Bright Sword: From Border Region Manufacturing to Major National Heavy Industry

Chapter 119 An inch longer, an inch stronger!

"Factory manager, these parts were made according to your specifications. Please take a look and see if they meet the requirements."

Old He brought a part to Li Muzhi's office.

This part is the rocket launcher's limiting lever, used to control the rocket launcher's safety mechanism.

Although the power supply for the arsenal has not yet been resolved, some parts can be prepared in advance.

Li Muzhi prepared the blueprints and had Lao He take them to workers to make samples.

Li Muzhi took it and first examined its appearance.

Since it's handmade, its appearance certainly can't compare to that of industrially manufactured machines.

Although it is a bit rough, it is still quite exquisite.

Li Muzhi weighed himself again; he was not overweight.

Finally, he took the measuring tape and measured it carefully, nodding in satisfaction: "Not bad, this time it's acceptable."

This part wasn't being made for the first time; several attempts had been made, but none had met Li Muzhi's requirements.

When Lao He heard Li Muzhi say that it was up to standard, he laughed and said, "Factory Director, your requirements are really not easy to meet."

"How come it passed the test so quickly this time?" Li Muzhi asked.

It's not that Li Muzhi has high standards; this is the device that controls the safety of the rocket launcher, and it can't be taken lightly.

Otherwise, if this thing were to accidentally go off on the battlefield, that would be disastrous.

"It was mainly Old Qi from the Huangyadong Arsenal who helped with it; even our masters couldn't make it," Lao He explained, then leaned closer to Li Muzhi: "Factory Director, why don't we talk to Minister Zhang and poach Old Qi? As for the Huangyadong Arsenal, give them more compensation."

Old Qi was a senior technician at the former Taiyuan Arsenal, a very valuable technical talent.

Although the border region arsenal was led by Director Li Muzhi, he couldn't be the one to make all the parts; he couldn't handle it all by himself.

Many things require the assistance of skilled workers, especially highly skilled workers like Lao Qi.

"Let's talk about this after the power issue at the arsenal is resolved." Not only Lao Qi, but also the other senior talents at the Huangyadong Arsenal, Li Muzhi wanted to poach them.

But haste makes waste; after all, this is the backbone of their arsenal.

It's a bit inappropriate to leave someone here just because we're borrowing them for a short while.

"Factory manager, actually I do have a solution," Old He said.

"Oh?" Li Muzhi said "oh" and looked at Lao He: "Tell me about it."

"I'll try to find a way to get them to stay on their own. If they want to stay, then it'll be much easier to talk to Minister Zhang," Lao He said.

"Let them stay on their own?" Li Muzhi looked at Lao He suspiciously.

Although Li Muzhi had considerable expertise in military industry, personnel management was his weakness, and the arsenal mainly relied on Lao He and others for management.

"Factory manager, you're not good at personnel management, so leave this to me," Lao He said. "As long as you nod, I'll get to work."

"Well, well, that's fine then." Li Muzhi nodded. "I'll still talk to Minister Zhang in advance when he gets back."

Minister Zhang has taken the transport team to help move equipment at the ironworks. We'll need to talk to him when he gets back.

These were, after all, highly skilled personnel from the Huangyadong Arsenal, which allowed Minister Zhang to prepare in advance.

Originally, Li Muzhi only planned to poach a few targeted workers. It wasn't that Li Muzhi was shamelessly trying to poach high-level workers from the Huangyadong Arsenal; it was simply that the border region arsenal was truly lacking in such high-level talent.

"Okay, okay, okay." After receiving Li Muzhi's permission, Lao He happily left.

As long as we can retain these key figures, and with the factory director's leadership, the development of our border region's arsenal will become increasingly promising.

After Lao He left, Li Muzhi lowered his head and continued drawing the structural diagram of the bounding mine.

With an ironworks now in place and another 4,000 jin of sugar delivered, we can produce enough explosives. In addition to making shells and rockets for the Hell Cannon, we can also provide the troops with some other auxiliary weapons: bounding mines!
A bounding mine is a landmine that bounces off the ground and explodes one or two meters above the ground after being stepped on by an infantryman.

The fragments and iron balls inside these landmines can fly in all directions without blind spots, and their killing effect on crowds is particularly significant.

Those Japanese devils love to charge in groups, right? Bouncing mines are the perfect counter to that crazy Bushido spirit.

Some might question why, if they could produce enough explosives, they didn't provide hand grenades for the troops.

The quality of hand grenades used to be really poor.

In fact, the arsenal has already started developing new types of hand grenades.

This new type of grenade doesn't involve much technology; it mainly involves changing the explosives inside.

Li Muzhi doesn't need to worry about this at all; Lao He and the others will handle it themselves. When the time comes, Li Muzhi will check the test results, and if there are no problems, production can begin.

After drawing for more than ten minutes, Li Muzhi put down his pen and stretched his wrists.

The overall blueprints for the bounding mine are finally finished, but this is not the end of the story.

We also need to draw detailed blueprints for the parts, and the proportions must be exactly as described.
Just as one part was drawn, Zhang Wanhe's excited shout came from outside: "Xiao Li, come out quickly! The equipment from the ironworks has arrived. Come out and take a look!"

Upon hearing this, Li Muzhi immediately put down his work and ran out quickly.

Outside the arsenal, the brigade commander and Lao Zhou were still arguing.

Although both the brigade commander and Lao Zhou were willing to negotiate, they both felt they should get a larger share of the profits.

"That won't do. Without my subordinate Li Yunlong firing the cannons to break through the ironworks' defenses, your 120th Division wouldn't have had a chance to get your hands on it. So I should get 70%!" the brigade commander argued.

Old Zhou also argued his case: "We should take 70%. If Gao Liujin hadn't broken into the Third Regiment and discovered this opportunity, your 129th Division wouldn't have had a chance at all. So, this opportunity is the most important. You should take 30%, after all, Li Yunlong came here to steal it, which is not honorable."

"What's glorious about it? If it weren't for Li Yunlong..."

……

The brigade commander and Lao Zhou had been arguing the whole way, and Zhang Wanhe was too lazy to care.

Anyway, this ironworks belongs to our logistics department, so we won't get involved in your combat troops' squabbles. Seeing Li Muzhi come out, Zhang Wanhe quickly smiled and said, "Little Li, take a look at these equipment."

“Minister Zhang, they…” Li Muzhi pointed to the brigade commander and Lao Zhou.

“Ignore them, check and put the items into storage first, then communicate with them,” Zhang Wanhe said.

"Well, that's fine too." Li Muzhi was indeed attracted by the equipment in the ironworks, and he immediately went over to inspect each piece.

His smile grew even brighter: "This is a vibrating screen, this is a silo, this is a small blast furnace, this is a blower..."

"So, Xiao Li, with all this stuff, can we smelt iron now?" Seeing Li Muzhi's increasingly broad smile, Zhang Wanhe already knew the result, but still asked again with a smile.

“We have all the necessary equipment. As long as we solve the power problem, with this equipment we will be able to start iron smelting,” Li Muzhi replied affirmatively.

"Hahahaha." Zhang Wanhe burst into laughter upon hearing this. "Then our logistics team won't have to worry about not having iron pots anymore, and the troops can be equipped with bayonets and helmets, right?"

We don't have much iron, which means we don't have much ironware in the logistics department either, like iron pots.

Many guerrilla groups shared a single iron pot and took turns eating.

If an iron pot leaks, it can be patched up and used again; some iron pots even have more than a dozen patches.

Sometimes when the enemy attacked, the soldiers would bleed and get wounded in order to protect the iron pots, just so that the troops would have pots to cook.

On the military side, bayonets were all captured, and the quantity was small.

As for helmets, forget about them.

We have the conditions for iron smelting. If we can find iron ore, we can smelt iron ourselves.

By then, the troops and logistics will have enough iron pots, they will be able to fire bayonets, and the troops will even be able to be equipped with steel helmets.

At the field hospital, many soldiers were injured because they didn't have helmets for protection.

If they had helmets, these people wouldn't have been injured in the first place.

When Zhang Wanhe told him that iron smelting could be used to make iron pots, bayonets, and helmets, Li Muzhi did not laugh at him.

To a normal person, now that we have the conditions to smelt iron, shouldn't we be building more weapons?

For example, we can build more of the bounding mines we just drew.

As long as this thing can stop the Japanese army's mass charges, the pressure on the combat troops on the battlefield will be greatly reduced.

But from another perspective, Zhang Wanhe's idea is actually not wrong.

Man is made of iron, food is made of steel, you'll get hungry if you skip a meal!

War is essentially a war of logistics, and iron pots are the most indispensable tool for cooking.

It may seem insignificant, but it is actually incredibly important!
Secondly, there were bayonets and helmets.

Our troops are in poor condition, and our arsenals can't even manufacture bullets themselves.

Many soldiers only had two or three bullets, and this was not common in wealthy units like Li Yunlong's.

In military operations, it is often unavoidable to engage in bayonet fighting with the Japanese.

The cleaving power of the broadsword is not weak, but it is still too short.

His Japanese Type 38 rifles, equipped with long bayonets, truly excelled on the battlefield – an inch longer, an inch stronger!

Three Japanese soldiers stood back to back, and even a dozen of our soldiers couldn't break through them.

This is because the broadsword is too short; it can't reach the target.

The reason why people like Sun Desheng and Zhang Dabiao were able to kill Japanese soldiers with broadswords and sabers is because they were highly skilled in martial arts and were experts in close combat.

Most of our soldiers are still ordinary people.

Wei Dayong is a highly skilled fighter, isn't he? He uses a long red-tasseled spear, which is no shorter than the Japanese Type 38 rifle with a bayonet.

Some might ask, why is the 29th Army's Big Sword Brigade so formidable?

They cut down so many Japanese devils.

Li Muzhi had read the documents and confirmed that the 29th Army's Big Sword Squad was indeed equipped with a big sword for every soldier, but!
But each of them was also equipped with two speed-controlled machines.

With those conditions, even the Japanese wouldn't have the upper hand in a bayonet fight.

No matter how good your bayonet fighting skills are, can you compare to someone with two guns?

As for the purpose of a steel helmet, there's no need to elaborate.

Why do the bald-headed general's elite troops wear steel helmets? Why do the Japanese troops wear steel helmets? Why do the American troops wear steel helmets?

All units that had the means were equipped with steel helmets, and the battlefield significance of steel helmets is beyond doubt.

However, when Lao Zhou and the brigade commander heard that the arsenal had the capacity to produce steel, and that Zhang Wanhe was clamoring for iron pots, bayonets, and steel helmets, the two of them miraculously stopped arguing and both spoke in unison to Zhang Wanhe: "Hey Lao Zhang, how can your vision be so short-sighted? Now that we can produce steel, shouldn't we be making the things our troops need most? You're making iron pots and bayonets, can that compare to making more cannons for us?"

Faced with their questions, Zhang Wanhe retorted without backing down: "Don't you eat when you're fighting? Doesn't your army use pots to cook? When you're fighting the Japanese in close combat, don't you use bayonets? Don't your soldiers' heads need protection on the battlefield?"

"Compared to iron pots, bayonets, and steel helmets, we still want artillery!" The brigade commander and Lao Zhou maintained their consistent tone.

“You two have tasted the benefits of cannons, so of course you want more,” Zhang Wanhe said. “But don’t you think about it? There are so many troops, how can they all be equipped with cannons? Most troops are still in very poor condition. Shouldn’t we consider how to make the most of iron from a holistic perspective? Besides, just because we have the conditions for steelmaking, does that mean we can build cannons? To build cannons, we also need the equipment and technology to make them, and we don’t have those things.”

Although Comrade Zhang didn't understand military manufacturing, he had heard Li Muzhi talk about it.

Building cannons is not that simple.

Iron smelting is only the first step; there are a series of steps that follow.

The most difficult part is the cannon barrel, which has very high quality requirements and tests industrial expertise. The next most difficult part is the rifling.

Without specialized equipment, are you going to use a hammer and file to create these rifling grooves?
Upon hearing Zhang Wanhe's words, both Old Zhou and the brigade commander looked at Li Muzhi in unison: "Little Li, now that you can smelt iron, can you build cannons?"

(End of this chapter)