I am an industrial worker during the War of Resistance

Chapter 78 Beranthoses and Infantry Cannons
Director Yu took a sip of water and said to Chen Changzai, "Director Chen, headquarters sent me here."

My main purpose is to inform you about some details of this collaboration.

"Oh, then Director Yu, please tell me quickly, so I can be happy too."

After saying that, Chen Changzai lit a cigarette for Director Yu.

Smoking is still allowed in the workshop office and rest area.

"Director Chen, this is how it is. When the headquarters talked with Mr. George Smith from the United States this time, everyone had a very pleasant conversation."

Especially in the area of ​​hand-held tractor cooperation.

There are basically no major problems.

Mr. George Smith from the United States agreed to help us apply for international patent protection.

However, he demanded joint ownership of the patent rights.

This was within our expectations.

A patent without the means to protect it is no different from having no patent at all.

Therefore, headquarters agreed to Mr. George Smith's request to jointly own the patent.

Our comrades in the United States will establish a company, which will jointly hold the international patents with Mr. Smith under the company's name.

Chen Changzai nodded when he heard this.

After taking a deep drag on his cigarette, he said, "Yeah, a patent certificate without the power to protect it is just a piece of waste paper that you wouldn't even want to use to wipe your butt."

When we have the strength, let's see who dares to infringe on the fruits of our labor.

Director Yu nodded and said, "Yes, that's just how realistic the world is."

If you want people to follow the rules, you must make them understand that if they don't follow the rules, they will have to bear the consequences.

When we have the power to make things unbearable for them, they will naturally start to play by the rules.

After Director Yu finished speaking and took a puff of his cigarette, he continued, "The price we discussed this time is two hundred and sixty US dollars for each hand tractor without any accompanying farm implements."

The price of a complete set of farm tools will add another twenty dollars.

However, this does not include large attachments such as seeders, harvesters, and rear cargo boxes.

If you add all these items together, the total price will be three hundred and forty dollars.

As for Mr. Smith, whatever price he makes after returning to the United States, that's all his profit.

Chen Changzai listened and nodded.

Director Yu continued, "Our comrades in the United States investigated the prices of agricultural machinery there."

In the United States, even a medium-sized agricultural tractor from a non-major brand can sell for $1,500 or $1,600.

This is just the price of the tractor.

If you add basic farm tools, it will cost an additional two to three hundred dollars.

These are basic farm implements, excluding larger items such as seeders, harvesters, and trailers.

If we were to add them all, it would probably take another five to six hundred dollars to gather them all.

Let's do the math: how much would it cost to buy a complete set of medium-sized agricultural machinery in the United States?

The total cost will be over two thousand five hundred US dollars.

The price we offered Mr. Smith, even for the complete set, was only three hundred and forty dollars at most.

Although ours are small agricultural machines.

However, our prices are also much cheaper than the worst medium-sized agricultural machinery in the United States.

That's about one-seventh of theirs.

But our repairs are simple; as long as they follow the instructions, they can fix them themselves.

This saved a lot of repair costs.

Moreover, our hand-held tractors are just as fast as those medium-sized American machines when they get to work.

So Smith was quite satisfied with our price.

After he went back, we agreed that he could sell the complete hand tractor for eight hundred to one thousand dollars.

After all, in the United States, a fully grown draft horse still costs between $130 and $180.

The price of this hand-held tractor is equivalent to the price of five or six draft horses.

However, the work it does is something that five or six draft horses cannot do.

Moreover, pulling a horse can lead to its death.

This hand-held tractor won't suddenly break down; if maintained properly, it can easily last for over ten years.

At this moment, Chen Changzai said, "Yes, those draft horses are precious things. If they die because they are not well cared for, then we have nothing left."

Did Mr. Smith ultimately decide how many hand tractors to order?
Our current engine plant and tractor plant have undergone more than a year of production and construction.

Their standardized production lines are basically mature.

If they were to maximize production now...

I think it's still possible to achieve a daily production capacity of 30 to 50 units.

Of course, this is only possible if there is a sufficient supply of raw materials.

Also, what happened with Mr. Smith at the end regarding the shipping and payment?

Director Yu said with a smile, "That Mr. Smith didn't order more the first time either."

He first ordered 300 complete sets of hand-held tractors, along with a considerable number of spare parts, to be delivered within a month.

Actually, Mr. Smith is quite shrewd.

When we told him that he would be in charge of transportation, and that we would only be responsible for the area up to the edge of our controlled zone.

He agreed without saying a word.

Regarding payment, we proposed one-third in US dollar cash and two-thirds in materials and supplies.

He immediately asked what kind of supplies they were.

We told him that the manufacture of hand tractors requires a lot of metal materials, but nickel, chromium and tungsten are relatively scarce in our area.

Also, tire manufacturing requires rubber, which we also need to import from outside.

If he can get his hands on these supplies, we won't have to import them from elsewhere anymore.

You can just offset it with him.

He didn't hesitate at all after hearing it.

He immediately agreed.

He also promised to get us some supplies as a deposit, and now he's out figuring out how to get them for us.

Upon hearing this, Chen Changzai laughed and said, "Oh, it seems our American journalist friend is quite knowledgeable about what's going on here."

Nickel and chromium are not far from us at all; Hanzhong and Henan are the main production areas.

The problem is that we're currently blocked by the bald guy, so we can't buy it, and even if we did, it would be extremely difficult to get it over to us.

The largest tungsten production area is also in China.

It wouldn't be difficult for him to buy it.

These three things don't need to travel across the ocean to get here.

If he uses his connections, getting these things in the country would be too easy.

This would significantly reduce his costs.

As long as the cost of sourcing here is far lower than the cost of producing in the United States.

Then he wouldn't manufacture it himself in the United States.

And we will be best friends forever.

As for the bald guy, he dares to offend anyone in the country.

But whenever he encounters a foreigner, his spine softens.

Faced with this foreigner, I think even if the bald guy knew he was sending us these supplies, he could only pretend he didn't see it.

And those rubbers.

Rubber is a precious commodity here.

But in Southeast Asia, this plant has been cultivated for many years.

It shouldn't be as expensive as it is in China.

I remember there was a rubber stock market crash during the Qing Dynasty.

"I wasn't even born then; I only heard my teacher mention it briefly in class." Director Yu added with a smile, "That's true. I heard a lot of people died that time, and many foreigners didn't escape; they all jumped into the Huangpu River."

After exchanging a few casual words, Director Yu said, "Regardless of where Mr. Smith got the supplies from..."

As long as he can deliver supplies to our controlled area, he is our best partner.

He also agreed to help us get "Prontosil," a highly effective anti-inflammatory drug.

We also made a promise to him.

If he could get us some Prontosil, that anti-inflammatory drug.

We are willing to acquire it at a high price.

We can use the cash from the sale of the hand tractor to offset the costs of Proton.

Smith agreed with us.

“Bernandoshi, I’ve heard of him.”

It seems that this Western medicine is also a chemically synthesized drug.

Director Yu, after you go back, could you please speak with the leaders at headquarters?

Comrades in the Special Branch, please take note of the relevant information regarding this item.

Whether it's snippets in domestic and international newspapers, or their instruction manuals from abroad.

Or it could be the explanations about this topic in their chemistry or medicine textbooks or magazines.

We all need it.

Everything in chemistry is interconnected.

To put it bluntly...

It's a hodgepodge of various substances under different conditions.

Sometimes what we create is actually useful to us.

Sometimes what you create is useless.

Many of these useful things come about by chance.

Our current chemistry labs are neither particularly advanced nor particularly impressive.

But we still have a certain foundation.

We might be able to find clues about the synthesis of Brondox through that information.

Let's see if we can synthesize our own Berantex.

It would be great if we could have another person in the pharmaceutical industry who has made achievements in Western medicine.

This way, our chemistry lab might one day be able to synthesize Prontosil.

Prontosil is a chemically synthesized drug.

In 1932, the first sulfonamide drug was discovered by German chemist, pathologist, and bacteriologist Thomas Domagk, who named it "Prontosil".

Its antibacterial properties were confirmed and used clinically in 1935, and it can effectively treat infections caused by streptococci, staphylococci, etc., such as wound suppuration, pneumonia, meningitis, etc.

Chen Changzai knew that this substance was chemically synthesized, and he also knew that penicillin had been discovered in 1928.

However, penicillin was not isolated and purified until 1940 and used in animal experiments on mice.

This separation and purification process alone took a full twelve years.

It took another two years before penicillin was finally put into initial small-batch industrial production.

Chen Changzai knew some chemistry.

He also knew a little about these things.

But he wasn't a medical student in his later years, so he wouldn't have researched those things in his spare time.

In later generations, he found even reading drug instructions tedious, let alone researching drugs.

However, at this point, all he can do is try to obtain more relevant information and then study it with his students.

Nothing in this world is difficult if you set your mind to it.

Everything in this world that is created by humans must have its own inherent laws.

The fact that you can't figure it out only means that you haven't found the pattern to how it should appear.

As long as this pattern exists, it can definitely be discovered.

It just depends on how hard you try.

As later generations discovered the phenomena of ternary and quaternary fission in uranium nuclei, Academician He, a female academician in my country, once said.

"Scientific discoveries are not mysterious; they are just there. You haven't discovered them simply because you haven't been paying attention."

Upon hearing Chen Changzai say that he wanted to try and see if he could synthesize Bailangduoxi.

In this day and age, this is an absolute lifesaver.

Director Yu's breathing became rapid.

"Director Chen, you're not joking, are you? That's Prontosil, the best anti-inflammatory drug in the world?"

At this moment, Chen Changzai said very seriously, "Director Yu, I can say with certainty that I am not joking."

I would never make such a joke.

I have always believed that foreigners are capable of creating these things.

We, the sons and daughters of China, will definitely be able to do it too.

We are now a few steps behind those foreigners.

But as long as we don't give up and are willing to work hard.

Then one day, we will inevitably surpass those foreigners.

We Chinese are the smartest people in the world.

There is no doubt about this.

We were just asleep before.

We are now awake.

How could we possibly allow those foreigners to wander around in front of us?

Sooner or later, we will leave those foreigners far behind us.

If ten years isn't enough, then twenty; if twenty years isn't enough, then fifty; or even a hundred.

We should be at the forefront of this world.

"Good, Director Chen, it's good to hear you say that."

I will go back to headquarters and report this matter now.

I believe that headquarters will also attach great importance to this matter.

As for the collection of information, Director Chen, please rest assured. As long as our Special Branch comrades can find the information, we will definitely bring it back to you.

As for those who have made research achievements in Western medicine, we will also try to find a way.

Just like you said, there's nothing in this world we can't do; it all depends on whether we put our heart into it and how hard we try.

At this moment, Chen Chang smiled and said, "Director Yu, don't rush back."

Please wait here for a moment.

I'll show you something good in a little while.

"When you get back, you can report a genuinely good thing to the leaders, right?"

"What's the good news? Can't you tell us beforehand, Director Chen?"

"You're really torturing me by keeping me in suspense like this," Director Yu said with a smile.

Chen Changzai chuckled and said, "Then Director Yu, why don't you come with me to the workshop and take a look?"

I think Master Liu and my students should be almost done with the installation by now.

After Director Yu followed Chen Changzai into one of the workshops inside.

He then saw a very delicate and small cannon on a low workbench.

"Is this a cannon we made ourselves?" Director Yu asked with some doubt.

Chen Changzai looked around the workbench; everyone's hands were covered in grease.

Master Liu and his students were all smiling at Chen Changzai and Director Yu, who had just entered.

Chen Changzai said to Director Yu, "Yes, this is the Japanese Type 70 infantry gun that we copied based on the data provided to us by our comrades in the Special Branch."

(End of this chapter)