1942 was a milestone year for the Haitang Kingdom. Prior to this, although the Haitang Kingdom had a few islands that could barely be called national territory, there was almost no guarantee in terms of security, and it was not worthy of a foundation at all. Therefore, Li Guang has been making some short-term investments.

But after completely taking Madagascar, Li Guang's thinking has begun to change. In fact, some changes are not Li Guang's ideas, but are dominated by non-governmental industry and commerce. Delving into the reasoning, it is natural that economic laws are at work.

For example, the industry with the largest industrial and commercial output value and trade volume in Haitang - mortars and mortar shells.

The main components of the mortar itself are still produced by the original artillery factory of the "state-owned enterprise" Navy Resistance Army - such as the barrel. And order some parts from private enterprises that are not very important and difficult to produce, such as bases. Then some high-tech parts such as gunshots were ordered from the United States, and then assembled by state-owned enterprises.

Much like the 21st century, there is a certain industrial model in China - leading enterprises plus a series of small enterprises, and then form a complete industrial chain.

This industrial model greatly reduces the government's investment, but also increases the production capacity to a very ideal state, and the cost is reduced to the extreme.

In 42 years, the production capacity of mortars is not very large, but it is expected that in the middle 4 or 3 years, the production capacity of various mortars will reach more than 2,000 units, and may even reach 4,000 units.

Due to the low price and relatively good quality of the mortars in the Haitang Kingdom, the sales situation and sales prospects are quite good.

Uruguay, which has the closest relationship with the Haitang Kingdom, ordered more than 400 mortars at one time. Peru and Bolivia, on the other hand, emptied almost all the old mortars of the Navy.

In addition to this, the USSR was now in a stage of serious shortage of weapons, and more than a thousand mortars of various types were ordered at one time. And Britain is now also beginning to accept mortars from the Haitang Kingdom.

US military aid to the USSR and Great Britain. Most of them are converted into US dollars in the form of weapons, ammunition and materials. Haitang has purchased enough American supplies, and is well aware of one of the biggest characteristics of American weapons -- expensive. The price of some weapons has even doubled compared to before the war.

Britain and the Soviet Union were naturally aware of the astonishingly high price of US military supplies, so they also received a considerable amount of cash in the process of negotiations with the United States, and then purchased suitable weapons themselves. And the money about mortars naturally went to the Haitang Kingdom.

The core reason for this is only one thing – cheapness.

Although Li Guang knew that almost none of the military aid funds provided by the United States to the Soviet Union and Britain after the war were returned, the British and Soviet Union did not know about it now. It is precisely because of this that Haitang Kingdom's sales of this weapon with slightly lower technology content are increasing day by day.

For the Haitang Kingdom, the production of mortars. Most of the raw materials were artillery steel obtained from the Soviet Union, and some parts and components obtained from the United States were not of high technical content. The selling price is also low, and to be honest, it doesn't make much money.

But think about China's reform and opening up. Isn't it just a low-end product produced? Although Haitang can only produce low-end products now, it is not completely independent production. But. As long as there is a scale with an annual output of thousands of doors. Li Guang believes that it will not be long before the industrial chain for the production of mortars in Haitang will be perfected. The competition of low-end products may not be profitable, but for a country like Haitang with a blank sheet of paper, it is a big step forward in improving the industrial system.

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Mortars are a model of state-run plus privately-owned. And mortar shells are completely private.

From raw materials to production to sales. Almost all of them rely on private enterprises. This is the largest industrial industry in Haitang Kingdom, and the most commendable thing is that the industrial chain of this industry has been perfected in just two or three years.

Mortar shells are considered the simplest of all shells, but there are dozens of parts for a mortar. The production process also has considerable requirements, not that there is no technical content at all.

Now there are at least five or six hundred factories around Vladivostok for mortar shells.

Some of these factories or workshops are larger, some are smaller. The big one had three or two hundred workers, and the smaller one had only three or two people.

Many factories produce only one part or perform a machining process. These large and small factories are clustered together, quite a bit of a specialized township that emerged after China's reform and opening up in the 80s.

The quality of the personnel in the factory is not the same, and the equipment is not the same. Some machine tools rely on electricity, and some machine tools are simply manpower.

But what should not be underestimated is that these factories have amassed thousands of machines of all kinds, from drilling machines worth a few dollars to lathes worth $300.

Some factories only produce one type of spring, while others produce firing pins. There are even manufacturers that can produce balls.

Most of the larger manufacturers are engaged in the production of coke or casting projectiles.

There are also two or three leading enterprises, mainly engaged in filling explosives and assembling bombs. Due to the refinement of the division of labor, coupled with the low labor force in the Tang Kingdom, the production cost of mortar shells fell sharply. At present, the cost of production has dropped to about 900 US dollars a tonne.

In Li Guang's view, this is exactly the professional township model after China's reform and opening up. In the 21st century, China's products can be popular in the world and are extremely competitive, which is directly related to this kind of specialized township or county economy, and this model has greatly reduced the price of products.

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If these companies do not have scientific research capabilities, it is not so absolute. Shanzhai also needs some R&D capabilities. One of the biggest breakthroughs in the mortar shell industry in the past 42 years was the development of a new kind of jumping mine.

This jumping mine was imitated by merchants according to the German jumping mine. As for where the samples came from, it was entirely the efforts of the businessmen and had nothing to do with the government and the military.

The price of this one-kilogram gray iron anti-infantry jumping mine is exactly 40 Tang Yuan, which is equivalent to one US dollar. However, the price of external sales reached two or even three dollars, and the profit was quite huge.

This jumping thunder is really ferocious, using two fuses of trigger and tripstring, and when it explodes, it jumps several meters like two kicks. Exploding in the air, hundreds of thistles burst out, with a radius of thirty meters.

The businessmen's grasp of business opportunities is definitely not comparable to the government, and they are keenly aware of the money situation of this weapon. And its production difficulty was even lower than that of mortar shells, so it immediately began to be put into production.

Now this jumping mine has begun to be sold domestically, and the Naval Resistance Army itself has begun to equip it.

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Although there is a lack of scientific research capabilities in the industrial chain of mortar shells. However, several core military enterprises of the Maritime Resistance Army do not lack scientific research capabilities. With the military and civilians working together, Haitang's mortar industry recently had a breakthrough product.

Aerial bombs equipped with airburst fuses. This bomb has limited damage to ships, but it is extremely lethal to bare targets on the ground. At the moment there are already one hundred kilograms and two hundred and fifty kilograms. 500 kg and other three varieties.

Originally, the power of the aerial bomb of the gray iron bomb body could not be compared with the steel aerial bomb of the United States and Britain, but with the air-detonation fuse, the lethality of the bare target on the ground is even higher.

In this item, Haitang is the world's leader.

The so-called air-detonation fuse refers to the bomb before it hits the ground. Causes the bomb to explode in the air. In 42 years, no country had produced such a bomb. Or rather, it has been produced and has not yet been put into the battlefield.

This fuze is actually the success of a military scientific research project at the heart of the Haitang Kingdom. Li Guang began investing in the development of proximity fuses for antiaircraft artillery shells as early as a few years ago. Back in July. The project has progressed, but it needs to be tested in the field. During the tests, the technicians found that there were not many problems with the principle and manufacture of the technology. But it's hard to put it into practice.

The proximity fuze developed by Haitang is actually exactly the same as the principle of the famous VT proximity fuze, a similar product in the United States. The main structure of the VT tube used in World War II was to use a cartridge case as an antenna. The tube contains a vacuum tube radio wave transmitter, which emits 180 to 220 MHz of radio when energized. When the projectile body is close to the reflective object. Some of the radio waves are reflected. As the distance between the shell and the target decreases, the Doppler effect causes the reflected radio waves to create a low-frequency signal of 200-800 Hz within the current of the transmitter. The signal is filtered and amplified. When the signal strength exceeds a certain limit, the detonation is initiated.

The principle is not very profound, but it is too difficult to manufacture: the entire device has to withstand the acceleration of more than 20,000 times the Earth's gravity when the gun fires. and a spin of 500 revolutions per second, which must also be small enough to fit in the warhead of a shell.

Haitang Kingdom simply does not have the ability to manufacture high-grade electron tubes, and it is impossible to achieve this manufacturing capacity in a short time, and the secrecy level of VT information tubes in the United States is extremely high, and it is impossible for Haitang Kingdom to buy relevant electronic components.

From this point of view, Li Guang's investment in scientific research can be regarded as a failure. However, the scientific researchers were not reconciled, and changed their thinking slightly, so they slightly modified this proximity fuse and used it on aerial bombs. The working environment of aerial bombs is naturally much better than that of artillery shells, and they do not have to withstand super-large acceleration, nor do they have to withstand high-speed rotation, and the volume requirements are not so harsh.

As a result, the technology has advanced in a very short period of time. Facts have proved that the use of VT signal tube is lower than the cost of ordinary aerial bomb fan insurance and mechanical delay signal tube. In the case of an air explosion, the killing effect on ground targets is even better.

The use of gray iron projectiles makes the cost of this aerial bomb extremely low, not much higher than the cost of mortar shells.

But the economics of war is not to say that cheap is good. Because the comprehensive performance of this bomb is still difficult to compare with that of American aerial bombs, its use is also limited. If you take into account the cost of transshipment and the combat consumption of aircraft, it does not have much advantage over American aerial bombs. However, for the Naval Resistance Force, it has solved a big problem, at least it can meet the needs on many battlefields, and has solved the drawbacks of the Naval Resistance Force's complete reliance on American or British aerial bombs.

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Mortar shells can become the largest military-industrial project in the Haitang Kingdom. There are also many favorable conditions.

In addition to the low technical difficulty, Haitang also has its own resource advantages.

Needless to say, there are human resources that are cheaper than any other country.

In terms of mineral resources, Datang Island is rich in high-quality coal mines, and the French colonists had mature mines and equipment. Therefore, the National Development and Reform Commission of the Haitang government immediately began coal mining after taking control of the coal mines.

In addition to being used in power plants and civil use, the largest use of this coal is for coke. The scale of these coke plants is not large, and the technology is also advanced and some are backward. But not only did the coke meet its own needs (mainly mortar shells), but the merchants also saw business opportunities, and the British and Australians did not worry about selling as much as they wanted.

Although, in Li Guang's opinion, the money is not worth it. Selling resources also pollutes the environment. However, for the newly established Haitang Kingdom, every foreign exchange income is very important. Therefore, the coke industry is now developing extremely fast in Haitang.

As the main material for mortar shells - iron. The Haitang Kingdom could not produce it, but Yuan Zi's factory in Australia could only make iron. It happened to meet the demand for iron in the Haitang Kingdom.

The main purpose of the factory managed by Yuan Zi was to cover the uranium mining in Haitang. After repeated additional funds from the merchants, the scale was already quite large, and it was considered a well-known iron factory in Australia. Now the output of ironmaking can be large, enough to produce 20,000 tons of pig iron per year.

As for gunpowder, Haitang could produce it itself, while explosives could be purchased from Peru and Bolivia.

For all this, Li Guang was not only amazed, but also admired. The wisdom of the merchants is endless, and they have found the most suitable military products for the Haitang Kingdom according to their own conditions.

In addition to these industrial projects, another large-scale industry in Haitang, the food industry, is also developing quite well. The difficulty of its production is not high at all, but it brings a lot of profits to the government and merchants of the Haitang Kingdom. Recently, in addition to the original fish compressed biscuits, there has been an increase in the variety of food products for export. For example, some of the wines produced by the vineyards and workshops that received the French colonizers.

The economy of the Haitang Kingdom is thin, the structure is relatively deformed, and almost all of its products are exported. The merchants' sales model was too flexible, sometimes one or two mortars were sold, and some tribes in Africa and the Middle East mostly purchased quite fragmented. Some sales inevitably contradicted the diplomacy of the Haitang Kingdom, so it was very necessary to have a department to coordinate and manage this, so the Ministry of Industry and Commerce was established.

There is no doubt that the Minister of Commerce and Industry is in charge of Su Maode. If Su Maode's role is in Li Guang's view, the ass is definitely not sitting on the side of the government. He himself is the president of the Federation of Workers, Peasants and Businesses, representing the interests of the business community.

However, Su Maode's appointment as Minister of Industry and Commerce is expected by all. Not only is Su Maode a huge influence among the businessmen, but he is also wealthy. What's even more exaggerated is that Su Zizi is well-deserved as the richest woman in Haitang, and the money she earns from napalm is more than that of all industrial and commercial merchants. The relationship between Su Zizi and Li Guang, everyone also understands that they have children, and they are still two. Therefore, Su Maode held this position, and even Premier Yuan Ye couldn't say that he couldn't come.

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce, which has created huge benefits for Haitang, also ranks third in the Haitang government. (To be continued......)