"In recent years, the country's technological development has been very rapid, and foreign exchanges have become more and more frequent, which has put forward higher requirements for secrecy and espionage work." At the starting point of the Liangyang Railway and the wharf of Xingnan Port, an important town in the southern cone, Sheng Dehong, who had just been transferred from the State Intelligence Administration to the Syphilis Patient Investigation Bureau, said to his subordinates.

Because the state has established a number of so-called "cutting-edge science and technology" research institutions in the depths of the Patagonian Plateau, some sensitive equipment also arrives at Xingnan Port from time to time, and then sends it to Montenegro Township and the shore of Xuefeng Lake through the Liangyang Railway and its branch lines for the use of those secret factories or research institutions.

Sheng Dehong was a senior cadre when he was in the State Intelligence Administration, and he climbed to the high position of director of the department, and although he is now a flat transfer Mei organ, I heard that when a deputy director in his seventies retires next year, he is very likely to take over as deputy director general. At present, the director of the General Bureau is also an old man in his seventies and eighties, and he will retire almost next year, so the throne of the General Director may not be incapable of contending.

Moreover, unlike the State Intelligence Administration, which has a big business and fierce competition, the scale of the Syphilis Patient Statistical Survey Bureau is not so large, the degree of youth of cadres is not enough, and the gathering of old men has been a chronic disease for many years.

Therefore, now everyone understands that Sheng Dehong jumped out of the State Intelligence Administration in one step, which is really a sea and a sky, and this step is not easy, using a lot of relationships and consuming a lot of favors. In the future, if you can't make some achievements in your new job and use it as a step forward, then you can really buy a piece of tofu and kill yourself, the future of the family will delay you, what else is there to say?

Sheng Dehong is now in charge of the South Patagonia area in the Mei Agency, with a focus on the South Cone Transoceanic Railway. Not only is there a large number of assets left over from the original Southern Railway Company - many of which are still very good and advanced in China, and have not been dilapidated after being handed over to the government, but have been maintained with new investment - but also many projects jointly invested by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Engineering Technology Research Institute and other relevant state-owned factories.

These projects are all cutting-edge science and technology related to the future of the country, and the government has devoted a lot of effort to this, so they are very important and are the key monitoring areas of the Syphilis Patient Statistics Survey Bureau, which focuses on domestic counter-espionage. Over the years, countless scientific research workers have left the bustling eastern coastal region for various reasons, and brought experimental equipment and students' families to the desolate southern part of Patagonia to engage in research and development of various scientific and technological aspects.

Some of these people left after a year and a half, some worked and lived for several years, and of course some of them have not left yet, in short, all of them have put in great hardships and efforts to promote considerable technology and progress. And if there is any regret, it is that there are still too few such people, it is not easy for the country to cultivate talents, and there are many places to employ people, many departments are unwilling to release people, and the state does not have mandatory requirements, so the investment is still slightly insufficient - of course, this is actually very understandable, the old technology is already a lot ahead of the old continent, and the value has not been completely squeezed out.

The scientific and technological personnel who came to work in the scientific research base in Patagonia and then returned to the eastern coast inevitably let all kinds of news about this place slowly spread out, after all, not everyone can keep their mouths shut, so now many Chinese people also know about the existence of such a mysterious place. And the people know about it, and naturally it will inevitably pass on to the spies of other countries who have been drooling over the technology on the east coast, so they are now trying to go to that place and wait for an opportunity to steal the relevant information, even though they have not even fully understood the steam engine technology yet.

It was against this background that Sheng Dehong took office, and today's inspection at Xingnan Port was his first business trip since taking office. There was a batch of important machines on the dock that were about to be loaded out of the port, and he had to come out and keep an eye on it himself, for fear that something would happen. As for what kind of machine made our elite intelligence officer, who was about to be promoted to deputy director, not to leave the office? In fact, it is very simple, that is, a total of more than 30 hydraulic presses and related accessories.

There are a total of 32 units of this equipment, and there are three models, covering the "Ironworker-1" to "Ironworker-3", which has been mass-produced by Dong'an. Type 1 and Type 2 hydraulic presses for ironsmiths were already popular in the 60s, and were used in many state-owned enterprises, and in the 70s, almost all state-owned enterprises with a little higher grade began to use them - at least Type 1 was equipped, and Type 2 was a little worse.

Now in the 80s, the type 2 hydraulic press with a total weight of more than 5 tons and a nominal pressure of more than 100 tons has also been popularized to various equipment manufacturing and machining manufacturers, playing an unparalleled role in the industrial production and construction of the east coast. And not only that, but now such as the first heavy machinery factory, railway machinery processing plant, southern vehicle factory, Tieling Heavy Industry Complex, Ping An Coal and Steel Complex, three major shipyards and other core backbone enterprises on the east coast have also successively purchased a kind of hydraulic machinery and equipment called "ironworker-3" type to contribute to industrial production.

The "Ironworker-3" hydraulic press was established about 20 years ago, with a total pressure of 200 tons and a liquid working pressure of 200 kg/cm²; The maximum stroke is 600 mm, the minimum distance from the movable beam to the work surface is 650 mm, and the maximum distance is 1250 mm; The table size is 3000×1500 mm, the external dimensions are 6000×2100×6400 mm, and a small steam engine with a power of tens of horsepower is used to provide pressure.

This type of machine was finalized about fifteen years ago. At that time, the Second Heavy Machinery Plant began to supply several large state-owned factories in small batches and asked them to provide complete usage data for improvement. By the mid-70s, this large-scale equipment, which had a bit of a bad fate compared to the previous two generations, finally underwent a final overhaul and began to expand the scale of production to supply more manufacturers, and has now begun to become another magic weapon of East Coast Machinery Manufacturing. Especially in the field of vital military manufacturing, the large-scale use of the "ironworker-3" hydraulic press has greatly reduced the production cost of the previously relatively expensive 120 mm caliber cannon (similar to the European 12-pounder gun), although it cannot be called the "cabbage price", but the 120 mm long-barreled artillery that was regarded as a high-end product in the past has become a mid-range product, which shows the huge role brought by this equipment - of course, the "ironworker-3" hydraulic press is completely used in the field of military manufacturing. Its most common use occasions are still national core industries such as shipbuilding and railways.

This time, there are two "ironworker-3" hydraulic presses that are ready to be loaded and shipped out of the port, one of which is ready to be shipped to Xinhuaxia Island, which is purchased by Xinhua Shipyard with a precious index that only takes several years, and the price has reached 25,000 yuan, which is very amazing; The other one will be shipped to Sakhalin Island and ordered by the local Heishui Machinery Factory, which has just been built in its entirety, and the price is much cheaper than that of the Xinhua Shipyard, only 20,000 yuan, of which the difference of 5,000 yuan will be shared by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Second Heavy Factory.

This kind of important weapon of the country cannot flow into the hands of outsiders! Each machine is numbered, registered with the local intelligence service, and regularly inspected by a special person. Once something goes wrong, from the user unit to the supervision unit, from the front-line personnel to the office management cadres, none of them can escape, they will all be held accountable, sentencing and exile are just waiting for leisure, and the death penalty is also within the scope of the judge's sentencing, which can be described as very serious, so even senior cadres like Sheng Dehong are present, for fear that something will happen and affect his good future.

More than 30 pieces of equipment have all been transported to a dock via the port's flatbed railcars. More than 30 policemen with rifles stood guard at the perimeter, while more than a dozen people from the Nizhong Plant and the Syphilis Statistical Survey Bureau were doing their final checks before loading the ship. They spent a long time before the wooden box containing the main components of the "Ironworker-3" hydraulic press - after the machine arrived in South Africa, Yicheng, New China, Australia, Rabaul and the Far East San Francisco, it also had to be assembled, debugged and calibrated on the spot by engineers arriving with the ship, and each large part had to be repeatedly compared against the drawings to ensure that there were no problems before sealing the wooden box and affixing the seal.

As for the large number of "blacksmith-1" and type 2 hydraulic presses, they were not so tight, although they also carefully examined, but it can be seen that they are not as close to the enemy as the Type 3. This may be due to the fact that the first two earlier models were not so classified as high, although they are still on the list of machines that are restricted from export.

Speaking of which, I have to mention. In fact, a few years ago, by the order of the Government Council, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Engineering Technology Research Institute and the Second Heavy Machinery Factory joined forces to begin the development of the fourth hydraulic machinery and equipment in the history of the East Coast Republic of China, that is, the "Ironworker-4" hydraulic press.

According to the current design plan of the Second Heavy Machinery Plant, the nominal pressure of this hydraulic press should be 320-350 tons, powered by a 35-40 horsepower steam engine, which can process dozens of components. Even the iron ship keel that has been proposed by people in China for many years, as long as it is not particularly long, if it is processed slowly, it can also be "gnawed" out little by little - of course, the cost of this processing is very touching, and it is completely uncompetitive compared to the wooden keel, you must know that the east coast is not short of high-density, high flexibility, long and straight high-quality wood, why use your so-called iron keel with huge cost, uneven quality and limited length? Is it just to force the qualifications?

In addition to the "ironworker-4 type", in fact, the Ministry of Science and Technology also requires the second heavy plant to develop a "ironworker-5" hydraulic press with a nominal pressure of 500 tons, in order to fill the demand for large-scale hydraulic equipment in some domestic "high-end production" processes, although this demand is very small.

However, the Ministry of Science and Technology also made it clear that Type 4 needs to be prioritized for development and development, and Type 5 can be ranked behind, after all, everything must be based on market demand, and it cannot be blindly launched in order to build a large hydraulic press. The country's resources are limited, and what is made at a great cost must be widely used, otherwise it is fun to rust there?

"Director Sheng, all 32 pieces of equipment have been inspected and confirmed, this is the receipt." After spending more than three hours inspecting all the equipment and accessories, a cadre of the Mei organ wearing a "black skin" trotted over and reported to Sheng Dehong, who was standing there.

Sheng Dehong took a few pieces of paper from him, carefully flipped through them twice, confirmed that the model, name, and quantity were correct, and signed his name at the end. Then, with a soft sigh, he placed the papers in the crocodile-skin briefcase that his secretary had carried. This is all to be taken back and locked for archiving, and in case something happens in the future, it can be taken out and restored retroactively, so it is very important and must be properly preserved.

"If it's no problem, just close the team, and don't stay here longer, the impact is not good." Looking up at the sky, Sheng Dehong waved his hand and said, "Everyone has it, go to the Xingnan County Office to hold a meeting." ”

Under Sheng Dehong's order, most of the "black skins" returned to the county seat in several carriages, except for a few people who were going to travel far away with the ship. At this meeting, Sheng Dehong used the example of a spy captured a while ago (this person was a low-level port manager, in the service of the Kingdom of France, and Italian to a non-national), and analyzed where the personnel of the local Syphilis Statistical Survey Bureau had made mistakes in the past several years, and how to avoid them in the future.

The two-hour meeting made the cadres of the local branch nervous, and they broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that the newly transferred Director Sheng was afraid that it would not be easy to deal with, and there would be more difficult days in the future. Because Director Sheng has already made it clear that next time there is such a thing that cannot be discovered in time due to his own negligence, the chief official will be investigated and punished for dereliction of duty, and the secondary personnel will also be held accountable one by one, and the lightest punishment will be demoted, which is much more severe than before, which makes people feel a little panicked.

After the analysis meeting, Sheng Dehong did not stay in Xingnan County for long, but took the La Plata Star train with his secretary all the way to the Black Mountain Township Railway Station, where his office was located in a small three-story building behind the railway station, where he would rest for a day or two, and then he would go north again to check the secrecy and anti-espionage work in the north.