Chapter 61: Industrial Construction (Part 2)
The boiling and calcination technology also has a relatively obvious disadvantage, that is, the pollution is large, especially with a lot of dust. However, Hu Weidong cleverly recycled and reused all of it, not only reducing pollution but also increasing production. The concept of circular utilization was thus enlightened in China. With the help of this new technology, combined with Hu Weidong's investment strategy from a preparedness perspective, he did not blindly pursue product profit margins. Instead, he mainly invested in building small and medium-sized sulfuric acid plants with high production costs but could quickly form production capacity. As a result, the sulfuric acid production in western Henan surged rapidly, increasing to over 30,000 tons in 1936 (the highest annual output during the Republic of China period was 180,000 tons, and before Fan Xiangdong's Yongli Ning factory went into production in 1937, it was only a few tens of thousands of tons). By 1937, when the war broke out, the annual production capacity had broken through 150,000 tons, all of which were underground.
But sulfuric acid is easy to handle, synthesizing ammonia is much more troublesome. The required pressure vessels and thermocouples for measuring high temperatures all need to be imported. Without the raw material of synthesized ammonia, it's impossible to talk about self-sufficient production of nitric acid. Moreover, the catalyst platinum-rhodium alloy needed for nitric acid production is also very difficult to buy domestically.
However, the more troublesome ones are the steel and electric power industries. The alloy steel is actually easier to solve, as the Red Fifteenth Army has already collected some rare metals like tungsten in the past few months. Even if the production of alloy steel increases but is not enough, it can be transported by plane from Jiangxi through continuous relay flights. After all, the amount used is not much. The metal antimony, which is basically not produced in the north, is also easy to solve. In addition to the previous collection by the Red Fifteenth Army, the warlord of Guizhou had issued a large number of antimony coins, and it would be fine to send people to buy them in bulk with some effort. In comparison, ordinary steel is more troublesome because it requires a much larger quantity, which cannot be satisfied simply by looting. The underground organizations in the White area are also unlikely to transport so much into the area.
Given this, Hu Weidong also considered that western Henan had iron ore reserves (later proven to be over 100 million tons, and the grade is considered to be rich iron ore in China), so he decided to build a large steel plant in the Su area. Although the underground space cannot be compared with the ground, these steel plants are not possible to build too large, but because they adopted advanced technology beyond their time, such as circulating utilization of coke and blast furnace gas, and oxygen top-blown converter steelmaking method, they achieved a complete process flow of coking, iron smelting, and steel smelting, and the production efficiency increased several times. By 1937, the steel output in western Henan Su area had exceeded 50,000 tons, accounting for more than half of China's total steel output. However, due to the lack of industrial oxygen generators that can produce oxygen on a large scale using the low-temperature method, many times they had to use high-pressure air instead of oxygen, which seriously affected the quality of the steel, but this was also an unavoidable thing...
The importance of electricity is not inferior to steel, but wanting to greatly increase power generation is even more difficult. Because domestically, there are no generators produced, and the foreign-made generators sold in China are mostly small models with low power output. During the Republic of China era, Henan Province's industry was extremely backward, and it is estimated that the total power generation in other parts of Henan could not compare to the Heng County Arsenal. Even if they went out to grab some, they wouldn't be able to get many generators, so they had no choice but to purchase them from abroad.
However, when Wang Guosong, the director of the Electrical Engineering Department at Zhejiang University, who was forced to follow the Red Fifteenth Army on their journey, heard that Hu Weidong wanted to build a power plant, his eyes lit up. He immediately expressed his willingness to help, saying that as long as Hu Weidong could provide the necessary materials such as copper wire and magnets, he and his students would be able to manufacture usable generators.
Hu Weidong readily agreed, but when he saw the generator with an installed capacity of less than 50 kilowatts a month later, he was speechless. However, he also knew that this was not due to Wang Guosong's incompetence, but rather the extreme scarcity of equipment and materials, as well as the severe lack of technical workers in this field. It seemed that importing and then reverse-engineering and researching would be a more viable approach.
In addition, the permanent magnet generator adopted by Wang Guosong suddenly reminded Hu Weidong of the rare earth permanent magnetic materials in later generations, especially the "King of Permanent Magnets" neodymium iron boron magnetic material. If this ultra-era permanent magnetic material is used on the generator, even if it is difficult to make a large power permanent magnet generator, it can break through 3000 kilowatts. At this time, the advantages of small volume, low cost, and rapid production of permanent magnet generators are highlighted, which can greatly accelerate China's electrification process. However, thinking about it now, China doesn't even have anyone developing rare earth mines, Hu Weidong thinks that this matter should be put on hold for now, "Building a complete industrial system from scratch is really not an easy thing!"
In addition, the petrochemical and coal chemical industries, etc. Hu Weidong actually wanted to start up, but thinking about the current conditions, he had no choice but to temporarily put them on hold, and instead used local resources to develop phosphorus fertilizer, potassium fertilizer and other civilian industries that are very beneficial to people's livelihoods. As for military industry, let's first achieve complete domestic production of guns, artillery and ammunition.
As early as the first day of occupying Gongxian Arsenal, Hu Weidong found that the product structure of the factory was very unreasonable. To name a few, just producing over 40,000 steel shells for mountain guns, field guns and other types of howitzers (the shell casings for mortars were made of cast iron) every month would require so much labor, metal and explosives. And yet Gongxian Arsenal couldn't produce the gun barrels to fire these shells (in three calibers: 75mm, 105mm and 150mm). Wasn't this a waste?
Of course, the old Chiang arranged it this way, perhaps considering the national situation as a whole. However, once the war with Japan began, the production mode of multiple ordnance factories scattered across the country, each responsible for a part of the product, would reveal huge drawbacks. Even if only one was occupied or destroyed by the Japanese, it would cause a huge shortage in the supply of weapons and ammunition, and no replacement could be found in a short period of time. (So before and after the war, the old Chiang concentrated all the ordnance factories in Chongqing, but the transportation costs and losses on the road were not a small amount, for example, half of the one in Guangxi was destroyed.) For the Red Eighth Army Corps with only this one ordnance factory, this product structure is even more problematic. Take the 105mm howitzer as an example, the Red Eighth Army Corps currently does not have a single 105mm cannon, and the production capacity of 14,000 shells per month is completely useless...
In addition, many products of the Gongxian Arsenal itself have problems. For example, Hu Weidong saw the names of several toxic gases such as phosgene in the production plan of the "new factory". Okay, let's assume that Old Chiang is preparing for a rainy day, and these toxic gases are intended to be used against the Japanese army rather than compatriots. However, what effect can these World War I-era toxic gases have on the Japanese army equipped with gas masks? Moreover, given the equipment level and ammunition supply of the National Army, it would be better to produce conventional firearms and ammunition instead of wasting production capacity on producing toxic gases...
