Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 63 Done
Even if it is just to return a favor, Atlas is certainly willing to give Zheng Yi some extraordinary courtesy.

Scientists are highly respected in most countries. Atlas Copco is actually a company mainly based on engineers, and their respect for Zheng Yi is truly from the heart.

When Zheng Yi arrived, Atlas had even completed a finished product of a screw air compressor. Zheng Yi was also pragmatic and chose to communicate directly with their engineers and gave a lot of suggestions on application scenarios.

They even poached Zheng Yi in front of Li Xiaoshi and asked him if he was willing to be the vice president of Atlas.

Of course, although the treatment is good, Zheng Yi definitely won't agree to it.

Li Xiaoshi was filled with envy and excitement, and even felt more and more proud of it.

After Atlas invited Zheng Yi to be their vice president of technology and was rejected, Li Xiaoshi couldn't help but laugh at himself.

After all, his father saw through it all. People like Zheng Yi were not something that a family like the Li family could afford.

It would be right to let him go out and start his own business earlier.

Mr. Zheng is truly a great man from Southeast Asia.

However, why can't there be two outstanding people from Nanyang?

Technically, Li Xiaoshi certainly knew nothing, but he believed that he still had some expertise in interpersonal relationships, legal studies, and political research.

Mr. Zheng's battlefield is in Sweden, among engineers from large companies.

Then their battlefield should be in Britain, in Parliament, among those high-ranking parliamentarians who can decide the life and death of the Chinese in Southeast Asia with just one word.

After spending only one day at Atlas, Zheng Yi visited ASEA the next day as Atlas's lifetime honorary vice president.

Li Xiaoshi left Sweden overnight and took a boat to England.

The people at ASEA were really confused.

I knew that he was a great Chinese scientist and engineer, and that he must have something extraordinary to be so sought after by Atlas. I knew that he must have some big intention to come to see me at such a great expense.

As a result, Zheng Yi took out the permanent magnet motor.

Something that truly leads future trends and even determines the direction of the industrial landscape.

First the screw air compressor, then the permanent magnet motor. If you dig deeper, you can also pull out monazite materials.

For a time, Swedish media also reported on Zheng Yi. After all, he was a yellow-skinned scientist from Southeast Asia, and this matter itself had certain news value.

His fame grew very quickly, and even some people who didn't know much about the business would ask: Mr. Zheng is so talented, can he win the Nobel Prize?

You should know that although the official relationship between Sweden and the United Kingdom is a bit complicated and it is difficult to say whether it is good or bad, the civil relations between the two countries, and even the royal relations, are extremely close, and there is a lot of communication between the people.

After Zheng Yi became famous in Sweden, he also became a figure in the UK. However, he turned the tables and called the person in charge of British electricity to Sweden for a meeting.

ASEA is actually also very strong in the industrial field.

Finally, the three companies agreed to jointly establish a permanent magnet materials company, in which Taiyou Machinery would hold a 40% stake, while ASEA and British Electric would each hold 30%.

Of course, Taiyou Machinery also has shares in British Electric, so British Electric actually has more say than ASEA.

As a condition, the two companies will jointly inject capital into Nanyang to help the Chinese in Nanyang build the Nanyang Electric Motor Factory.
It also holds a total of 49% of the shares of the factory. It will use means such as equipment delivery, engineer dispatch, and technology transfer to complete the construction of the Nanyang Electric Factory within two years, ensuring that it at least reaches the goal of becoming the most advanced electric motor factory in Asia.

ASEA will fully transfer a series of power-related manufacturing technologies, including low-voltage distribution, inverters, relays, and high-voltage circuit transmission equipment, to Nanyang Electric Works and British Electric Power.

British Electric Power promised to purchase these equipments, but it had to ensure that both Penang and Kuala Lumpur were fully electrified to guarantee the power supply for Zheng Yi's future factories in the two places.

In fact, Kuala Lumpur's power supply itself is also okay. This one is mainly aimed at Penang. Apart from anything else, the steel furnace that Zheng Yi is going to use, which has an annual output of 140,000 tons of steel, is a power-consuming tiger. It cannot be done without the support of British electricity.

Of course, you still have to pay the electricity bill.

British Electric's massive investment in Penang, with the first phase alone costing over US$170 million, was Zheng Yi's leverage over the Colonial Administration.

After all, British Power has invested so much money, you have to let it collect electricity bills, so it is natural that it cannot fail to support the industrialization of Penang.

So, even if Penang’s industrialization includes a large number of military products, or even guns and cannons, the Colonial Affairs Bureau will just turn a blind eye.

There weren't many British people in Penang originally.

If you, the Colonial Bureau, destroy my industrial factory, Zheng Yi can guarantee that the Chinese workers in Penang have the ability to smash all the investments of British Electric Power and make them go down the drain. They will also destroy the permanent magnet material company and let ASEA step in to get you involved in an international dispute.

In fact, if one day he is forced to do so, Zheng Yi will have to use force against the British.

He really didn't have the ability to fight to the death with the Colonial Bureau.

But at least he had the ability to make the British feel pain, trouble and upset before he died!

There will be a series of measures later to drag the Americans, the Dutch, and the UK's largest company, Shell Oil, into the water, which will make Amen feel more pained, more worried, and less likely to turn against him easily.

But this was actually the limit of what he, a mere Chinese in Southeast Asia, could do in the game of chess with the Colonial Bureau.

It is almost impossible to go further.

At least for the time being, it is unlikely to do better.

However, based on his understanding of the Colonial Bureau, this was enough.

The British were actually not that wary of the Chinese in Southeast Asia.

In fact, this is true. When he met Li Xiaoshi in England, Li Xiaoshi hugged him excitedly and was as excited as a child.

"What's wrong? What big thing did you talk about?"

"It's done. The British allowed Taiyou Machinery and Penang's military-industrial complex to produce maintenance parts for British warships and weapons in the Far East. I got all the orders, including for powered delta-wing aircraft. I also got an order for 2,000 of them, which we sold directly to the Singapore Governor's Office."

"What about guns and cannons? Can Chinese people directly produce guns and cannons?"

"Yes! The British will send someone to supervise, but the products produced must be sold first to the British Far East Army, especially... the Royal Malayan Regiment."

"Prioritizing the Royal Malayan Regiment for arms sales? Isn't that giving them a handle?"

The Royal Malayan Regiment was not actually a British army, but a purely Malay army under the command of the various sultans.

Damn, the British are so calculating.

After all, although it was not explicitly stated, the Chinese were actually arming themselves to guard against the Malays.

In that era, no one dared to believe that the Japanese would dare to attack Malaya.

Li Xiaoshi advised, "It's already good. As long as we Chinese can produce weapons, why should we be afraid of not having an army to use them?
The road must be taken step by step, and the food must be eaten bite by bite. From nothing to something, let's take the first step first. The Malays don't have the ability to produce weapons. Can they really defeat us Chinese with just an army? Who says that without an army, civilians can't own guns?

"but……"

"But what?"

"The British also put forward a condition, saying that if we don't agree, all the above conditions will be invalid."

"What conditions?"

"No, you are not allowed to send arms into the country."

(End of this chapter)