At eight o’clock in the evening, after the enemy’s shelling had completely ceased, a jeep carrying Harlamov and a pilot arrived at the headquarters of the Guards Mechanized Infantry Division.
Having been informed in advance, Wang Zhong led all the staff of the division headquarters to meet them at the entrance.
Seeing two people getting off the jeep, Wang Zhong asked, “Did we lose two people?”
“No,” Harlamov shook his head, “Another had a rudder failure, and the last message from his radio was that he flew over the river, but we don’t know where he landed. If he makes contact with our forces, he will return by car.”
Since pilots are so precious, any unit that finds one will send them back to the airfield by car.
“Do you know the family address of Captain Semyon? I want to personally write him a letter of thanks,” Wang Zhong added.
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard a guard from the sentry unit click his tongue in awe, “A General personally writing a letter of thanks, wouldn’t that be something to have.”
Popov looked like someone who had just been enlightened, turned his head, and looked Wang Zhong up and down.
Wang Zhong forcefully pretended not to notice the expression on his face.
Harlamov said, “Through official channels, you could do this through the church at the airfield. If you want to send it yourself, I know the address, after all, he’s an old soldier from the first squadron, and I’m quite familiar with him. Should I give the address to your maid?”
Wang Zhong nodded and gestured for them to enter, “Please come in. Let’s not stand out here, lest the Prussians learn from us and start shelling unexpectedly.”
The group entered the bunker like so.
Upon entering, Harlamov’s first words were, “General Rokossovsky, during the enemy aircraft attack, no one was paying attention to your radio communication, but thinking back now, you seem to have a good grasp of air combat tactics. You also knew that enemy fighters have trouble rolling during a dive.”
Wang Zhong quickly said, “That’s just common knowledge, most aircraft will see decreased maneuverability when diving beyond a certain speed.”
This was true, so during a dive, it was necessary to control the speed well, often throttling back to prevent the aircraft from going too fast.
A Yak-1 becoming unresponsive when diving too fast is also a risk of wing failure, given that the wings of the Yak-1 were made of wood.
However, the Yak-1 rarely executed dive attacks. When Wang Zhong played War Thunder, he would dogfight with a Yak-1 at low speed and low altitude.
Harlamov stared at Wang Zhong, “Common knowledge, I see. So among the nobility, this kind of knowledge, typically held by seasoned veterans, has become common knowledge?”
Wang Zhong firmly said, “Yes. It all started when a buddy of mine took a girl up for a flight, and afterwards, she was totally devoted to him. So flying became popular. It’s all for wooing girls, and I’m the second playboy of Ye Fort, understand!”
Harlamov nodded, “I don’t understand much about nobility, but it’s true that pilots are very popular with the girls. More than once, we’ve asked hospitals not to be set up near airfields because the more nurses that are close by, the more socializing happens, and after socializing, many nurses get pregnant.”
Wang Zhong’s sympathy for Harlamov’s squadron suddenly halved.
Vasily asked, “And what about you, Colonel? I remember your wife is a high school teacher, do you also get cozy with the nurses at the dance?”
Harlamov replied, “Of course not. Roughly six years ago, when a fighter group I was with stationed near an airfield that had a high school next to it, my wife—to be—had just started teaching there. We had a mixer between the pilots and the teachers, and then I got married.”
Vasily remarked, “It’s good that I didn’t join the Air Force.”
Wang Zhong exclaimed, “You like men?”
“No, I just don’t want to get married yet.”
Popov interjected, “He hasn’t had enough fun yet, I can tell just by his expression. When I was still a Priest at the church, over half the young lads who came to confess were just like him.”
At this point, Pavlov joined the conversation, “Let’s get back to serious matters, Colonel Harlamov.”
The Colonel nodded, “Right, back to business. We came here to report what we observed while flying at low altitude.”
Wang Zhong asked, “The enemy didn’t hide?”
The Colonel shook his head, “No, they have no air raid awareness whatsoever. Their tanks and tents had no camouflage, not even a net covering. Moreover, when they saw the planes, they didn’t scatter or duck, they all stood in place waving at us.”
Wang Zhong wasn’t surprised by this, as those who hadn’t experienced airstrikes tended to be lax. On Earth, when Ameidulite air-raided Tokyo by flying along the coast, fishing villagers seeing the planes at first mistook them for their own, waving and cheering.
Popov snorted, “They’ll quickly learn their lesson from the war.”
Wang Zhong continued, “You flew behind enemy lines, did you find out why they stopped? After this morning’s wave of attacks, the enemy just shelled us without launching any further attacks. We speculate that the enemy may have suffered unexpected losses or had a death that caused low morale.”
Harlamov replied, “No, the soldiers we saw from our low-flying sortie didn’t seem like they had been defeated. They were spirited and seemed jubilant, not bothering to take cover. They gathered in the canteen; a single heavy shell could have killed a hundred people.
“I actually feel like the enemy thinks victory is within reach.”
After Harlamov finished, his wingman added, “Another thing, all the enemy stayed in tents, and we noticed many nice houses that were completely unoccupied.”
Wang Zhong speculated, “They are probably scared by our nightly shelling.”
Pavlov asked, “Knowing that the enemy isn’t occupying the houses, do we still bomb tonight?”
“We can stop tonight, even for a couple of days, wait until the enemy starts taking shelter in the houses, then strike.”
Pavlov nodded, “Okay, then tonight, the artillery can rest.”
Having said this, he turned to see to this matter while Wang Zhong kept questioning Harlamov, “Any other intelligence? It’s unlikely that the enemy won’t attack, but we’ve been on guard all day with no activity.”
Harlamov shook his head, “I’m just a pilot; I can only tell you that the enemy’s air defense awareness is very poor.”
Wang Zhong stroked his chin and fell into deep thought.
At this time, Harlamov swallowed hard, as if he had made up his mind to ask, “General, how did you manage to get the shells within our line of sight? If you hadn’t sent the first one over, today’s tactics would have been impossible.”
Vasily also looked at Wang Zhong.
He had personally witnessed Wang Zhong drawing crosses on the map with his fingernail today.
Wang Zhong had actually thought it through already and concluded that he couldn’t hide it, he could only say that it was really cool.
Luckily, this world had Divine Power.
So he said, “I prayed to God, and He told me the location.”
What’s the deal, girls are allowed to pray to guide Divine Arrows, but I, a good-looking young man, can’t pray to guide a cannon? Besides, the praying hands were equally split between men and women; it just so happened that all the praying hands in my troops were females.
Popov’s expression immediately became very subtle.
For the first time, Wang Zhong actually noticed! After all, one must pay attention to the bishop subordinate’s response, right?
So, he added, based on his understanding of the secular faction’s doctrine, “I think there must be scientific principles behind this, maybe due to blackbody radiation inducing quantum entanglement.”
Actually, Wang Zhong was completely bluffing at this point; he didn’t understand quantum mechanics at all. He had just watched a video titled “The Ultimate Battle at the Summit of Quantum” and remembered a few terms because they sounded cool.
It was like those pseudo-intellectual youths on some platforms who watched “Five-Minute Speed Read of XX Masterpieces” on TikTok and, after remembering a few keywords, started to show off and act pretentious.
What he hadn’t anticipated was that these few words were as long as names in Ante’s language.
After a string of gibberish, everyone was confused.
Popov: “What the heck is that?”
Wang Zhong: “I mean, based on the Planck constant and de Broglie resonance, I knew the location of Harlamov and the others.”
Vasily: “I’m pretty sure what you just said is different from what you said before.”
Wang Zhong: “I just piled up a few of the most cutting-edge scientific terms; eventually, they will be explainable. Science that’s advanced enough looks just like magic.”
Popov: “Don’t worry, the Sanctified faction has been wiped out, and moreover, the Grand Patriarch has given special instructions that the Judge will turn a blind eye to what you say.”
Wang Zhong: “That’s really scientific!”
Harlamov chimed in, “So, does that mean we will be able to guide artillery by keeping in radio contact with you in the future?”
Wang Zhong: “First, you’ll need to get a better radio. Actually, contacting you today was a fluke; the weather is going to get worse soon, and the increasing clouds might further affect radio communication.”
Harlamov: “Right. And after all, we are fighter pilots; it’s not suitable for us. I think we could request to dispatch Ye-2 bombers. The Ye-2 bombers have dedicated navigators, and they know their own positions. I’ve always thought we should make heavy bombers into reconnaissance planes like the enemy does.”
Wang Zhong: “Maybe we could get some B17 support from the Federation.”
After he finished speaking, the room fell silent.
Popov coughed, “Did you just leak some secrets?”
Wang Zhong: “Ah? Oh, you mean Mike, the reporter from the Federation? He told me a lot about what’s going on in their country. It’s not a leak; they are already discussing in Congress whether to help us or not. It’s not leaking secrets, their newspapers are reporting it every day!”
The others exchanged glances and collectively decided to accept that explanation.
Harlamov sighed, “Well, I do hope they send more fighters. I’m sick of these wooden planes.”
Wang Zhong thought, just wait, you’ll get to fly a Yak-3. That thing is all metal and known as the perpetual motion machine at low altitude; it can make a fool out of any plane that dares to battle it at low altitudes.
Pavlov had finished arranging the artillerymen’s rest and came back, asking, “So, why exactly did the enemy stop attacking?”
Everyone looked at each other, clueless.
———-
“Tomorrow morning, I will personally fly to explain to His Majesty.”
In the headquarters of the First Army of the Asgard Knights, Giles said so.
His adjutant looked at the telegram in his hands with worry, “This telegram is so strongly worded; aren’t we taking a risk by going to His Majesty now? Won’t we be asking for trouble?”
Giles: “But it’s a fact that our elite armored units were useless in the attack on Shostka. Even if we move them to the northern line, it would be more useful than wasting them here. I will make His Majesty understand this.”
The other officers glanced at each other.
Giles added, “Or do you think His Majesty doesn’t have the magnanimity to understand such things?”
The other officers immediately shook their heads.
Giles: “That’s settled then. I will leave the front line tomorrow, and you will continue with the engineering work.”