Volume 1: Entering the War of Resistance Chapter 72 **Gold**
The air force is a branch of the military with better technological content than the navy, so after He Juncai became the director of the Economic Management Bureau, he realized how difficult it was to be in charge. Now most of China's air force equipment relies on imports, but there are only a few ways to obtain foreign exchange: loans, exports and donations from the people.
After the Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy and Japan, the United States prepared to lend China $200 million, with tung oil and metal ores as collateral. The Soviet Union had already provided loans to China for the fourth time, and in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, it provided great assistance to China to hold back Japan. If there was no Soviet Union, China's air force would have collapsed between 1938 and 1939.
The foreign export has once again become a stable channel for obtaining foreign exchange due to the reopening of the Burma Road. Although Germany is in a state of war, through Qin Xiaofei, also known as Oda Hiro's fake nephew, some tungsten, tin and other minerals that are urgently needed by Germany but relatively abundant in China have been continuously transported to Europe, turning into tanks and shells, while obtaining German marks, they have enhanced Germany's combat effectiveness. Now the German army is ready to go, putting great pressure on the Soviet Union. Of course, the main export is still aimed at the United States, which has not restricted the import and export of most countries under its liberal policy. Therefore, most Chinese goods in Rangoon are destined for the United States, including tea leaves, tung oil, pig bristles, wool, raw silk and other major agricultural products, as well as tungsten, antimony, tin, mercury, bismuth and molybdenum and other special minerals. He Juncai did not expect that the most scarce commodity in China would be the humble pig bristle.
Bristle mainly refers to the long and hard bristles on the back of a pig, which have uniform roots, moderate softness and hardness, high oil content, good toughness, heat resistance, acid resistance, and friction resistance. From paintbrushes for warships, aircraft, and various military vehicles, to cleaning machine gun barrels and cannon tubes, they are all indispensable. Due to the fact that only China has large-scale pig farming and consumes pork, China's bristle production is high in quantity and quality. Before World War II, domestic production accounted for more than 75% of the world's total. Now, bristles have been listed as a strategic material, and countries are competing to get their hands on them. The Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom all need to negotiate with China to obtain a quota for a portion of the bristles.
Another object of Chinese exports was the Soviet Union, which provided China with several loans, and China repaid them with agricultural products and minerals, in exchange for a large number of weapons, most of which were air force fighter jets. The I-16 and Yak-1 were obtained this way.
The last source of funding was donations from the people, which had always been an important source of funding for the National Government, especially overseas Chinese. The foreign exchange they donated directly supported the domestic war effort with weapons. The Air Force's series of victories starting in June this year also encouraged them, and the Air Force's clean and transparent internal management prompted them to donate more funds directly to the Air Force to purchase fighter planes.
If it were only through loans, exports and donations from the people, it would not be enough to greatly develop this gold-swallowing air force. Fortunately, He Junkai had some secret channels, which made the air force system operate quickly.
On the other side of the globe, a company is becoming a world star because it has produced usable penicillin. The discovery of penicillin has been around for some time, but there has always been a lack of means to cultivate qualified penicillin on a large scale, and more importantly, there is no suitable purification method. However, this company called Yangsen Pharmaceutical did it. Starting from October, it began to sell penicillin externally at a price of $100 per vial. At that time, the US FDA was far less powerful than in later years, and with a little trickery, they successfully obtained a production license. $100 may not be much in later times, but it's worth noting that $100 could buy 1 ounce of gold at that time, so penicillin is called "gold" without exaggeration.
Even at a price that was exorbitant, penicillin remained in short supply because it was literally a "miracle drug" against bacterial infections such as septicemia, pneumonia, meningitis, tonsillitis, otitis media, scarlet fever, diphtheria, puerperal fever etc. It was also used to treat some bacterial diseases like tetanus, gas gangrene, anthrax, diphtheria, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, Listerosis, rat bite fever, syphilis, gonorrhea, yaws, relapsing fever, leptospirosis, Vincent's angina and actinomycosis. In the days before antibiotics, getting hold of some penicillin could literally save a life.
Yang Sen Pharmaceutical's acquisition of a small pharmaceutical factory in San Francisco, which was originally poorly managed and on the verge of bankruptcy, is now thriving with 24-hour production. According to estimates by the San Francisco City Government Taxation Department, Yang Sen Pharmaceutical's monthly revenue has exceeded $20 million, an astonishing amount for the 1940s, considering that a fighter jet at that time cost only $30,000 to $50,000. The sudden wealth of Yang Sen Pharmaceutical drew attention from both legitimate and illegitimate circles. On the legitimate side, the American Investigation Bureau (the precursor to the FBI) investigated Yang Sen Pharmaceutical and found it to be an enterprise under the Zhigong Party with relatively standard operations, so no action was taken for the time being. A complete report on the matter was submitted to President Roosevelt, who was busy with his third presidential campaign at the time. The file was quickly shelved and not made public until much later, revealing that the US had once had an opportunity to curb the powerful Yang Sen Pharmaceutical.
But it's not that simple, at this time the law and order situation in the United States can only be described with three words - "very bad!". Due to the lack of gun control, various immigrant groups organized their own forces, among which the 3K party of native American whites, the Black Hand Party of Italy, and the Japanese mafia were the most numerous. The Chinese merchants and workers who were originally here suffered a lot of bullying.
Fu Feng knew that he had to stand firm here, and relying solely on the American police was not enough. He organized some of the armed personnel who came from China with him as the backbone, and selected some strong and powerful young members from the Zhigong Party to mix together, purchased weapons and formed a factory guard team to protect the factory. As expected, the factory's huge profits attracted all kinds of wolves, Fu Feng personally took action, bought informants among these thugs through money, set up several traps in the hope of luring them into the factory. Once they entered private property, the owner could shoot at any time to defend his property, and Fu Feng really loved American law.
One evening, a group of Japanese ronin armed with long swords burst into the factory intending to rob it, only to find several hundred Thompson submachine guns trained on them. Fu Feng had a cigar clenched between his teeth and a blonde beauty wrapped in his arms, looking at the group with disdain.
"Haha, I was just thinking of killing a chicken to show the monkey, and you guys came! Close the door!" With Fu Feng's order, the iron gate closed behind this group of bewildered rascals, and the factory guards' "Chicago typewriters" began to spit out scorching bullets. By the time the San Francisco police arrived at the factory after receiving the alarm, dozens of Japanese rascals had been killed, with tens of bullet holes in most of the corpses, a bloody scene that made the police who had never seen such a big scene vomit repeatedly. The notorious name of Yang Sen Pharmaceutical spread rapidly throughout San Francisco, and all the underworld wanted to make a move on Yang Sen Pharmaceutical when they weighed their own strength carefully.
Compared to external threats, the internal workers' disputes are more troublesome for Pufeng. The capitalists in capitalist countries are not easy to deal with either. After Yangsen Pharmaceuticals acquired this small pharmaceutical factory, it also took over its existing workers. These workers' union organizations kept organizing strikes and protests, affecting Yangsen Pharmaceuticals' internal production. For a period of time, this problem could not be solved, but He Junci was foresighted and had already transported some domestic skilled workers through the floating base. Pufeng also recruited some culturally-based people from the Chinese community in San Francisco to fill the pharmaceutical factory as apprentice workers. Although language and skills are still being honed, at least Pufeng will not be constrained too much by the union organization.
Moreover, Yangsen Pharmaceutical's goal is to become an international pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing company, which will not be limited to this small pharmaceutical factory in San Francisco. From now on, cultivating its own personnel has extremely important significance.
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Compared to Yangsen Pharmaceutical's attention in the business world, the medical community is more concerned with a person, Dr. Wei Qi, who graduated from Harvard Medical School's Virology program. Dr. Wei Qi is currently the Chief Scientist at Yangsen Pharmaceutical, responsible for antibiotic research and production process development. It is said that the large-scale production process of penicillin was designed by him, and his mentor and classmates at Harvard Medical School wrote to congratulate him on this achievement. Most people in the medical community believe that this process is worthy of a Nobel Prize in Medicine, and penicillin will change the world's medical situation, with some acute infectious diseases likely to be completely eradicated, giving humans more control over their lives than ever before.
Fu Feng found Dr. Wei Qi by chance, at which time Wei Qi had completed many years of virology studies and was preparing to return home. Wei Qi can be considered a standard "angry youth", his purpose in studying virology is simple: to create a biochemical virus that can spread on a large scale and release it in Japan, killing all Japanese people. During his studies in the United States, Wei Qi joined the Chinese Chee Kung Tong party, so when Fu Feng heard about this talent in the Chee Kung Tong party, he was overjoyed. He summoned Wei Qi from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast under the name of Siu Mat-tong, and the two hit it off immediately. At this time, Fu Feng urgently needed a reasonable person to explain how the large-scale production process of penicillin was invented, and later a series of new drugs would emerge; while Dr. Wei Qi found a more reliable way to serve his country.
Fu Feng set up a state-of-the-art laboratory for Dr. Wei Qi in San Francisco to research new drugs and production processes, with security levels comparable to those of military bases. According to sources from the lab, they are currently researching several new antibiotics as well as medicines extracted from traditional Chinese medicine, which is expected to bring new breakthroughs to the medical field.
The sixth day of National Day!
A vast expanse of clear sky!
Is it going to fly a kite or is it going to fly a kite?
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