Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 761
Wednesday, April 4, the temperature was still pleasant, but the sky was a little less sunny.

"The sky looks a bit cloudy today, you two should bring your raincoats." When going out in the morning, Zhang Guifang glanced out the window and reminded her son and daughter-in-law.

"Let Wenwen and Fengzhen take care of it. I'm a grown man. Even if it rains, it's okay to let him get wet. Who knows, he might even grow taller." There is a saying among the people that getting wet in the rain can make you grow taller. There are only two raincoats at home, so Tang Zhitong plans to let his sister take care of it.

"Brother, no need. The school is close to home. If it really gets rained on, Jingying and I can just go back." Fengzhen shook her head firmly. She had listened to her mother's words last night about "organizing the economic life of the masses."

"Hey, kid. Okay, if it really rains, I'll go get you a raincoat." Facing his sensible sister, Tang Zhitong shook his head. Let's do this for now and see if there's a chance to buy a raincoat later.

It only rains a few times a year, and even if it does, it is unlikely to happen when people go to work or get off work. In addition, raincoats are very expensive nowadays, so many families basically do not have raincoats.

This year is different. Even if you want to buy it, you may not be able to buy it because it is out of stock.

Just as he went home in a lazy manner last night, Tang Zhitong went to school in a lazy manner today, bringing the mold with him.

Although he brought it with him, Tang Zhitong did not go to the Metallurgical Institute. Instead, he pulled the mold into the space after leaving Xinjiekou.

Yesterday I was so excited to make the mold that I forgot to check the progress of the fan. I have to grasp the overall situation before determining the time to burn the magnets.

When he arrived at the Post and Telecommunications College, Tang Zhitong found the classroom in a mess, the students were chattering, and they didn't look like they were ready for class.

"Wow, everyone is stumbling around, are we going on a spring outing?" Tang Zhitong joked.

"The weather forecast says there won't be any rain today, but the college has announced that they will hold a sports meet." Lu Jian replied cheerfully.

"Okay, forget about this." Tang Zhitong suddenly realized.

Although the current weather forecast is not perfect, it is still somewhat reliable, and second-rate daily newspapers will publish "Today's Weather Forecast" every day.

Due to technical limitations, the current weather forecast is only for the day and there is no multi-day forecast, so the college has selected several days to see which day will not rain before notifying the school to hold the sports meeting.

"Teacher Tang, shall we go over and take a look together?" Luo Zhiping was very enthusiastic about the sports meet. The athletes were arranged by the sports committee member, and he was responsible for managing student order and organizing everyone to cheer for the athletes in his class.

"I'll go later and catch up on the homework I missed in the past two days." Tang Zhitong himself didn't really like sports activities, and he also had to write a letter to Huo Xiaoping to ask about the progress, so he declined.

After that, Tang Zhitong instructed: "Class monitor, don't forget to ask a few students to bring thermoses so that the athletes can replenish water in time after leaving the field."

"Okay! Don't worry, Teacher Tang. There will be someone to bring the thermos. There will be both boiled water and cold boiled water." Luo Zhiping replied and was called over by other students.

"Here, Teacher Tang, this is the homework I wrote down for you." When Lu Jian heard that Tang Zhitong was going to stay in the classroom to finish his homework, he found the homework he wrote down for him from his desk hole.

"Thank you, roommate. I'll treat you to some toon sprouts at noon." Tang Zhitong took it happily and patted his bag. The first batch of toon sprouts pickled at home were already eatable, and it would be a real treat to have a bite at this time.

"That's great. I can eat three meals with one piece of fermented bean curd." Lu Jian did not refuse. The supply of big pot dishes in the college cafeteria was not timely enough. After all, it was not the season for spring vegetables to be on the market in large quantities yet. Most of the time, they only provided pickled vegetables and fermented bean curd.

However, this is much higher than the living standard of residents in urban areas. It is not common to find fermented tofu in grocery stores in the city.

After watching the students from Class 593 leave the classroom, Tang Zhitong put down his bag, found some letter paper, and wrote to Huo Xiaoping first, asking him about the progress of the fan blades. He also frankly admitted that he had already made some progress on the motor issue and believed that there would be results soon.

After thinking for a while, Tang Zhitong formally mentioned in the letter that Huo Xiaoping should take Wan Xianghong to solve the fan issue together, and ask Wan Xianghong to be more concerned about it.

After writing the letter, Tang Zhitong tore it off and sealed it in an envelope, then started writing to Wan Xianghong.

He first asked Yue Xijin if he was bothering Wan Xianghong again, and then told her that she didn't need to worry about borrowing the laboratory because she had already coordinated with other units and would be able to start trial production in two days.

However, before the trial production, Wan Xianghong needed to collaborate with Huo Xiaoping on the fan issue. Huo Xiaoping was responsible for the fan blades, and Wan Xianghong was responsible for determining the motor speed and subsequent rotor, coil winding, and other work based on Huo Xiaoping's test records.

As for whether the two would create sparks, that was not within Tang Zhitong's consideration. Both of them had good personalities and tempers, so it would be nice if it really worked out.

After finishing writing and checking it to make sure it was correct, Tang Zhitong sealed the letter and prepared to make up his homework.

If Tang Zhitong asked Zeng Xinghuai for help with the motor, he would definitely not refuse. However, Tang Zhitong did not intend to trouble the Metallurgical Institute too much. After all, he had asked Qiu Han and said that he had a team of students behind him, and it would be better for these small things to be done within the team.

While Tang Zhitong was doing his homework, sports events on the playground were in full swing.

Athletes show their talents on the track and field. In addition to shouting encouragement, the cheerleaders also write some manuscripts, most of which are in the form of a few lines of poetry. The key words are: eagle, athlete, arrow step, triumph, victory, etc.

Tang Zhitong could hear the emotional and rhythmic reading coming from the loudspeaker in the classroom.

The sports meet at the Post and Telecommunications College was in full swing, and the Agricultural Machinery College was also busy, debugging the equipment in a tense and orderly manner and preparing for the artificial rainfall experiment.

More than a month ago, when Tang Zhitong was giving a report at the Agricultural Machinery College, he mentioned the use of anti-aircraft guns for artificial rainfall, and the college leaders really listened to him.

At present, the newspapers are frequently reporting the good news that a certain place has successfully fought drought and irrigated so many acres of land.

The leaders of the Agricultural and Mechanical College have their own unique perspectives on these agricultural news:
Only when there is drought can there be victory in drought resistance. If the weather is good, there will be no news about drought resistance and ensuring agricultural harvest.

As for how many acres to irrigate, the leaders of the Agricultural Machinery College feel that it is just a number on paper and does not have much practical significance, because everyone who has farmed knows that any crop, from sowing to harvesting, requires targeted irrigation at different growth nodes.

How much significance does it have to irrigate a certain number of acres at a time?

The Agricultural Machinery College took action immediately, and after research and discussion, the first place they contacted was the Central Meteorological Bureau.

At present, there are two meteorological organizations in Sijiu City. One is the meteorological group under the Sijiu City Agriculture, Forestry and Water Conservancy Bureau. The meteorological group was established in July 58 and is responsible for the meteorological management of Sijiu City. The meteorological group is not high-level and has few people. So far, there are less than 7 people. Many of these people are distributed in various meteorological stations. Their main job is to observe and record meteorological data to accumulate original data for future scientific research.

Most of the staff members of the meteorological team have only junior high school or high school education and have only received short-term meteorological training. After all, a recording job does not require too much professionalism.

The second is the Central Meteorological Bureau, which was originally under military control and was transferred to local governments in August 53.

Compared with the meteorological team of the city of Beijing, the Central Meteorological Bureau is much more professional. It is responsible for guiding the national meteorological work and is currently participating in the meteorological support work for the first summit of Mount Everest. Three staff members are on site to provide long-term meteorological forecast support.

To be precise, there is a third unit in the city that has the ability to forecast weather, and that is the Agricultural University. The Agricultural University established the agricultural meteorology major in 56, and currently students in this major are fully capable of taking on the work of weather forecasting.

However, the Agricultural Machinery College and the Agricultural University are both universities. The purpose of the Agricultural Machinery College is to increase its own voice. As long as artificial rainfall is successful, the students of its college will be assigned to various parts of the country in the future and will be like rain gods and dragon kings, and will be worshipped by the people. There is absolutely no reason to share the credit for such things.

Besides, the national meteorological work is managed and guided by the Central Meteorological Bureau. If we bypass them, where will they be placed?

Therefore, whether for public or private reasons, there is no reason for the Agricultural Machinery College to work with the Agricultural University.

The leaders of the Agricultural Machinery College contacted the Central Meteorological Bureau for communication. The Meteorological Bureau was very interested and gave the Agricultural Machinery College two pieces of news and a constructive suggestion for free.

The first piece of news is that the two most effective artificial rainmaking catalysts in the world are dry ice and silver iodide;

The second piece of news is that the Sijiucheng Meteorological Group had tried artificial rainfall enhancement by burning silver iodide on the top of Xiangshan Mountain earlier this year, but the results were not satisfactory.

The last constructive suggestion is: if artificial rainfall is successful, this method of using anti-aircraft guns to fire shells into clouds can be considered to increase the agricultural disaster prevention business of artificial hail prevention, because the Agricultural University conducted a similar experiment using a small earth cannon in Yanqing in 58, and there was an effect, but it was not significant.

The Agricultural Machinery College found these pieces of information very useful. First, they directly identified the catalyst, and also had a clearer understanding of the way to induce rain. Burning silver iodide on the top of the mountain? It's like offering sacrifices to the Dragon King. Since it doesn't work, we have to use cannons to bombard it!

Using homemade cannons to prevent hail is too petty. It is more impressive to use big ones. Under such circumstances, the Agricultural Machinery College is full of confidence because the advantage lies in me!

After friendly communication, the Agricultural Machinery College and the Central Meteorological Bureau assigned their respective tasks. The Meteorological Bureau provided meteorological support, and the Agricultural Machinery College was responsible for solving the problem of how to send the catalyst into space.

There were two opinions within the Agricultural Machinery College regarding the method of sending the catalyst into space.

One advocates the trial production of rockets with a long range and great power, one rocket is equivalent to five rockets;

Another voice is to use the most popular single-barrel anti-aircraft gun to carry out corresponding research and development. The reason is simple. After all, the potential service objects of the artificial rainfall carried out by the Agricultural Machinery College are the people of the whole country. The shooting equipment must be common. Even if it is not available in some places, it must be able to be produced domestically to facilitate popularization.

Finally, the academy adopted the second method. They also knew that rockets were cool and had a longer range, but they were also expensive. A few years ago, the Katyusha shell sold to us by the North cost six taels of gold, which is equivalent to 802 yuan today. The debt has not been paid off yet!

Anti-aircraft artillery shells are much cheaper, only one-sixth of the price of Katyusha rockets, or even lower.

The Agricultural Machinery College quickly contacted the military and, with the military's support, established contact with the artillery shell production company.

The anti-aircraft gun was quickly pulled into the college, and the students of the college began their internship of rubbing the shells by hand.

The students believe that there are many issues to consider here, such as how high the shell needs to fly, how to control the explosion time so that the shell explodes at a given height, etc.

As more and more issues were put on the table, the leaders of the Agricultural Machinery College found that the students were very enthusiastic, but they were considering too much.

The Agricultural Machinery College only modified the shells, not developed new rain-inducing bombs. It is necessary to make full use of the characteristics of existing shells. As long as the vertical launch can meet the needs of the cloud layer, there is no need to calculate how high to fly or the explosion time.

At that time, it would be nothing more than chasing the clouds, using the existing medicine tray time fuse, finding a suitable angle, calculating the time, firing the shells at the right height to explode, and that would be the end of the job.

This is a very simple physics parabola calculation problem.

After the leader said this, the students thought about it and felt that it was feasible, so they focused their energy on modifying the warhead.

The warhead needs to be modified.

Anti-aircraft shells can explode when they hit something, but they were originally designed to shoot down planes in the sky, so the range of the explosion is limited. Rain-inducing requires a larger range.

The price of one shot is not cheap at about one hundred yuan, so the teachers and students of the Agricultural Machinery College decided not to fire a second shot if the problem could be solved with one shot.

The reason why the Agricultural Machinery College is called the Agricultural Machinery College is because they are mainly focused on agricultural mechanization. The college has a comprehensive range of mechanical processing tools. Even if you cannot rub an anti-aircraft gun by hand, you can still rub a cannon bullet head by hand.

The gun body, powder tray time fuse, explosives, and anti-aircraft gun are all ready-made. The Agricultural Machinery College only needs to make the warhead, put the original warhead set in and insert a small bottle of silver iodide into it, and assemble it into a shell.

There is no need to put too much silver iodide, 20 grams is enough for one artillery shell. The reason it is stored in a small glass bottle is to prevent the silver iodide from decomposing when stored improperly. Anyway, the glass bottle will break into pieces when the explosives explode after the explosion.

The Agricultural Machinery College is full of talented people. Within half a month, the warhead was completed. More than ten were made in one go. After testing, the effect met expectations.

What followed was a long wait, waiting for the Meteorological Bureau to give a clear time and direction for the firing.

When the wind started to blow two days ago, the Agricultural Machinery College wanted to fire two cannons, but was stopped by the Meteorological Bureau. The reason was very reasonable: it was obvious that it was going to rain soon. If we fire now, would it be considered normal rainfall or artificially induced? There was no way to verify it.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long before we received a letter from the Meteorological Bureau saying that the conditions were now suitable, the altitude was certain, the distance was certain, and we should fire two shots as soon as possible!
When the Agricultural Machinery College heard the news, they immediately conveyed it to the military team on duty.

The team acted very quickly. They first reported by phone, then checked the map, estimated the location, started the car and drove out, found a suitable position, and immediately loaded the rain-inducing bombs and fired them.

(End of this chapter)