Canteen System Assistance Notes

"Hey? Hey! What are your orders, army?"

The man in military uniform next to him waved his hand in front of his eyes, and Old Wang finally reacted. He hurriedly bowed slightly and asked.

"What army? We are the Eighth Route Army. Here, you can just call me Comrade. We are from the same family. If you don't mind, you can just call me Comrade Wang." "Okay, okay, okay."

This "Little Brother Wang" was the "ship commander" of the Eighth Route Army. According to the instructions during the mobilization, all matters on board were subject to his arrangements. However, as a captain with many years of experience in sailing and the leader of the four sailors, Old Wang had the final veto over all sailing matters.

In other words, you can refute the soldiers about sailing?

Old Wang thought he was old and must have heard wrongly. His reaction to seeing soldiers had been ingrained in him for a long time and it was not something he could change in a short time.

This little brother Wang didn't have much to correct. He grabbed Old Wang and

Pointing to a piece of cardboard and a string of Chinese characters in his hand, he asked, "Master Wang, our boat's rated load is 5,000 jin 500 kg, or 2,750 tons. According to the original requirements, we need to load it for about two shifts."

*The situation has changed now. Can we share a few more boxes of ammunition? The fighting in Shanxi Province is fierce and a lot of ammunition has been fired. The General Logistics Department needs us to send more ammunition. "Little Brother Wang's baby face is still a little childish, but his words are full of childishness.

He has lost a lot of the impatience of young people. "After our ship has loaded two classes, can you help carry some?"

This kid is younger than my youngest son, right? Could he be twenty years old?

That kid might be like that now, driving on the highway in the northwest, wishing he could live with a car all day long, but he looks down on his old waist that has to rely on human power, huh.

Old Wang regained some confidence, and thought of the flat-bottomed cargo ship with its machinery. As usual, he put on some weight: "It's just a few boxes of ammunition. Comrade Dajun said we need to load them, so let's load them. Why bother asking me, an old boatman? Dajun has a small engine that can move around freely. If it really doesn't work, why not let them load it?"

"Hey, Master Wang, you've been making a living on the Yellow River for decades. Although you used to be in Huinong, your understanding of the river is very clear." The young man's tone was sincere and his attitude was correct, which made Master Wang very happy. "Although that cargo ship has a thermal engine, it has a deep draft and is equipped with artillery. How can it compare to the flexibility of yours? Comrade boatmen, our manual team is no worse than the machine team!"

This young man was so sweet-talking. Seeing the boatmen's excitement, Old Wang felt a little itchy. He coughed twice and said, "The biggest fear when sailing on this stretch of the Yellow River isn't the waves, but the shallows and mud. Our boat is supposed to carry 5,500 kilograms, but today's weather is nice, so it's okay to load 6,000 kilograms—just be careful sailing and don't run aground. How much does one of our soldiers weigh?"

Our two squads consist of 24 soldiers, carrying 12 rifles, 4 submachine guns, 2 light machine guns, 2 individual cannons, and a few Mauser pistols. We can temporarily assume each person weighs 100 kilograms, so 200 kilograms is a slender amount... "Puff..."

Old Wang laughed, and so did the other three boatmen. Young Comrade Xiao Wang was completely bewildered, staring at them with a puzzled expression. Finally, Old Wang shook his head like a master, pointed to a few horizontal painted lines on the side of the boat, and said proudly.

"You abacus beads, you've been fooled by all the reading! What's the point? Just look at the line. The army built their own ships and drew their own lines for this very reason. How could you forget, little fellow?"

"Two columns, march in step—forward!"

Led by their squad leaders, soldiers from both squads boarded the boats one by one. Then, soldiers from the second boat ran over and formed a human conveyor belt, loading boxes of mortar shells onto the boats. The wooden boat creaked and slowly moved downward, gradually approaching the line Old Wang had pointed out.

The maximum freshwater load line. Thanks to the efforts of the Industrialization and Standardization Bureau, many of the Eighth Route Army's equipment is moving towards regulation and standardization, from bullet magazines to wooden flat-bottomed boats. Even older boats, which haven't been standardized, have these reference lines drawn on them.

Seeing that the ship had almost reached the safety line, the ship commander Xiao Wang waved his flag, and the human conveyor belt on the shore immediately stopped, put away the things, assembled, and prepared to disembark.

-A boat docked.

The vast gathering of troops at Longmen Ferry, the ancient Yellow River crossing, was anything but chaotic, revealing a seamless rhythm, like the meshing of gears, the operation of machinery. Vast quantities of supplies and personnel were efficiently sorted and orderly ferried across the river via small steamers, motorboats, or human-powered wooden boats. After gathering on the other side of the river, they were transported through the defense zone of Sun Shutang's Nationalist army on the other side, across the Japanese-occupied railway line, and finally into the anti-Japanese revolutionary base in southeastern Shanxi, ravaged by the ongoing battle.

It is like a rolling iron stream, releasing the industrial energy of the entire border area, providing long-term and effective support for the base, and becoming a reliable guarantee for them to achieve their feat.

"Go—boat—!"

Old Wang snuffed out the cigarette stuck in his pipe, put away the old pipe, black and yellow from the smoke, and let out a long cry. He grabbed the long pole with all his might, using the weight of his old bones to push the flat-bottomed boat, which was about to hit the bottom, back out into the river, just like countless Yellow River boats had done for many, many years.

But this time, around him, whistles blared, engines roared, aluminum wings passed quietly in the sky, anti-aircraft guns on the distant hills stood vigilantly, and the people's army on the ship was neatly armed and full of confidence.

Chapter 215: The Man Behind the Scenes (3) Blood Purification

In the north of Wuxiang County, a group of earth-colored tents stood around a landlord's house. A khaki camouflage net was stretched on the whitish top of the tents, which were erected with brackets and steel wires and covered with leaves. From the sky, it looked like there was a patch of withered grass next to the landlord's house.

This area, located on the northern edge of the Eighth Route Army's southeastern Shanxi base, was a region often inhabited by both Japanese and Communist forces. It was approximately 80 kilometers from the core Shangdang area of ​​the base, yet only about 20 kilometers from Shecheng, Yushe County, where the fighting was raging. Based on Red Army experience, this area was still within reach of the enemy.

However, the circumstances of this battle were rather unique. Although our army was operating on the defensive, we were actually engaging in offensive operations in the local battles. Furthermore, with the protection of our frontline forces, this area was safe enough to accommodate some less mobile logistics units.

For this unit, while the squiggly "snake wrapped around a stick" symbol was unknown, most people understood its purpose from the large red cross on the tent. It was a critical period in the battle for Yushe. Besides the fierce fighting on the front lines, the pressure of the "battle" here was also immense.

From the north came the rumble of artillery fire, interspersed with the occasional thumping of a single-cylinder engine. For the soldiers guarding the hospital, although years of constant exposure to the din of gunfire on the battlefield had somewhat affected their hearing, they were still able to discern this rare engine noise from the din.

Because it means that there are seriously injured people coming.

The soldiers stood up, some calling the hospital nurses to prepare. Someone else, clutching a small flag, ran out the door to meet the team transporting the seriously injured, while others stood ready on the receiving platform. As the power-assisted carts pulled up in the yard, a tall doctor in a white apron approached. Everyone made way for him to examine the patient on the stretcher.

“Black card, red belt…”

He glanced at the injury card tied to the stretcher, looked at the thermometer, took out the thermometer gun, and checked it.

"Body temperature 37.2, confused consciousness - breathing on its own, open fracture of the right thigh. It has been fixed, the broken ends are exposed, and the open wound is about one centimeter." The doctor relaxed a little. The nurse beside him was writing down his judgment on the injury card.

"A tourniquet was applied to the base of the right thigh 27 minutes ago..."

After a brief thought, he made a judgment: "The injury classification is Class B! Send him to the emergency room first, do a wound debridement, and then establish two intravenous lines!" "Yes! Class B classification, send him to the emergency room, do the wound debridement, and then establish two intravenous lines!"

"Make way, make way!"

Two soldiers and two strong male nurses grabbed the hard stretcher, unloaded the patient from the cart with the swimming air mattress, put the patient on a wheeled bed, and pushed it towards the side of the landlord's house. That side had been converted into an emergency room, hung with white curtains, and was lying with many patients awaiting surgery.

The bearded doctor moved on without stopping, quickly moving to the next patient. Compared to the previous patient, who had still been moaning and groaning in pain, this patient was noticeably quieter. A nurse checked the mercury thermometer inserted under the patient's armpit, ready to read the patient's temperature, but the thin column of mercury hadn't even reached the minimum of 35 degrees Celsius.

“Green belt, red card…”

The bearded doctor's narration came to an abrupt halt. He hesitated, then placed his right hand on the patient's wrist and his left hand on the patient's blood-stained neck, trying to find the faintest pulse, but still finding none. Undeterred, he pulled out a small flashlight and shone it into the man's eye, then the other eye, then turned around and shouted, "Someone! CPR!"

Someone rushed over and pushed the bearded man aside. They unbuttoned the wounded man's coat, placed a cutting board under his back, shouted, and began difficult artificial respiration and cardiac compressions. But even so, after the doctors had assigned the entire group of people, the wounded man still showed no signs of recovery.

Finally, after another examination, the bearded doctor closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He closed the wounded man's eyes and gave a few words of advice to the accompanying soldier. "Comrade, he has passed away..." Please accept my condolences and may he rest in peace.

The grieving soldier's face turned pale. He tensed his body and raised his fist angrily, "Fuck you, foreign devil! How can you say rest in peace..." "Enough! Shut up! Don't say it! Don't say it..."

Someone nearby rushed over, grabbed the excited soldier, and pulled him aside. "Doctor Bai, this is their instructor. He's very excited. Please understand..." "It's okay. I know. I understand."

Doctor Bai waved his hands and said, "Bullshit! How could I not understand..."

The battle of Yushe was fierce, but the battlefield situation was much better than in history. Many seriously wounded soldiers who would have deteriorated and died gloriously due to lack of medical care and medicine and inadequate treatment were rescued and evacuated, which actually increased the number of wounded soldiers to a certain extent.

Over half a month of fighting, a total of more than 7751118 wounded poured into the entire Taihang District's combat casualty medical system. Excluding the vast majority of those with minor or light injuries, and those who were filtered out by the company dressing stations and regimental aid stations, more than 38 seriously injured were transferred step by step to two division-level field hospitals and a military region's rear hospital, awaiting treatment.

Henry Norman: Bethune, his colleagues, including Bethune and Yan Feide, along with their comrades from the Taihang Military Sub-district and Border Region Medical Task Force, fought desperately on this front, snatching lives from the gates of hell. But bullets are indiscriminate on the battlefield, and while some are sacrificed, others are honored for their severity.

Norman Bethune, who was at the forefront, often encountered such lives slipping away in his hands.

For a doctor, especially an internationalist who had experienced the Spanish-American War, this should have been a familiar scene. But for Bethune, such scenes always touched a soft spot in his heart, moving even this man, as tough and strong as Santiago, somewhat.

This group of patients has been classified, and many more operations are to be performed.

Silently, he cleaned his hands with soapy water and a brush, then applied a strong-smelling alcohol-based antiseptic gel to his palms, extending to just above his elbows. Several pairs of nitrile gloves floated in a basin of disinfectant, and he meticulously put them on using aseptic technique. He put on two layers of gloves and checked them—the outer glove seemed to have been scratched by a bone fragment during a previous operation, so he put on a fresh pair to ensure the safety of the operation.

On the operating table, a circular light strip cast a soft, cool glow, banishing shadows and illuminating the patient awaiting surgery. The assisting doctors and nurses set up surgical instruments and IV drips, even preparing a blood transfusion bag with a matching blood type for the injured patient. The anesthesiologist, working in perfect harmony, added ether to the evaporating tank, sedating the patient for the next step, "opening the abdomen." In the main hall of this quaint landlord's home, an operating table unmatched in this era was ready.

"Doctor Bai, everything is ready."

"I see."

Death God of the East, I'm here to snatch someone again!

Chapter 216: Strange Cases of Buying the Box and Returning the Pearl Have Increased

As a super canteen complex from the future with the supply capacity of the 2020s, the supply capacity of the two bases "Fushi 01" and "Fushi 02" is very strong.

With sufficient liquidity, a peak output of 60,000 meals per day, plus a sufficient supermarket supply, would be sufficient to address the numerous problems faced by many bases. This "unplanned, immediate, and virtually unlimited" supply channel has become a solid foundation for the central government's industrial development, military construction, and team training—a trend that became even more pronounced after "Huinong 02" met the "over 100 million in and out" requirement in 1939 and was successfully upgraded to headquarters-level status.

Although the canteen itself is a purely civilian facility and cannot provide any military supplies.

Well, there really aren't any military supplies?

After a year of introductory work and half a year of exploration, the resourceful and active comrades finally had a clear understanding of the thousands of items in the cafeteria and supermarket. After consuming a lot of cheap ground tea and instant coffee in the evenings, the comrades devised a strange purchasing plan.

Although this plan has always been a strictly guarded secret by the central government, within the scope of public notification, it has a strange nickname that makes people laugh and cry:

"Buy the box and return the pearl."

Smoke bombs are a very popular new product launched by the Eighth Route Army’s military factories.

While using smoke screens to transmit information and shield attacks is a long-standing tradition, during the Republican era, the Jinling Factory was the only factory in China capable of producing smoke bombs, and most of its production was yellow phosphorus bombs fired from mortars. The Fushi Grenade Factory's smoke bombs, however, featured a pull-type design, with a hefty 250g nitrocellulose/white phosphorus smoke generator. With the right wind, they could create a smoke belt capable of shielding an entire squad charging, and could even be used for arson if necessary, making them ideal for the Eighth Route Army's "100-meter real kung fu" tactics.

To use it, simply peel off the moisture-proof cover and pull the ring under the lid. The firing tube will ignite the hollow smoke chamber inside the canister, producing thick white smoke. What surprised most squad leaders even more was the incredibly sophisticated manufacturing process for this massively expensive device. Every batch of smoke bombs was identical in specifications, with the ring under the cover being metal, and the entire bomb body made entirely of steel!

Even the production date of the smoke bomb is neatly written on the steel shell with a small black pen. Occasionally, some strange characters appear on the shell, such as "Eight Treasures" (八宝) that haven't been wiped clean, "Haha" (哈哈) with a red border, or "Lianzi (久元莲子)" (久元莲子).

There are many different opinions about these strange characters. Some speculate that they may represent code names for different manufacturers, or the materials used in the production of smoke. Others say they are inspired by the eight Buddhist instruments, symbolizing good fortune and boundless power. Still others say they are simply used to confuse the enemy and have no real meaning.

But no matter what, throughout the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a large number of such "Eight Treasures" smoke bombs were thrown at the positions of the Japanese and stubborn troops, blocking their vision and making them cough. When the smoke in front of them dissipated, they were often greeted by a dense rain of bullets from the Eighth Route Army.

Of course, all this has nothing to do with the "delicious eight-treasure porridge" that is often distributed in schools, government agencies, factories and military units across the country.

In a sense, the current cost ratio of cans and plastic bottles is not much compared to their contents. Therefore, the Eighth Route Army's behavior of buying drinks and food for bottles and cans is not, to some extent, "buying the casket and returning the pearl."

However, if it were said that the Eighth Route Army had a special manual production line to dismantle disposable lighters shipped from canteens and supermarkets, it would probably seem absurd.

When the Turtle Fist, nicknamed "The First Person to Pick Up a Person," entered service with the Eighth Route Army as a "personal recoilless artillery piece," its "Turtle Fist" was almost exclusively equipped with the easy-to-produce 105mm high-explosive warhead. This time-traveling device, inspired by the yet-to-be-produced German "Iron Fist 150" warhead, consisted of a wind cap and a concave body. It could be conveniently cast in separate pieces of gray iron or assembled from forged steel sheets. The forged steel warhead, with its 5g charge, delivered significant explosive damage to lifeforms within bunkers and fortifications, resulting in exceptional effectiveness.

However, considering that the Japanese army is gradually increasing the intensity of the encirclement and suppression of our army, there may be tanks that cannot be dealt with by K-type armor-piercing shells such as 95 light and 97 medium. The Military Commission still requires Aoquan to be able to perform its duties, that is, to have armor-piercing warheads that can attack tanks.

By this time, the Soviet "Turtle Fist" had been finalized. The Soviet GSKB-30 Bureau improved Liu Helian's design for the 105mm warhead, switching to a lighter 82mm super-caliber armor-piercing round, with a dynamic armor-piercing capability of 120mm. However, when the Industrialization and Standardization Administration tested it, it discovered that many of the rounds had failed after hitting the target.

How is this going?

-—-—――——

The Soviets claimed this was a normal dud and that it was uncommon. The cautious Bureau of Industrial Standards consulted Liu Helian, the inventor of the Turtle Fist, about the matter. After disassembling a Soviet Type 82 warhead, they finally discovered the cause – the reversed armor-piercing ammunition cover prevented the conventional warhead fuse from directly detonating the armor-piercing charge. While Liu Helian had used high-speed explosives to create a detonating cord to transmit the action of the fuse, the Soviets took a simpler and more drastic approach:

Drill a hole in the center of the mask!

In this way, the detonation of the fuze will be directly transmitted to the warhead through the hole in the charge cover and detonate the explosive. This method is supplemented by the inertia firing pin at the tail of the projectile as a backup fuze.

It can meet the needs of most scenarios.

However, although such a design saves costs and reduces complexity, on the one hand, it will lose a certain amount of armor penetration depth, and on the other hand, there will be a greater probability of duds when the ammunition hits soft surfaces such as soil (and armor with large angles). Perhaps because the Soviet environment is cold, such problems are still tolerable (that is, it reaches the sub-fire rate of the RPG-2 in this time and space), and the 120mm dynamic armor penetration is already enough to lead the pack at this time, so losing a little penetration depth is not a problem.

But the Eighth Route Army wasn't about to let this problem go. Due to some strange information, they knew the best way to solve this problem was to use a piezoelectric fuze. By converting the kinetic energy of the warhead hitting the target into electrical energy, the fuze would detonate the squib, triggering the warhead's charge. But where could they find a piezoelectric fuze?

Several experts from the Bureau of Industrial Standards racked their brains, searching for answers, but to no avail. The process of firing barium iron titanate and barium titanate ceramics and subjecting them to high-voltage polarization was simply unrealistic for the Eighth Route Army at the time. Even if they had the relevant information, they couldn't assemble a production line even if they searched the entire world in this time and space.

They scratched their heads in annoyance until one of them couldn't stand it anymore and walked out of the meeting room and lit a cigarette.

With a click, a small spark shot out from the transparent tap, then ignited the butane gas, producing an orange flame.

Chapter 217: Military History (3) Palm Cannon

The canteen system can assist in the manufacturing process of grenades and shoulder-fired cannons, but when it comes to serious firearms or even artillery, the canteen system can't provide much assistance at present. More needs to be relied upon the local equipment currently developed in the border areas for manufacturing.

Among them, the pistol, a small gadget that was not particularly important in the Red Army or even the Eighth Route Army group, gradually came into the sight of the Eighth Route Army workers.

When Liu Helian visited FN in Europe, in addition to purchasing the design license for the MP28 submachine gun and the matching 9mm Parabellum pistol ammunition data, he also purchased

- A batch of hundreds of posthumous works by the famous firearms designer John Moses Browning

—Browning HP pistol, also known as the "Thirteen-shot" pistol, was issued to the commanders of the Eighth Route Army.

This high-powered, 9mm MP submachine gun has a 13-round capacity and is comfortable to hold, accurate, and reliable, making it one of the best pistols available these days. However, its compact size and ability to fire semi-automatically are not without cost: nearly the entire gun is constructed from large blocks of metal using subtractive machining.

It requires manual adjustment and assembly, and the cost cannot be reduced at all.

As for the older revolvers, the beautiful revolver and the delicate gun frame have to be made from a whole piece of steel, which makes them even more expensive.

Therefore, according to Liu Helian's original concept, the HP pistol, as a design that could be used for 50 years, could be produced at a low rate in border areas, and then large-scale production could be organized after the reunification of the motherland. If the rapid expansion of the army could not keep up with the demand, some could be purchased from abroad.

However, in 38, after the Central Military Commission summarized the long-term strategic goals of the Eighth Route Army and deduced the army's expansion needs, the leaders came to a ridiculous conclusion - the Eighth Route Army would need at least 20 pistols in the future to be distributed to commanders, scouts, combat personnel behind enemy lines and even non-combat personnel.

So, Comrade Xiao Liu, since you've got so many foreign exchange certificates from oil drilling, could you please help us figure out a solution?

20 or more?

When Comrade Xiao Liu heard this request, his face probably resembled that popular black question mark emoji. Hey, CEOs, do you know how expensive this stuff is? 2.20 Brownings—that's half of the entire US M1911 production during World War I. In 1939, before the US military had fully mobilized its production capacity, they couldn't produce that much at once!

Is the Central Committee's emotions inflated? Are they planning to follow the Americans' example and equip every man with a pistol? Liu Helian carefully sent a telegram to inquire about the details, and finally received a relatively normal reply: This is not about asking for all HP, but estimating the total number of pistols needed by the entire army and even the entire base to achieve a strategic counterattack.

If you think about it this way, the actual demand for handguns is not as great as 20.

In this regard, Liu Helian utilized his futuristic thinking advantage. He first clarified the definition of a pistol, then categorized the needs for pistols, dividing them into two parts: combat pistols for combatants and self-defense pistols for non-frontline combatants.

The requirements for these two types of pistols are completely different. The former emphasizes reliability and power in a battlefield environment, requiring it to kill as many living enemy targets as possible within the effective range; while the latter emphasizes convenience, mainly requiring commanders, intelligence officers and others to be able to carry it without getting in the way, and to be small and concealed enough to serve as a "fire stick" for self-defense, so that it can be fired at critical moments.

A large part of these two needs can be replaced by submachine guns, which are cheaper and easier to manufacture. If a person is in an environment where fighting is fierce, he will definitely prefer to carry a submachine gun that can fire automatically. If a person is in a safer environment, he will definitely not need to carry heavy weapons like the soldiers, and he will have more space to place a submachine gun with a larger bullet capacity.

Ultimately, without the need for a secondary weapon for every soldier, the demand for handguns is limited to specialized personnel like commandos, artillery assistants, commanders, and even those working behind enemy lines. Among these, there's less demand for "combat pistols" for frontline use, while there's a slightly higher demand for self-defense pistols used as "firewood sticks."

After helping the Central Committee sort out its ideas, Liu Helian began to carry out this task of neither big nor small.

The task of combat pistols can be undertaken by the HP pistols manufactured in the border areas and the massive "box guns" in the country, while the Eighth Route Army will probably need to find a way to buy some or make a batch of self-defense pistols themselves.

As a self-defense pistol, it needed to be portable and concealable, placing certain demands on its quality and size. Non-combat personnel like mid- and senior-level commanders, medical personnel, and others were undoubtedly less trained in pistol shooting than frontline soldiers. Therefore, for this firewood stick to be effective, its recoil needed to be moderate. Xiao Liu, then in Europe, sent a telegram to his colleagues in the military industry, asking them to find readily available pistol bullets in China so he could source them in Europe and the US. After all, developing a light weapon is relatively easy if you have a good idea, but developing a bullet is a much more complex proposition.

Not long after, the reply came: the most widely stocked pistol bullet in the country at this time was the Browning .32ACP.