Industry began in 1937

Chapter 51 Cooperation

After receiving commendations from their superiors and clear instructions to do their utmost to support the blacksmith shop in Gouzi Village, Zhang Xianyue, Zhou Huan, Gao Yang, and others were greatly encouraged, and their actions became clearer in terms of both strength and direction.

Almost simultaneously, the first batch of substantial support from the Shanxi-Hebei-Henan Anti-Japanese Base Area arrived in Jiangshui Town, overcoming the rugged mountain roads and treacherous journeys.

For the Jixi base area, which had just experienced a bloody battle and was in dire need of reconstruction, this batch of supplies was like a long-awaited rain after a drought.

The convoy transporting supplies was quite large, with armed personnel escorting the procession, as well as many local people from the base areas driving mules and pushing wheelbarrows.

When bundles of pig iron ingots and blocks carefully wrapped in straw ropes and burlap sacks, baskets of sulfur ores and saltpeter of various colors, as well as some grain, salt, and cloth that could be allocated from the base area, were unloaded at the temporary cargo yard outside Jiangshui Town, Zhang Xianyue, Zhou Huan, and others finally showed long-lost, heartfelt smiles.

"Great! Great!" Gao Yang excitedly patted a heavy iron ingot. "This is real hard currency! Master Chen will be overjoyed when he sees it!"

"Our superiors have seen our difficulties, but they've also seen the potential in Master Chen's workshop," Zhou Huan exclaimed. "With this iron, and with more sulfur and saltpeter, we can start making grenades and bayonets again! We can also expand the gunpowder workshop in Jiangshui."

Zhang Xianyue carefully inventoried the supplies and said to the cadre in charge of receiving them, "Register everything and keep it safe. As for the pig iron, set aside at least 70%, no, 80%, and immediately organize a reliable force to transport it to Gouzi Village as soon as possible and hand it over to Comrades Wen Shizhou and Chen Yuan."

Tell them this is support from the division and the fraternal base areas, so they can use it without worry and focus on production! The rest, keep it in the slurry, to expand the gunpowder workshop and the local repair teams.

The order to transfer the supplies was issued swiftly.

A few days later, caravans of mules and horses carrying heavy iron ingots and sulfur reappeared outside Gouzi Village along the familiar mountain road.

The villagers watched as the heavy, metallic blocks of iron were carefully carried into the workers' shed area on the back hill, discussing among themselves with hopeful expressions.

They knew that with these "iron lumps," the furnace fire on the back mountain could burn even brighter, and they could forge even more soldiers to defend their homeland.

Chen Yuan, Wen Shizhou, Shuanzhu, Tiedan, and others stood in the now crowded raw material storage area, their excitement barely contained.

Chen Yuan, in particular, felt a great weight lifted from his heart as he stroked the pig iron ingots that were relatively uniform in texture and had significantly fewer impurities than scrap ironware.

With this batch of raw materials, the production of the "Flint" platform can be improved, and unnecessary energy loss will be reduced.

Chen Yuan could see that although the platform didn't care about the quality of raw materials, there was still a difference in the amount of electricity consumed.

Iron with fewer impurities requires significantly less energy.

"Master Chen, now we finally have rice to cook!" Wen Shizhou said with a smile, but then became serious. "However, Representative Zhang also sent word that in addition to the supplies, comrades from the base's finance department have also come."

Mainly... I need to reconcile the previous processing costs with you, as well as the usage of this batch of new materials and the settlement method for subsequent products.

Chen Yuan nodded upon hearing this.

This is only natural. No matter how difficult the base area is, there must be rules and an economic order must be established.

His previous near-unpaid support to the front lines was based on the critical situation and the shared belief in resisting Japan.

Now that the situation has initially stabilized, the financial and economic work of the base area must also get back on track. It is necessary for long-term development to conduct reasonable accounting and support for units like "Gongyi Blacksmith Shop," which actually undertakes important military production tasks.

He needs a certain profit, and he needs to use these profits to continuously...

Soon, under Wen Shizhou's arrangement, Chen Yuan met two comrades sent by the base area's finance department in an empty house in the village.

The other party was very polite and took out a simple but clear account book, which recorded the estimated quantity of various scrap iron, wood and coal that had been collected and sent to the blacksmith shop by the base area government, as well as the approximate number of "products" such as bayonets, grenade casings, wooden handles and repaired guns that the blacksmith shop had already delivered.

"Master Chen, the Party and the government remember the contributions you and your fellow villagers made to the War of Resistance against Japan. These accounts are mainly to keep things in mind and facilitate overall planning," explained an older finance officer.

"Our superiors have instructed that the support for you here is long-term. Therefore, we need to agree on a reasonable settlement method. What do you think? Should it be priced per piece, or calculated based on the labor hours and raw materials used? Or do you have any other ideas?"

Chen Yuan had considered this issue long ago.

He knew that the base was in its early stages and that it was short of funds, and that he didn't need the money.

Chen Yuan pondered for a moment, then said sincerely, "Comrades, we're all fighting the Japanese, so we need to keep accounts straight, but we can be flexible. You've all seen my situation here; what we lack most are raw materials—good iron, copper, lead, and enough food to keep everyone busy. If possible, we can use these materials to offset the processing costs, okay?"

He explained in detail: "For example, if the base sends 100 catties of pig iron, we can agree that I can keep a portion of it as processing losses and labor costs, and return the rest as finished products. Or, we can directly agree that for every certain number of bayonets and grenade casings made, I can exchange them for a corresponding amount of iron, copper, or grain. We can also use this method to repair firearms. In this way, I can continue to operate here, and I will have the spare capacity to try to improve the process, and the base will not have to worry about raising cash."

The two finance comrades exchanged a glance and both felt that this method was practical and feasible, in line with the current situation of "scarcity of materials and barter" in the base area, and also fully considered the blacksmith shop's need to maintain reproduction.

It is worth noting that at this time, Shi Chengyu, who would later become a legend in the military industry, retrieved a hand grenade discarded by the National Revolutionary Army in Qilihe, Xingtai. He then independently researched and repaired it, and began to repair and manufacture hand grenades with a capital of 3 yuan.

他建立的小作坊每天能生产40-50枚手榴弹，以每枚6角钱（5角成本，1角利润）供应给八路军。

Chen Yuan's current approach is perfectly normal.

The two comrades took detailed notes of Chen Yuan's opinions and said they would take them back for study and determine a relatively fixed "in-kind settlement standard" that could be accepted by both parties as soon as possible.

After seeing off the finance colleague, Chen Yuan felt much more at ease.

With relatively stable raw material input channels and a reasonable exchange mechanism, "Gongyi Blacksmith Shop" can gradually transform from a production point that exploits resources during a wartime emergency into a "quasi-military cooperative unit" that can operate sustainably and upgrade slowly.

With the raw material issue temporarily alleviated, Chen Yuan's thoughts drifted to another fundamental problem that constrained the "Flint" platform and future production—energy.

Currently, the five improved human-powered foot-operated generators, driven by shifts of personnel, can basically meet the energy needs of the "Flint" platform at its current level, and even have a slight surplus.

But that's already the limit.

Human resources are finite and cannot be increased indefinitely. To support larger-scale production or to unlock the more energy-intensive functions of "flint" in the future, we must find more powerful and stable natural energy sources.

His gaze fell on the mountain stream outside the village, which was gradually filling up with water between winter and spring, and he looked up at the ever-present wind on the mountain ridge.

Water power, wind power.

This is the most straightforward idea.

But problems soon arose: whether building a small water turbine that could drive a generator or manufacturing sturdy and durable wind turbine blades and transmission mechanisms, a large amount of iron and copper was needed to manufacture rotors, stators, bearings, drive shafts, and so on.

He would need to inquire with the flint platform to see how many resources were needed to manufacture the two power units.

And we need to get it built as soon as possible.

We will take advantage of the increasing water availability in the future to continuously improve our power generation capacity.

This allows the flint platform to draw sufficient electricity.

He could foresee that production would definitely increase continuously once he made contact with the Eighth Route Army's superiors.

Production here operates at full capacity, and relying on foot-operated generators for power generation would become a bottleneck in production.