Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 84 One Million US Dollars to Buy Out Penang

When they heard Zheng Yi talking about the construction period, the Chinese tycoons who had invested in the project suddenly began to breathe faster.

Although the profits from their other businesses should be enough to pay the interest on the loan, in this kind of situation, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Chinese businessmen in Southeast Asia are all engaged in bulk commodities, which are most affected by the international environment. Who knows whether the economic crisis in the past one or two years will be even worse?

Tan Kah Kee: “How long will the construction take?”

Zheng Yi smiled bitterly and said, "It's hard to say. Anything that can truly be called equipment is provided by DuPont and Shell. We Chinese in Southeast Asia only need to be responsible for common parts, external bodies, pipes, and other items. With Thailand's existing capabilities, processing them will be no problem."

"However, the real difficulty lies in the construction. These machines are more like building a building than installing equipment. As you said, most of my equipment is larger than the Colonial Administration Building."

"This thing is not installed at all. It is clearly built like a house. The entire installation process is actually similar to building a house. Many equipment also need to be built with bricks and cement frames first, and then molten steel is filled in after the frames are built."

"There will be many European and American experts coming to provide guidance, but there are actually no more than five countries in the world, including Europe and the United States, that have developed such a large-scale front-end oil and rear-end design, and each one is different. As the chief designer, I will basically be the one to coordinate everything."

"If it were a normal, skilled construction workforce with enough workers and equipment, and the entire project were divided into twenty or so construction sites, it would be operational in about two years, or at most three years. However..."

Hu Wenhu asked, "Is it that the quality of our Nanyang workers is not good enough?"

Zheng Yi: "It's not that the quality is low, but rather that there's a lack of experienced construction workers. There are only a few high-rise buildings in Southeast Asia, and the workers don't even have experience working at height. Few even speak English, which creates barriers to communication with European and American engineers."

"If we hire European and American workers on a large scale, it would be possible, but firstly, the cost is too high. I need tens of thousands of workers for the entire project. If things go wrong, the cost of 30 million US dollars may not be enough. We will have to add more. Secondly..."

Li Xiaoshi: "Secondly, I'm afraid that those Europeans and Americans will look down on us, right?"

Zheng Yi nodded.

For the entire project, although the initial fundraising of 30 million US dollars is a huge sum of money, due to the particularity of the project itself, money is actually the least important part.

This is a world-class project, and not everyone is qualified to pay for it.

Shell will provide key petrochemical equipment, petrochemical technology, petrochemical engineers and a large number of core components. They will also be responsible for shipping. After the factory is built, the raw materials for production, that is, oil, will also be from their own company. He even has to arrange special tankers for this purpose and open up a new oil route.

DuPont will provide key chemical equipment, core industrial components, and even a large amount of alloy materials. In chemical plants, many steel structures require stainless steel or some alloy materials, and the Penang Steel Plant simply does not have the production capacity.

As for the Chinese, apart from the chief designer Zheng Yi and his personal technical patents, there is really nothing else to show off.

It was agreed at the beginning that the Chinese would be responsible for equipment installation and factory construction.

In other people's eyes, this does not seem to be technically difficult. After all, they are the ones who provide the engineers, and the rest is just hard labor. It's just that the workload is larger.

If you form a joint venture with someone, you have to make some contribution.

Otherwise, for Europeans and Americans, the only Chinese person valuable in this factory is Zheng Yi. Apart from Zheng Yi, other Chinese people are worthless and have made no contribution to the project itself.

Then why should others look up to you?

Now everyone understands.

Some people even think: "Mr. Zheng is pointing at us."

After all, they also own shares in this factory. Apart from paying money, what other contributions have they made to the factory?
I had initially assumed the money was coming from a wealthy individual, but now, seeing the scale, the scale, the renderings, and the fact that they'd never raised such a large sum so easily, I'd finally understood that money was the least important factor for this project. All Zheng Yi had to do was say they needed cash and offer shares, and plenty of European and American companies would be happy to invest, waving cash and begging to get involved.

Xu Shengli said: "Isn't it just work? We Chinese in Southeast Asia have suffered all kinds of hardships and hardships. We can't do the work of engineers because we have no education. So how the hell can't construction workers do it?
Yizi, you just said that if we use European and American workers, and we start working on a dozen construction sites at the same time, we can finish the work in two or three years, right?

Zheng Yi: "If everything goes smoothly and there are sufficient construction machinery, it can be completed in two to three years, which is a relatively tight time."

Xu Shengli said, "I'll be the one giving the contract. You give it to me, and the Chinese will do it. As long as the European and American engineers you mentioned are reliable and can lead us, we can do what European and American workers can do in two or two and a half years. We can definitely do it in one year. Don't worry about how we hire people or how many people we use. We'll pay the right amount. We'll accept any losses."

Upon hearing this, Tan Kah Kee actually nodded, a rare gesture. He said, "Except for Mr. Zheng, we Chinese workers have almost no special talents. Our only strengths are hard work, discipline, and integrity. We can compare ourselves to those foreign powers. If we don't know how to do it, we can learn. We Chinese learn things very quickly."

As a construction worker, you just follow instructions and do your work.

Anyway, Penang has electricity now. At most, we can work in three shifts day and night. At most, we can hire two people instead of one person, increase their salary, and do more mobilization. We can subcontract with the Chamber of Commerce as the core to increase its organization.

Tan Kah Kee also felt that the so-called high-altitude work was not a problem.

Zheng Yi said that Chinese people are not even as good as Europeans and Americans in terms of construction workers, which is a bit too contemptuous.

Zheng Yi: "Okay, since you're so confident, I'll leave the recruitment of workers, organizing the work, and construction to you seniors. As the chief designer, I really don't have much time and energy to focus on the specific construction aspects."

Within a few words, the matter was settled.

On that day, all the major chambers of commerce in Nanyang were holding meetings. The entire project was subcontracted into 20 independent construction sites, and each site was assigned to a separate chamber of commerce.

Many Chinese chambers of commerce, unlike Xiamen which has produced so many tycoons, did not have the opportunity to participate in the project and hold shares when raising funds. However, they took this opportunity to contribute to the project and get a share of the profits.

After all, not only is contracting a project profitable in itself, but you can also learn advanced construction experience from European and American engineers. After the project is completed, an excellent construction team will be formed.

Those engineering equipment that were brought in by ship from Europe, America, India and other places specifically for this project may not be shipped back. They will just be bought at a discount or at the price of scrap.

Besides, this project is so big that Xu Shengli’s steel plant will have to be expanded for this project.

Although no new blast furnaces will be added, the other corresponding auxiliary equipment will increase a lot, and bricks, cement, sand and gravel will all require new factories to be built for this project, and they may even be large-scale new factories.

A large construction site with tens of thousands of people, and possibly even hundreds of thousands of people eventually, along with the corresponding supporting facilities and life services, is also a huge business.

Even Zhang Yucai rushed from Kuala Lumpur to Penang to snatch one of the twenty chambers of commerce. He set an example himself that day by living in the construction site and then began to recruit workers on a large scale.

The Chinese are always able to dig the foundation and harden the road surface without waiting for British and American engineers to arrive.

For a time, no matter whether you were from Guangdong or Fujian, Hakka or Teochew, or even whether you were a native of Penang or a newcomer, as long as you came to Penang, you were one of us.

They each went to their own chamber of commerce and invested in this great project that had never been seen before among the Chinese in Southeast Asia, and even in the whole of China. They used their blood and sweat to jointly create this industrial giant that was considered one of the top in the world.

With the start of construction, Penang’s tax-inclusive policy has been completely finalized.

The Colonial Office demanded US$1 million in taxes per year for the entire Penang, with the price to be renegotiated every five years. Zheng Yi agreed without much hesitation.

At least, in the short term, all the Nanyang Chinese, at least the Malayan Chinese, were completely united through Penang and this project.

(End of this chapter)