1950s: After transmigrating into a capitalist, I relied on military industry to achieve a comeback.

The room was deathly silent.

Lin Jiaoyue straightened up and looked at him:

"Director Zhang, do you still think it's more worthwhile to develop the 'Dongfeng-2' satellite than the 'Loongson-1' satellite?"

Director Zhang sat blankly in his chair, his mind buzzing as if he had been hit by a flashbang.

Chips, integrated circuits, supercomputers...

He still didn't understand those words.

But he did understand what Lin Jiaoyue said afterward!

Smash it into the command post chimney! One plane after another, smash them to pieces! Calculate half a month's worth of data in seconds! What takes foreigners ten years, we can do in a few!

This is hardly a matter of making a small part.

This is giving wings to all military research and development, and it's preparing a world-destroying ultimate weapon for all future weapons!

"Dry!"

Director Zhang slammed his hand on the table and abruptly stood up.

His weathered face was flushed red with extreme excitement, and his eyes gleamed with a green light like a hungry wolf eyeing fresh meat.

"Let's get this 'Loongson' chip! To hell with those crappy planes and missiles! Compared to this, they're all just sticks!"

He snatched the pen from Lin Jiaoyue's hand without hesitation for even half a second, and directly tore off the blank report paper.

With the pen tip almost tearing the rough paper, he signed his name heavily and in a flamboyant manner in the "Submitting Opinions" section at the end, and wrote the eight characters "Fully support, requesting project approval" in large characters.

As he finished the final touches, Director Zhang abruptly raised his head, his eyes red, and said in a gruff voice:

"This matter requires too much funding and involves too high a level of authority; it needs the approval of the Central Military Commission. I'll take this report and submit it right now! Don't worry, with your name, Lin Jiaoyue, and the solid foundation you've built for us over the years, those high-ranking officials know what they're doing. Anything you want to do will get the green light right away; the approval document will be on my desk as early as tomorrow!"

He placed his hands on the table, staring intently at Lin Jiaoyue with an imposing gaze, and asked impatiently:

"Speak! What are your conditions? How much money do you want? Before the approval comes through, let's get the team up and running! Which bureau chief from which department will you use as a 'negative comparison' this time? If you dare to ask, I'll kidnap the King of Heaven himself beforehand!"

Lin Jiaoyue smiled when she saw his impatient look.

"This time, I don't want a 'negative control group'."

She carried a heavy wooden box out of her room, placed it on the table, and opened it.

Inside the box were not gold and silver jewelry, but thick notebooks filled with formulas and drawings.

That was all the hard work she had put in over the past three years.

“This time,” she said, pulling out the top book from the box and handing it to Director Zhang. The cover prominently displayed the title “Basic Technology of Semiconductor Transistors.” “I need the best physicists, chemists, and materials scientists in the country, as well as… the top glassmakers and watchmakers.”

"I want to create, in the shortest possible time, starting from a single grain of sand, a dragon's 'heart' that truly belongs to us!"

Director Zhang stared at the old notebook that Lin Jiaoyue pushed over for a full half minute.

He stretched out his rough fingers and pulled the notebook closer to him. The pages opened, revealing a dense jumble of tiny characters and circuit diagrams, making him frown.

"Semiconductor...transistor?" He stammered, reading the words on the cover, his brow furrowed. "I recognize the words, but put them together...no, Jiaoyue, what exactly is this?"

He rubbed his fingertips on the paper a couple of times, then looked down, his brows furrowing even more.

"Glassmakers? Watchmakers?" Director Zhang suddenly looked up, his eyes filled with absurdity. "Tsk... wait a minute. We were just talking about the 'heart of the dragon,' a vital national treasure! What are you doing bringing a bunch of glassblowers and watch repairmen here? What, what's going on here?"

"Please don't rush."

Lin Jiaoyue wasn't annoyed. She habitually tried to twirl the pen in her hand, the nib hitting the table with a soft "click." She stopped and pointed to a meticulously drawn structural diagram on the blueprint.

"Look at this. This is a transistor. To put it simply, you can think of it as a miniature switch. There are no mechanical contacts; it's all controlled by electricity."

Seeing that Director Zhang still looked bewildered, Lin Jiaoyue simply pushed the blueprints aside and pointed to the radio on the cabinet in the outer room.

"The vacuum tube radio we listen to at home now, doesn't it have a row of glass tubes inside that look like little light bulbs? Those things are actually just switches. But as you know, they're big and bulky, they use a lot of electricity, and they're easy to break if you just shake them around a bit."

Lin Jiaoyue tapped her fingertip lightly on the table. "And transistors can pack all the functions of those glass tubes into this tiny silicon chip, smaller than a fingernail. Tens of thousands, or even millions, of these microswitches come together to form the 'brain' we need—that is, the chip."

She tried her best to break down those dry technical terms and pour them out.

Director Zhang stroked the stubble on his chin, the rough rubbing sound particularly clear in the quiet dining room. He seemed to understand a little, but not entirely.

"You mean..." he asked tentatively, "that this thing is just a smaller version of those fragile glass tubes in a radio?"

"That's one way to understand it, but... it's not entirely like that." Lin Jiaoyue paused, seemingly thinking about how to explain. "Its underlying principles are much more complex. The requirements for material purity and processing precision alone are... how should I put it, unbelievably high."

As she spoke, she pulled out another loose-leaf paper from the notebook, the writing on it even denser than the drawings.

"For example, if we want to refine single-crystal silicon with a purity of 99.9999%, we need to use the 'zone melting method,' which requires a specially customized high-standard single-crystal furnace."

"For example, we need to etch lines that are only a few micrometers wide on this silicon wafer. This requires 'photolithography,' which means we need a photolithography machine, photoresist, and a high-precision photomask."

"Oh, by the way, throughout this entire process, we also need to ensure the availability of ultrapure water, high-purity acidic reagents, and various special high-purity gases..."

Every word Lin Jiaoyue uttered made Director Zhang's eyelids twitch. After hearing the rest, he simply picked up the enamel mug in front of him and gulped down a large mouthful of water to barely suppress the feeling of weakness in his chest.

"Stop! Stop, stop, stop!" Director Zhang slammed his teacup down on the table, splashing a few drops of water, which he didn't bother to wipe away. "Don't give me this incomprehensible nonsense. There are probably very few people in the whole world who can understand what's going on in your head. Just give me the facts—how many people do you need? How much money do you need? What policies do you want!"