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

The backyard of the Air Force Surface-to-Air Missile Command, which was originally a training ground for parking spare vehicles, has now been transformed into a bustling open-air "operating table".

Several high-powered incandescent bulbs hung on tall wooden poles, illuminating the area as bright as day.

The three guidance radar vehicles, considered national treasures, are now standing with their side doors wide open, their internal organs in disarray.

Thick cables dragged on the ground like pythons, and delicate electron tubes and magnetrons were disassembled and piled up into a small mountain. Several gray-haired experts squatted nearby, looking at the parts scattered on the ground, their hearts aching and they clicked their teeth in distress, their expressions as if they were watching their family heirlooms being smashed.

"Dean Su, is...is this really going to work?"

An elderly engineer wearing thick-rimmed glasses stood up shakily, holding a huge vacuum tube in his hands. "This is a core component of the original Soviet 'Fan Song' radar! You just...you pulled it out?"

Su Zheng, wearing work clothes stained with oil and holding a soldering iron, was crawling out of the carriage.

He took off his gloves, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and glanced at the old engineer.

"Old Wang, out with the old, in with the new."

Su Zheng's voice was calm and resolute. "This 'Fan Song' radar is based on technology from the end of World War II. It was designed to deal with slow-flying propeller bombers that lacked electronic countermeasures capabilities. Against a modern target like the U-2, which is equipped with top-notch jammers, it's completely blind."

"What we need to do is not to give a blind person a pair of glasses, but to give them a pair of 'eagle eyes'."

After he finished speaking, he turned to look at Zhao Ming behind him.

"Did you bring the things?"

"Here it is!"

Zhao Ming walked over quickly, carrying the silver-white metal box.

All eyes were focused on the box.

Su Zheng unlocked the box, and with a soft "click," the lid popped open.

Inside was not some sophisticated or complex mechanical device, but a black circuit board about the size of a book, and several strange modules connected to it.

In the center of that circuit board was a chip the size of a fingernail, which shimmered with a faint blue light under the lamp.

"This is what you meant by 'eagle eyes'?" Old Wang's eyes widened in disbelief. "This little thing? It's not even as big as my vacuum tube!"

Several technicians nearby whispered among themselves. In their understanding, the larger, heavier, and more complex a radar system—a vital national asset—was, the more powerful it was. What could such a thin plate possibly do?

Su Zheng smiled but offered no explanation.

He picked up the circuit board as if it were a rare treasure.

This is a carbon-based wafer.

Although it is only a preliminary prototype in the laboratory, also known as an "engineering sample", its computing power has reached an astonishing 100 million floating-point operations per second.

In an era when people were still using abacuses and hand-cranked calculators to calculate ballistics, this was a miracle from the future.

"I like you," Su Zheng called out.

"exist."

Ye Xinyi, who had been engrossed in calculations at the makeshift table next to her, looked up. In front of her was a pile of draft paper covered with formulas; it was the filtering algorithm she had spent the entire night working backward from the interference signal tape from the previous day.

"Is the data ready?" Su Zheng asked.

"alright."

Ye Xinyi stood up, rubbed her slightly sore neck, and handed a punched paper strip to Su Zheng. "This is the anti-phase filtering program for the 'System-13' jammer. Just input it in, and that so-called 'snowflake' will be filtered out completely."

Su Zheng took the paper strip, a hint of tenderness flashing in his eyes: "Thank you for your hard work."

"Stop talking nonsense and get to work." Ye Xinyi rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't help but smile.

Su Zheng turned around, his expression instantly turning serious.

"Begin the heart transplant surgery!"

……

The next 48 hours felt like a dream to the officers and soldiers of the 2nd Surface-to-Air Missile Battalion.

They watched as the young Dean Su, along with a few others, transformed the bulky radar vehicle beyond recognition, as if by magic.

The analog computer cabinet that originally occupied half of the carriage was removed and replaced with a metal chassis the size of a shoebox—that is the digital signal processor containing carbon-based chips.

The oscilloscope, originally used to display the raw echoes, was modified. The screen no longer displayed simple green lines, but instead showed some jumping digital parameters.

"This is unbelievable..."

Battalion Commander Xing Zhiqiang stood at the door of the radar vehicle, staring at the clear and stable scan lines on the screen, his mouth agape as if he could fit an egg in it.

Previously, radar required a five-minute warm-up period before powering on, during which the distinctive buzzing sound of the vacuum tubes was deafening.

Now, with just the push of a button, the screen lights up almost instantly. And the silence is unsettling.

"Battalion Commander Xing, stop staring blankly."

Su Zheng crawled out from under the car, dusted off his hands, and said, "The hardware is fixed. Now it's time to fix the software."

"Software? What's that?" Xing Zhiqiang looked completely bewildered.

"That's your fighting style."

Su Zheng walked to the command map, picked up a red and blue pencil, and drew a heavy circle on the map.

"How did you guys fight before?"

"In the past?" Xing Zhiqiang straightened his back. "Back then, the entire battalion would deploy, following a set procedure. The radar would be turned on to search, the target would be detected, tracked, locked, the firing parameters would be calculated, and then the shot would be fired. The whole process would take at least eight minutes."

"Eight minutes?"

Su Zheng sneered, "Eight minutes ago, the U-2 would have already flown out of your range, or it would have already figured out your firing rate."

"Then... what should we do?"

"We need to change."

Su Zheng's eyes sharpened like knives. "We need to reduce this time to 8 seconds!"

"8 seconds?!"

Xing Zhiqiang nearly jumped up. "Advisor Su, are you kidding me? Eight seconds isn't even enough for radar to warm up!"

"That was before." Su Zheng pointed to the modified radar vehicle. "Now, this system locks on as soon as it's turned on. No warm-up is needed, no manual calculation of parameters is required; the chip calculates everything in 0.1 seconds."

"We are going to create a completely new tactic—the 'close-range, fast-paced tactic'!"

Su was drawing a line on the map to simulate the U-2's flight path.

"We've positioned our positions along the enemy's only route. But the radar won't be turned on! Absolutely not!"

"We relied solely on air situation reports from our superiors or forward observation posts to determine the enemy's location."

"We must lurk like cheetahs in the grass, even if the enemy flies overhead, even if we can hear its engine, we must endure!"

Su Zheng's voice grew lower and lower, yet more and more powerful, each word seeming to strike Xing Zhiqiang's heart.

"Until—when the enemy enters our no-escape zone, and is only 30 kilometers, or even 20 kilometers away!"

"It suddenly turned on!"

"At this time, the enemy's electronic jamming equipment is still dormant or still searching for signals. When our radar waves hit it, it only has a few seconds to react."

"And those few seconds will be his death."

Xing Zhiqiang was so excited that he got goosebumps all over his body.

This tactic is unheard of!

This is dancing on the edge of a knife, gambling with your life!

But he likes it!

"Good! Close-range, rapid-fire tactics!" Xing Zhiqiang slapped his thigh. "Advisor Su, give the order! How should we train? As long as we can take down those bastards, we'll be willing to suffer any hardship!"

"No need to peel."

Su Zheng smiled and pointed to Ye Xinyi next to him, "For the next 24 hours, Teacher Ye will be in charge of teaching your guiding technicians how to cooperate with this new system."

……

Training has begun.

It was less of a training session and more of a brainstorming session.

Ye Xinyi stood in front of the blackboard, drawing complex parabolas and trigonometric functions with chalk.

The several guiding technicians below were all top talents selected from across the entire army, and were usually arrogant and aloof. But at this moment, they were all like primary school students, diligently taking notes, and every now and then showing an expression of sudden realization.

"Remember, while the new radar system is fast-responding, it requires extremely fast hand speed from the operator."

Ye Xinyi's voice was clear and pleasant, but her words were anything but polite: "The moment the target signal appears on the screen, you only have 1.5 seconds to adjust the cursor and lock onto the target. Every second more, and the opportunity is gone."

"1.5 seconds..."

A young technician swallowed hard. "Teacher Ye, is...is anyone really capable of doing this?"

"have."

Ye Xinyi looked out the window and saw Su Zheng inspecting the missile launcher.

"If it were him, 0.5 seconds would be enough. So, you guys still need to practice."

……

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

During those three days, the entire Second Battalion barely got a full night's sleep.

Modify equipment during the day, practice operating it at night.

Everyone was holding back a surge of anger. It was a rage that had been suppressed for too long and was eager to erupt.

On the evening of the third day.

As the sun set, it dyed the entire position blood red.

The modification work is now complete.

Three brand-new "543" missiles lay quietly on the launch pad, their bodies gleaming with a cold metallic sheen in the setting sun. They looked the same, but everyone knew they had been completely transformed.

Inside the command vehicle.

Su was sitting in front of the control panel, doing a final check of the system parameters.

Signal-to-noise ratio: Excellent.

"Processing latency: 0.001 milliseconds."

Filtering efficiency: 99.9%.

perfect.

He took off his headphones and turned around.

Xing Zhiqiang and the core members of the entire battalion were standing behind him, staring intently at him.

Comrades.

Su Zheng stood up, his gaze sweeping over each young and resolute face.

"I have already sharpened the swords for you."

"This sword uses the most advanced technology in our country and the hard work of countless researchers."

"Now, this sword is in your hands."

Su Zheng's voice wasn't loud, but it sounded exceptionally clear in the cramped command vehicle.

"I know that 'black cat' is very arrogant. It thinks that if it flies high, we can't hit it. It thinks that with electronic interference, we can't see it."

"It might come again tomorrow."

"I want to ask everyone a question: If it comes, will you dare to draw your sword?!"

"dare!!!"

The roar of the crowd nearly lifted the roof off the car.

Xing Zhiqiang stepped forward, gave a crisp military salute, his eyes slightly red: "Advisor Su! Don't worry! If it dares to come tomorrow, even if we have to carry these three missiles on our shoulders, we'll still ram them!"

Su Zheng nodded and returned a military salute.

"Okay. I'll wait for your good news at the command post."

……

Late at night.

Silence returned to the battlefield.

But this tranquility is more like the calm before a storm.

Su Zheng did not return to the guesthouse, but instead sat with Ye Xinyi on a small hillside next to the position.

The autumn night air was a bit chilly.

Su Zheng took off his coat and draped it over Ye Xinyi.

Are you cold?

"I'm not cold." Ye Xinyi tightened her coat, looked up at the starry sky, and said, "Su Zheng, do you think... what we're doing counts as changing history?"

"history?"

Su Zheng smiled and followed her gaze to the starry sky. "History is written by people. If we are going to that place..." He pointed to the sky above, "then there are some obstacles that we must clear away beforehand."

"The U-2 is just the beginning."

Su Zheng's voice became distant, "Once we shoot down the U-2, the Americans will be shocked, they will panic, and then they will intensify their blockade against us. But this will also force us to grow faster."

"Xinyi, are you ready?"

"What are you preparing?"

"Prepare for a... true era of a great power."

Ye Xinyi turned her head to look at Su Zheng's profile, which appeared particularly resolute under the starlight.

She suddenly felt very at ease.

No matter what storms or raging waves lie ahead, as long as you follow this person, it seems there's no obstacle you can't overcome.

"Um."

Ye Xinyi nodded gently and rested her head on Su Zheng's shoulder.

"I'm ready."

……

At the same time.

Across the strait, Taoyuan Base.

Bright lights.

Chen Huaisheng, codenamed "Black Cat," was sitting in the pilots' lounge, holding a cup of coffee, looking somewhat languid.

"We have another mission tomorrow."

The wingman pilot next to him was somewhat worried, "I heard there's been some activity on the mainland recently, it seems like they've mobilized new troops."

"What are you afraid of?"

Chen Huaisheng curled his lip in disdain. "It's still those old-fashioned SAM-2s. As soon as my 'System-13' is turned on, they'll all be blind."

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the black U-2 reconnaissance plane on the tarmac.

The massive wings cast long shadows under the searchlights, resembling a demon about to take flight.

"Having flown so many times, haven't you always gone there and returned in a swaggering manner?"

Chen Huaisheng stretched and said, "Don't worry. For that level of technology, we're like gods."

Tomorrow will just be another routine matter.

What he didn't know was.

It's just on the other side of the strait.

Deep within that seemingly sleeping continent.

A pair of "magically modified" sharp eyes have already opened.

Three gleaming swords have been drawn.

A net has been quietly cast to hunt down "God".

Death awaits its arrival high above the clouds.