This is a great era of sudden acceleration of human scientific and technological progress, the cradle of modern industry, all the new science and technology and the foundation of modern industry that affect the 20th and 21st centuries have appeared in this period, the Chinese Empire is fortunate to seize this great era, progress with it, and do its best to leap forward, become one of the leaders of this era.

If the United States had not really suffered a heavy blow in the early days of the Great Depression of 1930\1931, then in 1932, the United States finally ushered in the largest decline in history, after at least two years of data did not show a significant decline in the total volume of the American economy, and in the first quarter of 1932, the American financial industry and industry ushered in the worst month, in March 1932, more than 3,000 banks in the United States failed, and the second wave of larger and deeper financial failures swept the whole United States. So far, 5,500 banks have failed, more than 86,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, and more than 15 million people have lost their jobs in industry alone.

In the actual economic model, the data of housewives and service workers are superimposed, and the scale of unemployment in the United States has reached an unprecedented level, which has never been done in the entire history of the United States.

In the same year, China's economic aggregate completely surpassed that of the United States, and it is possible that the gap between the two countries' economic aggregates will exceed 20% in that year.

The strengths and weaknesses of nations are debated, and the best answer is actually in front of you, but it takes a truly epoch-making leader to adopt, and for the United States, this person is definitely not President Hoover.

In the United States, the Far Eastern consortium took the opportunity to merge with the United States Steel Company and merged Bethlehem and the American Steel Company into a new American Steel Company.

The reason why the Far Eastern Consortium surpassed the Vanderbilt Consortium and the Morgan Consortium in 1932 to become the most powerful consortium in the United States is that the foundation of the Far Eastern Consortium is in China, and China's economy is still in a state of rapid growth.

In order to further expand domestic demand, in March 1932, the Empire passed a new "Minimum Wage Supplement Statute of the Labor Protection Act", which increased the minimum guaranteed hourly wage for workers from 7 to 10 cents.

In the field of external demand, the empire provided more loans to Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and other countries in Latin America, and supported these countries to adopt loose monetary policies.

The empire has always been constantly adopting a one-to-one approach, through credit support, to force the other side to sign a most-favored-nation trade pact with a certain exclusive surname.

In the community market of the Sino-French overseas provinces and protectorates, the empire adopted a larger amount of credit support, and actively promoted the pan-internationalization of the Chinese circle.

This is truly the most powerful and prosperous era.

The empire, which broke through the watershed in 1930, has become significantly more abundant in terms of talent and technical reserves, and the entire empire has gradually entered a new era, with a new generation of young and middle-aged people beginning to become the new pillars of the empire, promoting the empire to continue to grow rapidly.

In this process, the Empire's machinery exports to the Soviet Union also reached a higher height, although this was a huge threat, but for the Empire, even if the Empire did not sell machinery and machine tools, the Soviet Union could still purchase from Britain, France, the United States and Germany.

In the same way, the company finally cut its military spending sharply in the short term, spending more on state-owned factories and infrastructure, although it has been weaker than China in the long-term economic and trade war, as Asian countries around China began to emerge from the economic crisis, under the dual effect, the industry also began to recover.

A new era is gradually dawning, in which everything is no longer controlled by the European and American powers.

By the end of 1932, the U.S. economy had inevitably experienced a more severe downturn again, and the gap between the U.S. and Chinese economies had widened to an incredible 30 percent in one year. His Excellency Roosevelt is about to appear in the White House.

In this year, the gross national output value of the Chinese Empire exceeded 150 billion yuan, the national fiscal revenue exceeded 28 billion yuan, and the scale of investment in infrastructure, fixed assets and scientific research in the national finance reached 11 billion yuan, which is a very astonishing figure, and the total investment in the Liujiaxia Hydropower Station was only 70 million yuan.

In 1933, the total amount of national financial investment in infrastructure, fixed assets, and scientific research will continue to maintain this range, and the expenditure on foreign credit and state investment will surge from 2.7 billion yuan to 5.5 billion yuan.

This is a great era of accumulation.

After accumulating two decades of accumulation, the empire finally seized this unprecedented opportunity and expanded into the world's largest economy, accounting for 1/4 of the world's total GDP, and quickly became the world's second largest exporter of capital, with the country's gold and silver reserves ranking first in the world.

In addition to the British Commonwealth, the Chinese Empire is the world's largest territory, the richest resources, the most populous country, and the arable land area also ranks first, which determines the strength of China, even if it is only like Australia to develop the basic mining and agriculture and animal husbandry, its economic scale will maintain the status of the world's top seven powers.

Such a foundation is unique in the world, even if it has now developed into the world's largest economic empire, the huge population, vast territory, rich resources and the gradual improvement of the national education level have ensured the empire's broad development space, for the empire, the development of the empire has just entered a youth, and there is a broader space for growth in the future, and this is precisely the most feared point of Britain and the United States.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf. Hitler's ascension to the German Chancellor seemed to announce the founding of Nazi Germany, and two months later, on March 4, 1933, Franklin Franklin Hitler became the chancellor of Germany. Roosevelt officially became the president of the United States, and there seemed to be a certain number in the dark.

When these two big figures finally surfaced and appeared on the world political stage, Emperor Song was also pondering the question of who should be the next prime minister of the empire.

The Prime Minister was so important that if he had no problem in terms of ability, morality, and character, he would have been in office from 1936 and would have served two consecutive terms, ending his term in 1946, which would have been the exceptional prime minister who had led the empire through World War II.

This is the most important question.

In the past few years, Song Biao has picked out a lot of suitable candidates to continue to exercise, as far as the current best candidates are four, namely Gu Weijun, Chen Qimei, Song Jiaoren, Yang Zhaolin, in addition, Ouyang Xi, Lu Mengxiong, Wang Zhaoming, Gu Deling, Zhu Guangtao, Cheng Hongshu, Zhang Qixu, Liao Zhongkai are also suitable choices, but none of them are the best policy.

1933 was the most serious year of the world depression crisis, shortly after the signing of the "Westminster Act", Australia took the initiative to ban a number of Chinese exclusion laws formulated during the colonial period of the British Empire, in order to cope with the crisis, Australia signed the "Sino-Australian Strategic Reciprocal Trade Treaty" with the Chinese Empire with the rights of the Commonwealth Dominion, and fully opened the internal market to the imperial capital to attract the investment of imperial capital and exports to China.

This was seen as the first link in the failure of the British Empire's strategy of suppressing China.

Although there were complex ethnic minority problems within the empire, such as Tibet and Xinjiang, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the difficult challenges of controlling the Yellow River and desertification control, these things were still under the control of the central cabinet, and the economic crisis in Britain had reached the point where it was forced to devalue the pound sharply, and even worse things continued.

With Adolf. Hitler, Stalin, Franklin. Roosevelt had become the national leader of all countries, and World War II was practically not far from humanity.

At the same time, at Adolf. Soon after Hitler came to power, the Reich Central Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Nuclear Physics had already completed the development of the country's first nuclear fission reactor ahead of schedule.

At the end of August 1933, at the end of August, Emperor Song, accompanied by Zhang Jun, director of the Central Secret Bureau, secretly visited the China Institute of Nuclear Physics in Hanzhong Province.

In the past two decades, the empire has produced three Nobel laureates in chemistry and two winners in physics.

Of course, the most important one is still Nikolai. Tesla 1st Viscount.

According to the Imperial Titles Act passed in 1927, the Imperial Titles were officially non-hereditary, but even then, very few people were actually knighted, and usually only military generals and scientists with outstanding contributions were granted titles.

Among scientists, Nikolai . Sir Tesla is the only and highest-ranking Viscount of the First Class in recognition of his outstanding contributions to China's electric power industrial revolution, electronics industry, information industry and nuclear physics research.

He has almost single-handedly completed the research work of high-voltage power transmission, power generation and its protection systems, and his research level in the field of radio and wireless energy transmission is also the best in the world.

In his later years, he devoted most of his energy to the study of nuclear power and designed the main part of the nuclear fission heavy water reactor and its cooling system, although even he was unaware of the Empire's nuclear weapons program.

On the morning of August 27, 1933, Song Biao arrived in Xicheng County, Hanzhong Prefecture by special plane.

Hanzhong Prefecture belongs to the southern Shaanxi region of Shaanxi, Xicheng County in the middle reaches of the Han River, built the largest Xicheng Yinghu Hydropower Station in southern Shaanxi, with an installed capacity of 600,000 kW, the China Institute of Nuclear Physics is in Yinghu Town on the north side of the reservoir, in order to find the flat land that can be used for a long time in the continuous mountainous area, directly razed more than ten low mountains in the mountainous area with blasting, and the surrounding mountainous areas are also full of underground tunnels and secret air defense bases.

The local Yinghu Hydropower Station, Xicheng Shimei Thermal Power Station and the surrounding Danjiangkou Hydropower Station all have a large amount of surplus electricity, which is used for heavy water chemical electrolysis in Yinghu Town, extracts heavy water for the development of nuclear fission reactors, and can also pump water and electricity from the northwest and southwest at any time.

Flying over the mountains by plane, Song Biao looked down at this mediocre land, and many of the things that came to mind were history.

The ancients said that mediocre people disturb themselves, many people will think that "mediocre people are troubled by themselves", in fact, this is not the case, "mediocre people" refers to the Yong country, the ancient Yong country in the Spring and Autumn Period took advantage of the famine of the Chu country to attack the Chu country, and was destroyed by the Chu state, and the Han Dynasty had a Shangyong county here.

In the past few years, Song Biao has often used the word "mediocrity disturbing himself" to describe Yuben, so when he really flew over the sky of Gu Yongguo, he did have more feelings in his heart.

After the special plane arrived at Xicheng Airport, Song Biao got off the plane and saw Chen Qicai, who was waiting here, as well as Lao Youzhang, president of the China Nuclear Research Institute, and Sir Tesla, chief engineer of the top-secret nuclear power project.

Sir Tesla has worked in China for 25 years, which is a very fortunate thing for him, and it is an even luckier thing for China, Song Biao came forward to shake hands with Sir Tesla, thanking him for his great contribution to China's science and technology in the past ten years.

As one of the greatest geniuses in the world, Nikolai . During his 25 years in China, Sir Tesla has contributed more than 400 technology patents to the human world, and can also be said to be the father of China's radar and synchronous motors.

As for Sir Tesla's own preferred research in the field of wireless energy transmission, although the temporary industrial base determines the lack of large-scale application value, the empire still provides a long-term and stable grant of 4 million yuan to the Tesla Institute of Physics every year.

After shaking hands with Sir Tesla, Song Biao also continued to shake hands with Lao Youzhang and Chen Qicai, thanking them for their hard work, so that the empire finally got its wish and took the most critical step towards the nuclear power era.

Here, just this month of the year, the Empire built a simulated nuclear power plant in the Yinghu Reservoir, which was the first step taken by the human world in the field of nuclear industry, and the next step, about five years later, the Empire will build an experimental station closer to a commercial nuclear power plant in the barren Lakotob Lake in the Altai Mountains, because the surrounding area is 100 kilometers of the inaccessible Gobi Desert, and if it fails, the impact will be relatively small.

Next, around 1945, the empire will build the first commercially significant nuclear power plant in Hepu County, Guangxi, and in the fourth national mining census, uranium ore has been listed as the most important exploration project for further advancement.

Until then, the Yinghu Nuclear Power Plant will be the only source of weapons-grade plutonium raw materials in the Empire, while major research on nuclear weapons will continue in Hanzhong County.

Through long-term testing of the effects of nuclear radiation on living organisms and plants, the Empire has basically identified some of the terrible effects of nuclear radiation, and it is natural to be more cautious and careful in the advancement of these plans, but the refining of weapons-grade plutonium is still very important work and must be maintained for a long time.

There is a small airport in Yinghu, and due to the limited length of the runway, Song Biao's FD-9 cannot land there, and he does not plan to continue to transfer to small cargo airliners, so he directly takes a car along the ring road into the Yinghu mountain area.

This is a mountain that stretches for hundreds of miles, and if it weren't for the era of reconnaissance satellites, it's almost hard to believe that there are still people living here, let alone a huge research base here.

Because of the lack of vast land here, and the institute has more branches, coupled with the closed environment, ten kilometers away from the county seat, and the need for confidential work, the entire research institute is split into six pieces, scattered between the mountains, each other can only rely on the car traffic, from here to the nearest Xicheng County, the best way to pass is to take a boat from the Hanshui all the way.

When he arrived at the Yinghu headquarters of the institute, Song Biao met with more than 20 representatives of scientists and engineers waiting here, and thanked them for their hard work all year round.

Subsequently, accompanied by Lao Youzhang, Song Biao put on a silver radiation protection suit, put on a mask, and went to the heavy water reactor to inspect together.

Normally, as long as the nuclear power plant is built, its scale must be very large, miniaturization but more need technology, although the empire's experimental reactor is mainly an experimental surname, its area has also reached the scope of a football field, the whole is located in the base 30 meters underground, in order to achieve the cooling effect, itself uses four circuits to supply power to ensure the operation of the cooling system.

This cooling water is boiled and used in the turbines to generate electricity, which is then fed back into the grid.

The power generation itself cannot be completely used for the operation of the subsystem, and can only provide self-supplied electricity, because there are too many unstable and unpredictable surnames in this system, and if there is a problem, it will become a big problem.

If it is determined that it cannot be solved, it will be buried directly with cement.

Song Biao is not lacking in understanding of the nuclear world, but deep in this world, all kinds of things he sees are still very unfamiliar, especially in the heavy water treatment plant, the entire process design and facility supervision are Lao Youzhang personally responsible, relying solely on electrolysis to purify heavy water consumption rate is too large, even if the surplus products obtained are hydrogen and oxygen, the cost is too high, for this reason, Lao Youzhang began to carry out research work on chemical process extraction of heavy water in 1925.

At present, the progress is still good, but in the existing process, the power consumption is still large, and the process is extremely complex, the catalyst loss rate is high, the failure rate is high, and it takes more time and money to develop a new process, and it can only be on the basis of continuing to study the new chemical process, continuously improve the existing equipment, increase the output rate, reduce the cost, and improve the reliability, especially in the improvement of the catalyst, there are also a number of other research institutions responsible for it at the same time.

It is very difficult to build nuclear weapons, and heavy water is the first hurdle.

It is not difficult to refine heavy water, one gram, two grams is always easy, and to guarantee the scale of nuclear research in the empire, tens of tons per year are needed, and after the new heavy water reactor is launched, at least thousands of tons of heavy water will be needed per year.

Nazi Germany was in the war phase at that time, and the national strength was strained, and it was unable to mobilize enough electricity for heavy water splitting, so it could only mobilize heavy water from Norway, because Norway was extremely rich in water resources and had many large hydropower stations, but this matter was secretly sabotaged by the Allies.

The empire uses the method of catalyst reaction to extract heavy water, the cost is not low, and the power consumption is also a lot, but the production capacity is barely guaranteed.

After visiting the local heavy water treatment plant accompanied by Lao Youzhang and listening to the explanations of Lao Youzhang and others, Song Biao also realized that the heavy water problem could not be dealt with, and the empire still had no way to solve the problem of the development of the nuclear industry, let alone the problem of the atomic bomb.

Walking out of the heavy water treatment plant, still on the way to the uranium storage center, Song Biao and Lao Youzhang instructed: "There must be a major breakthrough in the industrial production of heavy water extraction, and the scale of energy consumption in the current way alone is still too large, and it cannot meet all our needs." ”

Lao Youzhang said: "At present, there are two main research ideas that may be extremely high, one is the ammonia hydrogen exchange method proposed by Sichuan University, and the other is the hydrogen sulfide exchange method proposed by Aurora University. Our ammonia industry is developing rapidly, with abundant production capacity and low cost, which is obviously the best way, but the technical strength of Sichuan University is insufficient, and at this stage it can only cooperate with the Central University of Science and Technology and Jiangnan University. Either way, as long as we can achieve industrial production, our heavy water purification progress and efficiency will be greatly increased, which is enough to ensure the current research plan and progress. ”

Song Biao bowed slightly.

At present, research funding is not a problem, the nuclear power project itself is the highest level of the Chinese Academy of Sciences special national project, the funds are abundant, the Inner Court through the Central Secrecy Bureau every year in the field of nuclear weapons and nuclear power also has a special subsidy of nearly 50 million yuan, these money simply come from the royal property funding.

The annual expenditure of nearly 100 million yuan may not seem like much, but it is already a sky-high price at this time, enough to ensure the construction of a Hoover Dam in China every year, and it is such a huge investment scale to ensure the gradual progress of the entire project.

The real problem is that the energy constraints are too great, and if heavy water is to be extracted by electrolysis, even with China's current installed power generation capacity, it will take 1/5 to ensure the progress of the entire plan, so the only countries that can really use this stupid method to build an atomic bomb are probably the United States, the Soviet Union, and now China, and the rest of the United Kingdom and France are very troublesome.

In the early days, the United States also relied on this hard method to forcibly advance, and when it gathered the strength of the entire country, it could only make a few atomic bombs, and later adopted the hydrogen sulfide exchange method, which could make dozens of atomic bombs a year, and finally became hundreds.

In order to prevent the exchange of industrial laws from being unsuccessful, the empire opened a very large open-pit coal mine production base in Shenmu County, and installed four thermal power plants on the spot, plus the Liujiaxia, Yanpanxia, Longyangxia, and Danjiangkou hydropower stations, as well as two hydropower stations built on the Jinsha River, which can be used for heavy water extraction.

If this is achieved, even if it is a stupid way, the whole project can be carried forward, and it is not very difficult to make four or five atomic bombs a year.

Song Biao had a basic requirement for the China under his control, that is, not to fear any country in conventional war, and to strive to complete the development of nuclear weapons by 1940.

(To be continued)