Chapter 137: Li Qiang's Expedition: Caofeidian (4)

Every day, the Special Committee had newly repaired equipment restored, and the production numbers of weapons and ammunition increased daily. Airburst shells were undergoing continuous refinement to achieve optimal lethality.

Following an internal investigation, the initial research and development personnel of the airburst shells were suspected of falsifying research data. After trial, they were convicted of crimes against production and crimes against humanity, sentenced to life imprisonment, and sent directly to the primary labor brigade for ideological reform through labor.

When this matter was made public, the research community suffered a tremendous shock. Previously, everyone had been accustomed to publishing exaggerated data to defraud research funding. Whenever they were caught, peers in the scientific community would help make excuses, they would lie low for a short while, and then continue as before. Now, it appeared that the Special Committee had zero tolerance for their misconduct.

Next, Li Qiang roughly cleared Ninghe County, rescuing fewer than 50,000 survivors who were then handed over to the Organization and Human Resources Department for management. A force split was executed here, with one detachment continuing its advance toward Tangshan City.

Leading 500,000 people himself, Li Qiang headed toward Tanghai County, located southwest of Tangshan City. Upon retaking Tanghai County, they would secure Caofeidian, the most crucial base for the Special Committee's foreseeable iron ore and steel plant operations.

They would then proceed northeastward to further retake Luannan County and Leting County. Ultimately, the two armies would execute a pincer maneuver against Tangshan City from the southwest and southeast.

Tanghai County had a population of 300,000, Luannan County nearly 600,000, and Leting County 500,000. The General Staff believed that this deployment would, on one hand, prevent the forces from being concentrated too densely to fully exert their combat effectiveness, and on the other hand, expand the search and rescue area. Finally, converging on Tangshan City would precisely counter the nearly 8 million zombies stationed there. Facing such a staggering number of zombies, humanity would find defense extremely strenuous. Drawing on past experiences, the strategy was first to split the zombies into two groups and then deploy deep defense formations for each.

Caofeidian was vital precisely because of its complete heavy industrial production facilities.

The Capital Steel Corporation, originally located in Beijing, had been entirely relocated to Caofeidian. By subsequently recapturing the Qian'an iron ore belt located 50 kilometers northeast of Tangshan City, the Special Committee's steel supply would be guaranteed. Combined with petroleum resources from Dagang and other areas, this would secure the industrialization needs of the Special Committee. As for electronic components required for information technology and other applications, they currently relied primarily on existing inventory and stripped components from disassembled devices.

Tangshan also housed the locomotive manufacturing plant of China CNR Corporation.

Stripped components meant using an electric soldering iron to desolder electronic parts from every electronic product for standby use, with pitifully low quality and efficiency.

The adoption of this method to resolve the electronic components issue was mainly because China's electronics industry was basically concentrated in coastal areas, while the northern region was purely a consumer zone. Recapturing the southeast coastal area was an extremely protracted undertaking; the thought of dealing with upwards of a billion zombies was enough to cause a mental crash.

At this moment, the rear Industrial Department delivered several zombie assault vehicles, equipment resembling road rollers equipped with massive gear-shaped crushing drums three meters high, capable of adapting to various terrains. The cab was enclosed by a steel pipe framework with a sharp apex, ensuring that any zombie jumping onto the roof would simply slide off.

Before the apocalypse, Caofeidian was renowned for its superior port conditions, characterized typically by deep-water channels facing the sea and tidal flats backing onto the land.

Following its recapture, the sole difficulty would likely be how to prevent incursions by gigantic marine life. The Ocean Bureau was eager to try their hand, believing they could employ multiple approaches: land reclamation, or simply refusing to purify the industrial wastewater from large-scale steelmaking. Once the environment was polluted, marine life naturally wouldn't care to live in those waters.

To this end, Li Qiang's logistics forces primarily carried the renowned poison 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD), willing to heavily pollute the entire marine area without hesitation!

The process of retaking Tanghai County and Caofeidian and clearing out the zombies was merely standardized operations: drawing out the zombies, surrounding them, annihilating them, consuming countless rounds of ammunition, and rescuing tens of thousands of survivors.

Right before them lay the Caofeidian heavy industrial base. Peering through his binoculars, Li Qiang observed the colossal sea monsters surrounding Caofeidian. They were playing freely in the upper reaches of the ocean currents, frequently churning up tsunami-like giant waves.

Downstream, chemical pollutants remaining from the steel mill were discharged, staining the sea surface in bizarre shades of yellow, black, and purple, with not a trace of normal blue to be found. Almost no giant sea monsters were present; any that accidentally approached the polluted zone swam away rapidly.

Newly modified chemical shells were fired by 155mm 52-caliber heavy artillery, launching bombardment from 30 kilometers away. 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) itself was colorless; to facilitate the identification of polluted areas, they also added the famous Sudan III, a lipophilic dye that yielded exceptional visual effects.

The red water blooms continuously exploding in the upper reaches of the current, accompanied by deafening roars, severely terrified the sea monsters, driving them to flee into the deep ocean.

Wherever the red seawater flowed, tranquility returned to that expanse of the sea.

Li Qiang lowered his binoculars and muttered to himself, "Mother, how magnificent."

Survivors from the Capital Steel Corporation gathered in Beijing by the Organization Department were subsequently dispatched to Caofeidian. Once again expressing gratitude to the state-owned enterprises for their bloated staffing levels several times over, even amidst heavy casualties and combined with the surviving employees of Caofeidian, they still managed to assemble enough personnel to operate China's largest set of 5,500-cubic-meter blast furnaces and corresponding coking plants and auxiliary equipment in the Caofeidian steel mill.

Under current conditions, a single set of blast furnaces was sufficient to meet demands. Sewage pipelines were extensively laid all around the perimeter of the Caofeidian islet, discharging multicolored industrial wastewater directly into the sea.

To ensure uninterrupted production operations, they also needed to recapture Tangshan's various mineral bases as soon as possible to supply the requirements of the Caofeidian heavy industrial base.

"Caofeidian is truly a treasure land. Coal, iron, steel, oil, roads, and ports—all six major elements converge in a single location; there is simply no second place like this nationwide. Centered on industrial clustering, with steel, petrochemicals, heavy equipment manufacturing, and port logistics as its four pillar industries, the surrounding area boasts abundant coal, iron ore, and petroleum," Li Fengyi said, reviewing the report on the recapture of Caofeidian and the Industrial Department's report on the rich mineral resources in the surrounding region. "For now, we don't need to consider the port. The remaining five elements and three pillar industries can allow us to almost fully restore industrialization. The rich metallic and non-metallic mineral resources throughout the entire Tangshan region can be utilized through the Caofeidian heavy industrial base. The only concern is its proximity to the ocean, which necessitates land reclamation and severe marine pollution."

Before the apocalypse, everyone understood the importance of environmental protection. After the apocalypse, with production completely halted and pollution emissions reduced to zero, priority had to be given to survival-driven pollution first; they could worry about methods to deal with giant marine life when the time came.