Anti-Japanese War, weapons designer at Fengtian Arsenal

Over the next few days, Li Qinwu continued to implement his theft plan. He was no longer limited to light weapons, but started working on artillery.

He got to know the employee in charge of the artillery warehouse through the warehouse manager, got him drunk using the same method, and after obtaining the key, he transported all the artillery to the island space.

This crazy theft did not stop until the island was filled with various boxes, dozens of mortars, and a dozen artillery pieces.

But it didn't stay for long, because Lao Huotou had arrived at the Xiaoyi Arsenal in Henan, one of the four major arsenals in China during the Republic of China period.

The old fellow was a senior technician, and if he were to be assessed according to the later technician grade system, he would definitely be an eighth-level technician.

Such a person who is good at rubbing aircraft carriers came to the Xiaoyi Arsenal and was directly received with great ceremony by Huang Wande (fictional), the then director of the Xiaoyi Arsenal.

Several factory leaders gathered around Lao Huotou for a meal and learned that Lao Huotou was in charge of rifle production. Huang Wande waved his hand and made him a section chief, allowing him to continue doing his old job of managing gun barrel manufacturing with a monthly salary of 98 oceans.

After Lao Huotou gained a firm foothold, Li Qinwu opened a portal with Li Xiongnu as the anchor point and sent three clones to Henan.

Li Qinwu asked them to rent several large factories and move out the weapons and equipment that were almost filling up the island.

There are simply too many things to put on the island. Guns and ammunition are fine, as they can be stacked very high in boxes, but medium-sized artillery like mortars and Type 41 mountain guns take up a lot of space, and they cannot be stacked, so they must be cleared out quickly.

But Li Qinwu was very uneasy about renting a warehouse to store arms. It would be terrible if officials came to inspect the warehouse and found these weapons and equipment.

Therefore, he is now very eager to reclaim land and increase the available space on the island.

Later generations of land reclamation would use large ships to dredge sand and pile it on the edge of the island, and then use cargo ships to pull stones to build slope control ladders, which was very costly and had a huge impact on the environment.

Fortunately, Li Qinwu does not have these problems. He can open a portal at the location where reclamation is needed, and open the other side in a place like a quarry. In less than 20 steps, the stones can be transported to the reclamation location, which will shorten the distance a lot.

In the past few days, Li Qinwu asked his three clones to look for a location where they could blast rocks, and they actually found an abandoned quarry.

At this time, the clones were contacting local officials under the slogan of businessmen, trying to purchase the operating rights of the quarry, and had made some progress.

Local officials offered 2 yuan per year, and the clone was trying to bargain with the other party. Li Qinwu felt that the price was not a problem, he could afford 2 yuan, but the problem was that he lacked manpower.

Now he has 160 clones. With such a small number of people, it is impossible to carry out a large project like land reclamation. However, the island space is his secret, and he will never allow anyone other than clones to enter. This puts the land reclamation project into a difficult situation.

Li Qinwu was very distressed about this. His only solution was to make a lot of money in the future and directly buy thousands of clones to do the hard work. However, he didn't know when he would be able to save up so much gold. The need for land reclamation and road construction was urgent, and he couldn't wait.

The only way is to use heavy machinery. One heavy excavator is equivalent to the work of 100 people. If you can buy something like an excavator transport truck, then land reclamation and road construction can be carried out quickly!

But the question is, who can we buy these machines and equipment from?

The only thing Li Qinwu could think of was foreign companies, especially the Soviet Union, a country that was closely connected with China.

At this time, the Soviet Union had completed industrialization and was still carrying out several five-year plans. Their country needed a large amount of heavy machinery to help with production and construction. If we could get in touch with the Soviets, purchasing heavy machinery from them would be a good choice.

After making plans, Li Qinwu gave a task to several clones who were active in Henan, asking them to try their best to contact foreign companies, especially the Soviets.

Li Qinwu made a simple layout in Henan, and he did not neglect his work in the Fengtian Arsenal. In addition to thinking about stealing things from the factory every day, he was also constantly supervising the production of flamethrower submachine guns and anti-tank guns.

With the support of three shifts, the output of flamethrower submachine guns reached a terrifying 3 per day! For this reason, the leaders of the arsenal came to the workshop for inspection several times and proposed rewards for Li Qinwu, but they were all verbal and there was no actual reward.

Ever since Li Qinwu said those words in Deputy Director Zhang's office last time, he seemed to have fallen out of favor and never saw Deputy Director Zhang again. Li Qinwu didn't care about this at all. The Japanese's gun and artillery training had become more and more rapid in recent days, and the incident was about to break out. Deputy Director Zhang no longer had any weight in his eyes.

In addition, the military showed great interest in the flamethrower submachine gun. Many people came and wanted to equip the army with submachine guns, but they were all rejected by Li Qinwu on the grounds that the submachine gun needed to be tested.

Li Qinwu didn't know which army came to ask him for guns. He didn't want to hand over the weapons he had worked so hard to make to them. Otherwise, when the war broke out, these soldiers received an order not to resist, and the submachine guns would fall into the hands of the Japanese.

However, the arms were no match for the thighs, and the guns were only kept in his hands for three days. The army directly went to Deputy Director Zhang, who took away all the 10-day production output of the workshop with just a note.

Li Qinwu looked very unhappy about this, but he was not without a solution. He started to cook the books.

Clearly, there were nearly 200 submachine guns delivered every day, but Li Qinwu, with a stroke of his pen, changed the number on the books to 150 per day, and kept 50 for himself.

In addition, he took the time to go to the Liaozao Ma Qing workshop, find the leaders and masters there for a drink, and spent 1000 oceans on bribes to get them to increase the number of anti-tank gun barrels from 10 per day to 15 per day. The extra 5 anti-tank guns were all confiscated by him.

Li Qinwu knew that his action was very dangerous. The senior leaders in the factory disliked him. The workshop worked in three shifts and the workers were a mixed bunch. If he held the gun like this, someone would definitely notice something.

As long as someone reported this matter to the higher-ups, given the huge amount of embezzlement, Li Qinwu would probably be shot. He also smelled danger. When he inspected the workshop, he always felt that someone was spying on him.

As expected, on the evening of September 9, Li Qinwu was dozing off in the office on the 15rd floor of the Firearms Design Department. His perspective was already on Li Hanchao in the island space.

Li Hanchao and his clones were tinkering with a Liao Type 1 mountain cannon. This 14mm cannon, which was copied from the Japanese Type 41 mountain cannon, had many advantages, including being light in weight, being able to be disassembled into more than 75 main parts, having a simple structure and being easy to maintain and produce. It was one of the most copied mountain cannons in China at that time.

A few days ago, Li Qinwu seized the artillery warehouse of the Fengtian Arsenal and obtained dozens of artillery pieces of various sizes, including 4 Liao-14 type mountain cannons and more than 500 rounds of high-explosive ammunition.

Now, the clones led by Li Hanchao are practicing with this artillery. Li Qinwu hopes that the clones can become proficient in using this artillery as soon as possible so that they can use it when an incident occurs.

He used Li Hanchao's vision to watch them set up the artillery, turn the wheel to aim, and load the shells.

But before Li Hanchao had time to pull the trigger to shoot, the door of Li Qinwu's office was kicked open, and a dozen soldiers with rifles rushed in. One of the officers pressed the muzzle of his gun against his chest.

"Director Li, your case has been exposed. Please come with us!"