The expeditionary force began to dominate Southeast Asia by recruiting defeated soldiers

Chapter 555: Starlight Pharmaceutical Factory and Dawn Organization

"Director Lin, welcome, welcome." A middle-aged man in neat work clothes, smiling broadly but with a shrewd look in his eyes, hurried over and extended his hand warmly. "I'm your deputy administrative director of Workshop 1, Chen Acai. From now on, you'll just focus on the technical aspects. Leave all the chores like running errands, coordinating, managing people, and maintaining discipline to me! I promise I won't interfere with your work!"

Chen Acai's Mandarin has a strong Nanyang accent and he speaks fast. Lin Zhenhua, who has lived in Baiying for many years, is somewhat not used to it, but he can hear the efficiency of a practical man in his voice.

"Deputy Director Chen, hello." Lin Zhenhua shook his hand and felt the calluses on his hand. He knew instantly that this man was not someone who had lived a life of luxury. "I'm new here, and I'm grateful for your guidance."

"I don't deserve it. You're a real expert with a lot of foreign knowledge." Chen Acai waved his hands repeatedly, leading Lin Zhenhua inside. "Come on, I'll show you around our 'treasure bowl'."

After changing into protective clothing, passing through several strict access control points and air shower rooms, and actually stepping into the core penicillin production area, Lin Zhenhua felt his breathing stop for a moment.

Shocked!

The huge space is planned extremely reasonably.

Thick, metallic pipes crisscross above the head and under the feet like large arteries.

Huge stainless steel fermentation tanks stand tall, with complex valves, pressure gauges, thermometers and automatic control circuits densely packed on the tanks.

The air filtration system emits a low hum, maintaining an almost harsh sterile environment in the core area.

Workers wearing full sets of sterile suits, masks and goggles are busy at their respective posts. Their movements are well-trained, quiet and efficient.

The scale and the advanced level of the equipment... far exceeded Lin Zhenhua's expectations.

The several large pharmaceutical factories he had visited during his internship at White Eagle had good equipment but always felt a bit old-fashioned. But here, everything was brand new, and the design concept seemed more... radical?

"What is this...?" Lin Zhenhua's attention was attracted by several giant pressure tanks with strange shapes.

They are much thicker than the standard fermentation tanks commonly seen in White Eagle Pharmaceutical Factory. The tank body seems to be made of some special alloy and is connected to an extremely complex circulation cooling and pressure control system.

The culture unit next to it was not the shallow plate type he was familiar with, but a multi-layer culture dish array system with automatic stirring, precise temperature control, and gas concentration monitoring.

"Oh, that's our flagship product, the 'deep tank continuous fermentation system,'" Chen Acai said proudly. "It's said to be a design developed in Nanhua Group's own secret laboratory, the only one of its kind in the world. I can't explain the exact principles, but I've heard it's several times more efficient than the traditional shallow pan method, and the pollution rate is much lower."

Lin Zhenhua took a few steps closer and carefully observed the complex instruments and control panels. The parameters displayed on them, such as pressure, temperature, dissolved oxygen content, etc., were all in an extremely precise and efficient range that he had never seen in textbooks or industry reports.

His professional intuition was screaming wildly that something was wrong with this thing. It was too advanced, far ahead of any penicillin production process that White Eagle was using.

This is by no means a simple "imitation" or "introduction". There must be extremely sophisticated and even disruptive technological breakthroughs behind it.

"Unbelievable..." Lin Zhenhua muttered to himself, his eyes gleaming with excitement and inquiry. "This design concept... is completely leaps and bounds. Deputy Director Chen, who is the engineer who designed this system? Is he Chinese? Can I meet him?"

Chen Acai showed a mysterious smile on his face and lowered his voice:

"Director Lin, this... design team is extremely secretive and considered top secret by the group. I only know their codename 'Dawn,' but I don't even know their specific identities. However, the operating manuals and technical specifications they left behind are extremely detailed, and as the technical director, you are authorized to review them."

In fact, this set of equipment is naturally the large-scale penicillin production line of the 1960s level that Zhang Chi exchanged from the system. The so-called "Dawn" organization was established by Zhang Chi to cover up the various industrial production lines and equipment produced by the system that exceed the current technological level.

However, within Nanyang, everyone believes that there is a super scientific research institution called "Dawn", and that it is staffed by top scientists and engineers who are developing cutting-edge technology for the next era.

All scientists and engineers in the Nanyang system regard joining "Dawn" as their lifelong goal.

However, not only did the White Eagle and Mao Xiong personnel in Southeast Asia think it was a mysterious dragon that could only be seen from head to tail, but even many local people in Southeast Asia had never seen it. In the end, they could only blame the "Dawn" for being too secretive.

As for saying that 'Dawn' does not exist?

Impossible, absolutely impossible!

Those real and advanced technologies are there for all to see!

Upon learning of the existence of Shuguang, Lin Zhenhua, who had just returned to China, was shocked and became even more convinced that Nanyang possessed an unknown "trump card" in the field of penicillin.

He suppressed the shock in his heart and continued his tour.

In the purification workshop, huge chromatography columns, high-speed centrifuges, and vacuum freeze-drying equipment are all available. The high degree of automation even amazed him, a "returnee".

The packaging workshop appears to be a little "simple" for the time being. Countless female workers are standing beside the assembly line, packing twelve ampoules filled with penicillin into paper boxes. It is mainly manual operation, but the environment is also clean and orderly.

"Currently, in the first phase of the Xingguang Pharmaceutical Factory, we are primarily producing three drugs with the highest demand," Chen Acai explained. "Penicillin is our top priority, and production must be ramped up quickly to meet the huge demand in military hospitals and the civilian market, while also generating foreign exchange through exports."

The aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) production line has been commissioned and will soon be able to ship large quantities. We also have a small medical morphine production line, primarily used for battlefield emergency treatment and severe pain management, which is strictly controlled.

Ever since chemist Hans Hofmann invented acetylsalicylic acid through acetylation at Bayer, the preparation process of aspirin (pictured), a classic antipyretic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory drug, has become quite mature abroad.

As far as Lin Zhenhua knows, this is the first time that aspirin has been produced on a large scale in Asia, especially in the Chinese community.

Before the war, Shanghai's Xinya Pharmaceutical Factory successfully imitated aspirin under the trade name "Pain Reliever", but was limited by raw materials, especially salicylic acid, which had to be imported.

Starlight Pharmaceutical Factory is obviously preparing to start from scratch, synthesizing and preparing from basic products without any restrictions.

As for the patent issue?

Bayer's patent for acetylsalicylic acid expired in 17. As for the patent for the improved drug... I'm sorry, Hans is now an enemy country. Nanyang officially declared war on the entire Axis powers on the day of its founding. Naturally, there is no need to recognize the enemy's patent.

Speaking of acetylation, after aspirin, Hoffman continued to try to acetylate common drugs until he invented acetylmorphine.

Holy shit, HaiXin!

History has played a huge joke on us. We can only say that the difference between a chemist and a Breaking Bad actor is sometimes just a matter of thought.