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

When Director Ren heard Minister Zhang's question, he quickly explained:

"Minister Zhang, the biggest problem facing our arsenal is the lack of high-performance smokeless gunpowder."

"When we reloaded bullets before, we mostly removed the explosives from the Japanese shells that couldn't explode. Now we have production lines, so the old method won't work."

"When the time is right in the future, we can also copy a new bullet production line, so that we can continuously provide new bullets to the troops in the future."

"And the basis of all this is that high-performance smokeless gunpowder can keep up. Xiao Kong is now leading a large number of technical personnel from the arsenal to tackle the project."

"The first step was to develop concentrated sulfuric acid, the most commonly used chemical raw material for gunpowder. The next step was to develop concentrated nitric acid, and then find a way to synthesize ammonium nitrate explosives."

When Minister Zhang heard that the arsenal had such big plans, he immediately felt extremely excited.

Sulfuric acid and nitric acid, two chemical raw materials, have always been among the top five items collected by the Logistics Department. However, these materials are used in very few places and are basically only available in big cities.

Our intelligence personnel helped purchase some through laboratories in many schools, and then shipped them back through secret channels.

However, the Japanese also have very strict control over this kind of stuff. If you buy in large quantities, you will easily be targeted by enemy spies. The most they will do is ask comrades in the school to report more losses when doing experiments, and then transport these materials back using the ant moving method.

Doing this is extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the quantities are extremely limited. The things Kong Hao used for the experiment last time have already consumed a small half of the inventory. If he had to do it a few more times, he would simply not be able to handle it.

This is also the reason why Minister Zhang did not dare to produce it in large quantities even though he knew that fertilizer powder could be used to make high-performance explosives. The main reason was that there was not enough chemical raw materials in stock.

Now hearing that the arsenal is researching a traditional method of producing sulfuric acid, how could Minister Zhang not be ecstatic.

As long as the experiment is successful, it can be promoted in many bases, which will not only save a lot of money but also build its own chemical industry.

To be honest, as long as the base can mass-produce high-performance explosives, the overall strength of the Eighth Route Army will increase sharply.

In the past, we had no choice but to use the black gunpowder left by our ancestors to load various weapons. Now we can finally see the dawn of industrialized production.

He couldn't wait to ask, "What's the current progress? Have you encountered any difficulties?"

"I have fully entrusted Xiao Kong, the chief consultant of the arsenal, to be responsible for all of this, with the assistance of Political Commissar Qin. However, the progress should not be that fast. After all, this kind of thing is too technically demanding. In addition, our arsenal has no equipment, so it will definitely be difficult to research it from scratch."

At this time, there was a knock on the door, and then the door was pushed open, and the guard came in to report the latest situation:

"Director, the chief consultant sent someone to tell me that the third experiment will start soon. Do you have time?"

After hearing this, Director Ren said happily:

"Minister Zhang, how about we go to the scene together?"

"This is a good thing. Let's go and take a look and see what kind of surprise Xiao Kong can bring us."

When the two arrived, they saw a special room filled with many large water tanks. Two large tanks were interlocked with each other, stacked into a tower shape, with a lead pipe connecting them in the middle.

More than a dozen groups of cylinder towers were stacked together, almost filling up the entire room.

Kong Hao put on all the equipment he could find to protect against strong acid corrosion and wanted to go inside to check the situation, but was held back by Zhang Gong.

"Chief Advisor, Director Ren has already said that you are not allowed to enter the reaction room again. I am in charge of everything here, and I cannot let you take any more risks."

The other technicians did the same, all of them blocked the door and prevented Kong Hao from entering.

This was mainly because Kong Hao only knew a general idea of the process when faced with this method of "producing sulfuric acid in large vats". During the first verification, acidic gas leaked out due to inadequate sealing, causing burns to Kong Hao and several people in the room.

Although the injury was not serious, I was fine after seeing a doctor and taking some Chinese medicine.

However, this situation also frightened Director Ren and Political Commissar Qin, and they issued the latest order that Kong Hao was absolutely not allowed to operate the experiment personally.

When Minister Zhang and Director Ren arrived, they discovered this and quickly walked over.

As soon as Director Ren saw Kong Hao's outfit, he understood what was going on and quickly pretended to be angry and said:

"Xiao Kong, I'm going to criticize you again. You haven't learned enough from the last lesson."

"Just leave these things to others. You just need to watch and direct from outside."

After hearing this, Kong Hao said in a low voice:

"This is the first time we've made something like this. I feel a little uneasy if I don't personally monitor it."

"Besides, if it's dangerous for me to go in, isn't it also dangerous for others to go in?"

Director Ren then responded earnestly: "You are not only the chief consultant of the arsenal, but also a front-line combatant. Especially the latter, this is related to the transformation of our entire military tactics."

"After you finish the work at the arsenal, you will have to go back and command the troops to fight the Japanese. If you get injured, it will be an unimaginable loss."

After he finished speaking, he turned to everyone and said:

"I repeat, the general counsel is not allowed to operate this dangerous experimental equipment himself."

After hearing this, everyone agreed loudly.

After Minister Zhang understood the situation, he called Kong Hao aside and said with a serious expression:

"Xiao Kong, although our army emphasizes equality for all, everyone's role is different, and we must learn to balance them."

"Special operations are a brand new combat mode for the Eighth Route Army and are currently the most advanced tactics. We have just begun to experience its effects. If you are injured while refining sulfuric acid, it will be an unbearable loss for our troops."

"But please rest assured that the Logistics Department will purchase this kind of protective equipment in major cities first, and do its best to ensure the safety of the experimenters."

When Kong Hao heard that Minister Zhang and Director Ren cared for him so much, he no longer insisted.

Next, with his order, the concentrated sulfuric acid extraction experiment continued.

Engineer Zhang and several technicians wearing simple protective clothing carefully put some sulfur into a special copper sulfur box, and used matches to ignite the sulfur and some reactants to produce sulfur trioxide gas.

At the same time, another technician quickly pumped the bellows to produce a large amount of air, blowing the sulfur trioxide gas into the second cylinder tower, which contained a large amount of treated water.

In several other directions, people are doing the same action. After the reaction tower absorbs enough sulfur trioxide gas, it will be reacted and cooled through other cylinder chambers to eventually form sulfuric acid.

(The above information is just a rough guide, please bear with me.)

Of course, this process takes some time and there will be no results in a short period of time.

Kong Hao was lying on a piece of glass on the wall to observe the situation in the room. If he found any operational error, he could directly order the termination of the experiment.

Political Commissar Qin also spent a lot of effort to get this piece of glass, so that he could observe the situation inside the room.

When Kong Hao saw that everyone's operations in this experiment were in compliance with the standards and the problems encountered in the previous experiment did not occur again, he had a premonition that this time it would definitely be successful.

Sure enough, about half an hour later, the tester came with a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid that had just been extracted and quickly walked to the testing room nearby. The testers there had already prepared various reagents.

After a while, two pieces of news came from the testing room, one good and one bad.

The good news: what they extracted this time was indeed sulfuric acid;

The bad news: the concentration of sulfuric acid this time was not enough, only 46%. According to international industrial standards, it is only dilute sulfuric acid and cannot be used as a raw material for explosives.