Broad Track

The fire of the public opinion war began to ignite. The big and tabloids were commenting on the northwest march of the vanguard army. The streets and alleys were also hustling about the operation. At this time, Meng Xiang, Tang Yaoshi and others were sitting in the living room of the command center, savoring the comments of media everywhere.

"The Japanese pirates are still on the side, why bother to fight each other too quickly? This article is said sharply! I don't know if it is the wonderful pen of the pen." Meng Xiang pointed to the headlines in the Central Daily News and exclaimed.

"I know who this pseudonym is. Chen Bulei used it for a while back then." He Siyuan smiled.

"Chen Bulei?" Meng Xiang was quite familiar with this name. This was the courage of Jiang Jiang. He was known as the first pen of the Central Party. However, the ending was a bit miserable. Not only did he die, but his family later became a little miserable.

"Chen Yanji's pseudonym is usually used by Ru Ran, and other pseudonyms are rarely used. This time, I'm afraid he is embarrassed to show his real name. It's good that the Japanese pirates are still on the side, but the three-year-old child knows who fights the Japanese more than the Pioneer Army or the Central Army." He Siyuan smiled and said.

"No matter how beautiful the writing is, it is useless. When we fight the Japanese, our vanguard army has never fallen behind. We are not afraid of others' remarks." Li Shuchun next to him said disdainfully.

"You can't let others say it. If you repeat the lies too much, someone will believe it." Zhou Bai shook his head and said.

"We are talking very loudly!" Meng Xiang patted the stack of newspapers next to him and said with a smile.

None of the media has a deeper understanding of the power of Meng Xiang. When the media emphasizes the same thing, God can be called a servant, exploitation can be called a dedication, black and white can be reversed in a flash, and the heaven and earth will be lost. Therefore, the propaganda work of the Pioneer Army has always been the focus, and there has never been any relaxation.

At the beginning, because there were not many newspapers controlled, the Pioneer Army mainly used radio stations. However, it was the Pioneer Army's promotion of radio activities that made the sound of Pioneer Radio often float in the streets and alleys. The live broadcast of Pioneer Radio mobilized the enthusiasm of the people. The accuracy and timeliness of the news made Pioneer Radio a major media trusted by the Chinese people. Meng Xiang's many rich programs launched by later generations also made people who were not concerned about national affairs like to listen to Pioneer Radio.

At this time, Pioneer Radio had three channels broadcast together. The long-wave radio stations set up by the Pioneer Army can also cover the whole country, which is incomparable to others.

In many cases, when working in media, we cannot make too much money. In order to attract others, advertisements cannot be broadcasted too much. Therefore, working in media requires money to support it, and the Pioneer Army is also a strong point in this regard, which is more willing to invest than the central government. Of course, this is also related to the media in this era that emphasizes freedom and openness, and most of them are private, otherwise Chiang Kai-shek would not be so passive in this area.

Now this passiveness has been pinned by the Pioneer Army again. The Pioneer Army has controlled more than 600 newspapers and magazines in just one year, from mass newspapers and newspapers published nationwide to local newspapers and publications in counties and cities. With many passionate young people and many literary masters who have joined the Iron-blooded War of Resistance with the Pioneer Army, and with the strong financial support, the words of the Pioneer Army were enough to be heard by the Chinese people in a short period of time.

This time, Chiang Kai-shek and the Pioneer Army fought a public opinion war. The Pioneer Army avoided the capture of the Pioneer Army, only mentioned the achievements of the Pioneer Army in fighting the Japanese, the benefits of the minimum living allowance to the people, the happiness of the people in the joint war zone, the poverty of the people in the northwest, the helplessness of the war, the brutality of the Sanma army, and some inaction of the Central Army to protect the Han people.

With a lot of publicity, the people will also see the tricks. The Pioneer Army also mentioned the imagination and blueprint of policy planning in the Northwest region, which has led many neutral media to turn to support the Pioneer Army.

In contrast, the Central Army's words to criticize the Pioneer Army seemed a little pale.

"You look at a story, 'Attack friendly forces! Provoking civil war', too unreasonable, and you will only use this to label it! What kind of civil war? Didn't Lao Jiang and his troops often have minor frictions with the Red Party and the others? Why did we become civil war?" Meng Xiang said with a smile on the newspaper again.

"I'm competing for one or two county towns, but we've captured one or two provinces this time." Zhou Bai smiled and frowned. Although there are some specialties in the northwest, it's much worse than the investment in various aspects such as minimum living allowances and education in the next step.

"We are not going to occupy one or two provinces, Gansu, Ningxia, ***, Qinghai, and all four provinces are needed, and Shaanxi, we also want to intervene to occupy a part of it." Meng Xiang pointed out his prey bit by bit.

"The central government may not care much about those remote provinces, but if Shaanxi is also occupied by us, I am afraid that someone will be anxious." Although Tang Yaoshi always wondered why Meng Xiang occupied only a part of Shaanxi, he still reminded with a smile. Although Shaanxi is no longer the peerlessness of Jingzhao back then, it is still a national important place. For the central government, which holds a small territory in its hand, it will never tolerate it.

"Shaanxi is unstable, and the northwest is unstable. Shaanxi must be taken down." Meng Xiang said without hesitation. Now that the war in World War II has been ignited, there is no time left for the domestic moji. According to the strength of the Pioneer Army at this time, he still doesn't believe that Jiang Jiang really dares to turn against him.

"When the time comes, maybe there will be a civil war. Even if we don't fight, others will use our precedent as an excuse to start an internal struggle." He Siyuan said with concern. Although there were some minor frictions under various troops before, under the pressure of the Japanese, they obeyed the Chiang Kai-shek government on the surface. The Chiang Kai-shek government's regime was also recognized by everyone. But at this time the Pioneer Army's northwest movements were a bit big, and it was indeed suspected of challenging the authority of the central government.

The Japanese now shrank their heads and stopped attacking, which made the remaining few territory more important. Some warlords who lost their territory needed to raise their troops and make money, and the previous consumption of the War of Resistance also emptied a lot of their pockets. They did not have the ability of the vanguard army to annihilate 100,000 Japanese devils in one battle, and they could not take them from the Japanese, so they cut them from the remaining cakes.

The Pioneer Army could not afford to offend them. Before they could seize their territory, their soldiers were taken away by them. So they could only grab resources in a limited area in the Kuomintang-controlled area and secretly scheming. But at this time, since the Pioneer Army had unveiled the lid, others also had words of ruling.

"I'm afraid there will be chaos again in the future!" He Siyuan sighed at the end.

"Current? I will fight whoever wants to be chaotic!" Meng Xiang said domineeringly. Civil war requires certain conditions to fight. If one side is too strong, it will only be a riot in the end. With the strength of the vanguard army at this time, as long as the Central Army and the vanguard army are not directly stumbled, other turmoil can be suppressed with just one move.

"Without territory, no source of troops, and no money, they can't fight even if they think civil war is not enough, so they can only fight in the trapped rat room." Meng Xiang said disapprovingly.

"We have territory and military sources, but we have no money," Zhou Bai complained. Before entering the northwest this time, we had sorted out economic and social development plans. But the most important thing is to ensure national defense security in the northwest. No matter which one is good, it is necessary to strengthen exchanges and communication between the northwest and inland coastal areas. The most direct manifestation is to build a railway. After all, in this era of lack of cars, the transportation volume carried by a railway is amazing.

The northwest is located in a remote location. In order to better manage the place, China has always planned to build a railway, but it has not yet been realized. The Longhai Line only reached Baoji two years ago. The Baoji to Tianshui section, which is preparing for construction, has stagnated with the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, with the lack of funds and the arduous project. In the past two days, the vanguard army has not only advanced westward, but also has not stopped eastward along Lanzhou and Ningxia. It has conquered Tianshui and is still advancing eastward. On the road from Tianshui to Baoji, traces of railway construction can be seen.

In the planning of the Pioneer Army, it was planned to build a longer railway. It connects the Longhai Line and extends it to Lanzhou, and then divides it into two routes, one to Xining, all the way into ***, and at least it must reach Dihua. Meng Xiang got a lot of railway tracks from the Americans, and among the first few railways laid, the most important one was this one. With the support of the railway, logistics can be guaranteed, and the northwest can be stabilized, and then the northwest can be guided to the west.

"Only one railway will consume all of us and finally have some surplus finances." Zhou Bailiu was a little unwilling to accept that the United War Zone has been booming in industry and commerce recently, and there was a considerable surplus in the third quarter. However, with the progress of the northwest, all the money was filled into the planning and construction of the northwest. This all comes from Meng Xiang's words, "Where our vanguard army goes, we must build it, so that the people can truly feel the sincerity of our vanguard army." In order to solve the traffic problem, Meng Xiang added later, "Where we go, the road will extend to!"

Meng Xiang was a little self-aware and did not add the word "rail". You should know that the construction of a railway can cost too much compared to building a simple road. Even if the problems of railways, labor, technology and other problems are solved, the remaining funds are a shocking amount.

"After a train, it will cost ten thousand taels of gold. Although the railway is invested heavily, once it is put into use, a large number of resources in the northwest can be transported continuously." Meng Xiang smiled. Indeed, although the northwest gives people the impression of desolation, it is mainly because the surface water resources are relatively lacking and difficult to utilize, making it sparsely populated. However, the resources are a little bit too small. The Qaidam Basin alone will be called a treasure pot in later generations.

At this time, Xie Jiarong and others had already gone to Jinchuan to explore the giant copper-nickel mine there, and the vanguard of the Pioneer Army also took over the Yumen Oilfield, which was still being explored in the Laojunmiao area of ​​Yumen. Because the Pioneer Army had long taken Sun Jianchu, Yan Shuang, Jin Xigeng and others under their command, the exploration of the Yumen Oilfield was delayed for a while. Originally, oil was produced in March, but the exploration has not been completed yet. Of course, this is also related to the vanguard Army's oil shortage in the Kuomintang-controlled area through oil mining and smuggling transportation.

Due to planning for the future, the next step is to build a railway from Baotou to Lanzhou, and the railway from Guisui to Kulun in the future. Even the connection with the Siberian railway needs to be considered in the future. However, it involves the specifications of a railway.

The specifications of railway tracks have their own development history, reflected in their widths, and are even more diverse, from 610 mm to meter rails in Malaya, Myanmar, 1067 mm in Japan, 1524 mm in Soviet Russia, Finland, 1665 mm in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, and 1676 mm in India, Argentina, and Pakistan. There are more than 20 types.

In order to unify the international community, it was officially determined in 37 that the British 1435 was adopted as the standard width. Most railways in China also used this specification. However, the southwest region was influenced by the French, and the Shanxi Zhengtai Railway used French loans, and naturally also rice rails. Lao Yan immediately changed all the Shanxi railways to rice rails. Taiwan was colonized by Japan, and 1067 mm was used. The northeast region was influenced by the Russians at that time, and many of them used 1524 mm.

It’s okay to say other places. Shanxi is in hand now and needs to be transformed. The next step of connecting with the Siberian Railway also needs to be adjusted. Meng Xiang has to consider the future rail width issue.

To be honest, the 1435mm rail is not very scientific, but most of the strongest British and Americans use this specification, which has led to the problem of the horse's butt in later generations determining the size of the rocket.

Especially with the advent of containers, the width of the standard tracks seems a bit inappropriate. The double rows cannot be placed, and the single rows have free space. In order to speed up transportation and provide better logistics support, Meng Xiang is planning to introduce the concept of containers, but it is precisely for this reason that it is delayed.

In addition, it was precisely because of the large width of the rails in later Soviet Russia that many strategic and conventional weapons they created were larger than others. What Meng Xiang remembered was the transportation of rocket spare parts in later generations. Some large accessories could not be transported by railways, which increased the transportation cost a lot. Even the layout of nuclear missile trains, the wider Soviet specifications also had many advantages.

Of course, the wider the better. If it is too wide, it will increase the cost of road construction, especially when crossing mountains and ridges, and the speed of the vehicle is also affected.

However, Meng Xiang did not pay much attention to the issue of speed. The difference between running 300 kilometers and running 200 kilometers is not much different. The key is that you can only buy station tickets along the way. If everyone on the train is sleeper, except for some people who are in a hurry, it will not have much impact on spending more hours. This time saves the time to queue up to buy tickets.

The large number of Chinese people means a huge passenger flow. So many world-class railways in later generations have become a game that China plays by itself. With the certain length of the railway and the frequency of the trains arranged in the safe range, in order to obtain a larger transportation volume, besides adding a railway, the only way to increase the width of the rails and increase the width of the carriages.

However, the national standards in later generations have been unified on the standard track. The cost of changing them all is too high. You can only follow the horse's butt and standardize other standards. The size of machines and products can only be planned according to this design and cannot exceed this range. Sometimes many things are products of compromise. Only when the cost of tapping potential is greater than the innovation will a drastic technological revolution occur.

At this time, there were not many railways in China. Although they were close to 20,000 kilometers, many of them also needed to be unified and adjusted. Moreover, in Meng Xiang's future plan, China's territory will be unprecedentedly broad. The railway mileage exceeds 100,000 kilometers is slightly insufficient. It is not impossible to set your own standards based on the huge territory. The standards determine the future development path.

It is precisely because Meng Xiang has taken this reason that he has not determined the standards for railways for a long time.

"How is the size of the rails determined?" But at this time, the railway construction could no longer be dragged down, so Meng Xiang asked about the situation of the rails.

"The people from the railway team have calculated the plan, and the 2-meter-wide rail plan is feasible." Zhou Bai nodded, "but the specific test data has not been sorted out yet."

Since the end of last year, a series of tests on the width of the rail have begun. Science cannot tolerate any sloppyness, and for the long-term consideration of the future, it must be cautious. Meng Xiang did not urge, but the experiment has been in full swing.

The 2-meter-wide plan was proposed by Meng Xiang. After the Pioneer Army continued to implement international standard units, the calculation of integer digits was relatively simple. Since Meng Xiang planned to determine his own standards, of course, he built the entire system bit by bit from the basis. Although this allowed Chinese scientists to start from the basics and thoroughly familiarize themselves with the entire system, it also increased the workload relatively. Using integer digits can reduce the workload accordingly. Anyway, the imperial system needs to be used to unify something, so there is no need to consider the difference between single digits and ten digits.

The width of 2 meters is also the size of the container in later generations. When the car is roughly fixed, the width of the road is fixed accordingly, so the size of the container cannot be too exaggerated. This estimates that the width of the train car can be met with 2 meters of rails. This can also conform to the performance of the material and not increase the cost by using special processes.

It is good to have a train of ten meters wide, but it can't stand the loads of just various bearings.

"Is the 2-meter-wide railway a little too wide?" He Siyuan was not sure about the development of railways in later generations, and was just exposed to this information, so he couldn't help but be surprised.

"Although a 2-meter railway is wide, it has an advantage. The strong wind cannot be blown down!" Li Shuchun next to him said with a smile. But this really made him say it. Later, there were news that railways were often blown over by strong winds. The corresponding center of gravity of trains on wide rails was lower and relatively stable. Of course, there were more problems when turning, but try to straighten them in the future, and you can also prepare for future speedups.

In fact, it is not just this, because the railway becomes wider, and the pressure can be reduced under the same weight in areas with the permafrost and soft soil layers. This is probably one of the reasons why the Soviet Union and Russia use wide rails. In the future, if the railways extend to ** and other places, the issue of permafrost needs to be considered, and naturally they must prepare in advance.

"The rails are wide, and the locomotive is also wide. The machine is loaded with a large horsepower, and it is more pulling, and it runs faster!" Zhou Bai explained to everyone the problem of containers and standards and system customization issues. He Siyuan suddenly realized and teased himself.

"When the test data is time to sort out. If the width of 2 meters is indeed feasible, then the northwest railway will start preparing immediately. After the weather warms next year, construction will be carried out in sections from Lanzhou, Tianshui and other places to speed up the process and strive to complete it as soon as possible. At the same time, the extension of the Pingsui Railway must be prepared, extending along Yinchuan to Lanzhou. The westward railway and the northward railway network must be planned!" Meng Xiang nodded and instructed.

Time is getting more and more urgent, and the sound of cannons in Europe sounded again. But this time, it was not the Germans' business, but the Soviet Union sang the protagonist.

On November 15, the Soviet Union gathered a large army and began to attack Finland.

This was half a month ahead of history. The main reason was that the Yamato battleships of the Germans were too threatening on the Baltic Sea. The Soviet Union wanted to give Leningrad a more round of protection. The Japanese were soft, which made the Far East resolve affairs quickly, much smoother than in history. After the Soviet and Germany divided Poland, Europe temporarily returned to the peace in the eyes of the storm. Stalin drew the southern troops out, replacing the troops he did not trust on the Soviet-Finance border, and directly launched an attack on Finland.

"See, isn't the Russians just invading? After fighting Poland and Finland, isn't it just to occupy territory?" Huang Weigang shouted loudly.

Zhang Zizhong's command has been set up in Lanzhou. Although the vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard's vanguard'

"This is not a greed for other people's territory, but the Soviet Union wants to maintain security in the northwest border. It is to exchange twice the area of ​​the Karelia region for Finland's Gulf of Finland islands and part of the Rebach Peninsula, lease the Hanko Peninsula military base and move the border of the Karelia Isthmus back." Zhang Kexia explained.

"What kind of bay, what kind of bay, it's said to exchange twice the area, these are all fooling people. I want to exchange this 100 acres of land in the northwest to exchange for the ten acres of land in Qidu. Who is willing to exchange it? Seeing that it doesn't, if someone doesn't change it, they will invade them!" Li Jiusi next to him interrupted.

"This,..." Zhang Kexia also had some opinions about the Soviet Union's approach. Not only him, but the Soviet Union invaded Finland this time, and suddenly fell into the back of world public opinion.
Chapter completed!