Courtyard House: A Major Power's Heavy Industry, Hand-Crafted Nuclear Fusion

1968, winter.

Base 504.

Although it was bitterly cold outside, the auditorium at the base was filled with warmth.

Hundreds of scientists and their families, who had just been "rescued," were sitting around a long table, holding enamel bowls, enjoying a long-awaited hearty meal.

The bowl contained fluffy white rice, topped with a thick layer of braised pork, glistening with oil and emitting a fragrant aroma.

"Waaah..."

An elderly professor in his sixties ate while shedding tears, saying, "This meat...it's so delicious. I was locked up in a cowshed for half a year, and I didn't even smell the smell of meat."

"Eat! Eat more!"

General Zhang paced back and forth in the corridor, carrying a large iron bucket. He would refill anyone's empty bowl with a spoonful, declaring, "Here, we may not have much else, but we'll give you all the meat you need!"

Su Zheng sat in the corner, watching this heartwarming scene, but in his mind he was calculating.

"This meal consumed half of our inventory."

Holding the account book, Ye Xinyi whispered in his ear, "If we don't come up with a solution soon, we'll be starving next month."

The current situation is very serious.

The storm outside intensified, and many supply channels were disrupted. Despite special approvals from the Central Military Commission, local transport lines were frequently blocked by the rebels.

Thousands of mouths are waiting to be fed.

The funding from above is no longer enough.

"Out of money?" Su Zheng asked.

"We have no money and no food," Ye Xinyi sighed. "Moreover, to settle these people, we have to build houses, schools, and hospitals... These are bottomless pits."

Su Zheng put down his chopsticks.

He looked out the window at the vast wilderness.

"Since we can't rely on outsiders, let's take matters into our own hands and be self-sufficient."

……

the next day.

Su Zheng convened a meeting with all the key personnel at the base.

"Let's not talk about nuclear weapons today, let's talk about food."

Su Zheng got straight to the point: "We need to launch a 'Great Production Movement'."

"What should we do? Go and clear the land?" Old Zhao asked. "This Gobi Desert is all saline-alkali land; anything you plant will die."

"Leave the farming to the chemical engineering team."

Su Zheng looked at Engineer Liu in the corner.

"Old Liu, does your heavy water plant have a synthetic ammonia production line?"

"Yes, but that's a byproduct of deuterium production."

"Change it." Su Zheng waved his hand. "Change it to a urea production line."

"Huh?" Engineer Liu was dumbfounded. "Dean Su, that's equipment for making atomic bombs! You want me to use it to make fertilizer?"

"Can you eat an atomic bomb?"

Su Zheng countered, "With fertilizer, we can trade sheep with the surrounding herders and grain with the farmers. Moreover, we can also develop hydroponics."

He pointed to the base's greenhouse (originally used for biological radiation experiments).

"We'll plant cucumbers and tomatoes there. We'll use the waste heat from our nuclear power plant for heating. I want everyone to be able to eat fresh vegetables even in winter."

"This...this is too extravagant!" Everyone looked at each other in disbelief. Growing vegetables with nuclear energy? This is practically science fiction.

"This is not luxury, this is the rational use of resources."

Su Zheng continued.

"Now that we've solved the food problem, we still have to solve the money problem."

He took out a black square box from behind him.

"What is this?" Everyone crowded around to take a look.

"radio."

Su Zheng pressed the switch.

"The East is Red, the sun rises..." A clear and loud singing voice came from the box, without a single noise.

"This was assembled using military transistors that we had discarded."

Su Zheng explained, "On the market now, a radio costs more than 100 yuan, and you also need an industrial permit. Moreover, it's noisy and uses up batteries quickly."

"Ours costs less than ten yuan to produce. It uses high-performance circuitry, and one battery can last for six months."

"If we sell it..."

Everyone's eyes lit up.

This isn't a radio; it's a money printing press!

"But...we're a military industrial unit, we can't do business." General Zhang had some concerns.

"Who said we were in business?"

Su Zheng smiled and said, "This is 'supporting local development.' We provide the technology and parts to the provincial radio factory so they can assemble them, and the profits are split 50/50. This is called 'military-civilian integration.'"

"Great idea!" General Zhang slapped his thigh. "I'm going to talk to the Provincial Revolutionary Committee right now! Let's see who dares to stop us from supporting the construction!"

……

With Su Zheng's brilliant idea, life at the base suddenly became much better.

White smoke was billowing from the fertilizer plant.

Lush green vegetables have grown in the greenhouse.

Truckloads of "Red Star" brand radio parts were transported out, and truckloads of pork, flour, and cloth were brought back.

In this era of extreme scarcity, Base 001 was practically a legendary "Shangri-La".

But Su Zheng's ambitions go far beyond that.

He wanted to build more than just radios.

What he wants to create is the future.

……

Workshop 701.

This is a newly built top-secret workshop at the base.

An inconspicuous sign hangs at the entrance: "Semiconductor Component Prototype Production Group".

But once you step inside, it's a completely different world.

The dust control standards here are even stricter than those in nuclear weapons assembly rooms. All staff members wear fully enclosed "spacesuits".

Under the yellow safety light, a series of sophisticated and complex devices are in operation.

"Dean Su, is this our first chip?"

Looking through the microscope at the silicon wafer, which was only the size of a fingernail, Ye Xinyi's eyes were filled with amazement.

It was covered with tens of thousands of lines.

Although in hindsight this was just a very primitive integrated circuit, in 1968 it was absolutely cutting-edge technology.

At that time, Intel Corporation in the United States had only been established for a short period of time.

"Yes."

Su Zheng nodded. "This is a TTL logic circuit. It integrates 1000 transistors."

"With it, the size of our 'Red Star II' can be reduced by a hundred times, and the computing speed can be increased by ten times."

"and……"

Su Zheng pointed to a machine that was being assembled next to him.

"We're going to use it in missiles."

"The Dongfeng-5 intercontinental ballistic missile needs a smart brain. Previous transistor computers were too heavy to fit inside. Now, with this chip, we can give the missile 'guidance' capabilities."

"It's not just missiles."

Su Zheng looked into the distance.

"And airplanes, and radar, and even... televisions and washing machines in the future."

"This is a trillion-dollar industry."

"We want to build a 'Red Silicon Valley' here, in the northwestern wilderness of China."

……

Su Zheng put in a tremendous amount of effort to develop this chip.

Can't buy lithography machines?

Then rub it by hand.

Using the microscopic vision of the "Eye of Truth," Su Zheng personally crafted an extremely high-precision optical lens system. The light source was a xenon lamp salvaged from a discarded searchlight.

There's no photomask?

Then let's do it by hand.

Su Zheng organized dozens of draftsmen with good artistic skills to lie on the huge lightbox and use ruby ​​knives to carve the circuit diagrams into the light-blocking film, one stroke at a time, and then take miniature photographs.

This lithography machine, produced using rudimentary methods, is simple yet boasts an astonishing precision of 5 micrometers!

At the time, this was already world-class.

……

"Dean Su, I have a question."

Engineer Wang, who is in charge of chip production, came over and said, "Our single-crystal silicon purity is not high enough. The temperature control precision of the current Czochralski furnace is too poor."

Monocrystalline silicon is the foundation of wafers. If the purity is insufficient, the yield of the wafers will be extremely low.

"Temperature control?"

Su Zheng smiled.

"That's easy."

He took out a blueprint.

"Let's modify the 'vacuum induction furnace' we use to make hydrogen bombs."

"We'll use our own chips as controllers to create a closed-loop feedback temperature control system."

"If we use the technology from the atomic bomb to pull single-crystal silicon, I refuse to believe we can't achieve the required purity!"

Wang Gong was stunned.

Using nuclear industry technology to develop semiconductors? That's a complete game-changer!

This is like using an aircraft engine to blow-dry hair; it's a bit of a waste of resources, but the effect is absolutely amazing.

……

A month later.

The first batch of high-purity single-crystal silicon rods has been produced.

They were several dark, metallic-looking cylinders.

Under Su Zheng's direction, they were sliced, polished, oxidized, photolithographically processed, etched, and doped...

It involves dozens of complex processes.

The first truly domestically produced large-scale integrated circuit has been born.

When the chip was installed into the test circuit board and rows of LEDs lit up, the entire 701 workshop erupted in cheers.

"It's a success!"

"We now have the Huaxia Chip!"

Those scientists who had suffered humiliation in the cowshed embraced each other and wept.

They found dignity and value here.

Su Zheng stared at the shimmering chip, but in his mind he was already planning his next move.

"With chips, we can build better computers."

"With computers, we can calculate more complex trajectories."

"With ballistics in hand... it's time for our Dongfeng-5 to be deployed as well."

……

Just then.

A sudden, urgent telephone ring shattered the cheerful atmosphere.

It was General Zhang who called.

"Su Zheng! Come to command post immediately!"

"Something's happened!"

"What's wrong?"

"Fighting has broken out at the border!"

General Zhang's voice carried a murderous aura.

"The big brother up north is getting serious on Zhenbao Island! Their tanks are coming!"

Su Zheng's heart sank.

Zhenbao Island.

That was a turning point in history.

This was also the most serious nuclear threat that China had ever faced.

"understood."

Su Zheng hung up the phone.

He glanced at the scientists who were still cheering, then turned and walked out of the workshop.

Outside, wind and snow were raging.

Although the "Ark" was safe, the waves outside were already crashing onto the deck.

"It seems that pork and chips alone are not enough."

Su Zheng gazed at the northern sky, his eyes turning cold.

"We also need a sword."

"A sword that can calm the other party down... the Heaven-Slaying Sword."