A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

Chapter 346 Switch? No rush, let's have some fun first.

Minister Xia ran out of the conference room, grabbed the door tightly, and locked it before he could stop the flying teacup lid and other unidentified objects.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"You, go get a phone number and find that brat at the steel mill!"

Hearing the raucous words coming from the conference room, Secretary-General Liu looked at Minister Xia with sympathy, then turned and headed straight for the office with the telephone.

"Hello! This is Secretary Liu from the Ministry of Machine Building. I'm looking for Engineer Jiang!"

"What? He's not here? Where did that kid go..." Secretary-General Liu's heart suddenly skipped a beat. He didn't dare to finish his question and immediately hung up the phone.

Damn, I just memorized the confidentiality regulations the day before yesterday, and I don't want to be taken somewhere for another review by the badge warriors who come over by phone.

Once you fall into a pit, that's enough!

With a soft patter, Secretary-General Liu wiped away the inexplicable cold sweat that had broken out on his brow and ran out again.

"Minister, Minister! Comrade Jiang Xia is not at the steel rolling mill!"

"Hey? Where is everyone?"

Hearing footsteps coming from the stairwell, Secretary-General Liu peeked out and exclaimed, "Wow, Minister Xia is almost down to the first floor already!"

"Minister! Comrade Jiang Xia..."

"Shut up! I heard you! You stay here and hold the line, I'm going to find someone!"

"What!"

Secretary-General Liu was so frightened that his mouth gaped open, and it seemed as if a transparent figure was slowly floating upwards from that gaping mouth...

"Minister, I can't hold on any longer!"

Minister Xia had already strode to the building entrance when he said this: "Young people need to experience trials and tribulations. If you can't even withstand this, how can I feel at ease letting you go out!"

Secretary-General Liu was in tears: "I'm still young, the transfer to another post can wait..."

"Besides, what are you going to the scene for? You don't even know where everyone else is!"

Let's not talk about the chaos over there.

Jiang Xia stared in astonishment at the enormous reception hall. Pushing open the door, it was like stepping into a wondrous world of sound.

so many people……

The spacious hall resembled the vegetable market that Jiangxia would occasionally visit in later years. The various areas inside were clearly divided; if someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder came here, they would definitely feel like they were in paradise.

But this place gave Jiang Xia a strange feeling. How should I put it?

It was both noisy and quiet. This strange feeling was mainly reflected in the actions of the telephone operators.

It was quiet because the cacophony of many people talking together was much quieter; instead, there was a continuous "click-clack" sound.

From a distance, it sounds a bit like a group of people gathered together, fiddling with abacuses. Just like when the steel mill pays wages, the accountants are engrossed in calculating on their abacuses, creating a cacophony of clattering sounds.

It was quiet because there wasn't the constant ringing of phones that Jiang Xia had imagined. The operators all wore light green headsets and asked the other party's needs in low voices.

Wearing matching blue uniforms, pairs of hands rapidly inserted and removed ropes from the machines in front of them. Anyone with trypophobia would go crazy looking at these machines.

The dense array of sockets, along with the two colors of indicator lights, gives it a bit of a Cthulhu vibe.

Jiang Xia walked down the stairs and curiously approached them. The initial quiet was completely replaced by noise.

"Hello, where would you like to connect?" This familiar opening line made Jiang Xia feel a sense of warmth.

Old Wang nudged him: "Hey, this little girl, probably just started working!"

?

"Hey! Where do you want?" a slightly hoarse voice rang out from a distance.

"Hehe, this guy must have worked for several hours..."

"Oh!"

The sudden sound made Jiang Xia shudder.

The voice still felt familiar.

Looking in the direction of the sound, a female telephone operator was expressionlessly patting the side of the switchboard. Oh, no wonder it looked so familiar; Jiang Xia's dog at home was kicking up its heels, and he often did the same to it…

After tapping for a while, the operator thought it was working and put the headset back on. "Here!"

Okay, needless to say, this must be the night shift, and the person taking over the shift hasn't arrived yet.

"Minister Wang, are these all manual switches? Can I take a look at the surveillance switch you've set up?"

"Why call me Minister Wang? Call me Uncle Wang! If you don't mind, you can also call me godfather, even if it's just your unfilial son?" The bigwig from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications chuckled. If Jiang Xia hadn't been traveling a lot lately and his face hadn't gotten a bit wrinkled, this Uncle Wang would probably have offered him a string of candied hawthorns to appease him.

Eh?

Jiang Xia glanced sideways at the somewhat embarrassed Old Wang.

No wonder you were so eager to drag me here. Turns out, you must have gotten a scolding last night!

I wonder if Uncle Wang is wearing a belt?

Walking through the corridor, Minister Wang led the way, while Old Wang followed behind his father, hesitating for a long time before finally asking awkwardly, "Isn't the minister supposed to be in a meeting today? How come you didn't attend..."

"Hey, what's the point of talking to those old bastards? Even a fool could figure it out..."

"It's just that, Lao Wang, you're helping me set up a dedicated line, Lao Wang, could you improve the call quality? Lao Wang, could the operators be a little gentler...?"

"Pah! We've spoiled them too much!"

"Now that your brother is here, these problems can be solved, right?"

Minister Wang turned around, looked at Jiang Xia, and grinned like a big bad wolf.

"Come on, Comrade Xiao Jiang, all of our switches are in here..."

Stepping into the equipment room, wow, everyone says that Motherland's warriors use a hodgepodge of weapons from all over the world, and this switch is no exception.

Jiang Xia opened the scanner and looked around.

Wow, if we could build a telephone switch museum, we wouldn't even have to go through all that trouble.

There's all sorts of things here!

That one inside, uh, the stepper motor?

Take two more steps forward, and wow, this is interesting. The scanner shows a Type 47 (copy).

Well, it is indeed new, but this combination of rotary and lifting systems is really difficult to manage.

However, it is quite large, taking up the space of two basketball courts.

Why is it so big?

Let's take a look at what components this piece of junk has.

A rotary selector weighs half a pound, plus the flat relay which also weighs half a pound, and the lifting selector which weighs two pounds, these basic components alone weigh three pounds.

If I told you that there are multiple identical parts on the Type 47, you'd know how difficult this piece of junk is to repair!

"Uncle Wang, is this the switch you made?"

"Hey! You're really something. This is the Soyuz Type 47 that we started copying back in 51. Well, its advantage is that it has good compatibility."

"Mmm!" The little guy pulled out his notebook, ready to take notes. After all, there are quite a few disciplines involved in switching devices. Not to mention computer control, he hadn't systematically studied communication engineering and electronic engineering yet.

"Good compatibility, then what?"

"Okay, that's it!"

"Gone?"

"Tsk..." Minister Wang turned his back to Jiang Xia, suddenly feeling a bit speechless!

"Hahaha! Compatibility my ass! It's just forced network connection. A while ago, a big shot complained that the phone kept switching channels while he was making a call!"

"An expert came to take a look. Besides being usable, it's noisy and slow to connect! And, uh, it's difficult to maintain..." Old Wang chuckled as he interjected, his voice trailing off as he spoke...

"Clap clap~"

"I told you not to talk back, you'd make yourself look good! Even if it's slow, it's still a hero! When you were in the army, you cried and called your mother to complain, and this was the machine that made it turn!"

Oh, so Old Wang even cried?

Little Dai Mao's eyes sparkled as he squatted to the side, touched a "power pill," and became a bystander.