With the current status of the Horse Laboratory in the scientific and technological world, it is too normal to be poached by other scientific research institutions.

Even a junior researcher with the lowest level in the ZAMA laboratory may lead a project in other scientific research institutions, and the most important thing is not the ability, but the research direction and integration ability, in both aspects, the ZAMA laboratory has outstanding capabilities.

Needless to say, Li Mu so far, although not involved in specific research, but still plays a major role in the control of scientific research direction, the research direction of the horse laboratory is the easiest to produce results, which is the fundamental reason why the horse laboratory is ahead of other scientific research institutions.

As for the integration ability, this is thanks to the perfect management system of the Horse Laboratory, although it has hundreds of employees and several sub-laboratories, the management of the Horse Laboratory is still in good order, which is much ahead of other scientific research institutions, even the Carnegie Materials Laboratory, which has the best relationship with the Horse Laboratory, is still a big gap with the Horse Laboratory in terms of management.

On this point, Li Muzhen did not hide his secrets, whether it was Carnegie or Rockefeller, when he came to visit the Horse Laboratory, Li Mu did not let people hide the specific management regulations of the Horse Laboratory, but in this era when "Successology" and "Management" have not yet become popular, few people really attach importance to the knowledge of management, even if it is Carnegie and Rockefeller.

For poaching, Li Mu has also taken precautions, all employees of the Junma laboratory have signed a confidential employment contract when they enter the company, which has provisions on resignation, all employees of the decoding laboratory, once they leave, shall not engage in related industries within five years, if this provision is violated, the Junma laboratory has the right to deal with it accordingly.

This "processing" is certainly not limited to accusations.

Although since the overthrow of Tweed, Li Mu has behaved harmlessly, and even because of the preparation for the National Automobile Rally, Li Mu has greatly received a wave of praise in the American media industry, but no one thinks that Li Mu has washed his hands since then and no longer uses violent means to deal with his enemies, but because of Li Mu's restraint, it is even more vigilant.

Not everyone is wary, such as Hirobumi Ito, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry of the Meiji government, who is inspecting the Sasebo smokeless powder factory.

In 1875, Ito was 44 years old, an age in the prime of life in the 21st century, but in the 19th century, he was already in his twilight years.

But for Ito, his political career has only just begun.

Ito Hirobumi was born in a poor family in Changzhou, and when he became an adult, he went to England to learn modern naval technology, and after the Meiji Restoration, Ito Hirobumi, who was then the Minister of Industry, advocated a comprehensive study of European and American countries, from political systems to customs, Ito Hirobumi advocated a comprehensive copy, and the smokeless gunpowder factory in Sasebo was established at the insistence of Ito Hirobumi.

As the most radical reformist in the Meiji government, Ito Hirobumi initially advocated full cooperation with the Kuama Group and a complete replication of the Kuama Group in Japan.

This idea was a good one, but in the early contact, the anti-Japanese sentiment shown by Li Mu made Ito Hirobumi feel uneasy.

Therefore, Ito Hirobumi no longer pinned his hopes on cooperation, but found another way, preparing to build a modern Japanese military industry in his own way.

"Li Mu, the founder of the Junma Group, is Chinese, but such a person is not valued by the Qing Empire, so he can only be an American citizen and establish a great cause in the United States, which is a fortunate thing for our Japanese Empire! What the Chinese can do, can't we Yamato people do? Facts have proved that we can do it, our current smokeless gunpowder factory is proof, as long as we are given the opportunity, we can make achievements will not be worse than the Chinese, nor worse than the Westerners, one day we can prove that our Yamato nation is a truly excellent nation, a noble nation. Ito Hirobumi was also a fervent racist, and he always took every opportunity to promote the "theory of racial superiority" and boost the self-confidence of Japanese people, no matter what the occasion.

To tell the truth, Ito's words do not stand up to scrutiny, Japan as a country, the Yamato nation, whether from a historical point of view or from the present, has not made any contribution to human progress, Japan does not have the "four great inventions", nor the "industrial revolution", their only role is probably to increase the population base of mankind and improve the genetic diversity of human beings.

In this case, the only way to improve the self-confidence of Japanese people is to blow it.

Hirobumi Ito himself knows that he is bragging, but if he brags about this kind of thing, he blows too much, and it becomes true, and even he believes it.

"What you are saying is that what we are doing today is just the beginning, and we believe that in the near future, under your leadership, Japan will definitely have its own Tsushima Group." It was Shigeyama Noguchi, the director of the smokeless gunpowder factory, who spoke.

Noguchi Shigeyama has a similar experience to Ito Hirobumi, born in a civilian family, and traveled to Europe and the United States in his early years, but Ito Hiroshi literature is in the navy, and Noguchi Shigeyama studied chemistry, so Noguchi Shigeyama was able to serve as the director of a smokeless gunpowder factory.

"We must have confidence, although we have not made many achievements at the moment, we must firmly believe that we can do it, we can do it..." Ito Hirobumi's language is very inflammatory, and if you put it in the 21st century, even if you are not a politician, you can put it in a pyramid scheme, Ito Hirobumi is also a good hand.

"There may have been doubts about it before, but since we have successfully produced smokeless gunpowder, everyone has believed in it." Noguchi Shigeyama's expression was firm, and the sincerity he showed was just right.

In order to ensure that the smokeless gunpowder factory has sufficient security and secrecy, the Japanese government has set aside a military forbidden area in Sasebo, covering an area of as much as 10 square kilometers, including the Japanese, and whoever intrudes into this area, the guards have the right to shoot them on the spot.

The Meiji government still didn't have money, and although the area of the smokeless gunpowder factory was large, the factory building was not very good, not to mention the reinforced concrete, not even the masonry structure, and the wooden structure was actually used.

Such houses are very common in Japan, Japan is located in an earthquake-prone area, the building must first be earthquake-resistant, the earthquake resistance of the wooden structure house is obviously very good, but once such a house catches fire, the result...

Well, fortunately this is a gunpowder factory, fire prevention is the most basic, and the separation between houses is large enough that it is basically impossible to think about fire.

Not to mention that compared with the factories of the Kufma Group, which are committed to building excellence, even compared to the relatively simple DuPont family factory, Sasebo's smokeless gunpowder factory can only be described as shabby.

The factory is a row of low lying houses, there is no glass on the window, the use of the most primitive window paper, it is now in the middle of winter, in order to ensure the lighting, the window even the curtains do not dare to use, the cold wind is howling and the snow is flying, and the temperature in the house can be imagined.

The ground inside the factory has not been hardened, and now it is better in winter, the mud and snow on the ground are frozen, and in a few months, once the spring flowers bloom, it will be a big mud pond.

The workers' clothing is also very simple, no woolen coats, no big scalp shoes, many workers still wear thin single clothes to work, the shoes under their feet are traditional clogs, many people don't even have a pair of socks, their toes are frozen red, or black, this is already a sign of frostbite, if not well protected, the face can only be amputated.

This is all the price of development, Ito Hirobumi turned a blind eye to all this, at least the workers here still have something to eat, and there is already a famine in the outside world, and after this winter, I don't know how much I will freeze to death and starve to death.

Every winter is a hurdle.

"The trial production of smokeless gunpowder is going very smoothly, and at present, the smokeless gunpowder we produce has passed the test of the military department and can be used in the production of ordnance, but due to the shortage of raw materials, our production capacity is still extremely limited, and it is far from meeting the needs of the military department." There was pride in Noguchi's words, but there was also a hint of melancholy.

The production of smokeless gunpowder is different from traditional gunpowder in that it requires certain chemical additives, which cannot be produced in Japan and needs to be purchased with valuable foreign currency, which is the main reason for the current restriction on the output of Sasebo's smokeless powder factory.

"You don't have to worry about the problem of raw materials, I will find a way, what you have to do is to organize production as much as possible under the current conditions, at least not to lag behind the Qing people." Ito Hirobumi knew that the Qing Empire also had a smokeless gunpowder factory, so for now, Ito did not expect Japan's smokeless gunpowder production to surpass that of the United States, but at least to maintain an advantage in the face of the Qing Empire.

"The Qing Empire... Yes, definitely not behind. Noguchi gritted his teeth and made a promise to Hirobumi Ito.

Relatively speaking, the difficulties faced by the Qing Empire's smokeless gunpowder factories were much smaller than those faced by the Sasebo smokeless gunpowder factories, at least the Qing Empire's smokeless gunpowder factories would not face the pressure of raw material shortages, although the Qing Empire could not produce those chemical additives, but the Qing Empire had the money and enough funds to buy from Western countries.

Ito Hirobumi also knows this, and he can look at the West with a little greed: "The Qing Empire is the most unenterprising country in the world, they have the best land in the world, they rule the smartest people in the world, but they have not grown in the slightest, and they lose their power and humiliate the country in the face of Western countries, this is a country that has decayed, and they should be buried in the grave." ”

Japan's feelings towards the Qing state were also very complicated, and for a long time, Japan still retained its fear of the Qing Empire in the face of the Han state, but after the Opium War, this fear disappeared with the strong ships and cannons of the West.

On the one hand, people of insight in Japan were worried that their country would follow in the footsteps of the Qing Empire, and on the other hand, they also urgently needed to show the glory of Japan in this magnificent era, so there was the Meiji Restoration.

Almost at the same time, the Qing Empire also began the Westernization Movement, but compared with the Japanese government, which took the initiative to carry out the Meiji Restoration, the Qing government's Westernization Movement was carried out passively, and the gap between the two is not the same, and the balance of national power between the two countries is slowly changing.

Noguchi Shigeyama was about to continue to say a few words impassionedly, but suddenly smelled a trace of fireworks on the tip of his nose.

This is a gunpowder factory, and fireworks are strictly prohibited, and Noguchi Shigeyama immediately became nervous.

"What does it smell like?" Ito Hirobumi screamed, and the surrounding entourage immediately dispersed to check.

Perhaps because the weather was too cold, several workers hid in a small forest near the gunpowder factory, picked up some dead branches and leaves, lit a fire and kept warm.

These workers were quite careful, they were hiding in the grove far from the factory, and the fire was not large, but it was only because of the dark clouds that the air flow was not smooth, which was discovered by Ito Hirobumi.

It was unforgivable to bake a fire in a gunpowder factory, and Ito's entourage tied up the four workers and waited for Ito to be released.

Although it was already the middle of winter, these four workers were still wearing the single clothes they wore in the summer, although they wore several layers of single clothes, but in the face of the pervasive wind and snow, this level of defense hardly played any role.

These four people have frostbite on their hands and feet to varying degrees, and two of them even have obvious chilblains on their faces, and after being caught red-handed by Ito Hirobumi's entourage, these four people seem to have realized their fate, their faces are like earth, and their hearts are like death, neither struggling nor begging for mercy, just kneeling there motionless and waiting for the hair to fall.

"Sir, please give me the opportunity to purge discipline personally, I will cut off their heads with my own hands, emphasize the discipline of the factory, and sound the alarm for all the workers." Noguchi gritted his teeth and wanted to wash away his shame with blood.

For Noguchi Shigeyama, what happened in the gunpowder factory was indeed a mistake in his own management, which was an unforgivable mistake and his own shame, and if he wanted to wash away such a shame, he even had to use the extreme method of disembowelment.

"Do you guys have any other requests?" Hirobumi Ito had no mercy.

"I just hope that I can give my child a meal." Halfway through, a worker knelt on the ground and begged.

Hirobumi Ito noticed that in the fire that had been extinguished, there were several round potatoes.

How many workers are to blame?

No, at this moment, Ito Hirobumi only had a deep sadness in his heart.

If they had enough food, they wouldn't have risked the world's condemnation to burn potatoes in the factory, and if they could get enough warm clothing, they wouldn't have made a fire here, listening to their dying requests, just to give their children a full meal...

"Send a sack of wheat to their family." Hirobumi Ito commanded softly, then turned away.

A bag of wheat is the value of a human life.