I want to be emperor

Any modern person with basic common sense will know the importance of petroleum resources... This stuff is not just as simple as fuel for aircraft, cars, ships and other transportation... Although it is indeed a major application of petroleum as fuel.

But for modern industry, in addition to being used as fuel for transportation, petroleum resources are also widely used for heating, lighting, daily use, and industrial purposes.

There are many petrochemical products, such as gasoline, diesel and heavy oil, which can be used as fuel for aircraft, ships and automobiles. At the same time, kerosene can be used as lighting oil, and specially refined aviation kerosene is also used as aircraft fuel.

In addition, there is another major category in petroleum products, that is, various lubricants. The role of lubricants in modern industry cannot be replaced for the time being. Synthetic rubber is also widely used in industry.

There are also various plastic products in petroleum products... People should be more familiar with this thing, it is almost everywhere. In addition, petroleum can also be used to make various cleaning products, even cosmetics, various shampoos and bath products used by modern people. Almost all dew contains petroleum products; it is also widely used in fertilizers, pesticides, textiles, and pharmaceuticals.

Finally, it must be mentioned that the common sense that LSPs must know is that except for the extremely expensive silk stockings, the raw materials used in other ordinary stockings are all petroleum products, which are all various petroleum products developed from early nylon fibers. Synthetic fiber... It can be understood in this way. You think you are touching stockings, but in fact you are touching oil...

Finally, after the oil undergoes a series of processing, the remaining petroleum residue after refining gasoline and other products is asphalt, which can be used to pave roads.

For modern industry, the role of oil is very huge, and it cannot be replaced for the time being... This stuff will be called industrial blood in later generations!

Of course, these petroleum applications mentioned above are modern industries after the development of the petrochemical industry for more than a hundred years.

For the contemporary Da Chu Empire, the role of oil is not that great... but it is only relatively small. In fact, the current oil resources are already an indispensable strategic resource for the Da Chu Empire.

The nightlife of the 700 million people in the Chu Empire...can only be lit by kerosene refined from petroleum.

Not only the Chu people, but now a considerable number of indigenous people have also begun to use the kerosene exported by the Chu people as lighting oil.

Contemporary oil has illuminated the earth's night!

This shows its importance!

In addition, there are many petroleum products that have also appeared in people's lives, such as washing supplies that are indispensable in daily life, such as soap and shampoo.

In the past few years, daily chemical manufacturers in the Chu Empire have used petroleum products as raw materials to produce detergents, replacing the expensive synthesis of animal and vegetable oils in the past.

This has allowed detergents to instantly become daily necessities that ordinary people can afford from products that were exclusive to the middle and upper classes in the past and had a certain light luxury nature.

Because petroleum products are used as raw materials for detergents, the output is huge and the cost is low, and they can be supplied to all people at a lower price.

In addition to these two major applications, lubricants made from petroleum have also become lubricants used on a large scale in industry. In addition, petroleum waste residue, that is, asphalt, has also begun to pave the streets of many cities.

Several main roads in Jinling City and several main roads in Songjiang City are paved with asphalt made of petroleum... Petroleum asphalt and natural asphalt together constitute the core raw materials of high-grade roads in the contemporary Dachu Empire.

Finally, although gasoline and diesel have not yet entered mass production and use... However, the research and development of gasoline engines and diesel engines in the Dachu Empire have continued.

In particular, the research and development of gasoline engines is relatively smooth. The electronic ignition system developed by Tangshan Machinery Company is already ready for use.

Although the current gasoline engine is limited by manufacturing difficulties, resulting in high production costs and higher selling prices, and more importantly, the platform for supporting the use of gasoline engines is not yet mature. Therefore, although gasoline engines have entered commercial use, most of them are still in the small market. A state of large-scale testing and sporadic early adopter use.

The only gasoline engines actually put into mass production now are those of Tangshan Machinery Company. They produce gasoline engines of various specifications at the same time. In addition to supplying them to a few strategic partners, they are also used in various tractor equipment of their own. The first horse-drawn carriage equipped with a gasoline engine, that is, the automobile, was introduced.

It's just that the cars they built are more like industrial concept products... The practicality is very poor, and the sales volume is not very good. They can't sell a few hundred units a year... At that time, they seemed to buy less, but There was a lot of money to be made, because the price of a seemingly primitive car started at a few thousand Yuan, and if a few hundred units were sold, the revenue would be hundreds of thousands.

But their various tractors sell better, with annual sales reaching an astonishing more than 3,000 units! Annual sales reached more than three million yuan, which was shocking!

The reason why their gasoline tractor sales are so high is not because they are cheap... In fact, current gasoline tractors are not cheap. On average, one unit costs more than a thousand yuan. This price is actually the same as that of a steam engine tractor with the same efficiency. almost.

But why are sales still so high?

Because when the production efficiency is the same... that is, when the same work is done, the cost of using a gasoline engine is lower... Although gasoline is not cheap, the gasoline tractor is easy to operate and only needs one person to control it, instead of requiring a group of people to wait on it. Add coal and water at any time.

At the same time, with the same power, gasoline tractors can also be smaller in size and lighter in weight, which means they have more applicable terrains and are no longer limited to those very large farms with flat terrain.

The main customers of steam tractors before the Da Chu Empire were not individual farmers, but mainly medium and large agricultural companies. They cultivated at least tens of thousands of acres, and as many as hundreds of thousands of acres. Only in this way can they be able to Bearing the huge cost of using steam engines, there are enough manpower to serve these big guys.

But gasoline tractors don’t have to be so troublesome. They can be operated by one person, and they adapt well to the terrain. They can go on most terrains... Fewer operators mean more labor costs can be saved, for agricultural companies. , Labor cost is a huge expenditure, and the total savings are not tens or hundreds, but thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

These ultimately promoted the sales of gasoline tractors in agricultural companies... In addition to medium and large agricultural companies began to abandon steam tractors and purchase gasoline tractors, some small agricultural companies and large family farms also began to bite the bullet and purchase and use these gasolines. tractor.

These eventually brought Tangshan Machinery Company annual sales of thousands of units, and the reason why the sales volume was only a few thousand units was not because they could not be sold, but because the production volume would not be able to keep up for a while.

Their gasoline engine production capacity is still relatively limited!

In addition, they also need to supply gasoline engines to several strategic partners to support the production of gasoline engineering equipment of these strategic partners.

For example, Anton Machinery Company has used their mature excavator technology to successfully develop the first excavator using a gasoline engine, named the 165 excavator. After this excavator was introduced to the market, it also received great attention. Welcome, a small number of prototypes have been shipped to the Panama Canal construction site for use.

There are also engineering equipment manufacturers such as Zhenjiang Heavy Industry Machinery Company that also need supplies.

When Tangshan Machinery Company developed the electronic ignition gasoline engine, it did so in order to quickly open up the gasoline engine market and to recover the high R&D costs more quickly... and to gain profits as quickly as possible to invest in the improvement of existing gasoline engines and the next generation. Gasoline engines are being developed.

In addition to deciding to produce various tractors for agriculture and freight/passenger transportation on their own, they chose to find strategic partners in other fields of engineering equipment that they were not involved in, with Anton Machinery Company, Zhenjiang Heavy Industry Machinery Company, Xuzhou Heavy Industry Equipment companies and several other companies have reached cooperation.

Tangshan Machinery Company provides gasoline engines, and these partners are responsible for application platform research and development. The two parties have formed a long-term cooperative relationship.

To a certain extent, it is also a pre-emptive move to attract several domestic engineering equipment manufacturers with strong technology to their own camp. In this way, after Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company and Liaodong Machinery Company develop electronic ignition gasoline engines, even downstream There are no cooperative manufacturers anymore... we can only find second- or third-rate manufacturers or simply do it ourselves. In this way, the two competitors can be further suppressed and funds can be withdrawn quickly. Then the production and sales of agricultural gasoline tractors can be launched to withdraw funds as soon as possible.

By the way, the main business of Tangshan Machinery Company is not actually gasoline engines... For Tangshan Machinery Company, the gasoline engine is just a subsystem of their own products.

What are their products? In fact, they sell agricultural tractors, including various agricultural equipment extended from tractors, such as combine harvesters, plows, agricultural trucks, etc.

Tangshan Machinery Company... Well, it includes two other internal combustion engine research companies, namely Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company and Liaodong Machinery Company. They are both serious agricultural machinery companies, not internal combustion engine companies... Although they are indeed the largest companies at present. There are only three companies in the Chu Empire that can develop and produce internal combustion engines.

But again, for them, these internal combustion engines are actually just a subsystem of their own agricultural machinery products.

Today's Tangshan Machinery Company and Liaodong Machinery Company sell agricultural machinery... while Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company is a bit more complicated. They have not done well in the agricultural machinery business in recent years. In order to make money, they started selling steam engine tractor chassis in the early years. Later, We built industrial gas machines and started selling industrial gas machines.

But...even so, they don't just sell gas machines, but a complete set of industrial gas machine power solutions. A gas machine is not expensive, but a complete set of solutions is not.

People sell cars, not engines!

Therefore, in the market, except for a few of their strategic partner manufacturers who can obtain gasoline engine supplies, other manufacturers cannot actually buy their gasoline engines alone, let alone individuals. If you want to buy someone else’s gasoline engine, you have to sell it back first. A gasoline truck or tractor will do.

Therefore, you cannot think of these three major companies as internal combustion engine companies. In fact, you have to think of them as complete vehicle companies... Agricultural tractors are also complete vehicles.

The reason why they develop internal combustion engines, from kerosene engines to gasoline engines, is very simple and pure. It is to find a more suitable, more efficient, and more profitable power system for their tractors to replace the bulky, extremely limited market. At the same time, they themselves There is also no steam engine that has many advanced core technologies.

When it comes to steam engines, the technology monopoly of the three major domestic manufacturers is so severe that it is difficult for other manufacturers to surpass them.

Therefore, the three major agricultural machinery companies are studying internal combustion engines with the intention of using them in various agricultural machinery, engineering equipment and special-purpose freight vehicles (tractors for pulling artillery, trucks powered by steam engines for pulling logs in deep mountains and old forests).

Just after playing around with it, I discovered that the internal combustion engine is light in weight, small in size, and powerful in power. In this way, it can be used not only to replace steam engines on large equipment, but also to replace draft horses and be used in ordinary passenger and freight carriages...

Under such circumstances, Tangshan Machinery Company also acquired a horse-drawn carriage company, then put the gasoline engine into the horse-drawn carriage and made a car... it could sell hundreds of units a year!

It seems that the quantity is small, but they are expensive. The starting price of a car is thousands of dollars, and there is basically no discount. You have to pay for the freight... People also know that there are not many ordinary individual users who buy their cars now, and they are not friends. Businesses are all kinds of research institutions. If you don't raise prices to the death, you can't live up to the huge scientific research funding of your friends!

What they bought was not a car, but the engine... I guess they would dismantle it and take the engine back to do various research before it could be shipped back.

For example, Lee's Power Company ordered fifty vehicles at once through an intermediary, and immediately after delivery, the engines were disassembled and taken back for research.

There is also the Royal Institute of Technology, which has always been superior. Many of its laboratories have also purchased many cars for research.

The reason why so many friendly businessmen and research institutions are willing to spend huge sums of money to buy cars and then dismantle and study their gasoline engines is naturally because everyone has seen the wonderful prospects of gasoline engines!

Although the cost of gasoline engines is still relatively high now, once the manufacturing costs of gasoline engines are reduced and once the gasoline engine application platform gradually matures, a market explosion is inevitable.

Maybe in a few years, people will be able to see cars driving on the streets.

By then, what a huge market it will be!

Not only the relevant industrial circles can see this, but even the top brass of the oil industry have noticed this. And started to prepare in advance.

In fact, the reason why gasoline engines and gasoline tractors using gasoline engines and automobiles frequently appear in newspapers around the world, and various experts, scholars or celebrities from time to time advocate the importance of automobiles... many times is because oil companies spend money Money!

Why do several domestic oil companies promote gasoline engines for free?

Because gasoline engines use gasoline, and gasoline is a petroleum product!

The more cars you buy, the more gasoline you will use, and the more your oil company will make... It's a simple and simple truth.

Therefore, domestic oil companies can be said to be the most active companies in internal combustion engines besides the three major agricultural machinery/internal combustion engine companies.

Many of the tractors used by Tangshan Machinery Company for pulling goods, as well as the gasoline engine engineering equipment of several cooperative manufacturers, are purchased by these oil companies. In addition to supporting the market, they are also oil companies themselves, and they have too much gasoline. At the same time, these oil companies also need to drill oil wells, build oil pipelines, oil terminals and other infrastructure, which also require a lot of engineering equipment.

For their oil company, these gasoline engine-powered engineering equipment and trucks basically cost no money for gas if rounded up!

Just as coal mines particularly like to use steam engines, oil companies naturally also like to use automobiles. By using your own coal/gasoline, you can save a lot on fuel costs.

Therefore, for them, purchasing cars and gasoline trucks can not only save money, but also support the internal combustion engine industry, laying the foundation for the subsequent large-scale popularization of internal combustion engines.

It's a win-win...they win twice!

Under such circumstances, these oil companies will spare no effort to promote the benefits of the internal combustion engine, advocating that the age of automobiles has arrived, and so on... From now on, those who ride in cars will be decent people, and those who continue to ride in horse-drawn carriages will be lower-class people, and even abuse horses. A bad guy who has been a good friend of mankind since ancient times.

In the future, we will have to use cars to pull goods... and horse-drawn carts. As you can imagine, those little draft horses can't move hundreds of kilograms or even trucks weighing more than one ton. How can you be such a cruel and vicious person? Only when we can do it... We civilized people use cars to transport goods. We are civilized and environmentally friendly, and contribute to the beautiful homeland of the earth!

As for the exhaust gas emitted by cars... don't talk about this! We are all civilized people, and we must be civilized in everything we do and say. If you talk nonsense, believe it or not, I will hire a gunman to kill you later...

No matter what you say, the oil companies in the empire are now more active in promoting cars than the three major internal combustion engine companies.

So many people often see the word car after reading newspapers... People who don't know it think that the Chu Empire has entered the automobile age.

In fact... the so-called automobile industry in the entire Dachu Empire is still in the mode of small-scale manual workshop production, with an annual output of only a few hundred vehicles. Even including gasoline tractors, the output does not exceed 4,000 vehicles.

We are still far away from the so-called automobile age.

However, as the supreme ruler of the Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue must take precautions and plan the development of the oil industry in advance to ensure the supply of oil resources.

This time when he came to Peninsula Province for inspection, he had only one inspection target, and that was the local oil industry!