Nie Renfeng arranged for Tan Renhao to be a group of officers in charge of technology, many of whom were from the Naval Equipment Technology Office. These people were young, and most of them were lieutenants. They all have a unifying characteristic, that is, their imagination is particularly rich, and they can think of many things that others can't think of.

Tan Renhao also made up a reason, not telling these young officers the real purpose, which was required for secrecy. Of course, he made these officers understand one thing, that is, this time they want to fish up some things on the seabed hundreds of meters below the surface of the sea, as for what it is, there is no need to talk about Renhao so obviously.

"It's definitely not possible to send divers, even with the best diving equipment now, it's only a maximum of 2oo meters, and it's very dangerous, and the working time after each dive is only half an hour." The captain officer in charge of the dive shrugged his shoulders, "If the water depth in this area is close to 1ooo meters, then no one can dive so deep, maybe not even sharks." ”

"There is also the problem of lighting, if the depth is more than 2oo meters, you have to use artificial lighting, and divers can't carry these things." Another officer also raised a question.

"So, we're going to have to do something else?" Tan Renhao glanced at everyone.

"People definitely can't get down, so they can only use remote control."

"Remote control?" Tan Renhao glanced at the officer.

"That's right, people operate on ships on the surface of the sea, and use remote control methods to salvage things on the bottom of the sea."

Tan Renhao sat down, motioned for everyone not to stand, and then let the officer continue.

"I also found inspiration in some experiments conducted by the Germans." "Last year, several German scientists proposed that a remote control method could be used to guide the bomb to the target. In previous months, the Luftwaffe also conducted several experiments, dropping a batch of bombs remotely controlled by cables, although they were of little practical significance. But it all worked well. Now the Germans are ready to remove the cable and ...... it with radio remote control"

"In the sea, radio doesn't work." Another officer immediately made an observation.

"Yes, we can use cables."

"Is there a technical problem?" Tan Renhao doesn't care about radios or cables, he just cares about whether it's feasible to do so.

"The technical problems are not big, in fact, the principles are very simple." The officer, seeing that the general valued his opinion, became active. "The most basic principle is to use the switching effect of the current and the strength of the current to drive the motor, control the operation of the equipment, and make other actions. Although these actions were very simple, for example, the Germans used them to control the deflection angle of the bomb's tail in order to change the course of the bomb. But that's enough for us to fish up the seabed. ”

"When will I be able to come up with something concrete?" Tan Renhao is really unheard of about this technology.

"This ......"

"Any questions?"

"General, we haven't done any practice in this area before, and we don't know exactly how to do it. We just know the basics. And how to design, how to manufacture, these are all engineers' business. ”

"So. You're a naval engineer now. Tan Renhao was very simple and decisive, "Do you need me to help you?" ”

"This ......," the captain hesitated, "I need a few mechanical and electrical engineers, and an electrical signal engineer, and a mechanical engineer, and they all had to be proficient in their own business." ”

"Where can I find these engineers?" Talking about Renhao, this question is for everyone.

"Mechatronic engineers can be found in shipyards, aircraft factories, electronic signal engineers can be found in factories that make radars, and mechanical engineers are easier to find." Another officer replied immediately.

"Well, immediately contact these factories in the name of the Navy Command." Tan Renhao stood up. "If I need to sign the order, you go and get it ready, and if the marshal needs to come forward, I will go to the marshal. Also, you go to the factory yourself, and call whoever is satisfied, no problem, right? ”

Seeing that Tan Renhao was so decisive, how could those officers still have any problems.

"I'll give you the order in the afternoon. Then you go to the factory and ask for someone. Tan Renhao glanced at everyone, "Bring these people back as soon as possible, and then give me an accurate answer, when can you remotely control what you are talking about...... Remote control or something. ”

"General, do we need to salvage anything important this time? Is it a cipher machine of the US military? ”

Tan Renhao glanced at the officer who asked. "You don't need to know what you want to salvage, you should know the secrecy rules, right? Just do what you have to do. ”

In the afternoon of the same day, these staff officers went to several factories under the Navy to ask for people with the order signed by Tan Renhao and stamped with the seal of the Navy Headquarters. The next day, they returned to the naval command with those engineers. Tan Renhao arranged a temporary work site for them in the basement of the headquarters, and then asked the engineers to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan.

Two days later, the engineers came to the conclusion that this solution was feasible, but it was more troublesome, mainly because no such machine had been made before.

"Then it's up to you to build one now." Tan Renhao didn't discuss much with these engineers at all, "What do you need, you make a list and come out, I will get you land, in addition, do you need a larger workplace?" I'll arrange it for you if you need to. Come up with a design plan first and estimate the time it will take. ”

The engineers were a little dumbfounded, although they didn't know the purpose of building this machine, but they could see that this time they were going to build this machine no matter what.

"General, let's finish the design now." An older engineer spoke, "We'll give you a list of the equipment you need tomorrow, and the sooner we get it, the sooner we can get started." ”

"You don't need to worry about this question, give me an accurate answer after completing the design."

The next day, the engineers handed over the list of equipment needed to Tan Renhao. Tan Renhao had already contacted the person in charge of the logistics department, and then asked them to get the equipment to the naval headquarters. In order to save time, Tan Renhao even mobilized more than a dozen transport planes to transport these equipment. The officers who were in charge of the logistics of the Navy Command were also surprised, what does the Navy Command want so many machine tools? Is there not enough factories in the Empire, ready to turn the naval command into factories as well?

By December 5, the engineer had submitted his design. This is actually a remote-controlled robotic arm, which can only do the simplest telescopic and grabbing movements, using the rotation of the motor. The movement of the robotic arm is controlled by the magnitude of the current and the switching effect of the current. Tan Renhao only barely understood the drawings, and then asked the engineer to start building a sample immediately, and asked when it would be built, and the engineer's reply was at least half a month.

"Headmaster, they've done their best." This time it was Tan Renhao's turn to complain to Nie Renfeng, "I have asked them to make the sample as quickly as possible, but ......"

"Do you know why you are in such a hurry to salvage the gold from the submarine?" Nie Renfeng didn't ask about Renhao's side, he was only responsible for giving orders and making requests. "The submarine that was transporting the gold was sunk by one of our submarines with a torpedo on the surface. Before sinking. The submarine did not have time to send a telegram. That is, now neither Japan nor the United States know that the submarine has been sunk. And according to the degree of sailing of this submarine, it will probably reach the west coast of the United States around the end of January. If the submarine does not arrive by then. What do you think the Japanese think? ”

Tan Renhao frowned. "Headmaster, what do you mean ......"

"We will get the gold before we do it, and destroy the submarine, and by then, no one will know that the submarine has been sunk by us, and the gold is in our hands. The Japanese were suspicious by nature, and they would certainly suspect that the Americans had detained the submarine halfway and embezzled their gold. I'm afraid that the United States and Japan are going to tear their faces apart for these hundreds of tons of gold, which will be of great benefit to us. ”

"But the Japanese should believe that the submarine was sunk by us."

"Even if we sink it. In the future, we can also announce that we have sunk this submarine in another sea, and it must be a very deep sea, I am afraid that there will be no way to fish the submarine in the next few decades, and who knows that the gold is in our hands? ”

Tan Renhao nodded. "Okay, then I'll go and urge them again."

"Ten days, ten days at most." Nie Renfeng stood up, "After the experiment is successful, we will immediately start building in large quantities, and we may need dozens of such equipment." There are not enough hands. Arrange a group of officers who know how to operate machine tools to help. When the work is done, the engineers are sent to the factories in the interior, and the officers are told that they cannot tell anyone what they are doing. ”

"I know, I'll go over and say hello to them now."

Under Tan Renhao's urging, the engineers and several officers who could operate the machine tool worked overtime for ten days and ten nights for ten days and nights, and finally manufactured the sample. Subsequently, Tan Renhao went to transfer a patrol boat and took those engineers to the vicinity of Dagong Island in the Saddle Islands to conduct experiments.

"The water depth here is about 350 meters, which is a little shallower, but it should prove the reliability of this machine." The mechanical engineer in charge of the general design is surnamed Li, about forty-five years old, and used to work in Shen Fei.

"Okay, then hurry up and start, and strive to return to Zhoushan in the evening." Tan Renhao glanced at the sky, it was already noon.

The sea is a bit rough and the air is very cold, there are no other ships around, and there are only a few hundred residents on Dagong Island, and there are often patrol boats on this side in the past, and no one will notice that the sea is this inconspicuous patrol boat.

The robotic arm is lowered into the seawater, and its end is connected by a steel cable to a small crane on the patrol boat, which is finally set on a winch that controls the depth at which the arm descends. There are markings on the steel cable every ten meters to quickly determine the length of the released steel cable, that is, the depth at which the robotic arm will dive. In the middle of the arm is a steel pipe with a wire cage welded to it, and at the top of the cage there is a far hole about 5o centimeters in diameter, which is used to hold the salvaged items. The front end of the robotic arm is the movable part, and a total of three sets of motors drive the movement of the robotic arm, of which the direction motor connected to the steel pipe mainly drives the robotic arm to rotate. The middle is a shrinking motor, which controls the expansion and contraction of the mechanical arm by controlling the length of the two steel wires, and the front end is the opening and closing motor, which also uses a group of rotating devices to control the opening and closing of the two steel fingers at the front end of the mechanical arm through two steel wires, so as to grasp the object. A video camera is mounted on a steel tube behind the steel fingers of the robotic arm, and next to the camera is a high-powered flashlight made of quartz glass sheets up to 5 inches thick, which is used to illuminate and photograph underwater objects.

The entire arm is designed to be extremely sophisticated, with three cables transmitting the control signal to the robotic arm, while the image captured by the camera is converted into an electromagnetic signal and transmitted back to the ship by another cable to be displayed on a television screen. The most troublesome of these is the transmission of the image captured by the camera, the engineer used the TV broadcasting technology that had just appeared, and tried to reduce the size and size of the system, but the result was that the system still weighed 200 kilograms, and was installed in a sealed container one meter long, half a meter wide, and 40 centimeters thick, and there was a piece of quartz glass at the front end of the container as a window for the camera. And the buoyancy that this container is capable of generating is exactly the same as its own weight.

In fact, it was the most primitive robotic arm, and it was extremely cumbersome to operate, and it took the engineers half an hour to load a stone from the bottom of the sea into the wire mesh during the test. But it's definitely a huge step forward, a huge success.

Later, Tan Renhao also asked the engineers to make improvements, such as installing a welding torch on the robotic arm to cut the shell of the submarine. Because it is not a large-scale manufacturing, these engineers can only assemble dozens of such robotic arms in the workshop, and after mobilizing a group of personnel to help, it was not until January 25 that Tan Renhao prepared twenty-five such robotic arms.