Republic of China: Ace Pilot

Chapter 498, Section 484: Insider Planning, Aerial Reconnaissance Around Guangzhou

The two military vehicles drove back to their base.

Tang Yuandong and the female spy were taken off the military vehicle and locked in two separate single cells side by side.

Fang Wen inspected the situation at the base and then went to interrogate the female spy.

He interrogated me very directly.

“I don’t have much time to waste on you, so if you don’t cooperate with the interrogation, I will resort to torture directly. Do you understand?”

Despite her injuries, the female spy's beautiful face remained undeniable. She looked pitiful and said, "I'm just a weak woman. Can you really bring yourself to do this to me?"

Fang Wen coldly replied, "This is not a personal matter. You and I are two hostile countries. When facing an aggressor, whether you are Japanese or a lackey who recognizes the enemy as his father, I will not show mercy."

Seeing this, the female spy fell silent, seemingly intending to fight to the bitter end.

Fang Wen looked at Gong Xiuneng.

Gong Xiu hesitated, saying, "Commander, you know me, I really can't bring myself to lay a hand on a woman."

The female spy couldn't help but burst into unrestrained laughter.

Gong Xiuneng was enraged and decided to treat her like a beautiful but cruel woman and punish her.

Fang Wen, however, stopped Gong Xiuneng. "Let me do it this time."

"Commander, you're here?" Gong Xiuneng was stunned.

Fang Wen did not explain. He stood up, walked to the female spy, and extended his right hand.

He wore a Viking rune ring on the index finger of his right hand, and as he pointed his finger at the female spy, an electric current instantly surged.

This peculiar current, which defies the principles of electricity, does not produce ionization in the air and directly affects the human body.

The female spy's body instantly stiffened, and she cried out in pain.

This is a natural reaction after an electric shock; the intense burning sensation is like "burning through an electric current" inside the body.

When facing an enemy, it can instantly incapacitate them. During interrogation, it can cause muscles to contract violently due to electrical stimulation through continuous output.

Her body was shaking violently, her eyes were rolling back, she couldn't breathe, and she was even foaming at the mouth.

Gong Xiuneng, who was very experienced in interrogation, quickly said, "Commander, we can't continue."

Fang Wen stopped. "Check on her."

Gong Xiuneng stepped forward and examined her first: "Commander, she has a dislocated joint and is unconscious."

The intense electric current caused muscle spasms and tremors that even dislocated a joint, suggesting that the Viking ring's function wasn't so bad after all.

Fang Wen then asked Gong Xiuneng to wake him up.

The female spy woke up after Gong Xiuneng pressed her acupoints.

She looked at Fang Wen with fear: "What did you do to me?"

Fang Wen didn't explain. Instead, he carried a chair and sat down opposite the female spy: "Now I'll ask you questions, and you answer them. If you don't answer, it'll be the same as before."

After saying that, he asked directly.

"May I have your name."

The female spy instinctively replied, "Kina Moriyama."

Once you get started, the rest will be much easier.

Fang Wen continued, "When did you come to Yangjiang?"

"November 11."

"Purpose."

"I was ordered to lie in wait in Yangjiang to provide intelligence for the future attack on this place."

"Are there any accomplices?"

"No, I was the first one here."

After understanding the basic situation, Fang Wen asked again, "Tell me about how you sent a telegram to the Japanese army revealing our whereabouts."

As mentioned before, the female spy simply revealed everything.

Before coming to Yangjiang, she specifically selected several locals to serve as cover for her infiltration.

The telegraph operator was one of them.

Upon arriving in Yangjiang, she discovered that all the other people she had recruited had fled the city, leaving only the telegraph operator behind.

He then contacted the telegraph operator and went undercover as his lover.

She had noticed something amiss during the two nights Fang Wen transferred refugees from Yangjiang to Hong Kong, but because it was a night flight and she was unaware of the situation, she did not report it.

Later, Fang Wen led the first batch of 150 people to land in the city, and she was among the onlookers.

From that time on, she secretly sent telegrams reporting on the situation here.

And so, the Japanese air raids began.

The whole plan was originally in place, with the telegraph operator as the scapegoat. Unfortunately, the telegraph operator's last words made her worry about being exposed, so she had no choice but to shoot the telegraph operator from the window.

The interrogation is now over.

Fang Wen coldly looked at the female spy, "Think carefully, is there any way I can spare your life? If not, tomorrow will be your death anniversary."

These words startled the female spy, who sat there dumbfounded.

Fang Wenze and Gong Xiuneng left the room.

After leaving the room, Fang Wen did not leave immediately, but stood outside the door to wait.

After a while, he keenly heard a noise coming from the room behind him. It must have been the female spy struggling to get up and eavesdropping by the door.

At his prompting, Gong Xiuneng asked, "Commander, is this tactic called 'feigning weakness to lure the enemy into a trap'?"

"I guess so. I think she's afraid of dying, so scaring her might work," Fang Wen replied.

"What if she doesn't cooperate?"

“If she doesn’t cooperate, we don’t need to lift a finger. Just send her back to Yangjiang City and let her face a public trial.”

Gong Xiuneng feigned surprise: "A public trial? Then she won't be able to die comfortably. There are many refugees in Yangjiang who hate the Japanese to death."

There was a loud bang from behind the door.

Fang Wen then stopped lingering outside the door and went to the room next door.

Tang Yuandong was locked up in that room.

In contrast, no soldiers were assigned to guard the area.

Fang Wen pushed the door open and entered, and Tang Yuandong, who was lying on the bed, quickly got up.

"Sir, the spy has been caught, and my suspicion has been cleared. Can you let me go now?"

Fang Wen said coldly, "Your crime is maintaining contact with traitors and plotting treason."

"I'm innocent! He's the one who sent me the telegram," Tang Yuandong said, feeling wronged.

"The fact that he was able to find you and send you a telegram after Guangzhou fell shows that you two had a good relationship and that you had been in contact recently, right?"

Fang Wen's words left Tang Yuandong with no room for further denial, and he had no choice but to confess honestly.

“Sir, let me tell you. I served in the army in my early years, as a deputy regimental commander in the Fourth Division of the Guangdong Army. The division commander at the time was surnamed Lü. Later, Chen Jiongming rebelled, and we were ordered to go and suppress him. But as the fighting went on, we became his men. Later, the Nationalist government sent troops to suppress him, and the entire division was disbanded. I escaped back to Guangzhou and made a living by cheating and swindling until last year.”

Tang Yuandong, true to his reputation as a liar, proceeded to recount his story in great detail.

After the outbreak of the full-scale War of Resistance against Japan last year, his former division commander, Lü Rong, also came to Guangzhou.

The man approached him, saying he was going to do something big. Tang Yuandong was initially quite interested in following him, but later learned that he actually wanted to collaborate with the Japanese and become a traitor.

Tang Yuandong did not agree and fled on the eve of the fall of Guangzhou.

Before leaving, he met with Lü Rong and mentioned that he would be going to his home in Yangjiang.

This was the trouble he caused, as Lü Rong actually sent a telegram directly, wanting to invite him back to Guangzhou.

After hearing Tang Yuandong's words, Fang Wen crossed his arms and pretended to be thinking.

After a moment, he asked, "I didn't expect you to be a patriot." Tang Yuandong replied proudly, "Of course, I worship Guan Yu. I understand the principles of loyalty and righteousness."

"In that case, do you dare to go to Guangzhou and be my inside man?" Fang Wen suddenly blurted out.

"Ah!" Tang Yuandong's face changed drastically, and he waved his hands repeatedly: "No, no, if I am caught here, someone in Guangzhou might find out. If I go there, it will be like a lamb entering a tiger's den."

"Don't worry, I have a way to clear you of suspicion. The key is whether you have the guts to fight the Japanese with us," Fang Wen challenged.

Tang Yuandong hesitated.

Seeing this, Fang Wen left the room and called William over.

"Go to the city and bring Tang Yuandong's wife here. I want his wife to talk to him. Remember, don't let anyone see you."

"Yes."

William accepted the order and drove into the city. Forty minutes later, he returned with a woman.

The woman pleaded with Fang Wen, "Sir, although my husband is a bad seed, he has his principles. He has never killed anyone; at most, he'll swindle a little money. I guarantee he's not a spy."

Fang Wen nodded: "Sister-in-law, I know Tang Yuandong isn't a spy. But there's a national service operation that needs his cooperation. Could you help us persuade him?"

The woman was stunned, and whispered, "He's the one who makes all the decisions at home, I'm afraid I can't persuade him."

"It's alright, just listen to what we need him to do."

Fang Wen revealed that he wanted Tang Yuandong to go to Guangzhou to act as an inside agent and cooperate with the Independent Regiment in their operations.

The woman understood. "Sir, please take me to see him. I'll try to persuade him."

Fang Wen then led the woman to Tang Yuandong's room and let her in.

A moment later, sounds came from the room.

“You, surnamed Tang, I’ve followed you my whole life, and I haven’t enjoyed a single day of happiness with you. I don’t blame you for that. But today, I only ask that you act like a decent human being and walk the right path for once. In the future, your son can hold his hand in his heart and tell people that his father was once a great hero who served the country and its people.”

Only the woman's voice could be heard in the room; Tang Yuandong did not respond at all.

After a while, the door opened and Tang Yuandong came out. "Sir, I agree."

Fang Wen nodded: "Okay, you two stay in the military camp for now and wait for my arrangements."

The affair between Tang Yuandong and the female spy has come to an end.

Fang Wen immediately shifted his focus to preparing for the enemy.

Using Yangjiang as a springboard to launch an attack on the already occupied Guangzhou area, we cannot blindly fight alone.

He first needed to contact other troops that were fighting the Japanese in the area.

The anti-Japanese guerrillas in the Dongjiang area are the only ones we have made contact with so far.

In addition, it is also worthwhile to unite with the troops operating around Guangzhou.

Therefore, Fang Wen decided to personally pilot a plane to investigate and find traces of these troops.

He boarded the Qinyuan, which was fully fueled, started the engine, and first activated the mechanical sensors to check the aircraft's condition.

The plane has no major problems, just a slight blockage in the fuel system.

The blockage wouldn't reduce the engine's power, and the fuel line could be replaced after this flight. Therefore, Fang Wen directly piloted the plane to accelerate and take off along the dirt runway.

The Qinyuan aircraft bumped slightly on the smooth dirt runway. As its speed increased, the nose pulled up and it took off into the sky.

The plane flew northeast, passing through Enping and Xinhui, before arriving in Zhaoqing, west of Guangzhou.

Here, nine Japanese warplanes are bombing Zhaoqing City.

This method of first launching continuous bombing and then attacking with ground troops had become a common practice in Japanese military operations.

It's lamentable that China's weak military equipment at that time was unable to deal with the rampant bombing by Japanese warplanes.

Fang Wen encountered it, and naturally wouldn't let it leave so easily.

He accelerated the plane and drove straight at it.

The high-speed Qinyuan quickly approached the enemy aircraft formation.

Therefore, it attacked from the diagonal rear, and the enemy aircraft group did not detect it immediately.

This gave Fang Wen the perfect opportunity to attack by biting the tail.

He switched to supernatural fire control shooting mode without hesitation.

With the aiming assistance of the fire control system, Fang Wen quickly moved the firing joystick to aim and fired after the enemy aircraft entered the aiming red box.

Two inverted, vertically mounted cannons on the lower part of the nose of the aircraft spewed deadly flames.

A barrage of machine gun fire struck the tail sections of two Type 97 escort fighters, causing their tail sections to shatter and the aircraft to lose balance and crash to the ground.

The sudden attack caught the enemy off guard.

Upon discovering Fang Wen's high-speed fighter jet, they did not choose to attack but instead dispersed and fled.

Even Fang Wen hadn't expected this situation. The Japanese air force he had encountered before, though technically inferior, still dared to fight. But this air force was so cowardly that it ran away as soon as the fighting started.

Fang Wen immediately turned his plane around, caught up with another aircraft, and shot it down.

But after that plane was shot down, there was no time to worry about those escaping in other directions.

Fang Wen had no choice but to give up.

After a brief skirmish with the Japanese air raiding force, Fang Wen continued flying northeast.

After passing Zhaoqing, ground combat will be visible ahead.

Fang Wen, in a state of mechanical perception, first used radar to search for and investigate the situation of aircraft in the airspace.

No aircraft have been detected within 200 kilometers.

In other words, he doesn't need to worry about enemy aircraft appearing in the air and interfering with his aerial reconnaissance.

Immediately, Fang Wen used his eagle eye to observe the battle situation below.

That place should be Sihui.

Located in the northwest of Guangzhou.

The Japanese army and the Nationalist army are locked in a stalemate here.

Guangzhou was easily lost, but the fighting here was fierce.

He used the map to note down the situation of both sides on the battlefield below.

The Japanese army occupied the areas of Langang and Mian on the east bank of the Beijiang River, as well as Zhuzhou, Hantang and Qingqi below Mafang in Sihui.

The National Army was stationed in the Dasha and Mafang areas on the west bank of the Beijiang River.

The two sides stand facing each other across the river.

This is the defense line of Beijiang.

The West River below presented a bleak scene.

As the river with the deepest draft, the Xijiang River was used by a large number of ships and ferries to escape to Guangxi.

Along this river, there were many boats, and countless people were fleeing on the banks.

These circumstances, along with those in the Dongjiang area, constitute the overall situation around Guangzhou.

Although the troops stationed in Guangzhou fled first, the surrounding areas continued to fight against the Japanese army.

Among them were the National Army Tax Police Force, guerrillas, local security regiments, and anti-Japanese organizations spontaneously organized by the people.

Fang Wen realized that these forces were all aids from the Independent Regiment's participation in the war.

But where did Guangzhou's largest military force, the retreating troops, go?

Fang Wen piloted the plane northward.

When the plane flew over Guangzhou and arrived in Qingyuan.

There are signs of battle there, but the Japanese army did not occupy the area; it remains under the control of the Chinese army.

From there, Fang Wen saw a long line of troops retreating from the Beijiang River upstream into the mountainous region of northern Guangdong.

(End of this chapter)