The Mind of an Arms Dealer

  Liao Huairou sat in the cabin of this plane, which he considered luxurious, stroking the soft leather seat and jokingly said to Qi Yiming beside him: "You're really acting like a capitalist, such a good plane isn't even equipped for the top leaders, but you've got it as your personal plane, and you've even got fighter jets escorting you, this is too corrupt!"

  Qī yī míng smiled and took a cup of Longjing tea handed over by the flight attendant wearing the uniform of the national airline, jokingly protesting: "This is not escorting a fighter jet, it's clearly just following along to transfer. And this plane wasn't even mine to begin with, after I'm done borrowing it this time, it's going to be sent to Beijing as Ping Lao's dedicated plane."

  Liao Huairou looked at the airliner from front to back, and couldn't help but say: "Will our country be able to produce such a good civilian passenger plane in thirty years? I don't understand aviation, but I know that making a civil aircraft is more difficult than making a fighter jet."

  What he said is not a lie, military aircraft can still tolerate noise, frequent maintenance, frequent failures, and short lifespan, but civil aircraft pursue absolute comfort and safety, which is much more difficult to manufacture than military aircraft. So the Chinese people created the fifth-generation fighter, but they couldn't even make a regional airliner.

  Zhi Yi Ming shook his head with a hint of regret: "Before I crossed over, the country had already developed a type of regional airliner, and the truly domestically-made large aircraft had just begun test flights. It would take at least ten years for it to be put into actual use. The plane we're on now has been improved upon by the base, even if we were to directly obtain it thirty years later, Shangfei would still treasure it like a precious gem." The special plane the two were currently riding in was actually China's first large aircraft developed thirty years later, the C919 narrow-body airliner produced by COMAC.

  The development of the C919 has been similar to other aircraft developed in China, with a bumpy road. There have been many twists and turns along the way, due to various problems, progress has been slow to meet people's expectations, and the maiden flight was also repeatedly postponed. Maybe everything in China follows the rule that good things come slowly.

  The Red Alert base can produce the C919, which is a pleasant surprise for Yī Míng. Although the C919 is a large aircraft, it has fewer than 200 seats and is still a narrow-body airliner. While it has good avionics and new performance capabilities, it cannot fly intercontinental routes. However, it is fully capable of flying domestic routes, covering half a continent, and crossing oceans without any issues.

  What's more valuable about this aircraft is that it can be improved on the basis of multiple military versions. With a phased array antenna, it becomes an early warning aircraft, and with internal modifications to fuel tanks, it becomes a tanker aircraft. Adding anti-submarine task modules turns it into an anti-submarine aircraft. In short, an excellent civil platform can be modified into various special aircraft that are needed next.

  Some people ask why military special aircraft use civilian platforms, and why not modify military transport planes. It's true that the first generation of early warning aircraft, such as KJ-2000 and KJ-200, were modified from military transport planes, which only solved the problem of having or not having them. Using civilian platforms to modify special aircraft like early warning aircraft and tankers has many advantages.

  First, the mass production of civil aircraft helps to share the cost of special-purpose aircraft. Second, civil aircraft platforms have lower noise levels, higher safety and longer service life, making them more suitable for tasks such as airborne early warning command and anti-submarine warfare. Third, because most parts are common with civil aircraft, maintenance and repair can be carried out directly at civilian airport stations, which is another cost-saving measure and more convenient to use.

  Considering that early warning aircraft, anti-submarine aircraft and refueling aircraft are not combat aircraft on the front line, other requirements are far less important than cost, maintenance and reliability, so civilian aircraft modified special aircraft have a natural advantage.

  Liao Huairen smiled and said: "In short, we now have such a good large aircraft, the domestic aviation industry is booming, and more and more civilian aircraft are needed. If we buy foreign aircraft, it will waste a lot of foreign exchange at this stage, after all, we are not a country with tens of billions of dollars in foreign exchange reserves thirty years later. In addition to producing fighter jets, I think producing civilian aircraft is the most valuable, it's economical and convenient to use, and it can also stimulate patriotism and pride, after all, it's an airplane produced by our own country."

  Zi Yi Ming also laughed and said: "You're thinking too beautifully, I can tell you that the base's aviation department is now fully loaded with producing fighter jets for military and naval needs, where am I going to open up production capacity for civilian large aircraft?"

  "Didn't you just add a tank factory specifically for our company's equipment production? I think it's also necessary to open another aviation department to produce civilian aircraft, not only can we use them ourselves, but such good planes can be sold abroad and make money for us." Liao Huairan said with some economic acumen.

  He slapped his own forehead and said, "I'm so stupid! I've been sitting on such a huge gold mine all along, yet I never thought of it. It's indeed true that selling airplanes and arms is the most profitable business in the world. If this business can take off, I can directly purchase the resources I need and set up funds to support education, environmental protection, and other public welfare undertakings."

  Liao Huairan suddenly sparked an absurd idea of Qiyiming selling arms, and hurriedly remedied: "Our country's weapons trade has always been required to follow the various requirements of the United Nations, and must be responsible, you can't mess around."

  Qī yī míng hēi hēi yī xiào, pāi pāi Liào Huái Rén de jiān bǎng, dào: "Mù yǒu guān xì, nǐmen diǎn tóu shuō xíng háishì bù xíng jiù hǎo, shuō xíng wǒ jiù qù zuò, bù xíng jiù suàn, jūn huǒ mào yì kě shì měi nián shù bǎi yì měi yuán de dà dàn gāo ne, nǐ xiǎng xiǎng rú guǒ zhè bǐ qián bèi yòng yú wǒmen de jīng jì jiàn shè shàng, huì yǒu duō mó dà de zhù yì?"

  Liao Huaren was also moved by Qi Yiming's words. In 1985, China's foreign exchange reserves were only $2.6 billion, and the country needed to import many things, such as advanced production equipment and raw materials that it did not have. At that time, China's main exports were handicrafts and primary industrial raw materials, with low added value, at the bottom of the value chain, and not valued by others. If China started exporting large civil aircraft, advanced fighter jets, and advanced tanks and artillery, and if Liao Huaren was assigned to do it, the country would essentially be making money for free.

  Several companies have obtained corresponding production technologies and can follow up to create huge profits for these companies, allowing them to continuously inject funds and sustain technological development.

  Doing this thing is more of a piece of cake for Zhi Yimeng, he just digs mines in the Inner Mongolia area, occasionally crossing the border to Outer Mongolia and the Soviet Union underground, nobody knows, next time when he sets up a shipyard in the coastal area, he can produce marine engineering equipment, go to the South China Sea, East China Sea and other places to extract oil. A large amount of resources can support his rapid development, continuously expanding the scale of his base, even opening branch bases, increasing production capacity.

  With the base's strong production capacity, almost all resources that are gathered are utilized, with an utilization rate of nearly 100%, without any waste. He can currently operate up to 2 barracks, 2 tank factories, 2 air bases and 2 shipyards, until he upgrades to a level 2 base, after which he can continue to add more production buildings.

  Liao Huairou thought for a moment and said, "This matter is of great importance. I will help you communicate with the higher-ups. If it succeeds, it will be of great benefit to our country. You can also think about it yourself, find some buyers, sell some products. My proposal is to try to sell things that are not particularly advanced, and try to choose technologies that our companies can quickly absorb and upgrade. At that time, we can also allocate some orders to them, which will be good for everyone."

  Zi Yiming himself did not plan to make money for himself and did not express any doubts about Liao Huaren's proposal.

  After putting down this matter, Liao Huairou thought of the purpose of this trip again and couldn't help but complain to him: "You said you'd better stay in Inner Mongolia, why did you have to run to the war zone in Yunnan? Although the intensity of the war is not great, if something happens, the country and you yourself can't afford such a loss."

  Zi Yi stretched his waist and smiled unintentionally, saying: "You make it sound like I'm some kind of important person."

  "You're quite an important figure, possibly second only to a few top leaders!" In fact, Liao Huaren thought to himself, maybe even more important than the top leaders.

  "Never mind, anyway I'm just staying in the rear, it's my soldiers who are going to the front line to fight, no matter how capable the Vietnamese are, they can't possibly fight from Wenshan all the way to Kunming, haha, by the way, I've never been to Spring City before, I should take a good look around."

  Looking at Liao Huairou, Qi Yiming was still not satisfied. He made a deal with him and said: "My base cannot be upgraded without going through battles, so I must accumulate combat experience. Of course, I don't need to go to the battlefield myself, but I must command my Red Alert soldiers to fight. This matter has already been agreed upon by Ping Lao, so it can't be helped. Rather than regretting it, it's better to do a good job."

  Liao Huaren knew that the matter was already irreversible, and the two had already boarded the flight from Dali to Kunming. He could only ask: "So how do you plan to fight this battle? The top leaders seem not to have given you the highest command authority, but only promised that you can have a certain degree of freedom to assist the generals of the Nanjing Military Region in combat. In other words, Fu Junchang and others have the power to veto all your combat plans. Everything is for our victory, it's impossible for you to fight like a wild tour."

  "Ha ha, I've made thorough preparations and can provide the troops with tactical support that they never thought possible. It's something that once you see it, you'll fall in love with it immediately and never want to lose it."