Chapter 298
Continuous rainy weather has made the already bad road conditions in the Far East even more muddy and difficult to navigate. The dirt road from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Khabarovsk has collapsed in many places, making it impossible for vehicles, not even tanks, to pass.
Litovko, a pitifully small town today, has less than three hundred residents, all of whom are military families.
Although it is a small town, Yuri still knows this place, and he knew it in his previous life. In his previous life, this place was a very important air defense range in the Russian Far East. In 2018, the Chinese and Russian militaries jointly conducted a large-scale strategic exercise "Vostok-2018", and this place was an important exercise site.
Less than 5 kilometers to the east of the town, at the foot of an inconspicuous high ground, Yuri, wearing a raincoat, threw away the cigarette butt in his hand, turned and walked towards the warhorse not far away. Almost at the same time, intensive gunfire rang out. The sound was very loud, echoing back and forth in the outskirts of the empty woods for a long time.
A hundred meters behind Yuri, a large number of armed Soviet soldiers were executing prisoners of war. The Japanese prisoners, strung together by ropes, were escorted to the edge of five huge earth pits that they had dug. The soldiers in charge of the executions used pistols to shoot at the back of the heads of these prisoners. While shooting, the soldiers would kick the prisoners on the back, so that the bodies would fall directly into the earth pits that were already full of dead bodies, saving the trouble of pushing them in.
Yuri originally planned to attend the entire execution, but unfortunately, he received a call from Moscow this morning. It was Comrade Kaganovich who called him personally and asked him to return to Moscow immediately to attend a meeting tomorrow night. The content of the meeting was kept confidential for the time being and would be discussed after he returned to Moscow.
The trip back is really tight in terms of time. Although the flight has been arranged, we have to stop in three places along the way, including Tomsk and Sverdlovsk. I estimate that if we rush, we will arrive in Moscow by tomorrow night.
Without staying at the execution ground, Yuri mounted his horse and led his guards straight to Petropavlovka, where there was an airport of the First Far Eastern Front. The plane that would take him to Moscow was already waiting there. He just hoped that the damn weather would not affect the normal flight of the plane.
Fortunately, we returned to Moscow from the Far East. Although we encountered two air currents along the way and the plane was a little turbulent, we finally arrived in Moscow smoothly at dusk the next day. When Yuri arrived at Stalin's villa in Kuntsevo by car, it was not completely dark yet.
Yes, the meeting was scheduled to be held at Stalin's Kuntsevo Villa. When Yuri walked into the living room on the first floor, there were already six people waiting there. Among these six people, Yuri only knew four, namely Comrade Beria, Comrade Kaganovich, Vice Chairman of the People's Commissariat and in charge of the chemical industry Mikhail Georgievich Belvukhin, and People's Commissar of Weapons and Equipment Yuri Lvovich Vannikov.
Needless to say, Beria and Kaganovich. Among the latter two, Yuri was not very familiar with Bervukhin and had not dealt with him much, but he was very familiar with Vannikov. During the Great Patriotic War, this man was specifically responsible for organizing the production of artillery shells and bullets, and was awarded the rank of general for his outstanding performance.
As for the remaining two people, Yuri didn't know them and had never even met them.
Yuri took off his military cap and greeted Beria and the other three first. Then, through Kaganovich's introduction, he learned that the remaining two people were actually academicians of the Academy of Sciences. The bearded guy was named Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, and the other guy with a pig-kidney face who looked to be in his early forties at most was Lev Andreyevich Azimovich.
Yuri felt vaguely familiar with these two names, but he couldn't remember where he had heard them.
After talking to the two of them for a few words, before Yuri had time to sit down, Stalin had already appeared at the stairs to the second floor.
Everyone in the living room stopped talking and waited for the leader to walk down from upstairs at a leisurely pace.
"When did you arrive in Moscow?" Stalin, who was coming down from the stairs with a pipe in his mouth, asked Yuri as soon as he came down the stairs.
"Just arrived. I rushed here as soon as I got off the plane," Yuri replied hurriedly.
"How is the situation in the Far East?" Stalin walked to his sofa and sat down, waving his hand holding his pipe at everyone, motioning for everyone to sit down, and continued asking.
"Not bad. Despite the heavy rain for several consecutive days, we should be able to complete all the forward airfields within the construction period," Yuri replied . "According to my estimate, in about ten days, several major air force groups will be able to start the transfer work."
"Very good," Stalin nodded and said with satisfaction, "This shows that our idea of forming a large-scale engineering construction corps is correct. By concentrating limited forces, we can indeed play a more powerful role."
Everyone present nodded in agreement.
"Have you eaten?" Stalin seemed to have thought of something. He glanced at Yuri and saw that his face was greasy, so he asked with concern.
"I've only eaten one piece of bread since yesterday afternoon," Yuri said with a wry smile, "while I was refueling the plane in Tomsk."
Stalin smiled, waved his hand and said, "Go take a shower first. I'll have someone prepare some food for you."
Then, without waiting for him to refuse, she raised her voice and called the waiter.
Yuri thanked him hurriedly, and then followed the waiter to the guest room - Stalin's villa had rooms specially prepared for guests. However, the number of people who could receive his invitation and be allowed to stay overnight was definitely very small. It was estimated that even if one hand could not count them, two hands would definitely be more than enough.
In the room arranged by the service staff, Yuri took a shower as quickly as possible and put on the clothes he wore when he came. Then, he ate something in the room. Less than half an hour later, he hurried to the living room.
At this time, there were more than a dozen people in the living room. Among them, in addition to Stalin and the previous six people, those who were qualified to sit in front of the sofa included Bulganin, Voroshilov, Zhdanov and Voznesensky.
The remaining people could only sit on the newly added chairs outside the sofa. These people formed a semicircle, surrounding the people on the sofa in the middle, forming a layout similar to a round table meeting.
Seeing Yuri coming out from the guest room, Stalin pointed to the only remaining seat on the sofa opposite him and continued, "What we lack now is time, so the National Defense Committee will provide you with all the support it can provide to help you complete this task..."
Yuri walked over quickly and sat down at the position he pointed to. At this time, sitting opposite him was Beria, on his left was Bulganin, and on his right was Voznesensky.
As soon as he sat down on the sofa, Beria opposite him leaned over and handed him a document.
Yuri took the document and looked at the outer seal. It was sealed by the People's Commissariat of Defense, with a top secret seal and a seal serial number. He unfolded the outer seal and found an order of the People's Commissariat of Defense serial numbered "7102".
Just by looking at the beginning of the order, Yuri suddenly remembered what the two men did. That's right, Kurchaev, the father of the Soviet nuclear bomb, how could he forget this guy? As for Azimovich, his role was similar to Kurchaev's.
The "7102" order in hand was a special order on the establishment of the "Uranium Production Joint Corporation" to promote and accelerate the research and development of Soviet nuclear weapons. This order raised the development of nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear capabilities to the top priority of Soviet national security and required some departments and enterprises to unconditionally cooperate and support this work.
Comrade Stalin is now talking about the importance of this work, which involves the latest intelligence that Comrade Beria's department has just received from the United States and Britain. According to the intelligence provided by Beria, as early as August last year, Britain and the United States signed a so-called "Quebec Agreement", and Britain directly incorporated its "Alloy Tube Project" aimed at developing nuclear weapons into the United States' "Manhattan Project". Just last month, the Uranium-235 plant in Oakridge, Tennessee, successfully completed the uranium enrichment process. This means that the nuclear weapons production and research and development technology of Britain and the United States has come ahead of the Soviet Union. Obviously, this is very detrimental to the national security of the Soviet Union.
Therefore, the Soviet Union’s current top priority is to speed up the progress of related work. This is not only a scientific research task, but also a political task and a national security task. Any work must give way to this work.
Comrade Stalin's speech did not contain much content. He emphasized the importance of this work and then asked Kurchayev, who had always supported this work in the past, to introduce it to all the scientific researchers present.
Among the people present, it seemed that only Yuri himself was learning about this work for the first time. Before that, he didn't even know the so-called "Laboratory No. 2", so he didn't know any of the researchers present.
According to Comrade Stalin's order, as the head of the Executive Bureau of the Disarmament Working Committee, he will mainly provide manpower support for this plan in his subsequent work. Therefore, he was specifically notified to participate in this work today.
