Anti-Japanese War: From Becoming Chu Yunfei to Rising

The vast ocean is a casino.

Chu Yunfei was well aware of this.

The rise and fall of the Japanese Navy over the past forty years flashed through his mind.

In that future he knew, the navy was also the most crucial and important armed force.

The March breeze blew into his office through the cracks in the window.

Chu Yunfei sat upright behind the large desk, his hands clasped together and resting on his chin.

At this moment, his consciousness was completely immersed in the system submodule deep within his mind.

[Current total available military merit points: 4.75 million.]

This is an enormous fortune, amounting to an astronomical sum.

Previously, the battles in western and northern Hubei had only accumulated 135 million merit points.

The battles in Beijing-Tianjin, North China, Jiangbei, and Jiangsu have now ended.

This gave him a considerable amount of merit points.

Chu Yunfei's gaze slowly moved across the system screen.

If he so desired, these merit points could be immediately converted into a complete set of production blueprints for the first-generation jet fighter.

Or it could be the complete casting process of the Soviet T-54 main battle tank or the American M48 heavy tank.

Even mass production lines for mechanized individual automatic weapons.

However, there is absolutely no need for that.

The P-51D is now considered one of the best propeller-driven fighter jets in the history of aviation.

Its performance was sufficient to last until the early 1950s, and it could even maintain its leading position worldwide.

Chu Yunfei's fingers tapped rhythmically on the table, not lingering too long on the top technologies of the army and air force.

The performance is sufficient, and the production line has already been set up, so there seems to be little point in continuing to build up production capacity.

His mind immediately conjured up images of Churchill's arrogant and overbearing demeanor at the Cairo Conference, and the dominance the Americans had always held in their hands regarding maritime transport and amphibious landings.

No matter how strong the army is, it will only reach its limit once it reaches the coastline.

Without control of the sea, it would be impossible to cross that strait.

In addition, it is also vulnerable to blockade by enemy naval fleets.

China is a country lacking in oil, and with the gradual increase in demand, it will inevitably have to import large quantities of oil from other countries in the future.

If China does not establish its own shipbuilding industry, even after the war...

When faced with the blockade by the British and American fleets, or when guarding against the Soviet Union's ambitions in Port Arthur, this country remained a cripple that could only passively defend itself.

A century-old navy.

This is a bottomless pit that can drain a country's heavy industry and cause its fiscal deficit to skyrocket.

However, major powers must venture into the deep blue sea.

If we don't plant trees today, future generations will only be able to swallow their anger and humiliation under the aircraft carriers of others.

Chu Yunfei's eyes suddenly turned cold and sharp, carrying a resolute determination to burn his bridges.

The system cursor suddenly slid down in the field of view, past the land warfare module, and quickly locked onto the [Naval Ships and Subsystems] tech tree.

Choose the right time to apply the technology.

The defined scope is from the late 1950s to the early 1960s.

That was the era of great development during the Cold War, when artillery was at its peak and missiles were just beginning to emerge.

It's unrealistic to expect to exchange a missile destroyer from the 1970s or 80s for one in one step.

China cannot even manufacture a single, basic transistor, so radar and fire control systems are completely incompatible.

Only the ships built in the 1950s and 60s, with heavy machinery and vacuum tube technology at their core, represent the technological ceiling that China's newly formed military industry system can grit its teeth and overcome.

Of course, although the steps taken are not very big, it must be quite difficult to fall behind.

The domestic reserve of naval technical personnel is far from sufficient, and Chu Yunfei himself is not sure how much time it will take.

"System, exchange for heavy ship chassis and material sub-modules."

[Locked: Smelting and special welding process of HY-80 high yield strength marine special alloy steel. Cost: 1 million merit points.]

[Locked: Complete blueprints and manufacturing process for a shipborne high-pressure, high-temperature, high-power steam turbine unit (single-shaft, 30,000 horsepower class). Cost: 800,000 Merit Points.]

These two technologies are the true backbone and heart of modern warships.

Without powerful steam turbines, warships are just slow-moving targets in naval warfare.

Without high-tensile steel and special welds, a submarine would be crushed into scrap metal by water pressure if it did not dive to a depth of 100 meters.

Chu Yunfei didn't even blink as he watched his balance shrink by nearly a million in an instant.

If you're going to gamble, bet everything you have.

"Exchange for underwater commerce raiding weaponry systems."

His objective was extremely clear: in the early stages when the Chinese navy was extremely weak, conventional submarines were the most lethal assassins for protecting the coastline and cutting off the enemy's supply lines.

[Locked: Complete design drawings and manufacturing standards for the Soviet-made Project 6633 (R-class) conventional-powered submarine.]

During the Cold War, this was a legendary oceanic black hole.

It has an exceptionally streamlined hull, an underwater displacement of nearly 1,800 tons, and a diving depth of over 200 meters.

Most importantly, it features a groundbreaking underwater snorkel system.

This means that submarines can use diesel engines to charge their batteries while submerged, greatly improving their underwater stealth capabilities.

With six forward and two aft, a total of eight 533mm heavy torpedo tubes, it poses a devastating threat to any large surface vessel within the first island chain.

[Exchange for the blueprints for this type of submarine, a twin-shaft high-power diesel engine, main battery pack, and sonar array technology. Deduct 1.5 million merit points.]

Chu Yunfei took a deep breath.

The next step, surface warships, is where the real money is going to go.

[Target: Soviet-made Project 56 (Kotlin-class) gunboat.]

This was the most advanced and best-performing gunboat designed by the Soviet Navy in the 1950s.

Its full-load displacement reaches 3,200 tons!

Warships of this size can not only cruise in coastal waters, but also have the capability to withstand rough seas in the open ocean.

Its fully enclosed hull structure even provides basic nuclear, biological, and chemical defense capabilities.

It possesses two twin-mounted 130mm dual-purpose fully automatic main guns, capable of firing both flat and high targets, with an astonishing maximum rate of fire, making it a pinnacle masterpiece of the artillery era.

In addition, there are five heavy torpedo launchers, anti-submarine depth charges, and a primitive sea search radar.

Without relying on anti-aircraft missiles, it is the dominant force in close-range combat in the Asian seas.

[The blueprints for this type of destroyer, along with its radar fire control subsystem and main gun water-cooled automatic ammunition feeding system, are worth 2 million merit points.]

The numbers on the screen were flashing and jumping violently.

With his merit points almost completely depleted, Chu Yunfei slowly clenched his fist.

If we were to switch our focus to exchanging for army equipment now, the remaining million merit points would be enough to increase the current strength of the army by about 10%.

However, Chu Yunfei did not make that choice.

After all, the reorganization of the military industry is already underway, and the investigation of the industrial base has been fully launched.

As for the navy, there is no way out, nor is there time to develop step by step.

Even if the Japanese Navy was decimated in the Pacific, the British Far East Fleet and the United States Seventh Fleet were still intact.

Whether it's a gunboat destroyer or a submarine, the purpose is still to provide a safety net for defense.

If you want to engage in a fleet battle, you cannot do without the most crucial piece of equipment in the ocean, namely the aircraft carrier.

Otherwise, the East Asian landscape and East China Sea defense line he painstakingly planned would be like a house without a roof.

Flush-deck aircraft carriers from World War II were no longer of any value. With the advent of the jet age, those old carriers struggled to even launch and recover heavy aircraft.

His gaze swept back and forth between the British Centaur-class and the American Midway-class, which was a modified SCB-27A. He had to choose the most cost-effective medium-sized conventional fleet carrier with a displacement of around 40,000 tons.

Too big.

The docks and ports in the areas that will soon be liberated in the future cannot even accommodate ships of thousands of tons.

Too small, and unable to form an effective fleet air defense and anti-ship strike capability.

[Draft design (modified blueprints) of a medium-sized conventionally powered fleet aircraft carrier, incorporating the pinnacle of aviation industry development from the 1950s and 60s.]

If you want a true aircraft carrier, you can't just exchange for a hull.

What Chu Yunfei truly wanted were the three absolute core technologies that came with this aircraft carrier, technologies that would change the rules of naval warfare for the next fifty years!
After all, these core technologies represent the real stepping stone for naval aviation from propellers to jet engines.

"Calculate how many merit points are needed to fully redeem the additional subsystem."

Chu Yunfei gave the order without hesitation.

[The current draft improvement's additional subsystem is calculating merit points; please wait.]

[Firstly: Design drawings and drag structure calculation data for a fully enclosed 'angled flight deck' with a large deflection angle.]

This is a great invention that allows fighter jets to take off and land without interference, thus multiplying sortie efficiency.

[Secondly: Complete manufacturing blueprints for the internal water-cooled pressure seal and piping of the high-power 'C-11 steam catapult'.]

With it, a fully loaded fighter jet weighing tens of tons can be instantly propelled to takeoff speed by terrifying high-pressure steam within a distance of less than 100 meters.

Without steam catapults, modern aircraft carriers would lack operational efficiency.

Thirdly: 'Fresnel lens optical assisted landing system'.

Abandoning the outdated method of manual flag-waving landing, high-speed fighter jets are guided by precise optical refraction signals to accurately hook onto the three deadly arresting cables on the undulating sea surface!
These three core components of the aircraft carrier, along with the main blueprints for the 40,000-ton class, the shipborne hydraulic elevator technology, and the extremely complex anti-slip coating and heat-resistant formula for the deck, constitute a complete aircraft carrier technology system.

[Total merit points to be deducted: 5 million]

[Currently insufficient merit points; it is recommended to prioritize exchanging for ship-related technology verification blueprints.]

I knew it might be expensive, but I didn't expect it to be this expensive.

Chu Yunfei looked somewhat helpless.

I estimate that I'll barely have enough merit points after the war ends.

Even if it takes five years after the war to build the aircraft carrier.

That's a world-leading technology.

Similarly, even now that we have obtained the technical blueprints for gunboat destroyers.

It is unlikely that a true destroyer will be launched within the next three years.

This requires the construction of an extremely large dry dock, as well as giant gantry cranes (i.e., portal cranes) weighing hundreds or even thousands of tons, and also requires spending countless funds to import related industrial technologies such as plate rolling machines from abroad.

However, once the seed of the nation's journey into the depths of the ocean is planted, it will surely blossom and bear fruit in the not-too-distant future.

In terms of the diplomatic system, there is basically no room for maneuver in routinely maintaining diplomatic relations with major powers.

Every month, Chu Yunfei would routinely apply for a batch of material aid to consume the diplomatic points in the subsystem module.

This is also in order to further and rapidly improve the country's overall strength.

As for the various templates of the base sub-module, all the base sub-modules that meet the conditions have been upgraded to the maximum template level during the war.

By adapting to local conditions, significant gains were achieved.

For example, in a super-large plain region like Henan, the system provides an agricultural output value increase of 30%, a stability correction of 10%, a regional total output value increase of 5%, and a production efficiency increase of 3%.

Overall, this is due to the gain of the ground panel module.

Productivity in the entire North China region increased by about 40 percent.

Converted to national currency, the annual total output increased by 80 billion euros, and tax revenue increased by about 600 billion euros.

Looking at the report on the table, Chu Yunfei picked it up again to learn about the statistical report that the Ordnance Department had just submitted.

The first page naturally features the First Ordnance Factory under the Ministry of Military Affairs.

Its predecessor was the famous Hanyang Arsenal. Now it is located deep in the mountains of Chongqing. During the first evacuation, it was located in Chenxi, Hunan.

The Hanyang Arsenal was dismantled under the leadership of the Ministry of Military Affairs.

The gun and ammunition factory, machine gun factory, and power plant under its jurisdiction were transferred to the Eleventh Arsenal.

The Eleventh Arsenal transferred its shell factory and gun factory to the First Arsenal.

The eleventh factory is located in Shuangyan Village, Yanxi Town, Anhua County, Hunan Province.

The First Arsenal has now undergone some production line upgrades and optimizations, and has also trained a number of industrial workers in the past two years.

To date, we have been able to produce 3,500 standard-issue rifles (Type 24) per day and 100,000 rifles per month.

It is also responsible for producing 60mm mortar shells, with a stable monthly output of 10,000 shells, and the number of shells is increasing rapidly.

Chu Yunfei nodded with satisfaction.

Then he looked toward the second arsenal.

Formerly known as the Hanyang Gunpowder Factory, it was mainly responsible for producing sulfuric acid, nitric acid, diesel oil, kerosene, and gasoline.

Annual production capacity includes 80,000 kg of 75mm artillery propellant, 30,000 kg of other types of black powder, and 290,000 kg of 7.9mm rifle propellant.

Upon seeing this, Chu Yunfei subconsciously raised his eyebrows. He really didn't have much of a concept of these things.

Yu Dawei thoughtfully wrote a line of his own annotation, estimating the number of shells that could be produced to be 122,000 75mm high-explosive shells.

This quantity is far from what Chu Yunfei wants.
The 11th, 20th, and 21st factories will be merged during this reorganization, and will remain located in Shancheng.

The integrated arsenal was officially renamed the Third Arsenal under the Ministry of Military Affairs.

Used to produce 37mm and 45mm direct-fire artillery shells and armor-piercing shells, 7.9mm rifle shells, and various machine gun shells.

Currently, production has reached a quarter of the total output of the Taiyuan Ordnance Industrial Cluster, and there is still much room for improvement.

As a large amount of equipment continues to enter China via the Burma Road, production capacity will be further increased after the completion of the production of approximately 20,000 tons of raw materials and equipment.

Production is expected to double or more, which would be sufficient to supply the amount of direct-fire artillery and machine gun ammunition needed for the defense program.

The other arsenals produced relatively small quantities. Some produced refractory materials, some produced grenade casings, some specialized in producing Type 79 pointed bullets, and some even produced round bullets.

But overall, apart from the North China military industry system.

The annual production of 150mm artillery shells by the mountain city government shall not exceed 30,000 rounds, and the annual production of 75mm artillery shells shall not exceed 50,000 rounds.

The production of 7.9mm gun ammunition was around 120 million rounds, machine gun ammunition was 200 million rounds, and the production of various types of direct-fire artillery and mortar shells was about 350,000.

Then Chu Yunfei looked at the estimated production capacity from the North China side.

He took out a sheet of paper and began to calculate.

The estimated military production capacity of major defense industries is as follows:

Type 79 rifle cartridge (pointed bullet): Annual production is 500 million rounds.

Type 65 rifle ammunition: Current annual production is 800 million rounds, with an estimated adjusted annual production of 300 million rounds.
Type 76 rifle ammunition: The current annual production is 600 million rounds, and the estimated annual production is 2 billion rounds after adjustment.

This 7.6 rifle cartridge is the 7.62x51mm caliber bullet used in the M1 Garand rifle.

Various types of machine gun ammunition: The current annual production is 1.5 billion rounds, and the estimated annual production is 4 billion rounds.

Various types of submachine gun ammunition: The current annual production is 800 million rounds, and the estimated annual production is 1.5 billion rounds.

M1-105mm howitzer (horse-drawn): Current annual production is 120 units, estimated annual production is 350 units.

M1-105mm howitzer (truck-trailer): Current annual production is 30 units, with an estimated annual production of 500 units.

Friendship Truck: Current annual production is 120 vehicles, with an estimated annual production of 30,000 vehicles (this is the maximum production capacity for the aid program; production line limitations prevent expansion).
105mm grenades: Current annual production is 100,000, with an estimated annual production of 300,000.

150mm grenades: Current annual production is 18,000, with an estimated annual production of 60,000.

Even with the production capacity in North China included, the gap between China and North China in terms of stockpiling weapons and equipment sufficient to confront the Soviet Union was not that large.

The premise is that this plan can actually be realized.

In addition, the Soviet Union could not devote all its resources to the Far East, and there was also the constraint from Europe.

Thinking of this, Chu Yunfei couldn't help but sigh: The advantage is in my hands.

The next key task is to influence the Economic Committee and the Resources Committee in finalizing their strategic direction, and to adjust the three-year industrial plan previously drafted by the Kuomintang in Bazhong. (End of Chapter)