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

Political Commissar Qin quickly wrote down these two things as important tasks for the next step.

If the arsenal wants to develop greatly in the future, it cannot rely on buying all the materials, but must conduct research and development on its own. Otherwise, it will be like a tree without roots and water without a source, and it will be easy to be reduced to its original form.

If we can produce it ourselves, it doesn’t matter much even if the quality is lower or the quantity is smaller.

If the enemy blocks the troops' material import channels in the future, we can still produce them ourselves and continuously provide the army with weapons and ammunition to support the troops through the most difficult days.

For the next two days, the entire arsenal was in a busy state. Everyone worked around the clock. When they could not bear it any longer, they just found a mat, lay down on the ground and took a nap. After waking up, they continued to work.

The Eighth Route Army had nothing before and was purely a handicraft workshop. Now that they have finally established some rudiments of industry, everyone must put their utmost enthusiasm into it.

Five sets of power generation equipment were obtained from the armory in order to disperse the risks and also to maximize the use of these precious generators that were obtained with great difficulty.

Finally, after unanimous decision by the heads of the headquarters, two sets of generators were left to the arsenal, with a total power of 50KW, to power various machines and equipment.

The remaining three sets of generators, together with the one removed from the arsenal, were all sent to northern Shaanxi, where there was oil and coal, and these precious equipment could be fully utilized.

After all, the headquarters arsenal is on the front line. If the Japanese find its location and their army approaches, it will be difficult for the Eighth Route Army to resist. It would be a tragedy if they are wiped out.

Director Ren has been busy recently leading people to install these devices. The front-line troops are engaged in small-scale battles every day and require a large number of weapons and equipment.

The arsenal must install the lathes, drilling machines, milling machines and grinders as soon as possible, and start the machines quickly.

Although the bullet production line cannot produce finished bullets in a short period of time due to the problem of gunpowder, it is possible to make the bullet shells and bullets first, and then quickly produce them after there is enough smokeless gunpowder.

Moreover, by operating these devices, it is entirely possible to produce some qualified parts to replace damaged parts of rifles, light machine guns and heavy machine guns.

In the past, their method of dealing with this problem was to disassemble the damaged guns into parts, and then use the usable parts to assemble a qualified rifle.

But there is a big disadvantage to doing this: there is too much waste. Basically, it takes parts from three broken guns to barely piece together a good gun.

Especially for those parts that are extremely easy to wear, there are often no replacements at all, and they can only be piled up in the warehouse and collect dust.

Now that the arsenal has electricity and various lathes, it is entirely possible to process replacement parts as needed, greatly improving the success rate of repairing broken guns.

On the third day after all the equipment was installed and put into trial operation, the arsenal's firearms assembly team successfully assembled 124 Type rifles based on the processed parts.

After testing, it was found that the shooting parameters of the rifle were not affected at all. It was just because the lifespan of the self-produced parts could not catch up with those of the original Japanese factory. But this is also a great progress.

At worst, we can wait for a period of time and then process a batch of parts for replacement. This method is much better than seeing a warehouse full of parts and being helpless.

And 124 Type rifles, as long as they are equipped with a few light machine guns and heavy machine guns, can form two main companies of troops. Nothing can be more cost-effective than this.

When Director Ren saw that the new equipment was so effective, he immediately reported the good news to the headquarters and also suggested that other troops should bring back more good steel.

Minister Zhang was also very happy after receiving the telegram. He acted immediately and assigned tasks to other people in the logistics department to do their best to collect all kinds of supplies needed by the arsenal.

A special material transport team was also formed to transport the guns repaired in the arsenal as soon as possible and deliver them to the combat troops on the front line.

The sooner these guns are delivered to the front-line combat troops, the more confident we will be and the stronger our attack on the enemy will be.

Especially recently, a large number of 6.5mm bullets were obtained from the secret arsenal of the Shanxi-Suiyuan Army. There is no shortage of ammunition for the time being. One more gun means one more excellent soldier.

Seeing the good results, Director Ren mobilized most of the people in the arsenal to help select and assemble firearms, giving priority to the Japanese Type 38 rifle.

On the fourth day, 332 were assembled; on the fifth day, 446 were assembled; and on the sixth day, the best was achieved, with 734 successfully assembled.

Of course, most of the gun parts in stock have been used up, and the remaining ones can be assembled slowly. The same goes for other miscellaneous rifles.

The rifles were almost dealt with, then came the light machine guns, heavy machine guns, and finally the grenade launchers and mortars.

In short, no parts will be wasted at the arsenal. As long as it can be repaired, it will be a good weapon to kill the enemy.

As for Minister Zhang, after moving all the weapons from the armory, he did not take a rest and went to the arsenal with a large amount of supplies.

"Old Ren, this time I brought 10 kilograms of rice, 5 kilograms of flour, 3000 kilograms of peanuts and 2000 kilograms of soybeans. Oh, and 100 kilograms of refined lard."

"These supplies will be available next month. The head of the headquarters has already instructed that the headquarters would rather eat less and save some food to provide to the arsenal so that you can help the troops make more guns and cannons."

"In today's world, it's easy to be without food. You can just endure it. But if you don't have weapons, you will be bullied and many people will die."

"By the way, Lao Ren, it's been a few days since you got the bullet production line. Has it been installed? When can you start producing bullets?"

"Many leaders at the headquarters are urging us to start production as soon as possible. All the troop commanders below are eagerly waiting for the bullets we produce."

"After all, if all the ammunition is captured, everyone will be unsure and will be restricted in fighting, fearing that the captured ammunition will not be enough to catch up with the ammunition fired."

"Thankfully, we have this production line. We can produce 30 rounds of ammunition a month. Although it's not a lot, it's a great joy for us, the Eighth Route Army."

However, after hearing this, Director Ren said with an embarrassed look:

"Minister Zhang, it's not that easy. The most we could do before was to reload some bullets, and the production volume was pitifully small. The process of producing new bullets and reloading bullets is completely different. The complexity is completely beyond our imagination."

"Each step must go through a lot of process verification. This is the starting stage of our military industry, and every step must be taken steadily."

Hearing Director Ren say this, Minister Zhang nodded, and at the same time he understood that the leaders were indeed a little anxious.

If you choose to run before you even start learning to walk, you will definitely fall flat on your face in the future.

So he hurriedly asked seriously: "Old Ren, do you have any difficulties? If you have any questions, just ask them and we can work together to find a solution."

"By the way, where did Xiao Kong go? Why didn't I see him coming over?"