GBP Chapter 164: Irrawaddy River No. 1 Shipyard and Nanyang Naval Academy
Chapter 164: Irrawaddy River No. 1 Shipyard and Nanyang Naval Academy
In fact, compared with the weapons and equipment of dozens of White Party divisions and low-interest loans of more than 5 million US dollars, the current support of White Eagle to Zhang Chi can be said to be a drop in the bucket.
However, when another loan of 5000 million US dollars, secured by the jade mines and oil fields south of Myitkyina City, and weapons aid for 10 light infantry divisions appeared in the hands of White Eagle, Zhang Chi was still very happy.
With another round of large-scale conscription, Zhang Chi also fulfilled his previous promise. He established two new division-level infantry columns with veterans drawn from two agricultural reclamation regiments and two infantry columns as the backbone, and at the same time established an additional 10 agricultural reclamation regiments and 3 railway construction regiments.
In this way, they expanded their military while carrying out large-scale construction projects.
After seizing the entire territory of Kejian State, with a large amount of funds and a large number of workers and technicians recruited from Qian State, the three-year plan began to be implemented at a high speed.
In addition to building the new city of Myitkyina, Zhang Chi's top priority was the construction of the steel industry, explosives and fertilizer industry, and machinery manufacturing industry.
At the same time, after a large amount of money was spent, penicillin production lines and semiconductor production lines were quickly established in Myitkyina, which had become a large construction site.
Although the production of silicon transistors could not be put into production quickly because the workers were not yet proficient in silicon extraction, the penicillin production line quickly produced the first batch of imitation "Pfizer-brand" penicillin after the thermal power plant and the supporting sterile glass bottle production line were in place.
That's right, in order to prevent the pharmaceutical tycoons of White Eagle from coming to him, Zhang Chi not only shipped small batches each time, but also deliberately put the brands of several major White Eagle pharmaceutical companies on the penicillin he produced and sold it disguised as military aid.
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Of course, being located in Southeast Asia, the shipbuilding industry, which is vital to our lifeline, cannot be left behind.
Unlike those seaside shipyards that specialize in building large warships, Zhang Chi plans to first learn from the Gorky Shipyard of the Bear State and build a riverside shipyard.
After being built at the inland Gorky Shipyard, ships under 5000 tons can sail directly along the Volga River to the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov, which is very similar to the geographical environment Zhang Chi is facing now.
Zhang Chi's preliminary plan is that the first phase of the Irrawaddy River First Shipyard will have two 3000-ton dry docks and three 1000-ton dry docks.
While the construction drawings for the first phase of the shipyard were being drawn up, Zhang Chi had already begun recruiting personnel from the shipbuilding industry.
Zhang Chi knew very well that if he wanted to build a 10,000-ton ship, he would have to admit that there were not many people in the Republic of China who had experience in building 10,000-ton ships.
But if you only want to build gunboats and speedboats of a few hundred tons, anti-submarine boats and heavy gunboats of several hundred tons, and destroyers of a thousand tons, then the Republic of China has quite a few experienced talents.
Take the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai as an example. It independently manufactured the 1500-ton Yixian ship (which could only run at 12 knots), as well as many various 100-ton shallow-water gunboats, torpedo boats, minelayers, and minesweepers.
These small warships just fit Zhang Chi's current "air, submarine and fast" thinking, so he sent people to follow the path of the uncle to go to big cities such as Shancheng and Chuncheng to look for those shipbuilding workers and engineers who were unemployed in Mawei Shipyard, Jiangnan Shipyard and other places because they were occupied by the Japanese.
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In addition to the shipyard, Zhang Chi also expanded the naval school originally located at the Xinwangping base. He exchanged several synthetic naval instructors and hired several instructors from the Naval Academy and the Electric and Mine School from the White Party at high salaries.
As the plane taxied from the runway to the parking position, the roaring Hornet engine of the C-47 gradually died down.
Lieutenant Commander You Hongxuan, a former lightning instructor at the Electric Mine School, who had studied in the United States and had internship experience on a John warship, rubbed his face and jumped directly from the hatch without waiting for the boarding ladder to reach the plane. He then rolled up from the ground.
"Where are the warships? Where is the thousand-ton destroyer you promised? Take me to see it!" You Hongxuan found someone who looked like the person in charge and immediately shouted.
As a native of Shandong Province, You Hongxuan was an excluded and marginalized person in the Republic of China Navy, which was basically controlled by people from Fujian Province.
Although later, in order to get rid of the situation in which the Fujianese had dominated the Republic of China Navy since the Mawei Naval Academy, the White Party set up an additional electric and torpedo school to teach alternative ships such as torpedo boats and mineboats, and it was directly under the Ministry of Military Affairs rather than the Ministry of the Navy.
(The navy of the real fleet was still managed by the Fujianese, and later went to the small island to play "Boom Beach")
However, with the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War and factional strife, the Electric and Mine School completely became history. You Hongxuan was unwilling to join the navy controlled by the Fujianese, so he had to return home unemployed.
Fed up with the Fujianese, he didn't want to come to this overseas place where the Fujianese were the majority (most of those who went to Southeast Asia were from Fujian and Guangdong and Guangxi). But on the one hand, his old superior took hundreds of bottles of penicillin from Zhang Chi, and on the other hand, Zhang Chi promised not to look at the origin but only at the level, and there were three genuine thousand-ton White Eagle destroyers as "teaching aids" here. Only then did You Hongxuan board the plane to Myitkyina.
Zhang Guangjun, who had come to pick him up at the airport, saw the jumping You Hongxuan and immediately stepped forward to stop him. "My name is Zhang Guangjun, currently serving as the naval commander under the Pegu Anti-Japanese Committee. May I ask if this is Major Lei Ji You Hongxuan?"
"I am, where is the warship?"
"Please get in the car quickly, we will welcome you at the newly established Nanyang Naval School." After more than half a year in charge of the navy, although Zhang Guangjun no longer has a superficial understanding of the navy after learning, he still has great respect for true professionals like You Hongxuan.
Even though he was the commander of the navy, he still showed a respectful attitude.
"We can eat anytime. I want to go on the warship first to take a look. This is a thousand-ton destroyer. The Ninghai and Pinghai ships before the war were called cruisers, but they were only 2000 tons." You Hongxuan eagerly grabbed Zhang Guangjun's hand.
"I heard you purchased the White Eagle 'Clemson' class destroyer. This class of destroyer has three quadruple-mounted 533mm torpedo launchers. As a torpedo instructor, I can show off my skills. So please take me to see the ship first."
In this era when the nation was poor and weak and suffered humiliation, even naval warships had to sink themselves in the river to stop enemy warships.
Therefore, a true patriot like You Hongxuan could no longer sit still when he heard that the Qian people finally had decent warships.
Zhang Guangjun was at a loss whether to laugh or cry when he saw You Hongxuan was so anxious that he almost cried. The Clemson-class destroyer was just a pre-war destroyer with a full load of 1700 tons, but it made You Hongxuan so excited.
If his cheap uncle Zhang Chi really builds the Brooklyn-class light cruiser or Fletcher-class destroyer he mentioned, You Hongxuan will probably have to eat, drink, defecate and urinate on the ship day and night.