A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

"Old Company Commander! Aren't you awesome?!"

Jiang Xia drove the excavator and in less than ten minutes, he dug out a crooked tunnel in the hard ground of the stockpile.

It was one meter wide and more than ten meters long, but the sides of the tunnel were full of potholes. Even experienced excavator operators from later generations would find it to be poorly done.

but now?

The crowd simply cheered.

The veterans working in the veterans' workshop jumped down into the tunnel and inspected the area.

He climbed back onto the ground and gave Jiang Xia a thumbs up: "Not bad! Our whole squad of soldiers can only do this much after half a day's work."

The old company commander pulled a warm egg out of his bag: "Good! Here, this is a reward for you!"

"Hehehe!" The little brat didn't stand on ceremony with the old company commander, peeled off the shell in a few quick moves and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Xiao Jiang, you asked me to set up the chassis production line just to build this?" Li Huaide struggled out of the crowd, walked into the excavator, carefully touched the excavator's huge bucket with his hand, compared his fist with the bucket teeth, and couldn't help but grin.

"Yeah, they stopped production over there, right? Stopping it would be a waste. So, Uncle Li, is it difficult to handle?"

The little one carefully covered his mouth, not wanting the egg foam to spit out.

Li Huaide nodded hesitantly with a bitter face: "It's really not easy to deal with. Although they're not very progressive over there, they are still a ministerial-level unit..."

Li Huaide wasn't lying about this. Although he had his own selfish motives, the administrative level of the Imperial Garden Factory was indeed much higher than that of a mere steel rolling mill.

I've only ever heard of higher-level units "borrowing" things from lower-level units. This kid wants to do the opposite, but the obstacles are just too great.

Moreover, the relationship between the two families is rather complicated; they are not exactly enemies, but they are not exactly on good terms either.

The Henan Museum should have a deep understanding of this, after all, that ding (a type of ancient Chinese bronze vessel) was borrowed twice and then left in the National Museum of China...

"Oh...it's alright! Uncle Li, we don't necessarily have to use a five-wheel chassis. Wheeled chassis are fine too, but that means we can't make the tonnage too large. For mining, tracked chassis are more practical..."

Using wheeled chassis in mining is indeed somewhat unsuitable. Given the current level of tire manufacturing technology, it's already quite an achievement to even manufacture them, let alone add steel wires.

Hmm, should we contact the people in Jinan? I recently saw in an internal publication that they seem to have made some progress in developing a new type of tire. How about we trade some four-cylinder engines for them?

The little brat fell silent after thinking about it for a while.

Hearing that the little brat hadn't made things difficult for him, Li Huaide felt a sense of relief, as if the tightness in his chest had eased considerably. But looking at the now silent little brat, a surge of heroic spirit welled up within Li Huaide for some reason.

“I’m walking on the main road now! That little brat calls himself ‘uncle’! How can I, his uncle, let him down!” Li Huaide thought for a moment, then suddenly felt a surge of passion and blurted out, “I’ll go get it! If I can’t, I won’t…”

Before Li Huaide could utter his grand words, an old voice interrupted him.

"Little guy, if you want the chassis, I'll give it to you."

……

Workers' Stadium in Beijing.

(Don't confuse stadium with gymnasium.)

This stadium, which first appeared on a postage stamp in the People's Republic of China, was built specifically to host the 26th World Table Tennis Championships.

To welcome the first World Games held since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Motherland allocated special funds under extremely difficult conditions to build a new Workers' Stadium with a capacity of 10,000 people.

The bearded man, in charge of the event, frowned as he surveyed the venue. "Everything else is fine, but why hasn't the roof of this building been put on yet? Also, the construction debris around here needs to be cleared away; see if we can cover the muddy ground with cement..."

The lead designer adjusted his glasses: "Boss, we're using a spoked suspension structure for the ceiling, which requires steel cables to suspend the central ring of the steel structure. However, due to shortcomings in our cable tensioning technology, we're currently short a few cables, and the central ring's structure isn't complete yet..."

"Construction waste is easy to handle. The surrounding community is very supportive of our work. We estimate that tens of thousands of people come to help every day..."

"However, there is a significant shortage of cement, so we can only prioritize the construction of the main building..."

The bearded man smiled at first, then frowned as he listened to the introduction:

“Our people are all good people! Here, I’ll allocate a batch of grain, at least enough to feed the people who volunteered to help…”

"I'll handle the cement issue. The central ring was made by the steel rolling mill, right? Where are the mill's leaders? Call them over; the competition is in April, and this building can't function without a roof!"

The group of people following behind him looked left and right.

Hey, where are the people from the steel rolling mill? Oh, right, I don't think we notified them.

Indeed, today a bunch of leaders from the sports and construction sectors came to accompany us on an inspection tour. Who would have thought that the problems would ultimately fall on the shoulders of a mere steel rolling mill?

A secretary-like person walked up to the bearded man and told him about it.

The leader waved his hand: "Alright, you continue construction, I'll go and help you get it done! This is an opportunity for China to showcase itself to the world, everyone must take it seriously!"

"Let's go! This time we'll go secretly and see what this steel rolling mill is really doing! They're dragging their feet on this important project, it's unacceptable!"

So the bearded man didn't ride in the car that had been specially assigned to him, but instead rode in a small, drafty jeep to the steel mill.

Because of the letter of introduction issued by the guards, there was no incident of a soldier blocking the general's way at the gate of the steel mill.

"Hmm! Where is he? Not in the office during work hours?"

The bearded man walked around the steel mill's office building and saw several middle-aged women cleaning the offices, which made him somewhat angry.

"They're probably busy in the workshop during production time. Boss, you know how heavy the production tasks are at the steel rolling mill lately!" The confidential secretary, seeing that the boss was in a bad mood, said something nice for the steel rolling mill.

"Hmph! Go take a look! If you don't see these leaders in the workshop, you'll be punished too!"

The bearded man glared at his secretary, and then the group of people strolled around the factory area in a low-profile manner.

The group of people who were taking a stroll were spotted by patrolling soldiers. After listening to the briefing from the confidential secretary, the soldiers immediately led the group to the material storage area.

"Our Jianggong has developed a new tank with hands, and the factory leaders are testing it over at the stockyard!"

We arrived at the scene.

Everyone watched as a strange-looking machine dug a ditch in the threshing ground.

The bearded man slapped his thigh: "Hey! What tank with hands? This is an excavator!"

The confidential secretary glanced at the crowd and wanted the guards to find the factory director.

Unexpectedly, the bearded man stopped them, led a group of people up a hill, and took out binoculars to look at them with great interest.

"Wow! The tunnel was completed in less than ten minutes!"

Upon closer inspection, a familiar tuft of hair was seen swaying inside the driver's cab.

"Hey? The Engineer Jiang you mentioned earlier, is his name Jiang Xia?"

The guard was taken aback for a moment: "That's right!"

"Hey, wasn't this kid supposed to be let go by the Navy? Why is he still stuck in the steel mill?"

"Hey, who's that?"

Watching the little guy jump off the excavator and talk to an old man with a buzz cut and big-framed glasses.

"Hey! Boating! What's that old rascal doing here instead of his five-wheeled boat?"