Peng Dehuai and his entourage came to the Taiyuan Iron and Steel Plant located in the northwest of Taiyuan City, which has been completely renewed, after half a year of construction and renovation, coupled with the good foundation, now TISCO has become the most important steel production base in the hands of the Red Party. Of course, the level of security here is also extremely high, and some people who are under heavy surveillance have no way to come here.

When you come here, you can see a puff of brown-black smoke in the sky, and Wei Lihuang said excitedly, "This is the power of industry, yes."

Yan Xishan looked at the hat with a strange texture in his hand and asked, "What is this?" Helmets? ”

Peng Dehuai looked at Ren Chi, Ren Chi said, "This is a safety helmet, you see that there is a reserved space in order to slow down the impact, the appearance is smooth and has a certain elasticity, mainly here often to work at height, if something falls off it, with a hat can protect the head, you see, this hat has a color division, the color of each of our jobs is different, the red is the technician, the white is the safety supervisor, the blue is the electrician, the yellow is the construction personnel, we are burgundy, it is the foreign visitors, This is also in order to quickly find the appropriate staff when encountering things. ”

Yan Xishan nodded and sighed, "I've heard of this, but we don't even have the helmet of the army, let alone the worker's, hey" Saying that, Fu Zuoyi took the lead and put on the hat, knocked it with his hand and said, "I think this is similar to the German helmet, and it can also be used in the army!" ”

Peng Dehuai doesn't like Yan Xishan, but he has always had a good impression of Fu Zuoyi, which is also a manifestation of his too rigidity, he smiled at Fu Zuoyi and said, "This can't be used for the army, such a bright color, the enemy can see it from afar, and the workers here are more valuable than our soldiers, they are the foundation of our Chinese industry!" ”

The group continued to walk forward, Ren Chi introduced as he walked, "We now have five major steel plants in Shanxi alone, including Luliangshan Iron and Steel Plant, Taiyuan Iron and Steel Plant, Changzhi Iron and Steel Plant, Houma Iron and Steel Plant and Yangquan Iron and Steel Plant, among which Luliangshan Iron and Steel Plant and Taiyuan Iron and Steel Plant have begun to produce steel, Changzhi and Houma will start to produce steel in the spring of about 40 years, and Houma will produce steel in April. Otherwise, it will definitely not be so soon, come, this is the blast furnace, that Chairman Yan should be familiar with, it is the original, this is the new. ”

Yan Xishan raised his head, looked at the familiar blast furnace and the unfamiliar new blast furnace, and couldn't help but sigh with emotion, it was this blast furnace that supported him in the Central Plains War, dominating Jin Sui for 38 years, but today it has become the source of strength of the Red Party, he compared it, and found that the original blast furnace and the new blast furnace are like a child, and the new blast furnace is more than one, and he can't help asking, "How high is this new blast furnace, I think there are more than ten meters, right?" ”

Ren Chi said contrastingly, "The original blast furnaces over there are also in use, and our original damage has been restored by the Japanese, and the output of those blast furnaces is only more than 10,000 tons."

And the three new blast furnaces here are of the same standard, 17 meters high, are 200 cubic meters of new blast furnaces, one such blast furnace can produce nearly 400 tons of iron in a day. It can produce more than 100,000 tons of iron a year, and three are 300,000 tons. This is much more advanced than Yan'an's blast furnace, and the efficiency ratio is three times that of that! ”

What Ren Chi didn't know was that this blast furnace was directly pulled by Jiang Cheng from later generations, and it was naturally much better than the steel plant equipment shipped from the United States.

Ren Chi continued: "The blast furnace is divided into three parts. The bottom of the furnace is the place where the molten iron is connected, which is called the furnace cylinder, and the part above the furnace cylinder is called the furnace belly, and the section above the furnace belly is called the furnace body. The furnace has six arches, and the internal furnace tunnel is divided into two stages. The scrap and coke used for ironmaking are transported to the roof of the furnace via a nearby ramp ladder. We work 24 hours a day, and the furnace body will be filled with coke, ore and limestone according to the layer. Coke is ignited at the bottom of the furnace and then blown by hot air to burn violently, so that the ore melts out of molten iron, several iron ports take turns to flow out of iron, and the released molten iron will flow into the molten iron tank, and then be transported to the steelmaking plant for steelmaking, and can also be cast in the nearest pig iron. ”

Mr. Peng asked, "Does that mean this is specialized in iron training?" Where is the steelmaker? ”

Ren Chi pointed to the right and said, "Go over there, there is steelmaking, this steelmaking is called converter, and the blast furnace is different, the converter is specially used for steelmaking, his steelmaking method is called oxygen blowing steelmaking, first add scrap steel, then pour in molten iron, and add an appropriate amount of slag materials, such as quicklime, etc." After feeding, the oxygen spray gun is inserted into the furnace from the top of the furnace, and the oxygen is blown in, so that it directly oxidizes with the high-temperature molten iron to remove impurities. Replacing air with pure oxygen can overcome the disadvantages of brittleness of steel due to the influence of nitrogen in the air and the removal of heat when nitrogen is discharged. After removing most of the sulfur and phosphorus, when the composition and temperature of the molten steel meet the requirements, the blowing is stopped, the spray gun is lifted, and the steel can be tapped. ”

Yan Xishan has been engaged in industry for a while, and it is a little understandable that Peng Dehuai, Fu Zuoyi, Yang Aiyuan and others are completely in the clouds, and they don't know what to do at all, but they just think that this must be very powerful.

Yan Xishan asked, "I know this oxygen, it's not easy to come from!" And why does this converter need to be scrapped first? ”

Ren Chi said with a smile: "One is to add scrap steel for recycling, and the other is for cooling. Oxygen is precious, especially when it comes to pure oxygen. So we also have a special factory to manufacture oxygen, but the cost is high, the income is also high, this converter is a 5-ton converter, and it can tap 5 tons of steel at a time. You can have forty or fifty furnaces a day, and at least two hundred tons a day! Production more than as long as the raw materials are sufficient, it can produce more than 70,000 tons of steel a year. ”

Everyone gasped, what is the concept of 70,000 tons of steel? At that time, the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant only produced 40,000 tons of crude steel per year, and this furnace was close to the production capacity of two Hanyang.

Yan Xishan hurriedly nodded and said, "Value!" It's worth it! This is a baby, be sure to pay attention to confidentiality!! ”

Ren Chi nodded and said, "Of course, in order to prevent the destruction of spies, three generations of people who use the converter will have to be politically judged, and they will not leave the factory until the end of the war." ”

Mr. Peng frowned and said, "This is not good, the political trial is right, is it too bitter not to leave the factory?" They still have wives and children, how can they let others stay alive and widowed? ”

Ren Chi scratched his head and said, "I didn't make it clear, they live in the family area of the factory, their wives and children are also in it, we have more than 2,000 workers in the factory, plus nearly 10,000 family members, but only the workers and other important technicians of the converter can live in the family area." This family area is closed, there are all public facilities, health centers, kindergartens, schools, cinemas, libraries, small parks, better than in Taiyuan City, don't believe you ask, see where they want to live. ”

Yan Xishan said to Mr. Peng, "I know this matter, there is such a thing, and I signed the establishment of this family area at that time." ”

Liang Huazhi asked, "The output of this TISCO has hundreds of thousands of tons of steel output, so how many should we have in the whole territory of Shanxi?" ”

Ren Chi said, "I was based on the situation of the steel plant in the border area to calculate, I did not expect that the efficiency of these new equipment will be so good, the output will be so high, now the problem is that we are not enough raw materials, the figures just reported to me, are theoretical data, the major mining areas are trying to increase production capacity." Second, we are still in the construction period, and only one of our three blast furnaces has been built, and the other two may not be completed until the end of the year. The largest blast furnace in the design has not yet begun construction. The third is the shortage of workers, most of the workers are novices, and it still takes time to accumulate. But overall, much better than expected.

By the end of this year, the production capacity of our major iron and steel plants in the border areas will be able to reach 400,000 tons of iron and 130,000 tons of steel, of which more than 50,000 tons of high-quality steel can be used to make weapons.

It's steel, and it's the same with the chemical factories on the other side, but I know the most important thing you want to know is the arsenal. ”

Fu Zuoyi asked, "I want to know what Japan's production is?" ”

Peng Dehuai opened his mouth and said, "Japan's steel output last year was 6.5 million tons, which is still local, they occupy 100,000 tons in North Korea, and the three eastern provinces are about 600,000 tons!" In addition, I also know about the steel production of the Chongqing government. ”

"How much?" Fu Zuoyi hurriedly asked.

Peng Dehuai sighed, "40,000 tons of iron, 900 tons of steel!" By the way, until now, most of the equipment that Japan attacked us was still produced in the Northeast, and the production of the Japanese mainland was taking care of their navy! ”

Liang Huazhi behind Yan Xishan asked in disbelief, "Is this true?" ”

Ren Chi nodded and said, "It's true, they publish Japan's data every year, and we have a long way to go." ”

After the comparison, even Liang Huazhi doesn't have much hope for the Chongqing government, not to mention anything else, if there is no foreign aid, now that the Red and White are at war, I am afraid that the White Party will lose more and win less.

In modern warfare, steel is everything!

Yan Xishan sighed and said, "Let's go and see the arsenal." ”

The Taiyuan Arsenal is not far from the steel factory, and when he came to the arsenal, Yan Xishan clenched his fists and relaxed for a long time before he walked in.

The first thing to visit is the light weapons factory, at this time the military equipment of the Eighth Route Army is divided into three types, one is Japanese equipment, one is German equipment, and one is Soviet equipment. Most of the main forces were German and Soviet, while the guerrillas and non-main forces were equipped with Japanese equipment.

In order to consider it in the future, the Eighth Route Army has been trying to reduce the number of German equipment, but because Jiang Cheng continued to buy equipment from Germany, the effect was very small, and the Eighth Route Army could only use the equipment of the Three Kingdoms to arm itself happily and painfully.

Originally, the original Mosin Nagant rifle was a 7.62x54mm bullet, but considering that the SKS rifle was a 7.62×39mm medium-power bullet, after two or three months of development, the Eighth Route Army Arsenal was successfully transformed, and the applicable bullet of the Mosin Nagant rifle was turned into a 7.62×39mm bullet.

According to Liu Bocheng's suggestion, Liu Ding and Liu Fugui thought that the barrel and firing range should be appropriately shortened again, and in order to meet the requirements of hand-to-hand combat, the three-edged bayonet was lengthened, and the bayonet section was designed to be double-winged, with a smooth exterior and not easy to collide with the blade; The folding mechanism of the bayonet was changed to a self-locking device for the door buckle, and the bayonet was thrown out and automatically fastened, which was agile and reliable. The crosshair has been changed to an adjustable type, which is able to adjust the aiming deviation. The safety device for the rifle was also added. In the process, it is considered to simplify the amount of processing as much as possible, reduce the parts, reduce the size of the parts, reduce the weight of the whole gun, etc., to ensure that the rifle has superior performance, light and reliable.

Such a gun can no longer be called a Mosin Nagant rifle, Mr. Zhu waved his pen and named this new gun as Bayi Rifle, which made Jiang Cheng, who knew later, extremely embarrassed, and could only secretly say in his heart, this Bayi is not the other Bayi.

Peng Dehuai looked at the barrel that was constantly polished on the lathe and the final assembled rifle nodded, picked up a gun and handed it to Fu Zuoyi, Fu Zuoyi was already very familiar with this gun, the new equipment his troops got was this kind of rifle, he pulled the bolt, compared the assassination action, the bayonet was thrown out with a "swish", and it was firmly buckled on the muzzle. Lian said: "No matter how many times I feel that this gun is amazing!" Then he asked, "How much do we produce of this?" ”

Ren Chi said, "All of our arsenals can already produce 5,400 rifles per month, 400 imitation Czech light machine guns, and 130 Mark core heavy machine guns. We have also successfully copied the ZB-37 heavy machine gun, and the production capacity is tilting to this side, but this gun is relatively fine and difficult to imitate, and it is now 12 units per month. There are 100 mortars, and the war defense guns have been successfully copied, but the output is relatively low, only about a dozen, and the development of mountain guns and howitzers is also progressing rapidly, and they are trying to industrialize them. ”

Yan Xishan looked at Peng Dehuai and said, "I didn't believe that you could do it at the time, but now, what you said at the meeting back then was true, I just want to ask, how many of us are in this attack on Suiyuan?" How many guns? ”

Peng Dehuai thought for a while and said, "You are the chairman of Shanxi Province and the commander of the Second Theater of Operations, so you naturally have the right to know that in this attack on Suiyuan, we plan to dispatch 250,000 troops, including about 100,000 troops from the original Jin Suiyuan, and in the technical equipment, there are 200 tanks, 100 aircraft, 100 mountain artillery, 100 battle defense guns, and 1,000 mortars. With more than 5,000 light and heavy machine guns, it can be said that they went all out. ”

Yan Xishan nodded and said, "If you really have such strength, it is indeed possible to take Suiyuan!" Then I wish General Peng a successful start here! ”

Peng Dehuai said he, "I won't go this time, it's He Long and General Fu Zuoyi who go to Suiyuan." ”

Fu Zuoyi was stunned and asked, "I'll go?" ”

Peng Dehuai smiled: "What? Don't want to? ”

Fu Zuoyi hurriedly said, "How is it possible, willing, I am a hundred willing!" Thank you, General Peng! ”

Peng Dehuai pointed to Yan Xishan and said, "Of course, this still needs the consent of the commander of the Second Theater of Operations. ”

Yan Xishan said haha, "That's naturally agreed, everything will be left to you, I still take care of my education and railways, I didn't expect our industry to have developed to such a point, no wonder there is no shortage of rails." (To be continued.) )