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

In the office of the director of the Third Electronics Factory in Beijing, the air was thick with the smell of cheap jasmine tea mixed with tobacco.

Director Zhang pushed the urgent telegram that had just been delivered from the confidential communications room to the edge of his desk, tapped the paper twice with his knuckles, and gestured for Jiang Ming, who was standing opposite him, to read it himself.

This telegram was forwarded directly by Chen Zhiyuan through the Northwest Communications Group. Apart from reporting the success of the arrest operation and the successful completion of the mission of the No. 3 tube, the majority of the text was a technical summary of the seized equipment.

Jiang Ming picked up the thin half-page and quickly scanned it with his eyes over the dense pencil writing.

The main body of the seized device is a sealed metal cavity and a complex permanent magnet assembly. It does not have the coil tuning circuit that is essential for ordinary radios. Most strangely, its radio frequency output is not a terminal block, but a metal waveguide port with a diameter of about three centimeters.

According to calculations by frontline engineers on the parallel circuit of the matching hand-cranked generator, the output power of this equipment is at least in the kilowatt range.

Upon seeing the words "waveguide port" and "metal cavity," Jiang Ming's fingers involuntarily tightened around the telegram, causing a crease to form on the edge of the paper.

"Confirmed at the front lines, this is the same jamming source that nearly burned through the Type 03 armored vehicle last night?"

Jiang Ming raised his head and looked directly into Director Zhang's eyes.

"It's absolutely certain. The moment the engineers stormed in and forcibly ripped the generator belt, the interference on the receiver side stopped immediately, with an error of less than 0.1 seconds."

Factory Director Zhang picked up his teacup and took a big gulp, his brows furrowing into a knot.

Jiang Ming put the telegram back on the table without replying immediately, but his hand had already reached into the inner pocket of the oil-stained blue work clothes and pulled out the heavily worn kraft paper radar notebook.

He ignored Director Zhang's probing gaze and turned directly to page seven of his notebook.

On that page was a cross-sectional diagram of the internal structure of a multi-cavity magnetron, drawn with charcoal pencil, next to which were densely labeled mathematical formulas relating the anode resonant cavity size, the cathode emission region radius, and the working magnetic field strength.

These are all core materials that he deduced bit by bit from the memories of the pioneers in the "Record of Human Connections".

Shortwave communication equipment operates at frequencies below tens of megahertz, and radio frequency energy can be transmitted through coaxial cables and then radiated outwards by antennas, making waveguides completely unnecessary.

Once a waveguide port with a diameter of three centimeters appears on the equipment, it means that the operating frequency of this machine has reached at least the microwave level of several gigahertz.

In a direction-finding battle over shortwave communications, the agents suddenly deployed a microwave-level, kilowatt-power device, much like two sides were still exchanging pistol shots in an alley when one side suddenly pulled out a heavy howitzer.

The Soviet Union did indeed cobble together a batch of magnetrons for early S-band radars in the late 1940s using captured German technology and equipment left over from the Lend-Lease era.

If these pipes are scrapped due to quality defects and then fall into the hands of enemy agents through some unknown underground channel, the nature of the matter will change completely.

The enemy not only wanted to cripple the current shortwave communication network, but also attempted to use microwave broadband noise to prematurely block the centimeter-wave radar air defense network that the new China might build in the future.

To break this threat, China must rely on its own industrial capabilities to completely reverse engineer this microwave monster, which is subject to strict Western technological blockade, and create its own magnetron.

Just then, the wooden door to the office was suddenly pushed open, and Wu Hanzhang walked in hurriedly, carrying a brown paper file folder.

He immediately spotted the notebook in Jiang Ming's hand, slammed the file folder on the table, and stood there catching his breath.

"The ministry just called to say that the piece of equipment seized in the Northwest will be transported to Beijing by military train next week."

Wu Hanzhang tapped the file folder on the table, and then dropped an even bigger bombshell.

"It has been officially decided that our Third Electronics Factory and the Academy of Sciences will jointly form a special task force to conduct destructive technical identification and reverse analysis of this equipment."

After listening, Jiang Ming closed the notebook and stuffed it back into the inner pocket of his work clothes. A strange light flashed in his bloodshot eyes, but he quickly suppressed it.

"We'll prepare for next week's matters next week. No matter how difficult that thing is to digest, it won't count until the actual product arrives."

Jiang Ming turned to look out the window in the direction of Workshop No. 1, his voice still steady.

"The only thing we can control right now is the five tubes in the workshop that haven't finished their tests yet."

After saying that, he nodded to Director Zhang and Wu Hanzhang, then turned and walked out of the office.

Pushing open the heavy, soundproof iron door of Workshop No. 1, the roar of the cooling water pump of the vacuum annealing furnace immediately filled Jiang Ming's ears.

In front of the test bench, five Type B tubes were still firmly inserted into the tube sockets, and the wires and insulating sleeves wrapped around them gleamed with an oily sheen under the work light.

Jiang Ming walked to the front of the stage and looked up at the aging test operation record card hanging on the iron frame.

The log card shows that the current test has progressed to the 290th hour.

Old Sun was holding a screwdriver, inspecting the pulse generator under the table. The reverse pulse system, which was temporarily assembled from a discarded radar transformer, had been running continuously for nearly thirty hours.

"What's the core temperature like?"

Jiang Ming squatted down and pointed to the black lump covered with enameled wire.

"It's only two or three degrees warmer than room temperature, not even lukewarm water."

Old Sun stretched out the back of his hand, which was covered in rosin, and touched the surface of the iron core. Then he grinned.

"Although this old Soviet relic is clumsy and crude, it has plenty of reserves. If it runs at this temperature, it won't burn out, let alone a hundred hours, even if it lasts for another two hundred hours."

Jiang Ming stood up, took the notebook, and carefully looked through the curve data left by Xiao Zhao after calibrating with the standard resistance box every eight hours.

The broken line representing the transmission current was so flat it looked as if it had been drawn with a steel ruler. After the two tubes, B04 and B05, were connected to the pulse, the reading remained firmly between 283.5 and 284 microamps, without any more worrying fluctuations.

As for the thickest coating, Yi-01, and Yi-02, which uses high-purity tungsten wire, they are more like two tireless oxen, and since they started running, they have not shown any signs of degradation.

Jiang Ming picked up the red and blue pencils hanging around his neck and wrote a line of annotations next to the square corresponding to the 290th hour in the notebook.

"There are still 210 hours, or about 8.7 days, short of the 500-hour standard. If there is no external interference or sudden abnormality, based on the current rate of decay, all five sample tubes can reach the full life target."

After writing this sentence, he hung the notebook back on the iron rack. The fatigue accumulated from staying up all night suddenly surged up like a tide, and his stomach churned with acid.

He gave Lao Sun a few instructions, telling him to be aware of potential voltage fluctuations in the power supply lines. Then he lifted the curtain, preparing to go to the factory canteen to get a bowl of hot soup noodles to tide him over.

Just as Jiang Ming stepped out of the tree-lined path in the factory area and was about to reach the side wall of the security office, the elderly man wearing reading glasses in the guardhouse suddenly rushed down the steps and blocked Jiang Ming's way.

The old comrade pulled a roughly folded piece of white paper from the pocket of his dark blue cotton-padded coat, stuffed it directly into Jiang Ming's hand, and said in a low voice:

"That crew-cut clerk from the security department asked me to give this to you ten minutes ago, saying it was urgent and that you should go see him immediately after reading it."