"Bastard! Swindler! These damn yellow-skinned monkeys! ”

As soon as Ludendorff walked into Hitler's office, he saw the German chancellor furious, and slapped a telegram on the table: "Marshal, look, these Chinese are really too deceitful to deceive us and the British in this way!" ”

The roar reached the corridor, leaving every passing official and officer confused, Chancellor Hitler and the Chinese have always had a good relationship, and a while ago it was said that the Chinese's operations in Central Asia, the Far East and the Middle East helped the German Empire, why do you turn your face now? Ludendorff also wondered, what is going on? Even if you want to turn your face with the Chinese, it's not now, right? So I picked up the telegram and read it.

"Mr. Prime Minister, the telegram says that the accident at the Strazh plant was most likely caused by some unknown property of the uranium element. What does this have to do with the Chinese? Could it be that they deliberately concealed some unknown characteristics that caused our losses? Should we file for compensation? ”

"Reparations? Do you think I'll care about a small factory and a few hundred lives? "Hitler was very unhappy with Ludendorff's reaction, the old fellow was too old, his mind was no longer agile, and he had lost the insight applied by a good officer! Moreover, when commanding the operation, he also followed the old methods of the First World War, only knew how to fight a war of attrition with the Soviets, and did not know how to make good use of the overwhelming armor and air superiority, what an old fool!

But this old fool and another older and more confused Feng. Hindenburg is the two great gods of the German Wehrmacht at the moment, and he, the chancellor, can only hold them high. The corners of Hitler's mouth hooked slightly. With a wry smile, he patiently explained, "Dr. Hahn of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Inquiry, after investigating the ruins of the Strager factory, found that the scale of the explosion and fire was far greater than expected. The decision is not caused by dozens of tons of bombs or gasoline! It would take at least thousands of tons of TNT explosives to cause that kind of destruction......"

"Thousands of tons of explosives? How is this possible? How could the Soviets possibly bring so much explosives to Strazh? Ludendorff shook his head and interrupted, "That doctor must be mistaken!" Wehrmacht technicians should be sent to investigate. ”

"It's already been sent, and there are Wehrmacht experts in the investigation team." Although he was very unhappy with Ludendorff for interrupting his speech, Hitler could not do anything about this old stubbornness. "Experts of the Wehrmacht estimate that the destruction of the Strazh plant will take at least 2000 tons of TNT explosives to do!"

"2000 tons of TNT explosives!" Ludendorff opened his mouth with a stunned expression. "How is that possible! How could it be ......"

"So Dr. Hahn thinks it was uranium metal stored in the warehouse of the Straj plant that caused the explosion, and in fact it was there that the first fire started!"

"Uranium metal? Can it be used to make bombs? Ludendorff asked blankly.

"Absolutely!" A flash of frenzy flashed across Hitler's face. "I think the Great Tokyo Earthquake of September 1, 1923 was probably caused by uranium bombs! I think the Chinese must have long ago mastered the secret of uranium, and the purpose of their cooperation with us and Britain. I just want to use our technology to refine a certain ...... of uranium better and faster," Hitler took the telegram from Ludendorff's hand and swept it around. "It's some kind of isotope, which Dr. Hahn thinks is uranium-235 or uranium-234. He was ready to start research in this area immediately, and he said that he only needed to do a few difficult practical yàns to figure out the principles of qīngchu. ”

"Oh. I see. Ludendorff showed a look of sudden realization: "As long as you understand the principle of qīngchu, I think Germany will soon be able to create this secret weapon, right?" Should one year be enough? I hope that in the great counteroffensive of 1934 we can use this weapon. ”

"I also hope to use uranium bombs in the 1934 operation. But ......" Hitler sighed and jerked to his feet. Shaking his head, he said, "But the Strager factory was almost completely destroyed. We have very little uranium left in our hands, and even if we start rebuilding now, we won't be able to get enough of that isotope in two or three years. Unless the Chinese are willing to take out their uranium bombs, their isotope separation plant is 10 times larger than the Strazh plant! ”

……

At this moment, Wang Junhao, chief of the general staff of the Chinese National Defense Forces, Zhao Zhen, commander-in-chief of the army, Jiang Baili, minister of armaments, Zhang Guotao, director of the National Intelligence Bureau, Leshinskaya, director of the Science Department of the Intelligence Bureau, and Li Fuji, director of the State Institute of Physics, were all notified to attend an emergency meeting at Chang Ruiqing's premier's residence.

"Yaoru, what's going on, summon us in such a hurry, isn't it the Northwest Battlefield......" Zhao Fatzi probably thought that the military situation had changed, and he yelled as soon as he entered the door.

"It's not that there's anything changing on the battlefield. But it's also a big deal. Chang Ruiqing greeted: "Youlin, it's just time for dinner." Haven't eaten yet, have you? Let's eat at Brother Fool's place, and we'll talk while we eat. ”

As he spoke, the attendants of the Prime Minister's Office had already set up a table of exquisite dishes in the dining room. Unlike the previous banquets in Changfu, Chang Ruiqing's wives and concubines and children did not appear, only Chen Xinrui guarded the door of the restaurant to prevent idlers from approaching, and Gao Xiaowen waited in the restaurant.

After a few people sat down, Chang Ruiqing asked Gao Xiaowen to pour a cup of tea for everyone, and glanced at everyone again before saying, "If you want to talk about things today, you will replace wine with tea." Natalie, let's tell us about the situation first. ”

"Yes, Prime Minister. It happened that the night before yesterday there had been a serious accident at the Strage factory in the German Protectorate of Bohemia...... "Leshinskaya told everyone present in detail what the Scientific Department of the Intelligence Service had.

"Brother Yaoru, is the big thing you are talking about this accident? Could it be that the Germans suffered so heavy losses in this accident that it would affect the situation on the Western Front? As soon as Lesinskaya's words were finished, Zhao Fatzi, who had just swallowed a large piece of beef, couldn't help but ask.

"The Germans' losses were not much, but the gains were too great!" Before Chang Ruiqing could speak, Li Fuji next to him put down his chopsticks and interjected: "According to the knowledge we have." It was the chain fission reaction of uranium that caused the accident. Hearing this strange name, the eyes of the whole room focused on Li Fuji, and Professor Li smiled triumphantly: "The nuclear fission reaction was discovered by the old man by accident when he was studying uranium atoms...... Now it looks like it's open to the public, right? As he spoke, he looked at Chang Ruiqing expectantly.

Chang Ruiqing knew Li Fuji's thoughts. The significance of the discovery of the phenomenon of nuclear fission in physics cannot be overemphasized, as long as it is made public, a Nobel Prize in physics will not run. However, Chang Ruiqing used military secrets as an excuse to suppress the matter, and did not allow Li Fuji to disclose the most important research results that he and the entire Chinese Institute of Physics had achieved over the years.

"Kaiyin, what do you think?" Chang Ruiqing looked at Zhang Guotao on the side.

Zhang Guotao also spoke, and Li Fuji hurriedly interjected: "I have also visited the Strager factory in Germany. It was a research factory, and there were not only German scientists, but also British, Italian, Dutch, French and Chinese scientists. So it won't take long for the details of this accident to spread throughout Europe. The phenomenon of nuclear fission has not been hidden for long. ”

"Mr. Zemin, can you first explain what nuclear fission is?" Wang Junhao was also confused, and he had also heard of the Strager factory in Germany. And he also knew that there was a large isotope separation plant in Yan'an, China, that was ten times larger than the Strage plant. All the equipment inside. All imported from Germany, Britain and France, in order to provide electricity for this factory, CLP Power also spent a huge amount of money to build a very large thermal power base in Shenmu County! For the construction of these two factories, Jiang Baili, Minister of Armaments, and Pan Yucheng, President of CLP, quarreled with Chang Ruiqing a lot, and in the end, Chang Ruiqing took out the authority of a "dictator" to settle the matter. But listening to Li Fuji's words today, it seems that there is really some hidden secret in this.

"The phenomenon of nuclear fission, uh, how to say it." Li Fuji looked at a room of high-ranking officials who didn't know much about physics, scratched his hair and deliberated his words: "Let's put it simply." According to the calculations of scientists at the Institute of Physics, 20 kilograms of uranium-235 with an abundance of 90% in the event of a chain reaction may produce an energy equivalent to that produced by the explosion of 20,000 tons of TNT! ”

"What!?" The people in the room, except for Chang Ruiqing and Li Fuji, all exclaimed.

Fat Zhao didn't care about eating and drinking, so he stood up suddenly, pointed at Li Fu with a trembling fat finger and said, "Professor, you're not joking, are you?" ”

The latter didn't move, nodded slightly, and said, "Handsome again, does the old man seem to be joking?" As for the principle, don't ask the old man, this is a rather complicated question, and the old man can say no qīngchu for a while. ”

"So how many do we have now...... Uranium-235 up? When will a uranium bomb be made? Thinking of the extra-large-scale isotope separation plant in Yan'an, Wang Junhao had the idea of making hundreds or thousands of uranium bombs to blow up the Soviet Union in one go.

"We now have less than 50 kilograms of uranium-235 enriched above 90 percent."

"That's it...... Wang Junhao looked disappointed, then nodded and said, "That can also make a uranium bomb with the power equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT explosives." Oh, by the way, let's not build big ones, that would be more wasteful, we should make small uranium bombs, such as small uranium bombs equivalent to the explosive power of 1 ton of TNT explosives. Mr. Zemin, can you make 10,000 pieces in 3 months? In this way, the decisive battle in the northwest will be won. ”

Li Fuji shook his head with a wry smile: "It can't be made, provincial marshal, the principle of this uranium bomb is completely different from TNT explosives." It's not that if you install less, the explosion will be less powerful, and if you install more, the power will be greater. The uranium-235 chain fission reaction has a critical state, to put it simply, when a certain amount of uranium-235 is stacked together, the chain reaction will occur automatically. This time the accident at the Strazh plant in Germany must have occurred because the Germans stacked more than the critical amount of uranium metal containing uranium-235 in a warehouse. As for what this cut-off value is, it will take complex practical calculations to know, but this amount should not be less than 20 kilograms. ”

"According to you, a bomb has at least 20,000 tons of TNT explosives?" Wang Junhao seems to be a little unwilling, such a powerful bomb is far less effective on the battlefield than 20,000 small bombs with a 1-ton TNT explosion power. Too much power is actually a waste.

"I'm afraid there aren't that many, because the chain reaction is probably not sufficient...... The specific situation still needs tongguo real yàn and calculation to know. ”

As soon as Li Fuji finished speaking, Zhao Fatzi asked again: "Mr. Zemin." So when will we get the first uranium bomb that can be used in real combat? ”

"It is not yet known that although we have stockpiled sufficient quantities of high-abundance uranium-235, there is still a long way to go before we can actually make uranium bombs. After all, our technical strength is still insufficient, and many practitioners do not know how to carry it out. If we can cooperate with Yingde and develop together...... It is possible that the first combat-ready uranium bomb will be created as soon as 3 years. ”

Although this answer made Chang Ruiqing feel frustrated, he also knew that what Li Fuji said was indeed the truth. At present, the total number of graduates of science and engineering universities in China is around 1.5 million, and this still includes the number of compatriots of the He ethnic group. The number of people is not too small, but it can barely cope with the demand for talent in China's growing heavy industry. However, there are still very few physicists and chemists who can really reach the master level, and there is no way to carry out the research and development of the atomic bomb alone. Historically, the Manhattan Project, in which the United States developed the atomic bomb, brought together the best nuclear scientists from the West (except Nazi Germany) at the time. Hundreds of thousands of people were mobilized to participate, at a total cost of $2.5 billion. The number of scientists employed is unimaginable, and in some departments there are even more people with the title of Ph.D. than the average staff member. And there are many Nobel Prize winners among them! It's such a scientific research force. It took three years to build an atomic bomb. If it is replaced by China's scientific research strength, I really don't know that it will be the Year of the Monkey.

"I am not in favor of joining forces with Britain and Germany," Li Fuji had just finished speaking, and Wang Junhao raised a different opinion. "If this uranium bomb is really as miraculous as Mr. Zemin said, we should have it as exclusive as possible, and it is a strategic weapon that can change the course of the war. We don't have enough technical strength, so we can hire from the international level, and it's a big deal to spend a little more money. ”

Li Fuji shook his head with a wry smile when he heard this: "Provincial marshal." You thought it was simple to study uranium bombs...... If the Strager accident had not happened, we might have been able to pay a lot of money to invite some internationally renowned scientists to come to China to work on the development of uranium bombs. But now. British and German physicists will soon be able to figure out the secrets of qīngchu nuclear fission, and then they will go all out into research and development, and in three or five years at most, Britain and Germany will be able to build uranium bombs. So our best option now is to take advantage of our temporary technological superiority and cooperate with them, so that we can have uranium bombs at the same time as Britain and Germany. ”

"I'm afraid the problem with this uranium bomb is not just the development of the bomb itself, right?" As soon as Li Fuji's words fell, Minister of Armaments Jiang Baili suddenly asked a question: "Where is a bomb equivalent to the explosive power of tens of thousands of tons of TNT to be used?" Such a large bomb is expensive to cost, and the number is limited, how many enemies can be destroyed if thrown on an open battlefield? Usually the position of an infantry division after deployment is more than ten kilometers, and the power of the explosion of tens of thousands of tons of TNT explosives can not be affected more than ten kilometers away, right? Moreover, the terrain on the battlefield is complex, will the special terrain such as mountains, forests, and rivers absorb some of the explosion power?

So I don't think this kind of weapon is very effective on the battlefield, and the biggest use of this kind of bomb is to bomb the enemy's big cities and hit the enemy's war potential and will to fight, right? If we want to bomb Moscow and Leningrad, can we do it? Is there a bomber that can carry uranium bombs? Therefore, there are still many difficult problems to be overcome in order to turn uranium bombs from theoretical things into real weapons, and we cannot overcome all these difficulties in a short period of time by our own strength, so I am in favor of cooperating with Britain and Germany in the development of uranium bombs. ”

Jiang Baili's Minister of Armaments seems to have made a mistake, but he has not seen the real thing, and he deduced how to use the atomic bomb based on Li Fuji's initial introduction. Chang Ruiqing muttered a few words in his heart, and then turned his head to look at Zhao Fatzi, the commander-in-chief of the army.

The fat man frowned, and just as he wanted to speak, he saw Chen Xinrui suddenly push the door in, still holding two copies of the telegram in his hand: "Sir, German Chancellor Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain have invited us at the same time, hoping that you can visit London at an appropriate time to discuss issues such as winning the United States to participate in the war and military-technical cooperation. ”

Chang Ruiqing took the copy of the telegram and read it carefully, then frowned and thought for a moment: "It seems that the British already know about the explosion in Strage." I had to go to London, not only for the uranium bombs, but also for the question of the United States entering the war. He paused and said to Li Fuji: "The nuclear fission phenomenon should be made public now, and a Nobel Prize in physics will not be able to run away." Also, this time you and I will also go to London, and we will try our best to put the nuclear test base in China, Mr. Zemin, you should hurry up and make a plan in this regard after you go back, and then prepare some materials about the Yan'an isotope separation plant and the Yan'an base of the Academia Sinica to bring to London. ”