After leaving Wuhan and arriving in Singapore, Li Mu decided to purchase food first after thinking about the massive influx of people in Nanyang.
Thirty thousand tons of wheat, ten thousand tons of rice, five thousand tons of soybeans, and three thousand tons of sugar just fill up the space.
I didn’t stay long and returned to China soon. As soon as I got off the plane in Wuhan, I was shocked by the situation in front of me.
The flow of people on the streets of Hankou has not decreased, but has increased. There are chaotic people everywhere dragging their families with their families.
Li Mu asked someone to inquire and found out the reason. This time Xiao Benzi's march route was along the north and south banks of the Yangtze River, and Guofu also planned to block the attack along the north and south banks of the Yangtze River.
The north and south sides of the Yangtze River have always been prosperous places with many port cities. When the war started, no one believed these cities even if they said they would not be affected.
As a result, a larger flow of people and more groups of people, dragging their families with them, began to move westward.
Although most of them went to the southwest, some moved to Nanyang and the northwest region.
Li Mu took a motorboat and took the Han River back to Nanyang. On his way back to Nanyang, there were more than ten times more ships plying the Han River than usual. Most of them were transporting people and various materials, and some were transporting various machinery and equipment, probably from the West.
relocated factory.
When we returned to Nanyang, the wide and flat road that had been resting was even more dark. There was an endless stream of people dragging their families with them, all of whom were fleeing and migrating westward.
Later, Li Mu found the person in charge of the agency that specialized in receiving these abortions, looked at their statistics, and was surprised.
It was better a few days ago, with only 10,000 or 20,000 people per day. In recent days, the influx of such a population every day has reached as high as 70,000 or 80,000 people.
This is far from the end. The flow of people pouring in every day is increasing. Nanyang is also under great pressure now. So many people who fled westward may have brought some belongings with them, but it is impossible to bring much food. Food is always
Want something to eat.
In addition, Li Mu had previously established a rule that those who fled to Nanyang needed to be provided with simple food and accommodation until they could find a job in Hukou.
Although some people with extra money cannot adapt to such simple food and accommodation, they will spend money to stay in hotels, rent houses, and buy their own food. The remaining large number of people still put great pressure on Nanyang.
It’s no wonder that Nanyang is so attractive today. There used to be a large number of people who moved to the northwest. After passing through Nanyang, they found that prices here are cheap, public security is good, and the government is excellent...it also treats refugees and people who migrated westward very well, so it stopped
I stopped and didn’t plan to leave.
Fortunately, Li Mu has launched enough large-scale projects some time ago, which can absorb a lot of labor force in a short period of time. Basically, when these refugees arrive at the Nanyang shelter, they will be assigned to work within a few days, so that the whole family can have food.
eat.
For some people who have some spare money, they can have no worries about food and clothing in a short period of time, and can also find a job easily.
The influx of such a large population has brought about another problem. Food prices seem to be rising again. Food prices not only in Nanyang, Southwest, and Northwest have also begun to rise.
As the saying goes, Huguang is well versed in the world. As the capital of Hubei, if Wuhan is lost this time, food prices may rise further.
Reflecting this concretely, the lines of people queuing up to buy grain in the dozens of grain stores opened by Li Mu specifically to stabilize grain prices have become longer every day.
Many people, even if they queued for a whole day, could not get their turn or buy a grain of grain. This further caused panic and caused grain prices to start to rise.
Fortunately, Li Mu purchased a large amount of grain this time and can still cope with it for a while.
However, this is not the solution, and some changes must be made. Firstly, people who are really short of food cannot be denied food; secondly, they cannot sell food without restrictions. After all, it is not easy to purchase food from abroad.
In the end, Li Mu adopted a compromise approach, on the one hand increasing the number of grain stores and on the other hand reducing the amount of purchases per person.
In Nanyang City, the number of grain stores has increased to seven. In the following counties, the number of grain stores has increased to two or three depending on the population. The number of grain stores has increased from a dozen to more than 30, which has greatly increased the number of grain stores.
It diverts the long queues and allows most people in the queue to buy something.
However, the amount of grain purchased by a single person at a time has also been reduced from fifty kilograms to thirty kilograms.
At the same time, the flour produced by flour mills has also been reduced from fifty kilograms per bag to thirty kilograms per bag, which coincides with the purchase limit of one bag at a time.
After arranging things here, Li Mu flew to Singapore again. While the civil aviation in Wuhan was still operating, he wanted to make a few more trips.
This time, Li Mu increased the proportion of rice purchases to 20,000 tons of wheat, 20,000 tons of rice, 3,000 tons of sugar, and several thousand tons of explosive raw materials and steel.
Most of the people who fled and moved westward came from the north and south sides of the Yangtze River, and many of them were rice eaters.
In this way, Li Mu purchased food three times in a row. On the fourth trip, as soon as he landed in Singapore, he heard the news that Hankou had suffered a large-scale air raid, including the civil aviation airport, and civil aviation in Wuhan was temporarily suspended.
Li Mu doesn't know if flights will resume in the future, but it's unlikely. Even if they do, they will only be used for special planes or transport planes, and civil aviation is unlikely.
Fortunately, there is finally some good news here. The batch of weapons he ordered has arrived. Also arriving are the batch of equipment he ordered some time ago for the production of penicillin.
These weapons total: 100,000 Mauser 98k rifles; 80 Czech-made LT-38 light tanks; 50 Bofors M1930 75mm mountain guns with a range of more than nine kilometers; and an order for 3,000 Czech light machine guns.
; Five hundred M2 heavy machine guns that can penetrate tanks and armored vehicles.
After purchasing a large amount of military supplies and arranging domestic personnel to pick him up in Luoyang, Li Mu got on the plane.
From Singapore to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Hanoi, and from Hanoi to Kunming, the Wuhan Civil Aviation Airport was bombed and the route to Wuhan was temporarily canceled. Li Mu bought a ticket to Chongqing.
He was not afraid of anyone recognizing his identity. Li Mu had already processed dozens of fake identities through Muwu Trading Company and Nanyang. He even made up several foreign identities through Far East Trading Company that could also be faked.
In addition, he has some research in makeup, so it is not difficult to change his appearance a little.
This is also the reason why he travels to and from home and abroad so many times without attracting anyone's attention.
It's all because every time he buys a ticket, he changes his identity. For example, when traveling from Singapore to Bangkok, he will use one identity to buy the ticket. After getting off the plane, he simply puts on makeup, and then uses another identity to buy the ticket and take the plane.
After getting off the plane in Hanoi, he will change his identity to buy a ticket and fly to Kunming; the same is true when taking a plane from Kunming, he will change his identity to buy a ticket again.
In this way, with so many identities intertwined, no one noticed at all, and no one believed that he would fly to and from home and abroad so frequently.
The plane soon arrived in Chongqing. Due to the influx of a large number of people, the place was noisy at this time. He was lucky, and there was a civil aviation service passing Luoyang the next day. This kind of passenger tributary route usually only has two flights a week at most.
Li Mu didn't stay here any longer, and got on a plane to Luoyang the next day. After getting off the plane, the person who picked him up had already made arrangements, and he went straight back to Nanyang without staying much longer.
The war is imminent, and the routes are also in a state of semi-interruption. Let's deal with the domestic situation well.
The first is to strengthen the training of 100,000 militia reserves. Except for the busy farming season, the previous one-week training in January has been changed to the current two-week training in January. The purchase of so many Mauser 98k this time is to prepare for this.
If you take up more time, Li Mu will provide certain subsidies to ensure that a certain amount of combat effectiveness is formed as soon as possible.
In addition, of the 80 light tanks purchased this time, Li Mu directly took out more than 30 and allocated them to the forward armored battalion. Part of them will make up for the losses on the front line during this period, and part of them will strengthen the firepower and combat effectiveness of the armored battalion.
With the remaining more than 40 tanks, Li Mu once again established an armored battalion as Nanyang's defense force.
In addition, apart from part of the fifty mountain guns purchased this time, which were allocated to the front line to make up for war losses and strengthen the firepower of the artillery battalion, Li Mu established another artillery battalion.
After finishing all this, an idea that Li Mu had been hiding in his mind for a long time came up. With Nanyang's current talent pool and industrial strength, could he imitate or even independently develop and create some weapons?
Li Mu's first target was the "grenade", also known as the ultra-light mortar. It is mainly equipped with small-sized armies, with a caliber below 50MM. It can be carried by a single soldier and does not occupy the establishment.
The main features are large shooting angle, curved trajectory, and short range. It is mainly used to kill enemy troops hiding behind fortifications and concealments, or to kill enemy troops at long distances.
It is also easy to operate and can be carried by an individual soldier, moving with the front-line infantry to support the front-line infantry. It is also very concealable.
In addition to launching special grenades, the grenade can also launch standard hand grenades. However, the grenade has poor air-holding properties when used as artillery shells, and its range is about two hundred meters.
In terms of convenience, it is much better than a mortar.
Naturally, during the Anti-Japanese War, this kind of weapon also caused the domestic army to suffer a lot. If you want to purchase similar weapons from abroad, there are very few foreign countries. Mainly because this kind of weapon is of no use on the European battlefield, and everyone has cannons that are only a few kilometers away or more than ten kilometers away.
When bombarded from outside, the grenade can't reach the edge at all.
On the domestic battlefield, this kind of weapon is like a fish in water, causing the army to suffer endlessly.
Of course, at that time, the domestic army also seized many grenade launchers and then copied them. However, due to the severe shortage of various materials, the output was not as high as expected.
None of this is a problem for Li Mu.
He values two features of this weapon most: first, it is light in weight, easy to carry, and can provide timely fire support.
Just like the well-known Type 89 grenade launcher, it only weighs less than three kilograms, which is much lighter than a rifle and is very suitable for individual soldiers to carry.
A Type 91 grenade weighs only 45 kilograms, and eight rounds in one ammunition bag weighs only 6 kilograms. Including the grenade, the entire combat system weighs less than 7 kilograms, which is lighter than a Czech light machine gun.
Moreover, due to its light weight, the grenade team will not be unable to fight with the front-line infantry in time due to its heavy load like the mortar team or heavy machine gun team. In actual combat, the grenade team can even charge with the infantry.
The second advantage is also the reason why Li Mu decided to imitate it. It is powerful, low-cost, and the technology used is not high.
As long as there are materials, prototypes, and a certain technical level, they can be copied very quickly.
It just so happened that a large number of grenade launchers were captured during the Battle of Lanfeng, and there were enough prototypes for reference.
Soon, a weapons and equipment research and development institute was established consisting of engineering professors and students from several universities who had relocated to Nanyang, as well as related technical talents recruited during this period.
A part of the manpower will be used to imitate and optimize the grenade, and strive to mass-produce it as soon as possible.
Another part of the manpower was used to develop another weapon proposed by Li Mu, the Sten submachine gun.
The production technology of this weapon is also simple and rough. But it is also a famous gun in World War II and made a huge contribution to the Allies. A total of more than three million were produced during World War II.
In the early days of World War II, the British army was not equipped with standard submachine guns. Facing the German troops with a large number of automated light weapons, they were clearly at a disadvantage in terms of individual firepower. In 1940, the British expeditionary force in France retreated from Dunkirk, although the retreat was successful. , but a large number of weapons were thrown on the beach by the troops.
At that time, Britain was expanding its land, sea and air force, and was short of all kinds of weapons. Not only was it short of weapons, it was also short of money.
So the Sten submachine gun.
It has a simple structure, low cost, and rough production technology. Most of the components are stamped, and only the bolt and barrel require machine tool work.
The stock of the gun is made of a steel bar and a steel plate welded together, and the gun body is a steel tube. The bullet inside can be seen through the bolt groove.
However, although it looks crude and nondescript, it has good firepower and stability.
However, there are advantages and disadvantages. Although this submachine gun has the advantages of cheap price and fast production, its structure and technology are too simple and rough, and it also has the disadvantage of unstable performance. The entire Sten submachine gun only has 47 parts. 45 of them are directly stamped, which have a short service life and are very easy to be damaged.
In addition, in order to reduce the processing steps, there are only two rifling lines in the barrel of this gun, which makes the accuracy of this gun very low, and the bullets will fly everywhere when fired.
And because of its too simple design, this gun is also very easy to jam and misfire. Coupled with its rough appearance. During World War II, although the Allies equipped more than three million guns, everyone hated it and gave it a Also known as "Stink Gun".
When some soldiers passed by a site where Sten submachine guns were being packed and shipped out, they would pretend to cover their noses and snort, "It smells bad."
However, despite so many shortcomings, this weapon has been produced in large quantities in a short period of time due to its low production cost, simple production process, and low technical requirements.
It became one of the main melee weapons of the Allied forces, especially the British army.
Such a weapon would be disliked if placed in the hands of the Allies. If placed in the country, it would definitely be very popular.
Before coming to this world, he simply wrote down some information, including the general structure and craftsmanship of the Sten submachine gun. The main reason was to consider before coming that the domestic industrial level during the Anti-Japanese War could only produce submachine guns of this level. Give me a You can’t produce the complete blueprint of the Thompson submachine gun.
Fortunately, the power and stability of this gun are really good.
Later, Li Mu drew the rough craftsmanship and structure of the firearm, and asked the professors and technicians to follow suit and develop the prototype as soon as possible.
Nowadays, some domestic arsenals can imitate Czech-style light machine guns. It should not be difficult to produce such a submachine gun with rough technology.