Did he trick the young marshal into becoming sworn brothers and then go south to Huangpu Military Ac

The air in the classroom was so heavy it felt like you could wring water out of it.

Du Guangting stood like a wooden stake driven into rammed earth, his neck stiff, his square face flushed red, revealing the cold and stubbornness unique to men from Northwest China.

The phrase "armchair strategist" tore open the illusion of overwhelming firepower that Lin Qi had just created on the blackboard, leaving a bloody gash.

Sitting behind him was Guan Yudong, who also had a fiery temper. Hearing his fellow villager make trouble, he gritted his teeth, kicked his chair back, and stood up straight.

"Vice Principal Lin! Guangting's words, though rough, are true!"

Guan Yudong clenched his fists, his voice booming so loudly it rattled the windows: "No matter how big your promises are, Headquarters can't afford them! We're still using old-fashioned artillery made by the Jiangnan Arsenal, some with worn-out rifling! Forget howitzers, Headquarters can't even muster a few heavy machine guns right now. How are we supposed to launch a barrage of attacks? With our mouths?!"

Sitting in the back row, Chiang Kai-shek, who had just rushed over, had a livid face.

The fact that students dared to talk back to the vice principal in public right at the start of the semester demonstrates a complete lack of organization and discipline.

He slammed his hand on the table, stood up, and was about to explode: "Insolence! Who gives orders when the officer is speaking! Get out of here..."

"Brother Chiang Kai-shek!"

Lin Qi raised his hand, pressed his palm down, and forcefully shut down Chiang Kai-shek's reprimand.

Lin Qi didn't get angry.

He stared at Du Guangting and Guan Yudong, and instead of being annoyed by their defiance, his eyes revealed a clear sense of admiration.

This is the kind of general he needs: one who doesn't blindly follow authority and dares to confront the harsh realities of wartime logistics.

Warfare is all about logistics. Anyone who knows they're short of guns and ammunition and still dreams big is a fool. Only those who can point this out to the face are the pragmatic ones who can fight tough battles.

"Good question."

Lin Qi walked out from behind the podium, his military boots making a dull sound on the wooden floor.

"Tactics without steel support are just bullshit. You can't beat Chen Jiongming with just words, let alone the Beiyang warlords."

"All political classes and drills in the afternoon are cancelled."

Lin Qi surveyed the entire area, his voice cold and hard: "Everyone, take your sidearms. Head to the shooting range on the back of Cheung Chau Island! Five-kilometer armed cross-country run. The last ten finishers will not get dinner tonight. Get out there and line up!"

There was a moment of chaos in the classroom, but the students didn't dare to hesitate and immediately filed out.

The instructors in the back row looked at each other in bewilderment.

Gu Mosan pushed up his round-framed glasses and whispered to Qian Muyin beside him, "Brother Muyin, what's Dr. Lin up to? He got outmaneuvered by his student, so what's he doing at the shooting range? Is he going to conjure up a cannon or something?"

Qian Muyin shook his head and rolled up his lesson plan into a tube: "Go and see for yourself. He's in charge of the Shijing Arsenal, so maybe he really has come up with something new."

The back mountain of Cheung Chau Island.

This was originally a wasteland, which was cleared out to serve as a temporary shooting range for the new army.

The wild grass was trampled to pieces, and the air was filled with the earthy smell of the river in early spring.

After completing the five-kilometer cross-country run, the students lined up, panting, and finished their formation.

Two Ford trucks were parked on the muddy ground in the center of the firing range.

The carriage was completely covered with a thick green military waterproof tarpaulin, and four fully armed guards from the arsenal stood guard around it with guns in their eyes.

Lin Qi strode to the truck.

"Didn't you ask me where the steel is?"

He grabbed a corner of the tarpaulin and ripped it hard.

With a ripping sound, the heavy oilcloth slipped off.

The entire shooting range, with hundreds of people and instructors arriving later, all held their breath in unison.

Inside the carriage, there were no discarded secondhand scrap metal items discarded by the Soviets.

Neatly arranged were fifty brand-new Mauser replica rifles.

The barrel, after being tempered in a lead bath at the Ishii Arsenal, gleams with a captivating, dark blue sheen.

The wooden gunstock is polished smooth and flat, exuding the cold beauty unique to industrial assembly lines.

In the ten open wooden crates beside them, stacks of gleaming reloaded bullets were piled up like gold bars, exuding the fresh smell of gun oil and nitric acid.

But that's not the most shocking part.

On the second truck, two short, stubby steel behemoths lay silently.

That was a newly developed, prototype French 60mm light mortar manufactured by the arsenal.

The sturdy gun barrel base, the gun barrel gleaming with a cold metallic sheen, and four boxes of yellow-green high-explosive shells were placed next to it.

Qian Muyin was a true expert in weapons. He no longer cared about maintaining his dignity as an instructor and rushed to the truck in three strides.

With trembling hands, he picked up a Mauser rifle, flicked the bolt open with his thumb, took a closer look at the firing mechanism, and then touched the texture of the barrel.

"This...this barrel's steel..." Qian Muyin's voice trembled, and his eyes instantly reddened: "This isn't a refurbished old gun! This is newly rifling! The firing pin is made of special high-carbon steel! The workmanship is even better than what the Hanyang Arsenal produced during its most prosperous period!"

He turned to look at the two mortars, his fingers tracing the outer wall of the barrels, and tears almost welled up in his eyes.

The base camp has been poor for many years, relying on buying expensive imported goods from foreigners to make ends meet. Now, it has finally seen the heavy firepower it has produced itself.

Lin Qi ignored Qian Muyin's excitement, turned around, and announced his name in the dead silence.

"Du Guangting! Guan Yudong! Step forward!"

The two were stunned by the equipment in front of them. When they heard the roll call, they reflexively stepped out of the line and ran to Lin Qi.

"Didn't you all complain that I was just making empty promises?"

Lin Qi pointed to the two 60mm mortars.

"These two cannons just rolled off the production line. The Ishii Arsenal used a rudimentary method to purify smokeless gunpowder with sulfuric acid and loaded them with high-explosive shells. Today, we're giving them to you to enjoy."

Lin Qi had his guards carry the mortar off the vehicle and set it up on the muddy ground.

Instead of calling in professional artillerymen, he personally pulled Du Guangting and Guan Yudong down to squat down.

"Look carefully. This is the elevation scale, and this is the base fine-tuning knob."

Lin Qi grasped Du Guangting's rough hand and placed it on the fine-tuning wheel: "Six hundred meters ahead, see that abandoned earthen bunker?"

Following the direction Lin Qi pointed, there stood the ruins of an old beacon tower left by the Qing army halfway up the mountain.

"The mortar is a curved-fire weapon, with a range of 600 meters, two propellants, an elevation angle of 45 degrees, and a yaw correction of two mils to the left."

Lin Qi's voice was cold and decisive: "Adjust!"

Du Guangting was covered in sweat. Following Lin Qi's instructions, he stared intently at the ruler and clumsily turned the handwheel.

"Load!"

Guan Yudong picked up a heavy mortar shell, his hands trembling like leaves, and held the shell above the muzzle.

"put!"

Guan Yudong loosened his grip, and the shell slid into the cannon barrel. He quickly bent down and covered his ears.

"Thump!"

With a muffled bang, a dazzling burst of fire shot from the muzzle, and the mortar base sank heavily half an inch into the mud.

More than 400 pairs of eyes were fixed on the mountainside ahead.

boom!

Six hundred meters away, a huge column of black and yellow smoke rose from the abandoned bunker.

Debris and dirt were blasted into the air, and the shockwave from the explosion could be felt from a great distance, making one's cheeks tighten—it was an instant kill.