Anti-Japanese War, weapons designer at Fengtian Arsenal

Since they were leaving, they had to be prepared. Li Qinwu and Lao Huotou discussed how to persuade the technical personnel who were traveling south with him from Fengtian to see how many were willing to go with him.

Lao Huotou took over the task. He felt that it was not reliable to let Li Qinwu handle this matter. They still wanted to get a month's salary from the Xiaoyi Arsenal. Li Qinwu was impatient, and it would not be good if the news of poaching got out.

Lao Huotou planned to use more covert words to persuade these workers, at least to avoid leaving any handle for people to report to Director Huang.

After a whole day of operation, Lao Huotou persuaded senior technician Lao Zhou and 15 mid-level technicians to follow him. The rest were unwilling to travel thousands of kilometers to an unfamiliar place.

These people who were born and raised in Fengtian have exhausted all their courage when they came to Henan. After finally taking root here, they have to leave now. They don’t want to be a tree without roots.

Li Qinwu felt that this was enough. One senior technician and 15 mid-level technicians were enough for them to get the factory running. If worst came to worst, he could let his clone take over.

That night Li Qinwu invited those who were willing to go with him to a restaurant for a good meal. The meal lasted until late at night. When everyone was almost drunk, Li Qinwu asked Li Xiongnu to put the bag he had been carrying on the table, which made a clanging sound.

Li Qinwu opened the bag, revealing a bunch of silver dollars wrapped in red cloth. The sheer amount of silver dollars stunned everyone and sobered them up.

"You are willing to follow me to Chongqing to make a living. Naturally, I cannot be stingy with this small amount of money. Take it and use it as a resettlement fee for the time being. Each person is 1000 yuan. Master Zhou, you are a senior technician, so the resettlement fee is yuan!"

Li Qinwu walked around the table and personally distributed dollars to everyone. In front of each person, two bundles of dollars wrapped in red paper were placed, each containing 50 dollars. In front of the senior worker, Lao Zhou, was a handbag with 20 bundles of dollars in it. This made the taciturn old man stare with his eyes wide open, his mouth open, and he could not speak any more.

Li Qinwu was very satisfied with the performance of everyone. They were all out here to make a living. Since they were willing to follow him, he would definitely provide them with better treatment.

He clapped his hands to get everyone to look at him.

"Everyone, I just started my business and don't have much to show for it, only a few taels of silver. Don't worry, when we get to the factory in Chongqing, the middle-level workers will get 75 silver dollars a month, and the senior workers will get 125 silver dollars a month, with food and accommodation provided. In the future, the factory will give priority to recruiting workers' family members."

Everyone was shocked. This salary was 30% higher than that of Xiaoyi Arsenal. One by one, they started calling him Boss Li. He, Li Qinwu, became the boss of the factory before he even chose a location.

Everyone started to toast Li Qinwu. Li Qinwu said he didn't know how to drink, so he drank tea instead. Several people present wanted to persuade him to drink, but Li Qinwu politely refused.

But there are always people who cannot see the situation clearly. A middle-aged man raised his glass and pestered Li Qinwu to drink it. Finally, he threatened that if he didn't drink, he would be giving him no face.

This touched Li Qinwu's sore spot. His smiling expression disappeared and he looked at the drunkard with a gloomy face.

"Oh? Not drinking means I'm not giving you face? It seems that I, Boss Li, am just a figurehead. I have to depend on you before the factory even opens?"

These words sobered the other party up. He apologized repeatedly and slapped himself hard. He didn't dare to offend Li Qinwu. The wages offered by Li Qinwu were higher than those in other factories. He would be heartbroken if he lost such a job.

Li Qinwu waved his hand and left the banquet. Everyone at the table looked at each other, then pointed at the guy who urged him to drink and started scolding him. At the same time, everyone remembered that in the future, when hanging out with Boss Li, never urge others to drink, because this guy would get angry if he urged them to drink.

The next morning, Li Qinwu went to the firearms design department to find Hu Xiaoming, trying to persuade him to go with him.

After spending such a long time with Hu Xiaoming, he quite likes this somewhat timid young man. Mainly because he heard from others that Hu Xiaoming is also a top student who returned from studying in France, majoring in firearms design and ballistics. No wonder this guy is so concerned about firearms and bullets. Li Qinwu hopes that he can start a business with him and design new ammunition for the future.

When Li Qinwu found Hu Xiaoming, he was firing bullets at the simple shooting range of the firearms design department.

He loaded a bullet into the ballistic gun fixed on the iron table, aimed at the wooden target 50 meters away and pulled the trigger rope. With a bang, Hu Xiaoming went over to get the white paper and analyzed it carefully.

"Xiao Ming!"

Li Qinwu shouted, and Hu Xiaoming then realized that Li Qinwu had come. He ran over in surprise and handed him the target paper.

"Director Li, look, the intermediate-power rifle bullet we made should be ready. According to the data you gave me, I reduced the original rifle bullet to 8 grams. The ballistic data after testing is good. Although the charge is reduced, the bullet's trajectory is still straight within 350 to 400 meters, which is not much different from the rifle bullet!"

Li Qinwu took the target paper and looked at it. The bullet holes were very concentrated.

“Yeah, that’s right. Rifle bullets are overpowered nowadays. Their trajectory is still flat at 600 meters. Even the gun has a 1km scale. This is obviously a waste.

Intermediate-power rifle bullets are the future development trend. In the future, our army may be able to gain an advantage with this bullet. We must keep it secret as much as possible to increase the duration of the advantage. The technical content of this bullet is not very high. Western countries will definitely copy it after realizing its advantages, so Xiao Ming, you must keep it confidential. "

Hu Xiaoming nodded seriously. He personally participated in the development of this bullet and naturally knew what advantages it could bring to the infantry. He couldn't wait to see what the automatic rifle designed by Director Li looked like.

Director Li is a talented person who has come up with a flamethrower submachine gun, an anti-tank gun and an unnamed submachine gun in a short period of time. With such rich experience in weapon design, what kind of automatic firearm will Director Li come up with? I am really looking forward to it, but I hope it will not be as cheap as that submachine gun. The new automatic rifle should be more beautiful.

While he was daydreaming, Hu Xiaoming had not forgotten to give Li Qinwu a handful of new bullets. Li Qinwu looked at these intermediate-power rifle bullets that were shorter than rifle bullets, and suddenly an idea came to his mind. It seemed that the bullet casings could also be made of No. 2 ceramic jars?

Although No. 2 ceramic steel is not wear-resistant, it is perfect for making disposable items! But he doesn't know whether the ceramic steel shell can be extracted smoothly, so he will have to give it a try!

Keeping this project firmly in mind, Li Qinwu talked about the main purpose of coming to Hu Xiaoming this time.

"Xiao Ming, I plan to go to Chongqing to start my own business in a month. Would you like to go with me? If you are willing, I can give you a position as a project director, with a monthly salary of 200 yuan and stock dividends at the end of the year. How about it?"