Chapter Nineteen: Random Nature and Family Foundation

  Before, every time Tang walked into the base, he always felt a sense of depression.

  But this time it feels completely different, everything in Tang Dynasty looks full of vitality.

  As they passed by the vault, Tang stopped in his tracks and let Xiao Mao command the armed robots guarding the vault to open the door.

  As the heavy alloy gate slowly opened, the dazzling golden light that came face to face made people's eyes dizzy.

  This underground vault covering an area of about 500 square meters has a gold mountain made of piled up gold in the center.

  This golden mountain is made up of long strips of pure gold weighing as much as 100 kilograms each. The Tang Dynasty doesn't even know how much gold is left in the treasury now, and more than two years ago, the Tang Dynasty had already become numb to these yellow metals.

  The only memory of these gold bricks was when the base was first built, Tang Dynasty heard a little cat say that there was a large gold mine here, and he was overjoyed to follow the engineering robot to excavate and refine it, working hard every day.

  There were even a few days when Tang slept with a gold brick weighing over 100 kilograms in his arms.

  This excitement didn't last long, and in less than a month, Tang Dynasty felt bored. Then, this boredom gradually turned into numbness.

  Because if this gold cannot circulate into society, it is no different from a pile of yellow earth.

  But today is different.

  Tang Dynasty lay on his back on Jinshan, his eyes lightly closed, constantly inhaling, as if he was extremely enjoying the pleasure brought by that wealth.

  "Little cat, how much gold is there in total here?" Tang Dynasty asked with his eyes closed and hands stretched out flat.

  "Two hundred thirty-nine point eight five seven tons. In addition to this, in the next three years, about one hundred ninety kilograms of gold will be stored every month." The kitten answered truthfully.

  "Not bad, not bad, I can now be considered rich and powerful enough to rival a country." Tang Dynasty leaped from the gold mountain to the ground, casually picked up a gold brick in front of him to admire it, the hundred-kilogram gold brick was as light as straw in his hands.

  Put the gold brick back in its original place, and Tang walked leisurely to the front of the short wall made entirely of pure silver bricks, which was neatly stacked against the wall of the treasury.

  His fingers lightly touched the smooth surface of the silver bricks, and Tang Dynasty walked around the wall and stopped in front of a small mountain-like pile of silver coins on the right side of the treasury.

  Tang Dynasty picked up a handful of silver coins and let them fall from his hands, "ding ding ding" crisp sounds, sounding particularly pleasant.

  As if knowing what the Tang Dynasty wanted to ask, the cat took the initiative to speak: "The inventory of white silver, including 637 million pieces of silver coins that have been minted into large dollars, currently has a total of 794.638 tons."

  "Raising and training troops requires a large amount of silver, Little Cat. Arrange for me to be supplemented with 300 million taels!" Tang Dynasty calculated in his heart while smiling complacently: "Hehehe, I'm preparing to launch a large-scale silver bullet campaign, let's see who can withstand it."

  Coming out of the vault, Tang's mental state seemed even better than when he first entered the base.

  Humming all the way "Our old hundred surnames, today is really happy, our old hundred surnames, today is really happy......", about 15 minutes later, arrived at the entrance of the cave library that stores weapons and ammunition.

  The armory and treasury are both located on the second floor of the base, but they are distributed in two completely different directions, one west and one east.

  Standing in front of the arsenal door for a while, Tang Dynasty didn't let Xiaomiao open the door, but instead turned around and walked along a passageway about 500 meters long, five meters wide, and three meters high.

  This passageway is wide enough for two trucks to drive through, and at the end of it is a large alloy casting hydraulic transmission mechanical control gate that is tightly closed.

  "Kitty, open the door." Tang said, pointing at the big gate in front of them.

  "Yes! Boss." The kitten replied, and then the large metal gate slid open with a series of "zzt" sounds.

  Suddenly, a dazzling sunlight shot in from outside.

  Tang Chao walked up to the entrance of the cave and took a deep breath of the fresh air coming from the mountains.

  Not far away, a stout wild rabbit stared with its frightened and disheveled red eyes at the huge cave that suddenly appeared on the mountain wall in front of it. It turned its small head left and right, then quickly escaped into the dense thicket and disappeared without a trace.

  The entrance of this cave was designed to be integrated with the mountain wall, and when it is not open, from the outside, the steep cliff looks like there is no cave inside.

  On both sides of the cave entrance, four hidden forts built into the belly of the mountain, with a total of eight heavy machine guns forming a dense and crisscrossing firepower network, enough to completely seal off the open area in front of the cave entrance that was over 300 meters wide.

  A cement road winds down the mountain and leads directly to the large square below Tángjiābǎo.

  "In the future, it will be necessary to deploy a garrison here for long-term defense." Tang Chao looked around at the scenery surrounding the cave entrance and muttered to himself.

  As he spoke, Tang Dynasty pondered and re-entered the cave, the heavy mountain gate slowly closed, and the entire mountain wall was tightly sealed, with no signs of anything unusual from the outside.

  After wandering around the four machine gun turrets, Tang Chao returned to the entrance of the armory. The little cat had already received Tang Chao's instructions and opened the thick alloy door wide to welcome guests.

  More than 400 square meters of the front warehouse, looking empty, a rectangular display stand is placed in the middle, with various models of firearms and bullets on display.

  Next to it is a 105mm caliber towed field gun and several green ammunition boxes.

  However, on the east, west and south walls, there are three iron gates each tightly closed, but it is unknown what treasures lie behind these three iron gates.

  Tang walked up to the shooting platform, casually picked up a rifle with a blued barrel and a thin layer of gun oil, smoothly pulled back the bolt, held it in a standing shooting position, and pulled the trigger. The firing pin made a "ding" sound as it struck empty air.

  As for this rifle in his hand, Tang Dynasty was quite satisfied with it.

  Originally for "Tang Family Army" use of standard rifle, indeed let Tang Dynasty died a lot of brain cells.

  Too ordinary is not good, too advanced is also not good.

  Imitation of the common German-made Mauser 98, American M1903 and British Lee-Enfield on the market, those are too lacking in their own characteristics.

  But if the AK series assault rifles were produced so early, it would be too shocking and unconventional.

  They wanted to have a firepower advantage, but they couldn't let the US, UK, and Germany get too jealous. After discussing with Tang Dynasty and Little Cat, they decided to reverse-engineer the M1 Garand, which was originally designed in 1936, and make it appear twenty years earlier. Tang Dynasty shamelessly took the first two letters of his own name and named it TC1915.

  Considering that the "Tang Army" would be fighting against Soviet troops for a long time, the Tang Dynasty designed the standard rifle cartridge of tc1915 as 7.62*54 instead of M1 Garand's 7.62*63.

  Its purpose is self-evident, and the Tang Dynasty obviously calculated it well, putting a portion of the rifle bullets on the old Mao's head.

  In addition to infantry standard rifles, the Tang Dynasty also designed a sniper rifle based on the TC1915, known as the TC1915Z.

  TC1915Z, with a 3.5x telescopic sight, the mount is fixed to the left side of the receiver using screws and nuts, which does not interfere with loading, ejection or the use of the original iron sights.

  In view of the excellent performance of the TC1915, the Tang Dynasty plans to continue using this semi-automatic rifle until the outbreak of World War II and then replace it with a more advanced fully automatic assault rifle for its troops, ensuring that the "Tang Family Army" continues to lead the world's major military powers in infantry light weapons.

  The Tang Dynasty had enough confidence, equipped with the TC1915 semi-automatic rifle "Tang Family Army", dared to engage in a head-on battle with any force, any army within nearly twenty years.

  The rifle was settled, and the pistol selection, Tang Dynasty didn't hesitate much, directly adopting the Colt M1911A1 type, renamed as TC1912, as the standard military officer's sidearm.

  Submachine gun, Tang Dynasty considered the universality of bullets, Thompson M1928 submachine gun as a template, using pistol bullets, improved and finalized as TCC-13 submachine gun, as a close combat and alley fight weapon.

  The team used a machine gun, the Tang Dynasty didn't think much, and chose to use the classic Czech-made ZB-26 design principle, simply changing the caliber and bullet to 7.62*54, and changing the ammunition to a curved magazine that holds thirty rounds, in order to maintain continuous firing power. It was named the TCQ-14 squad light machine gun.

  Heavy machine gun, of course, the first choice for the Tang Dynasty is the Maxim heavy machine gun. After improvement, the caliber and bullet design are made to be compatible with standard rifle bullets, also 7.62*54. The ammunition belt was changed to a 300-round metal belt, and the gun frame was a wheel structure. The total weight was only 27.6 kg, and one person could pull it quickly. All the dark forts in the base were equipped with this heavy machine gun named Tcz-12.

  Regimental-level supporting artillery, Tang Dynasty selected 60mm mortars and 82mm mortars.

  The artillery troops, considering the northwest region has many plains and flat terrain, convenient for mobile transportation, Tang Dynasty abandoned the 75mm series light infantry gun, but adopted the M101 type 105mm caliber towed howitzer. Before the outbreak of World War II, this not-too-light-not-too-heavy, with a maximum range of 11.16 kilometers, towed howitzer was sufficient to be used in any battle for firepower suppression.

  Looking at these deadly weapons in front of him that had condensed his countless efforts, Tang felt a sense of accomplishment.

  The Tang Dynasty said that they would equip their soldiers with the best weapons, and this batch of advanced weapons leading the military powers of the US, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy and other countries is the basis for the Tang Dynasty to dare to say so!

  The Tang Dynasty firmly believed that when Muhe Lins and others saw these advanced weapons, they would inevitably further enhance their sense of belonging and superiority, and be more confident in facing challenges from any enemy.

  The great land of China has never lacked top-notch soldiers. There have been too many Chinese servicemen who, due to inferior weapons, have given their lives in vain. The Tang Dynasty is determined to change this situation - Chinese servicemen must possess superior weapons that match them, only then can they fight without regret, even if it means staining the battlefield with blood and wrapping their corpses in horsehide!

  "Kitty, how many of these guns and ammunition are in stock now?" Tang Dynasty obviously wanted to take stock of his own assets.

  "15,000 units of semi-automatic rifle TC1915, 1,000 units of sniper rifle TC1915Z, 5,000 units of pistol TC1912, 2,000 units of submachine gun TCC-13, 1,000 units of machine gun TCQ-14, 500 units of heavy machine gun TCZ-12, 50 million rounds of standard rifle ammunition, 1 million rounds of standard pistol ammunition, 50,000 rounds of aircraft machine gun ammunition, 100,000 rounds of anti-aircraft machine gun ammunition, and 50,000 rounds of 20mm autocannon ammunition."

  500,000 wooden-handled grenades and 200,000 egg-type grenades

  60mm mortars: 200 pieces, with 20,000 rounds of ammunition; 82mm mortars: 100 pieces, with 10,000 rounds of ammunition.

  M101 105mm towed howitzers: 36 guns, towing trucks: 36 vehicles, ammunition: 5,000 rounds.

  150mm heavy artillery shells 30,000 rounds, 203mm fortress gun shells 3,000 rounds.

  20 sets of military high-power radio stations, 50 walkie-talkies, 200 field telephones, 100 kilometers of telephone lines, 100 kilometers of cable lines; 100 tons of aviation gasoline, 200 tons of diesel oil.

  In addition, 15,000 folding engineer shovels, 15,000 triangular bayonets, 15,000 sets of military equipment and accessories, ordinary military uniforms for spring, summer and winter seasons with 20,000 suits each, and high-level military uniforms for officers with 2,000 suits (Note: The suit includes daily clothes, training clothes and dress).

  "In addition, there are 10 sets of military field hospital equipment and various types of medicines for disinfection, pain relief, anti-inflammatory and hemostasis for 20,000 people."

  After waiting for a while and seeing that the kitten didn't continue, Tang Dynasty couldn't help but ask: "Is that all? Nothing more?"

  "It's gone, boss."

  "What about military dry rations? Why aren't there any?" Tang Chao asked with wide eyes.

  "There's only a small amount of canned beef, and there aren't enough grain resources to process military dry rations, boss, you'll have to figure out a way to deal with this yourself."

  "Alas! You're right too." Tang Dynasty let out a sigh of frustration, "Having been cooped up in the base for over three years, I've almost forgotten what flour and rice taste like. Never mind, let's not talk about this anymore, it's getting on my nerves. Little Cat, help me prepare weapons, ammunition, clothing, and related equipment for 500 people right away, I'll have someone come to take them later."

  "Yes! Boss."

  The base can produce everything, even nutrient solution can be manufactured, but it is impossible to turn flour and rice into.

  As for food, the Tang Dynasty is also powerless now. With war looming ahead, if there isn't enough food, it will definitely cause people to be worried and frightened.

  I wonder if Mu Hailin and his men have stored grain in Canglong Ridge. Tang Chao thought to himself silently.

  Thank you.