Chapter 205 Visit and Study
When Jiang Haitang took Dazhu into the gate of the machinery factory, Dazhu suddenly stopped.
He looked up and saw the three-story chimney spewing out gray smoke, and the roar made the gravel under his feet tremble slightly.
Although he hadn't entered the door yet, he could see the interior of the factory. It was completely different from their Qingshuigou. Dazhu's Adam's apple rolled up and down, and a thin layer of sweat appeared on his palms.
"What's wrong?"
When Jiang Haitang turned around, Dazhu was rubbing his palms with his patched sleeves, and his knuckles were turning blue and white.
Dazhu clutched the corner of his clothes, his voice trembling a little: "Sister Haitang, I... I'm a little scared. What kind of factory is this? Is it appropriate for me to go there?"
"This is the machinery factory. The hosiery machines are produced there. You can take a closer look here."
"I hope it won't cause you any trouble, Sister Haitang." Dazhu rubbed the corner of his clothes, lowered his head, and didn't dare to look at Jiang Haitang.
"It's okay. I've already made an appointment with Director Mao from the machinery factory. We just need to go in."
Jiang Haitang was comforting Dazhu when she suddenly heard the sound of a car behind her. Jiang Haitang turned around and saw that it was Director Mao.
"Haitang, you're here. Is this the young comrade you mentioned bringing for a visit?" Director Mao asked as he rolled down the window.
"Yes, Director Mao." Jiang Haitang said with a smile.
"Get in the car, I'll take you there. Director Lu is really something. Can't he arrange a car to take you there? Haitang, would you consider coming to our factory to work and occasionally go to the textile factory?"
Although he knew it was impossible, Director Mao felt he should still ask.
Jiang Haitang smiled and did not answer Director Mao's words. However, she was not polite and pulled Dazhu into the car.
Dazhu felt even more uneasy, and didn't even notice that his knee had hit the door frame hard. This was a car, and it was his first time sitting in one.
And this comrade, Sister Haitang calls him Director Mao, so he is an official, and his rank should be much higher than the secretary of their commune, right?
After getting in the car, Dazhu didn't know where to put his hands. He straightened his back and didn't dare to say a word, for fear that he would say something wrong and cause trouble for Jiang Haitang.
The factory roads were winding like a maze, and Dazhu was holding the edge of his seat tightly.
Jiang Haitang and Director Mao were chatting casually. Director Mao had other things to do, so he got off the car at the factory office building and arranged for the driver to take them to the workshop.
When the car stopped outside the foundry, the heat wave and the pungent smell of sulfur hit Dazhu in the face, and he was almost choked and stepped back. Many workers were busy in the workshop.
Such a passionate scene made Dazhu relax completely.
When he arrived at the workshop, Dazhu's eyes gradually lit up.
He stared at the molten iron so intently that he didn't even notice the flying sparks burning his arm.
In the machine shop, the hum of lathes vibrated the air. Dazhu squatted before an old lathe, concentrating on tracing the tool path with his fingers suspended in the air.
At that time, Gu Yundi happened to be nearby. He saw Dazhu's performance and said with a smile, "This young man is quite interesting. The way he looks at the machine is like an old craftsman looking at an heirloom. His eyes are clear and bright."
Jiang Haitang looked at Dazhu and smiled, "I've loved this since I was little. When I was ten, I dismantled the only thresher in the village. Not only that, I even put it back together again."
Gu Yundi was a little shocked to hear that a ten-year-old could dismantle and reassemble a thresher. Although the principle of the thresher was relatively simple, the other party was only a ten-year-old child, and a country boy at that, which was quite commendable.
Gu Yundi became interested and walked over to Dazhu, "You've been staring at this milling machine for ten minutes. Tell me, why is the milling cutter installed at an angle?"
Dazhu's Adam's apple rolled violently, and his eyes swept across the intertwined gears on the base of the milling machine, as if he saw the rusty wheel beside the old well in Qingshuigou, which always pulled the well rope to the side when it turned.
"Yes...it's to let the iron filings fall out along the slope!" After hesitating for a while, Dazhu finally said what he thought, "Just like when we dig a canal, we have to throw the soil out of the ditch!"
Gu Yundi paused as he pushed up his glasses, his eyes gleaming as he looked at Dazhu.
"Young man, what machine do you want to see most today?"
"Hosiery machine!" Dazhu answered firmly.
Gu Yundi said, "Let's go and see the sock knitting machine."
There was a disassembled hosiery machine in Gu Yundi's office. Gu Yundi showed Dazhu the blueprint and then assembled the various parts of the hosiery machine one by one in front of Dazhu.
Those interlaced connecting rods and meshing gears made Dazhu so excited that his fingers trembled uncontrollably.
"This spring..." He suddenly opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but he stopped very quickly and bit his lower lip in a hurry.
Gu Yundi's encouraging gaze gave him the courage to continue.
Perhaps because Gu Yundi behaved very calmly, Dazhu soon stopped feeling awkward and started talking to Gu Yundi in a relaxed manner.
Although many of what Dazhu said were not necessarily correct, Gu Yundi felt that this young man was very talented.
"Young man, do you understand?" Gu Yundi asked.
"Hello, I, I don't understand some of it, but I understand some of it." Dazhu stuttered and his words were incoherent.
"You are very good. If you don't understand something, you can ask me."
Dazhu was overjoyed and thanked Gu Yundi repeatedly.
Jiang Haitang didn't say anything, just continued to look at them.
"If I ask you to make it yourself, can you do it?" Gu Yundi asked deliberately.
Dazhu scratched his head: "I don't think so! I haven't learned this!"
Jiang Haitang smiled and shook her head: "You are making it too difficult for him. He has never received any systematic training."
Gu Yundi looked at Jiang Haitang and then at Dazhu, and said to Jiang Haitang, "Maybe you've made a mistake."
Dusk drifted into the office and Jiang Haitang suggested going back.
Director Mao arranged a car to take them there. Gu Yundi and Dazhu chatted a lot while in the car.
After returning to the textile factory guesthouse, Dazhu was still very excited and tossed and turned and couldn't sleep.
The other guys said enviously, "Dazhu, what did you see when you went to the machinery factory?"
Dazhu suddenly sat up in bed, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. "What did you see? I saw molten iron flowing into the mold like molten treacle, and I saw the lathe sculpting out shiny parts with just one turn!"
His voice trembled slightly with excitement. The young men in the same room also sat up, and rustling sounds were heard in the darkness.
"Teacher Yun also showed me a blueprint of a hosiery knitting machine," Dazhu gestured. "It showed all the gears meshing together, just like... just like..."
"What?" After waiting for a long time for Dazhu to finish the rest of the sentence, some impatient people couldn't wait to ask.
Dazhu suddenly jumped off the bed, stepped barefoot on the concrete floor, and took out a small notebook from his bag: "You wait!"
He turned on the bright incandescent lamp and began to draw quickly on the notebook with a pencil. The rustling sound of the pencil rubbing against the paper was particularly clear in the quiet night.
After a while, he held up the notebook and said, "Look, that's it!"
Several heads gathered together and saw a few ingenious diagrams of gear meshing drawn on the paper, with the dimensions marked next to them.
However, they couldn't understand what it was.
"This...is this really what you remember after seeing it?" Someone gasped.
Dazhu scratched his head embarrassedly, and his tone became a little gloomy.
"I can't remember some parts clearly, I just drew them randomly."
“This is already very difficult.”
"Dazhu, I didn't realize you're so powerful."
The voices of several people became louder and there was a sudden knock on the door.
"Why aren't you sleeping so late? We have to go back early tomorrow morning." It was Zhao Zhijian's voice.
The room suddenly fell silent.
Dazhu hurriedly stuffed the notebook into his bag and quickly climbed back onto the bed.
Lying on the bed in the guesthouse, I returned home the next day. It was already late, but Dazhu said he wanted to go to the mountains to find some wood.
Zhao Dashan asked, "What do you want the wood for?"
"Dad, I'm thinking of trying to make a small sock knitting machine out of wood."
Zhao Dashan listened to his son's unrealistic idea and shook his head. His silly son was too naive. How could it be that easy?
If it were so easy, wouldn't everyone go to the city to work as a worker?
But looking at his son's bright eyes, he swallowed the scolding that was about to come out of his mouth.
The child is still young, so it’s better to let him hit the wall so that he won’t regret it in the future.
"Go ahead, just don't delay work tomorrow." Zhao Dashan waved his hand.
Dazhu grabbed his axe and ran up the mountain as if he had been granted amnesty.
Under the moonlight, he chose a crooked jujube tree and carefully cut off several branches of varying thicknesses.
In the following days, Dazhu was like a possessed man. He followed everyone to dig the soil in "Ghost-Seeing Cave" during the day, and after work he hid in the warehouse to tinker with wood.
Aunt Cai would shake off a layer of sawdust from her son's clothes every night, which made her angry and distressed.
"This child has gone berserk," Aunt Cai said to Zhao Dashan worriedly. "Last night, when I got up in the middle of the night, I saw him still carving wood under the oil lamp. His fingers were bleeding."
It's a good thing that my son is motivated, but as a mother, it still hurts to see him working day and night with scars all over his hands.
Zhao Dashan squatted on the doorstep, puffing on his pipe, the sparks in the pipe flickering.
The next day, he returned from the supply and marketing cooperative and tossed a small cloth bag to Dazhu: "Here, these are the new carving knives from the supply and marketing cooperative."
When Dazhu opened it, his eyes lit up immediately. There were three shiny carving knives with anti-slip hemp rope wrapped around the handles.
He wrapped the non-slip hemp rope around the handle bit by bit, and every line was soaked with the warmth of calluses.
"father……"
"Don't dawdle. Your mother has steamed some buns. Eat them while they're hot." Zhao Dashan turned and walked out.
Dazhu immediately shouted at Zhao Dashan's back: "Dad, thank you!"
"I'm your father, why are you being polite to me!" Zhao Dashan said calmly, but his walking posture was a little different.
Jiang Haitang didn't know all this. They were also very busy during this period because Jiang Haitang had to attend the Canton Fair. Therefore, they had to work overtime to research and develop new materials.
Fortunately, although their research team is small, they are all elite and each of them works very hard.
Finally, at the beginning of April, their research on the new waterproof, moisture-proof and fire-proof military material was almost complete. Although it was not yet ready for mass production, it had already passed the experiments successfully.
Jiang Haitang didn't even have time to cheer and celebrate. After handing over the matters here to Li Jingcheng and others, he devoted himself to the preparations for the Canton Fair.
The staff participating in the Canton Fair will buy tickets together and set off together on April 11. When they leave, they need to take a lot of things with them, so there is a lot of preparation work to be done in advance.
While Jiang Haitang was busy, Dazhu finally saw the results.
That day, Dazhu called his parents to the warehouse in a mysterious manner, where a one-foot-long wooden hosiery machine model was quietly placed on the wooden board.
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