When Roland received the report jointly signed by the top leaders of the First Army and the General Staff, he immediately thought of the classic scenes from spy movies.

Obviously, this was a highly feasible plan.

He even considered Edith more than they did.

Although the profession of a spy has existed since ancient times, with different names in different periods, the concept and image he was familiar with gradually formed during World War I and II. Prior to that, intelligence transmission was mostly simple two-way communication, and no strict system had been developed. As governmental agencies gained stronger control over the people under their rule, informants and spies became increasingly difficult to survive, and the profession became complex and systematic.

This also meant that a loosely controlled system with feudal lords as rulers could not fundamentally eradicate the existence of spies. As long as intelligence personnel received some basic professional knowledge training and the lower lines were cut off, with their weak anti-espionage awareness and methods, even if they turned the entire city upside down, they would not be able to find the tail of the lurking person.

After all, for those who provided intelligence on the lower levels, the line was an unseen shadow figure, and even if Nightingale interrogated them, they wouldn't be able to find out anything.

Roland immediately approved the plan.

However, he did not intend to completely hand this matter over to Edith. This had nothing to do with trust, but rather that espionage required a lot of energy to plan and arrange. He valued the pearl of the North's strategy and the rare sense of the big picture in this era more. If energy was used in this kind of thing, it would be a case of putting the cart before the horse.

Professional things can be left to professionals.

He spread out a new piece of stationery and wrote Hill. Fawkes's name at the top.

The political situation in Dawn had basically stabilized, and the circus master should be bored by now, right?

After having Nightingale pass the letter to Honey, Roland began to consider another matter.

That was the intelligence network.

Initially, the information he had to deal with, whether it was war or political affairs, was basically limited to Graycastle. Since the expedition to Taquila, the flying messengers had experienced obvious delays, but fortunately, the Seagull glider could travel back and forth to the front line in a day, which could be accepted as a supplementary means of transmission.

But now that the main battlefield had become Wolfheart and Eternal Winter, the inconvenience of communication was particularly prominent.

For example, the report at hand was sent to him by sea, but the date of writing was a week ago. Replying with animal messengers would be much faster, but two or three days were still unavoidable. More importantly, Honey did not control many messengers capable of long-distance flights of thousands of kilometers—after all, she could only make animals obey her, but she could not change their inherent habits.

Moreover, even for short-distance messengers, the number was limited. Honey's magic was not enough to support the communication needs of the entire Western Region, let alone the entire country and abroad. When those spies began to operate, how to transmit intelligence back safely and quickly was also a major problem that needed to be solved urgently.

Roland knew clearly that the ultimate solution was wireless telegraphy.

The principle of wired telegraphy was certainly simpler, but it was limited by line attenuation and was not essentially different from the telephones used now. Even if the distance was doubled, it would only be a hundred kilometers, and any longer would require adding repeaters—such as vacuum tubes that could amplify the signal.

The problem was that if he could make vacuum tubes, wireless telegraphy would no longer be out of reach. It should be known that there was no concept of electromagnetic pollution in this era. Modulated electromagnetic waves were like the cries of a baby in the silent night. As long as a transmitting antenna was erected in the Immemorial Labyrinth, it would not be difficult to transmit thousands of kilometers.

If he could successfully manufacture wireless telegraphs, reports from the front line could be sent to his desk in just a few minutes. If he could go a step further and equip the entire army with portable wireless telegraphs, its strategic significance would be no less than the Dawn Project.

Of course, being clear was one thing, but as for how to do it specifically, he had no clue at all.

Perhaps it was time to find more projects for the Graycastle Design Bureau, Roland thought.

…

After entering the dream world that night, he first sent away the scholarly Jie Luo, and then drove to the San Ye construction site in the southern suburbs.

He had to admit that Jiade was indeed a very straightforward businessman. As long as he agreed to something, it would be executed immediately. The other party not only handed over the management rights of the factory to him, but also included a set of preparation services, including repainting the rusty walls and columns, replacing new office equipment, etc., without any perfunctory intentions.

If the San Ye Group was not always unwilling to give up the land of the tube building community, Roland would have liked to deal with such people more.

He parked the car and found the open space outside the factory was a little strange. Usually, few people visited here, but today there were many construction workers.

At the same time, he also heard a series of dull roars and the unique sound of mechanical reciprocating impacts.

Roland quickly walked through the crowd and saw a strangely shaped tracked machine appear in his sight—obviously, this machine was still a semi-finished product, and only the chassis part had been completed. If you only looked at the tracks and load wheels, it was nothing special. The reason why it attracted the onlookers of construction workers was entirely because of the abrupt steam piston system on top of it and another tractor providing steam for it.

Seeing this scene, Roland couldn't help laughing.

It turned out that this was the method that Master Xie had come up with—in order to minimize the impact of the imaginary boiler and water tank, he installed all these devices on another tractor. During testing, the two must run in parallel for the steam engine to operate. To outsiders, it was equivalent to a tractor not only having to ensure that it could move, but also having to provide power to another experimental product, which was similar to the "solar flashlight" that could only light up with light and would never light up without light.

"Ahem... Boss, you're here." Master Xie seemed to think that doing this looked stupid, and greeted him a little awkwardly.

Roland praised without taking it to heart, "Good job, this is exactly what I want!"

He came to the factory to check the progress about once a week. The last time he came, the planned tractor was just an empty frame. This time, it could already run on its own, which showed that the other party had put a lot of effort into the project.

"Is... is that so?" Master Xie touched his bald head. "Are you sure your collector friends would be interested in this kind of thing?"

"The main parts of the experimental product are all processed with factory lathes, right?"

"Yes, I can guarantee this." Master Xie quickly rubbed his hands. "However, the other tractor and equipment such as the boiler and water tank were all bought as second-hand goods, and it has cost almost 300,000 yuan so far..."

"Money is not a problem," Roland waved his hand, anyway, someone was paying for it, "As long as it is handmade, my friends will definitely buy it. Do a good job, and when this business is done, I will give you another month's salary as a bonus!"