I want to be emperor

Chapter 629 The Fortune Myth of the Shipbuilding Industry

Of the five shipyards mentioned above, three are government-run and two are privately-run, they almost seized more than 90.00% of the warship orders. The reason why some other shipyards can still get a share of about [-]% is purely because many warships are not too good. Technology, such as some transport ships, inland river gunboats, offshore patrol ships and other warships, the technical content is not very high.

Out of support and also for risk diversification, the Navy will build some low-tech ships to some medium-sized shipyards.

In the field of warships, the Songjiang Naval Shipyard took the lead, and the Guangzhou Shipyard took the second place. Although the profit ratio of warships is not very high, the total price is high. This profit is actually quite a lot. In the end, the orders for warships are still very stable. ...

The expansion of the Great Chu Empire Navy and the subsequent replacement and renewal of warships require a large number of warships to serve every year, so Songjiang Naval Shipyard does not have to worry about no orders at all...

Relying on the stimulation of naval orders, the technical level of Songjiang Naval Shipyard is also the highest, which in turn has allowed them to achieve great success in the field of merchant ships!

Nowadays, the large market for various new sea-going ships, that is, Galen-improved civilian ships, including armed merchant ships, is the main market in the shipbuilding industry of the Great Chu Empire.

Because the prices of these ships are high and the profits are high, those trading companies will not hesitate to pour money into them for the huge profits in ocean trade, and they will not blink at the huge orders of hundreds of thousands or millions.

Among them, the largest market share and the highest profit belong to armed merchant ships in the tonnage range from [-] to [-] tons.

Armed merchant ships in this range have achieved a relatively good balance in terms of construction costs, operating costs, and cargo capacity. Major trading companies especially like this kind of armed merchant ships.

Therefore, this class of merchant ships also occupies the mainstream market.

As for the market for armed merchant ships with a larger tonnage, there are actually not many of them.

Large ships are not bad, but the price is too expensive. Currently, only the three major government-run trading companies order such super-large armed merchant ships. Most of the time, they are not for trading, but for acting as a military force and as the leader of the trading fleet. Flagship use.

Therefore, super-large armed merchant ships seem to have a high price per ship and high profits, but in fact the total market share is not large.

In the improved Galen shipbuilding market of less than [-] tons, there is also a lot of demand for ships in this field, mainly for local coastal navigation. As for ocean navigation, the tonnage is too small and the restrictions are too great. No company would want such a small-tonnage vessel these days.

Today's rich customers in the shipbuilding industry are all these trading companies. As for other customers, especially those who run local coastal routes, they don't have much money in their pockets, they are not generous in paying, and the prices are kept very low.

Moreover, many shipyards can build small Galen-improved ships of hundreds of tons, and the market competition is greater, which also leads to lower prices and lower profits.

This means that the market for improved Galen ships of the [-]-ton to [-]-ton class is where the main profit of the shipbuilding industry is at present, and in this field, the Songjiang Shipyard alone occupies [-]% of the market share.

The profits of various factories in the shipbuilding industry in the past two years are Songjiang Naval Shipyard > Guangzhou Shipyard + Qingdao Naval Shipyard + Lishi Shipyard + Luohua Shipyard.

It can be seen that the Songjiang Naval Shipyard is strong!

The Songjiang Shipyard, which made a lot of money, not only turned over the profits, but also used a large amount of profits for reinvestment, such as building more and more professional docks, processing plants, and so on.

The Songjiang Naval Shipyard's investment in shipbuilding and related upstream and downstream fields is more than the sum of the official direct investment in the shipbuilding industry over the years.

However, in the past two years, as the shipbuilding industry continues to boom, more and more funds, especially private funds, have begun to pour into the shipbuilding industry.

The shipbuilding industry has been hailed as a big new gold mine after the textile industry, and the shipbuilding industry, its entry threshold is not as high as that of the steel industry and machinery industry, and it can be regarded as an industry that is relatively friendly to private capital in the heavy industry field. up.

In a series of heavy industry fields, many industries are actually not very friendly to private capital. It does not mean that official capital does not allow them to enter, nor does it mean that many thresholds are deliberately set up, but that the investment is large, the return on capital is slow, and the competition is also fierce.

The simplest of them may be the mining industry. There is basically no technical threshold for this thing, and it is enough to directly hire people to mine. This is also an industry where many private capitals are involved, but a low threshold means high competition and low profits.

In the mining industry, you seem to be making money lying down, but in fact, the government often uses the auction method to auction the mines, and the auction method is not a direct buyout, but a revenue share...the officials don’t even agree with it. What kind of profit sharing do you play, and you will directly share revenue with you.

Then the mining industry tax is not low.

If you want to invest a sum of money and just lay down and make money, it is actually possible, but the profit is not high, and it will take many years to recover the capital, which is a relatively stable investment type.

Then there are some small-scale machinery industries. The barriers to entry are quite low. Just find a few skilled craftsmen and build a few pieces of equipment, and you can even call yourself a machinery factory. Because the threshold is low, there are many people doing it. No matter what, if there are too many people doing it, then naturally it will not make money.

Those in the machinery industry who live better are small and medium-sized enterprises with their own unique advanced technology, or simply large factories that use comprehensive scale to reduce costs. Without technology and scale, they often die ugly.

However, technical problems and financial problems are major obstacles for private capital to enter the heavy industry field.

But in the shipbuilding industry, these two obstacles have disappeared...

As for technology, after more than ten years of technical cultivation, there are now a large number of engineers and even skilled craftsmen who can build new sea-going ships in China.

As for the capital, in fact, it doesn’t have to be a lot of money to build a shipyard. It doesn’t take much to build a small shipyard. With a few thousand yuan, you can build a decent one.

If you have a technical team, a lot of wealthy businessmen who have nowhere to invest can wave their checks to seek investment shares. This is the path traveled by the Songjiang Luohua Shipyard, which is now the fourth largest shipyard in the Great Chu Empire. Big shipyard.

If you have money, you can also directly recruit people to form your own technical team. This is the development path of Guangzhou Lishi Shipyard. Now Lishi Shipyard is the third largest shipyard in China.

One is third and the other is fourth. These two shipyards are purely private-funded shipyards. They squeezed the unlucky Qingdao Naval Shipyard behind them, second only to Guangzhou Shipyard and Songjiang Naval Shipyard.

The shipbuilding industry is also the first time in the heavy industry of the Great Chu Empire that a company invested by pure private capital has entered a first-class industry.

This also stimulated the hearts of those businessmen even more!
Two examples have proved that private capital can make a difference in the shipbuilding industry, so countless landlords, gentry or businessmen of new industries, after seeing the popularity of the shipbuilding industry, waved the cashier's checks of the financial bank and wanted to Join it.

In just a few years, thousands of shipyards of various types emerged in the Great Chu Empire.

In addition, there are at least hundreds of shipyards registered every year... Similarly, a large number of shipyards that cannot continue to operate go bankrupt or are merged and acquired every year.

The prosperity of the shipbuilding industry has attracted countless people and funds, and at the same time devoured the wealth of countless people. Many businessmen have lost all their money because of investing in shipbuilding.

And in this case, a very special shipbuilding company also appeared in the sight of a large number of trading companies or shipping companies!

This is Zhenjiang No.[-] Shipbuilding Company!

Many people wondered why this shipbuilding company became famous all of a sudden. Before that, no one had even heard of this name except for the locals in Zhenjiang Prefecture.

But the first ship they built caused a sensation in the entire shipping industry and shipbuilding industry!

This is a ship with a V-shaped cross-section clipper bow... Well, it’s not unusual just because of the V-shaped clipper bow. Ticket express ships are all of this type.

They are all V-shaped clipper bows, and the aspect ratio is often exaggerated, often six to one or even seven to one.

Such a large aspect ratio is naturally for extremely high speed!

Therefore, these two typical representative ships are very fast... But, apart from their extremely fast speed, these ships with clipper bows also have a lot of shortcomings in other aspects.

For example, for the sake of speed, the cargo capacity is very small, so don't expect to transport bulk cargo, at most you can transport letters or small cargo.

Still for the sake of speed, the aspect ratio is so large that the lateral stability is too poor to deploy the artillery for shooting.

It is still for speed, so the ship seems to be very large, but compared with warships or armed merchant ships, the materials used are relatively 'economical'.

That is to say, there is no so-called thick wooden shell armor, thick deck support structure, etc., so that it is not suitable for combat use at all.

You said why there are so many problems, because when the naval department designed this new ship type, it did not consider loading or combat, everything was born for speed!

This is a fast communication ship... It's not a battleship or a transport ship. Its only mission is to cross the sea and bring information from one part of the distant sea to another part of the sea at the fastest speed.

Therefore, speed is its most important and only performance requirement, and other performances are abandoned for speed!

At the same time, the nautical performance is not good. Although the ship itself is not bad at resisting high sea conditions due to the flying shear bow, and can even continue to sail in strong winds and waves, but the fact that the ship can withstand it does not mean that people can withstand it...

The feeling of riding in this kind of boat is too uncomfortable... It is as uncomfortable as it is tossed and swayed from side to side.

Not to mention ordinary people, even old sailors who have been floating at sea all year round will have to vomit to death if they don't get used to it for a while!
Therefore, the crew of such postal express ships and communication ships often need to undergo long-term special training before they can serve for a long time on such shaky ships!
Therefore, in recent years, although there are some ships with V-shaped clipper bows, they are only limited to ships that pursue extreme speed, and other ship types are basically not used.

Generally speaking, ocean-going ships use U-shaped ships, and they are still U-shaped with a wide bottom and a narrow top, whether it is a warship or an armed merchant ship. Lun ship type.

As a digression, it is because of this type of ship that the Great Chu Empire scoured the world for naturally curved shipbuilding timber to serve as ship ribs.

If it is an early traditional V-shaped structure, such troublesome natural curved ship ribs can be used.

The advantages of this U-shaped ship are very prominent, that is, its stability is very good, and it is suitable for deploying a large number of artillery for artillery battles at sea. At the same time, the loading capacity can also be very large, and it is suitable as a cargo ship.

This is also the reason why the ships used by navies or trading companies all over the world are all Galen ship types, and it is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire has improved more excellent ship types based on the Galen ship type.

However, the new ship model that caused a sensation in Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company is the V-shaped flying arrow bow ship shape, and it is different from the exaggerated aspect ratio of the clipper ships in the navy or post office. The No. [-] Shipbuilding Company’s new The length-to-width ratio of the ship is only about five to one.

Of course, this five-to-one aspect ratio is considered a relatively large aspect ratio for contemporary ships.

For example, the aspect ratio of battleships is often only three to three, and only cruisers and frigates can reach four to one.

The length and width of Galen's improved merchant ship are almost the same.

The new ship of the First Shipbuilding Company has a five to one aspect ratio, and naturally has a higher speed.

In addition to the V-shaped clipper bow and large aspect ratio, this vessel also uses a three-masted rig...a rig is common on small boats, but very rare on larger ships , and the new ship built by the First Shipbuilding Company is not small, with a full load displacement of more than 500 tons.

The V-shaped arrow bow, the five-to-one aspect ratio, and the multi-masted schooner... these knot combinations have never been thought of before, or thought of but no one really did it.

After the First Shipbuilding Company combined these features, it came out with a very special ship: the Changlin.

One was ordered by Jinling Shipping Co., Ltd., to be used for fast passenger transportation on domestic short-sea routes.

When Jinling Shipping Company conducted the design bidding at that time, they put forward contradictory performance requirements. They required that the ship should have good sailing ability against the wind, so that it can be easily navigated in various places throughout the year; it needs to be well adapted to the complex sea conditions in the offshore Capability; it is necessary to maintain a high speed, and the average speed cannot be lower than eight knots;
Then you need to be able to carry some cargo. After all, in addition to carrying passengers, ships also need to transport cargo.

Then, the operating cost should not be too high, and the number of operators should be reduced as much as possible!

The combination of this series of complex design requirements directly kicked out a large number of traditional Chinese ship models and the Galen ship model that is now popular... The reason is very simple, the speed cannot meet the requirements.

In the end, the designers of Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company slapped their heads and began to imitate the fast communication ships of the navy... Of course, it is not enough to use them directly. These communication ships are nothing but speed. No shipping or trading company is interested in them except the Post Office!

They reduced the super-large aspect ratio of the fast communication ship, and found that the stability was acceptable. Although the cargo capacity was not as good as that of the Galen ship, it was still there.

When installing the sails, they did not use the soft square sails of the navy... because the Jinling Shipping Company clearly requested to reduce operating costs, so the soft square sails that cost too much manpower will not work.

At the beginning, the first shipbuilding company tried the traditional Chinese hard square sail... The result was naturally unreliable.

In fact, pure rigid sails also have their own characteristics and benefits, and they will be more mainstream in later generations, but this thing needs good material technology as a support. For example, nylon is best used for rigid sails... Hollow high-performance steel pipes should be used for masts.

The current technology of the Great Chu Empire is far from home, so it is unreliable to forcefully use hard sails, so they can only use soft sails.

In the end, they tried and tested. They combined the soft vertical sails and traditional hard square sails used on many small ships. The combination of Western style soft sails and Chinese style hard sails has produced a new type of schooner rig they call the 'topsprit rig'.

After successfully solving the problem of sailing, many designs were combined, and this new type of ship appeared.

In the end, this design impressed Jinling Shipping Company. In fact, this is the only ship design that meets the design requirements of Jinling Shipping Company, and Jinling Shipping Company has no choice...

In the end, an order was placed to build one...just one, and the Jinling Shipping Company has to consider the risks. No matter how good-looking the paper design is, it has to make a try first. If it doesn't work, stop the loss in time, and then find another way.

Then the 'Changlin' ​​was built, and after going through the sea trial for the first time, it was directly shocked by a huge shock!

During the first trial voyage, Changlin showed excellent performance, with extremely fast speed and excellent ability to sail against the wind, and the flying shear bow also has excellent navigation stability in high sea conditions, avoiding casual waves. The situation flooded onto the deck.

And although the stability is not as good as the Galen ship, it is not too bad. It is not possible to deploy artillery, but it is not a big problem if it is just a passenger.

At the same time, this kind of ship requires very few sailors and the cost of sailing is not high.

This trial voyage, the new ship model was a great success!
After the Jinling Shipping Company achieved great success in the first trial voyage, without delay for half a second, it directly signed an agreement with Zhenjiang No. Order for five large [-]-ton new ships.

As soon as the first order was signed, a number of shipping companies came to the door, and even trading companies that specialized in overseas trade continued to come over, trying to buy this new type of ship.

In fact, they want to find other shipyards to directly purchase this new ship type, but in the "Changlin Ship Type", other technical features are good, and there are basically no restrictions. For example, the special ship type "V-shaped Clipper Bow" It was developed by the Ship Administration Department, and it was directly released for everyone to use.

But the 'upper edge girder sail' is a patent developed by the No. [-] Shipbuilding Company itself. Even though it is just a sail layout, they still have applied for a patent and own the patent right.

Don't think that this is just a sail layout method, and it is too nonsense to apply for a patent. In fact, it is not nonsense at all. As long as it is the first new method, the new method can theoretically apply for a patent.

If this cannot be patented, then the patents on a large number of mechanical equipment cannot be obtained, because many technological breakthroughs may sound grand, but in fact it may be that the shape of the parts has changed... And this change has caused a huge breakthrough in technology.

Therefore, the top gaff sail can be patented, and the patent protector is 15 years old!
Theoretically, as long as the First Shipbuilding Company does not license the patents, only they will be able to produce and sell topsail schooners within 15 years.

Because of patent restrictions, those shipping companies who want new ship types can only find Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company. The arrival of countless shipping or trading company personnel made Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company explode in the shipbuilding industry and shipping trade circles instantly. fire.

Even the Dachudi newspaper published the news that the new ship type of the first shipbuilding company had achieved great success during the trial voyage, and an article commented that this long forest ship type would change the travel and life of the empire.

When people go on a long-distance sea trip in the future, the time can be greatly shortened.

Some more expensive and time-sensitive goods, such as tea, can be transported from the place of origin to various markets more quickly.

In addition, the author of the article also consulted shipbuilding experts, and these shipbuilding experts pointed out that in addition to the extremely good speed of the Changlin ship type, the strong headwind and tack sailing capabilities brought about by its "top girder sail" are actually better than It is more suitable for rivers, lakes, and offshore use.

The upper edge girder sail can replace the traditional hard sail in the past and become the mainstream sail in the inland river and lake area, and even the long forest ship can replace the sand ship and become the new main ship type for inland river and lake transportation.

And this has also attracted the attention of a lot of domestic shipping companies that transport inland rivers and lakes.

Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company is on fire!
And looking at the signed orders for more than [-] Changlin ship types, there are still hundreds of orders... Song Zuotie, the general manager of Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company, is happy and painful!

Too many orders...

His shipyard can't do it at all, just the current orders and intention orders, the first shipbuilding company can't make so many ships for ten years...

After all, his No. [-] shipbuilding company is just a small shipyard with only a hundred workers. It is considered to be quite strong in a small shipyard, but in the shipbuilding industry across the country, none of them can get into the top [-]. ...

It is simply impossible to fulfill so many orders.

Maybe, it's time to consider another way, the remaining orders don't sell boats, but sell sails directly!

Anyway, these people basically came here for the gaff sails, and they would be happier if they sold the sails directly.

In this way, although part of the profit of the hull is given up, it is better than watching the orders pile up like a mountain, but not daring to accept the order.

It is also possible to authorize the patent of the sail suit to other shipyards directly, let them directly produce the new sail suit, and then charge the patent fee on their own, but the license fee must be high.

This is a good thing that has caused a sensation. The authorization fee must not be too low, or I am sorry that he was holding tea every day and staring at the engineers under him who stayed up late and worked overtime.

During that time, I drank several catties of tea!
But no matter what, Song Zuotie knew very well that he was going to get rich, even more rich than when he was dreaming...

(End of this chapter)