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

In 1983, the global gaming industry witnessed a psychological plague known as the "Tetris Effect".

It all started with a small, gray game cartridge.

It was not sold to Nintendo or Atari; it was an exclusive game for Red Star PCs, bundled with WPS 2.0 or purchased separately for Red Star Game Boy.

The game graphics are extremely simple: seven different shaped blocks fall from the sky, and players need to fill a row with them by rotating and moving them to eliminate them.

There's no complicated plot, no fancy visuals, just that catchy background music—"The Peddler."

New York, Wall Street.

A stock trader is frantically typing on his keyboard.

"Damn it! He died again!"

He angrily slammed his Game Boy onto the table. The screen displayed "Game Over."

A colleague leaned over and said, "Jim, stop messing around. The Dow Jones has dropped 50 points, and the boss is furious."

Screw Dow Jones!

Jim's eyes were bloodshot, like a drug addict's. "I was just one line away! Just one line away from eliminating four rows! That feeling... that thrill of the long stick piercing the gap... it's even better than making money!"

He picked up the game console again and pressed the Start button with trembling hands.

"Just one more game. Just one more."

This kind of scene happens in every corner of the world.

From the Tokyo subway to London cafes and Moscow's Red Square (although Russia bans imports, smuggling remains rampant).

Psychologists have even coined a term specifically for this: the Tetris Effect.

This refers to the phenomenon where people, after playing the game, can see blocks falling even with their eyes closed, and even dream about spinning blocks.

This is not just a game; it's mind control.

This is real "electronic heroin".

……

Beijing, Red Star headquarters.

The door to the finance office was pushed open.

Old Chen was holding a report in his hands, and he was practically floating as he walked.

"Minister Su... can you guess how many cassette tapes we sold last month?"

Su Zheng was looking at some CNC machine tool drawings, without even looking up: "Five million?"

"Twelve million!"

Old Chen's voice trembled. "Twelve million boxes! Each box sells for $29.9! Just this one game alone, our monthly sales exceeded three hundred million US dollars! This... this is even more profitable than selling heroin!"

"and……"

Old Chen swallowed hard. "That doesn't even include the ones that came with the computers. If we include the increased sales of mainframes, our total revenue this month... has exceeded one billion US dollars."

"One billion dollars."

Su Zheng put down the blueprints and gently tapped the table. "That's enough."

"Enough?" Old Chen was taken aback. "What's enough?"

"That's enough money to buy those things."

Su Zheng stood up and walked to the row of safes.

He opened the innermost layer and took out a top-secret document.

The document cover had no words, only a code name: [Project Tiangong].

"Old Chen, money is just a number. If it's not exchanged for real goods, it's just worthless paper."

Su Zheng pointed to the list on the document and said, "Notify our 'shell companies' in Switzerland and West Germany to take immediate action."

"What should we buy?"

"Buy those things that foreigners would never sell to us."

A cold glint flashed in Su Zheng's eyes, "Five-axis CNC machine tools, high-precision grating rulers, laser interferometers, and even... abandoned titanium alloy production lines for submarines."

"But...the Batumi embargo..."

"It's precisely because of the embargo that we need to buy it."

Su Zheng sneered, "The Western world is currently experiencing economic stagnation and factory closures. They'd sell even God's underwear if the price is right. Besides, we have Tetris as a powerful weapon."

"A killer weapon?"

"Yes." Su Zheng smiled mysteriously. "I heard that the official in charge of the Batumi audit is also a block enthusiast. Perhaps we could send him a... limited edition cassette tape made entirely of gold?"

……

One month later, at a port in the Mediterranean.

A cargo ship flying the Panamanian flag departed the port under cover of night.

The cargo ship's hold was filled with huge wooden crates labeled "agricultural machinery parts".

However, if you open the wooden crate, you will find that it does not contain tractor parts at all, but a high-precision CNC machine tool production line that Siemens in Germany has just stopped production.

There were even several disassembled deep-hole drilling machines that were originally used to process the gun barrels of Leopard 2 tanks.

The captain was a Greek man with a full beard, who was playing a Game Boy with great enthusiasm.

"This game is really awesome."

He said to his first mate, "That Asian guy is really generous. Not only did he pay double the shipping fee, but he also gave us this. He said that if we clear the level, we can see a hidden scene?"

The first mate shrugged: "Who knows? But if the cargo on this ship is discovered, we'll all be in jail."

"Investigate? Who will investigate?"

The captain pointed to a patrol boat not far away. "The officer on that boat just received a box of 'electronic pets' from that Asian guy. His attention is completely focused on that damn electronic dinosaur right now."

……

When this batch of equipment finally arrived at the Northwest 001 base after traveling thousands of miles.

The entire base was in an uproar.

The veteran experts stroked the machine tools that gleamed with a cold, metallic luster, as if they were caressing long-lost children.

"Five-axis! It really is five-axis!"

A chief engineer specializing in aero-engines was so excited that tears welled up in his eyes. "With this, we can mold the blades of our turbofan engines in one go! The precision will be improved by at least two levels!"

"And this! This is a Swiss universal grinding machine!"

"This is a German ball screw!"

Su Zheng stood at the workshop entrance, watching the group of elderly people who were as excited as children.

He knew what these things meant.

This means that China's industrial manufacturing capabilities will leap from the "primitive era" of hand-crafting to the "electrical era" of precision machining.

This means that the next generation of tanks, fighter jets, and missiles will have the same level of technology as the West.

This is not just a few machines.

This is the backbone of industry.

"Minister Su."

Old Chen walked up to him and said with emotion, "Who would have thought that the machine tools we use to build missiles were actually earned by selling game consoles?"

"This is called... using play to sustain war."

Su Zheng looked at the still-flickering Game Boy screen in his hand. "That little block eliminates not just bricks, but also the technological blockade imposed on us by the West."

"By the way, what about Xinyi?"

"Engineer Ye is in the lab." Old Chen pointed to the ground. "She said that with these new devices, the physical verification of her 'Loongson-3' chip can finally begin."

……

Underground laboratory.

Ye Xinyi, wearing a white lab coat, stood in front of a huge electron microscope.

On the screen was an extremely complex chip layout.

That's not an ordinary CPU.

It was a heterogeneous chip that integrated a floating-point unit (FPU) and a prototype of a graphics processing unit (GPU).

Code name: Veyron.

"You're here?"

Ye Xinyi didn't turn around, still staring at the screen. "The new lithography machine has good precision. If your hand-made lens can work well, we might be able to break through to 0.8 micrometers."

"0.8 micrometers..."

Su Zheng walked behind her, looking at the blueprint. "That's Pentium-level technology. We're aiming for a leapfrog development."

"It must be overcome."

Ye Xinyi turned around, took off her goggles, and said, "Because our competitors are also accelerating. Intelligence shows that Intel has launched Project 386, and Motorola's 68020 is coming out soon."

"and……"

She paused, her expression turning serious. "With us poaching Jensen Huang, Silicon Valley is on alert. The FBI is investigating Future Tech's background. Our data line could be cut off at any moment."

"Then let's cut it off."

Su Zheng said calmly, "Anyway, the seeds have already been transported back. The rest is up to our land to grow them."

He pointed to the huge construction site next to the laboratory.

That will be the second phase of the "Red Star Semiconductor" factory.

"We have the equipment, the money, and the people."

Su Zheng clenched his fist. "In the next stage, what we need to do is not just catch up."

"We need to... change lanes and overtake."

"How do I change lanes?"

"network."

A glint of light flashed in Su Zheng's eyes. "Currently, computers are like isolated islands. But the future will be an era of the Internet of Things."

"I want to use this new equipment to create something new."

"What is it?"

"Router".

Su Zheng smiled, "I want to connect all the computers in China into one big network. I want to make 'China.com' a real 'Internet'."

"Moreover, this website must be 'red' in its name."

……

The winter of 1983 was colder than usual.

But deep underground at Base 001, a bustling scene of activity was taking place.

With the huge sums of money earned from selling game consoles, Red Star Electronics is building a vast industrial empire.

From the underlying chip materials to the precision machining machines, and then to the upper-level software ecosystem.

A complete, closed-loop, and self-controllable industrial chain is quietly taking shape in the heart of this ancient country.

And Red Star Electronics, which was once ridiculed by the West as "only knowing how to make toys".

It is transforming into a real... behemoth.

In the next chapter, this behemoth will extend its tentacles.

It must not only conquer commercial territories, but also demonstrate its fangs at the national strategic level.

The blueprint for the information superhighway is about to unfold under Su Zheng's pen.

……