A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

"If it weren't for discipline, I would have killed that kid right now!" Director Liu gritted his teeth.

"Hmph! If it weren't for discipline, I would have killed you first!" A deep voice came from behind the two men.

"minister?"

"Master!"

Minister Hu, with a long face, kicked Director Liu in the butt again.

Then he grabbed the newly sprouted tuft of hair on Jiang Xia's head and said, "You didn't learn any of Old Li's good things, but you picked up his dog temper perfectly!"

"I told you to look at the blueprints, and you come here to sing the Big Sword March?"

"If you could figure out what tricks the Japanese are playing, would I need to clean up their messes?"

Jiangxia cried out in pain and quickly tried to remedy the situation.

"Minister, I didn't see anything wrong with the drawings. But Xiaoben said he changed the project after looking at our chemical samples, that's absolutely impossible!"

"Hmm?" Minister Hu stopped pulling left and right, but his hand remained on Jiang Xia's head.

"Look at this booklet, it's in color!"

"?"

"Hey, color printing is a rare thing in China. Apart from a few big printing houses, who can do color printing?"

"You mean, this was something they prepared long ago?"

"Yes! It was definitely printed in Japan before I brought it here!"

Minister Hu thought for a moment, then shook his head and gave up.

"Forget it, it doesn't matter anymore. These days, it's not just the Ministry of Chemical Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture involved..."

Under the curious gazes of Jiang Xia and Director Liu, Minister Hu pointed to the list in the small notebook in Jiang Xia's hand.

Jiang Xia then realized what was happening and went outside without even having a chance to look.

Upon closer inspection, the list isn't very long, containing only about twenty items, all of which are resources and various semi-finished products.

It included a long list of items such as silk and porcelain.

In the middle are various ores and oil.

However, something rather strange appeared at the bottom of the list.

slag!

Or rather, iron ore slag!

"Huh? What does Xiaobenzi need slag for?" Director Liu exclaimed in surprise, looking at Minister Hu.

Before Minister Hu could speak, Junichiro's somewhat strange voice came from behind him.

"To be used as cheap land reclamation material!"

The group turned around and saw that it was the two Japanese men.

They somehow walked out of the conference room, followed closely by the Chinese representatives.

"Please do not doubt our sincerity; no hatred is insurmountable."

"Just like you, little friend. Although you've been very disrespectful to us, if you're willing to study in Japan, I'd still be happy to be your introducer!"

"Think about it!"

After saying that, he pushed aside Director Liu, who was standing in the middle, and went downstairs first.

"What happened?" Director Liu asked, panting heavily, as he looked at Minister Hu.

Minister Hu frowned as well: "Where are they going?"

Engineer Luo gave a wry smile: "I just called the comrades at the Ministry of Metallurgy, and they were very interested when they heard that slag could be used to replace US dollars."

"A vice minister from the Ministry of Metallurgy personally came to pick them up to eat Peking duck. He said he wanted to ask if they could exchange slag for a high-frequency electric furnace."

It turned out that after Jiang Xia and his companion were kicked out of the meeting room, they calmed down on their own without much persuasion from Minister Hu, and signaled for the negotiations to continue.

When the Chinese representatives discovered the slag item listed in the notebook, they exclaimed in surprise.

Although they were from the Ministry of Chemical Industry, everyone knows what slag is.

Some representatives who live near the steel mill in Beijing feel annoyed by the sight of the slag heap more than once a day.

So someone excitedly asked about the price of the slag as a substitute.

"$10 a ton!"

"However, you need to transport it to the port of Lushun."

Upon hearing this, everyone's eyes lit up. Compared to the trivial matter of transporting slag, the fact that a ton of slag was worth $10 was far more intriguing to them.

Some representatives familiar with the steel industry even started to make their own calculations.

Iron ore slag?

Just kidding, which steel mill doesn't have a huge slag heap these days? To put it bluntly, the biggest headache for steel mills now isn't insufficient output or outdated equipment.

Instead, those slag heaps, let alone being able to exchange them for US dollars, would probably earn them a debt of gratitude even if they were taken away for free.

Even if they lose money on transportation per ton, they would probably be willing to do it.

Suddenly, the phone booths next to the conference room became highly sought after.

"Hello, is this the steel mill? This is ***, how much slag do you have?"

"What? Hundreds of thousands of tons? Great, great, great!"

The moment one person put down the phone, another person eagerly picked it up.

"Hello, is this ** Commune? This is **, I'm looking for your Party Secretary!"

"Yes, hello, hello. It's like this, I remember you started up a small blast furnace?"

"It's abandoned?"

"No, I'm just asking if the slag is still there, there are dozens of tons piled up there? Okay!"

After asking around like this, I easily found out the amount, which is over a million tons.

This is only around Beijing. If we include places further away, the amount would probably be tens of millions of tons!

For a moment, the delegates felt as if green banknotes were flying everywhere.

With these slag deposits as compensation, we can handle not only 300 million each, but also several more!

However, the slag and steel plant sectors were nominally still under the management of the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry.

Feeling like their pie had been bitten, the group reluctantly made phone calls to the relevant leaders of the Ministry of Metallurgy.

The Ministry of Metallurgy was also stunned by this unexpected windfall and immediately said that it would send relevant personnel over to discuss the matter in detail.

At this point, Engineer Luo nervously tugged at Minister Hu's sleeve.

"Minister, this is bad. The Ministry of Metallurgy has taken the lead. Should we keep up with them? We don't want them to replace all the slag with furnaces and forget about our chemical equipment!"

Minister Hu was both amused and exasperated; who would have thought things would turn out this way?

While everyone was scrambling for the phone, he went out to look for those two troublesome kids.

I missed the Ministry of Metallurgical's notification.

Originally, the Ministry of Agriculture took the lead, and the Ministry of Chemical Industry implemented it.

The two companies were having a perfectly good discussion when the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry suddenly intervened. In the end, the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry took the lead.

Life is truly unpredictable!

……

The two notebooks got into the car sent by the Ministry of Metallurgy.

After the staff solicitously invited the two notebooks to sit down, they ran off without paying any attention to the people from the Chemical Industry Department behind them.

The long-bearded old man stomped his feet in anger, called over the young translator beside him, and asked him to take him along on his bicycle.

After a moment's hesitation, Engineer Luo turned to Minister Hu and said:

"Minister, the Ministry of Metallurgy is up to no good! They might abandon us and go it alone!"

Minister Hu frowned: "Is this little notebook being so kind? I have a feeling there's something fishy going on."

"Hey, let the Ministry of Metallurgy handle this. They think they can just steal something that two ministries are jointly overseeing?"

"Aren't you afraid of stuffing yourself to death!"

"Let them be, let's go take another look at the blueprints!"

After saying that, Minister Hu tugged at Jiang Xia's tuft of hair again, "You little brat, go look at the blueprints. If you don't find any mistakes, you're not allowed to have lunch!"