One day in October 1945, a hand-filled form was placed on Xia Shu's desk. Its material was slightly thick and its style was simple. The form was filled with a few simple English letters and Arabic numerals. The series of names listed below were mostly unknown to the outside world. Seven or eight pages of information were attached to the back, including a document issued by the Bank of Ireland.

After thinking for a while, Xia Shu solemnly signed his name on the last line of the table, stamped the official seal of His Majesty Joachim I, the King of Ireland, and then pressed the bell on the table.

The attendant with black hair pushed the door and walked respectfully to the table.

Xia Shu packed the entire set of documents, fixed them with a golden paper clip, raised his eyes and handed them to the attendant, and ordered: "Package the documents and transfer them to General Dexel as an encrypted document, telling him that the goods can be shipped."

The attendant replied without hesitation: "I understand, my respected Majesty!"

After he left, Xia Shu stood up calmly and walked to the window. After a while, a black Mercedes-Benz car drove out of the palace compound and sent his approval order to the Ministry of National Defense. In about three hours, a batch of special goods will be loaded at the Muragomo Military Port in northwest Ireland, and an American warship will carry them to the other side of the ocean at full speed...

For these special purpose cargoes, the US government paid a full $45 million in cash and specially dispatched a light cruiser to carry the cargo. However, compared with another Manhattan Plan in the same era in time and space, the Americans' expenses are quite cost-effective. You should know that the Americans in this time and space still use a large number of uranium isotope separators and graphite reactors to extract enriched uranium 5 and plutonium 9. According to the overall input and output, the cost of producing one kilogram of plutonium 9 is more than $50 million. This is not because the United States' scientific and technological level or industrial technology is backward. Although their nuclear research is based on the correct theoretical basis, it needs to be advanced through exploration. Since the overall investment is far inferior to the Manhattan Plan in the old time and space, the scale effect is much worse.

Unlike the American cowboys who have always taken a extensive route, Ireland in this time and space has taken a path of planning and careful calculations in the fields of nuclear research and nuclear industry. As early as the early 1930s, the Irish royal family and the government jointly invested in the establishment of the first heavy water factory, which was placed inside a dam of a hydropower station upstream of the Blackwater River. It uses cheap hydropower as energy, and initially produces 1,000-1,200 kilograms of heavy water annually. After some technological innovations were successful, the annual heavy water output increased to 2,000 kilograms.

In the mid-to-late 1930s, the economic crisis was raging, and the Irish government once again forcibly stimulating domestic demand with large-scale infrastructure construction. Taking this opportunity, Ireland built five heavy water plants in succession, three of which were built on newly built hydropower facilities and two were powered by coal power stations. By the mid-1940s, the annual maximum production capacity of six heavy water plants reached 15-16 tons, accounting for more than 80% of the world's heavy water production!

With abundant heavy water supply, Ireland's nuclear industry naturally chose the heavy water reactor route. The first experimental heavy water reactor appeared in the autumn of 1937, when Ireland had just accumulated enough heavy water needed to build small heavy water reactors, and thus began to refine weapon-grade nuclear materials such as plutonium 9. In the late 1930s, with the rapid increase in heavy water supply capacity, a new industrial heavy water reactor emerged. The annual output of plutonium 9 reached a peak of 4.6 kg in 1944, which means that Ireland could only rely on its own capabilities to make a nuclear material for a detonate atomic bomb. In addition, with the technical research on the construction of implosion nuclear bombs, they were fully capable of becoming the first country in the world to have nuclear weapons in early 1945.

However, the Irish government did not hurriedly announce that they had developed atomic bombs, nor did they test such unprecedented killers in their local or any overseas occupied areas. Instead, they calmly observed the changes in the world situation and silently accumulated their own strength. At the same time, Germany and the United States, the two most powerful countries in industry and technology, were also conducting research on nuclear weapons in a intensive manner. Moreover, because of the characteristics of the leading nuclear theory figures and technical resources, they embarked on two slightly different routes. The investment and talent resources of the United States were inferior to those of Germany, which won the two world wars, but they started earlier.

Moreover, the government and the military attach great importance to this project and were in the leading position in the early stage, so Ireland took the initiative to contact the US side and reached a cooperative R&D agreement after several negotiations. The two sides quickly established a joint research organization, carried out close technical exchanges, and successively solved several key technical problems. After selling another batch of nuclear raw materials at a price of more than twice the cost price, Xia Shuba pulled his mind: the United States has accumulated about 30 kilograms of uranium 5 and 20 kilograms of plutonium 9, which is enough to assemble one atomic bomb with two substances as nuclear charges. It is expected that the first nuclear test of the United States has entered the countdown...

In this unique nuclear competition, although the United States and Ireland both "snatched the lead", they failed to maintain a leading advantage in front of the Germans. With their strong national strength and scientific research strength, the Germans came first and collected enough nuclear raw materials that reached critical mass early. In December 1944, the first nuclear explosion test was held in the desert of German East Africa. But I don’t know where the problem was. The nuclear explosion experiment was not successful, which affected Germany to a certain extent.

The national senior management continued to invest heavily in the nuclear weapons project. This was not bad news for the Irish people, because after that, the German military turned against its past arrogance and actively sought technical cooperation in the nuclear field from Ireland. In March 1945 alone, the funder bought 5 tons of heavy water enough to build a small heavy water reactor and a full set of heavy water reactor technical drawings in Ireland, and quickly filled the plutonium 9 needed to make the atomic bomb...

As nuclear physics research becomes increasingly mature, it is actually only a matter of time before the official arrival of the nuclear era. The Irish military secretly reserved nuclear materials and relatively mature nuclear technology are enough to allow them to quickly follow up after the first nuclear weapon country appears, and wait for the price to sell the nuclear secrets they have mastered to another country on the edge of the nuclear threshold. While maximizing their own interests, they can promote nuclear checks and balances in the European and American worlds, so that they can unanimously target the Japanese who have not obtained the nuclear shield for the time being, and force the arrogant Japanese leaders to abandon their brutal and cruel aggression through nuclear deterrence.

However, whether a simple nuclear deterrence can make the Japanese compromise is doubtful. If the Japanese are really forced to use atomic bombs to subdue, fear, or even return to the Stone Age, the nuclear radiation generated will cause catastrophic ecological damage to East Asia and even the Western Pacific region. This is by no means the situation he hopes to see. It is completely relied on the power of the League of Nations or Western allies to force Japan to make concessions and cannot achieve its goal. The final battle may still be resolved in the form of conventional wars. In view of this, Natsuki allowed the Irish government and military to extract a considerable portion of the proceeds from the sale of nuclear raw materials, specifically for the research, development and manufacturing of several technical weapons and equipment he designated.

Just after he handed over the new batch of nuclear materials to the US, one-third of the $4,500 cash was transferred to the Irish government's special account to support the mass production of the first-generation jet fighter, the practicalization of the first-generation guided air-air rockets, the later development of jet long-range bombers, the mid-term development of artillery position reconnaissance radar, and the initial development of ship-based over-visual-range missiles. Once these new sea, land and air equipment are fully practical and form combat effectiveness, the Irish army will have a qualitative advantage over any traditional army. With sufficient logistics support, a new army of 500,000 people should be able to easily defeat the traditional army of two or three million people.

A few days later, the US side gave back information that nuclear materials had arrived at their nuclear weapons research and development base safely. The first nuclear weapons test is expected to be carried out before the end of the year. This was something that Natsuki expected. However, another piece of intelligence sent by the US side surprised him. According to the investigation by the spies lurking in Japan, scientific research institutions supported by the Japanese military have obtained a considerable amount of low-concentration concentrated uranium through centrifugation or diffusion, and then produced plutonium 9 through the uranium-graphite reactor. Moreover, Japan seems to have plans to conduct a nuclear explosion test in the near future.

Before this, Natsuki always thought that the Japanese were still far from entering the nuclear threshold. The main reason was that the Japanese archipelago and its occupied areas currently produce almost no uranium ore. The long-term sanctions made it difficult for Japan to obtain bulk uranium ore from Europe and the United States. In this way, even if the top Japanese nuclear physicists completed the theoretical research on nuclear weapons technology, they were facing the dilemma of cooking without rice. Judging from the information provided by the US, the Japanese seemed to have secretly hoarded a large amount of high-quality uranium ore as early as 1941, and these uranium ore may have two sources. One was that the Italians purchased asphalt uranium ore from Congo Xinkolobwe and then quietly resold it to Japan. The other was that the Soviet Union sold directly at that time, the Russians might not know the role of uranium ore, and they may have carried out military and technical cooperation with Japan in some form, and it was not terminated until the two sides fought.
Chapter completed!