You were tasked with guarding the Sihang Warehouse, and you brought out a Tiger tank?

In 1938, the global steel industry was in a relatively traditional stage.

Whether it's the industrial superpower, the United States, or long-established powers like the United States and the United States of America.

Their mainstream steelmaking method generally adopts the open-hearth steelmaking process.

The advantage of open-hearth steelmaking is that it can use a large amount of scrap steel and the quality of the molten steel produced is acceptable.

This method has a fatal flaw.

The efficiency is too low.

Open-hearth furnaces rely on external fuel for heating, and the oxidation process is very slow.

It typically takes eight to twelve hours to smelt a batch of steel.

Fortunately, the technological timeline of the various exchangeable industrial equipment within the system is ahead of the 50s.

So Lin Feng skipped the open-hearth furnace and set his sights on three ultimate steel smelting machines that were more than a decade ahead of their time.

The first type is the oxygen top-blown converter.

This was the greatest revolution in the steel industry of the 20th century.

It does not require external fuel; it directly blows high-pressure pure oxygen into molten pig iron.

Steelmaking is accomplished by utilizing the enormous heat generated from the oxidation of elements such as carbon and silicon in molten iron.

What would take an open-hearth furnace over ten hours to complete, a top-blown oxygen converter can do in a mere forty minutes.

Its efficiency was more than ten times that of the major powers of the time.

It will become the mainstay of the 33rd Army Corps in producing ordinary carbon steel and structural steel.

Steel plates for shipbuilding, steel bars for construction, railway tracks for laying railways, and shell casings for ordinary artillery shells.

Everything depends on it for massive production.

The second type is an ultra-high power electric arc furnace.

Military industry and agriculture cannot rely solely on ordinary steel.

Tank manufacturing requires surface-hardened armor steel.

Manufacturing the barrels of large-caliber artillery requires nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy steel that can withstand high temperatures and pressures.

Special heat-resistant steel is required to manufacture aircraft engine components.

These high-precision special alloy steels cannot be processed by converters.

It must rely on an electric arc furnace.

The system provides an ultra-high power electric arc furnace from the 1950s, equipped with advanced graphite electrodes and transformers.

It can control the temperature and alloy composition ratio inside the furnace with extreme precision.

This is the cornerstone for Lin Feng's future preparations to produce high-precision weapons domestically.

The third type is the early continuous casting machine.

This is a devastating blow to current steel processing technology.

At that time, the steel mills of the great powers needed to cast the molten steel into huge steel ingots.

After the steel ingot cools and is demolded, it is sent back into the heating furnace to be heated until red-hot.

Finally, it can be sent to the primary rolling mill to be rolled into steel billets.

The process is complicated, consumes a lot of time and energy, and has a low yield.

Continuous casting machines can directly and continuously pour, cool, and cut molten steel at high temperatures.

In one step, it is directly transformed into a steel billet that can be used for rolling.

It eliminates all the tedious intermediate steps.

Looking at these three pieces of equipment, Lin Feng had already sketched out the prototype of a huge integrated steel enterprise in his mind.

He set an initial production capacity target for the soon-to-be-established steel plant.

Annual crude steel production of 100,000 tons.

One hundred thousand tons, in the eyes of later generations, may only be the size of a small township steel plant.

But at this moment in Great Xia, this is a terrifying number that is enough to shake the entire nation.

Currently, the combined annual output of all steel plants in the entire Great Xia Kingdom's territory is less than 50,000 tons.

Japan's total steel production was approximately six million tons.

Once Lin Feng's factory is built, its production capacity will be twice that of the entire Great Xia Dynasty!

Shandong Province's mineral reserves are more than enough to cover this production capacity.

Once Zhibo and Boshan are secured, a steady stream of coal and iron ore will be transported to Qingcheng Port via the Jiaoji Railway.

It was transformed into furnaces of molten steel.

Without hesitation, Lin Feng added the entire "three-in-one" steel production line, along with the supporting equipment for the coking plant, sintering plant, and rolling mill, to the system's redemption cart.

[Ding! Required exchange points: 200000 + 30000 merit points.]

[Confirm redemption?]

Upon seeing the bill that popped up in the system, Lin Feng's eyes twitched twice, feeling extremely pained.

"It's so dark."

Lin Feng couldn't help but complain in his heart.

Heavy industry is indeed a bottomless money-devouring beast.

Previously, exchanging for that penicillin production line, which was practically a money-printing machine, only required 10 exchange points plus 1 merit points.

With this huge sum of money invested, his hard-earned savings will instantly shrink by almost half.

Lin Feng took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

Despite his complaints, he knew very well that the money had to be spent, and it was worth it.

The system is indeed powerful; as long as there are exchange points, infantry units, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and warships can be continuously exchanged.

War is a war of attrition.

Tank tracks can wear out and break on the battlefield.

The barrel of a cannon will break down after being fired too many times and will need to be replaced.

The front lines need to be fortified with reinforced concrete.

New railway lines need to be laid in the rear to transport troops and supplies.

The shipyard needs steel plates to repair the damaged warships.

Massive amounts of steel are needed everywhere.

It lacked its own steel mill and basic heavy industry support.

The advanced weapons he exchanged would become nothing more than scrap metal if damaged.

The army would become like water without a source or a tree without roots.

more importantly.

Lin Feng opened his eyes, his gaze becoming incredibly resolute.

He traveled to this era not just to kill more Japanese soldiers on the battlefield.

He wanted to change the fate of this country, which was poor and weak.

He wanted to leave a solid heavy industrial backbone for this long-suffering motherland.

Even if he or the system disappears one day, the people of Great Xia will still be able to rely on their own steel mills to produce weapons to protect their homeland!

Upon opening his eyes, Lin Feng did not choose to exchange directly. Instead, he planned to have the engineering corps select factory locations and renovate the infrastructure first. He would then formally exchange the assets after conquering the mining areas of Zhibo and Boshan.

-----

Noon the next day.

Inside the large operational conference room of the 33rd Army Corps' headquarters, a gathering of generals created a somber atmosphere.

Everyone's face bore the look of eagerness for battle.

Lin Feng pushed open the conference room door and strode to the front of the stage.

All the generals immediately stood up, stood at attention, and saluted.

"sit down."

Lin Feng pressed his hands down and walked to the huge military sand table that occupied half the room.

On the sand table, the terrain of the Pingshan and Heishan areas is perfectly replicated.

Small flags representing the various units of the Japanese 106th and 114th Divisions were densely planted in those complex hilltops and valleys.

Lin Feng picked up the long baton and his gaze swept over each of the generals present.

"Gentlemen."

Lin Feng's voice echoed in the conference room.

"The Jiangcheng Command has given us the order to launch a full-scale attack on Qizhou."

They want to see us fail, and they want to use the Japanese to weaken our strength.

The Japanese North China Area Army on the other side also wants to crush our bones in the mountainous area of ​​Pingshan and Heishan.

Lin Feng struck the sand table heavily with his baton, striking the position representing the Japanese enemy's reverse slope position.

"The Japanese thought they were hiding in caves, so they built several reverse-slope positions and dug several anti-tank trenches."

That would be enough to stop the advance of our 33rd Army Corps.

That's utterly wishful thinking.

Lin Feng raised his head, his eyes blazing with fighting spirit.

"I've called everyone here today."

Let's make some nice arrangements.

Let's see how we smash this iron shell of the Japanese devils and take over Zhibo County and the mining area!