Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry.

After Liu Wensheng crossed the Bering Strait, the rest of his global voyage was unremarkable. It was a smooth journey without many thrilling scenes. After all, in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the depth of the seabed in most waters far exceeded the limit of submarines, and there was nothing that could threaten the 001 nuclear submarine, so Liu Wensheng had more room to play in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

I visited Bermuda up close, then checked in at famous islands such as the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands and Cape Verde, bypassed the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Mozambique Channel, realized my close visit to Maldives, then calmly crossed the Strait of Malacca, passed through the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea and returned to my home port!

The voyage was more than 5 kilometers! After 46 days and nights of non-stop sailing, it created an amazing new history of submarine navigation on the Blue Planet of the Bright Sword World.

If the Norfolk had not been crippled, this matter would have been made public without much controversy.

However, when it comes to a conflict involving superpowers, the top leaders have to be cautious.

After about a month of planning and analysis, the highest level decided to announce the news of the successful round-the-world voyage of this nuclear submarine!
However, the original plan was to use pictures and texts to introduce all the famous landmarks that the voyage would pass, and all the classic photos taken from the submarine were archived and not published. Now they have been turned into a pure text press release and published on the front pages of major newspapers!
When the news was announced, the people of Donggu were naturally delighted, but it caused an uproar abroad.

"Rogue Eagle demands an explanation as to whether or not we were responsible for the Bering Strait incident." As usual, Staff Officer Ye came over with key materials to chat with Ren Zhong.

"Big Bear asked us to publish the details of our circumnavigation and whether we violated their territorial waters."

"John Bull protests our intrusion into our territorial waters."

"We are under a lot of pressure now. We really stirred up a hornet's nest this time. We offended three of the five permanent members alone, and the remaining Gaul also said sourly that Dongda's actions will provoke a new round of arms race, which is very detrimental to the overall development of Blue Star."

Ren Zhong smiled.

"The pressure is not on us now. Frankly speaking, our Qin-class nuclear submarine did a great job this time. Not only did it sail around the world, it also experienced actual combat!
We have shown our strength, and with this strength, I don't think we need to make any response."

"Whether they believe it or not, whether they are happy or not, we have the right to sail freely on the high seas. We only need to declare that on the high seas of the world, everyone has the right to sail freely, and that's enough."

Ren Zhong said, “Not only that, we will also start from today and make every effort to promote freedom of navigation as one of the six freedoms of the high seas, and work towards a new blue planet ocean new convention.

In addition to freedom of navigation, we must also advocate freedom of overflight over the high seas, freedom of fishing, freedom of scientific research, and freedom underwater to lay submarine cables and pipelines and to build artificial islands and other facilities permitted by international law.”

"I think this rule can be called the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Since we have the ability to navigate freely, it is imperative to promote such an international law treaty."

"After the Qin-class nuclear submarine set an example as our first free-navigation ship, I hope that every nuclear submarine that enters service will have a long-distance voyage to commemorate the maiden voyage and pass the acceptance test. Our nuclear submarines will not pass the test of crossing two oceans."

"Do we need so much steel? If we propose a new convention now, I'm afraid not many countries will respond. After all, there are not many countries that can protect their own territorial waters, let alone freely navigate on the high seas." Staff Officer Ye was still a little hesitant.

The announcement of the round-the-world voyage is already very high-profile. If we use this hot topic to propose a new maritime convention, it will inevitably be interpreted by the outside world as the beginning of Tokyo's expansion.

"It doesn't matter. Let's put it forward first. As long as it is reasonable, I believe it will gradually gain the approval of the majority of countries." Ren Zhong didn't care. The formation of a convention might require decades of arguments, but so what?

As long as we have a draft treaty, even if it is not approved, as long as we have the ability to do so, it means we have a great cause in our hands.

Why should the definition of freedom of navigation be defined by others?

Today, since we have the power to define the rules, we should have the courage to stand up!
Now that Todai has the ability to overturn the table, there is no need to just sit on the table and suffer losses!

Just like now.

Liu Wensheng directly destroyed the Norfolk, and now he has indirectly admitted that he did it, but so what?

Does the rogue eagle dare to come and confront Dongda and say he wants revenge?
Before figuring out the strength of the Qin-class nuclear submarine, he didn't even dare to make any threats of war!
This is when you have the confidence. No matter whether you are right or wrong, you have an advantageous position and others will not dare to retaliate easily.

When a rabbit and a tiger walk together, the tiger will not consider the rabbit's feelings at all and can do whatever it wants.

But when an elephant walks with a tiger, even though the tiger is the king of the forest, the tiger dare not ignore the elephant's reaction.

"There is one more thing. The Strategic Planning Center has given a new development plan for the automobile industry. Brother Ren, our automobile industry is already developing very rapidly. The annual output has exceeded one million vehicles, and the automobile industry has now become a big industry. Do we still need to make such a big adjustment?" Staff Officer Ye threw out the second topic of the day.

In the main world of 2024, you may have no idea about the car production of one million vehicles, because a leading car manufacturer can sell millions of vehicles.

But looking back at history, it was in 100 that we achieved annual automobile production of over 1992 million vehicles!
In other words, it took 43 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China to develop an annual output of one million.

But in the world of "Bright Sword", with Ren Zhong's promotion and technology introduction, the annual output of all kinds of vehicles has exceeded one million in 54 years. The gap is not small.

However, unlike the automobile production in the main world in 1992, in the world of Bright Sword, the main types of automobiles at this stage are still three categories: trucks, jeeps and agricultural vehicles!

This is in line with the current relatively early stage of development. Most car consumption is used for production. Trucks and agricultural vehicles are the main production tools, and jeeps are the first choice for transportation during this period.

It’s not that there are no other car models. In fact, the types of cars now are almost the same as those in the main world.

Buses, cars, cranes... all began to appear, and pickup trucks even surpassed buses in number.

For people like Staff Officer Ye, this is already very good. With a hundred flowers blooming, there are more than 500 automobile manufacturers of various types in production across the country.

"It is necessary," Ren Zhong said without hesitation. "Because we are on the eve of a big explosion in automobile production, we let the automobile industry develop freely in the early stage, but from this development process, we have seen the disadvantages, that is, the automobile industry is big but not strong, we don't even have a few well-known brands, if this continues, our automobile industry's competitiveness in the global market will be almost zero. If we open the door to automobile imports in the future and compete with the world's automobile giants, our automobile companies will almost have no way out."

"The first is the problem of the industry itself, and the second is the problem of demand. I think after two five-year plans, our car consumption will start to speed up and enter families."

Ren Zhong was talking about the domestic consumption upgrade. After two five-year plans, there are now hundreds of millions of workers in cities, as well as millions of factories and enterprises invested by private capital that are independently operated. Even though the amount of capital varies, compared to Europe and the United States, these people have already surpassed the level of the middle class and have a greater demand and purchasing power for automobile consumption.

An old Willys Jeep (the logo was changed by the owner)

The most suitable cars for them to buy now are the modified jeeps or SUVs based on the Willys Jeep, the pickup trucks known as the pickup king, and the knockoff cars based on the domestic improved models of several Chevrolet and other cars.

But no matter which one it is, it’s all garbage to Ren Zhong!

Today's automobile industry truly illustrates what it means to be small, scattered, chaotic and poor!

Of course, this is from Ren Zhong’s perspective.

For people of Staff Officer Ye's time, a factory that could produce tens of thousands of cars a year was already a truly large factory.

The current automobile industry is divided into two groups and it seems that a hundred flowers bloom, but in fact there are some initial signs of disorderly competition. After all, the industry does not currently prohibit the entry of private capital, and the pursuit of profits by capital cannot stop the enthusiasm of the automobile industry's start-up.

Moreover, any kind of factory was welcomed at that time, which led to the emergence of so many automobile factories, some of which had an annual output of only a few hundred vehicles.

The first camp in the domestic automobile industry is the Red Star Automobile Factory, which started with the Red Star agricultural vehicles and trucks in the border areas. Now it is mainly engaged in agricultural vehicle series and the Red Star first generation 2-ton and 5-ton trucks. It is basically the king in the field of domestic transport vehicles.
The second large automobile company is Taiyuan Automobile Industry Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Taiyuan Heavy Industry. They mainly produce heavy-duty trucks and special engineering vehicles such as excavators, cranes, and bulldozers. Due to the large-scale construction of 1525, the business of engineering vehicles is very hot. Taiyuan Automobile, relying on the advanced technology and process of producing tanks, switched to the engineering vehicle business and thrived. At the same time, Taiyuan Automobile Industry also produces Willys Jeeps developed under the guidance of Ren Zhong, which are almost special vehicles for domestic leaders at the county level and above.

Next is the Fengjing Automobile Factory, which was originally left over from the small days. After the liberation of Fengjing, it was transformed into Fengjing Automobile on the spot, producing trucks and several imitation cars. The most famous of these is the imitation Chevrolet car. It was not very popular during the 15th Five-Year Plan, but with the completion of the 25th Five-Year Plan, there were more and more wealthy people in the country, and Dongfang Automobile began to catch up.

The fourth one is Northern Automobile, which mainly produces pickup trucks proposed by Renzhong in the early stage. As pickup trucks can carry people and haul goods, they have a wide user group among small bosses. Small bosses are the most abundant species in Dongda now, so even though Northern Automobile is a latecomer, its development momentum is very strong. Its sales are very good at this stage, and it has a bit of the flavor of catching up from behind.

Next are the three bus companies, namely the Shanghai Jiangnan Bus Factory, the Jinling Shenlong Bus Factory, and the Jincheng Shudu Bus Factory, forming a structure with seven large-scale companies and the remaining hundreds of small factories producing only a few hundred or a few thousand vehicles.

There is absolutely no overlap between them, the proportion of common accessories is almost zero, even the tire holes don’t match!

For a complex mechanical body like a car involving thousands of parts, this quality control can hardly be called reliable.

If this situation continues, the final result will be a situation of great chaos followed by a decisive victory and then great order.

Ren Zhong would certainly not allow this most important industry to develop in the next 40 years to continue in this way and miss the golden development time of the automobile industry.

Take the broken half of Sandezi for example, its automobile output reached 1950 in 30. In 1960, its annual automobile output reached 200 million, and by 1971, its annual automobile output reached 400 million.

流氓鹰就更别说，50年代的汽车销售量年平均接近700万辆， 60年代则超过900万辆。从1940年到1970年之间，小汽车由2750万辆激增到9000万辆，由平均每五人一辆增至几乎每两人一辆！三十年间实现了汽车自由！
It would be impossible for Ren Zhong not to be jealous of this wave of dividends.

Of course, it is not easy to get into this market. After all, no one is a fool. Even a blind economist can see the impact of the automobile industry on the economy.

At present, Dongda has started to export its inexpensive and high-quality agricultural vehicles to the Southeast Asian markets. Trucks are rare goods that only hardcore friends will import, but not much. Now most of the annual output of one million is still consumed by domestic demand. After all, the models produced are also construction-related.

Not only are there few pure consumer cars, but they are also not suitable for home or commercial use.

Even Ren Zhong himself doesn't think highly of the current domestic car models.

Previously, we were busy with the layout and development of military industry, and a huge part of resources were tilted towards the military industry. Now we have large black fish, large destroyers, and even small flat panel ships, and satellites have also been launched into space.

The strategy of giving priority to military industry can be appropriately revised to begin moving towards an era where both military and civilian aspects are taken into consideration.

The most suitable industry to be affected first is the automobile industry. After all, shipbuilding has been led by Ren Zhong. With the current large number of merchant ship and warship contracts, it can at least rank among the top three on the blue planet. In terms of technology, it has also mastered the construction of most types of ships and transport ships except large aircraft carriers.

In the automotive field, there are technical barriers, but they are not high. For example, the basic technologies for miniaturized gasoline and diesel engines for automobiles are already available, but we have not yet developed a few classic power sources. In addition, in terms of gearbox technology, chassis technology (including suspension), etc., we have not calmed down and started to introduce classic micro-innovations from the main world.

Therefore, the entire automobile industry is large but not strong, scattered and has no main line.

According to Ren Zhong's prescription, the first policy for the automobile industry this time is the automobile production access system. Production quality standards and a certain amount of capital investment must be set for automobile production. Regarding production quality labeling, the ISO9000 system of the main world is directly introduced, and the third-party supervision of this system is put into the local quality supervision department for implementation. Those who do not meet this system must be shut down and transferred!

However, in order to prevent ISO9000 from becoming a formality, Ren Zhong determined that third-party supervision cannot be charged and is a normal function. Three major audit centers for the implementation of quality management systems are set up in the country. Spot checks are carried out every year. If anyone is found to have let someone off the hook, they will be held accountable to ensure the seriousness and enforceability of the system.

The amount of capital investment must be invented to be able to undertake the three major functions of an automobile company: research, production, and after-sales service, and eliminate small-workshop production, thus ensuring that consumers can buy guaranteed automobile products.

Therefore, by relying on these two measures, a large number of small and scattered automobile factories will be eliminated from the automobile industry.

However, Ren Zhong does not want to force them all to death. Instead, he wants them to shut down and transfer some of their businesses, and cooperate and support large automobile companies. Many of them will become parts manufacturers and suppliers.

We should give full play to the advantages of small factories in flexibility and cost control, and at the same time, establish the concept and production system of standard parts for the automotive industry. This will be the magic weapon to compete in the international market in the future.

The high quality, high efficiency and low cost brought about by standardization will have a huge impact on current Western automobile factories.

However, this is only the first level.

On the second level, Ren Zhong had something more far-reaching in mind, which was not only to achieve the orderly development of the domestic automobile industry, but also to achieve overtaking on the curve as quickly as possible!

(End of this chapter)