Chapter 23 I returned to Fenhe Camp again

  The Third Development

  The Shanxi governor, Hu Pingzhi, had actually noticed Kang Fan and other young people who returned from overseas. He also had some understanding of Kang Fan through Yu Hao and He Shuichang. Although he admired what Kang Fan did, in the eyes of this intellectual who entered officialdom through imperial examination, Kang Fan's despicable behavior of relying on a few dirty money and foreign help to squeeze into officialdom made him very disdainful. Therefore, he did not make any arbitrary judgments about Kang Fan and maintained an attitude of observation. After receiving the edict from Emperor Guangxu, he only instructed Yu Hao's uncle to handle the handover with Kang Fan and did not meet with Kang Fan in person, which can be seen as his unenthusiastic attitude.

  Yu's uncle was promoted from Ningwu Prefecture to Yanping Road, and his rank was raised from junior fourth grade to senior fourth grade. Although he was only promoted one level, he was in charge of three prefectures: Datong Prefecture, Shuoping Prefecture, and Ningwu Prefecture, which greatly expanded his power. When he came to Ningwu Prefecture to meet Kang Fan, Kang Fan was still in England, so he entrusted Yu Hao to handle the handover on his behalf and went to Dai Prefecture Road Office to take office first. Yu Hao originally wanted to follow his uncle, but after Kang Fan's repeated persuasion, he obtained his uncle's consent and continued to stay in Ningwu Prefecture, assisting Kang Fan with official duties instead.

  Kang Fan did this for two reasons: firstly, to show respect for Yu Hao's knowledge and character; secondly, because Yu Hao had assisted with official duties in Ningwu Prefecture for many years and was more familiar with the area than Kang Fan himself, making him better suited to handle local affairs. The most important reason, however, was that Kang Fan did not want to be bogged down by tedious official business, so he could free up time to focus on his own interests, such as military preparations.

  Kang Fan and Mei Xiang returned from the UK in July of that year, when a new industrial project guided by Mei Xiang's classmates was underway. This is a large and complex system engineering project, with many suppliers, including American, British and German engineers and technicians, who are building according to requirements. It is expected to take one or more years to complete this construction plan, as the old and primitive infrastructure in the area does not have the ability to support a modern industrial system, and needs to start from the most basic facilities such as road construction, water plants, water supply/electricity/gas systems, sewage systems, environmental protection systems, etc., and gradually improve them. Only when the infrastructure in the area meets the required standards can the real industrial facilities be built.

  The project had just begun when Mei Xiang's classmates raised objections. Because even these European and American engineers who mastered the most advanced technology of the time could not compare with these 21st-century Chinese students, the students' plan was more scientific and feasible than theirs. The suggestion was adopted, and a working group composed of students was formed to guide those European and American engineers to change their original plan and re-plan the entire construction project systematically from the needs of future development, fundamentally transforming everything that was backward.

  The planned infrastructure is designed for even greater development in the future, with a focus on several large-scale thermal power plants and building materials enterprises. The power plants rely on the rich coal and water resources in the region, and after formal operation, they can provide sufficient electricity to the entire Ningwu Prefecture. Electricity has been used as a good and cheap new energy source in advanced industrial countries such as Europe and America for over a decade, and Ningwu Prefecture is not much later than them. The widespread application of electricity will drive the development of the electrical manufacturing industry in Ningwu Prefecture, leaping from the current agricultural era to the new electrical era. To carry out large-scale infrastructure construction, a large amount of building materials are needed, and the local counties have rich reserves of limestone, clay, quartz, granite, and other resources, with good conditions for producing cement, glass, bricks, and other building materials. Therefore, it is planned to establish a number of modern cement plants, glass factories, brick and tile factories, and stone material factories in Ningwu Prefecture. As long as the electricity and building materials industries are put into operation first, they can create the necessary conditions for subsequent industrial construction.

  At the same time, vigorously develop coal mines and coal chemical enterprises to provide much-needed energy and production raw materials for local industries. This year will expand the pharmaceutical factory and expand the existing daily chemical factory into a large-scale joint enterprise producing various daily chemical products, build new food processing, textile and other light industrial enterprises. After the coal mine and coal chemical enterprises are put into production, the produced coal is supplied to the power plant, which has fuel for power generation, and after continuous transmission of electric energy, it provides wings for the takeoff of industry. The coal chemical industry can also provide necessary chemical raw materials for various industrial enterprises, achieving initial industrial development.

  The next construction plan will be implemented after the completion of this plan, and a number of high-end industrial enterprises such as metallurgy, machinery, chemical industry, electrical appliances, optics, etc. will be established one after another, gradually forming a complete light and heavy industrial system in Ningwu Prefecture that is not large in scale but comprehensive in categories. By then, students can give full play to the advanced science and technology of the 21st century they have mastered.

  The ransom that Kang Fan brought back from the UK was timely and useful, allowing the entire industrial development plan to be implemented quickly, making Mei Xiang feel a lot of emotion.

  Kang Fan, you are truly great! Mei Xiang said this with excitement and tears in her eyes.

  Kang Fan smiled and said: People all say that beautiful women are made of water. Now I understand: because there is so much water on you, that's why you're so beautiful.

  Mei Xiang suddenly blushed, that sentence was 'women are made of water', not 'beautiful women are made of water', don't add unnecessary details!

  Kang Fan's injury was still severe, but after returning from the UK, he had been busy with the construction of Ningwu Prefecture and had not received good care, causing his injury to worsen again, vomiting several times. Fortunately, the students had organized all the construction work in the jurisdiction in an orderly manner, leaving only the railway construction plan connecting Taiyuan to Tianjin-Lu Railway yet to be implemented. If he could get this plan done, Kang Fan would be able to find a place to recover from his injury.

  The Tianjin-Lugouqiao Railway is currently being built with a loan of 400,000 pounds from the British government to build a double-track standard gauge railway from Beijing Lugou Bridge to Tianjin. At this time, the project is nearing completion. Kang Fan plans to build a new railway directly from Taiyuan to the capital city, connecting with the Tianjin-Lugouqiao Railway, and connecting Taiyuan with Beijing and Tianjin. By using this railway to transport major arteries, it will accelerate the development of Ningwu Prefecture, and then drive the development of Shanxi Province's capital Taiyuan and the entire province. Although funded by Ningwu Prefecture, building this railway involves too many administrative aspects, and only he and Hu Pinzhi can jointly face up to solve it, others cannot do it. For this reason, Kang Fan and Hu Pinzhi accompanied each other to Beijing to meet Guangxu, and gained support. Mei Xiang, in order to treat his wounds, carried a medicine box with her to take care of him closely. After returning, Kang Fan adopted the students' suggestions, and at the same time as building the railway, he simultaneously set up a telegraph line and a telephone line along the railway. In this way, after the project is completed, Ningwu Prefecture can use this transportation line and communication line to connect with the capital Taiyuan, Beijing, and Tianjin to form an organic whole, which is more conducive to development.

  Hu Pingzhi really helped a lot this time, thanks to his participation, Emperor Guangxu was pleased to see Kang Fan and Hu Pingzhi supporting each other and working together in good faith, thus resisting the opposition of several ministers in the court and giving the green light. After this trip to Beijing, Hu Pingzhi's view of Kang Fan also began to change cautiously, and he paid special attention to Kang Fan.

  After the commencement of the railway project, under Meixiang's strict supervision, Kang Fan convened a meeting with relevant personnel and, after soliciting everyone's opinions, assigned daily administrative tasks to Yu Hao, financial matters to Zhong Hanqiang, industrial and agricultural production, education, medical care, infrastructure construction and other matters to He Jia brothers and students, and foreign affairs to Duonuo Wan and others for management. After the meeting, Kang Fan took leave with Hu Pinzhi and returned to Fenhe Camp under Meixiang's escort to recover from his injuries.

  It was just the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, Kang Fan and Mei Xiang returned to the long-separated Fenhe campsite. Zhong Hanqiang brought his students to help thoroughly clean up the inside and outside of the campsite, and put away the various daily necessities and purchased food in the warehouse, before returning to their respective tasks. Adolf and Chi Tu also followed, accompanying Kang Fan and Mei Xiang, looking very happy.

  The vegetables in the camp's vegetable garden were growing vigorously, and the fruit tree saplings had grown taller and stronger. The number of fish in the pond had increased significantly, and the chickens, pigs, and sheep being raised were all thriving. On the other side of the river, the farmland was also lush and green, with crops growing well... Seeing all this, Kang Fan felt moved: he had left for several months, leaving everything behind. It was really hard to manage the camp so well while being busy with work, and he couldn't help but admire Zhong Hanqiang's ability.

  The valley is exceptionally quiet, with fresh and pleasant air. The mountain wind blows over, ruffling the calm surface of the Fen River, rustling through the dense pine forest, and also blowing up Mei Xiang's hair and skirt. Kang Fan saw the two beautiful legs under the flying skirt of Mei Xiang, and his heart was racing, with a surge of **in his mind.

  Mei Xiang gave him a sideways glance and said seriously: Tell Kang Fan that if his injury isn't fully healed, he shouldn't think about doing anything else.

  Kang Fan felt his face getting a bit hot, but still argued: What am I supposed to think? Besides you, there's only Adolf and Chi Tu, what do you want me to look at?

  What were you thinking, Kung Fan? I couldn't be clearer. Mei Xiang smiled and walked over to help him take off his outer garments and socks, changing into that soft, loose silk shirt and pants and slippers. She spread a quilt on the rattan chair and let him rest comfortably in the shade of the trees under the wall. She also took off her skirt and only wore a vest and shorts, leading Adolph to play by the river.

  Kang Fan did his best to do nothing, savoring the warmth of the sun, the gentleness of the breeze, and the fragrance of the grass and trees. Chi Tu walked over, lowered its head, and gently touched Kang Fan's hand with its snout. Kang Fan affectionately combed its neatly trimmed mane. In the distance, amidst the gurgling water sounds, Adolf picked up fish after fish and handed them to Mei Xiang, who happily accepted them, her bright laughter intertwining with Adolf's majestic calls...

  The days passed quietly and happily, and under Meixiang's careful treatment and care, Kangfan gradually recovered. During the recovery period, Kangfan plunged into the pile of weapons and teaching materials brought back, starting the design work of new-style weapon equipment. After the industrial system of Ningwu Prefecture was built and put into production, manufacturing new-style weapons became a matter of course, and military construction should be carried out intensively.

  Kang Fa first improved the design of the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle: The Type 56 semi-automatic rifle is a single-shot, self-loading rifle that uses a gas-operated automatic principle to fire a 39mm medium-power rifle cartridge. As a result, it has the advantages of being lightweight, fast-firing, and accurate. Kang Fa moved the gas tube of the Type 56 to the bottom of the barrel, replacing the original 10-round fixed magazine with a 15-round detachable steel magazine that can be inserted from the bottom, increasing the speed of reloading and sustained firepower. Correspondingly, the structure and shape of the rifle were modified, and the non-detachable folding bayonet of the Type 56 was replaced with a detachable Type 95 multi-functional military sword. After this modification, the rifle has undergone significant changes in appearance and internal structure, with improved performance, making it a new type of semi-automatic rifle. The rifle is 1025mm long without a bayonet and weighs 4kg, making it compact and convenient to carry. In contrast, the manually operated single-shot rifles used by Western armies at that time were over 1200mm long without a bayonet, and exceeded 1600mm with a bayonet attached, which was quite cumbersome for cavalry officers.

  The effective range of the new semi-automatic rifle is 400 meters, with a superior firepower advantage at medium and close combat distances, but its long-range performance is not as good as that of the manually operated single-shot rifles commonly used by Western powers. To make up for this deficiency, Kangfan specially designed an improved version of the rifle on the basis of this gun, with an effective range of 800 meters, using a heavier and longer barrel after precise processing, and the ammunition used was also changed to a special sniper rifle cartridge with the same external dimensions as the 54mm large-caliber machine gun cartridge used in the Type 672 general-purpose machine gun. The length and weight of the gun were increased accordingly, but the long-range lethality was greatly improved. To further improve shooting accuracy, this rifle will be equipped with a high-precision optical sight with a magnification of 6 times, a bipod, cheek pad, and various auxiliary devices. It was just 1896, so the two guns were named Type 96 Rifle and Type 96 Sniper Rifle respectively.

  The Type 96 machine gun, Type 96 82mm mortar, Type 96 82mm recoilless rifle, Type 96 hand grenade and Type 96 bayonet were simply reverse-engineered from the original models without any modifications. For future artillery designs, Kong Xiangxi relied on textbooks, his own memory, experience and knowledge to design a horse-drawn lightweight 82mm field gun and a more powerful long-range 130mm cannon, as well as various ammunition for both guns.

  Of course, the above new weapons and equipment are for future consideration. At present, Kong Fan does not have enough officials or sufficient economic strength to establish a powerful army. These new weapons and equipment are now just drawings, and specific research and development still require students' assistance in materials, machinery, technology, equipment, etc. Building a production line and producing real products is not an easy task. Even if product samples are produced, they need to go through trial production, testing, improvement, and perfection before formal production can be carried out, which takes time. Therefore, it is necessary for students to conduct pre-research work in advance, so that when the conditions are ripe in the future, they can immediately start production.

  These weapons, ammunition and equipment can be manufactured in the industrial zone as long as the conditions are met. What really gives Kang Fan a headache is where to find a large number of excellent military officers with rich combat experience. Although there is already a plan to establish a military academy and train military officers, it has just been implemented, and the first batch of graduates will not appear until 4 years later, which cannot keep up with Kang Fan's military construction plan. Even if these graduates can catch up with this plan, they have not experienced actual combat, and their performance on the battlefield is still an unknown number. Therefore, we can only think of ways from the current Qing army: although the Sino-Japanese War failed, there are also brave and good fighters in the Qing army who participated in this war. If we can recruit these people and provide them with necessary education and training in the military academy, they should be able to quickly reach Kang Fan's expected standard for officers.

  After completing the design work of various weapons and equipment, Kang Fan began to compile teaching materials for military officers and training courses for soldiers. In that era, in order to teach students well about military theory, Kang Fan brought all the textbooks he had learned from military school. Now, these books were taken out as reference materials, combined with the specific situation of the time and his own experience as a soldier, and revised to be practical. Among them, the soldiers' training course was a basic subject that both officers and soldiers must strictly follow, and all tactical actions and weapon structure diagrams in the course were illustrated with illustrations, accompanied by detailed text explanations. The officer teaching course was a higher-level course for soldiers or officers who entered military school, with more theoretical and academic content. Finally, from the precious map book that he had carried with him and flipped through to make it worn out, he enlarged a national topographic map as a reference, preparing to modify it according to the actual situation of the time, perfect it, and distribute it to various administrative organs and garrison troops in Ningwu Prefecture for use. These high-precision maps will play an important role in aspects such as industrial and agricultural facility construction, transportation, mining, and troop combat, and were listed by Kang Fan as top-secret materials.

  Mei Xiang was amazed at his excellent writing, painting and charting skills. Although she was very disgusted with Kang Fan's fighting things, looking at these exquisite tutorials, she really couldn't help but love them.

  Kang Fan, stop messing around with those broken toys and draw me a sketch. Mei Xiang made the request.

  Kang Fan agreed and sharpened a few pencils again, prepared a 4A white paper, and started drawing.

  Take off your clothes, Kang Fan said.

  Mei Xiang was a bit shy and hesitated for a moment, but still did as she was told. When Kang Fan finished drawing and handed the painting to Mei Xiang, her eyes widened in surprise.

  Kang Fan, you're really amazing! Mei Xiang exclaimed.

  Kang Fan's triumphant smile was just a matter of course. Without these two skills, would I dare to design weapons?

  She pinched me with her nose and said, "Look at you, why don't you just paint? Being an artist is great! Why do you have to think about fighting and killing all day?"

  Kang Fan suddenly lost his energy.