Chapter 306 The Era of Mass Infrastructure: Heading Towards Deep Space
Wang Mingyuan stared at the massive array loss data required to maintain the reverse energy conduction on the main screen and took a deep breath.
He knew very well that the successful first injection was merely a ticket to this gamble in the cosmos. To keep this "infusion tube" connecting heaven and earth running smoothly day and night, relying solely on the existing small area of the high-orbit main platform and the temporarily transferred personnel was simply a drop in the ocean.
Now that the needle has been inserted, the entire vast machine of civilization must adjust the meshing direction of its gears and hold the needle up at all costs.
Twenty-four hours after the successful test, an emergency joint expanded meeting of the Supreme Command, the Coordination Agency, the Academy of Sciences, and the Military Industry Administration was held in the top-secret room of the Kyoto underground bunker.
"High-orbit and deep-space infrastructure will immediately become the top absolute priority for the entire alliance."
Wang Mingyuan pushed a newly divided macro-resource allocation list to the center of the holographic sand table, his tone revealing an unquestionable determination: "From now on, apart from the necessary share to maintain the basic operation of the major defense lines on the surface, the flow of all high-level strategic resources on the surface must be significantly tilted towards space."
The atmosphere in the meeting room suddenly became extremely heavy, as the interplay of interests among various parties and the real obstacles were brought to the forefront.
"Professor Wang, our military has no objection to the strategic direction, but I must clarify the realistic bottom line of rationing."
A lieutenant general from the Southern Theater Command stood up, his brow furrowed, and pointed at the list. "Based on the 'Mysterious Magnetic Nickel' and other minerals sent back from the sky, our conventional military factories have indeed resumed production capacity, and our supplies are currently not a problem."
The lieutenant general abruptly changed the subject, pointing sharply to the red-lined area on the list: "However, this new plan directly removes over 70% of the high-grade spirit-bearing materials, special pressure-resistant titanium steel, and the top-tier array plate base materials from the surface. This means that our 'Elite Equipment Upgrade Plan' and 'Third Phase Deep Defense Fortress Expansion' in all major war zones must be postponed indefinitely. The surface will enter a period of equipment stagnation. By putting all the sharpest blades in the sky, in the event of a sudden event like a beast tide, our margin for error will be reduced to the bare minimum!"
Immediately afterward, the head of the Transportation Coordination Bureau, wiping away cold sweat, spoke up: "Director Wang, if the main psionic train line is placed under the highest level of military control, civilian logistics and the distribution of non-essential industrial goods will be severely impacted. Although basic necessities like food will not be affected, the economic rhythm of the entire surface society will be forcibly slowed down."
The senior academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also looked grave: "The first batch of transfers will take more than half of our top array masters and heavy industry weapon refiners. The progress of some cutting-edge scientific research projects on the surface will inevitably be hindered."
These three major challenges represent the stark realities of surface defense, logistical coordination, and the preservation of scientific research—truly laid bare on the conference table. This is not an attempt to shirk responsibility, but rather the heavy price that must be paid for shifting the strategic focus.
"Gentlemen, this is not how it should be calculated."
Before Wang Mingyuan could speak, the top official of the Military Industry Administration coldly took over the conversation. He pulled up a set of the latest high-orbit feedback data, "Without those meteorites dug back from the vacuum and cold pressure of space, you'd still be barely holding on to your conventional flying swords based on your existing stockpiles! What the heavens are taking in are high-grade materials, and what they're spitting out are resources enough to arm a million-strong army. We're not abandoning the surface; we're rebuilding the industrial engine of our entire civilization!"
Wang Mingyuan placed his hands on the table, his gaze sweeping across the room like a knife, each word as firm as iron: "We are not doing conventional war preparedness balancing. Leaving resources on the surface can only build a few more top-tier fortresses; but sending them into high orbit to build forward interstellar bases is the bowl that feeds our home planet, the harbor for our future fleet's long voyages!"
Faced with this life-or-death struggle for a civilizational advancement, the highest level made the final decision: "The plan is finalized; implement it at all costs."
The decision made at the highest level caused the entire national machinery to roar like an ancient steel behemoth wound up to its limit. With an unreasonable and icy demeanor, it turned its tracks toward the sky.
The mobilization of the entire nation's resources, over the next three days, transformed into a highly tangible and oppressive industrial landscape.
Chung-Yuan Heavy Industries, the core high-level workshop of the third major manufacturing plant.
This place was originally responsible for developing the "Dragon Soaring" class battle armor, the most elite armor for the surface defense line. A massive advanced production line is in operation, and complex psionic circuits are flashing on the prototype.
Suddenly, the red light indicating the highest level of military control flashed wildly on the workshop dome.
The chief engineer, drenched in sweat, stormed into the core workshop, clutching the newly issued order tightly in his hand. His voice was hoarse yet incredibly penetrating: "All members of the Class A project team, halt all work! All subsequent development of the 'Dragon Soaring' battle armor is downgraded and immediately transferred to Development Workshop Two!"
The engineers stopped what they were doing in astonishment.
The chief engineer, panting heavily, pushed a brand-new holographic blueprint directly onto the operating tables of every advanced workstation. "The Coordination Bureau has given a death order! From this moment forward, all the factory's top weapon refiners and the best equipment in this workshop are to be requisitioned indefinitely for the High-Track Project!"
Those priceless, near-complete prototypes of general's armor were quickly and carefully moved from the core position, making way for the top-of-the-line forging platform. The engineers had no time to be stunned; they immediately took over the new blueprints with unfamiliar industrial parameters.
"Our current tasks are to prioritize the development of a new generation of single-molecule cutting robotic arms for microgravity forging, the core spindle of a vacuum cold forging press, and a superconducting attitude engine for an orbital towed vessel!"
On the other side of the factory, however, a different scene unfolded in the ordinary workshops. Large quantities of ferrous nickel transported from the sky were being frantically forged, continuously transformed into standard weapons urgently needed by the surface defenders. The division of resources between the sky and the ground created a stark contrast and complementarity within this vast factory area.
At the same time, the psionic train transportation network spanning the continent underwent an unprecedented timetable reconstruction.
The Yangtze River Central Trunk Line Hub Station.
Thousands of ordinary merchants and low-priority freight wagons were forcibly pushed onto long sidings to wait. On the main line, the bright blue traffic lights, representing the highest right-of-way, remained lit the entire way.
Boom!
Rows of heavily armored military trains, resembling black steel dragons, roared past day and night, their horns blaring incessantly as they churned over special tracks. Inside, they carried the civilization's most advanced array base materials, radiation-resistant prefabricated titanium crystal module cabins, ultra-high-pressure life support equipment, and large numbers of high-level engineers, array masters, and newly trained astronauts who had just completed pressure tests.
The vast transportation network on the Earth's surface is like a bulging, thick blood vessel, frantically transporting the planet's finest materials, gears, and craftsmen towards the first base of the Kyoto Space Elevator, like rivers flowing into the sea.
Fifteen days after the successful trial irrigation.
Looking through the heavy porthole of the rail-towed boat, the 200-kilometer-long high-speed rail has completely changed its appearance.
The space elevator has completely shed its past "small-scale" rudimentary transportation stage. On the three main and auxiliary cableways, heavy-load transport modules have formed a dense, timed, and terrifying transport rhythm. Almost every hour and a half, a massive cargo hold, spewing a ghostly blue tail flame, hurtles through the air, unloads the most valuable resources from the surface, and then, loaded with pre-sorted deep-space crude ore, roars back to Earth.
The first phase of the Starry Sky Advance Base is growing wildly in the vacuum at an incredible speed.
On the outside of the main platform, dozens of previously sealed expansion interfaces have been unlocked row by row. A massive vacuum robotic arm precisely grips the prefabricated modular cabins transported from the ground and slowly pushes them into their designated berths.
Click! Click!
Accompanied by the sickeningly dull click of physical locks snapping shut, hundreds of engineering-sequence astronauts, like worker ants returning to their nest, traversed the microgravity environment. Against the dark, deep cosmic backdrop, the special welding instruments in their hands emitted dense, star-like arcs of eerie blue electricity.
This is no longer a makeshift scaffolding, but a real space industrial city that has begun to roar and operate, consuming and consuming massive amounts of resources.
The capture zone on the outer track is no longer the crude method of "just hanging stones anywhere". It is divided into four independent tethering zones, namely A, B, C and D, by an extremely rigorous array barrier. The orbital towing boats shuttle between them like diligent hunting dogs, steadily locking the newly captured small and medium-sized rich ore meteorites into high-pressure array positions, awaiting initial evaluation.
Under the leadership of key figures like Chen Shi, the first batch of astronaut cultivators have fully adapted to the cold and brutal standard shift work hours. Shift changes, the transfer of true essence, putting on tactical protective clothing, entering dangerous cutting positions or high-pressure cold forging tables... all operations have shed the casualness of cultivators, meshing together as perfectly as the most precise gears.
The resource chain, transportation chain, personnel chain, and the reverse energy transmission chain that delivers cosmic energy to the Earth's core, at this moment, in this desolate starry sky, have achieved a perfect convergence.
On the ground, in the Kyoto Joint Control Room.
Wang Mingyuan stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the vast spaceport, brightly lit under the night sky, continuously supplying resources to the space elevator. He listened to the astonishing rate of consumption and conversion of various strategic resources through his headset, his expression as cold and hard as ice.
On his desk lay a top-secret dossier, hundreds of pages thick, recently compiled jointly by the Academy of Sciences, the military, and the Coordinating Agency.
The cover no longer features short-term tactical reports based on "months" or "quarters," but rather the first grand blueprint since human civilization entered the Great Cultivation Era, directly using "ten years" as the absolute scale.
Wang Mingyuan was well aware that from this day forward, space had become the largest, most expensive, and most crucial battleground for all of humanity's future. This high-stakes gamble, into which countless efforts had been poured into the Earth, was ultimately not merely about building a mine on Earth's doorstep, nor simply about giving the weakened home planet a few injections of nutrients.
The prosperity of high-orbit infrastructure is merely a means; the true goal lies in the far more distant abyss.
Wang Mingyuan's gaze slowly moved down, landing on the last page of the ten-year blueprint. It was an extreme contingency plan that had not even been made public to most of the senior management, and it was also the ultimate mission that this rapidly developing space forward base would truly undertake in the future.
At the top of that page, a line of blood-red, top-secret text was prominently displayed:
Framework Plan for the Formation of the First Generation Interstellar Expeditionary Force