In Detroit, Michigan, several Ford Model Ts are driving on the road.

More than ten minutes later, the Model T drove into a factory not far away, and more than a dozen factory managers had been waiting for a long time at the gate of the factory.

Rubbing his aching head, he stepped out of the car and faced the crowd who came forward to greet him. "How's it going?"

"Got good intel..."Walk up to Ford, William? C. Klein said as he led Ford to the plant. "I have to say that this is a very peculiar idea, through which not only can the assembly time of the car be greatly reduced, but also the workers in charge of the production of the car do not need to master too many skills, only need to master certain steps individually..."

Just as Yan Shao worried, Ford did start the research and development of assembly lines.

Ford and other auto companies became intrigued by the mystery after discovering that Rainstone could produce ten times as many cars with less than half the number of Ford's workers and that they were far less expensive than Ford's Model T.

It's just that the special affairs department has done an excellent job, and almost all foreign 'tourists' who enter Wuhu have been dealt with. The reason why I say yes is almost because there are still a few fish that have slipped through the net, and these fish are Ford people.

In order to be able to learn the secret, Ford sent a lot of people to Wuhu, but after discovering that many colleagues from the United States with them were inexplicably returning home, William, who was in charge of the operation? C. Klein was careful.

He first hid his identity. Then he sent a telegram to Detroit, asking Detroit to send a Chinese over—————— although Wuhu also has a concession, but their white actions in Wuhu are a little too conspicuous after all.

Out of curiosity about the mysteries. Ford agreed to Klein's request and sent two Chinese employees from the plant to Wuhu.

When the two Chinese employees arrived in Wuhu, Klein first made a promise to them, and then asked them to use his yellow skin to make contact with the employees in the car factory. Because Klein had been careful not to expose his whereabouts, and because of the yellow skin cover of the two Chinese employees, Crane was able to make contact with a worker in a car factory and learn a lot about the operation of the car factory from him.

In history William? C. Klein was originally the inventor of the assembly line. Historically, he was inspired by a visit to a slaughterhouse in Chicago where the process of animal dismemberment and conveyor belt conveyance caught his attention, and the efficient work of individual workers in repetitive slicing caught his attention.

He then reported the concept of the assembly line to the plant supervisor Peter? E. Martin, though Martin was skeptical. But he was still encouraged to continue until Klein succeeded. Later, although others claimed to have reported the idea to Henry? Ford. But Henry? The Ford Museum's archives are well preserved in the William? C. Klein's essay on the inspiration of a visit to the slaughterhouse, which made him the father of the modern assembly line.

As I once said, a lot of things are lacking in a little bit of inspiration.

Although the workers who came into contact with Klein didn't know much. But these few words still played a big role in Klein. At one time he figured out a lot of things.

That night he took a ship back to the United States and did not return to Detroit until today.

After standing aside and quietly listening to Klein's experience of this trip to China, Ford asked after a deep sigh. "So, are you sure you can get this assembly line out?"

While Ford is still a little skeptical that the so-called assembly line is really that useful, facts speak louder than words. Yan Shao's Yushi Automobile Company has reached half of the U.S. car production with less than 5,000 employees through this assembly line, and the fact is already in front of us. Also by having to Ford not believe.

It takes almost a month to get from China to the United States, and from the West Coast to the East Coast. Even the train ride takes a long time. That's long enough time for Klein to consider any of the details. However, he smiled wryly after a while. "But all I can do is get this assembly line out of here, and the rest..."

"Just?"

Seeing that Klein was hesitant, Ford glanced up at him.

"That's right," Klein said bluntly, after thinking about it. On my way back, I went to the patent office and found that the Chinese had registered all the patents related to the assembly line, in other words, at least for 17 years, unless the other party agreed, we could not use the assembly line, as long as we used it, it would be tantamount to infringement..."

Hearing this, Ford's face suddenly turned ugly.

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Xiangshan Arsenal, after leaving a lot of things behind, Yan Shao ran here.

The arsenal was secretly built around the Xiangshan mine by Yan Shao by smuggling some machines. The purpose was to provide certain weapons for the future revolutionary army, and the mines were often opened with explosives, and the explosions were so frequent that even what happened here would not arouse suspicion.

And because the arsenal can't be exposed casually, Yan Shao not only sent people to guard around the arsenal, but the arsenal itself was also built very inconspicuous, no different from an ordinary courtyard.

"Governor..."Standing at the door of the courtyard (arsenal), Li Da, who was in charge of the affairs of the arsenal, came out.

are all old men of the group, after Huang Hao served as the minister of industry, Li Da took over Huang Hao's position and began to serve as the director of the iron factory, and the director of the arsenal is concurrent—————— anyway, the area of the arsenal is only one courtyard.

He waved his hand. "I'm here for something this time...", he said and looked at a few people standing behind Li Da. Do any of you here have anything to do with steel helmets and bayonets? ”

"Steel helmets and bayonets?" Although Li Da is mainly responsible for the affairs of the iron factory, he is part-time in the position of director of the arsenal after all. I also know a lot about the factory, so after just thinking about it for a while, I pointed to a young man standing behind me with my finger. "He, he knows this best in our factory..."

Standing behind many people. When Ji Yushan saw so many people looking at him, he suddenly became a little overwhelmed.

Glancing at the person pointed out by Li Da, Yan Shao looked up and down.

Yan Shao's first impression of Ji Yushan was that he was young, very young, Yan Shao was already very young, but the young man in front of him was at least about 5 years younger than Yan Shao, which made Yan Shao very jealous. Cough...

Ji Yushan looks like he is in his early 20s, and his height is about 170cm, which is already relatively tall in China. In addition, the body is relatively thin, coupled with short hair, and a somewhat clumsy expression, which is indeed very responsible for the image of many experts in this era.

"Okay. That's you. After speaking, Yan Shao also pointed at Li Da. And you. The rest of the people are scattered..."

Seeing that Yan Shao didn't need so many people to surround him, Li Da waved his hand, signaling that the others would disperse for the time being, and then took Yan Shao and Ji Yushan to the factory director's office together.

After arriving in the office, Li Da first asked Yan Shao to sit in a position where only he could sit, and then said to Yan Shao. "Governor, what are you here for?"

"The main purpose of my visit this time is that I want your factory to make something...", he touched his chin as he spoke. Yan Shao looked at Li Da and Ji Yushan. "As you know, the revolutionary army is now being expanded. It is necessary to expand the number of more than 12,000 people from the present to more than 38,000, that is, three divisions plus one regiment. ”

"Of course, so many troops need a lot of equipment, and now I have purchased all of these equipment, and there are still a number of equipment that do not need to be purchased, I decided to leave it to your factory to solve, of course, before we design these things..."

After speaking, Yan Shao looked at Li Da. "You first take out a few blank pieces of paper and a pencil and give them to this little brother, and then I say, you draw..."

Although he had never seen Yan Shao in the past, Ji Yushan also knew very well who the person sitting in front of him was, so after hearing Yan Shao's words, he hurriedly nodded to show that he understood.

Yan Shao first said about the steel helmet.

Contrary to what many people think, there is no way to prevent the shooting of bullets, and even if you can really make a steel helmet to the point where a bullet can't shoot through it, the huge momentum is enough to break your cervical vertebrae. Of course, this is not to say that steel helmets are useless, otherwise what are the armies of so many countries doing with steel helmets, wasting steel? (Although modern countries have used helmets of other materials)

The real function of the steel helmet is to prevent stray bullets or shrapnel, etc., although this kind of thing is aimless, but it still has a strong lethality, if it hits somewhere else, it will be forgotten, and it will basically die if it is really hit on the head, and the purpose of the steel helmet is to prevent this kind of thing—————— generally stray bullets are about to fly out of the effective range, and the steel helmet is arc-shaped, and stray bullets usually slide on it.

In addition to the steel helmet, Yan Shao also asked Ji Yushan to draw a drawing of one thing.

Sapper shovels.

In the next two decades or so, the pattern of warfare will become large-scale positional warfare. In this case, if the soldier has a good sapper shovel, it can undoubtedly improve the efficiency of trench excavation. It doesn't really matter, though, because if you're rich enough, you can blow up the trenches with explosives and dig them slowly, which is much easier.

However, Yan Shao did not come this time not only to design a equipment for digging trenches, but more importantly, to make a white-knuckle wartime murder weapon.

Whether it was the Russo-Japanese War a few years ago or the First World War that would take place in the next few years, there were large-scale white-knuckle battles, and the main force in white-knuckle warfare was the bayonet.

However, in the First World War, although there were such combat methods as bayonet assault in the early days, after the advent of machine guns, the explosiveness of defensive firepower increased, and the frontal bayonet assault not only suffered heavy casualties, but also made it difficult to break through the line. At a time when one machine gun could stop a brigade assault, the so-called bayonet assault could be called mass suicide.

Of course, that's not what we're talking about here. Although the bayonet is the main force in white-knuckle warfare, it may not be better than the sapper shovel in white-knuckle combat. Moreover, the bayonet was somewhat inconvenient to use in the trenches after all, unlike the sapper shovel, which was not only easy to carry. And it is fully functional, if it is well designed, it can even be used as a machete...

Later generations of sapper shovels were multi-functional. Not only do they have machetes or something, but some even have serrated teeth, and the most helpless thing is that there are even fish hooks and fishing lines inside.

Yan Shao asked Ji Yushan to design a new type of sapper shovel with blades and serrations.

As for the multi-functional sapper shovels of later generations, such as storage compartments, bottle openers and so on, forget it. There is also a knife with a handle, which Yan Shao had seen on a sapper shovel in his later life. The handle of the sapper shovel is actually a small knife, which only needs to be removed and can be used, just like the sword in martial arts novels.

This type of sapper shovel may be very useful. But it is definitely not suitable for mass production, at least for China in this era.

————————————————————

In Li Da's office, Ji Yushan was lying on the desk and drawing with a pencil.

Ji Yushan may be very young, but his professional level is still very good. So soon according to Yan Shao's requirements, sketches of steel helmets and sapper shovels were drawn on the drawings. The realistic style is almost exactly the same as what Yan Shao requires.

Putting aside the words of the steel helmet for the time being, Yan Shao asked Ji Yushan to design the M42 steel helmet, no way, this kind of steel helmet is too well-known.

As for the sapper shovel, when they saw the sapper shovel with blades and serrated teeth appear, both Ji Yushan and Li Da felt dumbfounded.

"Boss, no. Governor, this is a sapper shovel. Or some kind of weapon that looks like a sapper's shovel? Looking at the weapons on the drawings, Li Da couldn't help asking. After all, no matter how you look at it, the thing on the drawing does not look like a sapper shovel, but more like some kind of murder weapon.

"Of course it's a sapper shovel..."Looking at the drawings on the table, Yan Shao nodded with satisfaction. Have you ever seen a weapon that looks like a shovel? ”

"I've never seen a zigzag shovel...", pouting, Li Da muttered quietly.

As an old man who has followed Yan Shao for many years, he still knows Yan Shao's character very well, and knows that unless it touches his reverse scales, such as Eleno and Caterina or someone close to him, otherwise even if he points to his nose and scolds him, he will not be angry—————— if he swings his fist and heads back, it is not moving...

It can be said that except for some things, Yan Shao's mind is still very broad-minded, so under Yan Shao's hands, Li Da and they can speak freely without worrying about retaliation afterwards, which also makes many people feel that they did not follow the wrong person at the beginning.

Sure enough, after hearing Li Da's muttering, Yan Shao made an angry look, but there was no anger in his eyes, only a little smile, and in the face of Yan Shao's pretended anger, Li Da laughed.

"Okay, don't be kidding..."patted Li Da's shoulder, signaling him not to laugh, Yan Shaozheng said. How long will it take you to build enough sapper shovels for all troops? ”

"I'm afraid it will take a long time..."After thinking about it carefully, Li Da replied. Now the scale of the arsenal is not enough, and the manpower is also seriously insufficient, if we really want more than 30,000 copies, with the current capacity of our factory, I am afraid that it will not work for a year and a half..."

Li Da smiled bitterly as he spoke. "To be honest, those steel helmets alone are enough for us to do our work, these sapper shovels..."

At most, the arsenal can only produce a few bullets and grenades, rifles or light machine guns, and it may not be able to produce a hundred (strong) guns a year. If you want to produce weapons and assemble weapons for tens of thousands of people at a time, the current arsenal alone is simply not enough. And counting on the equipment ordered by Yan Shao from foreign countries to arrive? It's also an unreliable thing.

After all, the expansion of the arsenal will not be completed in a while, not to mention that it is not an easy thing to go from Germany to China or from the United States to China.

"It seems that I can only entrust this matter to a foreign foreign firm..."After looking at the surrounding environment and making sure that Li Da was telling the truth, Yan Shao also smiled bitterly.

If he could, he really didn't want to leave things to foreigners, after all, he was taught to be independent and not dependent on others.

The previous purchase of so many arms from abroad was completely out of desperation, after all, if he did not buy them, at least two-thirds of the more than 30,000 people under his command would have to fight with broadswords and spears. And he buys so much equipment from Germany and the United States just to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Originally, even if he had rifles, machine guns, and artillery, the steel helmet and sapper shovels could still be handed over to his own people to solve, but who knew that the arsenal under his hands could not solve even this matter.

seemed to see Yan Shao's disappointment, and a trace of shame flashed on Li Da's face.

After all, he was supposed to be responsible for the production of weapons and equipment, and now he wants to put the matter in the hands of foreigners, which is his dereliction of duty from any point of view—————— although it has little to do with him.

He also wondered if he could hand over the matter of steel helmets and sapper shovels to some local blacksmith shops, although there were very few ironworks in China, but there were many blacksmith shops, almost every village and town had a blacksmith shop, and there were even several blacksmith shops in the county.

But the blacksmith's craftsmanship is different, and the quality is difficult to monitor, so it's okay to hand things over to them, but what if something goes wrong with the quality of the equipment? These are all equipment used by soldiers to fight, and if there is a problem with the quality, it will kill people... (To be continued......)