1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3971

A group of chattering elementary school students flooded into the exhibition hall; it seemed to be a study tour organized by their school.

The noisy children quickly gathered outside the camel exhibit and exclaimed in unison.

This was probably the first time they had ever seen a live camel. This tall, exotic species was visually striking and was clearly much more exotic to them than the Arabian horses next to them.

Seeing this, Chen Pingliao silently gave up his seat, and several primary school students quickly occupied the good front row spot while shouting "Thank you, officer uncle".

Chen Pingliao smiled; this scene reminded him of his childhood when he was studying in Sanya.

Back then, Sanya was far less prosperous than it is now, and there weren't many opportunities to see various rare and exotic animals from overseas. Fortunately, there were many undeveloped forests north of Sanya, and Chen Pingliao went hunting in the mountains with the adults, where he saw quite a few local wild animals.

Black gibbons, partridges, Eld's deer, peacock pheasants, monitor lizards... many of these animals seem to only exist on Hainan Island, and he hasn't seen them since returning to the north.

"Brother Chen, are there any Western specialties on display here that you like? I'll have someone send some to you later."

Upon hearing Li Yuande's question, Chen Pingliao snapped out of his reverie, smiled, and waved his hand, saying, "Compared to these things, I'm more interested in living creatures, like these Arabian horses and camels, they're quite interesting."

Li Yuande said, "I heard that the Executive Committee once planned to build a zoo in Sanya, which would gather rare birds and animals from all over the world, but I don't know when construction will begin."

Chen Pingliao laughed and said, "This matter has been going on for a long time. I heard about it when I was about the same age as these children, but it has been delayed for so many years and construction has not started. I guess the project has been shelved indefinitely. If you want to see the zoo, you will probably have to go to Anbuna Island by sea."

The executive committee did have such a plan in the early years, but because building a zoo was very expensive and there were many other places where money was needed, this dispensable project was ultimately rejected.

The only zoo in Haihan today was established years ago by biologist Zhang Yun on Anbuna Island in the South China Sea. It is also the only wildlife research base in the entire Haihan region. However, the government did not provide much funding for that project; it basically just allocated a piece of land to Zhang Yun and let him operate it himself. The later construction and operation costs were almost entirely covered by tourism revenue from the island.

Ambon Island is the most famous money pit in the South China Sea, and the zoo, as one of the supporting tourist facilities, has indeed attracted many wealthy tourists to the area.

Li Yuande would pass by Anbuna Island several times every year on his way to and from Sanya, and naturally he had been to the island before. However, he was not very interested in wild animals, and since he did not stay there for long, he only knew that there was a zoo on the island with a large area, but he had never visited it in person.

After a general look at the local specialty products exhibition area, the next highlight of the exhibition was the paintings and photographs depicting the local customs and scenery of the special operations division.

Special operations divisions have artists responsible for drawing maps of mountains and rivers. Their paintings mostly depict the original scenery of the areas before the special operations divisions occupied them, and they also draw the appearance and clothing of the local indigenous people in each place so that the soldiers can identify them. The paintings exhibited this time are almost all from the special operations division's archives.

These paintings all followed standard procedures, with identical sizes and similar styles. Each painting was labeled with the year, month, place, and artist, along with brief descriptions of the locations or figures depicted. They were all easily understood without explanation. Chen Pingliao paused for a moment before almost every painting, carefully examining the details. These exotic customs and cultures were entirely new to Chen Pingliao, far more detailed and intuitive than anything he had ever encountered in internal documents.

If there were any unclear points, with Li Yuande, an expert who knew the ropes, there were always explanations and answers, and the problems were quickly resolved.

Those dozens of photographs, limited by the size of the prints and prints, are actually less rich in content than the paintings. However, photography emphasizes realism, and the sense of "what you see is what you get" is something that paintings cannot match.

What struck Chen Pingliao as somewhat poignant were the last few photographs, all featuring soldiers from the special operations division. No officers were in the pictures; the subjects were all ordinary soldiers.

There were scenes of several soldiers shirtless, shoveling soil and sweating profusely on the construction site; sentries standing motionless at the gate of the camp; and armed camel caravans patrolling the sand dunes on camels.

The last photo, according to the caption, should be a group photo taken at a military merit award ceremony in Fubo Port. The soldiers who have made meritorious contributions are grinning and showing off their medals to the camera.

These moments captured in the photos allow people in China to directly experience the hardships faced by special forces soldiers fighting overseas.

Several children also came over and silently raised their hands to salute the soldier in the photo. They seemed to notice that Chen Pingliao, who was wearing a military uniform, was watching their actions, so they turned to him and continued to salute.

Seeing this, Chen Pingliao returned the salute and asked with a smile, "Your salute is so standard, have you participated in scout training?"

The leader of the children nodded and said, "Scout training is once a week, half a day each time, and everyone likes it very much!"

Another child asked curiously, "Uncle officer, did you come back from the place in this picture?"

Chen Pingliao shook his head and said, "No, but I'm about to leave to carry out a mission at the place in the photo. Maybe you'll see me in the photo at the next exhibition."

The child exclaimed, "When I grow up, I want to join a special forces division, and I want to be a combat hero!"

The Haihan Army has a great influence in the country. Government-run schools with the resources will organize scout training and invite military personnel to the schools to train eligible students in basic military knowledge and skills.

Because the Northern Region was located on the frontier of the Empire, it placed even greater emphasis on this kind of paramilitary training. Not only were training courses arranged every week, but there was also at least one joint training session per school every month. Furthermore, when appropriate, scouts were organized to go up mountains and down to the sea for long-distance marches to train the children's organizational discipline and wilderness survival skills.

Sanya is certainly safe now, but the fact that scout training is still being carried out is something that makes Chen Pingliao quite gratified.

Of course, not all of these scout-trained children join the army, but as they grow up, they often feel a natural affinity for the Haihan Army. For over thirty years since the founding of Haihan, public support for the military has remained consistently high, partly due to the continued existence of the scout system.