I want to be emperor

Li's Iron & Steel spent a huge amount of money to acquire the core business of Wuhu Machine Tool Company, which caused a sensation in the industrial circles of the Great Chu Empire.

After all, this is not only an acquisition worth hundreds of thousands of Chu Yuan, but also the first acquisition of a large enterprise affiliated to the Ministry of Industry by private capital.

Although Li's Iron and Steel Company is no longer a pure private capital, most of its shares are held by various financial institutions, and the Guangzhou government finance is the second largest shareholder, but in any case, this is an uncompromising company. Non-deductible private enterprises.

This has caused a certain impact on the industry, and even changed people's impression of the enterprises of the Ministry of Industry to a certain extent.

Restricted by the strength of the enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of Industry in the early days, people actually treat the enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of Industry as official institutions in many cases...

But in fact this is just a misunderstanding of people outside!

The major enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of Industry of the Great Chu Empire, including the enterprises owned by official capital invested by various local governments, have never been administrative agencies... they are just ordinary commercial companies.

Although the general offices and other executives of government-run enterprises are all officials, they are only personnel sent by the government to manage official capital... Even the official status is not attached to the enterprise itself, but to the Ministry of Industry or local financial management institutions Here, taking a job is also a dispatch job.

The official enterprises in the Great Chu Empire are actually very simple and pure, that is, commercial companies invested by the official capital of the empire, registered and operated according to a series of industrial and commercial laws of the empire.

Although they have political tasks such as developing technology, supporting national defense, and stabilizing people's livelihood, their series of operations are actually no different from ordinary private enterprises.

In this case, in fact, many enterprises invested by official capital will go bankrupt at a loss, be sold and transferred, or acquire and annex other private enterprises and other normal corporate behaviors.

Except for some specific industries and enterprises with great relationship, officials generally will not get involved in the specific operation and management of enterprises.

Enterprises are responsible for their own profits and losses...If they can't continue to do business, they should close down, and if they should sell, they should sell...Anyway, don't expect the government to give you the bottom line.

In fact, there have been many examples before, especially in the light industry.

The official capital of the Great Chu Empire has been involved in many light industries in the early years, especially the textile industry. This thing was originally started by official capital...

But later, as the official capital adjusted its strategic focus, it adopted concentrated efforts to invest in the construction of heavy industry, and gradually handed over light industry to private capital.

During this process, official capital gradually sold some of the textile industries or related industries it held for cash.

Now there is only a single seedling of Hantian Textile Company left, and the reason why this single seedling is left is not because this company is very profitable, but because Hantian Textile Company is actually The most important special textile enterprise in the Great Chu Empire is also a supplier of a series of military textiles for the Great Chu Empire's military.

This company is a defense supplier, part of the defense industry system...the company supplies quite a lot of military tents, raincoats, military uniforms, quilts, leather products, etc.

Otherwise, with the temperament of the high-level officials of the Ministry of Industry, Hantian Textile Company would have been sold off long ago.

The textile industry is just a microcosm. In fact, most of the official capital of the light industry industry has entered, but many of them have withdrawn in the end.

Not to mention the light industry industry, even in typical heavy industries such as steel, machinery, shipbuilding, and shipping, the official capital has actually been sold many times, and many companies have gone bankrupt. As for the sale of shares for cash, or the introduction of private capital for strategic investment That's more.

It's just that the scale of these actions in the past was relatively small, or the message was not spread so widely, and it didn't attract the attention of the general public.

But Wuhu Machine Tool Company is different. This is the second largest machine tool company in China. Well, it was the second largest machine tool company in China at least two years ago. Has more than [-] employees.

Such a company, in the eyes of many people, is no different from an official organization, and they also think that such a huge company cannot go bankrupt, and the government will save it no matter what...

Two years ago, many people in Wuhu Machine Tool Company were expecting the Ministry of Industry to license a series of high-performance material patents from Hantian Machinery Company...

As a result, the senior management of the Ministry of Industry directly brought the company into bankruptcy and reorganization, and directly sold the assets to cash in and stop losses...

This shocked the nerves of many people!

Shout out impossible...

These people still fail to understand some of the mentality of the Ministry of Industry and even the top leaders of the empire... Except for the few arsenals, the grain company, the salt company, and the Mint and a few truly indispensable enterprise factories, other government-run enterprises In fact, that's it...

Nothing can't be sold...

Not to mention a company in the machine tool industry that has been tossed to bankruptcy. Anyway, the Ministry of Industry still has a bunch of alternative sons and godsons. It is normal to sell this adopted son to avoid more losses.

Take ten thousand steps back... Huaxia has been an official since ancient times!

What does this official standard mean? That is, from the perspective of the high-level empire, the money of the Ministry of Industry is the money of the empire, and the money of Li's iron making is also the money of the empire... It doesn't matter who owns the money now. I can take it when I need it...

Well, this is also Luo Zhixue's mentality!
There is no king's soil under the whole world, and there is no king's ministers on the coast of leading the soil!
Even your life is mine, is your money important to me?
Moreover, Luo Zhixue didn't spend any money. He can proudly say that since he traveled through time for more than ten years, he has never brought any money with him... let alone spent any money.

So why does Luo Zhixue want your money, the whole empire belongs to him...

People look at you just like you look at monkeys in your own zoo. Would you be jealous that your monkey has an extra banana?

Of course, the small group of high-level people in the empire, to be precise, is the mentality of Luo Zhixue and the ministers of counsel who have less than one person and more than [-] people!
Anyone with a lower status, even a co-organizer, would find it difficult to experience this mentality.

So many things seem unreasonable to you at first glance, but when you stand at a different height and look at the problem from a different angle, you will find that it is natural!

Even Lee's Iron and Steel Company was a little surprised that the top management of the empire would approve their acquisition so quickly, but they were surprised, but after receiving the reply of agreeing to the acquisition, they quickly took action.

It will cost a lot of money to acquire the core business of Wuhu Machine Tool Company... because the Ministry of Industry has a very clear goal. On the one hand, it is to fill up the huge loan owed by the Finance Bank... If there is a problem with this loan, the Finance Bank The Anlu Provincial Branch might be furious, and a lot of people would also be unlucky.

On the other hand, it is necessary to resume production to maintain the development of the industry.

Dealing with loan bad debts and maintaining the development of the entire industry are the main reasons for the Ministry of Industry's scruples.

They can make Wuhu Machine Tool Company go bankrupt, but they don't want to see the second largest machine tool company in China go bankrupt, which will lead to the end of the entire machine tool industry. The industry brings new competitiveness, and then continues to develop the entire machine tool industry.

These appeals from the Ministry of Industry finally came to Lee's Iron and Steel, and there was only one problem left: money!
Money is easy to talk about, these things are nothing.

If you don't have money... then you can't do it.

Lee's Steel quickly negotiated with the bankruptcy and reorganization committee, and then negotiated the details of the transaction one by one.

In the end, the two parties reached a negotiation agreement. Wuhu Machine Tool Company split its core business and other businesses. Li’s Iron and Steel Company acquired Wuhu Machine Tool Company’s core business, including three major production bases, with a direct cash of 43 Chu Yuan. The Institute, two large laboratories and other corresponding assets also assumed the core business of about 20 Chu Yuan in bank loans, supplier payments and other debts. Calculated in this way, the total investment actually reached 63 Chu Yuan.

Although this is not the biggest acquisition in the contemporary industrial world, it is still considered a large-scale acquisition, and the acquisition target is so special.

After the Ministry of Industry sold the core assets, it basically filled in the big hole of more than 60 Chu yuan, and then sold other messy assets one by one. After splitting and selling them in this way, it was found that the original capital was insolvent The Wuhu Machine Tool Company in Wuhu finally got rid of all the loans, leaving tens of thousands of Chu Yuan...

In the words of the boss of the Ministry of Industry: Finally, there is still a little silver dross left...

Needless to say about other business aspects, let’s say that after the core machine tool business of Wuhu Machine Tool Company was taken over by Lee’s Iron and Steel, Historical Iron and Steel Company reorganized these core businesses into Lee’s Machine Tool Company.

Immediately afterwards, a comprehensive rectification was carried out. The reason why Li's Iron and Steel Company became the largest private enterprise in the country was not only because of their wealth, but also because of their efficient management.

Otherwise, how could they support a huge comprehensive group enterprise with assets of several million Chu Yuan.

After the reorganization, the employee size of Li's Machine Tool Company has shrunk by more than 50.00% compared to the era of Wuhu Machine Tool Company... And these workers don't have to worry about losing their jobs... The industrial revolution of the Great Chu Empire in China is in full swing. Workers, especially those with skills or It is easier for experienced workers to find a job.

Before the bankruptcy and reorganization of Wuhu Machine Tool Company, many people had already quit...

At the same time as the layoffs, Lee's Iron and Steel Company once again resorted to their usual killer move: spending money to poach people!

The layoffs are ordinary workers, administrative staff and half-baked R&D personnel.

Digging people, they are R&D personnel!

As a typical heavy industry enterprise based on shipbuilding and iron making, coupled with a series of previous successful experiences, the management of Lee's Iron & Steel Group attaches great importance to technology.

Spending money to poach people to develop technology is their basic practice... No matter what they do, they do it all the time, and they are almost getting used to it.

Then, Hantian Machinery Company, who was eating melons and watching the show next to it, discovered that...the core R&D team of its own machine tools had been poached away...especially a dozen core engineers in the R&D of machine tool tools were poached away More than half!
The high-level executives of Hantian Machinery Co., Ltd. are so angry... This is not here to poach people at all, this is to dig out the roots...

In a panic, he went to the opposite Li's Iron Manufacture to argue, saying that he would sue them for illegal competition.

The people from Li’s Iron and Steel Company directly drove them away, and said that you couldn’t keep them because you didn’t pay enough money. Why are you number one in the machine tool industry? That’s all the money you give to engineers. I feel ashamed for all of you...

He also said that I am dignifiedly spending money to poach people, and you can sue if you have the ability. We Li's Iron and Steel have not many other things, but we have a lot of lawyers!

Sue... This is actually impossible to sue, because there is no non-compete clause these days, and resignation is also very simple. Even if the two parties sign a work contract or something, as long as the employee resigns on paper with reasonable reasons, he can leave on the same day... …It does not require the consent of the company. As for reasonable reasons, it is not happy to do it, the body feels bad, and the dog at home dies...

Of course, special employment contracts are exceptions... For example, some employment contracts such as share dividends are different from ordinary employment, and it is very troublesome to violate the contract, but engineers are not high-level managers, so they can be hired without these special terms contract.

Generally speaking, it is very easy to recruit talents in the Great Chu Empire. As long as you give enough money, they will jump to another job.

Similarly, it is very difficult to recruit talents, because you don't have enough money, and people ignore you...

But Li's Steel is not short of money!
Therefore, for other companies, it is difficult to find the technical team of Hantian Machinery Company, but for Lee's Iron and Steel Company, it is very easy to recruit people, just spend money.

In addition to high wages, resignation compensation, signing fees, relocation allowances, and shares... When Lee's Iron and Steel Company made up its mind to poach people, not to mention ordinary engineers, even serving officials couldn't stand it!

Many of the senior managers of Lee's Iron & Steel Company are actually officials from the Ministry of Industry...including the current general office, which used to be the general office of Guangzhou Shipyard, and the fifth-rank officials of the Ministry of Industry...

What made them give up their official positions and prefer to work in a private enterprise, and why, without him, they were given too much money...

However, even if Lee's Iron and Steel Company has dug up a technical team, theoretically, with this group of people, some high-performance machine tools of Hantian Machinery Company, including cutting tools, can be copied.

But they can't do that because it would involve patent infringement!
Ordinary people may not have even heard of the patent law of the Great Chu Empire. For some small workshops and small businesses, they would sneak around the corner, as long as they were not discovered.

But it is very difficult for large enterprises, because they can’t be satisfied at all. Once the other party finds out that you are infringing, based on the current patent law of the Great Chu Empire, they will sue you for bankruptcy in minutes.

Because of the patent law in the Great Chu Empire, the compensation in case of losing the case is very scary.

If they want to produce high-performance machine tools, they have to bypass patents. This is not easy, and they need to continue to spend a lot of money on repeated attempts and research.

In this regard, Lee's Steel has experience and patience.

Lee's Iron and Steel Company invested heavily in the machine tool manufacturing industry, which also triggered other domestic capital, especially private capital, to pay more attention to machine tools and even the entire machinery industry.

After all, this is Lee's Iron and Steel Company, a leading domestic private manufacturing company, and their every move still touches people's hearts.

In particular, they entered the shipbuilding industry before and achieved great success, and a bunch of private capital followed suit and entered the shipbuilding industry, and some of them were full of oil.

Therefore, many private capital who have money in their hands but don’t know where to invest it, after seeing Lee’s Iron and Steel Company enter the machine tool manufacturing industry, wondered whether they could also go in and make a wave.

But many people give up after trying for a while... Nima, the machine tool industry is too complicated!
There are as many as five domestic large companies specializing in machine tools, and many large comprehensive companies also have their own machine tool manufacturing departments. There is no market for ordinary low-end machine tools, because some powerful machinery companies can do it!
The market for mid-end machine tools is basically dominated by those big companies.

And high-end machine tools... is the exclusive market of Hantian Machinery Company.

In addition to the extremely fierce competition, the more important thing is that this industry is a typical technology industry. Without excellent technology, it is impossible to produce usable mid-to-high-end machine tools.

In the situation that Hantian Machinery Company is almost a monopoly, it still wants to rush in to grab a piece of the pie, regardless of whether it makes money or not, but it is estimated that it will have to invest hundreds of thousands in the first place.

These hundreds of thousands may not necessarily succeed.

Not all capital, like Lee's Steel, likes to play this kind of business with high barriers to entry and difficulty. Most capital still likes to enter and exit quickly, or it is very safe and can have stable income visible to the naked eye.

Therefore, although the response was strong, there were not many big companies or financial institutions investing in machine tools.
As for machine tools, let the Ministry of Industry and people with big businesses like Lee's Steel Works play with them, they can't afford it...

But the machine tool can't be done, but the machine tool can be done.

Li's Iron and Steel invested heavily in machine tools, because it must have valued the huge market of the machine tool industry in the future, and the future growth rate must be very large. This meat can't be eaten. Let's have some soup, set up a related industry, and do supporting facilities.

Ever since, some people have thought about investing in machine tool related industries, trying to do supporting.

Li's Iron and Steel Company doesn't care about these, they are now digging their heads to research and develop technology...

However, Hantian Machinery Co., Ltd., the leader in the machine tool industry, was not in the mood to deal with it. They also adopted various targeted measures, such as improving the salary of engineers, using special treatment such as share dividends, binding core engineers, etc., to deal with Li's system. Iron menacing digging hoe!

At the same time, Hantian Machinery Co., Ltd. has once again increased its investment in research and development!
Although the total assets of Hantian Machinery Company are not as good as Li's Steel, they also have a lot of money, and they have always attached great importance to research and development...

Now that a spoiler like Lee's Steel has entered the machine tool industry, and has targeted the high-end machine tool market from the very beginning, they naturally have a sense of crisis, so they have increased investment in research and development.

Seeing this, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Empire was naturally smiling!
Lee's Iron & Steel Company's entry into the machine tool industry, as they expected, has brought innovation to the machine tool industry that has been a dominant force for several years.

Healthy competition once again appeared in the machine tool industry.

That's what they like to see the most.

Only with healthy competition can the development of the machine tool industry be further and continuously promoted. As the upstream industry of the industrial system, the machine tool industry's performance level and cost directly determine the performance level and cost of the entire industrial system of the Great Chu Empire.

Just like the steam engine, why is the steam engine so expensive, because the various materials and processing equipment used to process the steam engine are expensive...

Why is processing equipment expensive?

Because the Hantian Machinery Company sells it expensively...

Any high-end boring machine costs tens of thousands of Chu Yuan, and this one alone, you have no choice...

Now that Lee's Steel has entered the game, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Industry hope that after a few years, domestic machine tools will usher in a new wave of technological upgrading, and a large number of high-end machine tools will become low-end machine tools, which will then promote the entire industry. The level of the machining industry has greatly reduced the cost of industrial products.

For example, a steam engine.

Today, the price of a [-]-horsepower steam engine of four to five thousand Chu yuan is simply unusable except for mining and high value-added enterprises with special needs.

However, if the price of a steam engine of the same specification is reduced to hundreds of Chu Yuan, then the application scale of industrial steam engines can be expanded dozens of times or even larger in an instant.

And this requires the continuous improvement of the upstream industrial system.

And there is no progress without competition.

Seeing the wave of healthy competition resurfacing in the machine tool industry, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Industry are thinking about finding other half-dead industries, especially industries that only have official capital investment.

Just as the domestic industry continued to be turbulent and developing at a high speed, a merchant fleet of the Great Chu Empire also set sail from Shicheng Port at the eastern end of the Strait of Malacca and headed for India through the Strait of Malacca!

This is a fleet of many armed trading companies of the Great Chu Empire, with four large armed merchant ships of the Nanyang Trading Company as the core, and seven armed merchant ships of other companies.

All of them are new ocean-going ships with a full load displacement of more than [-] tons!

They will go to India for trade in a group to keep warm in order to deal with the frequent piracy activities, especially in the Indian Ocean where the risk has become higher and higher in the past two years.

As the disputes between the Portuguese and the Dutch continued to intensify, and the British also began to increase their colonization of the Indian region, the most important thing was that the Great Chu Empire entered the Indian Peninsula region strongly.

The colonial trade situation on the Indian peninsula has become very complicated and chaotic, accompanied by a surge in the number of 'pirates', and these 'pirates' are often particularly powerful in combat, at least the local Indian natives can't keep up... …

Because...the Nanyang Trading Company and the Dutch East India Company, the two trading companies alone, contributed at least half of the cases of pirate attacks in the Indian Ocean!