Sail across the sea

Chapter 409 I scared myself.

"The Japanese want our technology."

After dismissing Fujiki and Iwai Jiro, Yun Zhongming spoke to Bi Liansheng.

"These little devils, their behavior is really disgusting. They're treating us like fools," Bi Liansheng said angrily.

Even in this day and age, there are still some people who believe in the idea of ​​Sino-Japanese friendship.

The media has indeed reported stories of elderly Japanese men planting trees in Northwest China and young Japanese girls donating their pocket money to Chinese children who have dropped out of school, which have moved some Chinese people to tears.

Looking back in hindsight, these Japanese versions of Norman Bethune might have been shills sent by the Japanese to create the illusion that the Japanese were cute and friendly, making it easier for them to hide their true intentions when engaging in economic cooperation with China.

Such tricks might fool ordinary people. But people like Yun Zhongming and Bi Liansheng, who have dedicated their lives to forging swords for the country, always keep the "those who are not of our kind" string taut in their minds. How could they be fooled by some small favors or a few nice slogans?

If Fujiki had come and said he was interested in the technology of the Maple Forest Institute and wanted to buy it, Yun Zhongming would have been able to accept it. The higher-ups were now requiring them to "convert military technology to civilian use," so transferring this kind of dual-use technology to a Japanese company was fine, as long as the offer was reasonable.

But whether it was self-hypnosis or a habit of deceiving people when dealing with Chinese people, Fujiki actually talked about contributing to China's modernization in front of Yun Zhongming and the others. How much did he underestimate the intelligence of these two scientists?
If you want to play games, then I'll play games with you too. Anyway, it's not like I want to do any kind of cooperation.

This is Yun Zhongming's idea.

"Old Bi, that Japanese guy named Iwai talked to you about technology for a long time. Do you think there are any problems?" Yun Zhongming asked.

Bi Liansheng said, "I'm also a little uneasy. His approach is correct. When we released our results, we didn't mention phenolic resin and diazonoquinone, but he was able to point it out immediately, which means they may have actually done research. Only those who have actually done research can deduce our technical route from the performance indicators we released."

"The use of phenolic resin with diazonaphthoquinone to manufacture photoresist is documented in the literature, and many foreign institutions have done this. It's not surprising that Iwai could guess it."

"Indeed, the real technical secret lies in the selection of additives. He can't fool me with just a few words. However, what makes me uneasy is that the main technical ideas for our i-line and KrF photoresists were provided by Xu Yun, and he said that he was inspired by some internal materials to form these ideas. I'm a little worried now that the materials he mentioned might have come from Sen Gu."

"Is that possible?" Yun Zhongming exclaimed in surprise. "You mean Xu Yun saw Sen Gu's internal documents, and now Sen Gu has come to demand an explanation?"

It's no wonder Yun Zhongming has such concerns. Some technologies in the military industry do indeed have unclear and ambiguous origins. Such matters are fine as long as they remain undisclosed, but if the other side discovers them, it will cause serious trouble.

The problem isn't that the other party can use this incident to claim compensation from Fenglin. Unlike civilian technology, military technology doesn't have to worry about intellectual property rights. As long as you don't sell it and use it within the military, who can stop you?

Yun Zhongming was worried that if Sen Gu discovered that Feng Lin had obtained their internal information, he would definitely investigate the leak, which would cause some trouble for the comrades on the intelligence front.

“Today, Jiro Iwai said that Moriya’s technology is among the best in the world, and that the technology we developed must have been tried by them. Is this implying something?” Bi Liansheng said.

The two of them chatted back and forth, and before they knew it, they had frightened themselves. Yun Zhongming said with a stern face, "Old Bi, call Xu Yun right now and tell him about the visit from Moriya Company. It's not appropriate to ask him directly about the source of the technology over the phone, but if his technology is indeed related to Moriya, then he will definitely understand."

And so, Bi Liansheng called Xu Yun again, giving a vague and rambling explanation. While helping out at the Fenglin Institute, Xu Yun had overheard the engineers discussing intelligence matters, and with his high IQ of 170, he quickly understood Bi Liansheng's concerns.

The problem is that he doesn't know the source of these technologies either, because the technical ideas came from Gao Fan; he was just a middleman.

So he wrote a letter to Gao Fan, talking about the Moriya Company and asking Gao Fan for an answer.

Before Gao Fan could reply, Bi Liansheng called again, saying that Moriya Company had offered new terms, hoping to purchase the i-line photoresist technology.

From Fenglin Institute's perspective, this technology is inherently semi-military and semi-civilian in nature. Selling it to anyone is the same as selling it. If the Japanese want to buy it, they will definitely offer a higher price to domestic companies, so Fenglin Institute has no reason to be unhappy.

The only concern now is whether this technology is related to Moriya. If it is, Fenglin Institute will not only be unable to sell it to Moriya, but will even have to think twice about transferring it to a local domestic company.

Therefore, Bi Liansheng urgently needed to know whether this technology was actually obtained from within Sen Gu.

Left with no other choice, Xu Yun wrote another letter to Gao Fan, which is how the two express mails that followed came about.

Over the phone, Xu Yun couldn't be too explicit with Gao Fan either, only vaguely indicating that Yun Zhongming and Bi Liansheng wanted to know the exact source of the technology in order to decide whether to cooperate with Sen Gu.

"Even Moriya couldn't sit still anymore." Gao Fan laughed gleefully on the phone. "Old Xu, did Director Bi say how much Moriya was willing to pay for this technology? Was it a license or a complete buyout?"

“Director Bi didn’t tell me about this issue,” Xu Yun said. “He only said that if we could sell it to a Japanese company, the price would definitely be higher than if we sold it to a domestic company. The institute is taking this deal very seriously.”

Gao Fan said, "You tell Director Bi... uh, never mind, I'll just call Chief Engineer Yun directly. Let Fenglin Institute handle this deal; they might just sell the gold for dirt cheap."

"What, Gao Fan, are you saying you're planning to talk to Sen Gu?"

"Yes, don't you know I'm a master negotiator?"

"But Moriya is a Japanese company."

"I've criticized several American companies, and German companies too. What are Japanese companies compared to that?"

"Okay, you're awesome..."

(End of this chapter)