I want to be emperor

In a national defense industry meeting, Luo Zhixue first encouraged the national defense industry, and then beat the national defense industry and the military, telling them to develop and use national defense equipment in a down-to-earth manner, and don't mess around.

At the end of the meeting, the military representative and Minister of Counseling General Han Ziping made a promise on behalf of the military that he will increase support for the defense industry in the future and will selectively equip some advanced equipment.

And give some research and development funds for some projects.

Han Ziping didn't say too much.

Increase support?

In fact, this is good in itself, but it is worth talking about who to support and what projects to support.

For example, in the field of optics mentioned earlier, the military has been supporting the Hantian Telescope Factory. Otherwise, the military telescopes of the Hantian Telescope Factory would not be able to compete with the military telescopes of Song's Glass Company and Zhenjiang Optical Instrument Company.

In the field of various guns and even warships, the military has always had a policy of supporting several manufacturers, and will not adopt the model of winner-take-all and all orders to one manufacturer.

In order to ensure the same equipment product, at least two or three manufacturers must have R&D and production capabilities.

The military has never put all its eggs in the same basket. This is not only to avoid supply problems, but also to prevent the defense industry from losing competition after a monopoly and not wanting to make progress.

For example, the Type [-] front-loading rifles that have been purchased successively in recent years, although the main purchases are from the Tianjin Firearms Factory, they are also purchased at the Dangtu Arsenal and the Hantian Arsenal, but the purchases are smaller.

Specifically, it is the Type [-] front-loading rifle used by the Guards, which is a product of the Tianjin Firearms Factory under the Hebei Arms Company.

The Type [-] front-loading rifles used by the Army and Marine Corps hunters are made by the Dangtu Arsenal of Jiangnan Arms Company.

The short-barreled lance version used by the cavalry is provided by Danghantian Factory, a subsidiary of Huguang Arms Company.

In addition, the army also purchased a batch of reduced-caliber, [-]mm caliber Type [-] front-loading rifles from the Guangzhou Arsenal under the Guangdong-Guangzhou Arms Company for testing.

For the series of rifles of the Type [-] front-loading rifles alone, the military purchased them from four factories.

As for the remaining Shaanxi-Gansu Arms Company, although they did not manufacture rifles, most of the cavalry revolvers were ordered from their Chang'an Arsenal.

Generally speaking, the military is in a balanced strategy. For the procurement of the same large type of weapon, it will purchase as much as possible from five companies to ensure that the five major weapon companies have more or less orders to ensure basic research and development. and production capacity.

Of course, this kind of procurement support can only keep the laggards from starving to death at best, and it is impossible to make a lot of money.

In the field of rifled rifles, it is the Tianjin Firearms Factory that has eaten the fat.

In the field of rifled cavalry pistols, the fattest meat was eaten by Chang'an Arsenal.

There is no other reason, the things they make are good.

Now Admiral Han Ziping said to increase support and so on... To put it bluntly, it is actually a cliché.

As for research and development funds and the like, the military has always had it. If the military wanted to obtain a new weapon, the Ordnance Department would propose a weapon concept, solicit design proposals from major weapon companies, and then cooperate with the selected Sign a research and development contract for the design plan, the military allocates research and development funds, and the company conducts follow-up research.

Therefore, it is also polite to give certain R&D funds to some projects.

All in all, Han Ziping still insisted on the military's opinion: it is no problem to purchase rifled firearms in small quantities and test equipment, but if you want to equip them on a large scale, you have to lower the price... Otherwise, don't expect large-scale orders.

There is no such situation as saying that the order is given first and then the price is reduced!

Luo Zhixue also had no opinion on this.

The military's ordnance procurement and overall refitting are not things that can be finalized in a matter of days, or even a year or two. This involves tens of millions of funds, and the military cannot be too cautious.

He just needs to make a statement, and then the military will say something polite, and then today will be over.

As for the follow-up, the defense industry and the military must continue to discuss and discuss in depth. When the two parties have reached an agreement and can accept each other, then they will enter the actual stage of purchasing equipment.

As for now, we still have to let the guards make a sample first.

Looking back, the Second Guards Division, equipped with breech-loading rifles, came up with epoch-making tactics based on the new rifles, and the military really attached great importance to it when it hit the opponent. At the same time, the defense industry continued to improve, and the cost was also reduced. Only then can we talk about a full facelift.

After the military industry meeting ended, Luo Zhixue rested for the night, and waited until the next day to continue his inspection.

Today's inspection target is quite important, even more important than Hebei Weapons Company.

Although the various weapon products of Hebei Weapons Company are very important, especially their Type [-] rear-loading rifles are very good, and can even be said to be epoch-making.

However, Hebei Arms Company's impetus to the overall industrial development is actually very limited.

You can't go farming with guns and produce products, right?

The most important thing is that the Hebei Arms Company is simply an assembler... The machinery and equipment used in their production, and even the raw materials have to be outsourced.

Like the Type [-] rifle!

The steel used for the barrel material is provided by Tianjin Iron and Steel Company next door.

The various machine tools used to process the gun barrels are provided by major domestic machine tool manufacturers, especially Hantian Machinery Factory, and the steam engine used for the processing power source is the product of Tianjin Machinery Company next door.

Although some technologies and materials are self-developed, most of them still rely on the supply of external manufacturers.

After all, the industrial development of the Great Chu Empire is getting faster and faster these years, and various fields are becoming more and more subdivided. It is no longer possible for a large comprehensive enterprise to cover all industrial fields.

In various fields of industry, the cooperation between various manufacturers is very close, one link is one link.

And the company that Luo Zhixue is going to inspect today belongs to the upstream company in the industrial system: Tianjin Iron and Steel Company.

Tianjin Iron and Steel Company, it is not only as simple as producing steel in the literal sense, but it is also the largest mining enterprise in the northern region, as well as various metallurgical enterprises.

There are many mines under its banner, mainly coal mines, iron mines, and a small amount of gold, silver and copper mines, as well as numerous metal smelting factories, which produce various precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper.

Of course, the steel business is still their core business!
The Tianjin Iron and Steel Works, on the other hand, undertakes their main core business. The factory mainly produces iron, but its steel production volume is also large, and the quality of some new alloy steels is quite good, which is favored by the military industry.

The steel used for the barrels of Type [-] rifles and Type [-] rifles is the latest steel product developed by Tianjin Iron and Steel Works.

Without this thing, the Tianjin Machinery Factory would not be able to make a usable and mass-produced bored rifle.

In addition, Tianjin Iron and Steel Works is also a major manufacturer of domestic manganese steel!

More than ten years ago, the research and development personnel of the Great Chu Empire discovered manganese, and then found that adding steel to this thing can strengthen the hardness of steel, so they started a long research on manganese steel.

However, the early leader in this field was Hantian Machinery Factory, and until now their research in the field of manganese steel is also the top in the country. The manganese steel alloy knives produced by this are a series of machine tool products of Hantian Machinery Company important guarantee.

However, the manganese steel played by Hantian Machinery Company is relatively high-end and expensive. At the same time, in order to ensure the performance of their own machine tools, they have never sold manganese steel alone.

And other domestic machine tool manufacturers also need high-strength manganese steel cutting tools. How do they get their manganese steel?

A considerable part is provided by Tianjin Iron and Steel Works.

In the field of high-strength special alloy manganese steel, although the technology of Tianjin Iron and Steel Works is not as good as that of Hantian Machinery Company, the performance of the manganese steel produced in the processing field is much worse.

But this does not prevent them from becoming the largest manufacturer of special manganese steel in China, and their products are not only used in mechanical knives, but also in various fields that require wear resistance and high hardness, such as bearings.

Because apart from Hantian Machinery Company, they are the only ones who have this technology and have a series of technical patents.

However, Hantian Machinery Company has always kept its own special alloys hidden and never sold them to outsiders. Therefore, Tianjin Iron and Steel Company has captured a large number of markets.

Hantian Machinery Company does not sell its own special alloy steel to outsiders. It is hard to say whether this practice of Hantian Machinery Company is good or bad.

The downside is that competitors will appear one after another because they are not sold to outsiders... After all, industrial high-performance manganese steel is just in demand for various machine tool companies and some other companies. You Hantian Machinery Company does not sell them, but others What should I do if I want to use it?
What else can I do, ten years as one day, smashing to death!
The special steel business of Tianjin Iron and Steel Company has developed in this way. A large number of machine tool manufacturers and manufacturers of wear-resistant products would rather work for nothing or even lose money to place an order with Tianjin Iron and Steel Company... Isn't it just that Tianjin Iron and Steel Company will one day It can produce special steel that can match the benchmark or even surpass Hantian Machinery Company.

The advantage is that Hantian Machinery Company has monopolized manganese steel for many years before, and after other companies have produced manganese steel, Hantian Machinery Company is still a huge leader in the field of manganese steel.

As a result, their various cutting processing equipment, wear-resistant parts and other businesses are driven to dominate the world, and bring huge profits. They continue to use these profits to continue to invest in the research and development of various special metals and machine tools, ensuring the quality of machine tools. products, the absolute leader in wear-resistant products.

This series of measures has made Hantian Machinery Co., Ltd. the largest and most technologically advanced machine tool manufacturer in China. It has been a leader for nearly 20 years and has never been shaken by other companies.

Lee's Iron and Steel Company was very ambitious back then, investing huge sums of money in the field of machine tools and wanting to start a big business, but now?

Empty has the title of the third largest machine tool manufacturer in China, and its shipment volume is also large, but it can only work in the low-end field.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, in the field of cutting processing equipment in recent years, the shipment volume of Hantian Machinery Company is not large, accounting for only about [-]%.
But these 40.00% of shipments allowed them to occupy [-]% of the revenue of the entire cutting processing equipment market!

More importantly, the family monopolizes more than 90.00% of the profits in the field of cutting processing equipment!

The profit in the entire market is only 100 yuan, and the Hantian factory took 90 yuan... The remaining dozens or even hundreds of machinery manufacturers share the remaining [-]%...

This is a data that makes other machine tool manufacturers despair!
I worked so hard to make products, but in the end I could only sell them at the price of cabbage. Everything went well and I made some hard-earned money, and I even lost money if I was careless.

Others lie down and make money easily, eating delicious food and drinking spicy food every day.

A subsidiary of Lee's Steel, which is under Lee's Machine Tool Company, released a so-called high-end equipment that claims to hit the mid-to-high-end beveling market last year.

Supporting the latest manganese steel knives developed by Tianjin Iron and Steel Works, all kinds of supporting equipment are available, and various after-sales preferential services are also provided.

The price is only the same specification product of Hantian Machinery Company, well, it is also one-fifth of the entry-level product of Hantian Machinery Company.

This is really selling the equipment at the price of cabbage... The customer is still disgusted, and he hasn't sold many units in a year.

Why?

Why else, the performance is not good enough!

Customers of machine tool equipment are not individuals, but all kinds of enterprises. They don't listen to you when they purchase things, and they don't look at your appearance. They just use the data to calculate directly.

Many processing fields have rigid requirements for equipment and tools. If the requirements are not met, there is no way to process, or it can barely be processed, but the tool loss rate is too high, and the yield rate of processed products is low, which eventually leads to an increase in the overall cost of the enterprise. .

I calculated with my abacus, good guy, after using your cheap products, the overall cost will be higher than using the expensive products from Hantian Machinery Company... Then it’s still a joke!
Because of the strength of Hantian Machinery Company in the cutting processing market, it is said that the second largest machine tool company in China, Wuhu Machine Tool Company, Li's Machine Tool Company and other machine tool equipment manufacturers have recently taken the high-level route and want to pressure Hantian Machinery Company to let go Their series of manganese steel cutting tools and various patents of machine tools.

The name is beautiful: for the overall industrial development of the empire.

Of course, Hantian Machinery Co., Ltd. was not weak, and fought back with all kinds of strength, and even directly cut the price of one of their entry-level products, which caused the wailing of other machine tool manufacturers.

The competition in the cutting processing market and the wear-resistant parts market has led to the dominance of Hantian Machinery Company, and also led to the continuous development of Tianjin Iron and Steel Company, a dominant metallurgical enterprise, in the field of special steel.

However, the special steel field is actually only a small part of Tianjin Iron and Steel Company's business composition... After all, they are a comprehensive, ultra-large enterprise integrating mining and metallurgy.

In terms of scale and output value, Tianjin Iron and Steel Company is a well-deserved giant in the entire northern region.

And their main products are not special steel, but coal and ordinary steel.

Needless to say, coal is very profitable. The demand for coal within the Great Chu Empire is increasing substantially every year. Under this market situation, as long as the coal is dug out and transported out, then it can Lie down and make money.

Tianjin Iron and Steel Company owns a large number of coal mines. It not only owns several coal mines in Hebei, but also owns some coal mines in Tangshan, and accounts for more than half of the output of Datong coal mines. At the same time, their company also has several large coal mines in Liaodong.

The coal produced by a large number of its coal mines, in addition to meeting their own smelting coal needs, the rest is provided to various enterprises and civilian markets.

Every year, coal mines bring a lot of revenue and huge profits to Tianjin Iron and Steel Company.

In addition to coal, it is ordinary steel. A large amount of steel produced by Tianjin Iron and Steel Company is widely used in railway construction, building construction, machining, shipbuilding and other fields in the northern region, accounting for more than 70.00% of the northern region's steel market share.

Just by looking at this market share, you can tell how much money they make.

For such a large basic enterprise, and its important subsidiaries, such as mines, are not located in Tianjin, Luo Zhixue's inspection can only go to their company headquarters and Tianjin Iron and Steel Plant.

During the inspection at the headquarters, I mainly looked at some information and introductions, and nothing else was interesting.

The inspection at the iron and steel plant is mainly to look at the plant and those large-scale smelting equipment, at most it is to look at some of their metallurgical research laboratories.

There is no dazzling large number of products to see, and the whole process seems a bit boring and tedious, but Luo Zhixue and the many officials who accompanied him for inspection, they browsed some introduction materials and listened to the business and technical introduction of Tianjin Iron and Steel Company. But when it is very attentive.

Because behind the groups of data, it represents the industrial base and the people's livelihood economy.

The huge influence of Tianjin Iron and Steel Company is far from being comparable to enterprises such as Hebei Weapons Company.

During the inspection, Luo Zhixue also delivered a simple open-air speech to the representatives of workers in the steel plant and representatives of technical R&D personnel.

In his speech, he thanked the workers for their hard work, encouraged the workers to work hard, and the technicians to study hard to provide the empire with more and better steel. He also said that the empire will try its best to increase the income of workers and improve their lives in the future!
It is said that the industrial development of the empire is not only for the strength of the country, but also for the prosperity of the people. The empire will always put workers, farmers and other groups in the first place.

This speech was also Luo Zhixue's first public speech to ordinary people during this northern tour.

Unlike before, it seems that many meetings have been held and many speeches have been delivered, but they are all aimed at some local officials and business managers.

This is the first time that the speech is directly aimed at ordinary workers and technicians, and the content of the speech is simple and straightforward. A lot of space is praise, encouragement and support, without any critical words.

Luo Zhixue's speech also attracted warm welcome from the workers...but the reason was not the content of his speech. Ordinary people actually couldn't understand the political meaning contained in these speeches, and they didn't care much about them.

People's cheers are only because of his status!

Luo Zhixue is the emperor of the Great Chu Empire!
And the Great Chu Empire is a serious centralized monarchy!
This also led to Luo Zhixue's identity being ten thousand times more important than any president or king in later generations.

Even every sentence spoken is comparable to the law, even more authoritative than the law.

The emperor's mouth is constitutional, and the law is not a joke, but a real existence.

Such an emperor, with a smile on his face, praises, encourages and comforts ordinary workers and grassroots technicians in an amiable tone, and the effect is better than that of those high-ranking officials. too much.

Coupled with the concept of loyalty and filial piety advocated by Confucianism since ancient times and the education policy that has been strongly implemented since the founding of the Great Chu Empire, the loyalty education in the Great Chu Empire is very popular.

Therefore, after the speech, the scene where many people shouted long live was very shocking.

And this kind of shouting, long live, is different from the ceremonial cheers of those officials who are just hindering the etiquette. The cheers of the people are sincere.

Of course, this kind of sincerity has nothing to do with recognition, and it's not a heart-to-heart.

Probably... just watch others shouting and shouting yourself, otherwise you don't fit in... Then everyone shouted together, immersed in the atmosphere of loyalty and patriotism and moved ourselves!
This self has been touched for a long time, and it will take this set of things for granted, and make it a code of conduct for itself, and at the same time require others to do the same.

Even if I don't agree with these things in my heart, I will support these things.

Because everyone else says that and does the same thing, if you insist on jumping out and being an outlier, wouldn't it appear that you don't fit in?

Everyone is talking about loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, sacrifice and devotion. You say that your family is more important than everyone else, and your own life is more important than the emperor's face. Do you want to have fun together?

Even at the end, for example, when someone needs to dedicate and sacrifice on the battlefield, if you press the word of loyalty, you will have no way to retreat!

Rejecting that is tantamount to humiliating yourself and your family!

Because others will think that your behavior is contemptible and needs to be cast aside.

So sometimes on the battlefield shouting Long Live His Majesty, the soldiers of the Great Chu Empire who fought to the death for His Majesty, not everyone was willing to sacrifice, and more were actually coerced by the general environment.

This is a very typical feature of human society, that is, people will be influenced by the environment and the people around them, and then do things that are not in line with their instinctive interests.

The spirit of Bushido in Japan and the religious beliefs in the West are very typical examples.

Everyone says that, if you do this, if you don’t follow what you say or do, you will cut yourself off from society!
Heresy never ends well!
In any case, Luo Zhixue's open-air speech in Tianjin Iron and Steel Works this time has a very good effect, not only the on-site effect is good, but the follow-up impact is also very good.

The accompanying officials from the Chaobao Department of the Ministry of Ethics urgently prepared a report that night, and published the full text of Luo Zhixue's speech as the key report on the front page of the next issue of Dachudibao.

When the report was published all over the world with the new issue of the Dachu Mansion newspaper, it had a fairly good positive impact.

His Majesty the Emperor's speeches in public, in which he praised, encouraged and supported workers and grassroots technical personnel groups, this kind of thing is not an ordinary speech in the Great Chu Empire, but a very serious political statement!
When the Dachu Mansion Newspaper published Luo Zhixue's speech, it started with: Fengtian Chengyun Emperor, the imperial edict said.

It means that this is an imperial decree announced to the subjects of the world, and it is the most powerful form of imperial decree in the Great Chu Empire. Only major events and major policies will use this format of imperial decree and publish it in the Great Chu Mansion Newspaper Informed by Shangguang.

Whenever such an imperial decree is published, the local government must organize personnel to widely read the content of the imperial decree to the public... The government sends people to the countryside to read the imperial decree, explaining various people's livelihood policies of the empire, and basic legal provisions. The Chu Empire is a very serious political matter, and it is also one of the core affairs of the ritual institutions in various places.

This is also an important measure in the enlightenment policy of the Great Chu Empire.

Because after Luo Zhixue's speech is officially published, its influence will be extensive in the follow-up, going deep into every aspect of the Great Chu Empire!
There are many things that can be discussed in private, even in court, but if they are spoken out in public, the meaning will be different.

Once it is said publicly, then what the emperor says, that is what it is!
Since the Son of Heaven has further affirmed the positive role of industrialization and the importance of the workers, he has further cared about the income and life of the workers.

Then the vast number of courtiers must have corresponding political awareness and implement what the emperor said!

Just three days later, Han Deyuan, the co-organizer and minister of the household department, formally wrote a letter requesting legal protection of the rights and interests of the workers, formulating a series of relevant laws and policies to effectively protect the interests of the workers, such as minimum wages and maximum working hours.