Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster!-Chapter 245 - 100 Cold Start Phase Two

The two pieces of chip manufacturing equipment brought a shock to Lei Jie that was perhaps no less than when he discovered Site 011, but unfortunately, these two devices weren’t in perfect condition or ready for immediate use.

Since the equipment had been stored in a laboratory, the environmental maintenance system was much worse than at Site 011, and both devices had various problems to some extent.

To fully repair them would still require a relatively long period of time.

However, the good news is, at least there’s no need to start from scratch.

Restoration is still simpler than creating something from nothing.

Therefore, Lei Jie didn’t feel too regretful about it.

After briefly confirming the condition of the equipment, he honestly returned to the tracked vehicle and continued on the road with the main force.

The road back to Site 011 was much easier than when Chen Jian’s team first traveled there. Of course, this wasn’t because "more people walking creates a road," but because while they were fighting outside Jinling City, Fu Xi was continually clearing the way.

Fu Xi took less than 48 hours to complete the paving of the total 80-plus kilometers of road, thanks to the ultra-high efficiency of the more than twenty all-terrain walking excavators under its control.

This contraption actually existed even in the era where Chen Jian and his group were, but after two decades of development and the comprehensive explosion of technologies in hydraulics, electronic control, and energy, it has more than doubled in size, operational efficiency, and functionality.

Clearing obstacles, excavating, bulldozing, paving were all done in one go. As Chen Jian passed by the still-working excavators, he couldn’t help but stop for several minutes to watch.

Indeed, no matter what age or environment men are in, they can’t resist the allure of excavators.

And of course, Chen Jian wasn’t the only one.

For the Yellow Stone People who had never seen such large machinery, the scenes unfolding before them were almost miraculous.

They couldn’t imagine that humans could make and operate such large machines, some even thought it was a kind of monster they had never seen.

If it weren’t for the continuous training from Huang Yu, which had initially instilled the instinct of "execute orders without fail," someone might have well felt compelled to fire a shot at these "steel behemoths."

And the closer they got to Site 011, the more frequent and profound the shock experienced by these people became.

Flat cars transporting debris and waste, logging machines harvesting trees like they’re gathering straw, the ever-moving swarm of "ant" robots...

When they finally passed through the completely cleared main passage into Site 011 and felt the unusual experience brought by technology as they stood on the elevator, the group was almost in a frenzy.

It was the first time Chen Jian witnessed a group of people crying uniformly from overwhelming joy.

-----The first time seen in real life.

Such uncontrollable emotion lasted for quite a long time, with some even kneeling down on the spot, kowtowing in the direction of Yellow Stone City.

These people were worshipping their ancestors.

This was fundamentally a rather simplistic sentiment.

Frankly speaking, did the people of Yellow Stone City genuinely hope that their ancestors would protect them from above?

No, they didn’t.

They were merely projecting their feelings for departed loved ones onto this relatively "ethereal" concept of ancestors, seeking spiritual solace.

Compared to the religious fanatics from the Mechanical God Sect, this ancestor worship was far more rational...

So, Chen Jian didn’t stop them.

Only after the "worship" was completed did he call everyone to enter the living quarters of Site 011, beginning to plan and allocate specific living areas.

After phase one of the cold startup was completed, most of the cold startup equipment stored in the living area had been moved out, while the standardized storage boxes were disassembled by the ant robots and reassembled into individual living cubicles.

The conditions were certainly still a bit rudimentary, but compared to Yellow Stone City and other dwellings in the wasteland, it was as good as paradise.

With the help of Fu Xi, Chen Jian spent over ten minutes arranging accommodations for more than a hundred people.

He himself received a slightly larger central cubicle as a bedroom, but it was almost no different from the others.

After putting down his weapons and equipment and removing the exoskeleton, the ant robots automatically transported the exoskeleton to the armory for maintenance, while Chen Jian walked towards his office to check the progress of the second phase of the cold startup.

The screen in the office continued to flash task instructions, and at a glance, Chen Jian saw that all steps for "cold start equipment deployment" were complete, and there were currently two main tasks underway.

The first was the infrastructure preparation outside the base.

The second was the assembly and debugging of main production equipment.

The former didn’t have too many special parts, it was mostly about road paving, bulldozing, logging, and not even getting to wall building yet.

But the latter was relatively complex.

According to the logic designed into Site 011, or rather the logic of the Fu Xi project, this shelter was built to have the capability to quickly rebuild industry from scratch.

Therefore, deciding where to start, from which part to begin, was quite important.

And evidently, the project leader at the time was a thorough pessimist.

He simply didn’t believe that survivors after a nuclear war would still have the ability to gradually process the parts they needed with simple "industrial mother machines" and piece together more specialized production equipment.

So the design proposal he provided was to assemble a fully functional "industrial mother machine cluster," employing a turnkey model, building a large intelligent workshop in the entire three-floor space from the 6th to the 8th level at the bottom of Site 011.

This workshop had a very singular function; in plain terms, it was for smelting, casting, and machining.

However, its capabilities were quite formidable.

All it needed was the input of the equipment to be manufactured, and it could immediately initiate raw material production according to a pre-set program.

To put it more intuitively, this was a gigantic industrial black box.

From bullets to the high-pressure tanks needed for ammonia synthesis, it could manufacture them.

Of course, these would be on a small scale.

The only issue was efficiency.

Due to the lack of function-specific adaptation, the time it took this contraption to build a highly complex internal combustion engine wasn’t much different from that required for a disposable lighter.

While it could solve urgent problems, to truly mature the industrial system, completing the range of industrial categories as much as possible was necessary...

Chen Jian carefully reviewed the progress of the second main task, and he found that under the diligent labor of the vast swarm of ants, the assembly progress of the intelligent workshop had reached over 40%.

According to estimated time, within a maximum of three days, the workshop could be completely assembled and start the first trial run.

Its successful operation would also signify the completion of the second phase of the cold startup.

Chen Jian suddenly felt some anticipation.

He asked aloud:

"Fu Xi, once the intelligent workshop is fully assembled, does it mean we can produce anything we want at a relatively low efficiency?"

"Yes."

Fu Xi replied:

"But it won’t be ’relatively’ low efficiency; rather, it’s ’extremely’ low efficiency."

"If you wish to manufacture highly complex industrial products like aviation engines, theoretically, this intelligent workshop could also achieve that."

"However, the estimated completion time is...129 years."

Fu Xi’s words made Chen Jian chuckle.

"I wouldn’t be foolish enough to use such a workshop to manufacture something so complex... Suppose I wanted to cast a 105 Howitzer? How long would that take?"

"It is estimated to take 1440 hours, or 60 days."

"Moreover, during this 60-day period, the workshop’s capacity usage would exceed 60%, significantly impacting overall efficiency."

"I do not recommend using this method to produce finished products. The core utility of this workshop is to produce other industrial components, such as standardized machine tools and assembly lines, with relatively low efficiency."

"Only in this direction can it operate at maximum efficiency."

"For example, we could spend a total of 510 days producing all of the equipment needed for a 105 artillery production line, and once all this equipment is fully assembled, the production time for one 105 artillery could be cut down to under 20 hours."

"Understood."

Chen Jian slowly nodded.

A thought emerged in his mind.

If, without considering the demand for any other industrial equipment, he ordered Fu Xi to go all out on the 105 gun production line...

Could that mean...

In two years, he could have a heavy artillery group with over a hundred cannons??

Hiss...

If he really had such a thing, would anything else in this wasteland be able to contend with the Huaxia Army?

Absolutely not.

The only issue was that this extremely polarized development path had too high of a risk, perhaps even leading to a scenario where an opponent could exploit a long preparation time and completely eliminate them...

It seemed like becoming strong overnight wasn’t feasible.

Best to climb step by step honestly.

With that thought, Chen Jian spoke:

"Mobilize all resources and enter full power operating state."

"Complete the second phase of the cold startup as soon as possible."

"Then, immediately commence production!"

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