Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 39: Could so many people really survive?
2*30年6月1日，倒计时14天。

The Third Front Project is the largest nuclear disaster preparedness project in human history.

Under the old man's command, more than ten million manpower and nearly half of the national treasury were invested to establish a complete industrialized production system in the rear area of ​​the southwest region of the country, and to set up a large number of underground nuclear defense fortresses that were unknown to the public.

The legacy of his decision continues to bless the people of the East even into the end times.

The Taimeng Mountains, also known as the Taishan-Mengshan Mountains.

Due to the ever-changing international situation and the continuous evolution of human warfare technology, many early nuclear defense projects are no longer suitable for the present, and similar facilities newly built in recent decades are no longer limited to the southwest direction.

The construction of the underground nuclear Great Wall has never stopped for decades, especially in recent years with the rapid deterioration of the situation on Earth, related projects have sprung up everywhere.

Although located in a populous province with densely populated villages scattered like stars, ASEAN has still designated an area deep in the mountains to prepare an underground nuclear protection project. With the help of the local strong industrial base, this base, although not large in scale, has facilities that are more complete than many old projects in the past.

Under the urgent order for expansion, its scale is rapidly expanding. This is true for the underground part, and numerous large-scale concrete fortresses are being built above ground. The entire mountain range is a scene of busy construction.

At this point, the base has effectively lost its intended function of nuclear defense and preparedness; its location has been exposed, and countless satellites in the sky are watching it.

But this wasn't a problem for the people working on the Sun Chasing Project. Upon arriving here, Su Xun immediately sought out someone to learn about the overall situation of the base.

He was introduced to Qin Chang, the chief commander of the engineering corps in charge of this renovation project. Qin Chang was also responsible for coordinating the preparatory work of other bases and was of a high rank.

Su Xun knew this person in his previous life, and he also appeared on the list that Su Xun submitted.

Qin Chang explained to Su Xun: "The main expansion task in the underground base is the large library. As for the grain depot, energy, weapons depot, industrial center, and agricultural center, these units are already quite large and have a relatively compact layout, making expansion difficult. We chose to build a backup for each module on the ground, distributed in locations close to the underground base, forming three fortress clusters in total."

"Once fully completed, the above-ground and underground sections together can accommodate 10,000 survivors for production and living."

"Ten thousand people?"

Su Xun was quite surprised by this number. How many bases in his previous life could accommodate so many people? A place of this size would be considered one of the largest safe zones in a province.

Even today, the Taimon base would only be considered a medium-sized facility, and it wasn't even specifically built to preserve the population.

In the overall plan, the main tasks of each third-line base are to restore production, preserve a certain level of scientific research capabilities and civilization achievements, and serve as command and communication hubs radiating to surrounding urban shelters. The shelters under construction and renovation in those cities are the ones that truly need to accommodate a large number of survivors and maintain the population.

Based on the current intelligence gathered from various regions, the number of people that the various refugees can accommodate is more than sufficient, and even far exceeds the number of survivors that Su Xun had envisioned.

The only question now is whether there will be enough survivors to make it to safety.

Qin Chang was still not satisfied with this, and explained: "Various production equipment and material storage occupy a lot of space, which makes it temporarily unable to accommodate more people. However, if we consider the situation of overload, this base can actually accommodate up to 40,000 to 50,000 people."

"No, no, it's not that serious. Safety should be our priority."

Although Su Xun had seen many more incredible creations in the secret realm, this underground city built by humans still amazed him.

After all, this is a genuine facility that can help more people survive in the early stages of the apocalypse.

To understand this base, you can't just walk around; it would take one person several days to explore the entire base.

Of course, there were vehicles, elevators, and internal transportation inside, but Su Xun only followed Qin Chang to look at the simplified model.

"The entire base is divided into ten levels, with the deepest part underground reaching eighty meters." "This is the grain depot, which, once saturated, is enough to supply the base for three years."

Yes, enough to feed 10,000 people for three years.

"Adjacent to it is our agricultural zone, which uses hydroponics for high-density indoor cultivation, providing a basic guarantee for the supply of vegetables within the base."

Yes, and you can even get some food.

In the previous life, the base with two superpowered individuals, Su Xun and Xu Huan, would never lack vegetables. One of them could manipulate wood-attribute elements, and the other could simply catalyze plant growth.

However, for many bases, the shortage of vegetables was a problem that could not be solved until the mid-apocalyptic period when edible mutant plants were domesticated.

"But at present, it is still difficult for us to establish an effective meat supply system. According to the intelligence we have, the probability of mutation in animals is much higher than that in plants. It is difficult to avoid accidents in large-scale livestock farming."

Su Xun nodded and asked, "Are there any related plans at present?"

"Yes, the most reliable and convenient method is still raising chickens. They reproduce quickly, are easy to raise, and can also produce eggs."

However, it can also easily create a large flock of zombie chickens or mutated chickens.

The other party didn't say anything, but Su Xun knew his concerns, and he pondered for a while.

Chicken farming is indeed a viable option. This animal has flourished to an extreme degree under human care—more than 60 billion chickens are consumed globally each year, which is enough to prove the maturity and completeness of its breeding methods and systems.

“Let’s build it. We’ll discuss it later and do some preventative work as much as possible. If we don’t build this, the surrounding areas will be even less capable, and in the future, they may have to rely on us to supply meat and eggs to various shelters.”

"If we can come up with a suitable plan, we can promote it to other bases as soon as possible."

Qin Chang nodded and continued to introduce Su Xun.

"This is an armory, mainly storing various firearms and ammunition. It is temporarily equipped with a number of silenced weapons, and some armored vehicles are expected to be placed in concrete bunkers on the ground in the future."

"In the industrial center, we dismantled some automated equipment—actually, there weren't many to begin with. Advanced equipment, not to mention a major catastrophe, couldn't withstand the electromagnetic radiation from a nuclear bomb. The main problem was that it was very difficult to repair once a problem occurred."

"The machine tools here tend to be simple, basic, easy to operate and maintain. We have stored a complete set of technical drawings here, which can basically allow these machines to replicate themselves."

"The main source of materials still largely depends on recycling. The city's buildings have a large amount of high-quality steel stored in them, and recycling it is much simpler than smelting iron ore ourselves."

"As for the three acids and two alkalis, there was no relevant foundation in this base, but there is an industrial park in Xinfu City, which is relatively close by, and it is currently producing explosives. Before the cataclysm, it will be cleared out and the industrial equipment will be sealed, so production can be quickly resumed in the future."

"Several shelters are under construction in this industrial park, which will become a relatively large safe zone, allowing residents to watch over the base during the apocalypse."

Su Xun clapped his hands in praise, then asked, "Where does the energy primarily power these devices?"

Qin Chang pointed to the ground beneath his feet.

“Deep underground, there is a small nuclear reactor that was installed when the base was first built. At that time, it was considered a prototype of a shipborne nuclear reactor. If properly maintained, it can supply power to the base for at least a hundred years. The required nuclear fuel has been sealed in the energy warehouse, and we have a complete fuel rod production process.”

"As expected of a war preparedness province," Su Xun remarked.

(End of this chapter)