"Is the production of electronic tubes so difficult?" Wang Xuexin sounded a little strange.
Su Liguo shook his head and replied: "The production of electron tubes is actually not difficult, but the key point is that it requires high-purity metal materials. We in China cannot produce this material, so..."
After Su Liguo's introduction, Wang Xuexin understood that this was not a technical problem.
In fact, it can also be said to be a technical issue, but it involves material smelting technology, and it also involves rare metals, such as tungsten, molybdenum, nickel, etc.
China may have never heard of these things, let alone producing them with high purity.
"The other thing is the equipment!" Su Liguo continued: "The inside of the electron tube is vacuum, so a mechanical pump is needed as the first stage of air extraction, and then a multi-stage diffusion pump is used for the second stage of air extraction, as well as a condenser and a heater.
Cooling and high-temperature heating are required during the production process... Without these equipment, it would be extremely difficult to produce electronic tubes by hand!"
Hearing what Su Liguo said, Wang Xuexin felt relieved.
"Equipment is not a problem!" Wang Xuexin said: "As for the raw materials, although there are some problems, it is not a big problem. I believe we can get it!"
The reason why Wang Xuexin said that "there are some problems with raw materials" is because raw materials still require one's own smelting technology and cannot rely on other countries.
Su Liguo was worthy of being a descendant of merchants. As soon as he heard this, he understood what Wang Xuexin wanted to do.
"What do you mean, leader, buy it from Yingjiang?" Su Liguo asked.
Wang Xuexin nodded. Although he was a little surprised that Su Liguo could guess his thoughts, he thought it was normal. At this time, the Eighth Route Army knew from top to bottom that Wang Xuexin was doing business with Yingjiang and Mao Xiong.
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Mao Xiong is still very backward in terms of electronic equipment, so of course they import it from Yingjiang.
Su Liguo was a little strange. He said: "Captain, with all due respect, if we can import materials and equipment from Yingjiang, why not directly import electronic tubes? At the price of imported materials and equipment, the electronic tubes purchased are enough for our army.
Alright?"
Su Liguo had some misunderstandings. He thought Wang Xuexin imported tubes just to assemble radio stations for the Eighth Route Army. He did not expect that Wang Xuexin's ambitions were much greater than this.
On the other hand, this is Su Liguo's typical businessman's thinking.
From a business point of view, it is certainly not as cost-effective to produce by yourself as buying directly from Yingjiang, because you have to buy equipment and materials and then hire workers to build the factory, etc. After a long time of work, the quality of the product may not be good because the workers' skills are not up to standard.
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Not to mention whether it is worth it, you will probably lose everything in the end.
However, a country's military industry cannot be thought of with a businessman's mindset. Some things must be invested and developed even if they are at a loss, otherwise there will be no development prospects, and even during wartime, they will be restricted everywhere because they are choked by others.
Wang Xuexin did not explain that much to Su Liguo. He just replied: "Mr. Su, if we don't take the first step now, will there never be anyone in China who can produce electronic tubes and we will always have to import them from other countries?"
Su Liguo understood instantly after hearing this, and at the same time he felt secretly ashamed: he was thinking about whether it was a good deal, but Captain Wang was thinking about the future of the country and the cultivation of talents, which is respectable and admirable!
In fact, Su Liguo is right to think so, because at this time, the Eighth Route Army was still very poor in life, and everything was saved to develop the military and fight the Japanese. Under this situation, all he thought about was frugality from top to bottom, and Su Liguo considered the problem from the perspective of cost.
It is also a kind of frugality.
Judging from the current conditions of the Eighth Route Army, we should actually advocate frugality and drive out the Japanese first.
It's just that Wang Xuexin knows how far electronic tubes will develop in the future and what benefits it will bring to China, so he is eager to develop at this time.
Seeing that Wang Xuexin was so determined, Su Liguo nodded and said: "Captain, if the equipment and materials are complete, I am confident that we can produce electronic tubes!"
"That's good!"
After hearing Su Liguo's words, Wang Xuexin's heart was half relieved.
At this time, Wang Xuexin had not yet realized that he had obtained a "treasure" because he wanted to produce electronic tubes... This Su Liguo was not only researching electronic tubes, but he was also good at things like radio and ultrasonic waves that were his interests.
Therefore, in the future, Su Liguo will be responsible for not only the electronic tubes, but also the radars exchanged from Yingjiang, as well as the application and automatic control of radars by missiles.
The import of materials and equipment was not a big problem as Wang Xuexin thought. Wang Xuexin only sent a telegram to Sun Erwei, and Sun Erwei immediately replied: "No problem, as per the old rules, the settlement will be in US dollars from your account!"
At this time, Wang Xuexin already had more than 50 million U.S. dollars in his account, which was a lot of wealth during this period... The purchasing power of U.S. dollars during this period was very strong. A family car could be bought for more than 1,000 U.S. dollars, and a family car could be bought for 5,000 U.S. dollars.
Tens of thousands of dollars is almost an astronomical figure.
Sun Erwei only thought that these were donations from overseas friends for China's Anti-Japanese War. In fact, most of the money was exchanged by Wang Xuexin with military currency.
Sun Erwei was just a little curious: "Wang, what are you buying these equipment for? To produce electron tubes? What is the use of your electron tube production?"
From Sun Erwei's point of view, for an industrially weak country like China, especially the Eighth Route Army, the production of electronic tubes is indeed of no use... Can it fight a war? Is it useful for defeating the Japanese and driving them out? To produce radio stations and equipment for the army? Because of this, mass production of electronic tubes is
Isn't that too exaggerated?
Wang Xuexin suddenly thought, why not make a deal with Yingjiang in terms of "universal decoding machine"?
After all, this is something that can crack the enemy's code, and it is also high-tech. Yingjiang will definitely be interested in it, and he will be very interested, right?
At the same time, Wang Xuexin is a little worried. You must know that Yingjiang is a country that has greatly developed computers in history, thus establishing its number one position in the world...
Eagle sauce can become the world's number one, on the one hand, its performance during World War II, and on the other hand, the development of computers has led to the third industrial revolution.
If Wang Xuexin brings this technology to Yingjiang, will he create a strong competitor for himself?
But Wang Xuexin then thought about it, no matter how fast Yingjiang develops, it can't be faster than the system, right?
What's more, even if Yingjiang develops according to the historical process, he can develop a computer step by step. Why don't he lead it by the nose and make a profit from it by selling things that are still advanced for them for the time being?
This may also limit, control or even suppress the development of eagle sauce in this area.
Thinking of this, Wang Xuexin decided.
He called back: "Sorry Sun Erwei, due to contract restrictions, I can't tell you the reason!"