"There are so many ships!" A young man in a brand new student uniform lay excitedly on the side of the ship, looking at the vast sea.
"That's right." The sailor who was busy cleaning the deck looked up at the strange young man and casually agreed, "This is Helang Yabo, the base camp of the navy."
This seemed to arouse the interest of the young student. He turned around and looked at the sailor and asked seriously: "Uncle, are there so many ships here every day?"
The sailor may have been tired from wiping the deck, so he straightened up, leaned on the deck brush, and built a pergola with his hands to look at the sea.
"Yeah, almost. Before I got on this regular ship, I took a short trip from Langgabo to Manila. I had to go in and out here every few days. There were relatively few ships on the channel today. Did you see that buoy?
?Usually, a big ship passes by the buoy every ten minutes."
"Really?" The young man seemed to have imagined the scene described by the sailor uncle, and his face was filled with sighs, "What are all these ships carrying?"
"The ships that sail into the bay usually carry ore, grain, coal, etc. The ships that sail out are filled with cars, radios, and various weapons." As the sailor said, he saw the first mate on the bridge.
Sticking his head out to look at something with the telescope, he immediately returned to his work-related posture, "Helanggabo is a big industrial city. The raw materials and products produced every day have to be transported by ship."
The young man's face looked satisfied that he had "learned something." Seeing that the sailor seemed to have turned his attention to cleaning the deck, he stopped talking and turned his eyes to the sea again.
At this time, a signal flare rose into the sky from the island lying in the middle of the bay's entrance, exploding a huge firework in the sky.
"Uncle, what is that?" The young man couldn't resist his curiosity and disturbed the sailor again, "That fireworks, is today a festival?"
The sailor glanced up and replied: "So that's what happened. No wonder the first mate was so nervous. That was a signal to notify ships that were not equipped with radios that the navy fleet was about to set sail and asked us to give way to the waterway... Well,
Do you feel it? Our ship is starting to turn."
The young student grabbed the railing of the ship's side with both hands, leaned out most of his body, and turned his head to look in the direction of the stern of the ship.
"It's true, the white wave behind is bent."
"That's how many years I have been an old sailor."
"The navy fleet has set sail... So, I can see the navy flagship?" The young student still maintained his posture of leaning out of the ship's side, but turned his head towards the inside of the bay, and his excitement was palpable.
"As you can see, the patrol draft is not that deep, so there is no need to specifically let us out of the main channel." As he spoke, the sailor also stopped what he was doing, stretched his neck and looked into the bay, "Over there, look in that direction.
."
The young man hurriedly looked in the direction of the sailor's finger, and then unsurprisingly let out a burst of exclamation.
The sailor looked at his side face, curled his lips and smiled: "Son, is this your first time coming to Horanggabo?"
"Well, I'm here to go to middle school."
"Then you will be surprised in the future. This place is different from all the places you have stayed in before. It is simply two worlds. You, Grandma Liu, who entered the Grand View Garden, are worth seeing."
The young man finally returned his body to the inside of the ship, but his eyes were still staring at the figure of the Mengchong giant ship that was getting bigger in the distance. He spoke as if he was in a dream: "I have already felt this way in Guangzhou.
I’ve experienced it.”
"Guangzhou?" The sailor looked surprised, "What's so surprising about Guangzhou? Where is your hometown?"
"Hunan, a poor mountain valley."
"No wonder," the sailor said, "I see." "But it doesn't matter. You look like you are only thirteen or fourteen years old. You are at the age to study. As long as you study hard, you will have many opportunities to see the world in the future. Unlike me,
Big boss, Mr. Lin runs a free night school to teach literacy. I went there for half a year and still haven’t learned the three thousand commonly used words, hey.”….
Just as the boy was about to reply, the powerful whistle from the Navy's flagship Enterprise completely took away his attention, causing him to temporarily lose the ability to speak.
The mighty battleship plows through the rolling waves of the sea, the main armor building of the ship body fully combines rigidity and beauty, and the two huge turrets full of power in front of the armor building, as well as the secondary guns inserted on both sides of the armor building, all of which
It all gave a great shock to the thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy.
"This is the power that saved China..." The young man stared at the naval flag flying on the No. 2 mast of the ship, staring at the eighteen stars that could not be covered by the billowing smoke from the chimney, and whispered to himself, "
Going south is indeed the right thing to do, I must become a naval officer."
Somehow this was heard by the sailor who was cleaning the deck, so the uncle joked: "If you want to take the Navy Preparatory Examination, you must first have a loud trumpet, but you won't be admitted if you call it Goudan or something like that."
"I have a name," the young man turned around, "and my mentor specially changed it for me. It's called Li Desheng."
When the sailor heard this, he immediately gave a thumbs up and said, "Okay, this name is straightforward and not overly literary. I like it."
"That's right, I like it too."
The young man looked at the fleet passing by not far away with high spirits, wondering if he was imagining that one day in the future, he would be reviewing his own fleet.
**
Lin Youde's main naval force set out from Helang Yabo, following the tradition inherited from the Beiyang Fleet, to conduct autumn maritime drills, also called autumn exercises. However, autumn arrived late in Helang Yabo, so it was changed.
Conducted in the middle of winter.
This time, not only the federal navy and the fleets of the United States and France, which come for joint exercises every year, participated in the exercise, but the British Empire, which had recently signed an alliance treaty with the federation, also sent its own Asian fleet, while the German Far East Fleet sent several fast ships.
The cruiser was sneaking around the exercise area.
However, in this exercise, foreigners were generally a little disappointed, because apart from Lin Youde demonstrating the sighting and fire control capabilities of his new battleship, he did not display any other new weapons.
Although the Enterprise was the first battleship in the world to specifically set aside a space for the Eye of Heaven and God's Calculation when it was designed, its accuracy and intensity of firepower were the envy of the great powers.
After all, the magic weapons that he took out were still a little short of power.
Other weapons, such as submarines, are also familiar faces in this exercise. No wonder Westerners generally feel disappointed.
But some people have seen some clues.
The last night of the exercise was, as usual, a grand party for officers and soldiers from participating countries. On this night, the entire uninhabited island near the exercise site was opened as a banquet venue. There was unlimited beer. All officers and soldiers who were not on duty and did not have to work the morning shift were on the island.
Make a fuss.
But there are also people who are completely outside this ocean of joy.
A young officer was sitting under a small arbor on the coast, sipping beer alone.
"You don't mind drinking with me, Mr. Captain."
"Oh my god, why are you being polite to me, Chester." The captain sat aside, "Have you seen the Chinese's new torpedo boat?"
"Of course." The second lieutenant named Chester picked up the beer bottle at the captain's feet and filled it for himself. "William, you know, I was still commanding the coastal defense gunboat Panay two months ago, and the Chinese new
Comparing the boats, the one we sail is simply an inferior antique."
The captain nodded.
"Internal combustion engines, compressed air launch tubes, automatic rapid-fire cannons," Chester continued, "and electric welding. There are only sixty large rivets in the entire bridge of that damn thing. Almost the entire structure is welded together.
"
William took a sip of beer and then said slowly: "Brother, I think our enemies in the future may not be the British and Germans, but the Chinese. In this Pacific, we will always have to fight them."
"Ah, I think so too." Chester William Nimitz agreed with a serious face, "But I think the most threatening thing to the Chinese now is their submarines. I heard that the current Secretary of the Navy wants
Set up a special submarine academy, I want to learn that."
"Then, I will concentrate on studying how to defeat them on the sea." William Frederick Halsey Jr. replied.
Yes, this is the most interesting place to write fictional history!)