Courtyard Houses: The Great Masters of a Nation Hidden Within

Old Chen showed the reporting requirements he had written down over the phone to Deputy Section Chief Zhao Lei and Gao Jianguo.

"Comrade Zhao Lei, you and your team should get this done, and it'd be best to send it to the ministry by tomorrow. Jianguo, lend a hand."

Gao Jianguo asked, "Okay, so regardless of whether it's in mass production or not, we'll report it all?"

Old Chen thought for a moment and said, "Report everything that's available."

Gao Jianguo nodded: "Okay, then let's also submit the few things I tinkered with myself when I was working on 3Z-591. Although I never actually produced them, I've thoroughly figured out the process and the properties of the materials."

Old Chen laughed: "Report it! Report it all! Let the higher-ups see how much stuff our factory has, haha."

These words really struck a chord with Gao Jianguo.

Back in his office, he filled all the special materials he had come up with into the product list to be submitted.

Now, thanks to his good memory, he has accumulated two kinds of special materials.

After handing the order from the technical department to Deputy Section Chief Zhao, Gao Jianguo took out the prepared special material samples along with the test records from the storage warehouse, labeled them 3z-t1 and 3z-t2 respectively, and put them into the sample storage in his group's office.

Before leaving, he gave Liang Jianguo and the others a few words of advice, explaining the general situation.

The next day was Friday, and Gao Jianguo took a day off.

He needs to take a good rest; compiling that math toolkit was no human task, it was too mentally taxing.

There's a joke that says your eyes and ears can deceive you, but math can't. If you don't know math, you really don't know it.

Every time Gao Jianguo mastered a mathematical tool, he had to thoroughly understand it from beginning to end before figuring out how to implement it on a machine with a word length of only 8 bits.

Fortunately, Gao Jianguo didn't intend to shoulder the entire burden by himself. He just wanted to get some basic equipment so that he could demonstrate the machine's capabilities, and let others fill in the rest.

The false accusation went smoothly; the reasoning is self-evident, and great ability gives one confidence.

While he was relaxing in the yard playing with the children, their product order had already been submitted to the 17th Ministry of Machinery Industry.

The group of people from the grassland tractor factory were flipping through the orders that were being delivered one after another.

The situation wasn't good; there were many duplicates, and after searching for a long time, I couldn't find anything that caught my eye.

It's far from being a suitable replacement for nickel-containing armor steel.

The soldiers sitting with them were also helping to choose.

Although they weren't as familiar with the detailed specifications as the people at the tractor factory, they could still use hardness as a coarse sieve.

After all, when it comes to armor steel, the first thing to consider is its hardness. If the hardness is insufficient, all other mechanical properties are meaningless.

Time slipped away amidst the rustling sound of turning pages.

Apart from the sound of turning pages and the occasional quiet murmur, the scene was very quiet.

A soldier shouted, "Ah! Did they scramble the material? How can alloy steel be this hard?"

The rest of the people perked up, put down what they were doing, and all crowded around, chattering away.

"What did you see?"

How hard is it?

"Let me see, let me see."

The soldier held up the data and read it aloud: "Brinnell hardness, HBW10/3000, greater than or equal to 370, less than 480."

This caused an uproar in the house.

What does it mean when Brinell hardness is between 370 and 480? For example, the 5DL tank, which was modeled after the T-54/55 from the north, uses 74N and 75N high-nickel armor steel, and its Brinell hardness is only around 300.

The 601 nickel-free armor steel, which was developed domestically in the 1960s to replace it, has a Brinell hardness of approximately 290.

"How much? Say how much again?"

"Let me see it! Let me take a look!"

"That can't be, could there be a misreport?"

"Check out the other mechanical properties, take a look."

"What are you looking at regarding mechanical properties! It's called steel, so other parts can't be much different. Check the formula! Check the formula!"

The room instantly turned into a complete mess, but despite the chaos, most people had excitement on their faces.

At this moment, Mr. Guan, the leader of the team from the grassland tractor factory, stretched out his hand: "Give it to me, let me see!!!"

As soon as he got his hands on the materials, he couldn't wait to examine them closely.

"The 3Z-T1 alloy steel's hardness rating is indeed very high; its mechanical properties perfectly meet our requirements, and some even exceed them."

"Rolled material can be used for any thickness of plate. The turret is out of the question, but at least we have a place for the hull half. Great! Excellent!!"

The 5dl's turret is cast, and cast steel and welded steel have different properties.

"The formula... well, the specific proportions weren't written, only the ingredients were listed. Iron, carbon, silicon, manganese, phosphorus, sulfur, boron, titanium... that's it? Nothing more? No nickel, no chromium, no molybdenum??!!"

These are all things whose production is currently hampered by foreign countries, and whose domestic output is simply not high enough.

Upon hearing this, everyone was incredulous: "What? No nickel, chromium, or molybdenum at all? That's probably...!"

Neither of them uttered the second half of their sentence, but everyone understood the meaning.

General Manager Guan glanced at the submitting unit: Beijing Third Steel Rolling Mill.

This title made him feel somewhat more at ease; a major factory in Beijing was unlikely to cause any trouble.

He glanced at the materials again, realizing he hadn't finished flipping through them, and casually flipped them back.

Upon seeing this, my eyes widened again.

"What? There's another type? 3Z-T2 cast steel?"

Everyone was stunned when they heard that.

What kind of magical place is this? We just finished looking at the rolled plate material, and now they've even taken out the continuous casting material.

"Boss Guan, take a look, quickly take a look at what kind of casting this is."

"Hardness 300 HB, mechanical properties are fine, carbon, silicon, manganese, nickel."

After hearing this, everyone's enthusiasm waned.

"It contains nickel, so it's useless."

"What a pity, what a pity."

Mr. Guan added, "But the materials clearly state it's low-nickel, so it could be a legitimate business. The only question is how much of what's written in the materials is actually true."

At this point, the soldier sitting next to him couldn't sit still any longer: "The Third Steel Rolling Mill in Beijing, the factory is right here in the city, why don't we just go and take a look and we'll have everything we need?"

After thinking it over, General Guan agreed: "Staff Officer Lin, let's do this: go find the leaders of the 17th Ministry of Machine Building and ask them to act as a go-between. We'll go there right away and take a look."

After saying that, he turned around and told everyone to get back to work, then he and Staff Officer Lin went out the door.

Inside the leader's office, Secretary Zheng ushered the two in and helped them to sit down.

The two men took out the materials from the Third Rolling Mill and explained them in detail, revealing their concerns in their words.

The leader took the materials, glanced at them, and chuckled: "The Third Steel Rolling Mill? Haha, I wouldn't dare to guarantee anything from any other company, but since it's from the Third Steel Rolling Mill, I can believe it about 70-80% of the time."

General Guan and Staff Officer Lin exchanged a glance.

If the leaders of the 17th Ministry of Machine Building have said this, then it must be true.

Mr. Guan's face broke into a smile: "That's wonderful! It seems that the Third Steel Rolling Mill in Beijing really has some tricks up its sleeve."