Chapter 75: The Scent of Oil Blows In from the Seaside

"Whoa, Xiao Liu's skills aren't bad at all."

On the ground, the trio of them were all craning their necks to watch Liu Kan's performance.

After the initial burst of excitement wore off, Liu Kan also grew afraid that something might go wrong with this old crate, and began slowly feeling out the airframe's condition and familiarizing himself with the controls.

Fortunately, although all the instruments were of vintage style, they worked perfectly normally, and with his experience he couldn't pinpoint any problems either.

Before takeoff he had topped up the fuel tank with one-third gasoline, and it flew just fine.

During WWII the better-quality aviation gasoline was what later became 95-octane; the slightly worse 88- or 90-octane could also be used normally, and even the next step down, 80-octane, would work — it wasn't picky at all.

Liu Kan climbed to a high altitude, cruised around a few times, then turned and dove straight down, descending toward the sea surface to about two hundred meters before pulling up, finally roaring over the shipyard at roughly one hundred meters altitude.

This was something Tang Wen had only ever seen at an airshow before his transmigration, but having an F4F fly directly overhead was an experience he'd never had, and watching it he couldn't help getting excited too.

The commotion from a single Wildcat was already considerable, and got the whole village, young and old, to come out and watch the airplane.

What would it look like if several dozen aircraft all launched at once, forming a large formation pass?

Liu Kan didn't linger at low altitude for long, and soon returned to high altitude to run various maneuver tests, his nerve growing bolder and bolder.

Just after he had thoroughly completed another barrel roll, the radio in the cockpit suddenly crackled to life:

"Small aircraft in the Dawan airspace, small aircraft in the Dawan airspace, this is Pingtan air traffic control, please report your registration number and route."

After the Chinese call, there came another round in English.

This old antique radio still works?

After his first reaction, Liu Kan came to his senses as if waking from a dream.

He'd forgotten this wasn't a flight school — no license, no registration, it's an illegal flight.

In this era, honestly, the country's domestic airspace detection network was very underdeveloped, and radar stations' radars were also very poor; generally speaking, as long as you didn't intrude into restricted airspace, you basically wouldn't be spotted.

Five years from now, an EP-3 would make an emergency landing at Lingshui airfield in Qiongzhou.

An ordinary large electronic warfare aircraft, with a radar cross-section the same as an airliner, had forcibly entered the air defense zone for over seventy kilometers without any identification, and landed safely.

Although air defense detection is a worldwide challenge, and every country has had similar incidents where a non-friendly aircraft wasn't discovered until it actually landed, it still exposed enormous hidden dangers.

And the reason Liu Kan was noticed was entirely because Pingtan airfield was only a few dozen kilometers away, and aircraft were scarce these days, so it didn't take long before a low-speed target was picked up.

Judging from the track it didn't look like a scheduled flight, nor like an aircraft in distress, so air traffic control decisively made an inquiry and began checking what aircraft might have passed through recently.

Liu Kan knew perfectly well he was flying illegally, but he didn't dare not answer, and steeling himself picked up the microphone:

"Tower, this is the Dawan Village tourist resort sightseeing aircraft, I am conducting a test flight, callsign… Wildcat 01, over."

"……"

The controller at Pingtan Tower carefully looked at the coordinates on radar, as well as Liu Kan's flight track, but couldn't recall any airspace being allocated to a tourist area.

"Wildcat 01, you have intruded into controlled flight altitude and are affecting the flight path for takeoffs and landings, please descend immediately, over."

"Wildcat 01, roger."

After the call ended, Liu Kan didn't dare linger in the air any longer, and quickly descended to circle around, looking for an opportunity to land.

……

"Everyone stand back, don't interfere with the landing!"

Chen Yonggui cleared the surrounding crowd, then watched the F4F approach from the seaside and touch down successfully on the first try.

As soon as the plane stopped, several rings of villagers immediately crowded around, and Tang Wen had quite a struggle squeezing his way in.

Before he could even praise Liu Kan's flying skills, he saw the latter ask impatiently:

"Has the Civil Aviation Administration issued you guys the sightseeing aircraft qualification certificate?"

"It's being applied for, why?"

Tang Wen wasn't alarmed — this matter had already been put on the agenda long ago, and according to Old Yang it wouldn't be difficult.

Right now all the regulations were still incomplete, including those for operating tourist sightseeing aircraft; in practice there was no clear set of rules to enforce.

But does that mean there are no sightseeing aircraft projects in the country right now? Of course there are, and they're all legitimate.

Operating these projects only requires local government support, then communicating and filing with the relevant nearby aviation units, and then just doing it.

Simply put, every project's operation falls under special-case handling — both difficult and simple.

Difficult for ordinary individuals: without clear regulations and channels it's almost impossible to pull off, but if you have local support, the paperwork can be very simple.

The Dawan Village aircraft project was the latter — it had basically been pushed through already, and once the higher-ups nodded at the end, it was done.

Hearing the answer, Liu Kan finally breathed a sigh of relief, then went on to tell about his encounter with air traffic control.

Who would have thought Yang Tai just waved a hand and said dismissively:

"Small matter, at most they'll ask a few questions, I'll take care of it.

Xiao Liu's skills are pretty good, I think we can fence off this patch of ground as a temporary runway for now, and tomorrow you must put on a good showing."

"And Boss Tang, how's Dawan Port looking? Sweep off the dust and let the leaders go in and have a look."

"Of course no problem, the biggest hotel is already open for normal business, just right for hosting."

"Excellent!"

Yang Tai waved his hand excitedly — Dawan Port had almost faithfully recreated the harbor from the movie, along with all those entertainment buildings, something you wouldn't see even in all of Echeng.

Dawan plus the sightseeing aircraft — two projects — how could they worry about not getting strong support from the city?

"Right, your hotel probably doesn't have supplies yet, right? Don't worry about spending money, go into the city right now and buy some ingredients, and also try to fix up a few rooms that are presentable — we need to show our determination."

Tang Wen: "No, supplies are plenty, and why don't you just stay there tonight and give us some pointers? Brother Liu has nowhere to stay either, right?"

Yang Tai: "I don't mind either way, but it would indeed be more convenient for Xiao Liu to stay on your side."

Liu Kan nodded — he had just seen the Dawan Port hotel from the air, and it really was quite big.

Still, what kind of conditions could a rural place have? Inside, having half of what a guesthouse offers would be about right.

For the sake of the F4F, it didn't matter if the food and lodging were a bit rough.

……

"Holy crap, how is this cake so damn good?"

Liu Kan forked up a piece of tiramisu, and the moment it entered his mouth it slid right down.

His table was already piled high with plates and scraps, but he still picked up a crab leg as thick as a forearm, snapped it open, dipped it in wasabi, and stuffed it into his mouth.

He had spent so long at the aviation school and had mooched plenty of meals at the aircrew mess hall, which was touted as serving the best food in the entire military—its standard was something half the hotels couldn't match.

But in the restaurant of the Bay Hotel, he was still stunned speechless by the dazzling array of food he couldn't take it all in, and as he ate, tears of gratitude streamed down his face.

"Luxurious, way too luxurious."

Yang Tai pointed at the sliced sashimi and said:

"This quality, if you sold it in the city it'd fetch who knows how much — feeding it to us is such a waste, how much are we losing out on?"

He looked at the spacious restaurant, which still had plenty of shipyard workers seated inside.

Having sweet-talked Chen Yonggui, Tang Wen had completely taken over the Bay Hotel, setting aside an entire floor for the shipyard's use as its canteen and dormitory.

In addition, he provided free breakfast to the construction crews and the villagers who helped out, with pastries and noodles rotated and delivered to the worksite, earning himself plenty of reputation.

But compared to Yang Tai and Liu Kan, Chen Yonggui had long since become unflappable, calmly and methodically focusing on his steak.

Tang Wen's mind, however, wasn't on eating — instead he kept glancing at the timer in his head.

【Build Task:

Qiaoli: 26 days 21 hours / 27 days】

……

While everyone was fast asleep, under the incandescent lamps the mast of the Qiaoli was slowly extending upward, bit by bit.

Tang Wen, Tang Yi, Kimura Susumu, and Halsey stood on the slipway, quietly waiting for the countdown to end.

Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen……

When the countdown hit zero, the last little gap at the top of the mast rounded itself out, and Tang Wen's field of vision instantly changed.

【New Ship: Qiaoli (R-line Tier I Cruiser): 5150/5150】

【Novice task completed. You have obtained:

Super Supply Crate ×3, 3,000,000 Silver, 1,000 Gold, 5,000 EXP】

【Congratulations! Through forty-nine days of hard struggle, you have successfully built your first warship, and will now enter the official version.

All functions of World of Warships have been unlocked. The following functions are now available:

- Daily Crates: Spend 100, 500, and 1,000 EXP respectively to open 3 supply crates per day;

- Daily Sign-in: Check in online on a 30-day cycle; on the final day receive a Super Supply Crate;

- Daily Missions: Complete daily missions to receive varying degrees of rewards;

- Full-Realism Mode: Traditional combat lacks immersion? Summon simulated crew, simulate historical warship operations — experience real combat for only a small amount of silver!

- R&D Bureau (1960): Spend EXP to access pre-1960 technology, allowing more flexible adjustment of your ship designs:

- Arms Magnate: Sell as many warships as possible; every external order receives a 50% subsidy on the order value: use your naval guns and aerial bombs to win more orders for the shipyard!】

【Upgrade to LV2 Shipyard: 1,000,000 Silver】

After Tang Wen absorbed the long string of information, he sighed that the designers had finally done something decent.

The reward of 3 million silver and 1,000 gold was about the same as in the game — a hefty windfall; even after spending 1 million on the shipyard, there was still more than half left.

As for the other new functions, aside from Daily Crates and Sign-in which were self-explanatory at a glance, the rest were all quite interesting.

First was Daily Missions — the new module already had red text:

【Daily Missions:

- Random Combat: Open fire immediately on any target of interest; receive varying rewards based on the combat result;

- Invincible Fleet: Build a basic fleet in the ratio of 1 battleship, 1 aircraft carrier, 2 cruisers, and 4 destroyers (all Tier V or above); combine multiple basic fleets to form your powerful decisive battle fleet.

- Naval Base: Occupy an island or reef and build a port; station 1 or more fleets, and the base will produce steady oil and coal resources — 1 square kilometer = 5,000 tons of oil (per day);

For every additional fleet within 20 nautical miles of the base, fishery resources +100%】

Random combat goes without saying — Naval Base and Invincible Fleet are quite interesting.

A Naval Base can produce oil and coal?!

Not to mention anything else, just the oil alone is enough to make one's eyes red — a 1-square-kilometer base yields 5,000 tons of oil, roughly 36,500 barrels of crude; at the current international price of $9, how much is that?

If there's a 20-square-kilometer naval base, you can get 2.72 million yuan in oil per day, and an annual income of 2 billion yuan.

A 10-square-kilometer island base can produce 18.25 million tons a year — equivalent to a major oil field.

Two, three of them? Wouldn't that be tens of millions of tons of oil a year — a newborn oil giant?

This year the entire country's domestic production plus imports of crude oil together only came to 180 million tons.

With fleets, comes oil!

As for the fishery resources mentioned afterward, he ignored them — can fishing make as much money as oil?

By the shipyard's estimate, putting together 1 basic fleet might cost 10 to 20 million silver, and annual operating costs would also run into the hundreds of thousands of silver.

But as long as oil comes out, as long as the base is big enough, one year's income can recoup both principal and profit.

Right now he already had a cruiser and an aircraft carrier; add a battleship and a few destroyers and he could form a basic fleet.

As for occupying islands and building bases……

Although he had no leads yet, Tang Wen believed that as long as he could guarantee oil output, the Navy might be willing to give him Qiongzhou Island.

Oil — that black liquid gold. On those 9.6 million square kilometers of land, nothing is lacking — except oil, which really isn't enough.

By thirty years from now, annual oil consumption will exceed 600 million tons, of which over 80% will be imported.

Tang Wen seemed to hear a bald eagle screeching in his ears — the next second he'd be stealing… no, digging oil for the motherland.

But after he accepted the mission, a world map immediately appeared in his mind.

All the islands and reefs on the map were distinguished by different colors:

Red marks areas already occupied with clear claims, requiring combat to take them, and they are the most numerous;

Yellow marks disputed areas, neither long-held nor clearly claimed, and there are quite a few in the South Sea;

White marks unowned land, available for immediate occupation, but they are basically all concentrated near the North and South Poles.

Red needs no explanation — at a glance Hawaii is red, which is a bit of a problem.

Yellow markers are probably reefs, where only a few large rocks poke above the surface, making long-term stationing impossible, and ownership is fought back and forth — just reclaim land from the sea to build an island and hold it.

Tang Wen deliberately looked at Treasure Island and Qiongzhou, only to regret that these two regions were not considered islands.

Including some small islands very close to the coast, they too were considered part of the mainland.

Meanwhile, Dongsha below Echeng fell under the yellow markers — though a large island, its claims were unclear.

Tang Wen silently noted down several yellow markers in his mind, listing the base plan as a possible key focus for later.

The arms tycoon mission was also extremely attractive — selling warships abroad earned a 50% subsidy, and note, it's a subsidy on the order amount, not the construction cost!

The dog system has its eye on the country's urgent demand for ships, can't wait to seize the market?

Aircraft carriers and the like can still be of some use to the navy, but what use are old cruisers and destroyers?

Setting aside how to sell old tubs to the navy, he then tried out the newly added full-simulation function, selecting the target as Qiaoli:

【Summon 80 crew, cost 400 silver coins (per day)】

As the silver coins were deducted, crew members suddenly appeared aboard the Qiaoli in the dock, all wearing the corresponding R-series naval uniforms, taking their respective positions.

They had no real practical meaning, they just made the ship's operation feel more realistic — for Tang Wen, this was good news.

Five silver coins a day was nothing, hiring them was completely effortless.

However, he only tested it briefly before dismissing all the crew, then said to Tang Yi:

"Old Tang, we're going to get rich!"

Tang Yi: "……"

Tang Wen: "Do you feel the wind blowing from the distant sea? I smell silver coins and oil."