140: Chapter 140 Let's get started

Meanwhile, on the other side.

Shen Fei Group Final Assembly Workshop.

Inside the huge factory building, the lights blazed bright.

5,000 employees were called in overnight, packing several workshops to the brim.

"Holding a meeting this early, what's going on?"

"I got the notice in the middle of the night. I heard it's an emergency mission."

"Could it be that we're finally going to make a move? Let's give those damn Japs a beating!"

"Give the Japs a beating? Foreman, if you put it that way, I'm not sleepy anymore."

The factory director walked up to the temporarily erected stage, skipped any opening remarks, and picked up the microphone directly:

"Starting from now, all J-35 production lines are to be shut down immediately."

Clatter—the whole crowd exploded.

"What?!"

"Shutdown? Are you kidding me?!"

"That's a fighter jet urgently needed by the military!"

Deputy Factory Director Old Liu rushed to the front of the stage, veins bulging on his neck: "Director! Those are the fighter jets the Haidong Fleet is waiting to equip! The contracts are already signed, how do you expect me to explain this to the Navy?"

The factory director didn't speak; he pulled a document out of his briefcase and unfolded it.

A bright red "Top Secret" seal, with Elder Qin's autograph.

Old Liu was stunned, and the whole venue fell silent.

The factory director continued, "All personnel, immediately transition to the new project. Twenty-four-hour three-shift rotation, triple wages, fivefold overtime pay."

The workers looked at each other in dismay.

What kind of project was this important?

Then, the factory director pressed a remote control.

The large screen in the workshop lit up—a 44-meter-tall silver-gray humanoid mecha, with twin-mounted gun barrels on its back and missiles hanging all over its shoulders.

Three seconds of dead silence.

Then, a young worker's voice broke the silence: "Holy shit... Is this a Gundam?"

"Shut up!" Old Liu glared at him, but his own hands were shaking too.

He had been building airplanes for thirty years; the J-10, J-20, and J-35 had all passed through his hands.

But this...

"If we can build this..." he muttered to himself, "the J-35 is a piece of crap."

Looking at the shocked expressions of the workers, the factory director continued, "Germany's six-axis linkage CNC machine tools must be debugged and in place within 8 hours."

The head of the material procurement department stood up: "Director, if we go through customs procedures, it will take at least three days."

"A military transport aircraft has already flown to Germany, and it can transport the machine tools to the factory in five hours!" The factory director interrupted him. "Are there any other questions?"

He looked around the venue; no one spoke.

"Then let's get to work."

Five seconds later, cheers erupted.

The workers rushed to their respective posts, and the roar of machines resounded in the workshop.

At the same time.

At a certain CASIC base, inside the chief engineer's office, several white-haired experts sat before a conference table in a solemn atmosphere.

"Postpone the production of the Dongfeng-5C?"

The old expert slapped the table, his face flushed red:

"That is a national strategic deterrent weapon! To postpone it for an unverified project?"

"Whose decision is this?"

The young deputy chief engineer sat opposite, saying nothing.

He took a blueprint out of his briefcase and pushed it in front of the old expert.

"Teacher, take a look at this first."

"I'm not looking!" The old expert pushed the blueprint back. "I've studied missiles for fifty years, what haven't I seen—"

Halfway through his sentence, his gaze inadvertently swept across a corner of the blueprint.

A cross-sectional view of the rotating ammunition feeding mechanism.

He froze for a moment and picked up the blueprint.

Putting on his reading glasses, he lowered his head to examine it closely.

The synchronized feeding System for 1,200 micro-missiles.

Precise matching of the magazine's rotational angular velocity and firing frequency.

Distributed processing architecture for intelligent tracking and guidance.

One minute.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

There was only the ticking of the wall clock in the office.

The old expert remained speechless, staring fixedly at the blueprint, his fingers trembling slightly at the edge of the paper.

"This rotating ammunition feeding mechanism..." His voice was hoarse. "A difficult problem that we failed to achieve a Breakthrough on after ten years of tackling it, they solved with a completely different approach..."

He took off his glasses and closed his eyes.

The deputy chief engineer saw tears in the corners of the old man's eyes.

"If this technology can be realized..." The old expert opened his eyes and looked at the deputy chief engineer. "The Dongfeng-5C can indeed be postponed."

He turned around and shouted toward outside the door: "Xiao Li!"

The secretary ran in.

"Bring me the list of all our top engineers."

"Transfer them all over, not a single one left behind."

Eight o'clock in the morning.

Chinese Academy of Sciences Supercomputing Center, Tianhe-3 machine room.

Countless servers were neatly arranged, indicator lights flickered, and the cooling fans emitted a low hum.

The telephone in the director's office suddenly rang.

"Hello? ... What?! ... Understood."

He hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and pressed the broadcast button: "All engineers, assemble in the conference room immediately!"

Ten minutes later.

The conference room was packed with people.

The director stood on the stage and cut straight to the point:

"I am announcing something."

"All computing resources of Tianhe-3 are requisitioned starting from now. All running projects are suspended immediately."

The audience broke into an uproar.

A young engineer stood up.

"Director! We are conducting meteorological simulations, which are related to next month's typhoon forecast—"

"I know." The director's voice was very calm. "But there is a more important mission now."

He pressed a remote control.

On the big screen appeared the requirement document for the mecha AI System—the number of neural network nodes, real-time response speed, concurrent processing capacity...

"What the hell is this?" Someone gasped.

"This is the mecha control System," the director said. "Zhao Wenxuan's team from the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences will move in this afternoon, and 1,000 AI experts will arrive successively. Twenty-four hours in three shifts, with plenty of coffee and instant noodles."

Programmer Xiao Wang raised his hand: "Director, when do we start?"

"Start right now!"

At 10:00 AM, at a large shipyard of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.

500 top welding technicians were summoned to the conference room.

The factory director stood on the stage, holding a piece of silver-gray metal about the size of a palm, gleaming with a cold luster under the lights.

"This is skyfall steel," he raised the sample. "Its strength is 5 times that of titanium alloy, and its density is only one-third. Your task is to use it to weld a 44-meter-tall giant structure."

The veteran masters looked at each other in dismay.

"44 meters? How many welding joints would that take?"

"What are the weld seam accuracy requirements?"

"Old Zhao, you're worrying too much," the factory director interrupted him. "The military special transport plane is waiting at the airport; depart immediately, destination Southern Jiangsu."

At 4:00 PM, on the tarmac of a certain air force base.

20 Y-20 transport planes were ready, their silver-gray fuselages glinting with a metallic luster in the sunlight.

Captain Old Zhang stood in front of the aircraft, watching the ground crew loading things into the belly of the plane—all sealed metal boxes, each escorted by armed police, with a red "Top Secret" seal printed on it.

"Southern Jiangsu again?" Old Zhang lit a cigarette, squinting as he looked south. "What batch is this for today already?"

"The eighth batch," the ground crew member shook his head. "Ever since six in the morning, the Y-20s haven't stopped."

"What are they carrying?"

"I don't know, the security clearance level is too high," the ground crew member lowered his voice. "But I heard from my cousin that their factory recently shut down all J-35 production lines, and all 5,000 people were transferred to do something else."

Old Zhang was stunned: "Shut down the J-35? That's a fighter jet the navy is waiting to equip; what kind of project could make the fighter production lines step aside?"

"I don't know," the ground crew member pointed at the densely packed transport planes on the tarmac. "But look at this setup... I've been a ground crew member for ten years, and I've never seen such a large-scale transport mission."

Old Zhang didn't speak; he extinguished his cigarette butt and boarded the plane.

In the cockpit, the co-pilot was checking the flight parameters.

"Old Zhang, what are we carrying this trip?"

"Don't ask what you shouldn't ask," Old Zhang fastened his seatbelt. "Prepare for takeoff."