Chapter 182: The Three Major Fertilizers

The fourth morning after the Crossing Faction's main battle rifle, the "Type 38 Rifle," was finalized.

On the sea surface off Taijiang, Qin Ming sat in a sleek, streamlined soft-sail transport boat, hurrying toward Dayuan Island.

Qin Ming was from Shaanxi. This gentleman first worked as a technician at a reagent factory, later opened a private reagent and lab-glassware shop in Xiancheng, and then his relative contracted a mine, so Qin Ming began working as a blaster while also producing mining dynamite on the side.

How did he produce it? By buying fertilizer and making it himself, of course. At that time, Qin Ming produced, blasted, and peddled to other bosses all at once — business was quite good.

Later came tragedy — the homemade dynamite blew up a triad mine boss, along with his BMW 3 Series and five miners. Seeing things turn sour, Qin Ming decisively escaped... He'd already offended the quarry headquarters and Public Security on the white side, and now he'd offended the triad side too — not running would've been unthinkable.

He'd originally intended to keep working at a loosely regulated mine in Africa, but instead Qin Ming now became Vice President of Dayuan Weapons Corporation, concurrently serving as Explosives Branch Manager.

The previous two days, when that crowd was arguing endlessly over guns and cannons, Qin Ming hadn't shown his face at all. None of his business... No matter what weapons they used, they'd still need his factory to produce the gunpowder first. He was busy supervising workers building the factory — had no time to deal with those amateurs.

The factory space assigned to the Explosives Branch was in the most remote location and had relatively high requirements, so Qin Ming had been holed up in the mountain hollow north of the Kiln District lately, until last night when he received notice: meeting first thing in the morning.

"By my reckoning, it's about time for us fellows to make our demands. Heh!" Qin Ming sat in the transport boat, enjoying the cool sea wind off the Taijiang waters, thinking with great ambition.

According to procedure, it had to be this way. Since the gun and cannon models had already been chosen, the next step would certainly be discussing ammunition. And when it came to ammunition — whether the percussion caps and gunpowder for the military, or the mining dynamite for the Kiln District going forward — none of it could do without his Explosives Branch.

"So, what demands should I raise at today's meeting?" Qin Ming watched the Dayuan Dock drawing closer and began planning: "Ten young unmarried women first, ten wives too, hmm, and another ten steady-handed middle-aged women for odd jobs — that should about cover the initial phase."

Women are more suited to the patience-requiring production of explosives — everyone understood that. Qin Ming intended to exploit this point today and first snag a batch of the currently scarce female workers on Dayuan for his own factory.

Arriving at Shang Hall, after pushing open the office door, Qin Ming paused briefly: the room was already full of people, and it seemed only he, the main character, was missing.

"Didn't expect this, didn't expect so many departments would attend today's meeting. Looks like the comrades do recognize the importance of dynamite — not bad, not bad." Qin Ming nodded and greeted everyone as he took his seat, feeling quite pleased.

After sitting down and scanning the circle, Qin Ming was even more satisfied: not only had Grand Secretary Xia come, but Feng Jun, Grand Secretary in charge of internal affairs, was actually here too; his direct superior Ma Zekai went without saying; Port Authority's Professor Luo was also present; Lü Sheng, Liu Zhe, and Han Bo — all these Military bigwigs — not one missing.

Qin Ming grew more and more satisfied as he looked. Excellent — Zou Guoqing and Yao Zhesheng, the chief and deputy supervisors of the Kiln District, were both here too; he could settle the equipment issue in passing... Not bad, not bad, very good, very good... Hmm? Liang Le and Mi Shuo, those two mudlegs from the Agricultural Company, had actually come as well — probably here to collect meeting subsidies... Huh? Liang Le and Mi Shuo?

Just as Qin Ming sensed something amiss, Xia Xianze, seated at the head of the long conference table, cleared his throat and began to speak: "Alright, everyone's here, so let's formally begin the meeting. Today's main agenda is to explore and resolve the issue of the three major fertilizers for agriculture, and incidentally discuss some other topics."

"As everyone knows, agriculture is the foundation of any regime — without agriculture there is no stability..." While Xia was holding forth from the head seat, Qin Ming, realizing he'd been categorized under "other topics," had already gone blank.

The so-called three major fertilizers were nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

The most important among them was nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer is the largest fertilizer type by production and usage volume; in later generations, nitrogen fertilizer usually existed in forms like urea, diamine, and ammonium bicarbonate.

The primary purpose of today's meeting was to determine the channels for obtaining nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture going forward, and incidentally resolve the dynamite issue as well.

Nitrogen can become urea, and it can also become nitric acid. And nitric acid is the mother of the munitions industry — from primitive nitre to sophisticated "nitration" processes, from gunpowder to RDX, "nitration" is the prerequisite step for all explosives.

Although nitrogen is the most abundant element in the atmosphere, early humans were unable to produce nitrogen compounds. Up until the mid-18th century, humanity's sole channel for obtaining nitrogen was collecting the nitrogen compound that crystallized on toilet and pigsty walls: nitre.

By the mid-18th century, after the Chile Nitrate Mine was discovered, the great powers finally possessed a stable nitre supply channel.

Then it wasn't until the early 20th century that humans, through the synthetic ammonia process invented by the Germans, freely produced ammonia gas for the first time, unrestricted by location or time.

In summary: pile manure nitre, dig nitre mines, launch synthetic ammonia... How to choose among these three routes, from easy to difficult, from lowly to lofty — that was the problem today's Transmigrators had to solve.

"Let's start with synthetic ammonia — is there any hope at all? Industrial departments, state your position?" After speaking a few lines about urea's importance to agriculture, Xia Xianze quickly turned his gaze to Zou Guoqing and Yao Zhesheng, the chief and deputy supervisors of the Kiln District.

Perhaps from having been in a superior position too long, Old Zou was no longer as sharp as before. Hearing the boss's question, Zou Guoqing raised an eyebrow, then tilted his head to signal Comrade Yao Zhesheng to step up.

Comrade Yao Zhesheng had far fewer reservations. He came straight to the point, opening with: "This synthetic ammonia thing — it's not that it's unlikely, it's that it's fundamentally impossible."

At this point, he extended a hand and made the signature gesture of the Eighth Route Army: "Eight to ten years — that's the most optimistic estimate. Without that much development time, don't even think about synthetic ammonia."

"A synthetic ammonia plant is a steel tower forest of high temperature, high pressure, filled with all kinds of flammable, explosive, and toxic gases and liquids." After a couple of flippant remarks, Yao Zhesheng began to explain: "Forget those high-pressure-resistant pressure vessels and pipelines — even the most ordinary valve, the Kiln District can't produce right now. If all equipment has to rely on 'imports,' even a small-scale synthetic ammonia plant would take half a year just to scrape together the necessary equipment."

"Additionally, including catalysts, reagents, lubricating oil, methanol, rubber, valves, hydrogen, oxygen... and various other raw materials and spare parts — we can't produce any of them ourselves, so subsequent supply would also consume the vast majority of the import quota each month."

"Tch..." Hearing this, everyone present let out a collective scoff. Everyone knew that based on Yao Zhesheng's last sentence alone, synthetic ammonia was definitely a no-go.

Yao Zhesheng then gave a hehe smile and added: "Even if the equipment were all gathered, a small synthetic ammonia plant absolutely cannot function without over a hundred workers with at least a middle-school diploma, plus twenty chemical-industry Transmigrators. If you insist on forcing the project, just wait for poison gas explosions every few days."

Finally, Yao Zhesheng concluded: "Synthetic ammonia is an industrial pearl, just like a car engine. Without massive base industry support, even if a factory fell from the sky, it still couldn't operate — it would just sit there rusting."

"Alright, alright, I think everyone's understood." Xia Xianze stepped in promptly to stop this fellow from further undermining everyone's confidence.

After rapping the table with his hand, Xia Xianze turned and asked: "So the factory route seems hopeless. What about mines — is there any possibility of bulk purchasing?"

"Cough... That's also impossible." Professor Luo, the Director of Port Affairs seated to the side, began to speak: "Forget about Chile for now — that requires crossing the Pacific. The India Nitrate Mine, which is closest to us, is also unreliable at present; we can only rely on the Dutch bringing some over irregularly. The Ming Dynasty side is the same — we can purchase a portion irregularly, but that can only serve as a supplement, not as a stable, large-scale nitre source."

"Ah, then there's no helping it. Looks like we'll have to honestly pile niter fields for now." At this, Xia Xianze turned to Liang Le and Mi Shuo, the two Agricultural Company representatives, and said amiably: "It'll have to be this way for now — can you make do?"

Liang Le and Mi Shuo both nodded... Given the limited conditions, the two farmers couldn't very well force the issue.

"Alright, since it's decided, let's move quickly." Xia Xianze then addressed a gentle-mannered Transmigrator wearing gold-rimmed glasses on his right: "Hurry and post the recruitment notice online — see who's willing to serve as this Niter Field Supervisor."

This person was Deng Xin, the Grand Office Director, responsible for managing the network, handling daily document sending and receiving, and such trivial matters.

After seeing Deng Xin nod, Xia Xianze added: "Niter field construction gets full priority — all equipment, personnel, and supplies are to be allocated first. The appointee must quickly produce a construction report."

"... Um, regarding the niter fields, I'll need to send people to control a portion as well." Comrade Qin Ming, fierce as a dog before entering but timid as a dog after, finally ended the silent posture he'd maintained since entering and quietly interjected.

"Hm?"

"Well... my side needs a portion of the niter fields to regularly spread plant ash. That way, we can directly harvest potassium nitrate, which after purification will be used to make dynamite."

"Oh... I see. I think that's acceptable — dynamite is also essential. We can allocate a portion of the niter fields to you; you can coordinate with the person in charge yourself when the time comes." Xia Xianze thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

Comrade Qin Ming's great enterprise was ultimately settled with a single sentence. As for the additional items like young women and wives, Comrade Qin Ming wisely did not bring them up at the meeting — any fool could see that raising this in such a situation would be inappropriate!