A professor's rebirth: I entered Tsinghua University in 1977.

Liu Hongyi followed the teacher and was about to go over. He took a step when he felt someone grabbing his sleeve. He turned and saw it was Ai Xiaoyu. The little girl had been so nervous that she had been holding on to Liu Hongyi's sleeve tightly, not realizing it herself.

This was because they were afraid that Liu Hongyi would be caught.

Liu Hongyi was amused and touched. He patted Ai Xiaoyu's arm gently and whispered, "It's okay. Don't worry."

Ai Xiaoyu finally realized what was happening and quickly let go of her hand. Her face flushed with shame and she hid behind Xiao Yawen, not daring to show her head again.

Xiao Yawen touched her hair lovingly, smiled and muttered: "Silly child..."

Old Tan came up to the two generals and nodded in greeting.

"Commander Dong, Commander Yu, I'm Tan Dexi."

"Hahaha, Old Tan, this isn't the first time we've met... Old Yu, this is Tan Dexi, the chief engineer of the 576th Factory. He's a famous artillery design expert in Jingjiang. All of the new products at the 576th Factory are his creations."

Commander Dong and Tan Dexi are old acquaintances, and they said with a smile.

Commander Yu took the initiative to shake hands with Tan Dexi and said, "Old Tan, I have heard of your great name for a long time."

Tan Dexi said modestly, "I don't deserve it, I don't deserve it... But, Commander Yu, Commander Dong, although I was the one who led the development of this 35mm grenade launcher and the 40mm individual grenade launcher, the ideas behind them all came from my student Liu Hongyi."

"Oh? And a 40mm individual grenade launcher?"

Commander Yu was both surprised and delighted.

This is really unexpected.

When Lao Duan reported to them, he only mentioned the 35mm automatic grenade launcher.

Where did this 40mm individual grenade launcher come from?

"Correct."

"To be honest with you, Commander Yu, I tried to develop a 40mm individual grenade launcher a few years ago, but failed. The main reason was that the mechanical fuze was too difficult to manufacture, and we didn't have the conditions for mass production."

"But this time, my student Liu Hongyi suggested putting aside the Eagle's MK79 and borrowing from the Russian GP25, using caseless ammunition, which lowered the requirements for the fuze, and we finally succeeded."

Commander Yu said in surprise, "You have an amazing student... Where is he? I want to meet him."

Tan Dexi immediately turned around and called Liu Hongyi over.

"Commander Yu, this is my student Liu Hongyi."

"Hello, Chief!"

Liu Hongyi stood at attention, chest out, and spoke loudly.

"So young?"

Commander Yu and Commander Dong were both shocked.

"Young man, which university did you graduate from? Are you, uh, twenty-two years old this year?"

Originally, they thought that for him to be able to design weapons, he must be at least 23 or 24 years old, but Liu Hongyi looked too young, so Commander Yu and Commander Dong had to guess the younger age.

Liu Hongyi smiled and said, "Commander, I'm a high school student, sixteen years old. I'm a sophomore at Chuzhou No. 1 Middle School. Because I beat up some hooligans and was afraid of retaliation, I didn't go back to school and studied with Teacher Tan."

"What did you say?"

"Sixteen years old?"

"High school sophomore?"

The two old generals, however, were knowledgeable and experienced, and were completely stunned when they heard this, with expressions of disbelief on their faces.

"No, then who did you learn weapon design from?"

Liu Hongyi replied: "Commander, I learned this from Teacher Tan."

Tan Dexi laughed heartily and explained, "Commanders, scientific research requires creative scientific thinking. Liu Hongyi has a very flexible mind and can think of many problems that others can't... Didn't you two join the Red Army in your teens? Before you were twenty, you were leading soldiers to fight against Chiang Kai-shek's army. What would the Japs do? They'd be beaten to a pulp just the same!"

Who says nerds can’t flatter?

When the two old generals heard this, they were very happy!

This is not a lie, but a fact. During the war, they were all in their teens or early twenties, but they became company and platoon leaders, leading the soldiers of each company and platoon to defeat the enemy and repeatedly made military achievements.

A general who has fought in hundreds of battles, who is not a living legend?

"Old Tan, stop talking nonsense and show us your stuff. Let's practice it properly and open our eyes!"

"Okay."

"Hongyi, go to the workshop right away and have them get ready. We'll go to the shooting range now."

Tan Dexi spoke with great confidence, his voice particularly loud.

The first test had been conducted two days ago and the results were very good, so he naturally felt confident.

Soon, the two generals, surrounded by everyone, arrived at the shooting range of Qingshan Machinery Factory.

The shooting range covers an extremely large area, including two entire mountains.

There is no way. Qingshan Machinery Factory produces artillery and artillery shells, and the shooting range is too small to be enough.

In fact, even if there are two mountains, it is still not enough.

Large-caliber artillery has a range of more than ten kilometers. Every time a test firing is conducted, a target area is marked out on a farther hilltop for extreme testing.

The effective range of howitzer cannons and individual grenade launchers is within more than 1,000 meters, so the foot of the mountain is sufficient for testing.

Yuan Gang, Jin Yunfeng, Gao Di and others, along with several workers from the sample workshop, drove over to deliver the samples.

As soon as the 35mm automatic grenade launcher appeared in front of everyone, the two old generals' eyes lit up.

Commander Yu stroked the blued gun barrel and exclaimed in admiration: "Good stuff, good stuff..."

"Young man, since this is your idea, come on, tell us what the features of this grenade launcher are."

This naturally did not pose a problem for Liu Hongyi. He had already memorized all the data and could speak it out fluently.

"Oh, this thing, with a tripod, can reach over 1,500 meters? That's as good as a mortar..."

"What? Armor-piercing? Can it penetrate 50mm homogeneous steel armor within meters?"

"Well, what about reinforced concrete? Have you tested it?"

The old general was surprised and delighted, and kept asking questions with great interest.

"Reporting to the commander, we've tested it. Direct fire has no problem penetrating 30cm of reinforced concrete at a distance of 400 meters."

"Oh, a little worse than 40 fire..."

The chief nodded slightly.

"But this thing has much stronger sustained firepower. It's already quite powerful."

"There shouldn't be any problem with building the civil engineering structure, right?"

"Report to the chief, no problem."

"Ordinary civil engineering machine gun fortifications can be destroyed with one or two rounds at most."

"Two shots? That's pretty accurate..."

Liu Hongyi said truthfully, "Commander, the accuracy is only average. The main issue is the strong recoil... Of course, after intensive training, I should be able to achieve good accuracy."

A brand new design created from scratch cannot be perfect and must be continuously improved.

"Okay, hurry up and fire a few rounds for us to see."