Chapter 86: The Radio

Zhang Yuchen knew: somewhere outdoors, in some dark corner, in some deserted back alley, or in a room in a quiet courtyard, someone was sitting in front of a radio, carefully turning the dial, a headset over his head. He was a hunter, cautiously pursuing his prey through the air…

The fantasy ended there, because the radio tracker in his mind was wearing a “flying fish” robe—Zhang Yuchen shook his head, pulling himself out of his spy movie delusion. The Jinyiwei (Brocade-Clad Guard) didn’t have direction-finding radios. But at this moment, he was doing the same job as those radio operators being hunted by direction-finders.

Transmigration Political Security Bureau’s personal assessment of transmigrator Zhang Yuchen (Top Secret): “Born on X month X day, XXXX. Joined the transmigration cause in X month, XXXX. Han ethnicity. Political leaning: Moderate socialist. Personality—mild-mannered, approachable to friends, taciturn; merciless to enemies. High moral character, no bad habits, clear social connections. Expertise: Communications and cryptography. Performance—a rare and valuable expert—”

Zhang Yuchen originally worked in the communications department. Because of his knowledge of cryptography, he was transferred to the intelligence department to participate in this Guangzhou underground intelligence activity as a radio operator.

The new work arrangement made him a little uncomfortable at first, but when he thought about how he was going to do underground work in enemy-occupied territory like a secret radio operator in a novel or movie, his blood boiled with excitement and anticipation. As an outlet for this anticipation, he even created a set of codes before leaving. When he solemnly handed the codebook to Shao Zong, Shao Zong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry:

“Who are you going to use this code with? Besides us, who else has a radio in this time and space?”

“Well—” Zhang Yuchen scratched his head, “It’ll be useful eventually.”

This set of codes did indeed prove useful in the future.

At 15:50 in the afternoon, in the empty telegraph room, Zhang Yuchen was rubbing his hands like someone warming himself by a fire on a cold night. This was half due to nervousness and half in meticulous preparation for sending the message.

The scheduled contact time between the advance station and the main station in Bairen City was 16:00. According to the intelligence group’s regulations, the advance station had to make contact at a fixed time every day to ensure that headquarters could confirm the safety of the Guangzhou advance station. If there was no contact for three consecutive days, the Lingao headquarters would dispatch a rescue team to Guangzhou. Today was his first time sending a message.

He set up the transmitter and connected the power. The power was supplied by a set of lead-acid batteries, with a hand-cranked generator for charging. The antenna was set up on a large tree in the courtyard outside the house.

The message was placed in front of him, in groups of four digits. The message was in plain code. Besides reporting their safe arrival, there was also a work report written by Xiao Zishan—he had obviously never written a telegram before, as it was long-winded and made the message very long. Fortunately, there were no radio detection vehicles here, so there were no security issues no matter how he sent it.

It was now 16:00. He nodded to Guo Yi and Xiao Zishan in the room and put on the headset. He quickly tuned the dial and immediately heard the loud and clear call from the main station: “GDA… GDA… GDA.” The call came again and again from the main station across space, filling him with confidence. If there were no accidents, this was Li Chiqi’s cousin, Zhang Yu, calling. This 19-year-old girl had been tricked into this time and space by her cousin, who had ulterior motives, with the extremely clumsy method of “let’s go to a fun place together.” After fainting at the sight of blood and vomiting during her nurse training, she was tricked by Shao Zong into becoming a radio operator.

Hearing this call also meant a secure link with Bairen City. He adjusted the frequency to receive the strongest signal. Fortunately, there were no other radio waves in this time and space; the sky was silent.

He began to transmit, sending out the call sign of the Guangzhou advance station radio: “GDA” several times. Then he leaned back and listened carefully.

“BRL… BRL… BRL,” the main station in Bairen City replied. The signal was both loud and clear against the clean background.

The main station was ready to receive. Zhang Yuchen glanced at the clock and pressed his finger on the key. A few seconds later, he had forgotten himself, his mind and body completely focused on his nimble fingers, on the long and short clicks of the transmitter’s key.

His condition seemed surprisingly good. His transmission speed was faster than in any of his previous practices. At 16:22, after sending the last group of codes, he sent out the GDA call sign again to indicate the end of the message. He leaned back in his chair and listened carefully for the main station’s call. In the “Lingao Telecom” office building in Bairen City, the fledgling Zhang Yu was probably decoding the message group by group to confirm that there were no missing or incorrect codes. If there were, he would have to send it again.

After about fifteen minutes, the BRL call, signifying successful reception, sounded. The transmigrators’ first long-distance telegraph transmission was thus completed.

“Right now, Dingding is probably dragging his ‘big foreign horse’ (Western woman) to report on this historic moment live,” Xiao Zishan said with a laugh. “Ladies and gentlemen, viewers and listeners, perhaps you have just opened the elevator—”

“A big foreign horse, I’d love to have one too.” Zhang Yuchen’s otaku nature was revealed.

“When are we going to Macau! Let’s try some foreign meat!” Several people were already getting restless.

“Forget it. A woman who hasn’t bathed in ten years, even if she were Audrey Hepburn’s ancestor, I wouldn’t be interested.”

“Little Guo, that Sarina is pretty good, isn’t she? I hear she’s interested in you?” Xiao Zishan started to gossip.

Guo Yi’s face suddenly turned red. “That’s not true! We barely have any contact.” This was true. When he was working in the security group, Sarina had shown some interest in getting close to him, but he was afraid of being misunderstood and strictly kept his distance.

“What are you shy about? It’s not bad to have a foreign horse as a girlfriend. Spread the divine might of our China, sow ten thousand seeds across the four seas—” Xiao Zishan chuckled, and the few people around him also joined in the teasing. As they were talking, the radio started beeping again. Zhang Yuchen quickly put on his headset, listened intently, and began to copy the message.

“What’s the message?” The few of them became nervous. There was no reply just now, but now it suddenly started transmitting. Could it be an important instruction?

“Ministry of Agriculture to Guangzhou Advance Station—” Zhang Yuchen translated as he received the message. “Please purchase the following products in Guangzhou: 100 live pigs 100 live chickens, ducks, and geese each 2000 kilograms of lard, beef tallow, or other miscellaneous vegetable oils 10 horses 10 donkeys …”

“Heavens, Wu Nanhai thinks this is a farmers’ market!” Lu Rong exclaimed. “Donkeys? I’ve never seen a donkey in Guangdong or Guangxi!”

“Horses aren’t easy to buy either, are they?” Zhang Xin said. “It might be easier to get them in the north. Here in Guangzhou, we can only get them from the army.”

What was even more puzzling was what the 2000 kilograms of oil and fat were for. Before they left, although the cafeteria’s food had improved slightly, it was still known for its lack of oil. Fried food was never seen, and stir-fried dishes were rare. Only when making a large pot of soup would a little lard be sparingly added to see a few drops of oil. Could it be that Wu Nanhai was eager to improve the food and was preparing to make fried food?

“I guess he’s not the one who wants this oil. It’s probably for making soap, right?”

“Soap!” Zhang Xin’s eyes lit up. “This thing is a great weapon for transmigrators to make money! Every household needs soap.”

“We can also make different grades: various floral soaps and transparent soaps can be sold to wealthy families. And we can make some with aphrodisiac effects to sell to brothels and the like—”

“What kind of thing has an aphrodisiac effect?” Yan Maoda asked.

“Myrrh or something? Anyway, the Arabs are all into that.”

“What is myrrh? The Arabian Peninsula is very far from here.”

“Don’t worry, what can’t you find in Guangzhou?” Guo Yi was full of confidence. “We haven’t fully grasped the situation here yet.”

Yan Maoda said, “First we need to know what Guangzhou can supply, and then what we can sell to Guangzhou.”

For trade goods, many proposals were collected at various meetings. According to the report from the Ministry of Industry, the goods that could be supplied in the near future included: salt, cigarettes, glassware, refined sugar, matches, soap, and iron products represented by sewing needles. Someone also proposed distilled spirits, but distilled liquor was already very common in the Ming Dynasty and could not be used as a special commodity to obtain high profits.

“I have an opinion about wine, but this matter requires the cooperation of the agricultural and industrial departments,” Zhang Hongda said.

Xiao Zishan said, “I’ll take it back and coordinate with them.”

“We no longer have the first-mover advantage in white wine, but we can open up the market by starting with the packaging.”

Zhang Xin had already understood: “New wine in old bottles?!”

Yan Maoda nodded. “That’s right. We don’t even need to use our own brewing process—after all, brewing requires grain. We can purchase white wine in bulk here in Guangzhou, transport glass bottles from Lingao, and then bottle and process it locally. The value can immediately be multiplied several times.”

“Not bad, not bad,” Xiao Zishan became excited.

“If you think about it carefully, there are many other ways. For example, we could dye the white wine. How about golden yellow? Like XO?” Guo Yi spoke up.

Several people looked over at him in unison. Guo Yi’s scalp tingled. “What?”

Yan Maoda chuckled. “Sometimes, an amateur can be an even more cunning merchant.”