Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry.

Chapter 168: Advance Northward
However, this was only Ren Zhong's first wave of action. Next, Ren Zhong began to put the machine tool factory into full capacity, preparing to double the weapons production capacity in the border area in a short period of time!
The trade with the Seventh Route Army has begun to ship back grain. Thanks to Ren Zhong's efforts, this precious grain has been allocated to the front line of military production, ensuring that even if Jiang Chongjing's number of workers doubles, the military workers can still have enough to eat. In this way, the arsenal expanded extremely rapidly.

Because the skilled workers trained previously can now take in new apprentices, the scale has rapidly expanded from a few thousand people to over ten thousand.

The monthly production capacity of the entire border area has more than doubled! Especially the 56 semi-automatic rifles, 82mm mortars, and 56-type machine guns, the production capacity has exploded, the 56 semi-automatic rifles have exceeded 1 per month, the 82mm mortars have exceeded 300 per month, and the 56-type machine guns have also exceeded 300 per month!
The newly developed 107 fire machine has also begun to increase its production capacity, with monthly output exceeding 10 guns.

After a long talk with Staff Officer Ye all night, the two main regiments of the border security force directly changed their weapons and headed north. Then, without a trace, they became the newly expanded Independent Guerrilla Detachment 1 and 2 of the Provisional Third Division. They confronted the Japanese invaders from Jiuyuan across the river within a radius of 100 miles on the south bank of the Yellow River in Ikh Ju League.

At the same time, a survey team of hundreds of people went north and began to search for the mysterious mining area with great expectations. At the same time, he decided to develop strategic minerals such as aluminum, copper, zinc and rare earth in Ikh Ju League in advance, even though large-scale development now carries great risks.

Ren Zhong couldn't care less now. At worst, they could just have a bloody fight here.

With the crazy explosion in weapon production capacity, we can replace the equipment of 10 main regiments in the border area every month. Nearly half of a main regiment has been replaced with 56 semi-automatic rifles, plus 3 mortars, 3 Type 56 machine guns and 1 107mm fire, which is enough to form a powerful firepower company.

加上原来的6门82毫米迫击炮和9挺56式机枪，27挺歪把子或捷克式机枪，这样的主力团轻武器方面的装备已经能压倒小鬼子一个大队了。

至于重火力方面，9门82毫米迫击炮和1门107火，主力团已经完全压倒了小鬼子大队的步兵炮小队和90毫米迫击炮小队。

What worries Ren Zhong the most now is the air base, which has no power to fight back at all.

The Japanese Army Aviation still has hundreds of such aircraft in the north, and Ren Zhong is still working on the Merlin V1650 engine. Even if the engine is developed, it is unknown how long it will take for the P51D to take off.

After all, there is still the issue of body processing and raw materials for aluminum alloy production to be overcome.

The current basic conditions are still too poor for Ren Zhong, so he can only move forward with gritted teeth.

Aluminum is not an easy thing to produce. Before the thermal power plant equipment is developed, Ren Zhong cannot carry out large-scale production of the energy required for electrolytic aluminum. Even in the main world, one ton of aluminum consumes 1 kWh of electricity. According to the electrolytic aluminum technology that can be developed in the world of Bright Sword, this number will probably increase by at least 3%, which means at least 50 kWh of electricity!
Such energy consumption cannot be supported by small hydropower plants of several hundred kilowatts. At least a 5-kilowatt power station is needed to support a micro-aluminum electrolytic plant that produces 2 tons of aluminum per day.

Obviously, this condition does not exist now.

Li Jixiang and his team have just developed a 500-kilowatt hydropower generator. The next step is to develop a 3000-kilowatt one. However, small hydropower generation has a fatal weakness: it requires water!
In Ikh Ju League, this is obviously another unsolvable problem!

Therefore, Ren Zhong has expanded the capacity of the Electric Power Research Center and started to conduct research on thermal power generating units simultaneously, simplifying the design of the 3-kilowatt unit to see if he can produce a 1-kilowatt unit.

The steel industry now has the conditions to build steam turbine units, and a full set of data is available. Logically, the downsizing process should be fast.

Unfortunately, even if they are copying homework, the basics of these experts are too poor. They often cannot understand the designs alone. The high temperature and high pressure of steam turbines are more complicated than those of water turbines. The 500KW test model can be run, and the whole process from boiling water to generating electricity can be completed.

But a bigger generator requires a bigger power transmission and transformation equipment, and the 35KV power transmission and transformation equipment has not been completed yet. One thing leads to another, which makes Ren Zhong anxious and angry. Under the current transportation conditions, Ren Zhong cannot transport ore from a place as far away as Yikezhao League to the border area for smelting. His steel plant or copper plant basically does not leave the mining area more than 30 kilometers away, and must be close to the fuel supply area of ​​the coal-producing area.

Therefore, if the problem of thermal power generation cannot be solved, then electrolytic aluminum smelting will be a big problem next.

That is, iron can be smelted using traditional methods, and there is no reliance on electricity for the time being.

The vigorous Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain ended with a complete retreat of the army, at the cost of nearly 4% of the troops. The remaining 10 troops were divided into three parts, with more than 4 entering Taihang Mountain, more than 4 retreating to the south bank of the Yellow River, and more than 3 entering Luliang Mountain in the west.

Although the Japanese occupied Zhongtiao Mountain, their North China Headquarters was not happy. Commander Wei's mobile warfare and counterattack, coupled with the Eighth Route Army's crazy attacks, caused the Japanese to suffer more than 15,000 casualties, which was equivalent to the loss of an Type B division!
This is a direct loss. If we want to occupy Zhongtiao Mountain, given the current unstable situation, we must add at least two independent brigades of troops to achieve effective occupation.

After going in and out, the Japanese high-ranking officials found that they were not making much profit.

It seemed that the goal of killing two birds with one stone was achieved, as Zhongtiao Mountain was occupied and the Eighth Route Army Headquarters was also breached at the same time. However, the huge losses were difficult to predict in advance. It was originally thought that the four divisions that were blocking the area could be released by encircling and suppressing the main force of preserved fruits in Zhongtiao Mountain.

But now it seems that a division of troops was lost and two independent brigades were added. There are still nearly 4 troops watching the surrounding area. It has to be said that the four divisions could not move, and it seems that two divisions were sent in for nothing.

This business is a huge loss.

Ren Zhong didn't know that because of his involvement, the situation in North China was collapsing but not falling apart, and was already much better than in history. At least, the Japanese could no longer carry out their plan of concentrating their forces to repeatedly raid Taihang.

Because now, in addition to the Eighth Route Army, there are nearly 4 preserved fruit troops in the Taihang Mountains. Even though they are short of food and ammunition now, they are still 4 people after all.

So after an extremely brutal war, the situation in North China stabilized in a very strange way, and everyone began to heal and develop.

Time flies, and it is time for autumn harvest. The 3 mu of newly reclaimed land has brought a great surprise to the border area. The 600 mu of high-quality seed fields bred by Ren Zhong have an output of more than 7 kilograms per mu, which is the highest yield among the domestic high-yield fields. The remaining 400 mu of local wheat also achieved a good harvest of more than kilograms per mu due to intensive farming and the use of farmyard manure.

Nearly 5000 million kilograms of grain were harvested at once, which can solve the food problem of nearly 10 people in the border area!
More importantly, Ren Zhong proved the superiority of his planting model, which made the border area determined to promote it on an all-round basis.

At the arsenal in the border area, Jiang Chongjing made an ambitious plan to double the production capacity.

Second update! Still working on the third update, but it's a bit late.



(End of this chapter)