Courtyard House: A Major Power's Heavy Industry, Hand-Crafted Nuclear Fusion

Summer 1988, Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, Inner Mongolia.

The scorching sun baked the vast grassland, and the air was distorted by the high temperature.

This is the largest training ground in the entire army and the highest stage for testing the combat capabilities of the Chinese military. Today, a live-fire exercise codenamed "Northern Sword-88" will be held here.

Red Team: A certain elite mechanized infantry division, with a full complement of Type 59 tanks, Type 63 armored vehicles and a large artillery regiment, with a strength of 12,000 men.

Blue Team: A "Digital Synthesis Battalion" composed of Red Star Electronics and a certain special operations brigade, with a strength of only 800 people.

12000 vs 800.

It sounded like a sure-fire crushing victory. The Red Army division commander stood confidently in front of the map at the command post.

"That Su Zheng, just because he sold a few tanks to Iraq, he thinks he's all that."

The division commander pointed to the Blue Army's positions on the map and ordered, "Tell the 1st Regiment to push forward with their entire front! Crush them to pieces with their tracks! I want that scholar to know that war isn't a video game!"

However, he did not know.

The very moment he gave the order.

Five kilometers southeast of his command post, in a patch of overgrown weeds, a pair of eyes were staring intently at him through a high-powered telescope.

He was a scout from the Blue Team, codenamed "Lone Wolf".

He was covered in camouflage netting and his face was painted, but what was most striking was the strange instrument he was holding.

That wasn't a walkie-talkie or a radio.

It was a black box with an LCD screen, a full keyboard, and a laser rangefinder—a personal digital assistant (PDA).

"Identify high-value targets."

Lone Wolf whispered into his headset, "Coordinates confirmed. Enemy Red Army Division Command Post. Uploading data."

He raised the laser rangefinder and aimed it at the tent where the division commander was located.

drop!

The moment the laser beam hits the tent and reflects back, the precise GPS coordinates (based on the BeiDou experimental system and inertial navigation correction) are locked.

Lone Wolf did not fire.

He simply pressed a red button lightly on that black box:

【SEND】(Send).

……

That instant.

An invisible radio wave, traveling at 30 kilometers per second, pierced through the electromagnetic fog of the battlefield.

It did not go through the cumbersome manual voice forwarding process, nor did it go through the layers of "request-report-approval" procedures.

It jumped directly into a huge digital network via the Red Star Data Link (Link-R).

Thirty kilometers away, the Blue Army's rear positions.

Four self-propelled artillery pieces (converted from 152mm howitzers) were quietly parked in the bunker.

Suddenly, the screen of the fire control computer lit up.

[Target data received!]

[Type: Division-level command post]

[Coordinates: N42°... E112°...]

Recommended ammunition type: Laser-guided projectiles

[Firing parameters have been automatically set!]

"put!"

The Blue Army battalion commander only said one word.

The gunner doesn't even need to crank the azimuth mechanism. The pre-connected servo motor completes the muzzle rotation in 0.5 seconds.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Four shells roared out.

at the same time.

A field airfield 50 kilometers away.

The same red coordinates appeared on the cockpit screens of the two Q-5 attack aircraft that had just taken off.

"Accept mission. Enter attack path."

The pilot pushed off the stick, and the fighter jet pierced the sky like a sharp sword.

……

Red Army Division Headquarters.

The division commander was listening to the chief of staff's report: "The vanguard regiment has advanced ten kilometers and has not found the enemy's main force..."

Before he could finish speaking...

call out--!

A sharp, chilling whistling sound came from overhead.

That was the sound of a large-caliber artillery shell tearing through the air.

"hidden!"

The guard shouted and lunged at the division commander.

Boom!

The first shell accurately hit the communications vehicle next to the command tent. The huge blast blew the tent away, and in the ensuing dust storm, before anyone could react, the second and third shells followed in quick succession.

That's the "Touch-and-Shoot" (TOT) tactic.

Four cannons, controlled by a computer with different firing elevations and propellant charges, allow four shells to fly through the air for different times, but land at the same second!

The instantaneous firepower density is equivalent to that of an artillery battalion!

"Air raid! Air raid!"

The moment the artillery fire ceased, the roar of jet engines filled the sky.

Two Q-5 fighter jets emerged from the clouds, and aerial bombs mounted under their wings fell like eggs.

Boom!Boom!

Two muffled thuds.

The entire Red Army division headquarters was wiped off the map in less than twenty minutes after the start of the battle.

"The directing staff has ruled: The Red Army division commander has been killed in action, and the command system is paralyzed. The Red Army... is declared the loser."

The director's ruthless voice came over the loudspeaker.

The entire exercise field was deathly silent.

A mechanized force of 12,000 men was "decapitated" before they even saw the enemy or their engines had warmed up.

How can we fight this war?

……

On the viewing platform.

Su Zheng put down his binoculars and looked at the dumbfounded generals around him.

"My lords."

Su Zheng's voice was calm. "This is the power of the 'data link'."

He pointed to the battlefield situation map on the big screen.

Every soldier, tank, and artillery piece of the Blue Army was a shimmering point of light, connected by countless dotted lines.

"In traditional warfare, when a scout spots the enemy, he has to use a walkie-talkie to call the company commander, who then calls the battalion commander, who in turn calls the artillery. This whole process takes at least ten minutes. And in those ten minutes, the enemy can either escape or counterattack."

"But in our 'Digital Synthesis Camp'."

Su Zheng switched to a different image: "The scout is no longer just the eyes, he is... the trigger."

"The moment that soldier named 'Lone Wolf' pressed the send button, he was no longer fighting alone."

"In that instant, he summoned all the artillery behind him, the planes in the sky, and even... the satellites in space."

"If he sees it, you'll die."

"Detection equals destruction."

Su Zheng's words were like bullets, striking the hearts of every general present.

Looking at that seemingly flimsy but actually terrifying "network," they felt the generational gap for the first time.

This is no longer a clash of steel.

This is an information massacre.

"This system..."

A general took a deep breath and pointed to the individual soldier terminal. "The kind you sold to the Iraqis?"

"No."

Su Zheng shook his head. "What was sold to Iraq was a 'scaled-down' version. They only had data links between tanks, not this kind of 'air-to-ground' and 'information-firepower' all-dimensional perception capability."

"This 'complete' version is our trump card, reserved for ourselves."

"and……"

A glint of light flashed in Su Zheng's eyes. "This isn't the end. Currently, all data transmission still relies on ground-based radio base stations. But in the future…"

He pointed to the blue sky above.

"We're going to move the base stations into the sky."

"The day the BeiDou network is completed will be the day our military...reaches the entire globe."

……

After the exercise, Su Zheng did not attend the victory celebration banquet.

He arrived at the Blue Army's camp alone.

The scout codenamed "Lone Wolf" was sitting on the tank tracks wiping his sweat. Seeing Su Zheng approaching, he immediately stood up and saluted.

"Greetings, sir!"

"sit."

Su Zheng handed him a bottle of water. "How are you feeling?"

"Cool!"

The soldier grinned, revealing his pearly white teeth. "Back when I was a scout, my biggest fear was spotting the enemy but being unable to hit them, just sitting there anxiously. Today... it's fucking satisfying! I feel like a god, able to command the thunder and lightning with a flick of my finger!"

Su Zheng smiled.

"You will become a god."

He patted the soldier on the shoulder and said, "Train hard. The battlefields of the future belong to soldiers like you who know how to use computers and understand data."

When he left the camp, Ye Xinyi was waiting for him by the jeep.

"I just received a message."

Ye Xinyi waved the satellite phone in her hand. "Iraq has placed another order. This time they not only want tanks, but also our 'Red Star-Data Link' communication radios. The offer is... two hundred million US dollars."

"Give them to them."

Su Zheng didn't hesitate. "However, the core encryption algorithm must have a backdoor. Also, tell them that this system can only be used within their country's borders; outside their borders... it will 'not work'."

"So dark." Ye Xinyi rolled her eyes at him.

"This is called national interest."

Su Zheng opened the car door. "By the way, once that money arrives, immediately allocate it to 'Project 921' (manned spaceflight) and the 'large aircraft project'."

"We're taking huge strides, and we never have enough money."

The car started and drove towards the vast grassland.

Su Zheng was looking out the window.

The smoke from the North Sword-88 exercise has cleared, but an even bigger storm is brewing.

He knew that the superpower across the ocean was amassing troops in the Gulf region.

The Gulf War (Desert Storm), the progenitor of "information warfare" that awakened the world, is about to break out.

And this time...

History will unfold differently.

Because buried in the Iraqi desert is the "Red Star Variable" planted by Su Zheng.

"I like it."

"Um?"

"Do you think we could defeat the United States without nuclear weapons?"

Ye Xinyi remained silent for a moment.

"Not now."

She looked at the terminal in her hand displaying a dense stream of data, "But if we were given ten years... to grow these data chains into a vast network, to turn Loongson into a super brain, to plant the red flag in every corner..."

She raised her head, her gaze clear as a knife:

"able."

Su Zheng smiled.

"Then let's... wait and see."