I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

After saying that, Lao Sun bent down and picked up the shockproof box containing Yuanlei No. 1.

As soon as the bottom of the trunk left the ground, two horizontal creases appeared on the old cotton-padded jacket on the arm.

Jiang Ming picked up another box, used his shoulder to push open the wooden door of the command post, and the lingering sandstorm rushed in, while the flame of the kerosene lamp veered to the corner behind him.

"Comrade Song, take four people to carry the generator, and the rest of you move the antenna bracket. Send all the equipment directly to the hill on the east side."

The crew-cut officer glanced at his watch and beckoned to the guard outside the door.

Several people lifted the equipment separately, and the metal box and the gun butt made a series of short metallic sounds.

Director Wang followed him to the door, his gaze falling on the shockproof box in Jiang Ming's hand.

"Can we light a fire at one in the morning?"

Jiang Ming raised his wrist; the hands of his watch pointed to 11:13.

"Yes." He put down his watch. "The pulse emission matrix hard assembly will be completed before 1 a.m. If the equipment doesn't work, I'll be solely responsible."

Director Wang didn't respond to that sentence, but instead handed the walkie-talkie to Lu Qinghe.

"Report every ten minutes. The encirclement troops have moved into their reserve positions; they can't wait another two hours."

The mound was less than 800 meters from the command post, but the road surface was not yet formed. The gravel and hard soil were eroded by the wind into shallow grooves. Every time the box swayed, Lao Sun would nudge it to the side with his knee.

Lu Qinghe walked behind, carrying a direction finding compass in one hand and a canvas bag containing cables in the other, his eyes always fixed on the box containing Yuanlei No. 1.

"Jiang, it's -14 degrees Celsius outside. The ceramic base was unloaded from the carriage less than half an hour ago. The temperature difference is too great. Applying 12 kilovolts directly can easily cause surface discharge."

"Test the insulation again at the top of the hill."

"Even if the measurement is accurate, it may not be useful. Soviet-made high-pressure pipes need to be preheated for at least forty minutes at this temperature. You only have one hour and forty-seven minutes left."

Jiang Ming didn't turn around. His shoes broke through a thin layer of ice, and the ice shards rolled down the slope.

"Yuanlei-1 has undergone 50 hours of aging. The cathode support and ceramic sealing have been left with a margin. The temperature has been brought to the safety line first, and the rest can be handled by itself."

Lu Qinghe opened her mouth, but in the end only said one sentence.

"Even Soviet experts wouldn't dare to do that."

"When it was ignited in Beijing, Soviet experts had already changed their tune."

There was an extra layer of crosswind at the top of the mountain compared to below. The 15-decibel Yagi antenna had just been unloaded from the truck when its steel frame was blown half a foot westward. It took three guards to rush over and catch it.

Old Sun put down the box, first grabbed a stone to support the back of the support frame, and then had someone thread two safety ropes through the steel frame and tie them to the axle and rock pile on the leeward side of the mound, respectively.

"Don't hold on, find a ground anchor, or the wind will shift and you and the frame will both fall down."

The guard immediately picked up an entrenching tool and dug two deep trenches along the side of the mound, buried the spare rail clips in them, and then tamped them down layer by layer with gravel.

Jiang Ming lifted the shockproof box. Underneath three layers of cotton and two layers of oil paper, Yuanlei No. 1 was quietly stuck in the wooden bracket, with no displacement on the outside of the eight-cavity anode assembly.

Lu Qinghe squatted down and touched the ceramic base with the back of her hand, then withdrew it as soon as her skin touched it.

"The temperature is too low, at least minus ten degrees Celsius."

Instead of looking for a thermometer, Lao Sun went around to the supply box, found two empty beef cans, and used pliers to cut three holes in the bottom of each can.

The sand-proof cloth was folded into four layers and arranged in a semicircle along the leeward side. Two cans were placed one on top of the other, leaving a ventilation gap about half a hand's width in the middle.

"Give me a kerosene lighter, and another half-full tank of hot water, but don't pour it in, just keep it warm on the outside."

Lu Qinghe looked at the palm-sized windproof stove, and then glanced at the inestimable value of the magnetron.

"Are you planning to use tin cans to bake high-pressure ceramics?"

"You can't roast it. Keep it three inches away from the fire, just warm enough for your palm to touch. It will only do bad things if you heat it up."

Old Sun held the ceramic base in his palm and used his body to block the remaining air vent. The kerosene flames licked the iron walls inside the can, and the heat spread evenly along the bottom of the upper can.

Every ten seconds, he would turn the base at a different angle, and place his other hand against the porcelain surface to test the temperature. The movements looked casual, but he never actually let the flame touch the device.

Two minutes later, Lao Sun put Yuanlei No. 1 back on the tray, took off his gloves, and covered it with his palm for another ten seconds.

"Alright, get to the wiring."

Lu Qinghe took a thermometer and placed it on the thermometer. The mercury column passed zero degrees and stopped at around 3.6 degrees Celsius.

This temperature was only enough to pass through the minimum preheating line, far from the 20 degrees Celsius specified for Soviet-made devices, but the ceramic surface was already dry, without condensation or frost.

"Only two minutes."

"If you work slowly, the heat will dissipate."

Old Sun took the twelve coaxial cables, ran his thumb along the threads of each connector, first connecting the four high-voltage pulse lines to the modulator, and then hard-bridging the feedback line and the monitoring line to the test terminal.

He only used the wrench for half a turn on the first six joints, and tightened the last six joints entirely by hand. Each time he reached the end, he would pull back less than a tenth of a turn before applying force again.

Lu Qinghe stared at the last connector.

"No torque wrench?"

"Leave that to those who don't know what they're doing."

As Lao Sun spoke, he had already completed the twelfth bridging connection. He then grabbed each cable and pulled it once, and none of the twelve joints came loose.

From the moment the first wire touched the dock to the moment the last wire passed the tension test, the second hand on Lu Qinghe's wrist only completed one full rotation and forty-nine seconds.

She took out her small torque meter and tried to measure the two joints. One measured 0.82 kilograms per meter, and the other measured 0.81 kilograms per meter.

The standard value specified in the Yuanlei-1 assembly manual is 0.8 kg-meter, with an allowable deviation of ±5%.

Lu Qinghe put the meter back in the tool bag, bent down and picked up the third connector. The reading was still within the allowable range.

"Mr. Sun, have you installed these kinds of magnetrons before?"

"Never seen it before. Threads and copper don't lie."

Lu Qinghe didn't ask any more questions. He got up and placed the compass on the surveying stake. The reservations he had made about the technical cadres from Beijing had been loosened by the twelve lines in just two minutes.

These men had traveled all the way by military train, their clothes covered in coal dust and their hands cracked, yet they worked faster than the maintenance team permanently stationed at the base.

Jiang Mingzheng was carrying the pulse modulator onto the wooden insulated stand when he heard the walkie-talkie ring. He raised his hand to signal Lu Qinghe to report.

"Launch site report: Base assembly complete, twelve coaxial bridges pass tensile test, current time 23:31."

After the electrical noise subsided, Director Wang's reply came from the speaker.

"Received. The first battalion will move into the northern gully. The second battalion will guard the western exit of the mine. The artillery company will wait for the ignition signal. No one is allowed to reveal themselves prematurely."

Inside the command post, Director Wang added two arrows to the map with a red pencil and circled the abandoned camel trail on the south side of the mine.

Once the interference is suppressed by Yuanlei-1 and frontline communications are restored to a usable level, the encirclement forces will have twenty minutes to complete the final blockade.

If ignition fails, the two battalions will be separated in three trenches without radio communication. People in the mine can cut off their retreat by seizing any gap in the trench.

The diesel generator on the mound had been towed to the leeward slope. Old Sun disassembled the casing to check the oil circuit, while Fang Xudong used a multimeter to measure each output terminal.

"Unloaded voltage is 320 volts, frequency is 51 Hz, and the fluctuation is relatively high."

"We'll see after we connect the voltage regulator."

Jiang Ming connected the three voltage regulator plates in parallel, inserted mica sheets between the copper busbar connectors, and as soon as the last plate was pushed into the slot, the voltmeter pointer dropped from 320 volts to 308 volts.

Fang Xudong turned the load knob halfway, and the generator speed dropped a bit, with the pointer only moving two small increments.

"With a load of 306 volts and a fluctuation of less than 1%, the voltage can be boosted."

The main beam of the Yagi antenna has been fixed, and Lu Qinghe stands behind the compass, adjusting the orientation according to the daytime direction finding data.

"314.6 degrees, then 0.3 degrees west."

The steel frame rotated a short distance, and the toothed disc at the bottom of the support engaged in the positioning groove. Old Sun inserted the locking pin and hammered it in place with the handle of a hammer.

Jiang Ming connected the last voltage regulator plate and checked the insulation distance of each high-voltage line. The narrowest point between the cables was only two fingers wide, so he inserted a dry mica partition.

The time was 11:47 PM.

There are 73 minutes left until 1 a.m.

Lu Qinghe put on the headphones, and as soon as the monitoring receiver was tuned to 5.3 MHz, a sharp noise rushed into his eardrums, and the pointer of the meter passed the full scale and then touched the mechanical stop.

"The frequency sweep power has increased again. Three kilowatts was just the previous figure; now it's at least 20% higher."

At that moment, the radar vehicle ahead also made a call, but the communicator's voice was interrupted by noise.

"Radar base No. 3 reports: the receiving front end is completely blocked; signal from sentry post No. 4 is interrupted again; the jamming coverage is expanding to both sides."

The "Record of Connections" in Jiang Ming's palm turned a page on its own, and dark gold characters emerged from the paper.

[Deteriorating environmental parameters, air dust levels exceeding safe limits, and low temperatures increasing feeder losses raise the risk of initial joint ignition.]

The next line of text appears immediately.

[Current output window, eleven minutes.]

Jiang Ming looked up at the generator; the pointer on the oil pressure gauge was slowly climbing toward the yellow zone.