Chapter 62: Establishing Contact with the Base (1)

Some survivors within the Special Committee possessed old radios, and some were radio enthusiasts themselves. The expeditionary force’s departure had not been formally announced, so Li Fengyi hoped to maintain a certain degree of secrecy. He feared that if word spread about the main force being driven far away by the zombie horde, unrest might grow among the people—after all, his own mother, wife, and children were still in Hepingli, and he wanted to avoid panic.

Confidentiality was a challenge: with the widespread reach of modern networks, information could spread rapidly. Li Fengyi was familiar with several methods of maintaining secrecy. He asked, “What’s the range on the radio? Is it voice communication?”

“Yes,” Sun Xiaoshan confirmed, having read through the detailed manual. He explained, “It’s a BWT-133 model, a 15-watt portable shortwave single sideband radio with a whip antenna, giving a range of 10 to 20 kilometers. If we use a 15-meter slanting antenna, the range is up to 200 kilometers; with a 44-meter dipole antenna, it’s 500 kilometers. With the secure handset, it can transmit encrypted data and voice, but when we left headquarters, the radio there couldn’t handle encrypted data transmission.”

“Let’s try a call,” Li Fengyi said. Communication had always been crucial—whether in coups or revolutions, the first step was always to seize the communications department and declare their intentions to the world. Since there were no orders from above, they had only listened in on signals from around the region, without initiating any formal communication.

“Apocalypse Beijing Special Working Committee, Apocalypse Beijing Special Working Committee,” Sun Xiaoshan directed his men to bring in the radio, set up the antenna, and power it on.

The man carrying the radio was Liu Mang, who insisted on following Sun Xiaoshan. After going through quarantine at the Civil Affairs Department, and investigation by the Organization Department, he was trained and assigned to Sun Xiaoshan’s unit. Sun Xiaoshan called out, “This is the Reconnaissance Unit, the Reconnaissance Unit,” and gave their codename.

The responses were chaotic—anyone with a radio and the ability to speak was clamoring for attention. “Impressive! The Committee has dispatched a recon force!” “Any progress?” “Come over here, we’re in Qinghai.” “Damn it, if I see you coming, I’ll crush you!”...

After a while, the Special Committee headquarters finally replied. “This is Old Liu, Old Liu speaking. Is Xiao Li there?” It was Commander Liu, who immediately picked up on the implicit meaning behind the unconventional broadcast.

“It’s on my bedside table,” Li Fengyi took the microphone and replied thoughtfully. “There are a few pots of flowers—give them some water, give them some water. I’m waiting online for you to water them. Don’t think that just because I’m not there, you can neglect my flowers.”

“Damn!” “Screw you!” “You want us to water your field next? Is your wife getting impatient?” The survivors crowded around their radios, their reactions like cold water poured into a pot of hot oil—indignant and riled up.

After a long while, Commander Liu replied, “All four flowerpots have been watered by your son. They’re too wet now—mold is about to start growing.”

Li Fengyi nodded. On his bedside table sat a four-volume set of Selected Works. He remembered a business veteran, who after first prospering, then going bankrupt, and finally rising again, once said that doing business in China required reading the Selected Works. So Li Fengyi bought a set and browsed through it regularly.

When he first arrived in Dongba, he set up the meeting room in the local militia department, where the bookshelf held many books—including a version of the Selected Works identical to the one at home.

The subsequent communications consisted of long strings of numbers: flipping through the Selected Works, they encoded their messages by volume, page number, line, and word count. Commander Liu, using the same edition, could then decode the message.

After testing a few lines and confirming that both the encoding and decoding worked, Li Fengyi reported to the Special Committee that Dongba had been recaptured and briefed them on forthcoming operations. The two sides established regular communication times and, once plans were finalized, coordinated their actions.

The survivors were no strangers to these cryptic messages. No one knew which shadowy corner they came from or what they meant. Some speculated they were secret bases or black ops units. At first, there were curses, but as time went on, people stopped caring, chalking it up to private chatter among the mystery men.

Once the staff office completed the detailed plan after a day’s work, Li Fengyi again summoned all officers at battalion level and above to a meeting for further arrangements.

“Our operation will require the deployment of a division’s worth of troops. The remaining forces will spread out along the Wenyu River to complete the planned outer defense ring for Beijing. Any rescued personnel are to be trained in place and, once organized by the Organization Department, assigned to their respective units,” Li Fengyi ordered. “Each unit must establish zombie containment zones based on the geography. All newly formed units will undertake zombie-clearing operations—make sure to draw the zombie hordes into the containment zones, and when conditions are right, eliminate them. The Civil Affairs Department will organize manpower, under the guidance of the Industrial Department’s construction team, to build defensive fortifications—pay attention to zombies from both inside and outside. The Health Department will continue its research on zombie hordes at Old He Bay and promptly share results with all units. Each division is to deploy its reconnaissance battalions—we’ll use the roads as our network, casting a wide net to catch every last fish within.”

All units received their orders and began preparations in earnest. The campaign to secure the transportation lines was on the verge of eruption.

The Industrial Department’s construction team was jokingly called the “foremen” by everyone. They were in charge of directing survivors unsuitable for military service to complete various construction tasks.

“You lot, come over here!” a middle-aged foreman barked in a booming voice, dressed in a type-85 training uniform. “Today you’re still digging trenches. I’ve got a few more excavators for you.”

Before the apocalypse, he truly had been a foreman, though he’d often been left in dire straits due to unpaid project fees. Since most of his workers were fellow villagers, they’d show up at his door during the New Year demanding their wages. Commanding so many unpaid laborers had always been his dream, making the apocalypse seem rather wonderful to him.

“Damn it!” a burly man spat and muttered under his breath, “I’m working myself into a zombie!”

He’d been the leader of a small survivor group, a mid-level enforcer at a nightclub before the apocalypse. His job was to handle unruly, drunken customers—usually by beating them sober. People like him were among the quickest to adapt after the world fell. Li Fengyi had acted fast to protect his family and soon gathered a dozen brothers, coercing dozens of survivors into a group that bullied the weak and lived comfortably—at least no one was calling the police anymore.

When the provisional army began clearing zombies, these men tried to negotiate with the military, unsure whether this fell under the jurisdiction of the United Front Department, so they reported it there at once.