Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#173 - A ray of hope for the peace egg

Zhao Lidong's summons led Ren Zhong to significantly scale back his increasingly bold operations in the main world.

Especially regarding nuclear knowledge, which the main world is highly sensitive about, Ren Zhong, after reviewing his rash bounty actions, decided to focus on collecting publicly available knowledge. In the main world, he has no special privileges or connections.

Unless he remains hidden in the Bright Sword world forever, Ren Zhong cannot violate the rules of the main world.

Considering his potential risks, Ren Zhong transferred the majority of his funds from the offshore company's two backing banks to a Hong Kong investment company, placing them under the custody of a Chinese bank.

Through the investment company, he reinvested 1 billion yuan into three companies in mainland China, following Ren Zhong's new plan to invest in agricultural aircraft, tractors, and tricycles.

Wang Wenhui's battery factory has now gained a foothold and should break even within the year. Current investments are focused on developing a new generation of safe electric vehicle batteries using lead-acid technology, while also researching lightweight solutions for lithium iron phosphate batteries. It seems that investing ten to twenty million yuan to develop these two products will likely allow Lisai Battery to eventually break even.

After all, Ren Zhong isn't demanding blind expansion. With this steady approach, there's a chance to survive in the massive electric vehicle aftermarket. Wang Wenhui is also very dedicated, placing himself on the front lines of both the market and research and development, studying the strengths and weaknesses of the leading products on the market with the R\u0026D team. With the R\u0026D funds provided by Ren Zhong to hire several real experts to lead the development, the market direction hasn't gone astray, and Lisai is gradually moving from a no-name brand towards becoming a recognized brand.

Ren Zhong is now preparing to replicate the success of the battery factory, developing the newly invested agricultural aircraft, tractors, and tricycles in the same manner. He aims to be self-sufficient in the main world, investing some of his own funds to produce the core engine himself, so that the technology developed can be shared with the Bright Sword world.

He plans to separate the engine division, acquiring a small diesel engine company to create a series of single-cylinder, twin-cylinder, and four-cylinder diesel engines. The low-end, naturally aspirated, rudimentary versions will cover a power range from 10 horsepower to 80 horsepower, essentially solving the power problem for vehicles in the Bright Sword world.

After all, an agricultural tricycle with a 15-horsepower engine can carry 2 tons and run everywhere. An agricultural tricycle equipped with a powerful 80-horsepower four-cylinder diesel engine wouldn't have much trouble pulling several tons of artillery.

This is one aspect. On another front, as the scale of smelting expands, relying on manpower for mine transportation is no longer feasible. Transportation vehicles must be developed. An agricultural tricycle can carry two tons and travel over 50 kilometers, which is more efficient than hundreds of people carrying by hand.

With the daily production of 10 tons of small-scale refining equipment about to begin, Ren Zhong's vehicle production hasn't yet been put on the agenda because the process of producing olefins during oil refining hasn't been worked out. This is the main raw material for synthetic rubber, and without it, Ren Zhong can't even use the vehicle frames he produces.

Under the current conditions, Ren Zhong can't obtain natural rubber from Southeast Asia, so Ren Zhong can't solve the tire problem in the border region.

Therefore, Ren Zhong initially planned to take the technical route of synthetic rubber, not only obtaining fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and aviation kerosene during oil refining, but also obtaining important raw materials such as olefins for rubber synthesis.

Building an industrial system from scratch is not something that ordinary people can do. Ren Zhong travels between two different worlds every day, relying on the complete knowledge system of the main world, so that he can gradually evolve the border region towards a complete industrial system.

It's just that the border region now thinks that Ren Zhong only knows how to make explosives and process weapons. Basically, no one thinks that Ren Zhong's ambition has grown to the point of comprehensive development in the air, land, and sea.

In the Dawn Research Institute, the core content of different research centers is not public. Except for the core members of the research center and Ren Zhong, who can understand the latest progress, others basically don't know what the Dawn Research Institute is doing.

However, because Ren Zhong is solely responsible for the expenses of the entire institute, and he travels across the ocean whenever he has time, Ren Zhong has sufficient confidence to turn the Dawn Research Institute into his own independent kingdom.

Due to the simplicity of the personnel's origins, and the fact that the external area of the Dawn Research Institute is guarded by the 8th Regiment of the Garrison, it is actually isolated from the already very closed small space of the border region.

Although the Dawn Research Institute has produced many things, it is basically still unknown to the outside world. However, among scholars, the Dawn Research Institute has begun to gain a small reputation. Some experts and scholars know that some of their colleagues work there, but naturally no one reveals what they do or what their progress is.

They only know that there is an excellent research environment here.

Ren Zhong has no intention of becoming famous in the Bright Sword world. Everything is very low-key. Apart from being famous among the high-level officials in the border region, he is basically unknown among the middle and lower levels of the border region.

This also facilitates his safe travel through this time and space.

Although the border region has raised his security to the highest level, the 8th Regiment of the Garrison is stationed at the Dawn Research Institute in the name of land reclamation, but in reality, the entire 8th Regiment of the Garrison is fully armed, which is not the normal operation of a normal land reclamation force.

In the blink of an eye, it was early November, and Ren Zhong was moving around as usual.

When he came to the Physics Research Center, Professor Wu Jianxiong was a little excited when he saw Ren Zhong and invited him to the conference room.

Mr. Ren, we have overcome the design of the heavy water extraction device. Now we need a lot of electricity to build a heavy water refining plant. No, one is not enough. The production capacity of one is too low. I need at least four!" Professor Wu Jianxiong said excitedly.

"You have successfully developed the water electrolysis device?" Ren Zhong was a little surprised. In his information, pressurized water reactors require a lot of heavy water, and now the only way to refine heavy water is basically through water electrolysis. However, large-scale water electrolysis devices are not easily available. Fortunately, Ren Zhong can obtain the principle and basic design, which allowed physicists like Wu Jianxiong to design it.

This is definitely not something that ordinary people can afford.

Ren Zhong has been preparing for this matter. After Li Jixiang conquered the 5MW mixed-flow generator, Ren Zhong has been producing this generator and preparing more than a dozen cascade power stations for them. Now the dams have been built.

Not only the Yan River, but also many have been built on the Luo River. Of course, when building, Ren Zhong didn't say it was for the heavy water factory, but to build water conservancy projects and turn the banks of the Yan River and Luo River into granaries. In fact, it has been developing along the two river basins in this direction, replicating Ren Zhong's successful experience of 100,000 acres of fertile land on the Yan River.

"We can now build a 65MW hydroelectric power plant to provide energy for heavy water," Ren Zhong said confidently.

"That's really great. We can quickly achieve the next node goal." Professor Wu was stunned for a moment when she heard the power supply that far exceeded her imagination before she became happy. She briefly calculated that this was much stronger than she expected. After all is completed, the daily production capacity will exceed 30 kilograms, so that 5 tons of heavy water can be produced in half a year.

"In fact, the road we have to take is still very long," Ren Zhong was not as optimistic as Professor Wu. "Heavy water concentration extraction is just a small step, and how to complete uranium enrichment next is the difficulty."

Professor Wu was silent after hearing this. Ren Zhong provided several ideas for uranium enrichment in the Manhattan Project, electromagnetic separation, gaseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion, but there were no specific process descriptions and data, only some relatively rough principle descriptions. Therefore, to increase the purity of uranium-235 to 89%, it does take a long way.

"Mr. Ren, how is the uranium mine situation?" Professor Wu asked.

"They have found the vein and are now confirming the main mining points," Ren Zhong replied. "Our preliminary leaching and flotation extraction methods can only obtain the abundance used in nuclear reactors. Next, we must solve the high-concentration purification to have the hope of using it to ignite the sun and see the dawn of peace."

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