A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

Chapter 908 The Displeased Machine Soul

After Uncle Jin and Anderson left, the air in the tea room became stagnant. The humility and fear that Junichiro had deliberately maintained on his face peeled away like a mask, revealing his deep-seated weariness and coldness.

The old servant, Moriyama, who had been waiting outside the door, entered silently and began tidying up the messy tea set. Looking at Junichiro's somber profile, he finally couldn't help but whisper:

“Patriarch, this time… wasn’t the price we paid too high? That box of ‘little yellow croakers’ was practically the last of our family’s readily available funds. To appease Brigadier General Anderson’s anger, and even more so for that vague submarine mission, we’ve emptied the family’s cash reserves… This is practically a desperate gamble. What if…”

"What if? There's no 'what if'!"

Junichiro abruptly interrupted Moriyama, his voice not loud.

He turned around, his snake-like eyes fixed on the old servant who had served the family for three generations: "Moriyama, you've been with me for so many years, don't you understand? In this era, being overly cautious will only result in being devoured without even leaving a bone!"

Gold bars can be earned back, and working capital can be replenished! But opportunities, especially those that grant access to core expertise and propel our family to new heights, are lost forever!

Junichiro walked to the window and looked at the meticulously manicured but still desolate dry landscape garden in the courtyard: "To exchange a sum of money for an opportunity to openly test our 'ears' and perhaps even to establish connections with higher-ups, this is a very worthwhile deal!"

The old servant, Moriyama, was scolded and lowered his head deeply, not daring to say another word.

Just then, there was a gentle knock on the study door. After receiving permission, Dr. Mizuno, the chief technical expert in charge of "that project," a pale-faced middle-aged man, walked in timidly.

He held several heavy reel-to-reel tapes in his hand, his face filled with unease.

“Mr. Junichiro…” Dr. Mizuno’s voice trembled slightly, “Regarding…regarding the ‘Ear of the Sea God’ system…we have encountered a thorny problem.”

"Speak!" Junichiro frowned.

Mizuno pushed up his glasses and reported with a forced smile, "As per your previous requirement to 'achieve the highest sensitivity at all costs,' our improved 'Ears of Poseidon' underwater acoustic monitoring system... it's too sensitive now."

"Isn't sensitivity good?!" Junichiro's tone was unfriendly.

"Good, and bad..."

Dr. Mizuno's forehead was beaded with sweat: "Last time, during a brief test run near the coast, the system captured a massive amount of signals: background noise, schools of fish, seabed geological activity, and even merchant ships passing by in the distance..."

All the sounds were mixed together, and more than a dozen tapes were used to record the data!

The information is too complex, and our current analytical capabilities are simply insufficient to effectively distinguish it.

It's like... like trying to hear a specific person's whisper in a deafeningly noisy market—it's practically impossible right now.

Upon hearing this, Junichiro flew into a rage, grabbed a teacup from the table, and was about to smash it away.

But, for some unknown reason, the head of the family put the teacup back:

"Baka! You want funds? I'll give you funds! You want personnel? I'll send personnel! Now that we've finally set up this scheme, we can use the Bald Eagle's mission to openly and legitimately conduct a live-fire test in that sea area!"

You're actually telling me that the system we worked so hard to build is a useless, deaf machine?! What's the point of me keeping you all around?!

Junichiro, panting heavily, said, "If China releases the first Miss, they'll definitely release the second, the third... If I don't take this opportunity to verify this system, what leverage will I have to negotiate with the White Eagle!"

Mizuno was startled and his glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose. He quickly straightened them, almost shouting:

"No! It's not that it's completely unusable! It's that it lacks a powerful data processing core!"

We need...we need an EDP machine like the ones used by the Bald Eagles! Only with the computing power of that kind of electronic data processing equipment can we perform preliminary filtering of massive amounts of signals! Otherwise, all we'll record is unreadable, noisy garbage!

“EDP…” Junichiro gasped for breath, staring intently at Dr. Mizuno, the anger in his eyes gradually replaced by a desperate ruthlessness.

He was silent for a few seconds, then squeezed out the words through clenched teeth: "Okay! EDP, right? I'll get it for you!"

"Yes Yes……"

"Wait, what exactly is an EDP machine?!"

“Uh, in the federal budget documents, its full name is electronic data processing equipment… which is what we commonly call a computer!” Mizuno explained cautiously.

In that era, these machines were more often seen as efficient computing tools, primarily used for data processing in scientific and military fields, far from reaching the intelligent concept later associated with "computers".

"You idiot! Do you think I'm stupid?! How can you fit something that big on a submarine?!"

“Miniature computers have appeared on the market! I’m not sure if they were made by the US or France, but I’ve seen them at a fleet base before!” Dr. Mizuno replied hesitantly, shrugging his shoulders.

"Fleet base?"

"Hey! I saw it from afar when I went to receive training from the Bald Eagle..."

"Okay! I'll get it for you!" Junichiro practically spat out the words through gritted teeth. "It's just a computer, right? I'll figure it out!"

After seeing off the nearly exhausted Dr. Mizuno, Junichiro paced around the room for a long time before finally making up his mind.

He turned to the old servant Senshan, his tone brooking no argument: "Senshan, go and get rid of all the gold materials in the storeroom that were prepared as a gift for the Crown Prince's birthday, as well as those ancient paintings in my study! Get another chest of gold ready as soon as possible!"

……

A few days later, another heavy box of gold bars was delivered to Brigadier General Anderson's private residence through a clandestine channel.

Anderson looked at the gold bars that had been delivered to his door again, his face crinkling with pleasure. "Oh? Junichiro, what do you need 'help' with this time?"

"However, you mustn't say you don't want to carry out the mission. You should know that our General Harris has already signed a secret order..."

Junichiro respectfully made a request, hoping to obtain an EDP "even if it's obsolete" through Anderson's connections, to "improve the design efficiency of the family shipyard".

Anderson stroked his chin, looked at the gold bars, and then thought about the warehouse he had almost emptied.

He knew nothing about computers, but he understood gold bars.

However, there really isn't one in the warehouse...

Suddenly, he remembered that Uncle Jin's CIA outpost warehouse seemed to be filled with some "junk" brought from the mainland, including several computers that were supposedly imported from France, but had been scrapped and dismantled and studied by technicians.

Anyway, they're just taking up space anyway, and Uncle Jin seems to be particularly interested in the fleet's archives lately...

We're all friends, so when Uncle Jin went to look at the information, I took a risk.

So taking a few old items from your warehouse isn't a big deal, is it?

Anderson felt that Junichiro just wanted a "computer," and didn't specify that it had to be a good one.

So, he wrote a greeting with a flourish of his pen.

Soon after, several large wooden crates marked "discarded electronic equipment" were secretly transported to a hidden dock at the Kobe Shipyard.

It has to be you, Anderson. You're a natural at being generous with other people's money.

Uncle Kim eventually got Anderson's help, but these computers, which were originally from France, were completely dismantled.

Uncle Jin originally intended to bring it back to China so that his family could study it carefully.

However, after receiving the latest intelligence, they stopped taking these few yellow clones seriously.

Haha, the thought that his family already had second-generation machines, yet he still treated them like treasures, made Uncle Jin feel incredibly foolish.

For this pile of junk, Uncle Kim felt he had made a good deal in exchange for a promise from Anderson, the mascot.

Thus, a "primitive flying wire computer" that had traveled across the ocean, been disassembled and studied by CIA technicians, and was finally barely reconnected with flying wires, its normal operation entirely dependent on luck, was treated as "idle material" and given to Junichiro by Anderson, half-selling and half-giving it away.

And it eventually appeared in the cramped cabin of the "Shoshio" and became the theoretical brain of the overly sensitive "Sea Dragon" underwater acoustic system.

Everyone was happy with this deal.

The only thing left...

The first generation of Great Yellow's clone, filled with sorrow...

Hmph! The machine spirit is displeased!