Go back to the past and be a schoolboy

For Sichuan during the Republic of China, 1917 was a rather complicated year.

As the Beijing government broke the contract and dissolved the National Assembly, Mr. Sun organized an extraordinary parliament and the Guangzhou military government in Guangdong and other places, announced the protection of the law, and ordered a crusade against the illegal government of Feng Guozhang and Duan Qirui in Beijing, which opened the prelude to the "law protection war".

At that time, Sichuan, with its political complexity, became one of the focuses of the struggle between the northern and southern governments.

Of course, in fact, Sichuan has always been the focus of competition among various political forces. Especially after the overthrow of Yuan Dynasty, the political situation in Sichuan has become extremely complicated. The power is rather weak.

As far as the parties are concerned, the original monopoly of Chen Shi, the imperialist faction, has transformed into the separation of powers between the Kuomintang headed by Luo Peijin and the Progressive Party headed by Dai Kan.Both Luo and Dai have backstage bosses. Luo Peijin's backstage is Tang Jiyao, and Dai Kan's backstage is Liang Qichao.

Therefore, even if Dai Kan was besieged by Liu Cunhou, cornered, and forced to commit suicide, Liang Qichao would have a certain influence in Sichuan.

At present, Xiong Kewu, the commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Yasukuni Army appointed by the south, has conflicts with Liu Cunhou, the governor of Sichuan appointed by the north, and an internal Yasukuni war in Sichuan called the "War of Law Protection" broke out.

Although it looks huge in scale, it is actually full of momentum and little rain.

In Sichuan, being a soldier is a profession, and in a sense it is a means of employment.

Everyone came out to serve as a soldier to fill their stomachs. Unfortunately, they are too poor. Four out of ten people have guns, so they can be called elite troops.

Hit if you can, and run if you can't. No one will really hit hard.

So it was against such a chaotic background that Cheng Nuo led Liang Qichao and his party into Chongqing quietly.

"Come on, let's play an anagram!"

"Okay, let's play an anagram."

Each of the two urchins took a piece of charcoal, and on a shiny sandy soil drying dam, each of them sang and drew:

"One point and one picture long,

The two characters come down and the words are square,
There are wires on each side,
……

The one on the right goes to war,

Make a golden hook to hang clothes. "

Cheng Nuo always liked dealing with children, so he carefully squatted down and said with a smile, "Hello, kids, do you know where the Tongyuan Bureau is?"

As the name suggests, the Tongyuan Bureau is a machinery factory built by Xiliang, the governor of Sichuan at the time, at a cost of 2000 million taels of silver in the late Qing Dynasty to make copper and silver coins.

As one of the few large-scale machinery factories in Chongqing at that time, it also served as a power plant in the middle. The first electric light in modern Chongqing was lit by this factory.

Later, it was requisitioned by Liu Xiang, who used its tablet pressing equipment to change the Tongyuan Bureau into a bullet factory and named it the 21st Army Bullet Factory. In addition to continuing to produce copper yuan, it also manufactured seven-nine-step machine gun bullets. During the Anti-Japanese War, the factory rapidly expanded to the then The most important bullet factory in China has made great contributions to the eight-year war of resistance.

The factory was still in use after liberation, and the final production had not stopped until Cheng Nuo crossed over.

So Cheng Nuo's first stop in Chongqing was to come to the factory to see if he could cooperate and help customize some equipment.

If possible, it is also very possible to buy some equipment from this factory.

In order to shorten the distance with the children, Cheng Nuo deliberately took out some rock candies, grinned and said, "Whoever answers first, these candies will be theirs."

As he spoke, he deliberately put the rock candy in front of the noses of the two children, letting them smell it: "Look, it's very sweet."

Liang Qichao couldn't help being happy when he saw this scene: "Zhiyuan, if I didn't know your details, I would have thought that you were not here to set up a factory, but to abduct children. Like, really like, it's too similar .”

The two urchins were moved. They had eaten the candy before, but it was made by the ancient method. It was the first time they had seen this kind of crystal candy.

But after hearing Liang Qichao's words, the urchins immediately became cautious and dodged far away.

"Mother said, don't let us talk to foreigners."

"Mother also said that we are not allowed to eat other people's food."

After saying this, she just ran away, and those who didn't know it thought that there was something chasing them behind.

Cheng Nuo stood up helplessly, put away the rock candy, and gave Liang Qichao a resentful look.

Liang Qichao turned his head away in embarrassment, and changed the subject with a smile: "Zhiyuan, are you really going to put the treasure on Liu Xiang? From my point of view, although that guy is good, he is just an old man now." A brigade commander of the Sichuan Army's First Division is really not enough."

Cheng Nuo smiled and shook his head: "There are only 8 divisions in the entire Sichuan Army. It is not easy for Liu Xiang to become one of the brigade commanders. What's more, he is still a lieutenant general in legal terms, with great potential."

Liang Qichao hesitated and said: "But in politics, you have to place multiple bets to avoid accidents. Sometimes sloppy is also a kind of wisdom. Don't be too childish in politics like me."

Cheng Nuo smiled and said, "Thank you, Mr. Ren, for the reminder. There are risks in single betting, but the rewards are even greater. In terms of people, I've always been good at it."

Liang Qichao still wanted to continue persuading, but he thought that he had been wasted until now, and he suffered from inaccuracies in judging people. He was full of failures along the way, so what qualifications did he have to teach others, and it was not enough to make people laugh.

"It's better to be careful in everything." Liang Qichao said sincerely: "We are going to the factory soon. I think we should divide our troops into two groups. You go to the factory and I contact Liu Xiang. This will save time and save time. Do your best."

Cheng Nuo thought for a moment, and said, "That's fine, then Mr. Ren Gong will be hardworking."

So, after Cheng Nuo asked the exact address of Tongyuan Bureau, he separated from Liang Qichao and his party.

Since Cheng Nuo didn't come here with much fanfare, not many people knew about it.

Later, after negotiating with the Tongyuan Bureau, they quietly took a stake and started running an ammonia factory in their name.

In fact, it wasn't that Cheng Nuo wanted to keep a low profile, but that the Sichuan Army was too poor.

In the Republic of China, because of fiscal and taxation issues, it was often an important trigger for wars during the period of warlord melee in the Republic of China, which was especially obvious in the battles between Southwest warlords.

With taxes comes money, which equates to a stronger army.

Just like the first division of the Sichuan Army where Liu Xiang is currently, the predecessor was the No.17 town of the Army in the late Qing Dynasty. The division commander is Zhou Jun, a graduate of the sixth Japanese non-commissioned officer. Successfully defeated the Yunnan Army.

In the current law-protection war, Tang Jiyao even proclaimed himself the commander-in-chief of the salt-robbing army, just to grab money.

If Cheng Nuo's synthetic ammonia factory can really be successfully built and produced and sold smoothly, it will earn a certain amount of money.

At that time, Cheng Nuo was worried that there might be some warlord claiming to be the commander-in-chief of ammonia snatching, and it might be possible to snatch it.

So Cheng Nuo provided help to Liu Xiang while developing in a low-key manner. The purpose was to let him grow up as soon as possible and establish a relatively peaceful place.

Be careful when walking on thin ice.

Fortunately, Liu Xiang is quite ambitious. He wants to pacify Sichuan and aspire to the Central Plains. Naturally, he is very eager for things such as money to expand his strength.

It just so happens that there are seven counties under his command, including Yongchuan, Rongchang, Tongran, Dazu, Bishan, Hechuan, and Wusheng, which can be regarded as relatively powerful.

After seeing the "sincerity" brought by Cheng Nuo, he waved his hand directly, saying that he can set up a factory anywhere.

Of course, the price of such favorable conditions is half of the factory's profits.

Although there was nothing he could do, the Great God Hexie said that he could not enter politics, so Cheng Nuo had no choice but to give in for the time being.

Going around like this, in the spring of 1918, Cheng Nuo finally found a relatively flat and open area by the Yangtze River, and began to formally build a factory.

Fortunately, the preliminary preparations were relatively sufficient. Although it took a little effort, it was finally on the right track.

On a sunny morning, Cheng Nuo was busy optimizing the ammonia synthesis process with many experimenters in the laboratory.

Liang Qichao excitedly brought over a newspaper. Before he came to the laboratory, the voice came over first: "Zhiyuan, are the effects of nitrogen fertilizer mentioned above true?"

Cheng Nuo frowned. After receiving the newspaper, he glanced at it with big eyes and said directly: "Of course it is true. Nitrogen is a macroelement that crops need more. The supply of nitrogen is directly related to the growth and development of crops." As well as yield and product quality.

Due to the low content of available nitrogen that crops can absorb and utilize in the soil, the supply of nitrogen from the soil and the application of agricultural fertilizers alone is far from meeting the needs of high-yield crops, so chemical nitrogen fertilizers are very important in agricultural production. "

Liang Qichao said enthusiastically, "Is this what we are doing now?"

Cheng Nuo nodded, and his subordinates were still taking the test solution with the dropper: "Yes, this is what the big guys are busy with all day now."

Liang Qichao came up to him and looked it over carefully. He was really curious about these bottles and jars, but he thought that they were all glass containers, which might break if he touched them a little, and he himself didn't know anything about them.

I want to touch but dare not touch, my face is very tangled.

Fan Xudong deliberately threatened: "Don't touch it, some of the liquid inside is corrosive, if someone touches it, let alone the meat, the bones and dregs will have to be melted away."

Liang Qichao was taken aback: "It's so scary, I have to stay away from it."

Cheng Nuo shook his head, walked over and said with a smile: "Mr. Ren Gong, you can rest assured that this is just our laboratory, as long as you are careful, nothing serious will happen. But there is one thing, rational application of nitrogen fertilizer can make Grain crops can increase yields by 20-70 jin, and every jin of nitrogen can increase the yield of rice, corn, and wheat by 14-23 jin."

Liang Qichao couldn't believe it: "So tall?"

Cheng Nuo nodded: "Of course, you just happened to come today, and our factory happens to have raw materials to produce. I wonder if Mr. Ren is interested in going over to have a look?"

Liang Qichao said with high spirits: "Then what are you waiting for, take me there quickly."

In fact, during the days of building the factory, Cheng Nuo did not rest. Instead, he led the team to research the technology in the laboratory.

Even on New Year's Eve, he arranged vacations and red envelopes for his comrades, and he was still busy in the laboratory.

The purpose is to select a preparation method with better effect, lower cost and greater output from several methods.

Especially in the production of hydrogen, although the electrolysis method can produce very high-purity hydrogen (99.7-99.9% Hz), in principle this is the simplest method, but it consumes a lot of electric energy, and the value of electric energy is also low. This determines the economics of the method.

Although Cheng Nuo envisioned Tesla to build hydroelectric power, the cost would be greatly reduced.

On the one hand, the construction of a hydroelectric power plant requires a long period of time to prepare, and it cannot be completed in a short period of time. It takes a lot of effort just to find a suitable location, and the fertilizer plant simply cannot wait.

On the other hand, hydropower has seasonality. It is good in the wet season and cannot be used up, but it is not enough in the dry season, and it needs to be supplemented by thermal power generation.

So after thinking about it, I finally plan to adjust the method of producing hydrogen to the steam gasification solid fuel method, which can be roughly summarized as the following process; initially, the carbon in the fuel reacts with water vapor to produce mainly hydrogen Gas mixture with carbon monoxide.

After removing impurities and adding water vapor, the gas is converted to CO at 400-500°C in the presence of a suitable catalyst:
C+H20(g)=(high temperature)=CO+H2
A high concentration of hydrogen can be obtained after the gas mixture has been subjected to uncomplicated steps to remove CO, such as scrubbing the gas with water under pressure.

And it's not just about ammonia, either.

For example, the synthesis of other industrially important nitrogen compounds is usually associated with the production of synthetic ammonia in technology.For example, urea is produced from ammonia and carbon dioxide, and formamide is synthesized from ammonia and carbon monoxide.

In the joint production of synthetic ammonia, organic synthesis products and products obtained from hydrogenation processes within an industrial enterprise, it is very appropriate to establish a common gas production plant.This allows the most rational use of solid and gaseous fuels to suit their properties, and the use of waste gases from many production processes.

Of course, the above is only the raw material preparation part of synthetic ammonia, and the most important thing is to wait until the raw material is synthesized.

The reaction of successfully generating ammonia through electric discharge in the laboratory cannot be used as the basis for industrial ammonia synthesis at all, because it consumes a lot of energy and has low efficiency.

Moreover, Britain, France, and Germany have already established international patent barriers in advance. Unless Cheng Nuo is not prepared to enter the international market, he will definitely be hit with patents.

So think twice, and finally choose catalysis under high temperature and high pressure.

That is to directly mix nitrogen and hydrogen, raise the temperature to 500°C to 600°C, pressurize to 17.5M to 20Mpa, and select iron catalyst to play the role of catalyst.

Of course, using pure iron as a catalyst has almost no effect, and alumina and a small amount of potassium oxide must be added to achieve a catalytic effect.

Finally, the industrialized preparation process of synthetic ammonia is completed.

It was also during this period that Cheng Nuo realized that the concept of catalyst did not exist in China at this time. Even when Cheng Nuo first said the word, everyone was at a loss.

After Cheng Nuo explained in other languages, everyone suddenly understood.

Regarding this, Cheng Nuo could only feel in his heart that the foundation of the domestic chemical industry was too weak, and it could even be said that there was nothing left.

A little further on, there is no one's land.

It's also fortunate that there is Cheng Nuo's plug-in, not to mention anything else, just the choice of catalyst materials, the West has gone through thousands of times and tens of thousands of researches to get the result.

Now relying on memory, the result can be easily obtained, I have to say how lucky it is.

During this period, Cheng Nuo was also trying to cultivate his own domestic chemical talents, using high benefits and great ambitions to attract talents to join.

According to this speed, the domestic chemical industry will sooner or later reach the international frontier, and I am afraid that it will not be able to cross the river by groping others, and will have to do everything by itself.