50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 302 Unexpected Discovery
Sun Zhiwei and his colleagues were rescued from the wrecked plane and then checked into a hotel at Mogadishu Airport, waiting for a new flight to France.

While waiting, Sun Zhiwei stayed in the hotel without going out. Instead, he took out paper and pen and described the hijacking incident in detail, eventually producing an incident report.

At the end of the report, he gave a separate, detailed description of the personnel composition, skills, special equipment, and operational characteristics of the 9th Border Guard Battalion in Bonn.

This part should be of great reference value to the special forces that are being formed in China.

Of course, he also included a lot of content that he had seen in later generations.

Modern special forces in this era are completely different from the so-called special forces of World War II.

Putting aside everything else, the portable infrared thermal imager alone is a revolutionary weapon.

Especially at night, whether special forces have thermal imaging or not makes a world of difference in combat effectiveness.

As time goes on, with the support of more and more high-tech equipment, the individual combat effectiveness of modern special forces will increase significantly.

Changes in equipment can even elevate a special forces soldier's combat effectiveness to a terrifying level, making them essentially a new type of soldier.

Sun Zhiwei's report clearly indicated this trend: the combat effectiveness of special forces is not only a matter of personnel, but also positively correlated with the strength of their equipment.

The strength of equipment is determined by both technology and money, and the establishment of domestic special forces must face this issue squarely.

It's a fact that China's technology is not advanced and its economy is underdeveloped. If the bigwigs at the top are thinking of making big strides and speeding things up, they're probably going to be disappointed.

The domestic economy could not support it, so in the early stages, only a small-scale experimental special forces unit could be established, which was almost an inevitable choice.

Just as Sun Zhiwei and his group were waiting for their new flight, a Boeing 707 from China, carrying the delegation, landed at Mogadishu Airport.

They've set a precedent by receiving well wishes before even taking office and starting work.

Of course, the people coming from China weren't just there for them.

China provided real-time intelligence support in resolving the hostage crisis, which greatly helped Bonn. Both sides intend to deepen cooperation and exchanges.

The delegation was actually a visiting delegation to Bonn, but they stopped here first to see them. After the visit, 707 will soon fly to Bonn for another visit.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Sun Zhiwei handed the newly written incident report to the leader of the visiting delegation, asking him to take it back to China.

After all, to safely transport confidential documents back to China, special channels were required, and he could only use the liaison office's channels after arriving in Washington.

That would take too long; it would be faster to have someone take it back.

Moreover, this report is also very useful for the delegation leaders to assess the current situation, and the delegation leaders will not refuse it.

As the provider of onboard intelligence, Sun Zhiwei had a deeper understanding of this hijacking incident.

His assessment will greatly help the domestic understanding of the impact of this event. It is believed that the domestic community is also awaiting his report.

On the morning of the third day, the delegation departed for Bonn.

That afternoon, a new flight picked up all the passengers from Flight 181 and took off from Mogadishu for Paris.

This saved my colleagues traveling to Paris a lot of trouble; they would have had to transfer in Frankfurt, but now they can just fly there.

They arrived in Paris in the early hours of the morning and rested at the embassy for a day.

Sun Zhiwei was a restless soul, and this was his first time in Paris, so he was eager to see the vibrant fashion capital that had recovered its vitality ten years after the war. However, as soon as he voiced his idea, he was dissuaded by embassy staff, because Paris at that time was not peaceful, and gangs ran rampant in many neighborhoods.

His plans to tour Paris were forced to be abandoned because he had no one to accompany him.

That evening, the embassy held a welcome dinner for the new colleagues, and also to help these 41 colleagues who had experienced the hijacking incident to calm their nerves.

At the dinner, Sun Zhiwei enjoyed authentic French red wine.

In France, red wine is considered a local product. Locals believe that France is full of wineries, with large production volumes and low prices.

In fact, the wine classification system was established only a few years ago.

In the past, word-of-mouth recommendations about red wine were based on the idea that this one was good and that one was good. However, unless you are an expert, most people don't really understand it.

It wasn't until the wine classification system was established, and wine producers created various rating standards and continuously educated more people on how to identify wine, that the huge wine market gradually developed.

After drinking it, Sun Zhiwei felt it was just so-so. He thought that perhaps he was just a rough man who couldn't appreciate the beauty of these luxuries.

On December 25th, a flight from France will depart for Washington, D.C., and 15 colleagues who are to be transferred to the Washington liaison office will be on this flight.

The colleagues at the Paris embassy were very welcoming and gave each of them a bottle of red wine, which actually only cost a few dollars a bottle.

When they learned that Sun Zhiwei, the hero of this operation, didn't like dry red wine, they specially found him a bottle of Rémy Martin XO.

Don't be surprised, at that time, a bottle of Rémy Martin brandy cost only about 20 yuan. Even ten years later, in the late 1980s, a bottle of imported Rémy Martin in China only cost 100 yuan.

Sun Zhiwei didn't refuse the brandy; he didn't have time to go and buy good wine, so he'd just have to try it for now.

If it's really good, he'll definitely find an opportunity to come and sweep through the market inventory.

On the morning of the 26th, Sun Zhiwei and his delegation finally ended their journey, which was originally supposed to take only 5 days but actually lasted half a month, and arrived at the Liaison Office of the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

The liaison office is located at 2300 Connecticut Avenue, formerly a hotel called Windsor Park.

Four years ago, Director Huang came here with $8 million and purchased this hotel as the office space for his liaison office.

Two official residences were also purchased at the same time, to serve as accommodations for office staff.

After leaving the airport, the group of 15 took a bus to the Windsor Hotel to check in.

An accident occurred halfway there when their bus collided with an old car.

Fortunately, the middle-aged man in the car was only concerned about his trunk and didn't criticize them too much.

Finally, the embassy driver paid the other party $10 for car repairs before everyone left.

While in the car, Sun Zhiwei noticed how nervous the man was about the trunk, so he curiously scanned it with his spatial abilities, and the result shocked him.

However, now was not the time to deal with the accident. He carefully noted down the car's license plate number and then looked closely at the name on the driver's license.

On the windshield, he also found an electricity bill reminder. He wrote down the address on the bill and then thoughtfully followed the car back to the contact point.

(End of this chapter)