Homo Sapiens

「February 21, 2022.」

The high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere were still a world of ice and snow.

But in tropical Hongsawaddy, it was one of the most pleasant seasons of the year for travel.

Li Qingye, still in Hongsawaddy, was currently in the Hu Gang Basin of Kachin State.

He was inspecting a base: the Magao Town aerospace base, publicly an investment of the Hongshawa Group.

This Magao Town aerospace base was adjacent to the Mengguan Town aviation base. Not far to the northwest lay the Nanyun Town Nature Reserve, which secretly housed the Nanyun secret base, once used to steal oil and gas from Assam.

Of course, the "public" part was just a small fraction of the whole operation. The real base was actually located in the northeastern mountains, 50 kilometers from Magao Town.

On the surface, Magao Town featured many enormous steel-structured factories and several launch sites, all for the benefit of the eyes in the sky.

To reach the true aerospace base, one had to take a subway from an underground station in Magao Town to enter its core area.

The core of this aerospace base was situated beneath Benpa Mountain. At an altitude of 3,413 meters, Benpa Mountain was the highest peak in the surrounding area.

At the 3,000-meter elevation mark on the mountain, a significant number of magnetic field radar detectors were deployed to monitor changes in the surrounding magnetic field.

Li Qingye didn't linger in Magao Town, heading directly to the Benpa Mountain Base instead.

After all, as the public-facing aerospace base, he knew it was undoubtedly being watched by American satellites, and possibly even targeted by intercontinental ballistic missiles.

He certainly wasn't going to stay in a location with such high risk.

「Upon arriving at the Benpa Mountain Base.」

Phil hurried to his side and reported in a low voice, "Boss! Lucia began its invasion of the Kyiv Duchy 11 minutes ago."

Li Qingye raised an eyebrow. "Oh…" A smile of keen interest touched his lips. "Keep monitoring the situation. It seems Caesar is itching for a fight."

"The Foreign Affairs Division has activated some of our assets in Lucia and Eastern Europe. Should we add fuel to the fire?"

Hearing this, Li Qingye waved his hand dismissively. "No need. Instead, intensify intelligence gathering on America. They seem to have taken an interest in Hongsawaddy lately."

"Minister Chen has already increased the intensity of our intelligence gathering on America," Phil replied quickly.

Li Qingye listened to a few other reports and gave some high-level directives. Then, led by the base commander and the heads of several technical departments, he began a tour of the various operations at the Benpa Mountain Base.

His main concern, naturally, was the major projects currently underway at the Benpa Mountain Base.

Unlike the Gold Mining Town aerospace base in the Longlang Mountain Range or the Luzon Branch's Cianlan Island aerospace base, the technological path at the Benpa Mountain Base was more traditional.

Lin Xiaolun, one of the heads of the base's technical departments, pointed to a large carrier rocket in the distance. "Chairman, this is the Star River-1 heavy-lift carrier rocket we've developed."

"Liquid oxygen and methane?" Li Qingye glanced at the engine and storage tanks.

"Your insight is remarkable, Chairman." Lin Xiaolun then proceeded to introduce the features of the Star River-1.

Overall, the Star River-1 had no single standout feature. It heavily borrowed technologies from the carrier rockets of Huaguo, Lucia, America, and the European Union—a classic patchwork monster.

This was a common characteristic of many of Homo Sapiens Company's non-civilian technologies: borrow whatever you can. After all, something like a carrier rocket could never be sold, so there was no need to abide by international patent law.

After incorporating a large amount of new materials and bio-chip technology, the Star River-1 carrier rocket had a low Earth orbit payload of 53 tons, a geosynchronous orbit payload of 28 tons, and a lunar orbit payload of 11 tons.

Of course, this carrier rocket had never been tested in a real launch; the data was purely from supercomputer simulations.

Thanks to the material advantages of the Crystal Sponge, the Star River-1 didn't require cryogenic storage for its methane, nor did it have to deal with the challenges of storing hydrogen. As a result, the entire system could be stored long-term and launched quickly.

Lin Xiaolun continued, "With rapid liquid oxygen fueling, or by directly swapping in a reserve liquid oxygen tank, the Star River-1 can be ready for launch in as little as 27 minutes."

Li Qingye shook his head at this. "That's good enough. Unless you can store liquid oxygen long-term or use hypergolic propellants, the launch speed for liquid-fueled rockets has pretty much hit its limit."

Everyone present was an expert in the field, so they naturally understood what Li Qingye meant.

A liquid-fueled carrier rocket like the Star River-1 was acceptable for space launch vehicles, but it was clearly unsuitable for military applications.

No matter how many improvements were made, the launch speed of a liquid-fueled rocket remained a difficult problem to solve.

Hearing Li Qingye's words, Dr. Nefsky, who was in charge of the project to adapt aerospace technology for military use, knew it was his turn to speak.

"Chairman, our project team has developed the Star River-2 and Star River-3 carrier rockets in accordance with the requirements of the External Security Division."

He proceeded to give Li Qingye a detailed introduction to the technology and performance of the two carrier rockets.

The Star River-2 was a copy of a Lucian design. Its main technical feature was the use of storable, toxic liquid fuel. It had a payload of 1,500 kilograms and a range of up to 12,000 kilometers.

After incorporating a number of new materials, this model could be transported by a missile launch vehicle or housed in an underground silo.

The Star River-3, on the other hand, was a medium-range carrier rocket. It used solid fuel, had the same 1,500-kilogram payload, and a range of up to 6,000 kilometers.

The Star River-3 was relatively small and light, with a low production cost. It was suitable for submarines and warships, and could also be used by missile launch vehicles.

"Are they ready for service?"

Dr. Nefsky nodded. "Yes, they are. The Star River-3, in particular. If the base's production line runs at full capacity, we can produce 500 to 600 units per month."

Li Qingye turned to the base commander and ordered, "Then begin mass production. At the same time, prepare an industrial replication plan."

"Yes, sir. I'll make the arrangements immediately," the base commander replied stiffly.

The so-called "industrial replication" was an internal system at Homo Sapiens Company for proliferating technology.

Typically, once a technology was industrialized, the company wouldn't just set up a single factory. Instead, it would prepare at least three factories in locations far from each other.

Furthermore, the industry built around that technology had to be designed for rapid replication. The Industrial Department would then maintain it as a technological reserve, ready to be duplicated quickly whenever a new factory was needed.

Only Homo Sapiens Company had the confidence and resources to do this.

The company's biological material synthesis technology, bio-element enrichment technology, various supporting technologies for rapid site construction, and the ability to quickly train technicians using bio-chips all allowed Homo Sapiens Company to rapidly expand its industrial scale.

The advantages of biotechnology in this regard were truly terrifying.

Take the Star River-3 carrier rocket production line here at the Benpa Mountain Base, for example. Once the technology was fully integrated and an industrial backup was established, then whenever Homo Sapiens Company needed it, factories manufacturing the Star River-3 could spring up everywhere in just a few months.

Expanding the scale of a traditional industry requires a vast amount of supporting infrastructure and production equipment.

But Homo Sapiens Company, under extreme circumstances, could do without supporting infrastructure and production equipment. It could piece together an entire production line from scratch, relying on a single component cultivation machine.

Of course, this would only be done in extreme situations.

For instance, when establishing a secret base in enemy territory, one could use a small component cultivation machine. Before being deployed, the device was about the size of a standard suitcase, making it very convenient for setting up covert facilities.

Within the company's own territory, however, there was naturally no need to use individual, small-scale component cultivation machines.