Chapter 246: The Explosives Factory
The wiretap recordings from the Dutch East India Company’s trading post were top-priority material. The next morning, they would be translated, transcribed, and placed on Zhao Manxiong’s desk. According to the agreement reached at the weekly security joint meeting, this material was also copied to the police headquarters and the Foreign Intelligence Bureau.
Every day when Zhao Manxiong entered his office, he would personally study these top-level materials. The Executive Committee did not want the Engine Project to be disturbed by any external forces.
Among the external forces, the Portuguese and the British were weak and scattered, and the Spanish were far away and inert. The only ones with a certain strength and a direct stake were the Dutch.
Tayouan was very important to the East India Company, and it was hard to say what their reaction would be to the Council of Elders’ development of Kaohsiung.
“We must make the Dutch fully realize the terror of being our enemy.” At the planning meeting before the start of the Engine Project, the countermeasure against the possible reaction of the Dutch was to use intimidation to force them not to act rashly.
Judging from the wiretap report, the work on Trini had obviously achieved good results. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, this Italian was desperately boasting about the Council of Elders’ military power. Zhao Manxiong was well aware that a person in a comfortable and easy environment would not have much interest in starting a war.
Living a comfortable life, engaged in beloved work, with a large remuneration, and with lolis and shotas by his side—unless Trini was mentally abnormal, he would not want to start a war to end his current situation.
The conversation between the two did not exceed most of his speculations, including the East India Company’s ideas and attitudes. Sending a large ship to Lin’gao outside the trading season was obviously not just for making money. The mission of the Magdeburg was clearly to gather information.
Then he read the surveillance report on the East India Company’s trading post, especially the report on the activities of the servants in the trading post. Wu Fo believed that at least one servant was undertaking some kind of secret work.
According to the report, this servant was very active, often moving around in Lin’gao, and his footprints were all over the places where foreigners were allowed to go. He went to Bopu Port almost every day, with the public excuse of buying fish.
Finally, there was the report from the letter inspector of the General Political Security Bureau stationed at the General Post Office. The General Post Office had taken over the original postal system of the Ming government and had opened postal routes from Lin’gao to various counties in Hainan, with a post office branch in each county. However, these branches currently only handled the delivery of official documents and letters from the departments, enterprises, and military units under the Council of Elders. Private letters were limited to naturalized citizens and a few natives who had dealings with the transmigrators.
The method of postal inspection was to open and inspect all the letters of some individuals and departments, and to conduct random inspections on others. Zhao Manxiong skipped the other parts and went directly to the postal inspection report on the East India Company’s trading post.
The letters from the Dutch trading post were, as a rule, sent to Bopu by the trading post’s servants and given to the East India Company’s merchant ships returning to Batavia or heading to Tayouan. When there were no East India Company ships, they were given to Chinese merchant ships heading to those two places. No matter which delivery method was used, the General Political Security Bureau could always get a copy before it left the port.
The letters were encrypted, but for the General Political Security Bureau, any 17th-century encryption was child’s play. Each letter was decrypted, translated, and then transcribed and sent to the “relevant departments.” Because the Dutch were a key target of attention, all postal inspection reports involving them were accompanied by the original letters.
Zhao Manxiong carefully read the report and the recent letters. Overall, he was satisfied. It fully met the effect they wanted to achieve with their “power projection” activities.
However, this was only for the current trading post personnel. It was hard to say whether it would have the same effect on the newly arrived Van der Lenteren. Whether it was necessary to carry out a new “power projection” against Van der Lenteren was a topic Zhao Manxiong needed to consider.
To “project power,” there were many ready-made things: whether it was the Type 901 project in the port, the new artillery recently tested by the army, or even the not-so-new typewriter, they were all enough to give this Dutchman a sufficient shock.
The problem was that excessive showing off of military power could sometimes be seen as a way of “covering up weaknesses.” Zhao Manxiong was very worried that there would be a group of clever people in Batavia who would judge it this way.
“We just need to make this cheese-eater understand this point unequivocally,” he said, thinking of the “Project 2300” that was currently in full swing. If it was completed smoothly, it would be a very amazing military progress. Unfortunately, Van der Lenteren might not be able to accurately grasp its power.
It was better to let Van der Lenteren see the Council of Elders’ steam fleet. As a seafaring nation, Van der Lenteren would not fail to understand the powerful might of a steam warship.
The location of Project 2300 was the Lin’gao Special Chemical Complex. Although this complex belonged to the Ministry of Chemical Industry, it was far from the chemical enterprises under the Ministry of Chemical Industry. Many workers who worked in the chemical plants had never even heard of such an enterprise.
The planning of the Lin’gao Special Chemical Complex was modeled after a certain explosives factory from the 156 projects of that era. Its main task was to produce gunpowder and explosives.
Explosives were a key project for thetransmigrators to maintain their advantage. With the continuous expansion of the military and the demand for civil engineering, the early handicraft workshop-style production scale and laboratory-style production process had become far from sufficient to meet the demand.
In particular, the lack of a sufficient quantity of relatively safe high explosives severely limited both military and civilian applications. As a result, the military’s stockpile of explosives could only be maintained at a low level. The ammunition reserve of the army, besides ensuring the daily training of the troops, was only enough for one campaign. The ammunition reserves of the various ships of the navy were also generally not at full capacity.
The Planning Commission was well aware of the current predicament, so it officially began planning the construction of an explosives enterprise—the Lin’gao Special Chemical Complex—more than a year ago.
The Lin’gao Special Chemical Complex occupied a vast area—a vast expanse of land in the old Soviet style, with a factory area of several thousand mu. Even so, it was only planned at a scale of one-tenth of that of the old world. The factory site was chosen on the edge of the Gaoshanling hills, a slope where the bedrock was beginning to be exposed. The soil layer was very thin, and the ground was covered with rocks and gullies, making the engineering difficulty very high. The advantage was that it was remote and desolate, with almost no houses or cultivated land nearby, and the terrain was relatively high, so it would not be flooded by typhoons.
Because in an explosives factory, all kinds of explosives and precursors were concentrated together, if a chain reaction occurred, half of Lin’gao’s existing industrial area would probably be destroyed. It was already very unsafe to continue to stay in the industrial area.
Explosives, the finished products were actually very safe. What was unsafe was the intermediate precursors, many of which were in an unstable state and could only be kept temporarily stable by strict process specifications. However, the workers of this era had almost no concept of process discipline. Even in the previous explosives factory, which was strictly managed in a military style, with frequent and extremely severe punishments, even the death penalty and collective punishment, it was not possible to completely eliminate all kinds of small accidents.
The casualty rate of the explosives factory was confidential and was never reported in the internal bulletins. Unless a naturalized citizen worked in that factory, they would not even know that such a place existed. The selected workers were also mostly bachelors.
Even if the impact of accidents was reduced to a minimum through various means, a small accident could become a major accident if it was not handled in time. Moving to this desolate area would at least minimize the losses in the event of an accident. Even if the main product was black powder, if a sufficient quantity of gunpowder exploded, the effect would be very strong—the Great Explosion at the Wanggongchang in those days was frightening enough.
The planning of the Special Chemical Complex was still a serious violation of the safety standards of the old world. Because this factory not only had to produce pyrotechnic products but also had to manufacture various finished ammunition and undertake scientific research tasks.
“At least our production conditions are much better than those at Huangyadong…” Xu Yingjie said with a forced smile after looking at the planning map. There was a new scar on his exposed arm—it was left by a piece of shattered glass when he was making mercury fulminate six months ago.
“It’s also safer than the current conditions. Otherwise, we guys in the chemical department will sooner or later become one-eyed and one-legged. It’s inevitable that we’ll enter the Cui Gang ahead of schedule,” said Ji Tui Si, the head of the chemical department. Not to mention things like explosives, even the production in the chemical plant often made him tremble with fear.
The chemical department did have a few fearless explosives enthusiasts, but courage could not bring safety. Everyone still wanted to see the day of the revolution’s victory—and of course, in one piece.
“As for safety requirements, everyone should raise them as much as possible. Don’t be afraid of trouble or consumption. As long as they can be met, the Planning Commission will definitely meet them all,” Wu De said at the meeting. “Safety first.”
After more than a year of large-scale construction, the factory area was still not completed, or rather, it was not known when it would be completed. According to the plan, a large number of artificial barriers to block the shock wave were to be built between the various facilities, usually 20-30 meter high earth embankments, to direct the shock wave and burning materials to a high altitude. To avoid flying rocks in an explosion, stones could not be used.
After the basic civil engineering was completed, less than 10% of the earth embankment project was completed. Many earth embankments had to be made up by piling stones inside and patting a thick layer of earth outside. The factory went ahead and started production. The traditional safety ditch method continued to be used. The earth embankments still had to be constructed. For safety reasons, steam-powered engineering equipment that spewed smoke and fire could no longer be used at this time, only manpower: the Fubo Army and the labor reform team, and modern machinery when necessary.