Chapter 4: Republic of China: Starting from the First Class of Whampoa Chapter 4 Map Survey Exercise

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

Nothing happened all night

At five-thirty in the morning, the wake-up whistle sounded, and Lv Muzhi also jumped up from bed.

After the duty officer took roll call, on the pretext that the exercise was about to begin, he canceled today's morning exercise and took everyone straight to early breakfast.

Breakfast was too early; the cafeteria brought up the freshly cooked porridge directly, with a ten-minute time limit to finish it—what a taste, tsk tsk.

"Eat faster, General Commander He Yingqin is already waiting for us at the wharf!" the duty officer urged while sipping steaming hot porridge.

Lv Muzhi's mouth was scalded, and making noise while eating at Whampoa was a major taboo, but fortunately, the students exercising this morning had breakfast early, no instructors came, and everyone was more relaxed.

Chen Geng was quite happy; after standing sentry for four hours last night with panda eyes, he was still beaming: "Muzi, this porridge, you've got to slurp it!"

Saying this, Chen Geng rotated his porridge bowl, puckered his lips, and began slurping it down.

Lv Muzhi tried it, and indeed it wasn't too hot anymore.

Song Xilian noticed Chen Geng was in a good mood and asked, "Brother Chen, what's going on? Your eyes are both blackened, yet you're so happy?"

Chen Geng's eyebrows danced with color as he recounted last night's amusing story:

It turned out that last night Chen Geng and Guan Linzhen from the next dormitory were standing sentry at Longzhou Battery when Guan Linzhen, relying on his tall and large stature and solid military quality, mocked Chen Geng for being small and short.

Chen Geng didn't argue back, pretending not to hear.

When the patrolling instructor came to check the sentries, Chen Geng glanced sideways and saw it was Weaponry Instructor Qian Dajun, and immediately took it to heart.

Chen Geng made a noise to attract Guan Linzhen's attention, then immediately made a ghost face at him.

Although Guan Linzhen was arrogant and usually cold-faced, he was after all a nineteen-year-old boy, and Chen Geng made him laugh out loud at once.

Guan Linzhen laughed so hard his body shook, soon attracting Weaponry Instructor Qian Dajun's attention.

Qian Dajun's temper was famously explosive; seeing Guan Linzhen laughing unseemly, he went up and directly slapped him left and right, giving him two big slaps: "This is a key battery area, and you dare behave so lawlessly? What if the warlords defect? Learn from Chen Geng!"

As for Chen Geng, he stood sentry with a face of serious solemnity, truly a model sentry.

After Chen Geng finished speaking, he was almost laughing to tears: "After all, I'm two years older than him Guan Linzhen; have I been eating my meals for nothing these past two years..."

Turning to look at Guan Linzhen's table, sure enough, he not only had panda eyes now, but both cheeks were red and swollen.

Lv Muzhi secretly laughed in his heart: Unexpectedly, Marshal Chen is actually such a person; Li Yunlong's personality must have been influenced quite a bit by the Brigade Commander.

Jiang Xiangyun gestured for Chen Geng to restrain himself, after all Guan Linzhen's table was not simple, its core being another Qingtian Party student leader He Zhonghan.

Within Whampoa Military Academy, those who could be called student leaders were Jiang Xiangyun and He Zhonghan, each with a group of followers.

Naturally gathered around Jiang Xiangyun were Chen Geng, Li Zhilong... and other Workers and Peasants Party members.

Gathered around He Zhonghan were Hu Zongnan, Sun Yuanlang, Guan Linzhen... and other Qingtian Party members.

Jiang Xiangyun's academic performance was excellent, his penmanship was superb; while He Zhonghan's oratory skills were very strong, extremely inflammatory, and the two sides often fiercely debated the Grand Marshal's Three Major Policies.

Chen Geng's actions might draw the debate into physical conflict.

After breakfast, the students arranged to participate in today's map survey exercise lined up and assembled outside the Whampoa Military Academy gate; not far from the gate was Whampoa Dock, a dock of considerable size, even able to accommodate warships.

General Commander He Yingqin glanced at his field telephone; it was five minutes earlier than expected, and he was very satisfied with these students of his.

He Yingqin naturally knew the school lacked a terrain instructor, so he specially arranged such a map survey exercise to strengthen the students' mastery of surveying and mapping techniques.

A total of one hundred students were drafted to participate in this map survey exercise; students from the whole school took turns, striving to go through all the skills they had learned.

The students traveled by small boat, passing Yuzhu, sailing upstream from east to west along the Pearl River, and arrived at Liede Battery two hours later.

Liede Battery was located in the eastern suburbs of Guangzhou City, near the north bank of the Pearl River, a military legacy left by the Qing Court, equipped with more than thirty shore defense cannons, part of the Pearl River river defense, but it had not been activated for many years.

The Liede area, extending north all the way to Shougou Ridge, was all suburbs, located east of Guangzhou City proper, where Whampoa students often conducted exercises.

He Yingqin directed the students to unload surveying equipment from the boat and issued each student a rifle with live ammunition.

"This map survey exercise lasts two days; it's not just map surveying. We will first conduct wild camp training at Liedu Village, set up shelters on the spot and rush to make lunch, then officially begin the map survey exercise."

After He Yingqin finished speaking, he announced the rules of the map survey exercise: "Assume Liede Battery is our army's Imperial General Headquarters, with a known elevation of 5 meters;

The enemy is currently entrenched in the Shougou Ridge area five kilometers to the north. Please carry your equipment to measure the elevation of Shougou Ridge, and draw the terrain and features of Shougou Ridge and its surroundings, marking the position of the enemy command post on the map to facilitate subsequent combat deployment."

Subsequently, He Yingqin directly began grouping, dividing the one hundred students into four groups.

The grouping was also particular; He Yingqin played a trick, placing those centered on He Zhonghan into the First Group, and those centered on Jiang Xiangyun into the Second Group, while the other two groups were randomly assigned as the Third Group and Fourth Group.

He Yingqin, as a Qingtian Party member, was still partial to He Zhonghan, directly assigning Fan Hanjie, who was responsible for teaching topography, to the First Group.

And Lv Muzhi, Song Xilian, and other Qingtian Party members were stuffed into the Second Group; after all, obvious party faction confrontation could not be formed, and each group was mixed with Qingtian Party members and Workers and Peasants Party members.

"Don't pay too much attention to the exercise rankings; the most important thing is to master map surveying skills. Fan Hanjie, the Deputy Topography Instructor, will be responsible for teaching everyone."

On the surface it looked very fair, but the exercise still had rankings; who in the school didn't know about the conflict between Jiang Xiangyun and He Zhonghan?

General Commander He Yingqin was meticulous; Fan Hanjie, serving as Topography Instructor, could have been placed in the Third or Fourth Group, so how could he be placed in the First Group?

He Zhonghan, as the Group Leader of the First Group, had the home-field advantage and could completely have Fan Hanjie teach him first.

Lv Muzhi speculated on the complex relationships within: the two parties' students at Whampoa Military Academy were outwardly harmonious but inwardly estranged; He Yingqin hoped He Zhonghan would suppress Jiang Xiangyun in this exercise, otherwise after graduation, the school's first place would be taken by a Workers and Peasants Party student.

The students began to set up camp on the spot by group.

The four groups each made fires on the spot and set up concealed shelters.

Jiang Xiangyun arranged everything in an orderly manner; Lv Muzhi was assigned to fetch water by the Pearl River to prepare lunch.

Once he started fetching, Lv Muzhi found that the original owner's physical quality was still quite good; carrying over a hundred jin was easy, and upon reaching the camp he was neither dizzy nor out of breath.

He took down the rifle from his shoulder, raised the gun, aimed—all in one fluid motion.

Mm~It seems this body was originally quite formidable!

Lv Muzhi looked at the calluses on his hands and touched his shoulder, which had no adverse reactions at all; he was in a good mood—it seemed the original owner hadn't slacked in training. Although his comprehensive training results were average, they were sufficient.

"What are you doing, Muzi? Hurry up and bring the water over—it's time to boil water for camping!"

He Yingqin observed the progress of all four groups back and forth, discovering that the First Group and Second Group moved fastest, quickly starting a fire on the spot and cooking a pot of congee; it looked like nothing special, but on a wild battlefield, a fire and a hot meal could greatly improve the troops' capacity to survive.

After the students ate the lunch they cooked themselves, He Yingqin gave each group a score, then distributed dry rations and surveying equipment.

Jiang Xiangyun took out the surveying equipment one by one to inspect them: theodolite, leveling instrument, leveling rod, compass, binoculars, triangle ruler, paper and pen—everything was complete.

Most of the students were completely baffled, but only Fan Hanjie of the First Group began organizing the instruments, preparing to survey.

Seeing this, He Yingqin kindly reminded them: "Fellow students, I have driven a steel nail into the ground beneath my feet; taking this nail point as the benchmark point, assuming an elevation of five meters, starting from the point beneath my feet and continuing to survey data all the way north, calculating the elevations of various places along the route, one can calculate all the way to Shougou Ridge; hand in the completed terrain map tomorrow afternoon."