Chapter 25 Preparing for the Spring Festival Gala (I)

  At this time, Song Zhe-wu, who was far away in Laiyuan, was leading his students to experiment with the ingredients of flame retardants in the courtyard of the Travel Department. He suddenly let out a big sneeze for no reason and thought to himself, "Who is plotting against me?"

  Song Zhe Wu has been in this era for two years, and this Spring Festival will be the third one he welcomes in this era. In the previous two Spring Festivals, he was devoted to training his troops, thinking only about how to quickly train them into a strong force that could provide him with a sense of security. But this year's Spring Festival has special significance for him: leaving Tianjin for Laiyuan is like a bird flying out of its cage, from now on he can fly freely in the vast sky according to his own will; moreover, although this place is not his ideal destination, it will necessarily be the battlefield for his future resistance against Japan, and he must strive to win over the hearts of the people, making the people of Laiyuan remember him and his troops.

  In order to achieve this goal, he also needs to write a good article for the Spring Festival. For this reason, he has put in a lot of thought and effort.

  Song Zhe-wu first asked Meng Chu to accurately count the population of Laiyuan, Song Zhe-wu paid for it, 230,000 people in the county each got 10 kilograms of white flour, regardless of age, everyone got 6 feet of cotton cloth, of course, women also received flower cloth. This matter has already started to be distributed. Meng Chu didn't care about his old age these days and insisted on bringing people to distribute door-to-door. Every time he arrived at a village, he would first praise Song Zhe-wu loudly to the villagers. When Chu Feng returned and told him, Song Zhe-wu didn't say anything but was delighted in his heart.

  To push the Spring Festival atmosphere to a higher level, Song Zhe Wu also planned to organize a modern version of the Spring Festival Gala. He really wanted to host a gala like those broadcast nationwide in later years, but he found it impossible because he couldn't find that many performers, let alone organize so many excellent programs. To host a decent gala, there must be enough programs, which was a headache for Song Zhe Wu. When he mentioned this to Wang Xing Gang, the latter looked very surprised, "There are programs! Go to Beiping and find an opera troupe that can perform all night without finishing. Besides, you can also find Beijing drum, Henan falling son, Shandong fast board."

  Wang Xinggang's words made Song Zhiwu's eyes widen in surprise, knowing that Wang Xinggang had misunderstood. He hadn't seen the Spring Festival Gala of later generations, so he didn't know its format. But thinking about Wang Xinggang's words again gave him a great inspiration. Since there weren't enough programs, why not find some traditional opera performances? The Spring Festival Gala also has many such national treasures! Immediately, arrangements were made to invite a Peking Opera troupe, a crosstalk artist who could perform the "Wu Song Fights the Tiger" sketch, and a comedian. He also handed over several sheets of paper filled with musical scores to Wang Xinggang, asking him to see if his newly recruited art students could perform and sing them. Wang Xinggang didn't understand music, but he knew the names of the pieces. Upon glancing at them, he found that none were familiar, and casually asked: "Were they all written by Commander?" Song Zhiwu was momentarily unable to respond, and hastily said: "I wrote them myself." After speaking, he quickly left without regard for Wang Xinggang's puzzled gaze.

  There must be fireworks at the party, and there must be those colorful flowers in the sky. Song Zhe Wu saw the fireworks at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the brilliant and beautiful seven-colored lights that filled the sky left a lasting impression on him.

  In this era, the fireworks he had seen were far from being as bright and dazzling as those of later generations. So, Song Zhe Wu had long since thought of making his own firework. For this long-planned evening party, two months ago, he had asked the military supply department to buy all the fireworks they could find, not only to set them off but also to take them apart and study them carefully. As a chemical engineering master from his previous life, he soon discovered the problem - it turned out that people in domestic firework workshops at this time generally lacked basic chemical theoretical knowledge and were only gradually improving based on their predecessors' practical experience, so the development of fireworks was very slow. None of the fireworks had used metal light-emitting agents yet. Metals such as aluminum, magnesium, and titanium would emit strong white light when burned and also produce high temperatures.

  As for the colorful ones, they are all thanks to the color-developing agents. The so-called color-developing agents are actually some ordinary metal salts. It turns out that metal salts can decompose at high temperatures, and different metal vapors have different spectra - emitting their own characteristic colored light.

  For example, sodium vapor produces a yellow spectrum, so oxalic acid sodium, fluorosodium, ice crystal stone or silicofluoride sodium can be used as yellow light emitting agents; strontium vapor produces red spectrum, nitrates strontium, carbonate strontium, oxalic acid strontium can be used as red light emitting agents. Green light uses chlorobarium, nitrate barium; blue light uses copper carbonate, peacock stone; golden light uses gold powder, white light uses aluminum powder and so on.

  At this stage, craftsmen simply followed the experience of their predecessors. When using various metal salts for coloring, due to the relationship between craftsmanship and polishing and grinding, the combustion was not sufficient, and some metal salts with higher ignition points could only be partially decomposed.

  To create his ideal fireworks, he started purchasing various colorants last September, some of which were even made by himself. Song Zhe Wu led his students to mix the ingredients and make the fireworks personally.

  Song Zhe Wu's students were still the ones he brought up after doing dyeing and finishing agents in Tianjin. Song Zhe Wu originally wanted to use his advanced chemical knowledge, which was nearly a hundred years ahead of its time, to build the most advanced chemical system in the world after having a stable foundation. However, since doing dyeing and finishing agents, he found that his initial idea was somewhat biased because he himself could never and should not be on the forefront of technology. He needed someone to put his ideas into practice, someone or a group of people who could turn his chemical knowledge into reality. So, with Sun Manager as the frontman, an experimental laboratory was set up under the name of the dye factory. According to Song Zhe Wu's idea, this laboratory should have many university graduates in chemistry, and even some returnees who mastered the most advanced chemical knowledge of the time. However, the result was extremely disappointing for Song Zhe Wu, with only one young man named Wang Mingyang, who studied chemistry in England, showing up. Through conversations with Wang Mingyang, Song Zhe Wu learned that at present, domestic grasp of chemical technology is still very superficial, and people with expertise in this area are extremely rare, not to mention a truly professional chemical enterprise, let alone scientific research. Through the conversation, Song Zhe Wu also gained a deeper understanding of the current state of chemical development in this era. Song Zhe Wu believed that even a vocational school graduate in chemistry could surpass the world in their field, let alone himself, a master's degree holder in chemistry.

  Wang Mingyang only came to apply after hearing about the colorant incident after graduating and returning home. He couldn't imagine that there would be such talent in China. When he first met Song Zhiwu, he was extremely disappointed and didn't believe that a soldier could lead the world in dye chemistry. He thought it must be a rumor. However, after talking to each other, this young man was shocked by his rich knowledge of chemistry, which was far ahead of the world. Many of his unheard-of views and foresights on the development direction of chemical science made him highly praised. He believed that with Song Zhiwu's knowledge, if he engaged in scientific research, he would definitely be one of the greatest scientists, even comparable to Nobel laureates. None of the professors he had seen in the UK could match Song Zhiwu's knowledge, no, it should be said that none of the world's chemical professors could surpass him. Although he didn't understand why such a person wouldn't give up his military identity, he still decided to stay and worship him as a teacher, especially after learning that his knowledge was all self-taught. He wanted to worship a genius who could absolutely win the Nobel Prize.

  Song Zhe-wu was also delighted to accept this young man who loves chemistry and is willing to study hard as his student. His rich chemical knowledge needs someone like him to transform into real products. Apart from agreeing to guide him in research, Song Zhe-wu also asked Wang Ming-yang to teach a batch of students on his behalf.

  Song Zhe Wu, who was busy and sweating profusely, had just thought of taking a short break when Wang Xing Gang hurriedly came to find him. As soon as he saw Song Zhe Wu, Wang Xing Gang's face turned painful and he said: "My great commander, you can't just assign tasks and then ignore them! The Spring Festival Gala is not something that can be taken lightly!" Song Zhe Wu was somewhat puzzled - hadn't he already formally assigned tasks for the gala, from choosing the venue to arranging the stage, including selecting and arranging the programs? He racked his brains trying to think if he had missed anything important, and hesitantly asked Wang Xing Gang: "Xing Gang, if there's anything that's been overlooked, I'll arrange it immediately." He knew that Wang Xing Gang had been working day and night to make sure the gala went smoothly, just to arrange the Peking Opera singing segment that Song Zhe Wu had mentioned. Originally not familiar with Peking Opera, Wang Xing Gang had even gone so far as to invite students from the newly established art school in Beiping to give him a crash course on opera basics for three days. Then, in order to get good segments for the singing, several Peking Opera troupes had argued fiercely, their faces red and their necks thick - if it weren't for the high treatment given by the security team, someone would have already thrown in the towel. Under Wang Xing Gang's repeated pleas, the opera troupes finally compromised, agreeing to give each troupe an independent segment at the gala, and the dispute was finally settled.

  "Has those few troupes of actors started quarreling again?" Song Zhe Wu was somewhat worried.

  Deep Blue types too slowly, with daily updates of 3,000 words, it takes four or five hours to type. I'm really sorry about that, but next week I'll work hard on updating. Once again, thank you everyone for your support of Deep Blue.

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