Kim Tae-young sits comfortably in the sun on a chair made of wooden piers. In early autumn, the climate in the Fort Westlake area is pleasant, and the sun is shining in the new timber processing plant facing the Lesser West River (San Lorenzo do Sul). Warm breezes blow from the sparkling river, bringing bursts of moist air mixed with the smell of water, which makes Kim Tae-young feel even more comfortable.

His Italian apprentice, Zenoni, respectfully brought him a glass of beer and placed it on the table next to him. Beer is not a rare drink in the East Coast Republic, but it is by no means a mass consumer product, and in a national backbone enterprise such as the First Machinery Factory, only craftsmen above the third level can enjoy a free cup after lunch every day, and Kim Tae-young is just such an intermediate skilled craftsman.

It has been five or six years since he came to the East Coast, and in the face of this primary industrialized country that is changing with each passing day, Kim Tae-young's inner feelings are complicated. On the one hand, he was extremely grateful to the new country for giving him an unimaginable material foundation for life from the beginning, and at the same time, it also gave him the opportunity to learn new skills that he had never been exposed to, and then he had the privileged life he has now. But on the other hand, he also resented that the people on the east coast forcibly took him to the New World tens of thousands of miles away from his hometown for no reason, so that he was cut off from everything in his hometown, such as mountains and rivers, relatives, etc., and maybe he would never have the opportunity to return to his hometown on the banks of the Nakdong River in this life.

However, Kim Tae-young is a pragmatic person, since it is no longer possible to return to his hometown, so it is better to bury that homesickness deep in his heart, after all, he still has his own life on the East Coast. His German wife, who seemed ugly and stupid to him, lived together for several years and bore him three lovely children. If you say that you don't have any affection for them, that's also false; In addition, his younger brother Kim Tae-strong also served as a non-commissioned officer in the Navy's Second Fleet. If it is because of their homesickness and resentment of the government, they are implicated. That's not worth it.

It has been less than half a year since the West Lake Fort was built, and even the city wall has not been completed, let alone those various building facilities. It is said that the five major construction bureaus of the Ministry of Communications are currently all responsible for the heavy construction tasks, and the construction materials are also in short supply, so the construction progress here is a little slow. However, the timber processing plant that has recently moved from Henan Township is a key national guarantee for construction, so the plant has priority over urban construction, and it was completely completed at the beginning of last month. And that's not all. Even the No. 1 Machinery Factory shipped six new steam woodworking lathes in the middle of last month to complete installation and commissioning.

The new steam woodworking lathe is much more advanced and efficient than the traditional hydraulic lathe, but the general principle has not been much more innovative, so Kim Tae-young quickly became familiar with the new machine. It's a pity that the quality of all kinds of steam power products produced by a machine factory is still as bad as ever, and the six steam lathes have only been used for more than a month, and one of them has a mechanical failure and a steam engine has also failed, so that only four can be used at present, which makes people laugh and cry.

The river sparkles, and from time to time a small steamer with black smoke docks at a small dock built by the timber processing factory itself. The South African labourers, squatting on the banks of the river, swarmed up at the urging of the overseers and began to unload the ship's cargo with the help of a steam crane. The goods were timber transported from the capital Henan Township. The original timber processing plant in the area was not relocated to the West Lake Fort as a whole, but only moved the part of the military production. As for the production of furniture, carriages, musical instruments, and even utensils such as dishes and chopsticks, the part still remains there.

These are all logs harvested from the New China Colony, and the preliminary antiseptic and insect control treatment has been done in the New China area before loading, but it can be seen that it is not done well. If it weren't for the good quality of the wood, the degree of rot and insect damage of the wood is estimated to be more serious, which makes Kim Tae-young, a veteran carpenter who has been dealing with wood since the Joseon Dynasty, feel a little distressed. What a beautiful piece of wood, it is rare to see a tree in North Korea with such dense wood, such delicate material, and such a large volume. These are all centuries-old trees, and these guys who have suffered a thousand knives have been loaded and shipped back on a ship so casually.

The timber is sent to the drying room for smoke drying before it can be used. As for the timber that is well dried, it is stacked in a specially designed storage room for later use.

Just as Kim Tae-yeong was in reverie, a loud voice suddenly yelled at the door of the workshop not far away: "Don't be lazy!" The processing task came above, 1,000 three-meter hardwood spear shafts, standard diameter, which were to be sent to the South African war readiness material warehouse, and there could be no delay! Quick, get back to work! ”

Kim Tae-yeong sighed, this is the voice of the workshop director, it seems that there is a combat readiness production task from above. I heard that some time ago, the Executive Committee passed a resolution to increase the number of troops in South Africa, because the black people there are not very peaceful, and they want to provoke the interests of the glorious and powerful East Coast Republic of China, so it is necessary to punish these mobs who provoke the civilized world, and this is exactly the incident and argument that the propaganda team has begun to propagate on a large scale in various parts of the country these days.

In order to meet the massive material needs arising from the large-scale use of troops on the front line, the state has also set up a planning and production management committee. This committee is a wartime organization, with the chairman of the executive committee personally serving as the chairman, the prime minister of the government affairs yuan, and the chief of the general staff of the military department as the deputy to coordinate the production activities of the domestic army, enterprises, mining bureaus, farms, and other institutions, so as to maximize the mobilization of domestic resources, give full play to the production potential, and provide a solid material foundation for the country to win the war.

After stuffing his beer cup to his apprentice Zenoni, Kim Tae-young walked towards the workshop without looking back. At present, there are only four steam carpentry lathes in the workshop, and a skilled operator like Kim Tae-young can process 4-5 spear shafts per hour, and even if four are used together, three shifts are produced, excluding the time spent on maintaining the machines and eating, it is estimated that only 300 spear shafts can be processed per day. I don't know how long the task of a thousand spear shafts will be completed, and if it doesn't work, I can only let those hydraulic and bicycle lathes that are about to be eliminated go out of the mountain again to exert residual heat, but that is the workshop director's concern, and it has nothing to do with himself, what he has to consider is how to produce qualified products with quality and quantity.

At the same time when the machinery roared in the timber processing factory on the banks of the Xiaoxi River in the West Lake Fort and began to process the spear shafts, the Northern Arsenal on the banks of the Yazi River (i.e., the Yakuyi River), more than 200 kilometers away, was also engaged in intense war-ready production. The workers of the Northern Arsenal were a little angry after the preaching team continued to publicize the heinous atrocities of the South African black people, such as the snatching of the cattle and sheep of the East Coast immigrants and the killing of the indigenous tribesmen who were protected by the East Coast and had their hearts set on the civilized world.

The preaching team was right! The Republic of China was the preeminent power of the New World, far ahead of the feudal states and indigenous tribes of the Old World in many ways. Her people have the highest standard of living and the highest literacy rate; Her culture is the best of the best, her system is the most advanced, and she gives opportunities to everyone who is capable rather than looking at their ancestry in the first place; Her soldiers have the strongest sense of honor and patriotism, and they don't just fight for money; This country is the great cause of all of us, and any thug who tries to tarnish the glory of the Republic of the East Bank must be judged justly!

After the propaganda offensive of the propaganda team, the director of the workshop announced a generous overtime production allowance for combat readiness in a timely manner, which made the workers cheer immediately. Soon, everyone was full of enthusiasm into production, in order to let the soldiers on the front line have qualified and sufficient weapons to use, everyone must work hard to ensure quality and quantity of production!

In the cold weapons workshop of the Northern Arsenal, the head of the spearhead production team instructed the workers to pour molten iron from the crucibles into rows of molds. The molds are specially made, reusable steel molds, 200 in total, all of which are made in standardized spearhead molds to the size of a three-meter spear. After the molten iron is condensed in the mold, the workers take out the forming spearhead from it and take it to the machining workshop to be handed over to the machine tool operators to polish and finish with the machine tool to make its dimensional accuracy meet the requirements of use. There was also a suggestion that the machine shop could directly turn a spearhead, but considering that it would be both scrap iron and scrap cutter heads (there are no high-hardness alloy cutter heads so far), it was quickly rejected. The machined spearheads are quickly loaded onto the heat treatment shop by the animal-powered rail trailers that pass through the plant, where the surface is carburized to make them harder and more wear-resistant.

The 1,200 spearheads (20 per cent spare parts) of the spears and the bolts for fixing them were carefully placed in marked boxes made of Paraná pine and then hauled to the docks by animal-powered rail trailers. At this moment, a small steamer of an inland waterway transport company has been waiting for a long time, and the dock workers easily load the cargo into the hold with the assistance of a steam tower crane. In the cabin, canned fruits and beef were transported from the Canned Food Factory in Jushu Township; hemostatic bandages shipped from the Ping An Weaving Factory; honeycomb coal and tin stoves transported from Coal River Township; and a small amount of locally produced rice and flour that had long filled the hold to the brim.

Early in the morning of April 4, the small inland river steamer numbered "Ping'an Yun 003" docked at the dock of the timber processing factory on the bank of the Xiaoxi River, and while intensively adding coal and water, the slaves at the dock had time to load the 1,000 hardwood spear shafts that had been processed onto the ship.

When the matter was done, the small steamer set sail again, and then it took only one day to reach the military dock of Zhenhai Harbor. At this time, the wharf was already full of war supplies transported from all over the country, and the large sail transport ships of the South China Sea Transport Company were docked here for intense loading, and next to these cargo ships, the escort naval warships were already ready.

Busy and orderly, the war machines of industrialized countries are beginning to emerge! (To be continued......)