Chapter 48: Expanding the Arsenal (2)

Night of October 25, 1938
Headquarters of the New 2nd Division, Qifeng County

The decision to venture into aluminum smelting stemmed from the fact that Yangquan possessed vast deposits of high-grade bauxite that remained entirely undeveloped. Leaving such resources unexploited seemed a genuine waste, and given that aluminum products commanded high market prices, Wang Yue formulated a plan to launch an aluminum manufacturing enterprise.

Could elemental aluminum not be refined without electricity? Do not be ridiculous; would people simply cease living without electric power? To bypass electrolysis in the production of aluminum was actually not overly complicated. First, bauxite was combined with soda and lime, then fired at a high temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius to produce alumina, a semi-finished product of metallic aluminum.

Extracting metallic aluminum required removing the oxygen from the alumina. However, alumina required a blistering temperature of 2,050 degrees Celsius to melt, whereas the furnaces in the smelting workshop could only reach a maximum of 1,240 degrees Celsius, rendering them incapable of melting it directly.

To overcome this, a method had to be devised to lower the melting point of alumina by converting it into aluminum sulfide prior to metal extraction, as aluminum sulfide melted at a mere 1,100 degrees Celsius. By mixing alumina with iron sulfide and coke and firing the mixture at approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius, aluminum sulfide was successfully produced.

Finally, aluminum sulfide was combined with zinc chloride and co-roasted to smelt elemental aluminum. The zinc produced as a byproduct during this process could be directly utilized to manufacture more zinc chloride—a preparation process that was considerably simpler.

Aluminum was an exceptional material. While items like airplanes and automobiles remained beyond immediate reach, manufacturing goods such as mess tins and canteens was entirely feasible. The prices and profit margins for these items were astonishingly high—at the very least, far more lucrative than producing weapons. Furthermore, aluminum powder could be added to explosives to significantly enhance their destructive power.

Black powder had long been criticized for its insufficient power, with some even claiming it possessed a mere tenth of the strength of TNT. This was pure nonsense; provided the raw materials were properly purified, the power of black powder could be drastically increased, making roughly five kilograms of black powder roughly equivalent in output to three kilograms of TNT. Naturally, the black powder currently produced by the arsenal fell short of this standard, yet it was still a far cry from the traditional perception of black powder. In an era when high explosives could not yet be mass-produced, the production of black powder had to be firmly grasped.

Raw material acquisition currently relied primarily on collecting native saltpeter refined by the common people. Even if concentrated sulfuric acid could be manufactured, there was no need to waste resources producing potassium nitrate, as purifying native saltpeter was uncomplicated. Many small firecracker workshops in the 1960s and 1970s still utilized native saltpeter, which proved no inferior to industrially produced potassium nitrate.

Sulfuric acid served as a vital raw material for the production of nitric acid, nitrocellulose, TNT, and lead azide. The Eighth Route Army had previously utilized native methods to produce it on a fairly large scale. The formidable challenges that once confronted the Eighth Route Army—such as lead plates and master acid—were no obstacle now, as they could be procured directly from Jiangcheng. Within a mere two months, the arsenal had developed the capacity to produce concentrated sulfuric acid on a small scale. Although the yield was modest, it was temporarily sufficient; at the very least, the nitrocellulose required for manufacturing mortar shells no longer necessitated cannibalizing 37mm artillery shells for components.

Looking ahead, Wang Yue also planned to develop nitrostarch. Although its explosive power was slightly inferior, it still held genuine combat value. In the later stages of the war, both the Germans and the Japanese frequently packed this substance into mortar shells with satisfactory results.

Additionally, the arsenal had successfully mastered the manufacturing process for bullet casings. High-purity copper stock was heated and repeatedly rolled into copper plates of a specific thickness, then cut into strips. Punch presses were then employed to stamp the copper strips into circular blanks roughly the size of a coin. These blanks underwent multiple pressing operations to form the rough shape of a bullet casing—requiring a minimum of three stampings, as excessive deformation in a single pass would cause the casing to fracture or even result in a catastrophic barrel explosion.

At this stage, the bullet casings required polishing. To put it simply, the processed casings were placed into a gasoline drum filled with abrasive materials, and the modified drum was rotated. Within moments, the casings emerged gleaming bright.

Next came trimming. Once this trimming was completed, the primary fabrication of the bullet casing was essentially finished. The subsequent steps involved drilling the flash hole, installing the primer, stamping the base head, and finally, manually charging the propellant. This last step was somewhat crude: the casing was filled to capacity, and the bullet was seated. To prevent moisture from compromising the ammunition, shellac was applied to seal the primer joint and the junction between the casing and the bullet.

As for the bullet heads, the arsenal had moved away from direct casting. Instead, a stamping process was used to fashion a bullet-shaped copper jacket, into which a pre-cast lead core was inserted. The assembly was then reshaped, crimped at the base, and polished once more, yielding a high-quality copper-jacketed lead bullet. This maximized cost efficiency while preserving ballistic performance, finally sparing them from such extravagant consumption of copper. Regrettably, Wang Yue lacked the capability to produce copper-clad steel, which was the true secret to economy. Naturally, pure steel casings were equally impossible to manufacture given the absence of sufficiently high-grade steel.

Currently, Du Gui was refining the manufacturing process for steel-cored bullets, as lead-cored bullets remained relatively weak in impact. These were not armor-piercing steel-core rounds, however, but merely ordinary cast-steel cores intended to further reduce production costs.

Although the arsenal was not yet in a position to manufacture complete weapons, the requisite technical reserves and personnel training could not be halted. To achieve this objective, Wang Yue utilized the Umbrella Company to purchase nearly 11,000 damaged firearms with repair potential from low-ranking Japanese officers. The payment for this massive haul consisted merely of tainted cigarettes sporadically procured from Japanese merchants. As it happened, drug use among frontline Japanese soldiers was widespread—specifically the government-issued varieties; without such substances, the Japanese troops would likely have been incapable of fighting at all. The notion of reckless bravery fueled by pure spirit was a myth; they were simply sustained by narcotics. In the later stages of the war, the precipitous decline in Japanese combat effectiveness was undoubtedly linked to the fact that many veteran soldiers had essentially burned out their minds through drug addiction.

Furthermore, the old firearms already in their possession required refurbishment and maintenance. Among the 2,400 old-model Commission rifles on hand, fewer than half retained discernible rifling. Rotted wooden stocks, rusted components, and missing accessories were even more commonplace. Out of those 2,400 rifles, fewer than four hundred had bayonets, and over two hundred of those were non-standard replacements. In short, virtually none of these old rifles escaped the need for repairs.

Yet even firearms in such condition lacked no buyers once restored. Bandits, mule caravans, landlords, and wealthy households were all eager to purchase factory-produced firearms of this caliber, which were superior by several grades to illicitly manufactured guns. Naturally, the Eighth Route Army was another potential buyer, though their financial resources were too limited to permit large-scale transactions.

The "trade" in human labor could naturally continue, as the New 2nd Division still hungered for manpower. The allocation of 3,000 men from the Military Affairs Department posed no obstacle whatsoever; under the prevailing circumstances, your authorized troop strength expanded in direct proportion to the number of soldiers you actually fielded.