Show the sword, start from the guerrillas

Chapter 470 Chapter 469, Production

There is no room for another ferocious beast to exist next to one ferocious beast. It is like it is nice to take shelter under a big tree, but the big tree cannot allow new trees to grow under it!
Our ancestors have made this clear. As the saying goes: There can't be two tigers in one mountain, unless they are one male and one female... In fact, even if they are two tigers, one male and one female, they still need to keep their distance at certain times. This is a kind of alertness between beasts, and also a choice of territorial awareness between beasts.

In the animation, the Flower Planting Family has always existed in the form of rabbits, seemingly harmless, but they kicked the Eagle Sauce, tore the Gallic Chicken, gave the Bull a mouth, and took care of other small animals. Later, even when they met the Russian Bear, they dared to confront them head-on and come up with a home exchange plan. It can be said that they are the only country on the Blue Planet that has brushed the Five Permanent Members copy, and won!
The above are just Li Yuexuan’s imaginations after work, and also his view of the predecessors from the perspective of a later generation.

That’s right, who could have thought that Minister Zhang wore a patched uniform, the chief of staff’s clothes were washed white, and the ancestors who were called “beggar troops” by other so-called friendly forces would later become the strongest army standing at the top of the world?
And now? Our predecessors are working hard, fighting for the independence of the nation, and sacrificing for the independence of the country! Even the military predecessors who are placed in the rear are using the most backward machines in the world in a simple production environment, and many processes are done manually, just to ensure the weapons needs of the troops and produce crude bullets!

It was summer, the weather was hot, and the sun's scorching rays shone on the Taihang Mountains, evaporating the rain on the earth and forming clouds in the sky.

In the stuffy shed, Li Yuexuan, as the deputy factory manager and engineer, did not directly participate in the production. But his eyes were always fixed on the workers.

It had just rained, and the humid air made everyone sweat profusely. Many workers simply worked in a singlet and shorts. As they kept swinging their hammers up and down, the sweat beads fell on the ground, leaving wet marks on the ground.

Ding ding ding... With the sound of knocking, pieces of copper plates were hammered and shaped, and finally became the shape of bullet shells.

"Turn it up, turn it up, start!" After strict inspection, the shells were finally sent to the drilling machine. The comrades working together worked together. One person shook the huge wheel vigorously, so that the belt on the wheel drove the main shaft of the drilling machine to rotate, and the comrades in charge of drilling holes drilled the bottom of the shells to look like the bottom of the fire hole.

After checking the depth and thickness, the shell is directly taken to the next drilling machine, where a finer drill bit will drill two more opposite fire holes at the bottom of the primer. At this point, the production of a shell is completed. The seemingly simple process requires workers to repeat the operation over and over again without any deviation.

Especially the thickness of the cartridge case, there can be some tolerance, but this tolerance cannot be too large! For example, whether the bottleneck is in the center of the cartridge case is a big problem. If it is off, the cartridge case will be useless. After all, after installing the warhead, the bullet cannot be pushed into the barrel, which is a waste.

Therefore, in the first few days, the scrap rate of the shell production line was quite high, and the comrades in charge of quality inspection were somewhat numb. A simple clip was placed in front of the quality inspectors. If the shell could not smoothly fall into the clip, it was a scrap. They took it out and threw it aside, waiting to be recycled.

Moreover, such waste shells are different from those used for reloading bullets! If you want to recycle those shells, you can remove the bottleneck and use them as shotgun shells. These can only be returned to the furnace for re-smelting and then pressed into copper plates. Fortunately, copper plates are easy to process and smelt. The only waste in the middle is time, labor and fuel. Minister Zhang said that we can afford these. As long as we can make bullets, it will be a great achievement! At this time, it is really unnecessary to pay attention to production costs and labor costs. We all know how to choose between self-production and battlefield capture.

"Comrades, this is what I think!" On this day, Li Yuexuan called a meeting with the technicians who worked with him to make shell molds. He continued, "Now, we can only rely on manual forging to produce shells, and our steam units are mainly used for the production of firearms, cannons, and shells."

"So what I'm thinking is, can we build some waterwheels by the Tongyu River, use the rotation of the waterwheels to drive the machines to forge, and replace some of the workers in producing shells! If the water in the Tongyu River is not enough to drive the waterwheels, it doesn't matter. We can build some waterwheel huts by the Qingzhang River and use waterwheels to replace some of the steam power."

Li Yuexuan actually wanted to seize a water turbine generator, even a small one, so that he could have a fixed source of electricity. With a source of electricity, he could use motors to replace some of the steam power. Even the bullet production equipment obtained from the Mao Bear family could be driven by this electricity.

Of course, it's just a thought. The most practical way is to use a waterwheel to drive the equipment! The rotation of the large wheel of the waterwheel can bring endless power. Waterwheels have been used for irrigation, grinding flour, and pounding rice for a long time... Therefore, it is also possible to use a waterwheel to drive the wooden rifling machine to produce rifling! It is also possible to drive stamping equipment to replace manual forging!

If you are bolder, you can use a waterwheel to drive the pulley, add a clutch device and a ratchet device, and you can turn the hanging hammer into a hydraulically driven plywood hammer! The plywood hammers that were common later weighing several tons are not something you can imagine or use, but it should be possible to make some small plywood hammers weighing several hundred kilograms, right?

In the past, the Eighth Route Army was developing rapidly and had many bases, but the stability was still far from satisfactory. Therefore, the waterwheel that Li Yuexuan had envisioned was tried once in Liangjia Village, but it failed before it was built. Well, that was the time when the Bantian Brigade went there, and they gave up before the waterwheel was built.

But after this year, the Eighth Route Army gradually stabilized, and the headquarters went to Matan, and the division headquarters was in Chi'an, until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. Although... it seems that there are still things happening this year, and next year... but the headquarters has always been here, as long as they strengthen their armed forces, can they change some things?

Moreover, using waterwheel power has its advantages. Even if the Japanese invaders break in, they only need to dismantle the equipment in the workshop and take it away. The waterwheel can be abandoned and at most rebuilt.

(End of this chapter)