I am an industrial worker during the War of Resistance

Chapter 5 The First Exploding Grenade

It's been five days.

After five days of hard work, Chen Changzai, along with the people assigned to him, finally produced a considerable amount of raw materials.

This was also proven during these five days.

The rudimentary raw material production line he designed can operate safely.

Toluene was separated from coal tar by distillation.

Chen Changzai was preparing to begin nitrifying the actual explosives.

The manufacturing process of TNT explosives, simply put, involves nitrifying toluene three times to obtain a yellow solid.

However, these three nitration processes require very strict procedures.

This applies to both the temperature during nitrification and the order in which ingredients are added during nitrification.

These all require very rigorous and meticulous operations.

As he told his students, "If you break the rules of chemical safety, all you'll get in return is death."

Therefore, when Chen Chang was operating, he would only have five students follow him around to assist him at most.

He always prepared explosives in locations far from residential areas and his post.

As he said, "We're producing a small quantity now, which is fine, but if we were to go into factory production..."

Therefore, production could only be carried out in secluded mountain valleys, and each factory building had to be surrounded by a thick mound of earth almost as high as the building itself.

A safe distance must be maintained between the two factory buildings.

To put it bluntly, the reason for doing this is not to ensure the safety of the factory and its workers.

This is so that if this factory explodes, it won't affect other factories and workers.

That's how cruel it is when making explosives.

However, if everyone can fully comply with safety guidelines in production and work.

Then the incidence of safety accidents will be reduced to a minimum of zero.

All safety accidents are caused by carelessness and disregard for life.

When Chen Changzai finished speaking these words to Regiment Commander Chen and Political Commissar Liu, the two generals wholeheartedly agreed.

Everything in the world is interconnected.

When they fight, they also have rules of safety for fighting, namely military discipline and battle plans.

Any unit that violates military discipline is absolutely incapable of executing operational plans.

The failure of a battle plan means the failure of the troops.

Therefore, the code of conduct for safe production is the military discipline in production work.

During this period, Political Commissar Liu almost completely stopped caring about the affairs of the regiment.

He is now fully focused on training workers in safety procedures for those preparing to work in the newly established arsenal.

For Political Commissar Liu, ensuring the implementation of safety regulations in all aspects of the production of explosives, landmines, and grenades is now of paramount importance.

After undergoing nitration, separation, washing, refining, crystallization and solidification, crushing and pressing in several simple factory buildings.

Regiment Commander Chen and Political Commissar Liu saw the piece of pale yellow TNT that Chen Changzai had shown them.

The two veterans were absolutely enamored with the yellow explosive.

At this point, TNT explosives are already considered deactivated explosives.

Although it remains extremely dangerous.

However, compared to gunpowder, it is not so easy to detonate.

Even if it were put into a grenade, the detonator made of black powder could not detonate TNT.

Because the detonation velocity of gunpowder is too low.

To detonate TNT, a detonator made of mercury fulminate is required.

It wasn't that Chen Changzai didn't want to produce lead azide or lead stemonate.

However, under current conditions, it is indeed impossible to mass-produce these two main raw materials for detonators.

As for Lei Yin...

If Chen Changzai could obtain cinnabar and extract mercury from it, he really wouldn't want to manufacture thunder silver.

Because that thing is so unstable, even the slightest carelessness, such as making a slightly larger mistake during preparation, could cause a violent explosion.

Back then, the Eighth Route Army had no other choice but to develop thion as a raw material for detonators.

Chen Changzai knew that there were cinnabar mines in both Shaanxi and Gansu.

The use of cinnabar and mercury has been practiced on this land of China for thousands of years.

However, there is still no news about the cinnabar or mercury that Chen Changzai asked Regiment Commander Chen and Political Commissar Liu to find.

Therefore, the detonators used in this first homemade TNT explosion experiment were taken from the hand grenades that soldiers were currently carrying.

Besides Commander Chen and Political Commissar Liu, there were others involved in this explosion experiment.

Even the leaders and military technical personnel from the headquarters rushed over.

They need to know firsthand data from the explosion experiments.

In the experimental site, a pineapple-shaped, pre-fragmented, wooden-handled grenade, cast using a crude iron casting method, contained three ounces of newly manufactured TNT explosive. After assembling the detonator and wooden handle, the newly manufactured grenade was complete.

After Chen Changzai personally secured the grenade to the firing range, he attached a hook to the fuse.

Behind the hook is a 30-meter-long thin rope.

The other end of the rope was at the trench bunker.

Commander Chen and his team originally didn't want Chen Changzai to do this job.

However, Chen Changzai was really not comfortable letting others do the work, so he insisted on doing the final inspection himself.

Commander Chen and his men had no choice but to agree.

Moreover, Commander Chen personally accompanied him during the work.

If something really happens, Commander Chen will definitely press Chen Changzai under his own body to save Chen Changzai's life.

The grenade was fixed to the ground, and around it, about twenty wooden planks, each about 1.7 meters long, were placed at different intervals.

The nearest plank was only 1.5 meters away from the grenade, while the furthest plank was a full 15 meters away.

After everything was arranged.

Chen Changzai said to Commander Chen, "Uncle Chen, that's enough, let's go back."

Commander Chen nodded.

The two of them quickly ran towards the hidden trench.

After the two men jumped into the trench, Commander Chen took one last look around the test site.

The area has been cleared out.

Then he said to Chen Changzai, "Let's begin."

Chen Changzai nodded and then shouted, "Everyone hide! Don't show yourselves!"

At Chen Changzai's shout, everyone ducked their heads into the trench.

Chen Changzai suddenly tugged at the rope in his hand.

As the rope was pulled, Chen Changzai began to shout: "Five, four, three, two, one."

As the sound of "one" landed.

A loud explosion was heard at the experimental site.

The explosion was very loud, almost as loud as the explosion of a military grenade used by soldiers.

It definitely didn't make the sound of an explosion like a homemade grenade made with black powder.

Black powder has a detonation velocity of only 500 meters per second, while TNT has a detonation velocity of 6900 meters per second.

These two are not even in the same league.

After the explosion, it took two seconds for everyone to peek out of the trench.

When everyone looked at the test site, they saw the twenty-odd wooden planks surrounding the explosion point.

The closest wooden planks inside had all been blown away.

The outer wooden planks had also become crooked and tilted, with only the outermost few remaining intact.

A group of people scrambled out of the trench and ran quickly toward the detonation point.

When everyone arrived at the explosion site, they saw that the spot where the grenade had been placed had been blasted into a small crater.

The wooden planks around it were broken and flew five or six meters away.

Some of the wooden planks, which were six or seven meters apart, were embedded with grenade fragments, while others were pierced through.

After careful inspection, it was discovered that two pieces of shrapnel were also embedded in the wooden board at the furthest distance of fifteen meters.

This indicates that the effective killing range of this grenade is at least fifteen meters.

Upon seeing this effect, everyone cheered excitedly.

However, Chen Changzai said to everyone, "The amount of medicine in this package is too large."

It is a suitable defensive grenade, but if used offensively, it may injure friendly forces.

We also need to adjust the powder charge based on the different types of grenades.

Another issue is that the grenade warheads we are currently manufacturing have thinner walls, which may cause them to shatter upon landing.

If it's too thick, it will affect the explosion effect.

This aspect still needs to be adapted and adjusted.

For these veterans who had fought many battles, Chen Changzai's words were immediately clear to them.

Like an offensive grenade, if you throw one while running and attacking, the throwing distance may not be very far.

If you run a few more steps forward, you might enter the grenade's kill range.

Therefore, offensive grenades are generally designed to control the effective kill radius of the explosion to five to eight meters.

Moreover, offensive grenades generally do not produce fragments; they rely primarily on the blast wave to kill the enemy.

Therefore, these veterans deeply agreed with what Chen Changzai said.

(End of this chapter)