Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#180 - Industrialization in border areas accelerates

General Shi was quite reliable. Two weeks later, the process flow diagrams for Ren Zhong's five small factories arrived, along with a rotor from a 6-megawatt thermal power plant turbine generator. This was exactly the core component Ren Zhong had requested, weighing several tons.

For a turbine weighing over a hundred tons, this rotor was considered small, but it required advanced technology and materials. Ordinary materials couldn't guarantee its lifespan. Therefore, Ren Zhong requested one as a reference for research. As for the stator, including the base, stator core, stator winding, and end caps, these were large and bulky parts, mainly made of castings. The steel factory under the Dawn Research Institute could handle the casting of these parts without much difficulty.

So, after receiving the drawings and the rotor for the 6MW thermal power plant, the Dawn Research Institute's thermal power plant project suddenly accelerated. With some minor adjustments, the generator could increase its power output to match the new turbine rotor. The remaining components would be designed and cast according to the drawings. It was estimated that most of the equipment could be completed in just over a month.

Currently, there were no environmental protection departments, so naturally, there were no extensive environmental protection facilities. Ren Zhong didn't have time to perfect them either, as the immediate priority was survival.

The construction of the sheet metal factory building was faster than expected. To enhance camouflage, a layer of harvested wheat straw was added to the sheet metal roof, making it look like a relatively large thatched cottage from a distance, with no hint of a factory.

Unless an insider leaked information, it would be difficult to spot from the air, except perhaps by seeing smoke from the chimney. However, even though Ren Zhong wasn't focused on environmental protection at this stage, he still considered filtering measures for the smoke, ensuring that mostly white water vapor was emitted, which would quickly dissipate in the air.

After all, these technologies were already very mature in the main world, and Ren Zhong could simply copy and use them. Compared to the crude methods of this world, Ren Zhong had technically elevated this outdated product from the Rogue Eagle to a higher level.

The thermal power plant was progressing in this way. Simultaneously, the steel factory, fertilizer plant, glass factory, and oil refinery were also being built according to the drawings. It was currently the winter slack season, and although the weather was cold, it wasn't yet at the point where people couldn't go outside. The border region, with grain in hand, directly mobilized several thousand people to participate in the construction of Ren Zhong's five small factories.

It should be known that these were the first real factories in the border region, with proper electrical equipment, factory buildings, and standardized operating procedures. Compared to Ren Zhong's previous crude blast furnace, they were products of a completely different era.

Therefore, the border region also attached great importance to this project, concentrating all available industrial experts to learn from the experience while building. Once this model was successful, they would be responsible for promoting it.

The Dawn Research Institute could produce the equipment, but the installation and operation would depend on them. The border region was now very cooperative, sparing no effort to help the Dawn Research Institute with the construction. After the first set was built, the revised and improved plans would be transferred to the border region for replication.

Ren Zhong didn't haggle over these technologies at all, giving them away for free.

There were no conditions even for the military industry. Only for civilian products did he negotiate with the management for 20% of the profits as an incentive, ensuring strong enthusiasm for factory production and operation.

Now, during wartime, Ren Zhong didn't have much time to argue about these things, so the cooperation with the border region was seamless. They responded directly to requests, mobilizing laborers and troops without hesitation.

This allowed Ren Zhong to maximize production capacity!

In the border region, although the team was small, everyone was genuinely working hard, which was impossible to find in the rear.

This allowed the Dawn Research Institute, despite its lack of fame, to rapidly advance the industrialization of the border region. Once these five small factories were successful, the effect on the next step of industrial progress in the border region would be immeasurable.

For example, the small fertilizer plant, even if its capacity was insignificant compared to the main world, could add 750,000 mu of high-yield farmland to the border region with its 30,000 tons of fertilizer.

Although the border region currently had over 10 million mu of cultivated land and a population of over 1.5 million, most of it was extensively cultivated with low yields. The total grain output was too pitiful, only 1.37 million shi, which translates to 411 million jin (1 shi = 300 jin in the border region). The average grain per capita was 274 jin, which was far less than the Hetao region of Qilu Ban! Qilu Ban had over 1.7 million mu of cultivated land in half of the Hetao area, yielding at least 230 million jin of various grains per year. With a population of only 260,000, and less than 400,000 including military and government personnel, the average grain per capita was over 575 jin.

It was evident that agricultural production in the border region was simply terrible. A lot of land was cultivated, with over 1 million mu of wasteland reclaimed in a year, but the land was poor, and irrigation and cultivation techniques hadn't kept up. There wasn't much irrigated land, and the yield per mu was completely inadequate.

If Ren Zhong hadn't intervened and created 100,000 mu of irrigated land along the Yan River, plus tens of thousands of mu of high-yield land producing over 1,000 jin, the grain shortage in the border region would have continued for several more years.

If the fertilizer plant could expand the high-yield land to 750,000 mu after it went into production, even if the yield per mu didn't exceed 1,000 jin, but could exceed 500 jin, that would be equivalent to an additional 375 million jin of grain, almost doubling the grain production capacity. The average grain per capita would exceed 500 jin, and people would basically not go hungry.

Moreover, the labor force could be released from the land, with some transferred to the border region's garrison troops, and some transferred to the border region's initial industrial factories or large-scale construction projects. This would allow the main force to be further transported and expanded northward.

With the current industrialization process on Ren Zhong's side, water conservancy construction and road transportation construction in the border region would be carried out on a large scale in late 1941 and early 1942. Along the border region's Wuding River, Yan River, and Kuye River, the water conservancy construction project to transform one million mu of irrigated land would be launched in full swing.

At the same time, road construction to the north would be prioritized. The roads from the border region to Suide, and from Suide to Yikezhao League, would be widened and compacted on the basis of the original carts (horse-drawn carts, ox carts), so that they meet the standard of a road width of not less than 4.5 meters. In this way, Ren Zhong's designed agricultural tricycles would be able to pass each other on such roads in the future.

According to the original plan, this was to be implemented throughout 1942, but with the help of the five small factory technologies and core equipment obtained from the Rogue Eagle, Ren Zhong could now advance this process ahead of schedule.

Second Update