Chapter 299 Let's start planning now: A blank sheet of paper is better for drawing blueprints.

The guests left and returned to their rooms.

When the graduate student saw the clean clothes in a bag on the table, he ran to his advisor in surprise: "Are these clothes for me?"

They arrived naked, walking directly from the library without bringing any change of clothes.

Professor Zheng nodded: "Take a shower and change into clean clothes before going to sleep."

He also saw the clothes prepared for him in the room and couldn't help but sigh to himself. He wasn't some big shot in the industry, and even when he was involved in tackling the lithography machine project, he had never enjoyed such thoughtful care.

No one even asked him about his clothes size; the new clothes that were sent over, cleaned and dried, fit him perfectly.

It is evident that if a boss wants to be meticulous, they can take care of every aspect.

Before Professor Zheng closed the door, he gave one last piece of advice to his graduate student: "Think carefully about what you're going to do next."

After hearing this, even when taking a shower, graduate students have to think about their serious life matters, and they can even space out while listening to the sound of running water.

Two rooms away, Ivanov was also lost in thought.

He sat by the window, the evening breeze carrying the fragrance of chinaberry blossoms through the green curtains. The rock music had stopped; all that could be heard was the chirping of insects, which inexplicably brought to mind the Tang Dynasty poem—"The cicadas' chirping makes the forest seem even quieter."

Wang Xiaode admitted that at this moment, Ivanov, sitting quietly by the window, looked as melancholy as an oil painting under the orange light.

She unconsciously slowed her breathing and whispered to him, "Hey, Ivan, what's wrong?"

The melancholy, handsome man by the window didn't move, but simply asked softly, "Do you think the Soviet Union's downfall began with abandoning semiconductors?"

The collapse of any regime ultimately boils down to the collapse of its economy.

Fearing the outbreak of World War III, the Soviet Union opted for the more stable vacuum tube, which directly led to its lagging behind in the semiconductor industry.

This kind of backwardness is terrible, because the world has already entered the information age.

The Soviet Union's lack of semiconductors, a recognized economic multiplier, left its economy without a leading engine, forcing it to rely solely on energy sources like oil and natural gas, essentially living off its past achievements.

Therefore, once global energy prices fell, the Soviet economy could not withstand the pressure.

If the Soviet Union's semiconductor industry had developed, it wouldn't have suffered such a complete defeat.

Wang Xiao knew Ivanov's mental block, so he patted him on the shoulder and comforted him, "Nobody can see backsightedly."

The Soviet Union was betting on World War III. If war had actually broken out then, who wouldn't praise the Soviet Union for its foresight and foresight in times of peace?

Conversely, the country that would be ridiculed at this time would probably be the United States.

Wang Xiao cleared his throat and vividly imitated hindsight: "Look, the world's first atomic bomb was made by the United States. But the Americans only had money in their eyes and didn't have the slightest vigilance. They didn't realize that chips were completely powerless against the massive electron pulses from a nuclear explosion. The Soviets, on the other hand, were very meticulous and knew early on that they needed to make vacuum tubes."

Ivanov was amused by her tone.

Wow, a beauty seen under the lamplight is even more stunning. Now, even Wang Xiao had to admit that a beautiful woman's smile was indeed quite valuable.

She patted his shoulder and comforted him, "We can't turn back the clock; it'll just cause us to collapse. If we had brought in Japanese production lines in the 1970s, at least we wouldn't have had to start all over again."

This is also a regrettable chapter in the history of China's chip industry.

In September 1973, after China and Japan restored diplomatic relations, Mr. Wang Shouwu, one of the founders of Huaxia Semiconductor, led a delegation to Japan for inspection.

At that time, the world was in the midst of the oil crisis, and the economies of Europe and the United States were in recession. NEC, the same NEC that later cooperated with Shougang, took the initiative to offer to transfer its complete set of advanced 3-inch wafer production lines to China.

They didn't ask for an exorbitant price; their offer was only tens of millions of dollars, which shows considerable sincerity.

At that time, the US president had just visited China and was in the process of trying to get China to join forces against the Soviet Union. It can be said that if China wanted to import this production line, the US would not have stopped it.

This can only be described as a godsend.

Unfortunately, by 1973, China had been preparing for war and famine for several years. The war preparations had cost a lot of money and seriously affected normal economic development, making the country truly poor.

At that time, the same four people were in charge of the work and were busy criticizing foreign slavery.

This practice of spending large sums of foreign exchange to import advanced production lines from abroad is a typical example of what is known as servile foreign behavior.

So, such a great opportunity was simply missed.

By the 1980s, when China was rushing to import 3-inch wafer production lines, the technology had already become obsolete, and there was a talent gap; they couldn't even master the obsolete technology.

Then it becomes a vicious cycle.

But so what? Give up? Quit? Of course not!

Having a blank sheet of paper has its advantages; you can start from scratch.

As the lights outside the window gradually went out, she pulled Ivanov's arm and stood up: "Let's go, let's go back to sleep."

She also needed to take a shower immediately and climb into bed to sleep as soon as possible.

When it was just getting light the next day, she didn't need an alarm clock; she got up and started working on her own.

Is being a boss this hard? Sigh, her subordinates have it much harder than her.

For example, if she needs information about immersion lithography machines, especially the papers written by Dr. Lin Benjian, she is responsible for making a phone call; how to collect the information is the job of her subordinates.

Keep in mind, this is 1994, not the year when there were tons of search engines and databases of data and papers that you could create at will, or even when AI would just make up a 2025 for you.

It's very troublesome to look up information. Only a big boss like her, with a bunch of people working for her, could fax the information to her in such a short time.

Now, the sky is just beginning to lighten, and the distant horizon outside the window is tinged with a pale white. The morning mist is tinged with a light pink by the rising sun, its edges translucent, like pastel colors spreading in water.

Wang Xiao sat by the window, grabbed a pen, and started working.

Every time a boss is diligent, it means that his poor subordinates will be spinning like tops for the rest of the time.

Because Wang Xiao was working on an outline, an outline about how to develop domestically produced lithography machines over the next 20 years.

As the sky gradually changed from deep blue to crab-shell green, under the gaze of Vega, she wrote down her experiences in technological accumulation, policy planning, and industrial collaboration.

The stars in the sky grew fainter and fainter, turning into black characters that fell onto the white paper.

When the morning sun floated on the Huangpu River, dyeing half of the river orange-red, and the birds in the trees chirped and curiously peered down, Wang Xiao finally put down his pen, stretched, and began to diligently practice the Eight Pieces of Brocade.

Having escaped death time and time again, she now cherishes her life much more than before, and it's common for her to keep goji berries in her thermos.

After finishing a set of Baduanjin exercises, she was slightly sweaty, so she simply changed her clothes and went downstairs to have breakfast.

The bodyguards quickly followed.

Ivanov in the next room also finished practicing Tai Chi. Don't ask him why he knows it; he also knows Qigong.

He didn't even change his clothes; he just used a towel to wipe the sweat from his forehead before going to eat with everyone else.

Further along, Mr. Zheng and his graduate students also got up, and the line of people going downstairs for breakfast grew even larger, becoming quite a spectacle.

Even Vice Mayor Huang didn't fall behind, catching up with the main group at the very last step.

Embarrassingly, they arrived too early; the restaurant staff had just started serving the buffet, and it would be another 15 minutes before it officially opened.

So it's better to arrive at the right time than to arrive early; the early bird doesn't always get the worm.

But since we're already here, we can't just run upstairs again, so we might as well just sit in the restaurant and wait.

Fortunately, the restaurant was very understanding. The waiter apologized to them and brought them juice in advance so they could drink it while they waited.

Wang Xiao ordered a glass of peach juice, while the others made their own choices. Some people, who weren't used to drinking juice so early in the morning, ordered soy milk instead.

Time is precious, so Wang Xiao certainly wouldn't let her future employee slip by. She took out the outline she had written and handed it to Mr. Zheng: "This is what I can think of right now. We need to make a lithography machine, so we need to start the preparatory work now. Please take a look."

Vice Mayor Huang came without being asked, holding a cup and taking the initiative to approach, listing five points related to policy, technology, industrial chain, and so on.

He truly admired the young boss's resilience.

She had just suffered a major blow while having dinner on the ship yesterday. And now, only one night later, she's not only like an unkillable cockroach, she's back to her energetic self; she's even already planned her next steps.

Vice Mayor Huang felt it was a pity that she had no interest in a political career; otherwise, if she were an official, anyone who had such a subordinate would be overjoyed.

It's a ready-made way to boost my sales performance.

Seeing the localization of the industrial chain, and reaching the industrial links he was familiar with, Vice Mayor Huang couldn't help but ask, "Is it a supporting factory?"

Wang Xiao nodded and then shook his head, holding the slightly cool cup in his hand, and explained earnestly: "To be precise, it's about building the entire industrial system."

She pointed to the word "lens" written on the paper: "Lens is extremely important in lithography machines. There are very few manufacturers in the world that can provide the lenses needed for high-end lithography machines, such as Zeiss from Germany. But—"

She emphasized the key point: "Zeiss does not make a living by providing lenses for lithography machines. Its main business is providing lenses for microscopes, cameras, telescopes, and medical devices. In Zeiss's market planning, lithography machine lenses are a secondary and special market segment, just like space telescopes."

Vice Mayor Huang, who is in charge of industry, is particularly sensitive to certain aspects and instantly understood Wang Xiao's intention: "You mean, it can survive even without orders for lithography machines?"

This is extremely important.

Every emerging industry starts as a tiny seedling. This means that in the initial stages, its market demand will certainly be very small.

It's unclear when domestically produced lithography machines will be commercialized, so who will place orders for lithography machine lenses?

If there are no orders, how will factories that specialize in producing lithography machine lenses survive?

The existence of Zeiss provides them with a ready-made template.

Wang Xiao nodded: "Yes, and Zeiss is quite a special company."

Founded in 1846, just four years after the First Opium War, Zeiss is a typical century-old company that has witnessed countless historical events.

During World War II, Zeiss manufactured binoculars, rangefinders, gun sights, and aerial cameras for the German army.

Does this look familiar? It's a telescope.

In 1990, when Wang Xiao first did business with Ivanov, it was a barter trade. Besides military overcoats, the majority of the goods Ivanov provided her were binoculars.

Everyone in China knows that the Russians have particularly good military binoculars.

So where does this foundation come from? It happens to be related to Zeiss.

After Germany lost World War II, Jena, where Zeiss was located, belonged to Democratic Germany and was ceded to the Soviet Union according to the Yatal Agreement.

But the Americans, lacking any sense of decency, went ahead and looted it, sending 600 trucks to move the entire Zeiss factory to West Germany, which was under American control.

The Soviets reacted swiftly, advancing with large numbers of troops.

In the end, the Americans had no choice but to settle for second best, taking away more than a hundred of Zeiss's core personnel and building a new Zeiss in West Germany.

The Soviets took the remaining equipment with them.

Given the Soviet Union's industrial base at the time, Wang Xiao had ample reason to believe that the Soviet Union's later rapid progress, at least in military telescopes, was largely due to Zeiss.

Interestingly, the Jena people of Democratic Germany rebuilt the old Zeiss on the original site.

Then history moved into the 1990s, the Berlin Wall fell, East and West Germany reunified, and the new Zeiss reluctantly merged with the old Zeiss.

Why make such a difficult decision? Because East Germany is also on the COCOM restriction list, and the technology of the old Zeiss is already outdated compared to the new Zeiss.

What's worse, the old Zeiss was the largest state-owned enterprise in East Germany, with 70,000 employees at its peak, while the new Zeiss only had 15,000.

In this situation, shouldn't the former annex the latter?

That's impossible.

Besides the issue of technological advancement versus obsolescence, the more important reason is that the old Zeiss was on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to pay its employees' wages.

Those who ask for money have no say; they not only have to obediently wait to be acquired, but also have to accept massive layoffs.

In the end, only 20,000 of the original Zeiss employees remained.

What happens to the tens of thousands of people who are laid off? They simply drift into society.

This is why Wang Xiao flatly refused the offer from Beijing to go to Germany to do technical work. The German country itself has a huge pool of engineers and skilled workers that it can't absorb.

Now she recounted this history in detail, and Vice Mayor Huang's eyes shone brighter than the morning sun outside: "These are all talented people, we can recruit them. If they can't make long knives now, they can make kitchen knives. The blacksmith shop will still be the same blacksmith shop, and making kitchen knives can improve their skills. When they need to make long knives in the future, they will have experience."

He couldn't help but rub his hands together, "Besides optics, East Germany's machine tools were also quite good."

Wang Xiao nodded repeatedly: "That's exactly what I mean. We need to break down all the processes and equipment, examine them one by one, and integrate them with the upgrading of the entire industrial system."

She waved her hand forcefully, her voice firm and resolute: "No campaign-style tactics, no isolated breakthroughs; that will only be a waste of resources and manpower."

Don't be fooled by the fact that everyone keeps saying they reject exercise-style breakthroughs these days. In reality, until the time she transmigrated, this kind of exercise-style breakthrough was still evident in every aspect of her life.

The attention of leaders is a double-edged sword. Countless people will try to please their leaders, even to the point of completely disregarding objective laws.

Take football for example. They've been pushing for naturalization and requiring elementary school physical education teachers to be proficient in football for a period of time. And what's the result?

The Chinese national football team is getting worse year by year, and has successfully become a force to be reckoned with in balancing the nation's fortunes.

The same applies to the semiconductor industry now.

Only by abandoning illusions and laying a solid foundation step by step can a real breakthrough be achieved.

Suddenly, with a "pfft," Professor Zheng's graduate student coughed violently, stammering, "Salt... mistook salt for sugar."

The person next to him quickly handed him a tissue.

Old Zheng shook his head and sighed, "Shanghainese people drink salty soy milk. You silly boy, do you think Shanghai is the same as Wuhan? Customs vary from place to place. What they consider good may not be suitable for you."

Wang Xiao smiled and called to the waiter, "Could you please bring me a cup of plain soy milk? Please don't add anything else for now."

The waiter quickly apologized: "I'm so sorry, I forgot to remind you. I thought people in the south drank salty soy milk."

The graduate student waved his hand, his face flushed from coughing, and even took the initiative to find fault with himself: "It's my fault for not asking clearly."

Freshly ground soy milk, even without any seasoning, has an enticingly rich soy aroma.

The table was cleaned up, and the little incident was over.

Wang Xiao took a deep breath, full of ambition: "It doesn't matter if there's no readily available technology. As long as the underlying technology is broken down into enough details, it can be put to use. Putting aside everything else, other people's experience of failure is also a valuable asset. At least it can remind us not to repeat their mistakes."

Professor Zheng had already read through the entire outline and casually offered his analysis: "The system integration experience accumulated by Soviet engineers in military projects, such as error compensation algorithms and multi-axis synchronous control, can be transformed into the underlying architecture design of the motion control software for lithography machines."

Good heavens, so many technical terms! Neither Wang Xiao nor Vice Mayor Huang understood a single word. Let alone Ivanov, who doesn't understand Chinese at all.

But it's okay, the boss has technical talent. The expert she invited from the Institute of Microelectronics immediately chimed in: "I think the Soviet Union's technology in preparing special materials such as calcium fluoride crystals and optical glass should be able to help solve problems such as the transmittance and thermal stability of lithography machine lenses."

Then the two professionals started talking back and forth, while everyone else quietly began to drink their juice.

What else can they do? Stare at the chef's hands and the waiters' legs running around, making it seem like they're so hungry and can't wait to eat.

Having looked down for too long, everyone turned to look out the window at the white gulls gracefully gliding over the Huangpu River. In stark contrast to the gulls, the tugboat struggled to pull the barge, looking quite exhausted.

The professionals talked for several minutes before Professor Zheng finally sighed slightly: "This is a huge project, involving many aspects."

Wang Xiao nodded: "Therefore, this matter can only be handled by the government through policy coordination."

A waiter jogged over to greet them: "Dear guests, breakfast is ready. Please help yourselves."

Everyone stood up and went to get their trays.

As Vice Mayor Huang walked along, he kept shaking his head, already having made up his mind: "I don't think this matter necessarily needs to be promoted at the national level."

His explanation was, "Because when it comes to higher authorities, just waiting for approval can make you curse! Look at Project 908, it's just about importing a production line, and the approval process alone can take two years."

Wang Xiao laughed as he picked up his plate and joked, "That's because everyone rushed to bring in the production line regardless of whether they needed it or not."

Vice Mayor Huang sighed, "Whose fault is that? It's a problem with policy guidance. If you don't use that quota, you might as well use it. If you don't use it this time, the next time you want to use it, the higher-ups will already think you don't need it and won't even consider you. Besides, once this opportunity is gone, it's gone forever."

He actively encouraged us, saying, "Don't rush to find someone to submit this to higher levels. Let's first do our own research and see which factories are suitable to enter this chain. Try to limit it to our region, our Jiangbei province, Jiangdong province, and Shanghai, and at most, the Pearl River Delta. Let's not consider anything further north."

The beef noodles were ready, and the chef asked him, "Would you like some chili oil?"

"Put in less."

Vice Mayor Huang took the noodles and explained, "The larger the scope, the more troublesome it will be to coordinate later. Northerners are very methodical and lack flexibility; they can drive you crazy."

Wang Xiao almost burst out laughing.

See, leaders always want to have their cake and eat it too, afraid that someone will come and take a slice of the pie.

If it weren't for the fact that Jiangbei Province's industrial base is indeed weak, he probably would have wanted to take it all for himself.

She ladled herself a bowl of porridge and said seriously, "If we don't go through the higher-ups, how can we get policy support and funding?"

Vice Mayor Huang picked up another freshly fried dough stick, intending to soak it in the beef noodles, but shook his head and said, "Let's first establish the framework, come up with the specific plan, and then report it to the higher-ups. That way, when the leaders see it, they'll think, 'Hey, there's still hope for success,' and they'll feel it's worth doing. Otherwise, spending so much money right off the bat would be too much for the country to handle."

The stall in front of him was sizzling and making a crackling sound, and the aroma of oil and cheese filled the air. Wang Xiao ordered a piece.

As she placed the food on the plate, she reminded Vice Mayor Huang, "But we need to hurry."

"On the one hand, if we drag this out any longer, everyone will have left, and we won't be able to poach any more people."

She squeezed some ketchup into the plate, then carried it forward until she was alone, then sighed, "On the other hand, with COCOM gone, who knows what other organizations will come along? Maybe then the technical personnel and technology from the CIS countries, Eastern Europe, and East Germany won't be able to get out."

Vice Mayor Huang nodded: "Therefore, we can't wait for the approval process from above; we have to get started ourselves first."

Well, it seems the leaders have suffered quite a bit while waiting for approvals.

Wang Xiao suppressed a laugh: "Yes, yes, we really need to get moving."

The oil pan next to it was frying sugar-coated cakes, the aroma was irresistible, it was a real carb bomb.

She couldn't resist the temptation and asked for a piece, nodding with a smile: "So, tell me, how do we get started now?"

Vice Mayor Huang had already planned it out in his mind: "I'll take care of the situation in Jiangbei. You can make the arrangements for Secretary Fang. As for the rest, we'll all work together to find out as much as we can."

Without a doubt, their opportunistic behavior in Xiaozhou has thoroughly angered Secretary Fang.

Leave a way out for others, so you can meet again in the future. We're regular acquaintances, there's really no need to fall out.

Why not take this opportunity to back down and let Secretary Fang calm down?

Anyway, this is such a tough nut to crack, and Jiangbei province and city alone can't crack it.

If we want to take this opportunity to upgrade the province's industries, we should find partners to work together.

Jiangdong is undoubtedly the best choice.

Wang Xiao smiled and nodded: "Okay, let's not delay any longer and start today."

Since the Spring Festival, I estimate that Secretary Fang has almost finished cleaning up Jiangdong.

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[Let me see] Good morning!