Chapter 4 Xu Liang and His Air Defense Class

  Xu Liang was highly capable and also easy-going, approachable and down-to-earth. This was quite out of tune with the general atmosphere in the Nationalist army at that time, where ranks were strictly observed and officers and soldiers were often at odds. The soldiers Chen Hao brought with him came to respect and admire Xu Liang after spending some time with him.

  The method of summarizing the gains and losses of battles at a military democratic meeting is a common practice in the Communist Party army, but it is rarely seen in the National Army. These Nationalist officers and soldiers, including He Wuting and Chen Hao, found it refreshing.

  The relocation of the bullet and shell production workshop has been delayed. The Northwest Army, Sichuan Army and other troops who went to the 5th War Zone for battle urgently needed ammunition replenishment. The factory worked day and night without stopping, and train after train loaded with ammunition left the ordnance factory's special line heading east at night.

  The sky was filled with snowflakes, and the mountains, sky, and earth were all a dull gray. Chen Hao and Xu Liang didn't dare to slack off, using this unfavorable weather for enemy planes to take off to intensify their training. The two of them discussed that no matter whether the brothers could understand or not, they had to teach them some basic anti-aircraft combat theory, maybe some clever ones would be able to grasp something. Besides, when lecturing, they could try to make the theory as simple and easy to understand as possible.

  All German labels and instructions on the anti-aircraft gun were translated into Chinese by Director Song.

  He Wuting heard about this and brought a small notebook to personally listen to Xu Liang's lecture.

  Xu Liang looked around at everyone, and began to speak in a calm and unhurried tone: "Today we've all gathered here for one purpose only, which is to study and learn how to better and more accurately shoot down the enemy's planes, and not let them achieve their goals. Due to time constraints, we can only discuss things that are closest to us. I think first of all, what we need to do is summarize our last battle."

  "Comrade officer, what's a summary?" a soldier asked.

  "In summary, it's about reviewing the last battle, what we did well and what we didn't do well, and discussing it together. The good things, we'll continue to do next time, and the bad things, everyone will think of ways to improve them, so won't we be even more formidable next time?"

  "Deputy Captain Xu's method is really too high." The soldiers praised. He Wuting also nodded directly.

  Xu Liang was highly capable and affable, easy-going and approachable. This contrasted with the typical rigid hierarchy and officer-soldier divide in the Nationalist Army at the time. The soldiers brought by Chen Hao came to respect and be close to Xu Liang after spending some time with him.

  The method of summarizing the gains and losses of battles through military democratic meetings is a common practice in the Communist Party army, but it is rarely seen in the National Army. These KMT officers, including He Wuting and Chen Hao, found it refreshing.

  Here is the translation:

  In fact, Xu Liang was a member of the Communist Party of China. During the Great Revolution period, he was originally a middle school student in Kaifeng. When the Northern Expeditionary Army arrived in Henan and Feng Yuxiang's Nationalist Army entered from Shaanxi, Xu Liang was influenced by the underground party organization within his school to join the party's peripheral organization. Later, when Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution and Feng Yuxiang also expelled the Communist Party, 17- or 18-year-old Xu Liang was sent by the party committee to enter the Dabie Mountains to do political work in the Fourth Red Army. From then on, he followed the Fourth Army to fight battles across the country until they entered Xinjiang with the remnants of the Western Route Army. Later, he was also sent by the party to study military affairs in the Soviet Union.

  Because the Communist Party had suffered greatly from enemy air raids during its long-term military struggle against the enemy, it decided to cultivate its own anti-aircraft talent. Therefore, Xu Liang was sent to an anti-aircraft academy to study. After the full-scale war broke out in 1937, the Soviet government began to provide military aid to China for its own interests and prepared to send a volunteer air force to China. Xu Liang returned to China with the advance team of the volunteer air force and the ground anti-aircraft troops that arrived earlier.

  The Soviet volunteer air force was first stationed in Lanzhou, where they received aid planes and equipment, and then moved to Wuhan, which was the temporary capital of the Nationalist government. The troop movement was from Lanzhou to Luoyang and then to Wuhan. Xu Liang was sent to Luoyang to understand the situation at the airport and make preparations for the arrival of the Soviet air force.

  At that time, Li Daichao urgently needed anti-aircraft power and repeatedly requested it from the Military Affairs Department but did not get a solution because there were too few planes in China and they had to be concentrated in the Ningbo-Hangzhou-Shanghai area. Later, when he heard that the Soviet volunteer air force was about to arrive in China, he again asked the Military Affairs Department to use the air force stationed in Luoyang for daily patrols over the factory but did not get approval.

  After repeated negotiations with the First War Zone, Li Daichao finally got four anti-aircraft machine guns in exchange for 30 mortars and 200 rifles. This also reflected the serious phenomenon of different factions within the Nationalist army acting on their own interests.

  Li Daichao understood that anti-aircraft warfare was not as simple as firing guns and cannons. At that time, there were very few people in China who understood anti-aircraft warfare, and most of them were concentrated in the southeastern region serving in active duty. Li Daichao contacted many people and finally borrowed an anti-aircraft instructor from the Soviet air force through his relationship with Dong Biwu, a veteran Communist leader.

  At that time, the Soviet volunteer air force in China followed the unified command of the Nationalist government for all its movements and battles within China and could not act on its own. Moreover, very few people in the Soviet air force spoke Chinese. In the end, the Communist Party decided to send Xu Liang to the Gongxian Arsenal as an anti-aircraft instructor.

  Although at that time the Communist Party was following a rural-encirclement-of-cities route and many of its members were from peasant backgrounds, it always considered itself the vanguard of China's working class. Therefore, it naturally attached great importance to carrying out work in places where workers were concentrated. Moreover, given the war environment at that time, the special importance of the arsenal was self-evident, and the party organization also hoped to strengthen its influence within the arsenal through Xu Liang and attract some military-industrial talent, even if they were just experienced skilled workers.

  Xu Liang arrived at the Gongxian Arsenal, where Li Daichun specially established an air defense school for him, with Xu as the principal and instructor. For convenience, the air defense school was counted as part of the guard team's sequence, and Xu Liang wore the shoulder badge of a Kuomintang lieutenant colonel. With Li Daichun's consent, he selected twenty or so soldiers from the guard team who had some cultural foundation, good physical quality, and no bad habits to enter the school as students. After more than a month of air defense theory and practical operation training, the four anti-aircraft machine guns initially formed combat effectiveness, and Xu Liang gained the support of the soldiers. Xu Liang used his spare time in the evening to set up a free night school literacy class at the school, attracting many workers who wanted to learn culture. Xu Liang used the night school to preach the truth about resisting Japan and saving the country, while using his own salary and savings accumulated in the Soviet Union to help poor workers in difficulty, gaining their trust and quickly gaining prestige among the workers. Later, after the arsenal moved, some workers who did not move with the factory were introduced by Xu Liang to join the Eighth Route Army, becoming important backbone members of the Eighth Route Army Arsenal.

  Xu Liang had not been at the arsenal for long when Liu Wanji, a military officer with a keen sense of smell, came to visit Li Daichun. He somehow knew about Xu Liang's Communist background and came specifically to "remind" Li Daichun. Li Daichun was well aware of Xu Liang's Communist identity, but he was not a typical military man or politician; rather, he was a Chinese intellectual with nationalist ideas. To him, it didn't matter whether it was the Nationalist Party or the Communist Party, as long as they could make China strong and prosperous, and bring happiness to its people. This kind of thinking was quite representative among intellectuals at that time.

  Li Daichun listened to Liu Wanji's words, stood up, walked back and forth a few steps, and said: "This Xu Liang is now the air defense instructor for our factory's guard unit. He works hard and has excellent knowledge. I haven't seen any suspicious behavior from him. We are currently in a period of cooperation between the Nationalists and Communists to resist Japan, and the Communist Party is also a legitimate organization. Can we really do something to him just because we suspect he is a Communist?" "Sir, I'm afraid he's been sent by the Communists to spy on us." "There's no need to worry about that. I've set up a separate air defense school for him, and he can't even enter our production workshops or confidential units."

  "I'm worried he'll spread communist propaganda among the workers and soldiers." "That won't happen. He's been training his comrades day and night, with excellent results. Liu, I don't care about any particular ideology right now; what matters is defeating the Japanese devils. Whoever can come up with a plan to shoot down or drive away enemy planes and ensure our factory's safety will be a good idea. I'm telling you, Liu, why not focus on eliminating the hidden enemies in our area? That would be a great idea. Those guys planted time bombs under the water tower just the other day; if it weren't for Captain He's vigilance, our production would have been affected."

  Liu Wanqi's face turned red, and he secretly made up his mind: "I must get rid of these hidden enemies, these guys dare to be arrogant under my nose, it's really unbearable." In fact, Liu Wanqi was indeed an excellent intelligence officer. Although he had deep prejudices against the Communist Party in politics, when it came to national and ethnic interests, he was unequivocal. After listening to Li Daichun's words, he no longer investigated Xu Liang's case and instead focused his energy on dealing with the hidden enemies of the Japanese devils and traitors.

  After Chen Hao's artillery unit arrived, Li Daichun promoted Xu Liang to lieutenant colonel and appointed him as the deputy commander of the air defense detachment, which also reflected his love for talent and his intention to use Xu Liang, while having some reservations.

  We return to Xu Liang's classroom. Xu Liang said: "Now let everyone talk about the good aspects first, we fought with enemy planes for the first time here and shot down one enemy plane, this is an achievement, everyone says why they can shoot down enemy planes?"

  Everyone started discussing and guessing. Some said it was because we concentrated our firepower and attacked fiercely. Another said, come on brother, we also concentrated our firepower and attacked fiercely in Shanghai, why didn't we shoot down enemy planes? Someone else said that it was because we had calculated the enemy's route in advance based on the terrain. Others said it was because Captain Chen and Deputy Captain Xu made a clever calculation...

  Xu Liang and others said, "Just now everyone's opinions can be summarized as: First, make good use of the terrain; Second, analyze and judge the enemy's movements in advance, set up a plan; Third, concentrate firepower to shoot. I don't know if you all noticed, but this time when we fought against the enemy planes, did we aim accurately? Xiao Wangzi, you tell us."

  Xiao Wangzi stood up, lowering his head: "I... I didn't listen to orders and opened fire, this... please, sir, punish me." "I know you hate the devils and want to avenge your fallen brothers, hating them so much that you'd like to blast them to smithereens with one shot. That's still something that requires skill, tell me how did you manage to shoot down an enemy plane without even aiming?"

  "Yes, I remember now. At that time, we had just adjusted the No. 1 position of our artillery and the enemy plane had just appeared in the distance. Not only did we not take aim, but the direction of the muzzle was not even pointing at the enemy's position. As soon as I fired anxiously, all my comrades joined in. Just as I was regretting it, one of the enemy planes started smoking."

  "Alright, that's what I wanted to talk about today, the lead in anti-aircraft shooting. What Little Wang just said, everyone has experienced it personally. We didn't aim at the enemy plane itself, but rather aimed at where the enemy plane was coming from and concentrated our firepower to hit hard. This is because planes are high-speed moving targets, if we aim at the enemy plane at a distance of 1000 meters, not to mention that high-speed targets are difficult to aim at, even if we aim very accurately, by the time our shells arrive, the enemy plane has already flown out of range by about 100 meters. If the enemy plane is higher and farther away, this moving distance is even longer. Therefore, in anti-aircraft combat, most of the time aiming means missing, only when the enemy plane dives and the gun barrel is on the same plane can we hit it. Many brothers here have been machine gunners, we rarely shoot at targets over 1000 meters with machine guns, but rather shoot at stationary or low-speed targets within a few hundred meters or even tens of meters, of course, aiming at who hits who. But when you guys are shooting tanks, the situation is different. Compared to planes, tanks are low-speed targets, and when we aim directly at them face-to-face, the tank and us are on the same plane, so the moving factor is cancelled out. If we shoot at a moving tank from the side or use indirect aiming, we also need to consider the lead."

  "Director Xu, shouldn't we first calculate the trajectory of the enemy planes and fire our artillery shells ahead of time, so that when the enemy planes arrive, they'll collide with our shells?"

  "You're so clever, that's what I mean."

  "Calculate the route of the enemy's approach, let our artillery wait for her on the road, and hug and kiss as soon as we meet."

  Hahaha...

  When everyone's laughter subsided, Xu Liang said: "But to accurately calculate the flight path of the enemy plane and calculate the lead time is not an easy task. The altitude, distance, and speed of the aircraft are all changing, and the only thing we can confirm is the initial velocity of the shell and the approximate flight speed. The higher the enemy flies, the longer our shells take to fly, and experienced enemy pilots can still turn around to avoid the incoming shells in these few seconds."

  Xu Liang looked at the brothers who had settled down and continued to say: "The main purpose of our air defense operations is to prevent enemy planes from destroying targets. If we can shoot down enemy planes, that's great. If we can't shoot down enemy planes but force them not to approach and accurately bomb the target, it's also a victory for air defense operations. When enemy planes fly at high altitudes, it indeed increases the difficulty of shooting them down, but it's not impossible to shoot them down. We roughly calculate the lead time to concentrate firepower and fire in a square array. If the shells directly hit the target, that's great. Even if they don't, the explosion of shells at high altitude can form a barrage, indirectly killing and eliminating the enemy. Moreover, if enemy planes fly at high altitudes without diving down, it's very difficult for them to hit the target. If enemy planes enter or dive at low altitudes, our chances of hitting them will greatly increase."

  Xu Liang was talking about the air defense concept in the early days of World War II. By the late World War II, the US Air Force invented horizontal bombing, and the B-29 Flying Fortress carried out horizontal carpet bombing on target areas at high altitudes, with tremendous power, while greatly reducing the probability of being hit by the enemy. In modern times, air force bombing has developed into long-range precision strikes, which are far beyond what it was like back then. Of course, air defense theory has also kept pace with the times. Any theory has the problem of keeping pace with the times. Today's correct and effective theories may not be true tomorrow.

  "Deputy Commander Xu, your learning is indeed admired by the brothers. The method you came up with last time was really effective. At first, the brothers were whispering: 'How can we just focus on one place and open fire?' But if we had to calculate the advance quantity and all that, the brothers' brains wouldn't be able to handle it. Let's just stick to your original method this time, and the brothers promise to follow orders and open fire, making sure the little devils have no way back!"

  "The devils suffered a loss last time, this time they probably won't enter at low altitude again. If they fly in at high altitude and then dive down, our tactics will also need to be changed. In addition, we must prevent the enemy from sending special planes to deal with our anti-aircraft artillery positions."

  When the air defense course ended, the next plan also took shape: if enemy planes flew in at low altitude, they would still use the original three moves to deal with them, but move the anti-aircraft machine guns to the front hill to deal with low-flying enemy planes and cover the high cannon positions. Xiaowang went to the anti-aircraft machine gun company as a machine gunner, he was originally a machine gunner and before joining the anti-aircraft artillery, he was the squad leader of a machine gun company. The No. 1 high cannon was personally operated by Xu Liang, and all other cannons were adjusted according to the direction and angle of the No. 1 cannon. After the shooting order was issued, each cannon would fire continuously without interruption.

  In the following days, the high gun squadron trained in the snow and practiced techniques and tactics. Chen Hao also personally operated a cannon with one action. At first, most of the guns couldn't keep up with the number one gun, 8 guns were acting inconsistently, chaotic. Gradually, the actions of the 8 guns became more coordinated.