Bright Sword: Follow Kong's fun and build the strongest military industry

By the time we arrived at the arsenal, it was three days later, and the journey was uneventful.

Moreover, Kong Hao also pretended to be an ordinary transport caravan and did not specifically request military protection, in order to prevent someone from noticing that the huge sum of money lost from the Bank of China was with the Eighth Route Army.

Once so much money is exposed, many people will be afraid, especially the one in Shancheng, who is famous for being petty.

What does 1937 million oceans mean? When the Eighth Army was first established in 63, according to regulations, the National Government allocated 16.6 yuan of military currency per month to the entire Eighth Route Army and yuan to the New Fourth Army.

This is just the number on the agreement paper. The actual amount received is only 60% at most. It is even less now. Moreover, the legal currency continues to depreciate, making it even less valuable now.

However, all the currencies Kong Hao got were mainstream international currencies. These foreign currencies were the hardest banknotes and would remain strong and would not depreciate no matter where they were.

Even with those few million yen, you can buy a lot of scarce supplies in a big city like Shanghai.

Of course, precisely because of this, Kong Hao didn't dare to mention it in the telegram, for fear that it would be accidentally leaked and cause unnecessary trouble to everyone.

When the convoy approached the arsenal, Kong Hao saw someone coming to greet them from afar, and hurriedly went up to greet them with Song Qingfeng.

"Brigade Commander, Minister Zhang, why are you here?"

"We are here to welcome our great hero. You have been out for so long. You must have worked hard."

"This is not the place to talk. Let's go inside and talk."

After arriving at the arsenal, Kong Hao first asked the special forces to guard the warehouse and no one was allowed to approach.

When Brigade Commander Chen saw this, he understood that Kong Hao must have gotten something good during his trip to Taiyuan.

So he said jokingly: "Xiao Kong, your trip to Taiyuan this time was just like Sun Wukong entering the enemy's stomach, causing chaos."

"That night, just as I was about to take a nap at the brigade headquarters, I was woken up by the intelligence chief, who said something major had happened in Taiyuan."

"Good fellow, only you, Xiao Kong, have the courage to bombard the Japanese First Army Headquarters, and you actually did it. It really surprised all of us."

After hearing this, Kong Hao hurriedly explained with a smile:

"This matter is too serious. I told Lao Liu not to report it by telegram to prevent any mistakes. In addition, we also took some things from the Japanese bank. The amount is too large, so we can't let anyone know."

After he finished speaking, he took out a list from his pocket and handed it to Minister Zhang:

"This is the list of materials I purchased from Taiyuan. The equipment from several factories will not arrive for a few days. When the time comes, you can send someone to transport them back."

"These are all old equipment that I got back from the Japanese trading company through special channels, but they can still be used."

After hearing this, Minister Zhang just nodded and did not ask how Kong Hao got these devices.

The head of the headquarters had previously instructed that no one was allowed to interfere with Kong Hao's actions. After all, he had returned from overseas and must have his own connections.

Anyway, anything he brought back was urgently needed by the Eighth Route Army, and our troops would be the ultimate beneficiaries.

Minister Sun took a quick look and saw that all the items were urgently needed by the arsenal and other factories in the base, and he was immediately delighted.

There are tens of thousands of various processing tools that can be used for a long time, especially a large number of measuring instruments. It is good to be able to get a few of them on a normal basis.

But once Kong Hao makes a move, he produces hundreds and thousands of them. Now the quality of the products produced in their base will gradually improve, and they will no longer be the shoddy products before.

Minister Zhang handed the list to Political Commissar Qin of the Arsenal and asked him to take people to count and put them into storage.

Except for a part of these important items that will be left to the arsenal, most of them will be handed over to the Logistics Department for unified allocation.

Although the number of these things seems large, the Eighth Route Army has so many bases and many factories in many places. If they are dispersed, it can only solve temporary problems.

After the others had left, Commander Chen joked:

"Xiao Kong, these last dozen boxes must be your greatest gains in Taiyuan. Open them quickly and let us open our eyes."

Upon hearing this, Kong Hao opened the first box and showed it to everyone:

Minister Zhang was sharp-eyed. Seeing that there were banknotes inside, he quickly squatted down, picked up two stacks, and exclaimed:

"These are Japanese yen, all in 100-yuan notes. I haven't seen this for a while. It's really rare to see so many in this box."

"In fact, the Japanese money is also very useful in China, especially in big cities. You can buy a lot of rare and good things, and you can also exchange it for US dollars or oceans through connections."

"At the current exchange rate, 1 U.S. dollar is worth about 4.3 yen."

"By the way, how much is this bundle of Japanese hundred-dollar bills?"

Although the Eighth Route Army stays in a mountain cave, our intelligence personnel will regularly report what is happening outside in order to understand the latest international developments and provide information for the leaders to make decisions.

Especially the latest currency exchange rates of various countries, which is very important information and can reveal a lot of things.

There are also many financial experts in our army, and they can earn a lot of money through various channels to develop the economy of the base.

It’s just that we have never had much capital before, and the limited funds were basically used to purchase urgently needed supplies. Most of the time we were in the embarrassing situation of “a good cook cannot cook without rice”.

Now, there are more than a dozen large boxes on the ground. If they are all money, it would be a huge sum.

This is also the reason why Minister Zhang was so excited when he saw the heavy banknotes in his hand.

"Minister Zhang, each bundle in your hand is 10,000 yen. There are 320 bundles in total in these boxes, all of which are 100-yuan bills."

"I still have a few thousand yen left, so I'll give it to Old Liu as funds for the activities of the innocent people."

Upon hearing this astonishing number, the expressions on Minister Zhang and Brigade Commander Chen's faces were wonderful.

The two men never imagined that the Eighth Route Army would receive such a large sum of funds all at once.

320 million yen, if converted into US dollars, is about 74 US dollars. The current price of gold is about one dollar per gram, which is about 370 kilograms of gold.

Seeing that both leaders were shocked, Kong Hao felt a sense of accomplishment all of a sudden.

Then he opened all the boxes containing money and proudly introduced them:

"My Lords, that's not all. We also received 840,000 US dollars, 580,000 British pounds, 120,000 marks, and 15,000 francs."

"Basically, we emptied out all the cash the Japanese had at the Taiyuan Zhengjin Bank headquarters."

"But don't make this matter public. The Japanese still don't know who did it. We have to keep quiet and make a fortune."