Chapter 914 – The Science and Technology Department
"...The transmigrators fully understood the importance of the optical industry. As early as the First Five-Year Plan period, under the Executive Committee's guidance and led by the Science and Technology Department, with cooperation from the Ministry of Mechanical Industry, the Ministry of Metallurgy, and the Ministry of Light Industry, the transmigrators built their own optical industry from nothing..."
—Excerpt from Contemporary Industrial History: Volume on the Optical Industry
Of course, readers always skipped over such official platitudes. The first generation of transmigrators understood perfectly well the difference between history and official history. Their descendants either learned the true stories from their parents or simply didn't care. Only those historical researchers granted the highest clearance to access the most original records in the Wanxiang Grand Library knew how things had really happened.
In truth, the Imperial optical industry began with nothing more than a few pairs of reading glasses.
The Bairren Industrial District billowed black smoke and white steam day and night. The gasping and rumbling of machines never ceased throughout the year. There was no night here—the glow of burning boilers, electric lights, and gas lamps drove away the darkness. Coal-gas-powered railcars pulled flatbed cars along the tracks in a constant rush, occasionally squealing their brakes.
In a relatively quiet corner of the industrial district stood the Science and Technology Department's directly-affiliated machining workshop. The so-called Science and Technology Department was an "advanced department" under the Manufacturing Directorate.
"Advanced" meant, on paper, that this department handled industrial products that currently couldn't be mass-produced—whether limited by raw material supply, the performance of self-produced materials, or processing capability. These could only be treated as "pre-research"—specifically, exploring production techniques and processes possible within Lingao's limited industrial capabilities.
Items on the Science and Technology Department's pre-research list included various gauges, precision tools and instruments, optical instruments, communications equipment, electrical and lighting devices, timekeepers, and more.
The Science and Technology Department was led by Zhong Lishi—his official title was People's Commissar for Science and Technology. He held a Ph.D., and though he wasn't the only one in the Senate, he always liked to remind people of that fact. Over time, everyone had taken to calling him Dr. Zhong, half-jokingly.
Dr. Zhong's primary focus at the Science and Technology Department was clockwork and batteries—particularly batteries, which he'd researched extensively. The wired telegraph transmitting and receiving systems now operating in Lingao, Hong Kong, Sanya, and elsewhere ran on the Daniell cells he'd developed, also known as "Zhong Type 1" batteries.
After the successful deployment of the Zhong Type 1 battery, Dr. Zhong's main pursuits had become timekeepers and radio.
These two were among the most urgently needed precision instruments for Lingao's industrial, military, and civilian systems. Navigation required accurate marine chronometers for positioning and navigation. Industrial production also had considerable demand for precise timekeeping. As for radio, its importance was self-evident. Currently, the Senate's overseas personnel and outposts could only maintain contact with "Central" through radios brought from the other timeline. He'd thrown all his time and energy into these projects and had even commandeered several science-and-engineering transmigrators from the Science and Technology Department. As a result, the several tower clocks he'd promised remained unfinished; the empty clock towers now served only as watchtowers.
The Science and Technology Department hadn't had many staff to begin with. With personnel and resources tilted toward radio and timekeepers, the optics project became neglected.
The Science and Technology Department's dedicated workshop area was situated near the edge of the Bairren Industrial District. Beyond the high walls stretched a fifty-meter-wide "security zone" marked by bamboo fences and ditches. Natives weren't permitted to enter the security zone without authorization. To make full use of the space, the Agriculture Committee had developed this area as farmland, planting castor beans, soybeans, jute, and other cash crops. These crops were mostly supplied directly to industrial enterprises. Castor oil, soybean oil, and jute were all important industrial materials.
"Master, your water." Inside the workshop, a young man in blue work clothes respectfully offered a wooden tray to a lean, dark-skinned man—also in blue work clothes—who was measuring a part with vernier calipers. On the tray sat a glass bottle of lightly salted water and a bottle of chilled kvass. The lean man addressed as "Master" acknowledged, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, picked up the salt water, and gulped down most of it in one go. After catching his breath, he finished the rest. Then he picked up the kvass but didn't drink it, simply holding it in his hand to feel the coolness.
This small luxury had only begun about ten days ago. After much petitioning from Dr. Zhong, the Planning Commission had finally approved the installation of a small coal-gas cold storage unit at the Science and Technology Department. Much of the department's more precise equipment and instruments required operation within suitable temperature ranges; physical cooling with large quantities of ice was essential. Fetching ice from the Food Factory's large cold storage every day was time-consuming and wasteful in transit. With their own cold storage, production needs were met, and there was even this small bonus.
"Junjie, take a break too. In this heat, health comes first." Looking at the young man's work clothes, already darkened with sweat, the lean man spoke.
The young man had already taken away the tray and was fanning his master:
"I'm not tired, Master. You rest."
"Let's all rest a bit." The master picked up the freshly made workpiece and squinted at it carefully in the sunlight streaming through the skylight.
"Good workmanship. A few more years of practice and your benchwork could hold its own."
"It's all thanks to the leaders' teaching," the apprentice said respectfully. "My father's skill is much better than mine. If not for his bad eyes, he'd definitely do better than me."
"What a pity." The master fell silent for a moment. He knew the apprentice's father—only in his early forties, but due to years of malnutrition and hard labor, his eyes had already become farsighted.
"If not for the leaders, our whole family would've starved to death," the apprentice said, even more deferential.
The master waved his hand. "Let's not talk about that."
He knew his apprentice's family were fugitive artisan-household registrants from Shandong. A family of six had fled all the way to Guangdong and become drifters, dwindling to just the father and two boys. If the Guangzhou station hadn't taken them in, the three, already on the brink of death, would never have survived until today. The older boy had come to the factory as his apprentice; the younger one had gone to school. As for the old man—though he possessed excellent skills, his poor eyesight meant he could only manage light work within his capabilities at the Ministry of Light Industry factories.
That evening after work, the master walked ahead, hands clasped behind his back, while the young man followed carrying a bag slung over his shoulder, holding a clean lunch box and water bottle.
"Old Lin! Old Lin!" Someone called from behind. "Lin Hanlong!"
Lin Hanlong turned. It was Wu Zijin, a colleague from the Science and Technology Department.
Wu Zijin was a "bachelor"—like Mei Lin, Ji Xin, Cui Yunhong, and a handful of others, he was one of the very few adult male transmigrators who, to this day, hadn't purchased a maid. In Lingao, the vast majority of adult transmigrators, including female ones, had all purchased maids. Their peculiarity was therefore particularly conspicuous. The reasons for not buying maids varied—some had no "interest" in women; some had temporarily lost interest; some had unusual aesthetic preferences; some preferred to "handle things themselves rather than settle" and were waiting for better maids to become available before buying.
Once, when Xiao Bailang got drunk at the Agricultural Estate Café, he labeled them the "Bachelors' Party." The name stuck.
In the old timeline, Wu Zijin had been a freshly graduated master's student in electrical engineering from a 985 university, specializing in power cables. He'd interned at cable factories, transformer plants, and substations. He knew the cable production process but had limited practical experience—not even half a bucket's worth. He was simply muddling along at the Science and Technology Department, doing "power equipment development." He was also a starting player on the Senate Administrative Office's football team as left back.
Lin Hanlong noticed he was carrying a mesh bag of dirty clothes, still reeking strongly of sweat. He remembered that today Wu Zijin had gone to coach the Science and Technology Department's football team. Under Chen Sigen's vigorous encouragement, football, rugby, and baseball had begun spreading from the schools to various industrial, agricultural, and administrative departments.
"Did you see the BBS? The Navy guys are clamoring to install fire control systems on their ships!" Wu Zijin said excitedly. "They even want mechanical fire-control computers! Really exciting stuff."
"Fire control? We haven't even made telescopes yet. The Army's earthy but the Navy's fancy—we just can't keep up with their leaps and bounds."
"Speaking of which, you studied optics, right? This stuff is your specialty."
Lin Hanlong laughed bitterly. "What haven't I done in Dongguan? Phones, computers, digital cameras... I've worked on knockoffs of everything. Making ordinary optical instruments isn't hard in principle. The problem is we don't even have optical glass. What are we supposed to make them from? With those bureaucrats-in-the-making running things, if the First Five-Year Plan gets finished and they even remember this matter, that'll be something."
This wasn't idle boasting. Ever since graduating from some second-tier university, Lin Hanlong had spent years drifting around the Pearl River Delta's small electronics factories—serving as "engineer," "senior engineer," "technical manager," and so on. His main work had been producing knockoff phones and computers at various shanzhai electronics factories around the PRD. From laptop computers to digital cameras, there was almost no consumer electronics product he hadn't worked on. He'd also had contact with optical instruments and electronic equipment to varying degrees.
"There can't be no optical glass, can there? I remember transmigrators can get prescription eyeglasses..."
During the original transmigration, given that many transmigrators were nearsighted—and though some had gotten LASIK before D-Day, quite a few were wary of the surgery and wouldn't undergo it—the equipment and materials checklist had specifically included a complete set of optometry and lens-grinding equipment, along with a large supply of resin and glass optical lenses. This was to ensure that for decades, transmigrators could obtain all kinds of eyeglasses. Transmigrators with vision problems had often brought enough spare glasses to last a lifetime.
"How much can there be? Those optical devices and materials were prepared for five hundred people. Now they have to serve hundreds of thousands. How could it possibly be enough?"
Lin Hanlong shook his head and bade Wu Zijin farewell. Back at his dormitory, he broke his usual routine—instead of eating, showering, playing cards, and watching films in sequence, he wolfed down dinner, then pulled out professional manuals he hadn't touched in ages and began reading. His maid didn't dare disturb him, only occasionally refilling his tea.
The next day during lunch break, Lin Hanlong found a piece of flat glass—flat plate glass was no longer rare in Lingao. The workshop's storeroom had some. Lin Hanlong searched painstakingly through almost all the Science and Technology Department's glass stock and selected the clearest, most colorless pieces.
A metal ruler for scoring, flip it over, lay it flat on a wooden board, align the score with the board's edge, tap gently—a long strip of glass came off. Repeat the process a few times, and the strips became eight one-inch-square glass pieces.
That afternoon, Lin Hanlong found time to take his apprentice to the Industrial Sector's General Materials Warehouse. Modern materials were strictly controlled by the Planning Commission—without signatures from various section chiefs, no one could take even a screw or a wrench. But the transmigrators were much more relaxed about things this timeline could produce.
Ordinary materials at the warehouse could be requisitioned directly by Industrial Sector transmigrators by filling out a materials slip and signing, as long as the quantity was under a certain quota. As a Science and Technology Department engineer, Lin Hanlong was a regular at the materials warehouse. He nodded to the warehouse supervisor, and a middle-aged naturalized citizen storekeeper immediately came running over.
In Lingao, there were no easy jobs. Storekeepers, besides managing the warehouse, also moonlighted as porters. In their spare time, they did hand work that didn't require equipment—all counted toward their work quotas. HR veterans from the blood-and-sweat factories at the Planning Commission regularly spot-checked labor efficiency and workloads across various jobs, ensuring no one was too idle.
Lin Hanlong's apprentice, without being told, went to push over a Zidian Kai cart, following Lin Hanlong and the storekeeper into the warehouse.
The Industrial Sector's General Materials Warehouse had been just a shed in the past. Recently it had been rebuilt as a standard warehouse with red brick and forged-iron truss frame construction. Beneath the tiled roof, an insulating layer had been installed. Outside, the sun blazed; stepping into the tall, deep warehouse, one immediately felt a cool draft, and the sweat began to subside.
The materials warehouse was internally divided into several sub-warehouses according to materials stored. Wooden and iron shelving stretched row upon row, stacked with all kinds of supplies—all gathered, produced, or processed in this timeline.
Lin Hanlong knew where what he wanted was located. He walked straight to a shelf and pointed, giving a quantity. The apprentice immediately stepped forward to load items onto the cart; the storekeeper correspondingly filled out forms on his writing board. In no time, Lin Hanlong had everything he needed. The three returned to the warehouse exterior. Lin Hanlong followed the storekeeper into the office. The storekeeper sat down at his desk and began copying out a triplicate materials slip. Someone else brought tea for Lin Hanlong; his apprentice waited outside with the cart. Soon the slip was done. The storekeeper presented it to Lin Hanlong for signature, then submitted it to the supervisor for stamping. Someone else verified that the slip matched the cart's contents—thump, thump, thump—three more stamps.
Back at the workshop, Lin Hanlong told his apprentice they'd be working overtime tonight, then went off to handle other business. As a jack-of-all-trades, the Science and Technology Department had countless tasks waiting for him. He could only work on this new idea after clocking out.
After the end-of-shift whistle, Lin Hanlong found a suitable gas heating furnace and set an iron pot on top. In the pot went the beeswax and rosin he'd just requisitioned, proportioned and added—this was the adhesive for glass.
He lit the gas flame and patiently waited for the mixture to melt and blend, then ladled some out and poured it onto a glass piece, pressing another piece on top. He continued until all the glass pieces were stuck together.
Lin Hanlong removed the pot, placed an iron hood over the burner, and put an iron plate on top. He heated the plate gently over a low flame. When it looked about right, he put on heat-resistant gloves, placed the stack of bonded glass onto the plate to re-melt the adhesive, then transferred it to a screw press and carefully turned the handle, pressing the glass pieces firmly together before clamping them in place.
While waiting for the glass to completely solidify, he stepped outside for a cigarette and enjoyed the evening breeze of Lingao. After the smoke, a cup of tea.
Finally, all the glass pieces were pressed tightly together, edges perfectly aligned—now a glass cube. When that was done, he used ink lines to mark crosshairs on both ends of the cube's long axis to find the centers, then used a compass to draw one large and one small circle on each end, and dripped some melted adhesive to stick two small cylindrical iron blocks to the glass ends, precisely covering the smaller ink circles.
Lin Hanlong had his apprentice clean up the furnace while he carried the glass cube over to the grinding wheel. Since it was after hours, no one was using it. This grinding wheel—both wheel and machine—had been brought from the old timeline. Lin Hanlong suddenly remembered that Zhong Lishi had mentioned developing their own grinding wheels—too many things to do right now; that would have to wait.
He carefully clamped the glass and started the grinder. First he cut off the cube's four edges, turning the square cross-section into an octagon. Then he continued cutting; the octagon became a hexadecagon. Each cut was made very carefully, with slow feed and constant coolant flow. When the shape approached the larger circle he'd drawn earlier, Lin Hanlong set the workpiece rotating. Soon he'd ground out a respectable cylinder. He shut off the grinder, removed the piece, measured it at length, and only when satisfied did he pack everything away and tell his apprentice to knock off.
On the third day, Lin Hanlong gave his apprentice a task: use a hammer to crush a pile of garnets into powder, then grind it as fine as possible using an iron ball and mortar. The garnets had been found by long-range survey teams during fieldwork. Knowing the material had industrial uses, they'd brought back several dozen kilograms of samples.
Garnet was relatively hard. The ancients had used it as an abrasive for processing jade; it was itself a type of gemstone. Gem-quality garnet ranked as a mid-to-high-grade gemstone. Industrial-grade garnet had many applications—with a hardness of 7, it was mainly used for grinding and cutting materials. The garnet sand the survey teams had mined was only industrial grade—impure, with considerable contaminants, and murky in color.