The steam locomotive accelerated slowly and gradually settled at a speed of forty kilometers per hour.
This speed seems really slow to Yang Mingzhi. Think about it. In China in the next century, ordinary citizens will take high-speed trains traveling at a speed of 350 per hour.
Running at a speed of one hundred and fifty hours.
Everyone knows that high-speed trains can transport materials more efficiently, but in this time and space, the Soviet Union must accommodate all slow-speed trains to build a huge wartime material transportation network.
Nowadays, most of the Allied supplies take the North Sea route. The fleet unloads at the port of Murmansk in the northern Soviet Union, and a small amount goes directly to the port of Arkhangelsk.
Some U.S. supplies took the North Pacific route. For this reason, the U.S. and Japanese navies also broke out in a naval battle near the Aleutian Islands. The U.S. military won, thus stabilizing the Pacific route to aid the Soviet Union.
Supplies from the United States, as well as supplies from the Soviet Far East and Siberia, were all transported to the front line through slow but solid freight trains.
The German army also mainly used military trains to transport supplies to the frontline troops, and the continuous flow of new soldiers and increasingly frequent guerrilla attacks made the German army's railway transportation increasingly difficult.
The Soviet Union had no such considerations at all. If it had, it would have been wary of infiltrated German spies deliberately sabotaging the railways.
After a year of rigorous inspection, attempts by German agents to sabotage the Siberian Railway have been completely eliminated.
Yang Mingzhi thought of many things and couldn't help but express his feelings.
Now, if you tell others that only seventy years later, China, which was poor, weak and war-torn, has become the world's most powerful country, will anyone believe it?
He absolutely did not believe a scheming guy like Stalin, and the German mustache was an attitude of complete contempt.
In the future, China will redefine what it means to build a railway network, while the Soviets, their Trans-Siberian Railway, have tinkered with it but still haven't made much difference.
So much so that at that time, any Chinese who had traveled to cities in central Russia always said that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians had not improved their railways. The diesel locomotives that could reach a hundred yards were still operating at the tortuous speed of the steam power era.
It's as if there has never been a major railway speed increase.
The Siberian Railway was first built using the area with the gentlest altitude. It has some turns, but the turning radius is very large. Once you enter the city, it starts to twist and turn.
Moscow is a big city, and the train bound for the Kazan Defense Line also made several turns. As the sun faded and appeared in the west, Yang Mingzhi was able to determine the direction. He was also a little caught off guard, for fear that the military train would go in the wrong direction.
.
After all, when the army column left Moscow and entered the dense woods on the outskirts, it was really running straight towards the east.
Today's Siberian Railway is at its peak of busyness and the war is intense. Every month, there are 800 military trains, equivalent to about 45,000 wagons, transporting from the east to Moscow. Such a large number of military trains are mixed with the busy military trains traveling in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, more than 10,000 locomotives traveled on the Soviet railway network every day.
The total length of the Siberian Railway is more than 9,000 kilometers, but a considerable number of sections are one-way roads. The Soviet Union renovated it, added two-way roads, and added some branch roads. In the first and second five-year plans, they wanted to use short-term
To increase railway transport capacity on a large scale in just ten years, all Stalin and his close comrades could think of was to give priority to strengthening railway construction in Eastern Europe.
After all, coal from Donbas, steel from Zaporozhye, wheat from Western Ukraine, salt and timber from Belarus, these are the foundations for the development of heavy industry that most rely on railway transportation.
Now, the problem is very embarrassing!
The Axis Corps is using the Soviet Union's well-built railway network to transport supplies, making their offensives always fierce.
The Soviet Union needed the Asian part to provide a large amount of manpower and material resources to support the European part. At this time, everyone realized with embarrassment that if they had known this, they should have fully repaired the Siberian Railway.
Railway matters were the responsibility of various railway bureaus in the Soviet Union. Yang Mingzhi was careless about this. He only hoped that he could reach his destination faster and avoid suffering on the bumpy train.
He watched his wife eat two pieces of greasy cream cake. Although it had only been a few good days, his wife's already chubby face became even rounder. She had gained some weight from eating. If the wife had always had a good appetite, she would wait until the child was born.
, she wants to regain her former capable figure, but she is afraid that she will have to run every day.
Busy people will understand the benefits of cooking salted fish once they stop. Inertia affects the whole body, except that it does not interfere with appetite.
She had eaten cake, some bread, and three fried eggs. It must be said that this girl's food was really excellent by current standards, and it was inevitable that she would become a little fat girl.
After dinner, the sky turned completely dark, dark clouds gathered, and the whole world fell into darkness.
The lights in the carriage were dim and soft. Yang Mingzhi sat cross-legged, placing the newspaper issued in early September on the small square table and looking at his wife's peaceful sleep with relief.
Due to the small stove, the interior of the carriage became warmer. She was lying on her side, wrapped tightly in blankets, breathing softly with a smile on her face.
"It's true that after you have eaten and slept, you have eaten, and the child has not yet been born, your life now is like confinement. It doesn't matter, you have been working hard, and now I am your man. From now on, you should start to enjoy the rest of your life."
The next half century of happiness."
…
It was really uncomfortable to read the newspaper in the dim light. After a while, Yang Mingzhi took off his coat, hung it on the wooden wall, and fell asleep quietly.
At ten o'clock at night, the lights in the entire carriage were turned off. Only a few soldiers on night duty continued to stand guard, and the stoker driver on shift continued to control the train. The rest of the people all fell asleep.
This night, Yang Mingzhi only snored weakly, and the ordinary sleeper car was really full of snores.
Lieutenant Grischenko never expected that because he was a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he was extremely respected by the officers and soldiers guarding the train. When he went to sleep, the snoring of those soldiers really made him uncomfortable.
So much so that he had no choice but to apply to the train conductor, and on the grounds of protecting the general, he led his subordinates to pack up their bedding and rush to the lobby of the luxury carriage. Tonight, they packed up densely packed bunks and felt the warmth of the big fire.
It was late at night, and the predicted rain came as expected. The military column was heading towards the first stop, Vladimir City, and arrived safely at 10:30 in the evening.
The rain comes quietly along with the north wind, the outdoor temperature drops sharply, and anyone standing outdoors will shiver.
Nothing affected Yang Mingzhi's sleep, and he slept soundly next to his wife.
Half an hour after the military train stopped in Vladimir, the conductor got off the train and made a phone call to the Kazan Railway Bureau. The call was for nothing else but to inquire about the weather conditions there.
"It has rained on the entire line. All trains have slowed down and the speed must not exceed 30 kilometers per hour."
The new journey started at 11 o'clock at night, and the conductor agreed very much with the decision of the Kazan Railway Bureau. Not only was it night, the rain also made the track slippery, so it was safe to slow down in this condition.
When the superiors were dispatching, they took into account that the vehicle speed had to be reduced due to rainfall and other effects, so the lower limit of the time to arrive in Novosibirsk was set on September 12th.
Yang Mingzhi didn't know that the military train was slowing down. He slept very comfortably all night. The reason was related to the fact that the bumps became lighter after the speed was slowed down.
It was already six o'clock in the morning. Yang Mingzhi got up lazily, with his shoulders bare in a daze, and got into the toilet to finish his personal problems. He washed his face again and regained consciousness, and then he saw the low carbon in the hall.
Since there are a lot of people sleeping in all directions.
"Oh, Grishenko, you...why are you sleeping here?" Yang Mingzhi's eyes widened, but he did not disturb the clear dreams of these uninvited guests.
After regaining consciousness, Yang Mingzhi instantly saw something abnormal through the window.
The whole world is gray, the glass mountain is full of water drops, and there is a layer of breath on some glass?!
"It's finally raining outside. Where am I now? Which city is the military column heading to?"
He wanted to understand all this and see the current situation, so he slipped back into bed and continued to sleep.
Anyway, I will definitely go to Novosibirsk, so why worry about other useless things?
The rain continues to fall outside the window. Listening to the sound of raindrops, the amount of rainfall is definitely not small.
In 1944, Russia’s traditional autumn rain finally arrived!
A cold wave swept through parts of Eastern Europe in the Soviet Union, triggering a large-scale rain and snowfall process. The temperature in Leningrad, which was still under siege, dropped sharply, and the bad weather of sleet and snow not only brought difficulties to the German army that had been trying to break through, but also caused difficulties.
It was a major blow to the struggling military and civilians of Leningrad.
The first snow of the second half of the year has fallen in Murmansk in the far north. The wind and snow will continue in the next six months, but the port will never be frozen.
The soldiers and civilians at the port were not affected by the sudden snowfall at all. They were even in high spirits and had already welcomed the long-lost guests.
The military train marched forward bravely in the wind and rain, getting closer and closer to Nizhny Novgorod. Finally, at 7:30 in the morning, the train arrived at the edge of the city.
Snap! Snap!
There was a crisp knock on the door, and Yang Mingzhi rubbed his sleepy eyes.
"Comrade General, I am Felyudov. I have good news for you. We are about to arrive at Novgorod Station."
"Oh, yes."
Yang Mingzhi sat up and saw his wife still lying on her side, breathing softly. Her sleeping appearance was really intoxicating.
The world outside the window also had a different flavor. Ignoring the rain on the windows and the slightest hint of coolness seeping in through the gaps, what Yang Mingzhi saw were acres of wheat fields.
"It's really similar to China in the future. It's wheat harvest time in Russia too? This rain is really unlucky. I hope the wheat isn't fully mature yet."
What Yang Mingzhi saw were the large areas of crop land owned by the large collective farms near Nizhny Novgorod. In the years before the war, Soviet agriculture developed relatively rapidly. Without enough fertilizer, the Soviet Union's grain output had already
Approaching the bottleneck.
In Ukraine, locals can plant winter wheat, and then plant another season of potatoes after harvest. In Siberia, where the warm period is short, they have to use the warm half of the year to plant one season of spring wheat.
"Wheat, wheat, ground into flour, the energy density is much higher than that of potatoes. It is more reliable for soldiers to eat bread when fighting." He muttered as he changed his clothes. His growling stomach urged him to eat something.
My wife, who was still sleeping in, must have been hungry too.
Thanks to the continuous heating of the small stove, the outdoor temperature was only 5 degrees, but the indoor temperature was 15 degrees. Yang Mingzhi, wearing a thick woolen coat, even felt a little hot.
After some pleasantries with his subordinates, he received his breakfast: slices of bread, a fried egg, a small piece of fried beef, and a bowl of oat milk.
This was the general's breakfast, and the rest of the staff could only eat oatmeal, bread, and even carambola.
Of course, the highly nutritious food must be limited to his wife. Only when he saw himself biting beef comfortably did Yang Mingzhi take a bite of bread with satisfaction.
This behavior really shocked the conductor Semyonov, as if the general was demonstrating against deliberate neglect.
"Ah! General, you... I'm sorry, I will immediately notify the kitchen to prepare another meal for you." After that, he turned and left.
"What? Don't leave yet, I just have something to ask you."
"As commanded."
Originally, the conductor wanted to find the general in person and explain today's travel arrangements to him. Unexpectedly, the general spoke first.
Yang Mingzhi pointed to the scenery outside the window: "I know a little bit about agriculture. Look, those things outside are all wheat, right?"
"Yes, you observed it carefully. They are all wheat."
"Hey, smart soldiers are always vigilant. Now tell me, when will the wheat be harvested?"
"This... usually ends this month, and the harvest will be completed in early October at the latest."
"Okay!" Yang Mingzhi moved a stool thoughtfully and patted the train conductor on the shoulder, "I have nothing to do in the morning, let's talk."
At this moment, the conductor was holding back his words and could only listen attentively. As soon as the general opened his mouth, he mentioned the very real war situation.
"The battle in Stalingrad is very stalemate right now, and there are battlefields all over southern Russia. We have millions of troops fighting bloody battles. When the food is harvested at the end of this month, it should be delivered to the southern army as soon as possible?"
"Of course! That is necessary. Maybe by that time, the train I am responsible for will also be engaged in the transportation of materials southward."
"By that time, I am afraid that all the food from Siberia and the Far East will be converging on the southern Russian battlefield! This war has evolved into a battle of national strength and consumption. If our lives are harder, the frontline soldiers can fight in a better condition.
"
What did the train conductor think when the general said something like this? He thought, maybe the general insisted on eating breakfast for ordinary staff to protest that the standard was too high?
The conductor has been traveling on the Moscow-Far East line for several months. He is very concerned about the status of the alliance and can then make a guess about the short-term task volume in the future.
Now that the general mentioned the issue of food, he suddenly remembered a briefing he had seen in Pravda last week.
"General, I have learned some news, which should be good news."
"Speaking."
"Our allies, the British and Americans, have organized another fleet and are now sailing on the route to Murmansk. The newspaper said that this time the allies' escort force is very strong, and another failure is impossible.
Already."
"Is there such a thing?! Ah! What a good news." Yang Mingzhi suddenly sat upright, his excitement was beyond words, and immediately grabbed the train conductor's arm: "Tell me, where did you get the news?
?”
The conductor was a little flattered: "It's Pravda. If you see the September 1st copy, you will..."
"Oops!" Yang Mingzhi slapped his forehead suddenly, and agreed to have some newspapers brought, no matter old news, just to pass the time. The newspapers were delivered, but they were still tied up with hemp rope and left alone on the ground.
Quickly, the conductor dug out the key journals of Pravda, specifically found the news page, and presented it to the general who was inexplicably excited.