Chapter 46: You Underestimate the Chinese People

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“Based on current projections, Hong Kong may emerge as a brand-new city with manufacturing and finance each occupying half of its economy. Japan will technologically catch up to America ahead of schedule, and America’s globalization will face challenges sooner than expected.”

Lin Ran stood before the blackboard, deep in thought. Even a mind capable of manually solving the Navier-Stokes equations could not provide an accurate prediction for future developments.

Nonetheless, there was no doubt that the early arrival of the maritime era would accelerate the shaping of a multipolar world.

This was an immense boon for China.

China’s foundational conditions, human resources, and deep-water coastal ports would become unique assets.

“Perhaps the World Trade Organization will be established ahead of schedule, allowing China to join the global economic cycle earlier,” Lin Ran mused. “But in any case, I have already done all I can. How the world changes is beyond my control.”

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Yangcheng

“The sequences 56-6-12, 58-10-3, and 59-1-3 likely refer to papers published in the 1956, 1958, and 1959 issues of the Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics, specifically volume 6, issue 12, and so forth,” Hua Luogeng explained.

He was answering his dedicated assistant’s question: “So, Professor Hua, these are photocopies of three journal issues. You need to organize students who don’t yet know the Monte Carlo method to decipher it based on these papers.”

The Monte Carlo method had only been transmitted to China by Dean Qian’s team.

Hua Luogeng was unaware of this.

This was essentially a double-blind test.

Since Lin Ran claimed they could figure it out themselves, the top mathematician Hua Luogeng was sent to lead the effort to see if he could summarize the Monte Carlo method based on the provided material.

Meanwhile, Dean Qian was in Ice City, modifying the DF-1 test missile based on the Monte Carlo method.

In the calculation room on the east side of the insulated shelter, young women were verifying orbital parameters with wooden abacuses.

In the corner, the vacuum tube computer No. 103, developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sat quietly with its cooling vents open.

“Team Leader Zhao, the parabolic curvature in Section 3 has been controlled as predicted by the Monte Carlo method!” Xiao Zhou, bent over the blueprint, suddenly looked up.

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The female technician known as Sister Zhao grabbed a conic section template and pressed it against the coordinate system. A pine ruler traced over the blueprint reproduced with blueprint paper. “Indeed, after optimizing the method, we can calculate the parabolic curve for Section 3. Dean Qian is truly brilliant to have come up with such a practical computational approach.”

At that moment, Dean Qian was removing his glasses, conducting final calculations in his office before a blackboard:

“If we reverse-engineer the lateral deviation by three incremental units, the disturbance field of the missile’s tail plume—which isn’t a spherical wave but a discrete vortex distribution along the shock wave surface—can be controlled, reducing its deviation below expectations.”

After speaking, Dean Qian slammed the table: “I finally understand what Lin’s 15th case meant—we can use it to control the missile’s deviation!”

At 3 a.m. on July 30, flashlight beams flickered in the shadow of Launch Tower No. 7.

Dean Qian climbed the 40-meter gantry crane, while engineers wrapped frostproof cotton around the nickel-chromium alloy wires of the backup power supply.

Fifteen kilometers to the east, the abandoned Soviet R-2 missile training missile lay horizontally among the sand dunes.

“The horizontal error of the gyroscope platform base must be compressed to three thousandths,” Dean Qian ordered coldly, gripping the icy iron ladder’s handrail as he questioned veteran telemetry engineer Old Li.

“Dean Qian, we really can’t achieve that. The Soviets refused to provide us with the latest flow control grids,” Old Li said with a bitter smile.

“That’s not acceptable. You must do it! We’re only this close to the target. Later requirements can be relaxed, but this time you have to deliver!” Dean Qian’s dark circles and bloodshot eyes revealed countless sleepless nights.

He was desperate to prove something to Pokrovsky and, more than anything, to build the missile China urgently needed.

“Then Master Zhang will have to grind it slowly and see if it’s possible,” Old Li murmured.

“Please trouble Old Zhang. Talk to him carefully—this is the last prioritized task.”

In an era without precision lathes, any slight demand for accuracy could only be met by manual grinding.

In the early morning of August 7, the concrete cover of the semi-buried launch silo slowly slid open. On the cathode ray tube screen in the underground command bunker, a green dot representing the missile’s real-time trajectory tore through the ionosphere.

Qian Xuesen noticed Pokrovsky’s pupils suddenly dilate. The expert who had once led the Soviet P-2 missile design did not expect the P-2 missile to hold such potential.

“Qian! This isn’t the P-2,” he said, staring fixedly at the screen where the accuracy range displayed an exaggerated figure of 500 meters.

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Dean Qian smiled proudly: “Of course this isn’t the P-2. Didn’t we say from the start that we were developing the DF-1?”

Pokrovsky rose and grasped Dean Qian’s hands tightly, gazing intently: “Qian, we are friends—you must tell me how you achieved this.”

As the P-2’s design expert, he simply did not believe this missile could have such potential.

Their theoretical precision at the time could not reach 500 meters.

Even if the DF-1 was only a short-range ground-to-ground missile, a 500-meter accuracy was enough to overshadow all its shortcomings.

To grasp the concept: this level of precision matched America’s most advanced ground-to-ground missiles of the same range.

Such a missile was born in China—a country that had never before developed intercontinental missiles.

Pokrovsky found it almost unbelievable.

Yet he was also relieved that, unlike many Soviet colleagues who had returned to Moscow, he had chosen to stay longer here to witness such a miracle.

After the translator conveyed Pokrovsky’s words to Dean Qian, he sneered: “Sorry, that’s impossible. You tore up the agreement and forfeited your right to the DF-1’s technical data sharing. You gave it up yourselves.”

“Qian, I apologize for underestimating our Chinese colleagues,” Pokrovsky’s Adam’s apple bobbed as his finger pressed motionless on the peak curve of the seismic record: “But you must give me the technical documents.”

Dean Qian laughed heartily, the sound echoing in the confined underground bunker: “It’s useless to ask me—you don’t get to decide. But you are right about one thing: you truly underestimated the Chinese!”