Chapter 419 - 340 Who Designed This Crappy Thing?

The situation was beyond Fang Huai’s expectations.

When Fang Huai leisurely entered the factory area, apart from the "pioneer" from the Xiuqi Big Team who had just run in, surprisingly, no one was vomiting.

Indeed, if the female soldiers and the Staff Officers could endure the smell, it was only natural that the frontline soldiers wouldn’t be too affected. There were people discussing the smell, but once they knew it was simulating the stench from an earthquake, not a single person covered their nose.

The predominant expression was one of excitement.

An excitement of entering a carefully prepared disaster scenario.

It felt like entering a 4D cinema for the first time: not only visual and auditory experiences, but now even the sense of smell was considered.

It wasn’t easy to stage such a large scene. Veterans who had come from the era of shoddy exercises felt that the times had finally changed—this was what a serious exercise looked like.

As a long "Attention..." was called out, the whole area fell silent.

A disaster situation became a command.

Rescue work was a mission.

2008, temper the sword in Anshun.

A massive banner on the podium directly opposite the factory, adorned with the symbols of the Public Security Fire Brigade and these three lines.

"Look right! Look forward!"

Old Black stood at one side beneath the stage, issuing the command with a loud and powerful voice. As soon as the flag of the new recruit group spoke, it felt like a return to that place.

Below was a formation of about 15×22, not many people, but full of elite soldiers. Apart from some squadrons from counties with fewer people, most squadrons brought their core members. This time, they had pulled together the elites from all three Detachments.

Fang Huai stood on the other side of the stage, leaning on his crutches. He might look like an injured person, but after half an hour of interaction, most attendees knew by then:

This man was also a benchmark.

And the devilish 12-kilometer challenge they faced on the way here was his creation.

In his first year, he was the squad leader of Guiyang Special Service Second Squadron, and that squadron, with a time of 1 hour and 18 minutes, left Anshun Special Service Squadron, the second place, lagging by a full 8 minutes.

The people from Second Squadron were proudly saying just now: if that f*cking Fang Huai were here, they might have been even a few minutes faster!

Previously, Fang Huai had won the Corps Martial Arts Competition as a mere Soldier. Even if people heard of it, they were only shocked for half an hour at most. Most people’s lives revolved around their own Squadrons, and many might never participate in a Corps-level Martial Arts Competition before they were discharged. Not everyone cared about these things.

But today, hearing about it was one thing, meeting him was another, and experiencing it was still another matter.

Privilege, extremely fierce, infamous.

It was hard to imagine that a Corps-level exercise would include such a daunting subject.

Through the recent chat, everyone clearly felt that within their Corps, there was a group of people living in a different lifestyle pattern.

They were studying and training every day, never resting on past laurels, striving to become the first sharp knife in emergency disaster response and even command.

That was the true fervor of military service.

"Comrades!"

When Zhang Zhongting started speaking on the stage, everyone stood at attention uniformly, their attention snapped back to the stage. No one was taking photos, and there were no speech scripts; their gazes were fixedly staring down from the stage.

This wasn’t a meeting, but a pre-battle mobilization. Reading from a script was fake posturing.

"Battle has summoned you here from a hundred, or even two hundred kilometers away! The journey was perilous, but congratulations to all of you for arriving here on time. You have worked hard!"

"For the people and for service!" the crowd shouted in unison below the stage.

"However, getting here is just the beginning of the battle!

I don’t want to say an exercise is real combat, but it’s been just over a month since the 512 earthquake. As a neighboring region to the epicenter, our Guizhou area is very likely to experience secondary disasters, so this is a real war!

Every decision you make, every action you take, could become reality.

Therefore, in this disaster rehearsal, we need to erect the sense of urgency and maintain seriousness as if it were a true battle. We must achieve real results in this exercise!

We are the people’s troops, soldiers of the people; first, we cannot retreat, and second, we must demonstrate our Firefighting force’s expertise, live up to our training, and the people’s cultivation!

Comrades, the disaster is not about to come; rather, it has already arrived! Today, we fight against the ruthless natural disasters! To safeguard the true colors and honor of a soldier! Unite as one, resist earthquakes, and provide relief!"

Zhang Zhongting’s voice echoed powerfully throughout the factory area.

Below, blood boiled.

"Unite as one! Resist earthquakes and provide relief!"

Zhang Zhongting shouted again, "I declare, the disaster rehearsal begins! Each Detachment takes off and issues its own combat orders!"

The loudspeakers in the area suddenly blared the air raid siren, and a sense of tension and solemnity instantly surged.

Everyone stood straighter.

"Attention! Turn right!"

"Double-time march!"

Thundering footsteps.

Pre-battle mobilization varied by rank.

When a platoon leader speaks: it’s so annoying, it’s not the first time taking part in a task.

When a squadron leader speaks: Is this matter so serious? Is it dangerous?

When a team captain speaks: Damn, even the team captain has come to personally mobilize us; we’d better be alert!

When a Regimental commander or Political Commissar speaks: Everything we do, the state and the people will remember us! Go for it!

When the Corps Captain or Political Commissar speaks: If I am going to die, don’t stop me!

It wouldn’t be surprising if they could quickly mobilize an advance assault team of a hundred or more, even if this were a real situation.

However, as they turned around, they began to calm down.

Because behind the long line of tables next to the factory area, twenty Cadres wearing "Observer and Scorer" vests had taken their positions. These observers were all Lieutenant Colonels or Colonels and were the main officers of their respective Teams.

To ensure the sincerity of the observers, not even a stool was provided, just paper and pens. They had to stand and watch, and during the rescue operation, they were also required to write a summary of the action in the area they were observing.

Social psychology tells us, to make people cautious in their words and deeds, all you need is a notebook and a pen.

When people realize that all their actions and even their words could potentially be recorded, they’ll think over everything three times before speaking or acting.

Not to mention, those observers might be their own regimental commanders or instructors.

This approach not only tests the squadron’s real combat capabilities but also the assessment and summarization abilities of the big teams and the command abilities of the regiments.

Regimental assessment, regimental command—it sounds a bit magical, as if the ranks were inverted, but in reality, in situations that require the leadership of the big teams, the full attendance command of the regiments usually shows up as well, and the actual command is carried out by the regiments, with the big teams providing planning and strategizing.

At the level of the big teams, during actual rescues, they mostly perform the function of a staff officer.

Commanders of squadrons from the various regiments were gathered together, setting up blackboards on an open space to refine the tasks for their respective rescue areas.

The Guiyang Regiment was responsible for the entire three-story factory building, while the Anshun Brigade and the Southwest Guizhou Detachment were each assigned two rows of buildings.

The entire rescue area was vast and scattered with underground spaces that required breaching -- that’s where the trapped individuals were.

Of course, there were safe passages to go down into these underground spaces, but for the exercise, the entrances to these passages were barricaded with warning cones, and the stairs were off-limits as well.

The process of setting up rescue locations is quite specialized—you can’t just randomly scatter people around buildings, and Fang Huai witnessed the entire process firsthand.

Fire engineers from several regiments specifically designed rescue points based on various breaching angles and firefighting maneuvers, such as upward support breaching rescue (interlayer rescue), vertical safe lateral breaching rescue (structural damage to ground and underground buildings), and high-altitude breaching rescue (coordination between ropes and breaching)—professionally intricate to the point where even Fang Huai had no say in the matter.

Of course, Fang Huai had his own clever ideas—although he couldn’t change the locations, he added many designs to increase the difficulty.

The traps he had people specially monitor from within.

The regimental leaders watched him work inside for a whole day and had vaguely heard something, naturally reminding their subordinates to watch out for traps.

Three groups made plans in one go.

This time, Fang Huai stood beside the factory building to watch, feeling that it was truly a learning opportunity, and he was also silently summarizing everyone’s actions in his mind using his memory.

It wasn’t until the fire trucks arrived outside the factory area that the exercise officially began.

The first step, the behaviors of all three regiments were uniform.

Setting up tents, the logistic support from the Training Base unfolded in sync, swiftly assembling various simple cooking setups.

The vast open space was divided into four rectangles by the tent areas of the three regiments and the logistic support area, with tents at each corner neatly lined up in rows and columns, forming straight lines, looking very orderly.

Fang Huai smiled.

Just a face-saving project.

However, a tidy and unified camp could also inspire people. Back in the earthquake area, the green tent area of the military was the first place people would run to during aftershocks, knowing that, seeing the military’s encampment well-arranged, the People’s Liberation Army was not in disarray.

Just being orderly was sufficient.

However, at the second step, before even entering the interior, someone fell into a pit while clearing the external rubble.

A real pit.

The roaming referee called out loud:

"Comrade! You’ve touched exposed electrical wires!"

The soldier looked baffled as he pulled on the wire, revealing the other end of the electrical cable.

"Is this not just a cut wire?"

"The other end of the cut wire is buried in the rubble; how do you know it’s not live? You dare to touch it without testing? You could be electrocuted, go to the Medical Team!"

"Damn... Brother, I’m wearing combat gear, I just ran 12 kilometers here!"

"Well, then you’re even weaker now, you might go into shock, wait for your comrades to carry you."

"..."

"Comrade! This is a prone-to-collapse area! You’ve fallen into a pit!"

"I’m still standing on the ground, aren’t I?"

"Where do you think all this ground debris and broken bricks come from? Lie down here and wait for your teammates to rescue you!"

"..."

"Comrade, you’re excavating the rubble, the broken bricks, and tossing them around haphazardly? You planning to move them again later? Guiyang Regiment, one-point deduction!"

"... Jiang Peng! Bring the wheelbarrow over!"

"Boom..."

"Comrade, that piece of wood you just carelessly pulled out caused the rubble to collapse again, killing the trapped people underneath. Southwest Guizhou Detachment, five points deducted!"

"Big brother, was it not you that kicked it down?"

"No, it collapsed because you pulled it out—according to the design, pulling out that piece of wood would cause a collapse. I saw that it didn’t collapse and might have been accidentally propped up by something, so I gave it a kick to help."

"F*ck..."

Just on the perimeter, the various regiments were already failing.

"Damn it, who designed this f*cking site? ¥@#*%..."

Swearing filled the entire field, with most curses directed at Zhang Mei.

Some regimental leaders looked on, dumbfounded.

This... this...

Has there ever been such a terrible earthquake point? Aren’t there too many man-made factors? It’s like a hunter’s array of traps!

Fang Huai twisted his mouth.

Can’t handle this already?

He lifted his hand to check the time; it was about right. He picked up the two-way radio and said, "Those on Back Mountain, light it up."

Seconds later, a loud boom erupted from the hillside behind the factory building, igniting a fierce line of fire some 60 meters long.