired about Yue Jinping’s whereabouts.
Manager Xie said he didn’t know; Yue Jinping had vanished without even saying goodbye.
He had even tried contacting her using the communication method left in Yue Jinping’s file, only to discover that all that information was fake.
Only Fei Yizhen, who knew something, euphemistically said that Yue Jinping was fine and had just gone to a better place.
September 18, 1931.
On this day, Fang Wen, who had never taken leave before, specially applied for time off.
He returned to the city district and got takeout from a restaurant outside the concession: braised beef, a pot of yellow wine, some seasonal cold dishes, and peanuts.
Bringing these things back to his residence in the French Concession, Fang Wen took out a frequency-tuned radio that Howard had given him from under the bed.
Drinking wine, eating beef and side dishes, he slowly adjusted the radio frequency.
Radio wave static kept appearing until he tuned to the National Government channel.
Next was waiting.
He didn’t know how long it took.
The announcer solemnly broadcast an urgent news bulletin.
“Japanese Army in the Northeast blew up the South Manchuria Railway tracks near Liutiaohu in Shenyang today, which had been built by Japan, and framed our country’s army for it. They used this as an excuse to shell the Northeast Army’s North Camp. We strongly condemn this behavior.”
It had begun.
Fang Wen downed a gulp of wine; condemnation was useless. The matter was already set in stone; without resistance, there was no chance of winning.
Unfortunately, history had still unfolded as it did.
Northeast Army Chief of Staff Rong Zhen, under Young Marshal Zhang’s orders, issued military orders to the Northeast Army: “Do not resist, do not move. Put the guns in the warehouse, stand firm and die, everyone become martyrs, sacrifice for the country.”
On September 19, at the Harmony Hospital, Young Marshal Zhang told a reporter from Tianjin Dagong News: “I had already ordered my troops not to resist Japanese provocations. Thus, the North Camp troops were ordered early to surrender their firearms and store them in the warehouse.”
Due to carrying out the non-resistance order, the North Camp defending troops were defeated by the Japanese Army, which was less than a tenth their number, and Shenyang fell in less than a day.
These events spread south via radio waves to Shanghai, where students and patriots took to the streets in righteous indignation, demonstrating to denounce the Japanese Army’s invasion.
Regarding this, Fang Wen was also considering whether to join the ranks of resisting Japan.
But where could he find a fighter jet he could pilot freely?
Temporarily without leads, Fang Wen could only continue flight piloting while waiting and looking for opportunities.
Until twenty days after the September 18th Incident.
Fang Wen in the airport dormitory heard a knock at the door.
He got up to open the door and couldn’t help being surprised.
Standing outside the door was Yue Jinping, dressed in a crisp military uniform, looking heroic and valiant.
“Where did you go?” Fang Wen asked in surprise.
“I’m with the Revival Society now. Commissioner, I’m here this time to invite you to join a mission,” Yue Jinping replied.
Revival Society? Fang Wen was surprised; the name sounded familiar. Right, could it be the predecessor of the Military Statistics Bureau?
This should be around the time the special institution was just established. He hadn’t expected Yue Jinping to have gone there.
“What mission?” he asked.
“Pilot a civilian aircraft with me to the Northeast and bring back some very important things.”
“Why use a civilian aircraft? You know civilian aircraft performance is much worse than military aircraft. If discovered, it will be very dangerous.”
“We can’t use military aircraft for this mission, so only the commissioner can do this.”
Fang Wen hesitated; this was clearly not any regular military action, and he didn’t want to get involved.
“I’m not interested.”
Yue Jinping entered the room, closed the door, and directly hugged Fang Wen’s waist.
“Commissioner, I know you have great ambitions. After this action, you can get one-tenth of the reward. With the money, you can do what you want to do.”
Fang Wen’s heart stirred. Through Howard, he knew a way to purchase new fighter jets from the United States.
What he lacked was money: a miniaturized private airport, maintenance personnel, fuel depot, vehicles all required a lot of money to complete.
This chapter has some changes to the currency.
Based on netizens’ suggestions and online information.
The silver dollars at the time should be:
One silver dollar standard was mostly based on the Yuan Datou.
There were also smaller denomination jiao silver dollars worth one-fifth, one-tenth, etc.
But common people mostly used copper coins for exchange.
In different eras and regions of the Republic of China, the exchange rate of silver dollars to copper coins varied, basically over 1000. Some places even higher than 1500.
As for purchasing power, Camel Xiangzi pulled a rickshaw for a month for 4.5 silver dollars, Lu Xun earned 200 silver dollars a month; everyone can calculate for themselves.
If there are any more currency questions, feel free to discuss in this chapter. I’m learning too.
