Chapter 45 Broad Gauge

The flames of public opinion warfare have indeed begun to ignite. The big newspapers and tabloids were all commenting on the Vanguard Army's northwestern march. The streets and alleys are also bustling with discussions about this operation. At this time, Meng Xiang, Tang Yaoshi and others were sitting in the meeting room of the headquarters, discussing the comments of the media everywhere.

"The Japanese are still on the side, why be in a hurry? This one is sharp! I don't know if it's the pen of the pen. Meng Xiang pointed to the headline in the Central Daily and exclaimed.

"This pen name, I know who it is, Chen Bui used it for a while." He Siyuan said with a smile.

"Chen Bui?" Meng Xiang is more familiar with this name, this is the courage of Lao Jiang's side, known as the first pen of the Central Party, but the ending is a little bleak. Not only did he die himself, but his own family was also a little miserable later.

Chen Yanji's pen name is generally used like a rafter, and other pen names are rarely used. This time, I'm afraid he is also embarrassed to show his real name. It's good that the Japanese are still on the side, but the three-year-old child knows who fights the devil more in the vanguard army and the central army. He Siyuan said with a smile.

"It's useless to write splendidly, fight devils, our vanguard has never been left behind. Not afraid of other people's remarks at all. Next to him, Li Shuchun said disdainfully.

"You can't let others say it, if you repeat the lie too much, some people will believe it." Zhou Bai shook his head and said.

"We're not talking too loudly!" Meng Xiang patted the stack of newspapers next to him and smiled.

There is no deeper understanding of the power of the media than Meng Xiang. When the media all emphasize the same, God can also be said to be a servant, exploitation can also be said to be giving, black and white can be reversed in an instant, and the heavens and the earth can be overshadowed. Therefore, the propaganda work of the vanguard army has always been the focus, and there has never been the slightest relaxation.

In the beginning, because of the small number of newspapers under its control, the vanguard mainly used radio. But it was the Pioneer Army's activities to promote radio that made the sound of the Pioneer Radio often waft through the streets. The live broadcast of Pioneer Radio has mobilized the enthusiasm of the people. The accuracy and timeliness of the news have made Pioneer Radio a major media trusted by the Chinese people. Meng Xiang's many rich programs based on later generations have also made people who are not concerned about national affairs like to listen to Pioneer Radio.

At this time, Pioneer Radio already had three channels broadcast together. And the long-wave radio station set up by the vanguard army can also cover the whole country, which is incomparable to others.

In many cases, you can't make too much money by engaging in media, and in order to attract others, you can't broadcast too many advertisements and the like. Therefore, the media needs money to support it, and the vanguard army is also strong in this regard, and it is more willing than the investment of the central government. Of course, this also has something to do with the fact that the media in this era are free and open, and most of them are privately owned, otherwise Lao Jiang would not be so passive in this.

In a short period of one year, the vanguard army has taken control of more than 600 newspapers and periodicals, large and small, ranging from popular newspapers throughout the country to local newspapers and periodicals in counties and cities. With the support of many enthusiastic young people and many craftsmen who defected to the vanguard army in the iron-blooded war of resistance, coupled with the support of abundant funds, in a short period of time, the words of the vanguard army were enough for the people of the country to hear.

This time, Lao Jiang and the vanguard army fought a war of public opinion, and the vanguard army avoided mentioning the matter of the occupation, only mentioning the vanguard army's achievements in fighting devils, the benefits of subsistence allowance to the people, the happiness of the people in the joint theater, the poverty of the people in the northwest, the helplessness of the war, the brutality of the three horse army, and some inaction of the central army to protect the Han people.

Under the large-scale publicity, the people will also see its doorway. The Pioneer Army also mentioned the imagination and blueprint of the policy planning for the northwest region, which led many independent media to turn to support the Pioneer Army.

In contrast, the words of the Central Army attacking the vanguard army are a little pale.

"You look at one, 'Attack a friend!' Those who instigated the civil war' are too levelless, dry, and will only use this to buckle their hats! What civil war? Didn't Lao Chiang's troops often have some minor frictions with the Red Party? How did we end up in a civil war? Meng Xiang lit another newspaper and said with a smile.

"People are fighting for the territory of one or two county seats, but we have captured one or two provinces this time." Zhou Bai smiled, but his brows were also furrowed. Although there are some special products in the northwest, they are much worse than the next step of subsistence allowance, education and other aspects of investment.

"We don't want to occupy one or two provinces, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, we want all four provinces, and Shaanxi, we also want to intervene in a part." Meng Xiang proudly pointed out his prey little by little.

"Those remote provinces, the central government may not care too much, but if Shaanxi is also occupied by us, I'm afraid that someone will be in a hurry." Although Pharmacist Tang had always wondered how Meng Xiang could only occupy a part of Shaanxi, he still reminded with a smile. Although Shaanxi is no longer the peerless of Jingzhao, it is still an important place in the country. For Yang, who holds a small amount of territory, it must not be tolerated.

"Shaanxi is restless, and the northwest is not quiet. Shaanxi must be taken. Meng Xiang said without hesitation, now that the flames of World War II have been ignited, where is there so much time to ink in the country, according to the strength of the vanguard army at this time, he still doesn't believe that Lao Jiang really dares to turn his face with him.

"Maybe there will be a civil war. Even if we don't fight, others will use us as an excuse to start infighting. He Siyuan said worriedly. Although there was some small friction under the various troops before, under the pressure of the Japanese, they all obeyed the old Chiang government on the surface. Lao Chiang's regime was also recognized by everyone. However, at this time, the vanguard army's actions in the northwest were a bit bigger, and it was indeed suspected of challenging the authority of the central government.

The Japanese have now shrunk their heads and stopped attacking, which makes the few remaining territories all the more important. Some warlords who have lost their territory need to raise soldiers and get money, and the consumption of the previous anti-Japanese war has also emptied everyone's pockets a lot. They did not have the ability of the vanguard army to annihilate 100,000 devils in a war, and if they could not take it from the Japanese, they would cut the remaining cake.

The vanguard army could not afford to offend, and before they could take away other people's territory, their own soldiers were taken away by others first. As a result, they can only snatch resources in the limited place in the national control area, and secretly intrigue with each other. But at this time, since the vanguard army has lifted the lid, others have also prevaricated.

"I'm afraid it's going to be messy again in the future!" He Siyuan finally sighed.

"Chaos? Whoever wants to mess up, I'll hit whom! Meng Xiang said domineeringly. A civil war requires certain conditions to be fought, and if one side is too strong, it can only end up being a riot. With the strength of the vanguard army at this time, as long as it is not the central army and the vanguard army that directly fall out, other turbulence can be suppressed as soon as they turn over.

"With no territory, no soldiers, and no money, they can't fight a civil war if they want to, so they can only fight in the trapped rat room." Meng Xiang said disapprovingly.

"We have territory and soldiers, but we also have no money." Zhou Bai said bitterly beside him. Before entering the northwest this time, the plan for economic and social exhibitions had already been sorted out. However, the most important thing is to ensure the national defense and security of the northwest, and no matter which one is the case, it is necessary to strengthen exchanges and communication between the northwest and the six coastal areas in the interior. The most direct manifestation of this is the construction of a railway, after all, in this era of lack of automobiles, the volume of transportation carried by a railway is staggering.

The northwest is remote, and Huaxia has been planning to build a railway in order to better manage it, but it has not been realized until now. The Longhai line only reached Baoji two years ago. The section from Baoji to Tianshui, which is being prepared for construction, has stalled with the explosion of the Anti-Japanese War, the lack of funds and the arduous project. In the past two days, the vanguard army has not only advanced to the west, but also to the east along Lanzhou and Ningxia. On the road from Tianshui to Baoji, traces of railway construction can already be seen.

And the plan of the vanguard army was to build a longer railway. Connect the Longhai line, let it extend all the way to Lanzhou, and then divide into two roads, all the way to Xining, all the way to the end, at least to Dihua. Meng Xiang got a lot of railroad tracks from the Americans, and the first few railways were laid, and the most important one was this one. With the support of the railway, logistics can be guaranteed, and it is possible to stabilize the northwest, and then attack the west and north.

"Just one railroad is going to run out, and we finally have some surplus finances." Zhou Bai was a little unwilling to say, the joint theater has been prosperous recently, and there was a big surplus in the third quarter, but with the progress of the northwest, all the money was filled into the planning and construction of the northwest. This all stems from Meng Xiang's words, "Wherever our vanguard army goes, we must build it, so that the people can truly feel the sincerity of our vanguard army." In order to solve the problem of traffic, Meng Xiang also added a sentence later, "Wherever we go, the road will extend to wherever we go!" ”

Meng Xiang was still a little self-aware, and did not add the word railway. It is important to know that the construction of a railway is much more expensive than the construction of an improvised road. Even if the railroad tracks, labor, technology and other problems are solved, the remaining financial problems alone are a staggering amount.

"When the train rings, there are ten thousand taels of gold. Although the railway investment is large, once it is put into use, a large number of resources in the northwest can be transported out in a steady stream. Meng Xiang said with a smile. Indeed, although the northwest gives people the impression of desolation, it is mainly because of the relative lack of surface water resources, which makes it difficult to utilize, making it sparsely populated. But the resources are not a lot. The Qaidam Basin alone will be known as a cornucopia in later generations.

At this time, Xie Jiarong and others had already gone to Jinchuan to explore the huge copper-nickel ore there, and the vanguard of the vanguard army also took over the Yumen oil field that was still being explored in the Laojunmiao area of Yumen. Because the vanguard army had already taken Sun Jianchu, Yan Shuang, Jin Xigeng and others under their command, the exploration of the Yumen Oilfield was delayed for a period of time, and the oil was originally produced in the month, but now the exploration is not finished. Of course, this is also related to the fact that the vanguard army alleviated the shortage of oil in the Kuomintang through oil exploitation and smuggling and transportation.

Stemming from the planning of the future, the next step is to build a railway from Baotou to Lanzhou, a railway from Sui to Kulen in the future, and even a connection with the Trans-Siberian Railway in the future. But it involves the specification of a rail.

The specifications of the rails have their own exhibition history, which is reflected in the width, and is varied, from 6o mm, all the way to the meter gauge in Malaya, Myanmar, etc., the O67 mm in Japan, and then to the 54 mm in Soviet Russia and Finland, 665 mm in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, and 676 mm in India, Argentina, and Pakistan.

Internationally, for the sake of unification, the imperial system of 7 was formalized as the standard width in 45. Most of the railways in China also use this specification. However, the southwest region was influenced by the French is meter gauge, and Shanxi Zhengtai Railway uses a loan from the French, which is naturally also a meter gauge, and Lao Yan immediately changed all the railways in Shanxi to meter gauge. Taiwan was colonized by Japan and used O67 mm, and the Northeast region was influenced by the Russians at that time, and many of them used 54 mm.

In other places, it is good to say that now Shanxi is in hand and needs to be transformed, and the next step to connect with the Siberian Railway also needs to be adjusted, and Meng Xiang has to take into account the future width of the rails.

To be honest, the 45 mm rail is not very scientific, but most of the most powerful British and Americans use this specification, which also creates the problem of determining the size of the rocket by the horse's ass in later generations.

Especially with the advent of containers, the width of the standard track is also a little inappropriate, the double row can not be placed, and the single row is free. In order to speed up transportation and better provide logistics support, Meng Xiang is planning to introduce the concept of containers, but it is precisely for this reason that there are some delays.

In addition, it was precisely because of the large width of the railroad tracks that many strategic weapons and conventional weapons made by Soviet Russia in later generations were larger than others. Meng Xiang remembered the transportation of rocket spare parts in later generations, and some large parts could not be transported by railway, which made the transportation cost increase a lot. Even the arrangement of the nuclear missile train, the wider Soviet and Russian specifications have a lot of advantages.

Of course, the wider the better, too wide will cause the cost of road construction to increase, especially when crossing mountains and mountains, and the car is also affected.

However, Meng Xiang didn't pay much attention to the problem of the car, the train ran oo kilometers and ran oo kilometers is not much different, the key is that only the golden rooster can play the station ticket independently along the way. If everyone on the train is sleepers, except for a few people who are in a hurry, spending a few more hours will not have much effect. This time can be made up by saving the time of queuing to buy tickets.

There are many people in Huaxia, which means that the passenger flow is huge, and so many world firsts in this area on the railway in later generations have become a game played by Huaxia itself. On the basis of a certain length of the railway and the frequency of the arranged trains cannot exceed the safety range, in order to obtain a larger transportation volume, in addition to adding another railway, the only way to increase the width of the track and the width of the carriage is to increase it.

However, the national standards in later generations have been unified to the standard track, and the cost of changing them all is too high, so we can only follow the horse's ass and standardize other standards. The size of the machine and product can only be planned according to this design, not out of this range. Sometimes many things are the product of compromise, and it will be pushed forward until the cost of tapping potential is greater than innovation, and then there will be a earth-shaking technological revolution.

At this time, there were not many railways in China, although they were close to 10,000 kilometers, but many of them also needed to be unified and adjusted. Moreover, in Mengxiang's future planning, the territory of China will be unprecedentedly broad. More than 100,000 kilometers of railways are slightly insufficient. It's not impossible to set your own standards based on a huge territory. Standards determine the future of the exhibition.

It is for this reason that Meng Xiang has not yet determined the standard of the railway.

"How are the rails sized?" But at this time, the construction of the railway could not be delayed any longer, so Meng Xiang asked about the situation of the tracks.

"The people in the railway team have calculated the plan, and the meter-wide track scheme is feasible." Zhou Bai nodded, "But the specific test data hasn't been sorted out yet." ”

Since the end of last year, a series of tests on the width of the rails has begun. Science cannot tolerate sloppiness, and we must be cautious for the sake of long-term considerations. Meng Xiang didn't urge, but the experiment has been in full swing.

The plan of meter width was proposed by Meng Xiang, after the vanguard army continued to implement the international standard unit, the calculation of integer digits is relatively simple, since Meng Xiang intends to determine his own standard, of course, it is from the foundation to build the whole system little by little. Although this allows Chinese scientists to be thoroughly familiar with the entire system from the basics, it also increases the workload comparatively. The corresponding use of integer digits can reduce a lot of workload, anyway, you need to use the imperial system to unify something, so you don't need to consider the difference between the ten digits of the single digit.

The width of the meter is also the size of the container that Meng Xiang considered in later generations. The approximate size of the car is fixed, and the width of the road is correspondingly fixed, so the size of the container cannot be too exaggerated, so that the width of the train car can be met with meters of rails. This also corresponds to the properties of the material and does not increase the cost of special processing.

Ten meters wide is good, but the load of various types of bearings alone is not enough.

"Isn't the meter-wide railway a little too wide?" He Siyuan didn't know about the exhibition of the railway in later generations, and he had just come into contact with this information, so he couldn't help but be surprised.

"Although the railway is wide, it has an advantage, it can't be blown down by strong winds!" Li Shuchun next to him said with a smile. But this one really made him talk. In later generations, the railways in the Northwest often had news that the railways were blown over by strong winds. The center of gravity of the train on the broad gauge is correspondingly lower, relatively more stable, of course, when turning, there are more problems, but in the future, try to straighten it as much as possible, and you can also prepare for the future lift.

In fact, it is not only this, because the railway is wider, and correspondingly, in the permafrost and in areas with soft soil, the pressure can be reduced at the same weight. This is probably one of the reasons why the railways of Soviet Russia used broad gauge. In the future, if the railway is to be extended to Tibet and other places, it is also necessary to consider the problem of permafrost, and naturally it is necessary to prepare in advance.

"The rails are wider, the locomotive is wider, the machine is loaded with a lot of horsepower, it pulls more, and it runs fast!" Zhou Bai explained to everyone the problem of containers and the customization of standards and systems, and He Siyuan suddenly realized and ridiculed himself.

"Those test data should be sorted out as soon as possible. meters of width, if it really worked, then the north-western railway immediately began to prepare. After the weather warms up next year, the construction will be carried out in sections from Lanzhou, Tianshui and other places, and the process will be accelerated and completed as soon as possible. At the same time, it is also necessary to prepare for the extension of the Pingsui Railway, which extends along Yinchuan to Lanzhou. The railroad to the west and the railroad to the north should be planned! Meng Xiang nodded and instructed again.

Time is also running out, and the artillery of Europe is sounding again. But this time, it was not the Germans, but the Soviet Russians who sang the protagonist.

On the 5th, the Russians gathered a large army and began to attack Finland.

This is half a month ahead of history. The main thing was that the German battleships Yamato were too threatening in the Baltic Sea, and Soviet Russia wanted to give Leningrad one more round of protection. The Japanese were soft, and the affairs of the Far East were resolved much more quickly than in history. Europe temporarily returned to calm in the eye of the storm after the Soviet-German partition of Poland. Stalin transferred the southern troops, replaced the troops he did not trust on the Soviet-Finnish border, and directly launched an attack on Finland.

"See, isn't Mao Zi just engaging in aggression? Finished Poland, hit Finland. Isn't it just to occupy territory? Huang Weigang shouted loudly.

Zhang Zizhong's headquarters had been set up in Lanzhou, and although the vanguard of the vanguard army had moved forward to Dunhuang at this time, during this period of time, the main energy of the vanguard army was still used to stabilize the existing territory. The policy of the vanguard army has always been to use the subsistence allowance policy to infiltrate the townships and villages, directly affecting the villages. Although this slowed down the pace of the vanguard army, the ground was more stable after the work was carried out.

"This is not coveting other people's territory, it is Soviet Russia to maintain the security of the northwestern border, it is to exchange twice the territory of the Karelia region for the islands of the Gulf of Finland and part of the territory of the Rybachi Peninsula, lease the military base on the Hanko Peninsula and move the border of the Karelian Isthmus back." Zhang Kexia explained.

"What bay, what Rayba, saying that it is exchanged for twice the area, these are fooling people. I want to exchange this 100 acres of land in the northwest for 10 acres of land in Qidu, who is willing to exchange it? If you don't see it, people won't change it, so they will invade people! Li Jiusi next to him interjected.

"This ,......" Zhang Kexia also had some opinions on this approach of Soviet Russia. It's not just him, the Soviet Russia's invasion of Finland this time suddenly fell into the back of world public opinion. R