Comrade, Your Ingredients Are Too Complicated

Chapter 14 Shanxi North Chemical Plant was established!

The brigade commander was slightly shocked when he heard Huang He's words, but having experienced strong winds and waves, he immediately reacted and said:

“It’s great that you think so. Although I have met people who are willing to share, most of them hide their knowledge.”

“Write a detailed plan when you have time. I will report the establishment of the school to the headquarters. First, tell me how you plan to arrange the smokeless gunpowder.”

Huang He looked out the window, seeming to see the hard-working comrades through many obstacles.

“First of all, I need to mobilize some personnel. Many of the comrades in charge of reloading bullets in the arsenal of our logistics department are good at black powder.”

“They are all veterans who have been working for several years. They have original experience and a certain basic foundation in learning new skills, and they can get started relatively quickly.”

 After thinking about it, he continued to say to the brigade commander:

“I also need a group of comrades who make grenades in the military factory. In the process of making smokeless gunpowder, I can also try to teach them how to make yellow explosives.”

Hearing the emergence of another new term, and it was also explosive, Li Yunlong became interested again.

“Director Huang, what is this yellow explosive? This is the first time we, Old Li, have heard of this stuff after so many years of fighting.”

Hearing Li Yunlong’s question, Zhang Wanhe took the initiative to explain to Li Yunlong:

“Don’t Li Yunlong always dislike the fact that the grenades made in our border area are not as powerful as the Japs’ melon grenades? He keeps saying they are of poor quality and yet he came to me today to ask for them.”

“The quality problem is because the grenades made in our border area still use black powder as the charge.”

"Although the things left by our ancestors are good, times are constantly changing and technology is constantly advancing. We have fallen behind a long time ago, and we will be beaten if we fall behind."

 Li Yunlong heard Zhang Wanhe's words and remembered the time when he ambushed the Japs. The soldiers of the first battalion wildly threw grenades at the place where the Japanese must pass.

 As a result, the soldiers threw grenades everywhere, but few exploded.

 The reason is that there was a rain a few days ago, which made the gunpowder inside the grenade damp.

Furthermore, grenades made in border areas often explode in two halves, and in many cases cannot achieve the expected effect of offensive grenades.

Seeing Zhang Wanhe expose his shortcomings again, Li Yunlong smiled and scratched the back of his head and said:

“Hey, hey, look at what you said, Lao Zhang, anything that can pull out pus is a good plaster.”

“The old sleeves are weapons from the Qing Dynasty. They were made in Hanyang and have some history.”

"Although we soldiers will dislike it, as long as there is anyone who can spray bullets, it will be fine. It is a good weapon if it can fight Japanese devils."

　　When mentioning the grenades, the brigade commander glared at Li Yunlong again, and then said to Huang He:

“I will arrange for you the person you want within three days, but I hope you can get smokeless gunpowder and yellow explosive as soon as possible.”

“For our Eighth Route Army, grenades and bullets are really important.”

The brigade commander stood up from the fire bed, straightened his clothes and walked towards the door. Huang He and the other three also stood up and prepared to see off the brigade commander.

 After walking out of the house, the brigade commander pointed his whip at Li Yunlong and said.

“Li Yunlong, come with me. Go to the 772nd Regiment and the Independent Regiment. I want to see the distribution of weapons and the morale of the soldiers in these two regiments.”

“Next time you come to the logistics department so blatantly to ask for weapons, I will break your legs!”

“They also said that the Logistics Department is a wealthy landowner. As soon as the Yellow River came, they got a lot of materials for making cotton-padded clothes for our Eighth Route Army, and they also brought back so many Mosin Nagants.”

“The division commander said that next time there is a supply of weapons, our brigade will be given priority.”

Li Yunlong bared his big white teeth and waved to Zhang Wanhe and Huang He. Behind him were Zhu Zhu and Hu Zi holding wine.

“Hey, hey, you know that our brigade commander cares about people, and he always thinks of me, Xiao Li, if he has any good things.”

"Thank you, Director Huang. If you need anything, just call me Li Yunlong. As long as it doesn't violate discipline and I can do it, I will definitely handle it for you."

“Lao Zhang, let’s see you later. I’ll take those bottles of wine. The brigade commander said no bribes, hahaha.”

 Huang He and Zhang Wanhe were speechless for a while. This Li Yunlong was indeed shameless and shameless.

They first said goodbye to the brigade commander, and then said to Li Yunlong in unison: "Go to hell, haha."

 The copper he promised just now was not just an empty mouth.

 Although the private factories currently provided by the system are mainly used to trade raw materials for making military uniforms, the task will be completed after a while.

 After everyone left, Huang He opened the system and used the trade interface to check how much copper two migrant workers could exchange.

 Two private factories can produce 25 tons in one month. This figure really shocked him.

　　————————

With his guarantee, the five researchers came to the Logistics Department without any hindrance, and no one doubted their identity.

They began to prepare materials. After all, handing over local chemical industry to comrades was something that needed to be done carefully, and production should be increased as much as possible while ensuring safety.

 Three busy days have passed.

The comrades promised by the brigade commander were also mobilized from various military factories in the border area and gathered in a larger factory. Looking at this group of comrades who had been working hard in the arsenal for several years, Huang He kept lamenting in his heart how the environment of this era could be so difficult.

They were old and young, and even one old man was a disabled person who was missing an arm. The youngest comrade looked to be only sixteen or seventeen years old.

 Huang He led five people to them and said:

“Comrades, I am very grateful to you for coming here from the various military factories in the base area. The brigade commander should have told you why I wanted to gather everyone here.”

“You may not know me yet, but my name is Huang He, and I am the director of the Procurement Department that was just established in the base last month.”

"The cotton clothes you are wearing now are made of the cotton I got back. This time we are going to get smokeless gunpowder and yellow explosives, which may be dangerous and even kill people. Are you afraid or not confident?"

At this time, the old man who was missing his arm came out. Everyone seemed to know him and he was very prestigious in the crowd.

 The old man's accent was very strong, and it sounded like he was from outside the country.

“Director Huang, my name is Jiao Chun, you can just call me Lao Jiao. Generations of our family have been craftsmen, and we started making firecrackers in Shenyang very early. I have been able to make black powder since I was a child.”

“In 31 years, the Japanese came.”

“I didn’t want to be a subjugated slave, so my eldest brother and I joined the guerrillas with a family of seven. At that time, we specialized in making black powder to make hand grenades for our guerrillas.”

“I also know smokeless gunpowder and yellow explosives, and I have even studied them.”

Lao Jiao looked at his empty left arm, holding back tears and continued:

“Later our whole family came to the base area, and my eldest brother, sister-in-law and my wife were all killed in the explosion making gunpowder.”

“My only son was also killed when he came into contact with spent explosives.”

“My two nephews, one died in Pingxingguan and the other died in Guangyang.”

“Now in our Jiao family, I am the only one left! Without my family, my home has also been occupied. What do I, Lao Jiao, have to fear?”

 Speaking of this, Lao Jiao couldn't control his emotions and beat his chest tremblingly.

“I just want to die with some value. I just want to be buried in Shenyang when I die! Director Huang, don’t worry. Among us, none of us have ordered a story yet.”

“Even if everyone dies here, we must learn from you. As long as we can drive away the devils, we are not afraid of death!”

After Lao Jiao finished speaking, the comrades responded enthusiastically to him. The youngest child helped the painful Lao Jiao back to the queue.

Huang He held back his tears and looked at the powerful comrades, gritted his teeth and said:

"From now on, I will take everyone to study together. We will have what the devils have, and we will have what they don't have!"

 He led everyone to the prepared podium and started explaining together with five researchers.

 If you want to create smokeless gunpowder, the first step is to create sulfuric acid.

Without this thing, no matter who you are, even if you try hard, you will not be able to create smokeless gunpowder, because sulfuric acid is the mother of gunpowder.

 There are two main processes for manufacturing sulfuric acid in the world.

The first one is called the contact method. Let’s not talk about the complexity of the device. The important thing is that it also requires fine platinum powder as a catalyst.

Platinum powder is a bit outrageous. There is not even platinum in the base. Where can I get powder?

  The second method is called the lead chamber method. This method is relatively simple.

“I can’t post it after I write it. This is a hazardous chemical that can produce explosives and is controlled.”

 The whole morning has passed, and everyone has a certain understanding of the principles of making sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and nitrocellulose.

 After lunch, they returned to the factory and began to learn the principles of nitroglycerin and nitrated starch.

Nitrocellulose can be used to make smokeless gunpowder, effectively avoiding the shortcomings of black powder bullets.

 The grenades currently in the military factory in the base area are imitations of Santoku's M24 grenades.

 However, due to the loading, the power is far from the original one. It is difficult to produce TNT at the current industrial level in the base area, but using nitroglycerin as the charge can greatly increase the power.

As for the use of nitrated starch, Huanghe plans to use it to imitate the Mark 2 hand grenade of Chou Country.

The interior of the MK2 grenade is filled with TNT. However, there was a shortage of TNT in the early days of the war, so the interior was mostly filled with nitrostarch compound.

 The combination of offensive and defensive grenades can greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the troops.

 A week has passed, and the comrades have become familiar with the process of soil chemical engineering. Fortunately, no accidents occurred.

  On November 19, 1939, Shanxi North Chemical Plant was officially established.

The chemical factory was established under the leadership of Huang He, director of the Procurement Administration. The skills taught and trained many military talents, who later provided tons of raw materials for the military factory of the Logistics Department in the base area.

I updated 6k chapters today. It’s a boring but necessary chapter.

　　　　After all, we, a golden finger, are not very good, so we have to do everything by ourselves.

I will post about the calculation process of copper exchange later, but I didn’t expect that I could exchange so much.

I originally wanted to write about chemical engineering in more detail, but it violated the rules and I couldn’t post it.

As usual, shout out the new book and ask for everything! Thank you for your monthly pass, boss!

 (End of this chapter)