Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 111: Climbing the Railroad Tracks

Ding! Ding! Dang! Dang!
The pleasant sound of hammering came from the blacksmith shop in Majia Village.

It has to be said that having great strength and good physical fitness is beneficial not only in fighting, but also in blacksmithing. Wang Gensheng, whose physical fitness is nearly three times that of an ordinary person, is better than ordinary people in using a hammer.

Others would have to take a break every half an hour at most, but Wang Gensheng could swing the hammer for two hours without a break.

Just as Wang Gensheng was swinging a sledgehammer to create bulletproof armor for the soldiers, Li Xiu smiled and said:
"Captain, your muscles are so nice! My sister would definitely drool if she saw them! She's always called me a bean sprout because I don't have any muscles. She also said that I need to find a man with muscular arms to feel safe!"

Wang Gensheng looked at Li Xiu who was standing next to him and jokingly said,
"Can't you sleep? If you can't sleep, come over and lie down for half an hour, then you'll be able to sleep!"

That's right, in order to ensure that his cavalry regiment would not be attacked at night, Li Xiu became the main person to stand guard at night, so Li Xiu naturally had to rest during the day. But unexpectedly, Li Xiu did not rest well, but came over to make fun of him.

There was no other way Wang Gensheng could go shirtless. Although it was winter, the heat was naturally very high when he was forging iron next to the furnace. Moreover, he would naturally sweat from working with the sledgehammer. So in order to avoid wearing clothes soaked with sweat, Wang Gensheng was used to going shirtless when forging iron. After he finished forging iron, he would find a towel to wipe the sweat off before putting on his clothes.

Of course, what Wang Gensheng didn't know was that Li Xiu said this on purpose, mainly because Li Xiu felt that his sister Li Xue had some interest in Wang Gensheng. You know, when Wang Gensheng hadn't left the New Second Regiment yet, Li Xue had made shoes for him!

Of course, in Wang Gensheng's view, this was not Li Xue expressing her feelings to Wang Gensheng, but asking Wang Gensheng to take care of her brother Li Xiu. After all, when Li Xue gave the shoes to Li Xiu, she said that she asked him to take care of her brother.

In fact, even without Li Xue's advice, Wang Gensheng was reluctant to let Li Xiu charge forward. After all, with Li Xiu's night vision, it was simply a humanoid thermal image! So Wang Gensheng was reluctant to let Li Xiu charge forward.

Moreover, Li Xiu was promoted by Wang Gensheng to become the battalion commander of the reconnaissance battalion. His purpose was naturally to prevent him from charging into battle.

Li Xiu certainly didn't know what Wang Gensheng was thinking, so after Wang Gensheng finished speaking, he continued with a smile:
"I can sleep, but Captain, are we not going to do anything this winter? Why not build a few strongholds or something? Let's give those new recruits some courage!"

"No, sharpening the knife makes the chopping of wood easier. My cavalry regiment is carefully selected from over a hundred thousand people in the entire Lion State. Sending them into battle without proper bulletproof equipment would be a huge loss if a few of them were to be killed!"

Wang Gensheng decisively rejected Li Xiu's proposal, and then continued to work on the iron. Of course, there was not only Wang Gensheng working in the blacksmith shop, but dozens of people were working here.

However, just as Wang Gensheng was working hard to make the bulletproof mask, the old blacksmith suddenly said:

"Captain, we have to stop working on the ironwork for a while. We don't have enough iron anymore. We have to find a way to get some more!"

Wang Gensheng was stunned when he heard this:

"Then, Master, where did you get the iron from before? I'll pay more for it!"

The old blacksmith shook his head and said:

"Before the Japanese came, we had to ask the miners to bring us the supplies. After they came, we started to distribute them. The monthly supply is very small. It is not enough for you to make thousands of sets of bulletproof armor now!" Wang Gensheng naturally knew about this. After all, the Japanese invaders did not come to bring warmth. They came to rob resources and enslave people. For example, they set up mass graves in coal mines and captured people to work as coolies in the coal mines. They did not even have enough food to eat and were forced to work until they were exhausted to death.

The iron mines were naturally seized and blocked by the Japanese, but since the iron mines could not be obtained through normal channels, they could only rob the Japanese.

Fortunately, there are many iron and coal mines in Huazhong, but not many of the most important oil fields, and they are all difficult to exploit. Unlike Zhongdong, you can just dig a well and oil will come out. Of course, it is precisely because there is no oil that the Japanese were defeated so quickly. Otherwise, with the Japanese slogan of "100 million people die in glory", they would have to fight.

And where there is the most iron and is not heavily guarded, it is naturally the railway tracks. And the railway track closest to Majia Village where Wang Gensheng is located is the Zhengtai Railway.

You should know that the Zhengtai Railway is the main railway connecting Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan. It is an important trunk line for the Japanese to survive and transport war supplies, including weapons and ammunition.

So when Wang Gensheng ran out of iron, it was natural that the most suitable place to go was Zhengtai Railway.

Assuming that a bulletproof vest and a bulletproof helmet weigh at least 20 kilograms, one thousand sets would require at least 20 tons of iron.

If these twenty tons of iron were replaced with steel rails, based on the calculation that one meter of rails weighs fifty kilograms, twenty tons of rails would require four hundred meters of rails.

But this is not the key point. The most important thing is that the railway tracks are not so easy to dig up, because after the Hundred Regiments Campaign, the Japanese defense of the Zhengtai Railway became even tighter.

Not only were a large number of bunkers built on both sides of the railway, but the number of armored patrol vehicles on the railway was also much more dense.

Therefore, how to obtain 20 tons of rails became a very difficult task.

···········
"Translator Liu, do you know where we can find a large amount of iron? At least twenty tons! I was originally planning to tear up the tracks on the Zhengtai Railway, but after the last sabotage, the Japanese have tightened their defenses!"

That's right, Wang Gensheng finally found Liu the translator, hoping to get some useful information from him. Liu the translator was stunned at first, then seemed to remember something and said:

"The last time I took the train from the station to Taiyuan for some work, I discovered that the station had quite a few spare rails. So if you need steel, you can consider using the spare rails at the station. This should be more convenient than dismantling them from the railway!"

After that, translator Liu told the specific situation of the station, and Wang Gensheng was overjoyed to hear this. After all, the difficulty of removing the rails from the railway and transporting the spare rails placed on the ground from the station is different.

Moreover, according to translator Liu, the station was not only not too far from Majia Village where Wang Gensheng was located, but there were also not many Japanese soldiers stationed in the station.

Of course, in order to ensure the authenticity and reliability of the intelligence, Wang Gensheng had to verify it personally before deciding whether to take action.

After all, this time the entire regiment must be dispatched together. It is impossible to dispatch only the special cavalry company. It is quite difficult for a hundred horses to pull 20 tons of rails.

(End of this chapter)