Anti-Japanese War, weapons designer at Fengtian Arsenal

The next day at work, Li Qinwu was thinking about making money by doing something else. Being distracted at work has its price. Because of his negligence, a gun barrel that was being forged was hit several times more by the hammer, and the tail of the barrel became several millimeters thinner.

Li Qinwu quickly stopped the machine, picked up the gun barrel and looked at it, then shook his head. The barrel was scrapped. Fortunately, the factory allowed scrap to appear, and as long as the scrap rate did not exceed 30%, the salary would not be deducted.

He threw the discarded gun barrels in a corner, and after get off work someone would collect them and throw them back into the steel furnace.

Li Qinwu felt it was a pity. This was a gun barrel made in Hanyang. The barrel was very long and the damaged part could be sawed off and the bullet could still be fired.

He was a little speechless about ruining a gun barrel. He stretched himself and decided to walk around the factory since he had completed today's work quota.

He heard from the old fireman that the Fengtian Arsenal was trying to develop a new type of heavy artillery, and he would stay at the artillery factory for a few days. Li Qinwu found it interesting and walked towards the artillery factory.

The heavy artillery produced by the arsenal caused a sensation and it was even reported in newspapers that if this artillery was successfully developed, the Chinese would have their own 240mm heavy artillery!

Young Marshal Wang from the Northeast attached great importance to this. He kept going to the arsenal to supervise the manufacture of artillery, and he was determined to succeed.

Li Qinwu knew that the heavy artillery they made was an imitation of the Japanese Meiji Type 240 918mm howitzer. Later generations heard that the artillery was made, but the September th Incident broke out before it was pulled out of the factory, and these artillery pieces became the spoils of the Japanese.

Li Qinwu walked to the artillery manufacturing workshop and saw a large number of armed soldiers standing outside the workshop. He shook his head. These soldiers equipped with ZH29 semi-automatic rifles were the young marshal's personal soldiers.

This semi-automatic rifle is currently the most advanced infantry weapon in the country, but it seems to have some problems, so it is not equipped on a large scale. Only a small number of them are provided to the young marshal's personal guard as a demonstration.

Since the young marshal was here, Li Qinwu knew that it was impossible for him to go to see the cannons, so he planned to find a place to smoke a cigarette.

The Fengtian Arsenal had a clear rule that workers were not allowed to smoke in the factory, but this rule was in name only. The workers would hide in various corners to smoke. Li Qinwu randomly found an alley to go into, took out a cigarette and lit it up.

However, he had just taken two puffs of the cigarette when a sound of metallic friction was heard. A metal door in the alley was opened, and a disheveled female worker walked out of the door.

The female worker's face was flushed and she still had a smile on her face. When she saw someone in the alley, she was stunned for a moment, then lowered her head and ran away quickly.

Li Qinwu was confused. What was he doing? He looked towards the open door and saw another man in military uniform walking out. He was also smiling, and it was obvious that he was very happy about what had just happened.

However, when he saw Li Qinwu in the alley, his expression suddenly froze, he looked guilty, and then he became furious.

"Fuck you!"

He roared angrily, feeling ashamed of having his good deed ruined. He kicked towards Li Qinwu, who quickly dodged.

"How dare you hide!"

He pulled out the box gun from his waist and pointed it at Li Qinwu's chest. Li Qinwu's eyelids twitched and he dared not dodge anymore.

The guy kicked Li Qinwu in the stomach. Li Qinwu groaned, took a few steps back, and knelt on one knee on the ground.

A fierce light flashed in Li Qinwu's eyes. The officer pointed the pistol at Li Qinwu's head. He looked around guiltily. No one noticed. He breathed a sigh of relief and then cursed viciously.

"Damn it, I told you to run around like that, but you didn't see anything! Did you hear me?"

He opened the box of the cannon hammer and pressed the barrel of the gun against Li Qinwu's forehead, almost piercing Li Qinwu's skin.

Li Qinwu suppressed the murderous intent in his eyes with great determination and nodded.

"Bah! Bad luck! I'll remember your face! If I hear any rumors about you, I'll kill your whole family!!"

He spat on the ground, put away his gun and walked out of the alley.

Li Qinwu stood up, brushed off the dust on his clothes, looked at the officer's back, and followed him.

He followed very carefully and resolutely. Li Qinwu was not someone who would suffer any loss. If he dared to point a gun at him, he should be prepared to pay the price.

He followed the officer into the factory security room, which was a resting place for the guards stationed at the Fengtian Arsenal. The identity of the officer was very obvious, he was a team leader of the factory guards.

The officer opened the door and entered the lounge. Li Qinwu quickly followed him, squatted down near the window and pretended to tie his shoelaces, listening to the sounds in the room with his ears perked up.

"Go away, make room for me. I'm going to kill you all today!"

This was the officer's voice, followed by the clacking of shuffling cards.

"Liu San, don't forget that you still haven't paid back the 5 yuan you owed yesterday. You want to play cards again today, so use yesterday's money to pay for it!"

"Fuck! Zhang Ermaizi looks down on people, don't you? Forgot what day it is today? Payday! Do I need you for this? Do you want to play or not? If not, get out of here!"

Li Qinwu remembered the name Liu San, stood up and walked towards the workshop where he worked.

It was around two o'clock in the afternoon. The workers were all having lunch and there was no one in the workshop. Li Qinwu came to his lathe and was surprised to find that the gun barrel that he had damaged in the morning was still there!

The factory has a system that once in the morning and once in the evening, workers from the blast furnace will come to collect the damaged workpieces and put them back into the furnace. Why is this gun barrel still staying on his lathe?

He went to other workers' lathes and saw that all their waste parts had been collected. It might be that the worker who collected the waste parts was too careless and did not see that there was still one on his lathe, so it missed one.

Li Qinwu thought of the kick he had just received, and a fierce light flashed in his eyes. He came to the door of the factory and looked around. The workers had not returned yet, so he hurriedly started the machine, picked up the gun barrel, and sawed off the broken part of the barrel, leaving about 30 cm of intact barrel.

After polishing the cut clean and dealing with the scrap parts and metal slag, he stuffed the gun barrel into his trouser leg and sat back next to the machine tool as if nothing had happened.

When he finished all this, it was time to go back to work. Workers returned to the factory one after another, and some workers brought the rough blanks of the gun barrels that needed to be made in the afternoon.

The worker who received the workpiece handed 10 rough gun barrels to Li Qinwu with a smile.

"Master Li, thank you for your help. The yield rate of our workshop depends on you."

Li Qinwu smiled back and took the rough blank. He had the highest yield rate in the factory. Basically, if he was given 10 gun barrel rough blanks, he could make 10 guns, while the yield rates of others were only around 7 to 8, hovering around the line of not having his salary deducted. Sometimes, when a worker produced excessive defective products, Li Qinwu would give his good parts to the other party to deal with them, so he was very popular.

Li Qinwu placed the rough barrel on the machine tool and asked casually, "Have the scrap parts in our workshop been collected this morning?"

"They have been taken back. When I got off work this morning, I saw people from the blast furnace coming. The waste has now been thrown into the furnace and melted."

Li Qinwu nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. Although the Fengtian Arsenal is now the largest arsenal in Asia, to put it bluntly, it is still under the control of local warlords and has the nature of a family business. Poor management is a standard feature.

It was common for officials to embezzle and secretly sell factory pistols. The workers at the lower levels were illiterate and sometimes received too many rough drafts and sometimes too few. All of these things could happen.