At the end of a tiring day, when Zhong Bai returned home and collapsed on the bed, he did not rest immediately.

Because answering Lu Changming's question reminded Zhong Bai of his memory of rare earths, which was exactly one of the two planning directions he had for Baifeng Group.

Rare earth is a general term for 17 metal elements, which are mainly used in permanent magnet materials (including alloys), petrochemicals, glass and other industries.

Without rare earths, we would live in a world without smartphones, Teslas, and high-speed rail, with only half of the world's crude oil conversion rate in 2020, and no country could build laser-guided weapons.

Without rare earths, we would no longer have TV screens, computer hard drives, fiber optic cables, digital cameras, and most medical imaging equipment.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, in short, the breadth of applications of rare earths in various industries is beyond the imagination of ordinary people!

Essentially, ductile iron is only a small branch of the use of rare earth alloys, although insignificant, but the premise is still the line of rare earth mining and production of rare earth products.

Rare earth mining is the basis of rare earth products, and when it comes to rare earth mining, it is necessary to mention what kind of environment the rare earth reserves and the rare earth industry were in the early 80s.

The world's largest rare earth reserves are the assets left to the Chinese nation by history and nature.

Whether it is Zhong Bai's past life or present life, Huaguo is the only country that can provide all 17 rare earth metals.

Before the 1970s, China's rare earth reserves accounted for 90% of the world's reserves, however, between 1996 and 2009, China's rare earth reserves plummeted by 37%, and by 2010 there were only 27 million tons.

Of course, there are reasons such as the use of extremely wasteful predatory mining methods, but more importantly, China has lagged behind Western countries in refining technology for a long time, so it has to export rare earth concentrate at the reserve price, and then buy rare earth products at dozens or even hundreds of times the price.

Since the eighties, Huaguo rare earth has entered a period of rapid growth in production, due to the reform and opening up put forward the guiding ideology of "resources for technology", in exchange for a large amount of foreign exchange needs, Huaguo has implemented the "large mines, small mines, water fast" guidelines, in order to stimulate the export of rare earth resources in large quantities, which is not uncommon in other natural resources.

At that time, in order to purchase rare earth separation technology from the Rhodia factory in France, which has the world's most advanced technology, the arrogant French not only asked for a price far higher than China's expectations, but also demanded that the majority of the products produced must be sold to the other party.

Without industrial technology, Huaguo can only swallow its anger, contribute R&D expenditure and bear environmental pollution for France, and its status is only equivalent to a branch with no independent voice.

Many years later, when the country looked back on this piece, it found that the harm caused to China's rare earth industry by taking this approach for short-term interests was very huge.

Of course, Zhong Bai does not want to see this happening, rare earth is related to the development of many high-tech industries, if in this era can make Huaguo rare earth refining technology to the international cutting-edge, then naturally there will be no "resources for technology" situation, not only can protect China's rare earths from being plundered by those developed countries, but also can greatly improve the speed of China's industrial power!

"If there is a good opportunity, we can make a good plan to accelerate Baifeng Group's entry into the rare earth industry." Zhong Bai sighed silently.

But with the volume of Baifeng Group's current capital of less than 20 million, how difficult is it to get involved in the rare earth industry that burns money like water?

And, when will this opportunity arise?

This is not something that Zhong Bai can solve by lying on the bed and dreaming, as a wave of sleepiness hits, he slowly closes his eyes......

……

Beijing, Ministry of Industry.

Vice Minister Xiang Pan is very busy with work, and yesterday's day trip to Tiandu is just one of his full schedules every week.

As soon as I got to work, the secretary put a large pile of documents on the desk that were to be reviewed today.

Xiang Pan still follows his previous habits, brewing a cup of strong tea before work, and then recalling those memorable things yesterday, and then starting today's work.

The battle for the establishment of Baifeng Group is bigger than he imagined, and Yu Dongfeng's speech pattern is also very high, although it sounds a little difficult to achieve the goal, but I have to say that with the spread of the country's reform and opening up policy this year, the ambition of these young entrepreneurs is also quite heroic.

In Xiang Pan's view, the fortuitous factor of the establishment of Baifeng Group is very large.

From a clothing agency company directly across the field into industrial equipment manufacturing, Yu Dongfeng's vision can not be described as vicious, but the core technology of DWX series single hydraulic strut was invented by Zhong Bai of the Tianhe Provincial Department of Industry.

Xiang Pan silently came to a conclusion, if there is no Zhong Bai, then there is a 99% chance that Baifeng Group will not be established!

This young section chief is really capable...... When I went to the airport yesterday, it was normal for Liu Zhengfu and Lu Xudong to come to see him off, but Gao Jian, deputy commander of the Tianhe Provincial Military Region, also came all the way to see him off, which Xiang Pan did not expect.

And what he didn't expect was that Gao Jian actually mentioned one thing to himself alone!

The 385 Military Section of their provincial military district wants to hire Zhong Bai as a part-time researcher!

At that time, Xiang Pan thought that Gao Jian was joking with himself, but the other party said with a serious expression that he had moved the idea of directly poaching people at the banquet, but later changed it to hiring a part-time researcher, hoping that Zhong Bai would be free to participate in their rare earth alloy project.

Of course, Xiang Pan did not directly express his position on the spot for Gao Jian's request.

After all, Liu Zhengfu and Lu Xudong were still present, although he was their leader, he still couldn't do this kind of thing without saying a word to take the outstanding talents of the Tianhe Provincial Department to do favors.

So Xiang Pan said that when he went back, he would definitely give Gao Jian a reply, and at the same time hinted to the other party, you have to talk to Liu Zhengfu about this.

Gao Jian's expression did not change at that time, and it seemed that this answer was not unexpected, but he nodded calmly, indicating that he would contact him again in the future.

"This Zhong Bai is a better existence than Yu Dongfeng......" Thinking of this, Xiang Pan couldn't help but shake his head slightly, picked up the document in front of him that was at least more than twenty centimeters high to be approved, and began to look at it one by one from the top.

The first two copies were nothing, but when Xiang Pan saw the third document, the pen that signed the document stopped in mid-air!

This is a pending document from the Department of Personnel Education and contains the following contents......

"Notice on Dispatching Relevant Personnel to Participate in the Training Course for Senior Rare Earth Talents in the National Industrial System"!