Wild North America 1846

Chapter 291 Advantageous Industries
It is precisely because there are so many unique tricks that are highly irreplaceable that the export products of Datang Kingdom can enter the European and American markets smoothly and enjoy lower tariff rates.

For example, kerosene has gone through a tortuous experience in the European market.

After years of development, the high-quality kerosene produced by Datang Kingdom has occupied more than 9% of the world's market. The four giants headed by Texaco Petroleum Company, Chevron Petroleum Company, Royal Bright Petroleum Company and Chang'an Petroleum Company and a series of Small oil companies have basically monopolized the world market. In 1857, the trade volume was as high as 1.65 million yuan.

Compared with the traditional lighting rapeseed oil, olive oil and candles in Europe and America, kerosene has many advantages such as high lighting brightness, less smoke, less miscellaneous smell, and reasonable price.

During the initial promotion in Europe, the oil company adopted a preferential marketing strategy of buying kerosene and giving away kerosene lamps, towels, and leather bags. Most users chose kerosene lamps. Because of the superiority of kerosene products, the market promotion was very smooth.

Nowadays, in French urban and rural households, there are an average of 3.7 kerosene lamps per household, and as long as one kerosene lamp is lit at night, the whole room can be illuminated.

For the same effect, at least 3~4 vegetable oil lamps must be lit.

When it first entered the French market, the average monthly sales of kerosene was about 6500 barrels at a price of 0.36 yuan per pound. At the same time, the price of rapeseed oil in the French market was about 0.52-0.55 yuan per pound, which was significantly higher than the price of kerosene.

The local churches in France took the lead in accepting kerosene, and quickly spread it in urban and rural areas with good word of mouth. Only half a year later, the average monthly sales of kerosene in the French market reached 3.2 barrels, an increase of five times.

The buoyant sales of kerosene has aroused great concern from the French government. After some conspiracy, the customs tax on kerosene imports was raised from 35% to 76% in an attempt to curb the encroachment of imported kerosene on the domestic market, crack down on the rapeseed oil market, and obtain a sum of money. Huge customs revenue.

Datang Kingdom is not used to the French. The four major oil giants immediately acted together to push up the price, causing the retail price of kerosene in France to double and even turn around, reaching a high price of 0.78 yuan per pound, which has exceeded the unit price of rapeseed oil. .

Even so
The sales of kerosene have not been discounted at all. This is because middle-class families in France have generally accepted kerosene lamps. The romantic French can no longer bear the dimness and strong smell of rapeseed oil lamps, and the extravagant nightlife of the upper class A kerosene lamp is indispensable.

The same is true for the kerosene street lamps put into use by the Paris municipal government in France. Due to various reasons of lighting brightness and cost, they cannot be replaced by rapeseed oil, which has caused the municipal department to complain about the high bill.

After a brief fall, kerosene sales in the French market began to rise steadily, surpassing the previous peak of 3.2 barrels per month just one and a half months later.

By Christmas in December at the end of the year, 12 barrels of high-priced kerosene were sold in the French market, which made the four major oil giants of the Datang Kingdom, which monopolize the market, earn a lot of money and smile happily.

The high import tariffs in France have led to high kerosene prices, which are more than double the price difference with neighboring Prussia, the kingdoms of South Germany, various regions of the Italian peninsula, and the United Kingdom.

This led to widespread kerosene smuggling, with surrounding areas smuggling kerosene into France one after another, and German farmers carrying oil loads across the border between the two countries to sell smuggled kerosene to the French at low prices.

A load of kerosene has a net weight of 80 pounds after removing two wooden barrels, and the profit per pound of kerosene is 80 mark, which is 20 marks, or about [-] Tang yuan. Traveling for two or three days is more profitable than a month.

This has attracted more Germans to join the smuggling business.

This kind of good thing is naturally indispensable to the British. The mere English Channel cannot stop the enthusiasm of the British for smuggling. At the craziest time, there was even a grand smuggling of 137 smuggling ships overnight. This made the French customs department miserable and there was no way to stop it.

until the end of 1857
The French government, which has been devastated by smuggling, quietly adjusted the customs import tariff on kerosene from the original 76% plus additional punitive duties to the European average of 27%.

Because the British Empire in the English Channel levied a tariff of 27% on kerosene. In recent years, due to the sharp increase in imports of kerosene, lubricating oil, diesel and heavy oil, the British Customs has lowered the tax rate on the above products accordingly.

The acknowledgment of the French directly led to the explosion of the kerosene market in France. Since January 1858, the sales volume of kerosene in the French market has started from 1 barrels, and has soared at the speed of lava eruptions every month. In February, the sales volume was 4.3 barrels. , March sales were 2 barrels, April sales were 7.1 barrels, May sales were 3 barrels, June sales were 10.44 barrels, July sales directly exceeded 4 barrels, and reached a peak of 18.3 barrels in August. Gradually eased down.

The French market has fully accepted kerosene with great enthusiasm, and has exploded with long-standing strong purchasing power. Baron Riviere, the mayor of Paris, France, talked about the wide application of kerosene, and responded enthusiastically with a smile on his face;

"It lights up the dreamy city of Paris. Whenever you stand at the height of the city hall and overlook it at night, you will find that this is the romantic city that never sleeps in Europe. With kerosene, everything is great."

The price of greatness is that the city of Paris alone burns more than 4500 barrels of kerosene every night.

But then again, life is too short to have fun in time, so what is the use of colonizing the world and earning so much money?
The administrative order of the French government cannot stop the French people's hard-core demand for kerosene. As a traditionally rich country, France has the ability, market, and demand to consume kerosene in large quantities. How can a single government order stop it?

Kerosene has been advancing all the way in European markets. Europeans simply can’t produce similar products that can resist them. After hard work, they can only lie flat. Who makes everyone like it?

Based on the above factors
Throughout 1858, the export of petrochemical products with kerosene as the core still had a high growth rate of at least 30%, and it was a high probability event that the total value of petrochemical product exports for the year exceeded 2 million yuan.

At least in the next 30 to [-] years, the Datang Kingdom can enjoy the huge profits in the petrochemical industry, and quietly draw blood from the huge profits earned by European and American countries from the colonies, feed back itself, and further strengthen the country's industrial base and economic strength.

To do this, you must control Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, because this is also a place rich in oil resources.

It is not easy to achieve this. Texas is a core member of the Confederate States of the United States. Any coveting of its territorial sovereignty will arouse strong resentment and vigilance in the South, and even lead to the current friendly relationship between the two sides (temporarily has not yet reached the alliance level) rupture.

The shady trick that Li Cha can think of is to brandish banknotes and use economic means to buy areas in Texas that have discovered a large amount of oil and gas, and leave them there without mining them, leaving them barren and growing grass.

The Royal Holding Fund under the Ministry of Internal Affairs controls a huge amount of equity ranging from 77% to 38.5% in the four major oil giants. It is also the behind-the-scenes controller of the entire world oil market and has unquestionable pricing power.

The cost of each pound of kerosene is 0.13 yuan, including processing costs, transportation costs, distribution costs and tax costs. The average export price is 0.35 yuan, which is almost twice the huge profit.

These shares alone brought a huge dividend profit of more than 1857 million yuan to the royal family in 3170, accounting for about 6% of the total income of the royal family fund under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is well-deserved as the largest profit maker.

If you think about how the rich desert dog family with a scarf on their heads became rich in later generations, you can know how prosperous the life of the Tang Kingdom is now?
The thriving petrochemical industry brought 1857 million tax revenue to the kingdom's finances in 2480, and there is still room for substantial growth in the future, which greatly strengthened the kingdom's financial strength.

It is precisely because of such strong strength that Li Cha's future strategy is to use money to buy and buy, to become the largest landowner in Texas, and to use all the land rich in oil and gas resources for grazing, but not to develop it.

Why, I am happy if I have money, so I am willing to buy these places rich in oil and gas resources to graze cattle and sheep.

The kingdom’s four major oil giants with deep pockets have jointly established the Canadian Institute of Geology, invested heavily in the research and development of a new generation of petrochemical refining equipment, and also set up their own laboratories. They recruited well-known experts from all over the world to join in with preferential treatment, and further developed the petrochemical industry. system.

In September 1856, after overturning the collodion, a professor at the laboratory of Changan Petroleum Company Jason Heinz discovered that it would become a tough and elastic material when frozen, thus inventing the plastic "Celluloid" (Celluloid) .

well researched
Chang'an Petroleum Company found that plastic materials have strong plasticity and can be made into low-priced water cups, bowls, raincoats and other items, which have a very broad market prospect.

Li Cha likes to browse the cutting-edge information of the Tang Kingdom and other parts of the world. When he saw this technological invention, he could only touch his nose and was speechless.

Perhaps it is because the four major oil companies pay attention to the development of petroleum products, and have built various laboratories for this purpose, and have continuously produced new technological products. Plastic "celluloid" is one of them, which was invented in advance.

The invention of this material is 10 years earlier than the original history, Li Cha firmly believes;

Businessmen are all profit-seeking, and there is no need to intervene by themselves. With the vigorous promotion of the rich and powerful oil companies, this new material will be widely used in all aspects of society earlier than the original time and space.

coincidentally;

Datang Kingdom has just monopolized the cutting-edge technology of the petrochemical industry and also monopolized the world market. For a long period of time in the future, it can exclusively enjoy the huge profits of this market.

Selling cabbage at the price of ginseng is the current plan of Chang'an Petroleum Company.

Anyway, there is no competitor at the same level. As for the coordination between the four major oil giants of the Tang Dynasty, it is easy to ask the royal family holding fund to come forward.

Originally, Chang'an Petroleum Company was a multinational company with the weakest strength and the smallest market share among the four giants.

Now holding the plastic "celluloid" patent, it is estimated that it will stand out in this wave of development in the next ten years and grow into a petrochemical giant that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Texaco Petroleum Company.

Overall
Relying on the abundant natural resources in North America, the mining industry of the Datang Kingdom is still a pillar industry. The export volume of the three major types of minerals, oil, copper and silver, is the largest in the world.

The copper and silver product processing industry has also developed prosperously. There are more than 1790 factories and more handicraft workshops in the provinces of the kingdom. In addition to copper coins and silver coins, there are also a variety of copper and silver daily necessities and industrial products.

As far as industrial products are concerned, the new 7.62mm full-load ammunition shells, shell shells of various calibers, copper propellers of ships, copper wear-resistant pin sleeves, copper pipes, various copper parts of steam engines, trombone saxophones among musical instruments, There are thousands of copper nails and copper handles on wooden doors, and there are thousands of subdivided products, creating a large number of employment opportunities.

Li Cha is not satisfied with the advantageous industries developed by relying on resources. In the field of heavy industry, the Datang Kingdom has accumulated enough strength, and the iron and steel industry is given priority as the main target of the outbreak.

Because the metallurgical laboratory of the University of California, Datang Kingdom, has matured the new-generation open-hearth steelmaking method through long-term research and development, and is entering the development stage of steelmaking equipment, which has the basis for an explosive production capacity.

since the beginning of the 19th century

The steelmaking plants mainly in the UK mainly use the stirring method to make steel. As the name suggests, it is to stir the molten iron through simple equipment, and add carbon or other alloys based on experience, so as to refine various alloy steels with different properties.

This relatively primitive stirring method is improved from the steel frying method that has been around for thousands of years, and it is nothing new.

Blast furnace steelmaking had already appeared in Belgium in 1325, and then quickly spread to the Low Countries. Therefore, the blast furnace stirring method used by British steel plants is not an advanced technology, and the output is not high.

Several major iron and steel plants in Datang Kingdom introduced British technology, with an annual output of about 63 tons of steel, employing about 39200 workers, which shows that the efficiency is quite low.

If the new open-hearth steelmaking method is used, the steelmaking efficiency will be increased by 4 to 5 times. With the same manpower, it is easy to produce more steel output, which has a strong price advantage.

Regardless of steel or iron, both have broad application prospects in the Tang Dynasty and are worthy of vigorous development.

In the past few years, the reason why we did not blindly expand steel production capacity was mainly due to market factors.

Most of the steel produced in Datang Kingdom is for its own use, and exports account for less than 10%, which is about 4.5 to 5 tons per year. The main export destinations are the Qing Dynasty and Southeast Asia, the northern United States, and Central and South America. Most of them are high-quality farm tools. , knives and daily necessities, the market size is relatively limited.

This limits the difficulty of the development of the steel industry in Datang Kingdom. What is there to develop without a market?
In 1842, Britain’s steel production reached its peak of 620 million tons. That’s because Britain was at the peak of its steam industry development. Railways, docks and bridges were being built everywhere at home and abroad, so the amount of steel was naturally large.

In the Indian subcontinent alone, the British built more than 2.8 kilometers of railway lines. As a bulk building material, steel is naturally in demand.

since the crimean war
In order to cope with the huge expenditure in the war, the British finances have implemented austerity fiscal policy for many years. The infrastructure projects of these overseas colonies suffered the brunt of the sharp cuts, which in turn affected the demand for steel.

In 1857, the total output of British steel was only 437 million tons, which had shrunk by [-]% compared with the peak period. This was mainly caused by insufficient demand in the international market, not because of production capacity.

Due to the economic development of Datang Kingdom, the prosperity of urban and rural construction has been promoted. The annual infrastructure needs of Chang'an and Los Angeles, two million-level cities, will eat up tens of thousands of tons of steel production capacity.

The whimsical engineers of the Datang Kingdom plan to build the Golden Gate Bridge in the Bay Area. Only one bridge tower on this bridge needs to consume 2.2 tons of steel, spanning more than 1600 miles across the water, using about 2.8 tons of independent steel cables, about 60 steel rivets...

Of course

This bridge of unprecedented scale is currently only in the stage of technical demonstration. In the foreseeable 30 to [-] years, the Datang Kingdom may not have the engineering capacity to build it, but this does not prevent engineers from proposing this grand idea.

Just like the cross-sea bridge in Sydney, Australia, engineers also proposed practical implementation plans, but in the face of sky-high construction costs, the design drawings had to be shelved.

The Tang Kingdom will set off a new round of construction climax in 1859, mainly the kingdom's local railways, overseas provinces and Paradise Island railways, docks, bridges and other infrastructure construction, as well as urban construction.

This provides a solid foundation for the great development of the steel industry, according to capacity planning;
In 1859, the total iron and steel production capacity of Datang Kingdom broke through the million-ton mark for the first time in history, reaching more than 110 million tons.

Among them, the output of iron is about 78 tons, and the output of steel is 35 tons.

1860年规划产能150万吨，1861年规划产能185万吨，至1862年突破200万吨大关。

The great development of the iron and steel industry means the great development of transportation, urban infrastructure, shipbuilding and mechanized chemical industries, as well as the great development of the shipping industry and military industry.

end of 1857
Datang Kingdom has more than 300 ships with a displacement of more than 1730 tons, and 457 ocean-going cargo ships with a displacement of more than [-] tons. Dozens of shipping companies of different sizes have emerged.

Different from the European countries with a long history, as a newly rising force in North America, the ships of the Datang Kingdom are all iron steam-powered ships, and they have the world's largest iron cargo ship merchant fleet.

In order to further enhance the ocean transportation capacity and reduce costs, ocean-going ships are developing towards large-scale, and many local shipyards in the Datang Kingdom have started to build [-]-ton iron steam engine-powered freighters.

Each of these ships requires three to four thousand tons of high-quality steel to build, which is a huge market.

The Navy's Zhenhai plan has been launched again, and 12 main ironclad warships with a displacement of 3600 will be built successively within five years, and new orders for twelve "Cold Wind" class warships have been added.

Besides
The newly-launched 20-horse power diesel unit has attracted enthusiastic responses from the market. The ship power composed of it has many characteristics such as light weight, good reliability, and low cost, which is very conducive to the development of offshore ships and inland waterway shipping.

Such a diesel engine with a simple propeller can drive a ship of about 100 tons to sail at a speed of eight to nine knots.

For a 500-ton offshore ship, five 20-horsepower diesel engines can be installed at the stern of the ship, and 800 sets can be installed for an 8-ton ship, which saves the purchase of heavy and expensive steam engines and has a strong cost advantage.

Once launched, shipyards across the Kingdom received hundreds of new orders for small and medium-sized vessels.

Regardless of whether you are engaged in cargo transportation, passenger transportation, or offshore fishing, using low-priced diesel to drive has a strong cost advantage.

The 20 horsepower diesel engine can also be used in many fields such as retracting and releasing anchor chains of large ships, retracting and releasing trawl nets of fishing boats, pulling mine cars in mines, and power equipment in factories.It can also be used to strengthen the power of walking tractors, which has many benefits.

In line with the kingdom's major decision to further increase the scale of railway construction, the domestic market demand of Datang Kingdom is bound to expand rapidly, which has laid a solid foundation for the explosive production capacity of the steel industry.

Emerging industrial countries have the advantages of emerging industrial countries, and the old colonists have the difficulties of the old colonists. The development of iron steam ships in the United Kingdom has twists and turns, and there are many obstacles.

Today
Britain still has thousands of sailing cargo ships. Its Royal Navy budget from 1857 to 1858 was 844 million pounds. (Including 63.3 ships under construction on the berth).

In this year, the Royal Navy's budget exceeded 900 million pounds.

In the next year, that is, from 1859 to 1860, according to the current appropriation bill discussed by the British Parliament, the scale will exceed 1000 million pounds.

The value of 1000 million pounds is equivalent to 5000 million Tang yuan, which is more than twice the current military budget of the Tang Kingdom, which shows the wealth and power of the British Empire.

This is still in the face of the Civil War in the United States. Li Cha secretly used a large amount of money from the palace treasury to train and equip more than 20 mainland recruits and refit the entire army. The total military funding has skyrocketed, which is an unsustainable state.

normal year
大唐王国军事开支总预算约820万至850万唐元之间，价值约160万至170万英镑，用以维持一支规模约9万人以下陆军，1.5万人以下皇家禁卫军和约20艘主力战舰的有限规模海军。

some of

The military expenditures of the Royal Guards and the Royal Navy are all paid by the royal treasury, and the kingdom's finances do not bear this part of the appropriation, because these are all royal private troops and cannot be confused.

Two-phase comparison
The annual military expenditure of the Royal Navy of the British Empire will exceed tens of millions of pounds. This figure is almost the total fiscal revenue and expenditure of the Tang Kingdom (Note; excluding the income of various enterprises controlled by funds under the Royal Household Office, mines and royal farms ), it can be seen that the Royal Navy is very wealthy.

However, the British Royal Navy also has its difficulties. The total number of sailing warships of nearly a thousand ships has become a heavy burden and a huge burden for the Royal Navy to move towards modernization. It is a pity to discard it and tasteless to eat.

On the road of transformation, the British Royal Navy is going very hard, and the steam ironclad warships representing the world's advanced level make them salivate.

However, the high annual maintenance cost of the existing huge sailing fleet leaves the Royal Navy with insufficient funds to build more ironclad warships.

Just in February 1858
The Royal Navy has come up with an ambitious plan to eliminate sailing warships. It plans to eliminate a total of 472 sailing warships in the next three years, mostly small and medium-sized sailing warships with hundreds of tons to thousands of tons, while retaining medium and large sailing fleets. main force.

This plan was jointly rejected by the British House of Commons and the House of Lords. Are you kidding me?
The Royal Navy of the British Empire has accumulated wealth for more than 150 years, and it retired as soon as it said it was retired. Could it be that so many warships were split up and burned as firewood?
Prodigal son!

(Staying up all night to code out a 6000-word chapter, there will be updates below, please vote for encouragement, thank you very much.)
(End of this chapter)