Chapter 49: The Bridge of Huanjiang Navigation School
Apart from wealth and materials, the 15th Red Army gained more after occupying Hangzhou. Before the main force captured Hangzhou, a main force regiment of over 3,000 people, under the guidance and assistance of the special warfare team, launched a surprise attack at lightning speed and occupied the Jianqiao Airport outside Hangzhou, the Central Aviation Factory in Hangzhou (which could only assemble and repair aircraft, with almost all required parts needing to be imported, and the speed was far from comparable to advanced countries), and now China's largest aviation school - Jianqiao Central Aviation School. They captured over 100 pilots and students, and seized more than 50 aircraft of various types.
What delighted Hu Weidong even more was that the country's top aircraft designer before liberation, Wang Zhuo, who had served as Boeing's first chief engineer, was captured. Due to his repeated disappointments over the past decade since returning home, he was quickly won over by Hu Weidong's advanced aircraft design and manufacturing concepts and agreed to work for the Red Army. However, he made two requests: one was not to make it public to avoid harming his family, and the other was that Hu Weidong must fulfill his promise to build a real aircraft factory within five years.
Among the captured pilots and students, there were also many talents, including three of the "Four Great Aces" of the Chinese Air Force during the War of Resistance - instructors Gao Zhihang, Li Guidan, and student Le Yiqin who was about to graduate, as well as Liu Zhesheng and Zheng Shaoyu, who shot down the most Japanese planes during the war, and many other future excellent pilots.
The air force of the National Army was generally opposed to the civil war (the cultural level of pilots was generally higher, and the National Government's slanderous words such as "communism and sharing wives" could not deceive them). Moreover, the Red Fifteenth Army's attack speed was too fast. In order to avoid a large number of aircraft being destroyed by the Red Army's artillery before they could take off, Gao Zhihang surrendered to the Red Fifteenth Army on the condition that the Red Army would not confiscate the pilots' personal weapons, would not completely restrict their freedom of movement (as long as they did not leave the aviation school), and would not force them to fight against the National Army. Gao Zhihang thought that since the Red Army had no air force, they naturally would not be interested in those aircraft. But who knew that after Hu Weidong saw Gao Zhihang and other National Army pilots, his first sentence was to ask them to immediately fly their planes to the Soviet area.
"There's no airport, how is this plane supposed to land? Even if it makes an emergency landing safely, it'll be hard to take off again. Don't pretend you don't know!", said Gao Zhihang, who was pushed forward as the representative for negotiations by the pilots.
"Who says we don't have an airport? Although it's just a makeshift airfield, it can still accommodate dozens of biplanes, and we've also built underground hangars. Even if the enemy discovers them, we won't be afraid," Hu Weidong said with a smile. In fact, he had originally ordered the construction of the makeshift airfield in Chongan County, Fujian Province to reserve technical expertise and talent for future airport construction. Who would have thought that they could seize a batch of planes so quickly? Hu Weidong wouldn't let them go to waste. His only regret was that the airport was built a bit small, so larger transport planes had to be abandoned, not to mention those civilian passenger planes... But who knew beforehand that the Red Army could take down the Zhijiang Central Aviation School without using artillery, and almost seize all the planes? Besides, there wasn't enough time; building a large-scale airport takes much longer than a makeshift one...
"Are you serious?", Gao Zhihang questioned, but he had already believed Hu Weidong's words in his heart. Even the underground hangar knew that building an airport was not impossible. However, a group of "rebels" had started planning their own air force when they were still weak, which made Gao Zhihang feel moved by their ambition. Thinking about the Nanjing government, which valued the air force but saw it more as a decorative facade and a tool for internal war, and how corruption was rampant within the national army, with factions everywhere, corrupting the air force's atmosphere, most pilots couldn't even complete basic training. As the deputy commander of the Training General Headquarters, he knew that one person alone couldn't solve the problem from the root. Comparing the two, Gao Zhihang suddenly had an impulse to join the Red Army, but he was no longer a young and impulsive man, and quickly controlled his emotions.
"I want you to train pilots for our Red Army, and after one hundred people are trained, I will let you leave. Of course, if anyone wants to join the Red Army, we would be more than happy to welcome them." Hu Weidong didn't want to waste any more time, so he spoke straightforwardly to Gao Zhihang.
"This is impossible, the fuel stored in the aviation school and airport is not enough, a dozen new pilots can use up the inventory after training! Unless you have another way to get a large amount of aviation gasoline." High Zhihang shook his head, he couldn't help but feel puzzled again, did the other side understand the aviation department at all?
"You misunderstood, what I meant by qualified is that they can safely fly the plane up and down, knowing how to start a fire is enough." Hu Weidong explained.
"That's possible, as long as the trainee isn't too stupid, it should be achievable in a month, but what's the point of cultivating pilots with almost no combat power?" High Zhihang couldn't help but feel puzzled again.
Hu Weidong hesitated for a moment, and finally told the truth, "Alright, I'll tell you, our pilots' initial mission wasn't to engage in dogfights with the enemy, but rather to ferry planes. On one hand, it's to preserve the captured aircraft here; on the other hand, when we occupy the Japanese airfields in the future, we can fly their planes back and not have to destroy them all."
"Can planes be easily captured? Do you think you can always be so lucky?", Gao Zhihang couldn't help but sneer, but he immediately reacted and stared wide-eyed, shouting "You say you're going to fight the Japanese?"
"It's not that we want to fight, but we're already fighting. The Japanese concession has been taken down and now they are investigating the assets of the Japanese. In fact, we declared war on Japan in 1932, but unfortunately, the declaration was banned by Chiang Kai-shek and nobody knew about it outside. Moreover, the Soviet area has always been heavily surrounded by the National Army, so even if you want to fight against little Japan, you need to have the opportunity to meet them first..." Hu Weidong shrugged his shoulders and smiled, he knew very well about Gao Zhihang's deep hatred towards Japan, of course, he had to play the "anti-Japanese" card.
Gao Zhihang was almost hooked, but Hu Weidong's added sentence "currently investigating the assets of the Japanese" made him suspect that the Red Army's anti-Japanese actions might be motivated by greed. He decided to observe for a while before making a choice. However, Hu Weidong immediately threw out an even bigger bait, "I heard your ex-wife was Russian, and you were forced to separate because the Central Aviation Bureau had a rule that military officers couldn't marry foreign women. Our air force wouldn't be so inhumane."
Although Gao Zhihang remarried in 1932, the couple's incompatible personalities have long since led to a loveless marriage. This has made him miss his ex-wife even more, and Hu Weidong's words had a profound impact on his mind. Gao Zhihang almost blurted out an agreement to join the Red Army, but then he thought about whether these captured planes could be preserved and whether the Red Army would really go to war against the Japanese in the future - all of which were still uncertain. So in the end, Gao Zhihang suppressed his excitement and decided to wait and see.
Note 1: In fact, as early as the beginning of the 1930s, the Red Party had already sent people to study aircraft piloting and manufacturing in the Soviet Union. Due to domestic conditions at that time, it wasn't until after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War that they returned to China and established their first aviation school, which was the old Northeast Aviation School.
