On January 1, 1941, in the mountainous area of Li County, Jin Province

Many people think that this is the Eighth Route Army has an overall view, regardless of previous suspicions, and wholeheartedly maintains the united front, but in fact, while building Qijiang, the construction plan of the Eighth Route Army in Jin Province has been carried out.

After the armistice with Yamamoto Kazuki, the Eighth Route Army began to raise materials as planned, and then part of the construction personnel who completed the construction of Qijiang County were secretly transferred to Jin Province and began to guide the construction.

The headquarters of the Eighth Route Army has rolled out 10,000 small factories at one time according to the plan, and some factories with simple technology have begun trial production. It was like a simple wooden-handled grenade, which was very cheap, and in addition to being open to the guerrillas, it also supplied troops in the Second and First War zones, and because of the use of border tickets, the value of the border tickets increased.

Compared with Qijiang County, which focused on the development of the iron and steel industry, the troops of the Eighth Route Army in Jin Province not only developed the iron and steel industry, but also used the rich local bauxite resources to engage in simple local aluminum smelting.

To say that the production of aluminum without electrolysis is actually not very complicated, first of all, bauxite plus soda and lime, smelted at a high temperature of 1,200 degrees, and made a semi-finished product of metallic aluminum - alumina.

To smelt aluminum, the oxygen in the alumina should be removed. However, alumina requires a high temperature of 2,000 degrees Celsius to melt, and the maximum temperature of the furnace in the smelting workshop is only 1,240 degrees, which cannot melt alumina.

At this time, it is necessary to try to reduce the melting degree of alumina, and then refine the metal aluminum after making alumina sulfide. Because aluminum sulfide only needs a temperature of 1,100 degrees Celsius to melt. Alumina is made by adding iron sulfide and coke and burning it to about 1,000 degrees.

Finally, zinc chloride is added to aluminum sulfide and roasted together to smelt aluminum element.

Now, the war in Europe has a tendency to further expand, aluminum prices are also rising, especially in the absence of any domestic production capacity, aluminum prices are more expensive than the international market prices, aluminum products are also more expensive, although the performance of these local refining aluminum ingots is not as good as aluminum alloy, can be used to process ordinary aluminum products and currency is still no problem.

The aluminum coins made in the border area are very popular, basically the kind that cannot be seen on the market, so that the experts of the banks in the border area are not sure, when the aluminum coins will also become the same hard currency as silver yuan, but no matter what, this is a good thing for the Eighth Route Army.

In the past few days, Li Yunlong has even seen the five-cent coins of the border bank in the market of Qijiang, and the businessmen directly took out the rolls and used them one by one when they settled.

Wang Yue also saw this situation, in his opinion this is just the beginning, with a large number of coins put into the market, the Guotong area is better, in the occupied area is likely to appear in the border area to replace the reserve notes and border tickets, compared to the flood of paper money, people in this era prefer metal money, just like the 50 copper coins that can be seen everywhere on the market, even if it is a bandit mint 50 copper coins, it is very popular.

Of course, these are all afterwords, the current Eighth Route Army is still desperately bursting production capacity, and more than 500 furnaces for aluminum smelting alone have been erected, which is still because of the limitation of transportation capacity, otherwise, the deputy commander-in-chief wants to put on a thousand furnaces at a time.

In order to help the Eighth Route Army train here, in addition to the instructions for the use of traditional Chinese characters with pictures, there are also specially made black-and-white teaching films, and the cost of this movie is almost catching up with those equipment.

It's impossible not to be expensive, find a suitable old factory, set set, find foreign actors, train, translate and proofread scripts, organize shooting, and then transcribe narrow black and white film, for those small and simple equipment ordered by Wang Yue, some of them cost hundreds of yuan, and the cost of making a teaching film is in five figures.

According to the estimation of the staff department of the Eighth Route Army, it only takes three months for these 10,000 factories in Jin Province to be put into production, not to mention that Li Yunlong's plan for the Shancheng government has 100,000 factories, but in terms of the government's organizational and operational capabilities, even if these factories are completed, it will take a long time to reach the best condition, and it is even possible that they will never reach it.

But the Eighth Route Army is different, 10,000 factories, not a lot, but it can ensure three shifts a day of full capacity operation, enough to reach 20,000 to 30,000 factories on the side of the Shancheng government, with the current size of the Eighth Route Army, it is absolutely enough.

And this is only the first phase of the project, now that the war has been suspended, the financial situation of the Eighth Route Army in Jin Province has been greatly improved, and with the passage of time, the Eighth Route Army will definitely have more funds to carry out the second phase of construction, although the funds for the first phase of their construction have not yet been settled, but the plan of the staff department has been completed in the third phase.

"Lao Zhang, this quality is really good!" Brigade Commander Chen picked up an aluminum cutlery box, a very beautiful one-time molded cutlery box, the surface is smooth, the section is smooth, there is not even a burr, if it is not for the words "Li County Aluminum Products Factory" suppressed on the top, Brigade Commander Chen feels that this is an imported product.

"The quality of the imitation Hans M1915 field cutlery box is better than that of the Hans origin in the late war period, and the Hans technician said that our aluminum ingots are of good quality." Logistics Minister Zhang Wanhe said with a smile, with the development of large-scale construction, he, the Minister of Logistics, finally began to have some taste, in the past, Wang Yue provided a variety of weapons to help him support the scene, but now this situation is changing little by little, and the proportion of self-produced weapons and equipment is increasing little by little.

"Lao Zhang, can this equip our Taiyue Military Region first?" Brigade Commander Chen said with burning eyes, all departments of the Eighth Route Army have been issued with new military uniforms and are also equipped with the latest tableware, but the Eighth Route Army is too poor, and has to pour out some of the bits and pieces as imported goods, which leads to many Eighth Route Army soldiers not equipped with tableware and kettles.

"Don't worry, this batch is customized for the First War Zone, you have to wait for next month." Zhang Wanhe hurriedly handed the cutlery box in Brigade Commander Chen's hand to the packing worker on the side, the First War Zone used the wheat of the current season to pay the bills, and with these wheat as reserves, the food situation of the Eighth Route Army in Jin Province would be further improved.

"Lao Zhang, you really have an eye for money, Li Yunlong's kid is right, your kid has really changed, it's really blind." Brigade Commander Chen pursed his lips, Lao Zhang said so, it must be no fun, as for the next batch, just listen to it, the first war zone is over and there is the second war zone, maybe there is the Central Army, millions of troops across the country, in addition to normal equipment, there is also a supplement to the loss, this thing is really not short of sales, as long as it can be sold, let alone Zhang Wanhe, even the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army will give priority to selling, no way, the Eighth Route Army is too poor.

"Lao Chen, I don't like to hear what you say, don't think I don't know, your main force all has a complete set of tableware and kettles, that is, the basic regiment is a little worse, but the basic regiment is the basic regiment, isn't the basic regiment of the whole army the same? Last year, the deputy commander-in-chief proposed to expand the main force to 500,000, and now in northern Shaanxi, he has proposed to consider expanding the force to 1 million. Zhang Wanhe complained bitterly, and the deputy commander-in-chief shouted the slogan of revolutionization, regularization, and modernization under the prodding of Wang Yue, determined to build a first-class strong army in Asia, and cooperate with the Shancheng government to counterattack the Japanese army.

It is said that the headquarters is still searching for naval personnel everywhere, and it is said that it wants to choose a secret naval training base along the coast of Lu Province, that is, the Shancheng government does not know about this matter, otherwise the highest authorities are afraid that they will make small moves again.

But it's just a small action, the superiors see the conditions for domestic peace very clearly, that is, strength, as long as the strength of the Eighth Route Army continues to grow, it can independently resist the military pressure of the Japanese, and it can deter the military threat of the Yamashiro government, just like two people, the strength is almost basically impossible to fight, unless one of them is stupid.

"One million, Lao Zhang, who are you listening to?" After listening to Zhang Wanhe's words, I was also shocked in my heart, the harvest in the base areas in the past few years has been average, and the higher authorities have repeatedly ordered and reaffirmed the demand to control the scale of the troops, and the deputy commander-in-chief has been criticized a lot for shouting out the 500,000 rearmament plan, but it has only been a few days now, and the training of the troops has not yet been completed, so why is it necessary to expand the army again, a million regular army, how much material and equipment is needed, a million regular army, whether the local armed forces that are attached to it will be increased equally, and whether the transfer of so many young and strong people to join the army will not affect local production. It's a series of questions.

"The deputy chief of general staff asked me to count the material reserves in the base areas, and I mentioned that whether this can be finally implemented depends on the material reserves in the base areas, at least, the food must be enough, as far as you can see, these tableware are all used to exchange food with the First War Zone." Zhang Wanhe explained in a low voice that even if the food is not enough for the time being, the army expansion plan will still be carried out, but it will be delayed for a while, after all, they still have Wang Yue's support, and there will always be patchwork.