Special forces soldier demobilization: Starting from the county government compound, a meteoric rise

Inside the city, at the top-secret base in Xishan.

The huge circular tiered conference room was packed with people.

If these people were placed outside, each of them would be a towering figure who could shake the academic world. There are academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, chief engineers of major defense science and technology groups, and top physicists who have spent their entire lives in anonymity, leaving only code names in top-secret files.

At this moment, this group of people, whose average age was over sixty, were sitting upright like primary school students listening to a lecture, their eyes fixed intently on the young man on the podium.

Liu Ming.

He was wearing a simple white shirt today, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and holding an electronic pointer in his hand.

"Distinguished seniors, what you just saw is the initial concept drawing of the 'Mysterious Bird' class aerospace fighter, the core of our 'South Heaven Gate' Phase II project."

Liu Ming's voice echoed clearly through the microphone in the spacious conference room.

On the screen, a black fighter jet with an extremely futuristic design, flat like a sharp sword, is being displayed in a 3D rotating manner.

"It's beautiful and imposing." A space dynamics expert with a full head of silver hair pushed up his glasses, but his tone carried a hint of helplessness and doubt.

"But Chief Commander Liu, as someone who has been involved in aerospace for forty years, I have to pour cold water on this idea. According to the parameters you provided, this 'Mysterious Bird' will be required to conduct regular high-speed round trips between Earth and the Moon, and may even undertake deep space exploration missions in the future. The thrust required for this is extremely enormous."

The old expert stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and drew a simple force analysis diagram.

"Even with the most efficient thrust-to-weight ratio, existing chemical-fueled rockets simply cannot support such high-frequency interstellar travel. It's like trying to pull a skyscraper in a marathon using an oxcart—it defies the basics of physics!"

"That's right," another nuclear physicist chimed in. "Unless we make a revolutionary breakthrough in propulsion technology, this 'Mysterious Bird' will just be a pretty lump of iron that will never escape the atmosphere."

A murmur of agreement rippled through the room.

These veteran experts are all pragmatists. While they marveled at Liu Ming's ingenious solution to the plasma pulse engine problem, they also recognized that science is rigorous and ruthless in the face of grand strategic plans. Without sufficient motivation, everything is just empty talk.

"The old man was right, chemical fuels really are like oxcarts."

Liu Ming did not refute, but instead smiled and nodded. He walked to the whiteboard and used the eraser to directly erase the force diagram drawn by the old expert.

"So, I never intended to use chemical fuels at all."

Liu Ming turned around, and two chilling beams of light shot out from her deep black eyes.

"Since conventional rocket propulsion theory is not feasible."

"Then let's completely shatter the word 'conventional'!"

He pressed the remote control in his hand, and the "Black Bird" fighter jet on the screen was instantly magnified, with the camera cutting directly to the huge engine compartment at the tail of the fighter jet.

Instead of traditional fuel tanks, there was a spherical device that emitted a blinding white light and was tightly wrapped in a complex superconducting magnetic ring.

"This is……"

The room fell silent. The nuclear physicist who had just raised questions was now frozen in shock, staring at the screen, his lips trembling violently, unable to speak coherently.

"This...this is a miniaturized tokamak device? You've crammed a nuclear fusion reactor into a fighter jet?"

"You're insane! You've gone mad!"

The old expert's voice suddenly rose, even carrying a hint of fear.

"Controlled nuclear fusion! This is the ultimate problem that humanity has been trying to solve for half a century! The world's most advanced laboratories can only barely maintain a fusion reaction for a few seconds, and the devices are as big as a football field!"

"You not only have to shrink this thing down and fit it into an airplane, but you also have to make it continuously and stably output energy as propulsion? How is that even possible? If you're not careful, that airplane will turn into a super hydrogen bomb and explode right above our heads!"

The meeting room erupted in chaos. All the scientists were horrified by this almost insane idea: to put a "man-made sun" that could explode at any moment into a spaceship. It was like a bunch of lunatics dancing on the edge of a cliff!

Faced with this overwhelming wave of questions and fear, Liu Ming offered neither explanation nor defense.

He simply stood quietly on the podium, looking at this group of minds whose thinking had been imprisoned by modern theories.

"Ghost Hand," Liu Ming said calmly into the microphone.

"Roger that, boss."

With a soft chuckle coming through the headphones, the screen in the conference room switched again.

It was a top-secret internal test video. The video showed the plasma pulse engine that Liu Ming had personally repaired and lit up a few days ago. However, this time, the engine was not connected to a test bench, but to an extremely complex miniature magnetic confinement coil.

Under the stunned gaze of all the scientists, a stream of pale blue plasma was instantly injected into the coil.

Immediately afterwards, a blinding white light burst forth, and the instrument panels throughout the laboratory began to flash wildly!

"Ten million degrees...fifty million degrees...one hundred million degrees!"

"The magnetic field is stable! The energy output curve is smooth!"

"The restraint time has been exceeded by one minute... five minutes... ten minutes!"

The announcements in the video were like heavy hammer blows, striking everyone's hearts.

Ten minutes. A full ten minutes of stable fusion reaction! And the energy output was extremely stable!

"Thump!"

The nuclear physicist who had just raised the questions suddenly collapsed into his chair, his legs giving way beneath him. Tears streamed down his face as he stared at the screen, muttering to himself:

"Impossible... This is absolutely impossible... How could we possibly do something that even the top Western laboratories can't..."

Liu Ming turned off the video. He walked to the center of the podium, and the domineering aura of a "Shura" on his body transformed into an arrogant leader of the times.

"They use silicon to compete on computing power, we use carbon to reshape the architecture."

"They use brute force to restrain the plasma, while we use the Yin-Yang principle of the I Ching to guide the magnetic field."

"Dear seniors."

Liu Ming's voice was deep and powerful, echoing in the silent conference room.

"The scientific boundaries set by the West are not the end of truth."

"Our ancestors in Kyushu left us the key to breaking the deadlock when they looked up at the stars thousands of years ago. It's just that we, the last few generations, have been kneeling for too long and have forgotten how to stand up and look at the sky."

He picked up a red whiteboard marker.

"Now, I have the key."

"The funding is guaranteed by the Nangong Group without limit."

"The policy, the superior gave me the privilege of acting first and reporting later."

"I didn't call everyone here today to discuss whether this plan is feasible." "I'm here to tell you all..."

Liu Ming turned around and wrote four large characters heavily and in a flamboyant style on the huge whiteboard.

Every stroke exudes a resolute determination to tear a hole in the sky. Every line carries the blood and spirit of the sons of Kyushu, suppressed for a century.

"Our goal is no longer this small Earth."

Liu Ming threw down his pen, looked at the scientists whose eyes had been rekindled with fervent passion, and said, word by word:

"It is—the stars and the sea!"