Bright Sword: Starting from the Improved Grenade

"Based on our experience last time, the director said that it would only take two weeks to rebuild the arsenal and sulfuric acid plant."

Inside the tent at the temporary base of the arsenal, Li Yuncai said while holding a design drawing of the arsenal.

Zhao Tianyang frowned when he heard this: "How many workers have you recruited?"

"Two hundred people, three pounds of corn flour per person per day, and one meal per person."

"not enough."

Zhao Tianyang shook his head and said without hesitation: "Keep recruiting people. Time is running out. The Japanese may come tomorrow."

Li Yuncai did not object. After thinking for a while, he said, "Then I'll recruit another 100 people. I'm confident that I can finish the project in a week."

"It's still not enough. We need to recruit at least 2,000 people."

"What!!"

Li Yuncai was shocked and said, "Why does the factory director need so many people? And hiring so many people will cost a lot of money. Wouldn't it be better if we use this money to make more grenades to fight the Japanese?"

"Recruit. We must recruit 2,000 people."

Zhao Tianyang said affirmatively: "With the improvement of technology, the original arsenal is simply not enough."

"Yesterday I successfully made a detonator. To do this, we must build a paper mill, an alcohol factory, and a nitric acid factory."

"So many factories are needed just to make detonators, not to mention the factories that will be built later to make guns and cannons."

"what!!"

Li Yuncai was dumbfounded and stammered, "Director... Director, I'm not saying anything discouraging, but given our current conditions, it's simply impossible to get everything done in one go."

"Haha, don't worry, I understand. I will only let you build three more factories, and the others will come slowly."

Zhao Tianyang also understood that you can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. He said this just to make Li Yun feel nervous.

He had long discovered that as the new regiment grew stronger, the people in the arsenal seemed to relax and had completely lost their previous drive.

"That's fine, that's fine."

Li Yun was relieved: "Then I will go to Xingjiazhuang to recruit people. Winter is coming soon and the villagers have nothing to do. It will be easy to recruit people."

"Wait."

Zhao Tianyang stopped Li Yuncai who was about to leave.

"If you hadn't mentioned winter, I would have almost forgotten about it. You should first arrange for people to build the dormitories in the arsenal. We will be freezing to death if we still live in tents when winter comes."

Li Yuncai patted his forehead and said, "Look at my brain. I have been thinking about building a factory these days. Don't worry, Director, I will arrange it right away."

Outside the Xingjiazhuang ancestral hall.

"Dang Dang Dang..."

After a few crisp gong and drum sounds.

"Hey, come and take a look, the new regiment is hiring, three pounds of cornmeal a day, one meal a day, generous pay, don't miss it!!!"

Hearing the noise, the villagers who seemed to have nothing to do quickly gathered around because the farming season was over.

"They're hiring again. Didn't they just start hiring yesterday? Why are they hiring again today?"

"Why do you care so much? Just give me the money and it will be over!"

"I just feel like something's wrong."

"What's wrong? The construction site is not far from our village. I went to see it. They were just doing some work to build a house."

"Three pounds of vermicelli a day, if I save it, it's enough for me to eat for three or four days. I didn't have time to sign up last time, but I will sign up this time no matter what."

"That's right, I'll go too."

With the appearance of the first villager who stepped forward to sign up, the remaining villagers no longer hesitated and rushed forward like mad.

Fortunately, the person in charge of recruiting was well prepared. Two employees of the arsenal took gongs and drums and struck them twice.

“Ding ding ding…Everyone, don’t push, line up in an orderly manner. We are going to recruit 2,000 people this time, and everyone will have a chance.”

When they heard that they were going to recruit 2,000 people, the villagers who were originally a little worried about not being able to sign up suddenly quieted down. 2,000 people meant that all the young and middle-aged men in their village would be recruited.

Seeing the villagers bravely signing up not far away, Li Yun happily thanked the old man Xing beside him.

"Thank you very much. Without the help of Village Chief Xing, we wouldn't have been able to recruit people so quickly!"

This is true, because the first person to beat the gongs and drums was Old Man Xing’s eldest son.

"Hahaha, no, no, come to think of it, I should thank you. With the corn flour you gave them, no one in our village will starve to death this winter."

Old man Xing was very proud of his decision to let the New 1st Regiment move into Xingjiazhuang. Look, the rewards are here now.

After recruiting enough people quickly, Li Yun immediately divided them into four groups and asked them to build a paper mill, an alcohol factory, a nitric acid factory and workers' dormitories respectively.

Even Zhao Tianyang stopped his work and participated in the factory construction.

Paper mills are relatively simple. After thousands of years of development, Chinese papermaking technology has become mature.

Whether using wood, bamboo, straw, waste paper or plant fiber as raw materials, there is already a set of mature processes and technologies.

However, considering factors such as cost, sustainability and environmental protection, Zhao Tianyang finally chose a paper mill that uses bamboo as raw material.

After throwing a design drawing to Li Yuncai, Zhao Tianyang ran up the mountain and supervised the reconstruction of the sulfuric acid plant while directing the construction of the alcohol plant.

As for nitric acid plants, many of the processes overlap with sulfuric acid production.

So Zhao Tianyang decided to just add some equipment for producing nitric acid when rebuilding the sulfuric acid plant, and there was no need to build a new plant.

"It's fine if the factory director built the alcohol factory on the mountain, but why do they need to build a big pond now? This has nothing to do with brewing, right?"

In a dense forest on the Taihang Mountains, an employee who knew a little about winemaking technology looked at the construction drawings in Zhao Tianyang's hand curiously and asked.

In his understanding, wine is obtained from the fermentation of grain, and alcohol is wine, which is refined and extracted, and has nothing to do with what is being built now.

Hearing this, Zhao Tianyang casually explained: "The alcohol factory we built is to produce ethanol, the raw material for detonators, which is alcohol."

"But if we use food grains to refine it, not only our New First Group can't stand it, but also those European and American countries can't stand it."

"The alcohol factory I'm building now uses the wood-based brewing technology."

"That's why it seems strange to you, because it's completely different from making wine from grain."

"What! Wood?"

The employee was shocked: "Since when can wood be used to make wine?!"

"You are so ignorant!"

Zhao Tianyang smiled and explained: "The history of using wood fermentation to produce alcohol is very long."

"In the 30s, Germany used strong acid and high temperature to hydrolyze wood to produce alcohol. Later, it used dilute acid water to hydrolyze wood. It just so happened that we had no shortage of sulfuric acid, and even less of wood."

"And there are almost no technical difficulties. Anyone can learn it after just one look, so this method is very suitable for us."

"Oh I got it."

Although he still didn't understand, the employee nodded in awe.

"Okay, stop imagining things, take the blueprints and explain them to the villagers, so they don't make the wrong decision!"

Zhao Tianyang handed him the drawings, patted him on the shoulder and said.

"Yes, I'll go right away."

"Come on, when the alcohol factory is built, I will promote you to be the director of the alcohol factory."

Zhao Tianyang encouraged him, saying that this man was Wang Bensan, the apprentice of carpenter Wang San. He had only attended elementary school and was an honest and simple person. He was worth Zhao Tianyang's training.

"Really."

Wang Bensan was overjoyed: "Don't worry, Director. I will teach them step by step according to the drawings."

After saying that, he couldn't wait to run to the villagers who were waiting boredly and began to assign tasks.