I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

After Jiang Ming finished speaking, Lao Sun and Xiao Zhao looked at him at the same time, with only one question on their faces: what do you use to scrub out deionized water?

Even university chemistry departments might not be able to gather a complete set of ion exchange resins, let alone a corner of Workshop No. 1 at the Third Electronics Factory.

Jiang Ming closed the notebook and stuffed it into his work clothes pocket. He walked to the door and then looked back at Lao Sun.

"Sir, where does the boiler room burn coal?"

Old Sun didn't keep up with the turn, but still called out the number.

"Mentougou smokeless coal, occasionally mixed with Datong lump coal."

"There is enough anthracite, the carbon skeleton is tight, and the pores can still hold ions after sulfonation."

Jiang Ming turned to Xiao Zhao, speaking even more briefly.

"There is concentrated sulfuric acid in the analysis room. Open the door."

The lock on the chemical analysis room was rusty and stiff. After Xiao Zhao used pliers to unscrew it, all that was left inside were a few boxes of reagent bottles left over from the Soviet Union and a dusty titration stand.

Jiang Ming rummaged through half a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid and one-third of a bottle of dilute hydrochloric acid, and then asked Lao Sun to bring over two baskets of smokeless coal that had been picked out from the boiler room from the waste warehouse.

Old Sun and Big Liu broke the coal into pieces and sieved it, leaving behind particles the size of a fingernail, which filled an enamel basin.

Jiang Ming set up an iron tripod and crucible in the fume hood, and immersed coal particles in concentrated sulfuric acid in batches and heated them, keeping the temperature around 150 degrees Celsius, so that the acid would slowly penetrate into the carbon skeleton.

Acid mist was discharged through the ventilation duct, but the pungent smell of sulfur dioxide still filled the room. Old Sun distributed wet charcoal masks to everyone and put one on himself last.

Forty minutes later, the first batch of sulfonated coal was scooped out. Jiang Ming rinsed the test paper repeatedly with distilled water until it no longer changed color, and then spread it on a tin plate to dry.

Xiao Zhao picked up a piece of coal; its surface was rough and astringent, and its color was slightly darker than before.

"Can this stuff really block calcium and magnesium?"

Jiang Ming didn't stop; he had already begun processing the charcoal particles.

"Sulfonate ions are negatively charged, while calcium, magnesium, and iron ions are positively charged; once they come into contact with each other, they cannot escape."

Da Liu picked out some underburnt hardwood charcoal from the ash pile behind the canteen and got half a bucket of bone charcoal powder from the boiler room.

Jiang Ming instructed him to pass the carbon through a copper wire sieve three times, leaving 20 to 40 mesh particles, then soak it in dilute hydrochloric acid for 15 minutes to wash away the surface rust and lime, and finally rinse it with distilled water until it is neutral.

A two-meter-long hard glass tube, about ten centimeters in diameter, was found in a corner of the waste storage area. One end was chipped, while the other end was intact.

Old Sun set up the blowtorch, the blue flame licking the notch end. After the glass softened, it was gathered into a funnel shape by the iron tongs, and a thin nozzle was pulled out from the other end.

He didn't use any measuring tools, relying entirely on his sense of touch to control the shape. He neatly finished both ends of the glass tube, which even caught Jiang Ming's attention.

"It can hold [the contents]."

Old Sun turned off the blowtorch and placed the glass tube on the workbench with an asbestos cloth to cool it down.

Jiang Ming tore open the degreased cotton, fixed the glass tube vertically on the iron frame, first stuffed the bottom with a layer of cotton to prevent powder from clogging the opening, then filled it with 20 centimeters of acid-washed activated carbon, lightly pressed to leave gaps, then laid a layer of degreased cotton as a partition, the second layer was filled with sulfonated coal, the third layer was filled with activated carbon, and the top was buffered with degreased cotton. The entire column was 1.6 meters long, and the remaining space was left as a water storage area.

"Release the water."

Xiao Zhao picked up the distilled water and slowly poured it into the funnel. The water disappeared after it submerged the cotton layer. The glass column remained still for nearly two minutes before water droplets dripped from the rubber tube at the bottom, eventually forming a thin line.

The beaker containing the water was brought to the homemade conductivity meter.

The instrument was modified from a scrapped Soviet-made microammeter. Two platinum wire electrodes were inserted into a small glass tank, connected to a dry cell and a voltage divider circuit. The ion content was determined by the deflection of the pointer.

When the platinum wire is immersed in fresh water, the pointer stops at zero.

Xiao Zhao wiped the electrode and reinserted it, but after waiting for more than ten seconds, the pointer still did not move.

"Jiang, the ions have been removed; even three distillations weren't this clean."

Old Sun stared at the makeshift glass column, where coal particles and charcoal were bound inside with wire and wooden clips. Its crude appearance made it unfit for a laboratory, but the water flowing out kept the instruments at zero.

Jiang Ming pushed the beaker back to Xiao Zhao's side.

"Re-prepare the suspension, keep the acetone system unchanged, pH 4.8, and replace the water in this column for every step that involves water."

Xiao Zhao immediately cleaned the utensils, diluted the dilute nitric acid with fresh water, and then prepared the anhydrous acetone suspension according to the original procedure.

This time, from acid washing of glassware to final titration, all water usage was achieved using a traditional deionization column.

The new suspension, after standing for six hours, showed no flocculation and was more stable than the first batch.

Jiang Ming redid the electrophoretic deposition with a new suspension. Under the microscope, the coating was denser and the gaps between the particles were minimized.

However, it was too late to rework all five pipes.

Old Sun took out the spare cathode substrate, replaced the coating on No. 03 with a new one, and then carried out the stepped sintering process again. After reinstalling it in the tube shell, he connected it to the test station.

Two hours later, the data provided the answer.

The transmitting current of the No. 03 transmitter stopped at 281 microamps, and the pointer of the microammeter no longer moved.

Old Sun stared at it for a full five minutes to make sure it wasn't a malfunctioning instrument before sitting back down on the low stool and clutching his canvas gloves in his palm.

"It's safe."

Jiang Ming didn't respond, but instead connected the two days' data of Yi Ling San into a curve, and drew a small circle next to the inflection point where the data first decreased and then leveled off.

The other four tubes used the same batch of suspension, and the potential for impurities was still there; the only difference was the coating thickness and the rate of decay.

The coatings for grades 01 and 02 are relatively thick, but they still have enough buffer margin. Grades 04 and 05 are in the middle, a step behind grade 03, but they will arrive sooner or later.

Jiang Ming closed his notebook and looked out the window at the melting snow.

Subsequent batch production must be entirely done with deionized water, and the output of that column must also be increased.

........

Xu Chongwen's Jeep stopped at the entrance of the aerodynamics center for less than twenty minutes before driving out again.

The assistant investigated the raw material chain for three days. The acetone came from the Ministry of Chemical Industry's centralized allocation, the nitric acid was issued through a normal requisition form, and the purity test of cerium oxalate was signed by Wu Hanzhang and co-signed by the factory's security department. Every link was firmly secured, leaving no loopholes.

Site requisition was rejected, safety accident report was closed, and no problems could be found in the raw material chain. Xu Chongwen sat behind his desk, looking at the three records of setbacks, the veins on his temples throbbing.

He opened the drawer, took out a letter, and copied down his advisor's address.

That old expert returned to China in the early 1950s after studying at the Leningrad Polytechnic University in the Soviet Union. He is now a member of the technical advisory group of a ministry and still carries weight in the approval process.

Xu Chongwen wrote two pages, using wording entirely in accordance with technical specifications. The No. 1 workshop of the Third Electronics Factory had arbitrarily abolished the classic Soviet scraping process and replaced it with an electrophoretic deposition method that had not been certified by Soviet technical specifications. Furthermore, it had added rare earth oxides of questionable composition to the cathode material. The origin of the process was unknown, and there was no demonstration report that met Soviet industrial standards.

At the end of the letter, he suggested that the ministry's technical advisory group conduct a compliance assessment of the project to ensure that the seriousness of defense research is not eroded by opportunists.

Three days later, a red-headed document bearing the official seal of the ministry's technical advisory group was delivered to the administration building of the Third Electronics Factory.

The document is titled "Inquiry Regarding the Compliance of the Processes in the Military Electron Tube R&D Project of the Third Electronic Components Factory." In addition to the official seal of the advisory group, it is also signed by a deputy director of the materials allocation department.

When Director Zhang received the document, he was drinking water. After reading the first page, he slammed the enamel mug onto the table, soaking half of the paper with water.

"Frontline radar tubes don't last more than sixty hours, enemy intelligence has reduced the interval between communications to fifteen seconds, and they're sitting in their offices talking to me about Soviet standards?"

He pushed the document in front of Wu Hanzhang.

"When the Soviets left, they tore up all the blueprints, leaving behind a pile of waste paper and burnt prototypes. What are we supposed to use as a reference?"

After reading the document, Wu Hanzhang took off his reading glasses. He didn't join in the cursing, but simply pointed to the last paragraph on the second page.

"The ministry's technical advisory group is scheduled to send a joint expert team to the Third Electronic Components Factory at 9:00 AM the day after tomorrow for an on-site technical defense. The results of the defense will serve as the basis for whether the project will continue."

Factory Director Zhang pushed his chair back and walked around the office twice.

"Give me two days to prepare. This isn't a defense; it's a verdict."

Wu Hanzhang put his reading glasses back on.

"Who is it?"

Factory Director Zhang pulled out a telephone record sheet from the table.

"There were three people. The leader's surname was Zhou, Zhou Changlin. He came back from Leningrad and specialized in vacuum metallurgy. He couldn't stop talking about the Soviet industrial standards system. The other two were high-temperature coatings made by the Institute of Aerospace Materials. They were also trained in the Soviet Union."

Wu Hanzhang remained silent for a moment.

"Zhou Changlin's words carry weight in the ministries. If he determines that the process is in violation of regulations, the project will really be stopped."

Factory Director Zhang walked to the window and looked at the corrugated iron roof of Workshop No. 1 at the end of the factory road.

"Notify Xiao Jiang."

When Jiang Ming received the notification, he had just finished filling in the data for the 240th hour.

The last data point for the five tubes was displayed. He took the document with the red stamp from Xiao Zhao and read it while standing next to the testing table.

Old Sun and Xiao Zhao got close, but he blocked their view by flipping over the documents.

Old Sun looked at his hands.

"Something happened?"

Jiang Ming folded the document and stuffed it into his work bag pocket.

"The ministry has sent an expert team. They will arrive at 9 a.m. the day after tomorrow and ask us to prove that electrophoretic deposition and rare earth doping are not just nonsense."

Xiao Zhao's face turned pale.

"What if it can't be proven?"

"Project halted."

The workshop quieted down, the filaments of the five tubes still hummed softly, and the dim red light shone on everyone's faces.

Old Sun picked up the wrench, then put it back.

Wu Hanzhang came in from outside the door and stood behind Jiang Ming to speak.

"Xiao Jiang, the experts who came this time are all returned from studying in the Soviet Union. They speak with Soviet standards in mind and have regulatory clauses in hand. How do you plan to deal with them?"

Jiang Ming turned around, took out Qian Xuesen's kraft paper envelope from his pocket with his right hand, flipped it over with his fingertips, and then put it back.

"Chief Engineer Wu, the foundation of the Soviet standard is mathematics and physics."

He walked to the blackboard, picked up the chalk, and wrote 285 on the board.

"Then let's use the mathematics they believe in most to defeat them."