Chapter Nineteenth: Orienteering in Military Terrain Science Class

  "Comrades, I'm delighted to start learning military geography with everyone from today. First of all, let me introduce myself. My surname is Lang, not the big grey wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood, haha, but rather the 'Lang' in 'newlywed'. The instructor, Mr. Lang, who was met with a burst of gentle laughter from the students as soon as he began, was not very tall and wore his winter uniform neatly. He had three stars on his shoulder and was teaching military geography to the 14th squad in the large classroom on the fourth floor. It's clear that this opening self-introduction has already won over everyone's goodwill."

  This course was something he had never touched on before, and Qu Mingjun listened with great interest.

  "What is military geography? It's an applied science that studies, identifies and utilizes terrain from a military perspective. So, have you comrades ever thought about what exactly constitutes terrain?" Lecturer Lang smiled and looked around.

  Everyone under the stage looked at each other in dismay. Indeed, the term "topography" is often on their lips, but what exactly is topography? A few impatient ones have already started secretly flipping through the teaching materials that were just distributed today.

  "What is referred to as terrain, is the general term for landforms and geographical features. Landforms refer to the shape and properties of substances on the earth's surface, also known as topography and soil quality; geographical features refer to fixed objects on the ground, such as trees, buildings, etc. So, terrain as a natural structure of the battlefield...” Lecturer Lang spoke fluently on stage, sometimes laughing and joking, sometimes quoting classics. This was somewhat like a professional military man, and Qu Mingjun was deeply drawn in unintentionally..."

  ……

  "Whoosh——" The Dongfeng military truck drove away with a trail of exhaust and dust, leaving behind Gu Mingjun, Wang Bin, and Ma Xiaotian staring at each other in shock.

  "Where is this? Where is this?" Wang Jiantong looked around, holding the handheld GPS and gesturing for a long time before finally giving up. He raised his head to ask Qu Mingjun and Ma Xiaotian.

  "How am I supposed to know?" Ma Xiaotian said somewhat dejectedly.

  Today is an assessment in the military geography course, and the content of the assessment is orienteering. All students are taken to a location set by the instructor in the fully enclosed rear compartment of a Dongfeng truck, where three people are randomly selected from the roster by the instructor to get off the vehicle. They are only given a handheld GPS device and a 1:5000 scale military map. All students must return to the academy before dinner.

  The instructor also issued a small test paper to each group, marked with the coordinates of five checkpoints. In the process of determining the drop-off point and choosing the route back to the college, it is necessary to find the special marks left by the instructor at these five checkpoints and mark them on the test paper. Each group must find at least three, if less than three, this assessment will be considered unqualified.

  Qu Mingjun took a look at the handheld GPS, then looked at the military map. Although the military map had a grid of coordinates, it was marked with a coordinate system specifically for military maps and did not have the earth's universal latitude and longitude coordinates. It was estimated that the instructor had deliberately used such a map. Looking again at the GPS, the display showed the earth's latitude and longitude coordinates.

  These two things can't be combined, what a hassle, Qu Mingjun thought.

  Wang Jin and Ma Xiaotian were at a loss, looking around in all directions, but later they simply looked at Qu Mingjun with hopeful expressions. It was as if the solution to their problem was written on Qu Mingjun's face, after all, among the three of them, Qu Mingjun was the one who had studied military geography the best.

  "What are you staring at? Hurry up and think of a solution!" Qu Mingjun said irritably.

  "Qu Ge, we'll listen to you, whatever you say goes." Wang Jin hurriedly expressed his loyalty, while Ma Xiaotian nodded his head like a chick pecking at rice.

  "......Let's first determine our standing point." Thus, Qu Mingjun became the leader of the three-man group.

  "How can we be sure?" The two people still looked at Qu Mingjun with hopeful faces.

  "Think of something!" Qu Mingjun had not been in a good mood for some time, always thinking about the upcoming holiday and returning to his family, seeing these two young people so confused, suddenly got angry.

  To be honest, he couldn't think of how to determine the standing point for the time being. The feeling of failure was really unbearable. But those two kids still had an expression that relied on him, as if they were their nanny, which made people extremely angry.

  Wang Jin and Ma Xiaotian looked at each other in dismay, unsure why Qu Mingjun was so angry.

  "…Forget it, you guys must be talking about our direction in college, right?" Qu Mingjun said with a sigh of frustration.

  "I don't know," said Wang Jin.

  "The car was making U-turns on the playground before we left, and we were in the back seat, unable to see anything. We got dizzy and lost our sense of direction." Ma Xiao Tian threw up his hands.

  "I think we should be on the south side of the campus if I'm not mistaken." Qu Mingjun thought for a moment, then said confidently, "When the convoy exits the main gate, they need to hand over the vehicle list to the guard room at the entrance, so the convoy will stop at the main gate for a while. I remember that after we drove around the playground and stopped once, we could hear the sound of tractors outside, which must have been at the main gate. At that time, the front of the car was facing east. Then when it started again, it turned right, and basically didn't turn back, which means we were on the south side of the campus."

  "Right!" "Brother Qu is really awesome." Wang Jue and Xiao Tian thought for a moment, suddenly enlightened, and praised in unison.

  "That means we can head north now. Let's find a road or some buildings to figure out where we are, and then we can complete our mission." Qu Mingjun clapped his hands together, "Let's go, let's follow this small path east first."

  "Brother Qu, it's a mountain in the east." Wang Jin looked at the east and hesitated for a moment.

  "I know, but look at that mountain, a large pit has been dug halfway up the mountain, there must be a quarry here, let's head in that direction and find someone first."

  This area is located at the intersection of the Taihang Mountains and the North China Plain, with most mountains composed of limestone, directly leading to local villagers mainly opening mountains to quarry and burn lime. Along the national highway, various quarries are scattered along the way, and many mountains have been dug into a thousand holes, comparing the mountain depicted on the military map with the local one can only give a rough idea, if it is in an area where mountain digging is more serious, it is completely unrecognizable.

  These would have no effect on Qu Mingjun and the others, but the air quality in Shimen is poor, probably due to the excavation of limestone and calcination of lime in this western mountainous area. Especially for Qu Mingjun, who originally lived in a better natural environment in the south, this terrible weather was particularly annoying.

  Three people packed up their things, tightened their equipment and set off towards the small mountain in the north. Along the way, they saw mountains near and far with big and small holes dug into them, especially some mountains that had half disappeared, and all three of them said that even if Yu Gong came, he would have to admit defeat. It seems that once people have economic motivation, they can create any kind of miracle.

  From a distance, they saw that the quarry they were going to was in a state of work stoppage, but it seemed that there were still people in the small courtyard at the foot of the mountain. Qu Mingjun looked at the small courtyard where the stone dust flew with the wind and frowned, saying: "Who's going to ask?"

  "I!" Wang Jin volunteered and ran off.

  After half a day, Wang Jin came back with his head hung low and dejected. "Brother Qu, there's only an old man and a dog over there. The old man is mute, and he can't even recognize the characters I wrote."

  "What's going on?" Qu Mingjun was at a loss, looking around but couldn't see any buildings anywhere. What to do now?

  "I'm going!" Just as everyone was getting annoyed, Ma Xiao Tian suddenly stood up.

  "Huh?" Qu Mingjun and Wang Jinnan were puzzled. Where are you going? What are you doing?

  Ma Xiaotian scratched the back of his head and chuckled, saying: "I... I know sign language."

  Hey, it's really a coincidence that someone brought up the pillow when I was sleepy. But how did Ma Xiaotian learn sign language? Qu Mingjun and Wang Jinxing asked excitedly, only to find out that Ma Xiaotian's mother, although normal herself, was also a teacher at a school for the deaf and mute. Ma Xiaotian had often followed his mom to the school when he was young and had picked it up without realizing it. Who would have thought that this skill would come in handy now that he's in the army?

  As expected, it didn't take long for Ma Xiaotian to gather the information and report back. Not far southeast of here, there is a mountain village called Xiao Song Zhuang, which belongs to Liangshan Town. Following the tire tracks left by the limestone truck heading east from the entrance, you can quickly reach National Highway 307.

  Three people immediately found a cleaner place to sit down. Wang opened the military map neatly, and Qu Mingjun started searching for Liangshan Town Xiao Songzhuang along National Highway 307 from Luyuan towards the south, and soon found it. Then, along Xiao Songzhuang towards the northwest direction, based on the height of nearby mountains and the relationship between mountains, they began to determine their standing point.

  "Right here!" Qu Mingjun held the ruler, looked at it and compared it for half a day, suddenly patted the map, picked up the red and blue pencil and pointed to a point on the map.

  Wang Jin and Ma Xiaotian have always been convinced of Qu Mingjun's military geography skills. Even in peacetime classes, Qu Mingjun's performance in map recognition and usage had impressed Instructor Lang many times, and some veteran soldiers who had studied this course before couldn't match his understanding and application of it.

  Wang Jin hastily operated the GPS in his hand, copied down the longitude and latitude coordinates of the current location, matched them with the military coordinate grid, and quickly determined the specific locations of several checkpoints on the map.

  Damn it, Qu Mingjun cursed in his heart. These five checkpoints were scattered all over the place, and he had thought he could just run back and mark them off one by one. Now, he would have to run around everywhere. Originally, Luyuan was only more than 40 miles away, but now the distance had been greatly increased.

  Qu Mingjun took out a ruler and measured the distance between two nearby checkpoints. He wanted to let the three people walk separately, but with only one map and one GPS, it was not suitable to separate them. In case they got separated and couldn't find each other, wouldn't that be a waste of time? After thinking about it, Qu Mingjun decided that the three of them should set off together, first going to the checkpoint with the better road conditions.

  Three people packed their things and, in order to gain time, rushed all the way to National Highway 307. Although it was a cold winter day, the three of them soon broke out in sweat. Wang Bin pulled off his camouflage uniform hat. This kid had a bit of dandruff, especially in winter when his scalp itched, he liked to shave his head bald.

  A bald man in camouflage gear was running wildly on the main road with two others in camouflage, really eye-catching. Fortunately, this is a rural area, if it were in the city, they would definitely attract a crowd of onlookers.

  National Highway 307 passes through Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Ningxia provinces in China, with a total length of over 1,300 kilometers. It is an important coal transportation line, where you can see various types of heavy trucks coming from the Shanxi highway every day, carrying black gold - coal to towns and villages.

  But now Qu Mingjun and his three companions did not know this, they could only run hard on the highway under the scorching sun.

  Can't you hitchhike on the highway?

  It's not that Qu Mingjun and the other two didn't want to hitch a ride, but first of all, the examiner had said from the beginning that if anyone dared to take a ride, if they weren't discovered, it would be fine, but once discovered, their score would be directly invalidated; secondly, most of the vehicles coming and going on this road were coal trucks, and the driver's cab was not likely to have much space, so where could Qu Mingjun and the other two sit?

  So the three of them ran along the national highway for a while, and had to run down with their tails between their legs. The trucks that whizzed by were like they had taken stimulants, speeding by extremely fast, without any regard for how much stuff they were carrying. Not to mention the dust they kicked up, just the coal ash falling off the cars was enough for the three of them to swallow a mouthful.

  "Cough cough... Niang Xipi, don't you see what kind of tonnage you are? You're driving a sports car!" Wang Jin complained.

  Ma Xiaotian poured a mouthful of water from the kettle, gargled for half a day and spat it out, complaining: "I didn't expect it to be so dirty, it's not even as good as walking on rural dirt roads."

  "Alright, alright, we've made a mistake, taking the national highway is purely suffering." Qu Mingjun also felt uncomfortable for half a day. "There's another way, we take a shortcut, directly from this point to the marked point, how about that?"

  "Alright! But Brother Qu, it's almost noon, how are we going to solve the problem of lunch? Are we really going to eat this?" Ma Xiaotian looked at his own military green shoulder bag, inside which was a bread and a bag of pickled vegetables that had been issued.

  The three people's family situations are not bad, and Qu Mingjun is even more so from a wealthy family background. Although the bread and pickled vegetables are already good, the three people still feel that it's a bit dull. It's rare to come out once in a while, and they don't want to waste this opportunity to treat themselves well. What's the point of keeping the tens of dollars in allowance each month? Moreover, for Ma Xiaotian, one bread is not enough to fill his stomach.

  Qiu Mingjun didn't care, anyway, eating anything here wasn't enjoyable for him. Compared to the chef at home, it was like heaven and earth. As long as the food wasn't too hard to swallow and could guarantee sufficient physical strength, that was enough. Qiu Mingjun opened the map and carefully looked at the distance from his current location to the first checkpoint. There were a few small hills along the way, but crossing them in a straight line wouldn't be too difficult. After reaching the first checkpoint, Liangshan Town wasn't far away.

  "Alright, let's go to the first checkpoint and try to move in a straight line. If we encounter any steep mountains on the way, we'll go around them. After passing the first checkpoint, we'll head to Liangshan Town for lunch. That's it!" Qu Mingjun folded up the map and gave the order without being polite at all.

  Fortunately, Cui Ze was not in this group. Otherwise, they would have to talk to him one by one. Wang Jin and Ma Xiaotian now completely regard him as their leader. They responded in unison and the three of them set off with GPS.