Chapter 67: Exorbitant Goods

  To do a good job, at least two conditions are needed. One is a relatively stable environment, and the other is sufficient funding. The former is due to the strong strength of the Red 15th Army, and the National Army in Henan did not dare to come over to die, while the National Army in other places either could not get through or did not have that intention, plus the banditry was gradually being pacified, and western Henan finally ushered in a rare period of peaceful development. As for the latter, the Red 8th Army is also not lacking now, except for the money and materials collected from previous battles, Hu Weidong has fully utilized his advantages as a traverser to "invent" some new products with huge potential market value that can be researched and produced in the Soviet area. The project most valued by Hu Weidong is none other than penicillin, which almost every modern traversal will not miss...

  Because Hu Weidong set the direction of research, even though there were no professional medicinal chemists in the Soviet Union, Li Shouheng and other guest chemical experts quickly experimented and explored the methods for separating, purifying and drying penicillin (now commonly used as penicillin sodium and potassium powder injections. Natural penicillin is prone to decomposition and deactivation, while its sodium and potassium salts are much more chemically stable if kept dry). At that time, Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, was still at a loss for how to separate and purify it. In comparison with Fleming's lagging method of natural selection, Hu Weidong's adoption of ultra-violet ray induced mutation breeding had an efficiency thousands or even tens of thousands of times higher. Moreover, the initial screening of the original strain started directly from the point penicillium on the surface of melons, thus avoiding many detours and achieving a much higher research efficiency.

  In addition, since Hu Weidong was very familiar with the pharmacological characteristics of penicillin, a series of tests such as animal experiments were all skipped and directly used in clinical practice, which undoubtedly saved a lot of time. Anyway, Fleming had done those data, and it would be fine to buy them when there was an opportunity. After frequent use at home and obtaining a large amount of clinical data, even without the link of animal experimentation, penicillin would not encounter any obstacles entering the international market.

  However, penicillin is an absolutely profitable product. If the technology leaks out, even if it's just once, it will lose at least $10 billion in long-term profits, which exceeds the total fiscal revenue of all governments in mainland China for three years. To prevent this accident, Hu Weidong formulated extremely strict confidentiality rules. Once violated, he would be subject to surveillance, or even lose his freedom or be shot, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, and even scientists were no exception. Although Hu Weidong's extreme approach made many experts secretly scold him as a "cruel official", perhaps this is what needs to be done for the serious problem of Chinese people's poor awareness of confidentiality. Later, some of China's more important scientific research projects did a great job in keeping secrets, and the regret of the leakage of Jingdezhen porcelain craftsmanship was also avoided, which cannot be said to be Hu Weidong's "merit"...

  After finding that the confidentiality agreement was effective, Hu Weidong decided not to apply for patents for penicillin production processes and strain breeding methods, but instead kept them strictly confidential, like the legendary Coca-Cola formula. It is known that even in the United States, which claims to attach great importance to intellectual property rights, patent laws can also be exploited, especially when the patent holder is a small company or a foreigner, and the infringer is an American conglomerate. The profit from penicillin was too huge, so Hu Weidong naturally did not dare take any risk that he could avoid. However, for easily replicable products like alkaline batteries and ballpoint pens, Hu Weidong still decided to apply for patents abroad in the future. Since confidentiality was useless, Hu Weidong could only hope that Western countries would truly respect intellectual property rights. At least he might be able to get some compensation, which is better than being plagiarized without getting any benefit...

  Apart from penicillin, the first super-profitable commodity in the late World War II era (the total profit of ammunition must be even greater, but there are also many types, and it's unlikely that any single type can compare with penicillin), the other commodities chosen by Hu Weidong also have huge potential profits. Even a small thing like a ballpoint pen, thinking about the terrifying amount used in later generations, is quite impressive under the principle of "accumulating small amounts". Adding to this the massive spoils obtained earlier, especially in Hangzhou, and considering that the territory of Yuexi is not too large, Hu Weidong can now confidently say: "We're not short of money..."

  Hu Weidong now has a strong army and sufficient financial resources, and wants to manage this not-so-large territory in western Henan well. To do so, he only needs to satisfy one more condition: having enough qualified local cadres. If it were an ordinary base area with only an agricultural economy, the situation would be fine. Even if their abilities were average, as long as they listened and worked hard, were clean and honest, being a leader at the township or county level would not be a problem. However, Hu Weidong plans to build western Henan into a new industrial zone, which requires much higher standards for cadres. Even those who came from worker movements in cities may not necessarily be up to the task. Managing cities is already much more complicated than managing rural areas, and according to Hu Weidong's plan, over the next five years, several million farmers in western Henan will become industrial workers, while selectively absorbing immigrants from outside. This drastic change in population structure further increases the difficulty of management.

  By the end of 1935, the newly born Western Henan Soviet Area finally overcame numerous difficulties and basically controlled the banditry within its borders. Although there were still more than 10,000 residual bandits hiding in the deep mountains or escaping to the White area to plot a comeback, they could no longer pose a great threat to the production and construction of Western Henan. The industrialization process of the Soviet Area also began to accelerate rapidly from then on.

  What made Hu Weidong even more delighted was that the uranium mine, cadmium mine, and green beryl mine (also known as green gemstone, which has extremely high industrial value due to its role in refining beryllium and is a precious gemstone with a very high price) in Lushi County in the southwestern part of the Soviet Area, which had not been discovered before, were all found by his specially trained sparse mineral exploration personnel at the locations he remembered. This laid the most basic material foundation for China's future nuclear industry, namely nuclear fuel uranium, neutron-absorbing cadmium, and neutron-reflecting beryllium. With these, plus widely sourced neutron moderators (high-purity graphite, heavy water, etc.), a basic model of a nuclear reactor could be constructed.

  But China's uranium ore grade is generally very low, and the refining conditions are poor. Hu Weidong was also overly cautious about pollution prevention (occupying the already limited talent, increasing the number of operation steps, and diverting a considerable part of the budget). The production efficiency was so low that even by 1945, it might not be possible to manufacture the first atomic bomb. Hu Weidong became more determined to go abroad, "The uranium mines abroad are better, with grades hundreds of times higher than ours (the highest reaching 40%, while the average grade of Chinese uranium ore is only a few parts per million...). Moreover, nuclear physics is still in the experimental stage, and the ore should not be expensive. Additionally, it should be possible to buy ready-made cadmium rods abroad directly, even if they are more expensive, which would save a lot of time. It's also best to introduce equipment for purifying graphite and heavy water from abroad. It's really not easy to start from scratch..."

  For research related to the nuclear industry, Hu Weidong is currently focusing on uranium refining. If asked about it, he can explain that it is for the development of a super-strong armor-piercing projectile (i.e., depleted uranium armor-piercing projectile). After the discovery of the self-fission phenomenon of U-235 abroad, Hu Weidong naturally began to study nuclear energy, which would be more in line with his position as an ammunition expert than suddenly proposing the concept of nuclear weapons now.