Chapter 14: The Reconnaissance Team
“Lingao,” Bei Wei muttered to himself, holding a Russian-made infrared scope. The scene through the infrared scope was a bit blurry, but the general outline was clear.
Bei Wei had traveled all over the country in the past, from the well-preserved ancient cities of Pingyao in Shanxi and Fenghuang in Hunan to ancient city ruins with only their foundations remaining. He had seen all kinds of ancient cities. But this was the first time he had seen a county town like Lingao—oval-shaped, long from east to west, and short from north to south. To put it vividly, it was like an olive.
The entire Lingao county town faced south, with its back to the Gaoshan Ridge and facing the Wenlan River. The river curved here from the south to the northeast, forming a bend. The river water surrounded the city, acting as a natural moat.
He estimated the height of the city walls to be about 7 meters. The circumference of the city was very small, Bei Wei estimated it to be around 1.5 kilometers. Although small, its defenses were not bad. Each city gate had a watchtower, and there seemed to be cannon positions. The entire wall was faced with bricks and stones. The Ming Dynasty was very willing to spend manpower and resources on urban defense; even a remote county like this was heavily fortified. Bei Wei thought of an ancient city site he had visited in the great cosmic nation of Korea: the so-called city wall, made of randomly piled stones and mud, was not even as high as the wall of the elementary school he had attended. The city gate was like an underpass beneath a railway embankment. Truly worthy of the number one cosmic power that had traveled the world spreading the seeds of civilization to the four great ancient civilizations before retreating to its peninsula.
[Note: When Lingao county town was first built in the early Ming Dynasty, it was only one zhang high. During the Jiajing era, to defend against Japanese pirates, the city wall was raised to two zhang, watchtowers were added, and the wall was faced with bricks and stones.]
At this moment, through the infrared scope, he could see a continuous line of bonfires and lanterns on the city wall. Soldiers were walking back and forth on patrol. The defense looked very tight. However, even he, who had never studied the history of ancient warfare, could see that the defense of the city gates had major flaws. The east and west gates were at the two ends of the olive, completely protruding outwards, with no cover on the flanks. An attacker could concentrate their attack on the tip of the gate without worrying about fire from the flanks. As for the south gate, which faced the Wenlan River, it was at the most prominent point in the middle of the ‘olive’.
Outside the east gate, there were some blurry buildings, but there were no lights, and it was deathly silent. On the Wenlan River outside the south gate, there was a long stone arch bridge. This was the Linjiang Bridge, built on the foundation of the Yuan Dynasty’s Taiping wooden bridge by the county adjutant Lu Sheng during the Yongle era. The bridge had nine arches.
[Note: This bridge was also known as the Wenshui Bridge. It was renovated in the Qing Dynasty, raised and widened in the 1950s, and was used until the late 1960s. In 1970, this well-preserved ancient bridge was demolished.]
“It seems the county already knows we’re here,” Li Jun said in a low voice.
“Don’t talk. Stay alert,” Bei Wei said, adjusting the focus of his scope.
At dusk, Ma Qianzhu had found Bei Wei and ordered him to lead an elite reconnaissance team to advance inland along the Wenlan River, straight to the outskirts of Lingao county town.
“Advance to the outskirts of Lingao town with the fastest possible speed and monitor the county’s movements,” Ma Qianzhu instructed him. “Surveying the route is not your mission.”
After receiving the order, he immediately selected 3 members from the military group who had just rested and transferred 1 person from the communications group. After selecting the necessary equipment and making brief preparations, they set out as night fell.
“Your mission is not to fight, but to mainly monitor the enemy’s movements. Do not kill unless necessary.”
According to the nature of this mission, the reconnaissance team members all changed into camouflage uniforms. In addition to their rifles, they also brought a Saiga-308 rifle with a scope, as well as an infrared scope and a 2-watt radio.
Night cross-country travel might be difficult for ordinary people, but it was not a difficult task for soldiers, not to mention that they were each equipped with a pair of low-light night vision goggles. The slight difficulty was that they did not have a map of Lingao from this time-space, making it difficult to determine their position during the march. Therefore, Bei Wei decided to follow the river as much as possible. According to the geographical data from their own time, Lingao county town was 12 kilometers upstream along the river. There were also obvious landmarks like Bairen Tan along the way that could be used as a reference. Combined with a compass and map reading, they would not get lost even without a guide.
If it were a normal road, even an ordinary person could walk 12 kilometers in 3 hours. Although there was no road now, they had discovered during their staff tour that there was basically no complex terrain on either side of the Wenlan River. Four hours at most would be enough.
In fact, they were even faster than they had imagined. The team marched along the river wearing night vision goggles, without resting along the way. In 3 hours, they could already see the lights of Lingao county town.
They chose a small hill across the river. It was a grove of miscellaneous trees, located between the south and east gates of the county town, facing the city wall across the river. From here, they could clearly monitor the south and east gates. The reconnaissance team members set up an observation post here and sprinkled powder to repel snakes and insects. The temperature in Lingao at night in September was already very low, and the dew was heavy. The team members used a tarp to set up a small shelter and began to take turns on watch.
“Captain, I’ve reached the command post. They want us to report the situation,” reported Li Yunxing, the radio operator.
“This is Bei Wei at the radio.”
“This is Ma Qianzhu at the radio. What is your situation?”
“Very good. The reconnaissance team arrived at Lingao at 21:12 on the first day of the ninth lunar month,” Bei Wei said, looking down at his watch. “We are currently observing.”
“What is the current situation in Lingao?”
“They have entered a state of alert. There are about 20 people patrolling and standing guard on the south city wall from west to east.”
“Continue to monitor. Contact us at any time if there is a situation. Over.” Ma Qianzhu ended the call, looked up at the clock on the ship. The hour hand was already pointing to 9:30 PM. More than ten hours had passed since D-Day T-hour. A large amount of materials and equipment had been unloaded, and the beach base was beginning to take shape. The current camp was sufficient to withstand an attack by several hundred local armed forces. However, the reports from various places were not optimistic. There was a severe shortage of some basic building materials, and the facilities built with many man-hours were mostly temporary. Many basic civil facilities could not be put in place.
Contact with the locals was zero. Although the military group personnel on the perimeter had found a large number of traces of human activity, they had not yet encountered any locals. The lookout on the beacon tower found that a small number of sailing boats passed by on the sea from time to time, but there was not a single fishing boat in the vicinity of Chang’gong Bay, which was the main fishing ground for Lingao fishermen. They had obviously been scared away by the beacon alarm.
At the summary meeting on the first day, many executive committee members believed that the original “turtle” strategy was too conservative. Everything that happened on D-Day proved that hunkering down in Bopu Port was not conducive to upgrading the base. The current state, in Wang Luobin’s words, was a vicious cycle: no sufficient building materials -> cannot build a production base -> no production base -> cannot produce building materials -> no sufficient building materials. To break this cycle, they had to go out quickly and establish an industrial base in a suitable place for development.
From the news from the reconnaissance team, the locals were now in a panic and were just closing their doors to defend themselves. They would not come to attack the transmigrators at all. This was a good opportunity to quickly expand the control area and upgrade the base.
The meeting made a resolution that at dawn tomorrow, a second reconnaissance team would be sent out to survey the terrain and resources of the nearby area.
“At the same time, we need to send out another route survey team to survey and design the Bopu-Bairen Tan highway,” Wen Desi drew a line on the transparent sheet on the map with a colored pencil. “We will survey, design, and construct at the same time. Except for maintaining the necessary manpower and equipment to continue unloading, all other labor and machinery will be invested in this project. We will strive to open up the connection between the two places within three or four days, so that by D+5 we can start construction work at Bairen Tan.”
“Both survey teams will need the military group to perform security tasks, right?” He Ming asked. “The military group will have to apply to activate ten more militiamen into active service.”
Wen Desi’s brow furrowed. Manpower was very tight at the moment. Once road construction began, there would be an even greater shortage of labor. But the military group was indeed stretched to its limit. Twenty-one people were responsible for land and sea security and observation. After a whole day without rest, four had been sent out for reconnaissance, and the others were still at various towers and posts—they could only take turns napping.
“Alright, you can have the men,” Wen Desi made up his mind. “Each survey and reconnaissance team will be assigned two guards.” He glanced at He Ming. “That shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
He Ming nodded. “No problem. The organization is short on labor right now. When the military group personnel are not on duty, they will also participate in labor.”
“You guys have worked hard after a whole day of guard duty.”
“I’ve discussed it with Bai Yu, Wu De, and Chen Haiyang. We’ll adjust the military group’s duty schedule. Everyone on security duty must work for 2 hours a day. I’ll take the lead.”
The sky gradually brightened. The dawn of D+1 descended on the first reconnaissance team. Everyone was wearing a camouflage cloak, and the dew had made them all damp.
Through the binoculars, they could see people on the city wall yawning as they took down and extinguished the lanterns. The flames of the torches had all gone out, emitting wisps of green smoke in the morning light.
The blurry buildings they had seen outside the east gate at night turned out to be some temples. The area around the city was open land, with large patches of wilderness interspersed with some paddy fields. There were also a few scattered residential settlements.
Wei Aiwen slowly crawled to Li Jun’s observation position and said, “Brother Li, let’s make a move.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Charge into the county town.”
“Just the five of us?” Li Jun glanced at the three people sleeping under the camouflage shelter. This Little Wei was really a left-wing adventurist.
“We have five semi-automatic rifles. Are we afraid of a few natives? We’ll rush up and a volley of bullets will scare them all away.”
“Then you should go put on your raincoat first.”
“Why?”
“Dressed like us, we’ll definitely be treated as demons and have dog’s blood and feces thrown at us.”
“…” Wei Aiwen knew this was impossible. His real intention was to get his first taste of firing a gun. After getting his SKS, he had pestered for a Russian-made R14 scope and had also pestered Bei Wei to help him practice. He had already “dry-fired” dozens of times while on guard yesterday, and today he was eager to find an opportunity to test his marksmanship.
Bei Wei was awakened by their conversation. He said, “Save it. The Executive Committee’s mission for us is reconnaissance, not fighting. Firing rashly will expose our intentions. Besides, the purpose of this mission is, one, reconnaissance, and two, to train the team. Weren’t you the one who collapsed from exhaustion as soon as you got here and slept for most of the night before waking up?”
“I covered for you for half the night. You have to remember to pay me back next time,” Li Jun said. “I’m in my thirties. Working the night shift is bad for my health…”