I want to be emperor

Chapter 661 Canned Meat Eating Dead People
To cover the national market, the expansion strategy of the entire product line is not only the Guangzhou Machinery Company, but also the common choice of the other two domestic steam manufacturers 'Dangtu Machinery Company' and 'Tianjin Machinery Company'.

They are invariably enriching their product lines and actively seizing the national market.

This also means that the steam engine market in the Great Chu Empire has ushered in more intense competition!

After all, the market is limited. In the past few years, the three major steam engine manufacturers each maintained a major share of the small, medium, or large steam engine market segments, and at the same time stabilized the regional market share in the region where their company is located.

Although there is competition between them, the competition is not too great, and each of them can live well and earn huge profits.

However, with the passage of time, after the three major steam engine manufacturers have gradually explored more technologies for their own steam engines, it is also due to factors such as the continuous development of large domestic machine tools and the continuous decline in the processing costs of many core parts required by steam engines. As far as the three major steam engine manufacturers are concerned, in fact, everyone can make various types of steam engines, and there is not much difference in technology.

In this way, they will naturally think about expanding the product line and snatching more orders.

In order to integrate the supply chain, in order to supply goods nearby and reduce transportation costs, they also chose to build factories across regions.

While Guangzhou Machinery Company was based in the Pearl River Basin, it went to Songjiang Prefecture at the mouth of the Yangtze River to establish a new production base. Its ambition to enter the hinterland of the Yangtze River Basin was very obvious.

As for Tianjin Machinery Company, it chose to establish its own steam engine factory in Jiading County, Suzhou Prefecture next door. Its ambitions are also clear, and it is for the market in the Yangtze River Basin.

As for Dangtu Machinery Company, which itself has an advantage in the Yangtze River Basin, they went to Liaohe Estuary in Liaodong, which is also the largest industrial base in Northeast China, to establish a medium-sized steam engine factory.

Then he went to Dongguan County in the east of Guangzhou Prefecture to build a steam engine factory.

These three steam engine manufacturers all chose to enter each other's advantageous fields to seize the market, and developed towards a large-scale comprehensive steam engine manufacturer with a full product line and covering the whole country.

These three major steam engine manufacturers competed with each other, and were also widely welcomed by an official of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and other industries, especially those that needed steam engines.

Because after they started to compete, the price of this steam engine continued to drop!

When the steam engine was first mass-produced, the price of a 4000-horsepower steam engine was more than 2000 Chu Yuan, but today, a few years later, a [-]-horsepower steam engine only costs about [-] Chu Yuan.

Although the price is not as exaggerated as the cut in half, it is at least two-fifths less.

Of course, the reduction in the price of steam engines is not due to the competition among the steam engine manufacturers themselves, but also due to the competition among a series of upstream enterprises, especially steel enterprises.

Steel companies compete with each other, and more importantly, with the development of new technologies, steel production is increasing. However, there is no railway that can absorb a large amount of steel production capacity these days.

Although the shipbuilding industry began to use iron materials as load-bearing materials such as ship ribs, it was not yet time to build all-steel ships.

These two major industries that consume steel have not yet matured, and the Great Chu Empire also temporarily uses the habit or technology of steel and cement buildings.

However, the output of steel is increasing year by year... Especially after several years of research and development in major steel companies, many companies have found patents to bypass the mixing method of Daye Iron and Steel Company.

Although the technical principle of the stirring method is still used, their patents have been circumvented in the specific production implementation.

This has also led to the fact that the steel costs of other steel companies can save patent fees, and then they can lower prices to compete.

These add up, and finally lead to a continuous decline in steel prices.

In the summer of Chengshun's 20th year, compared with Chengshun's 16-year period, the price of steel has dropped by at least 60.00%... Even so, they are still very profitable.

It can be seen from this that in the past few years, Daye Iron and Steel Company relied on the patent of the Daye steelmaking method, and it really made a lot of money... While making money by producing wrought iron by itself, it also made money by collecting patent fees. Let them accumulate a huge cash flow, invest heavily in the acquisition of iron ore or even coal mines, and then establish their own steel branch factories and so on.

In just a few years, the scale of Daye Iron and Steel Company has far surpassed other iron and steel companies, and it has become the only iron and steel enterprise in the iron and steel industry in the Great Chu Empire. It owns iron and coal mines in many places in the country , and set up a steel branch.

Moreover, this is a comprehensive large-scale iron and steel mining enterprise covering iron and steel smelting, iron ore development, coal mine development and other non-ferrous metal development.

The decline in steel prices is also due to the decline in the cost and selling price of iron ore and coal.

The cost and selling price of iron ore and coal mines have fallen, in addition to the continuous development of more coal mines in China, and the large-scale application of steam engines in the mining industry.

The large-scale use of steam engines in mining enterprises has made mining enterprises more efficient and lower mining costs.

So... this makes for an interesting cycle!

The cost of coal and iron ore has dropped, which has lowered the cost of downstream steel, which in turn has led to a drop in the cost of large iron products such as steam engines.

After the cost and selling price of steam engines have dropped, more mining companies have been able to use steam engines.

This cycle of constantly lowering costs and increasing production has allowed steam engines to enter more industries after their prices have continued to drop.

In the early years, apart from mining companies, only some high-tech companies with high added value and rigid demands, such as Daye Heavy Machinery Company and Zhenjiang Heavy Machinery Company, could afford steam engines.

But now some machinery companies with less added value can also use steam engines. For example, the Songjiang production base factory of Guangzhou Machinery Company has purchased large-scale steam engines as power instead of using water power like many other traditional factories.

In the future visible to the naked eye, perhaps in three to five years, even the typical low-value-added, labor-intensive, and low-margin industries like the textile industry will be able to use industrial steam engines.

The textile industry has long been waiting for the steam engine... This kind of stable and reliable power is much easier to use than water power, and they want it too.

It is a pity that the purchase cost of the early steam engine and the subsequent use cost were very high. For the textile industry with a relatively low gross profit margin and fierce price competition, no matter how good the steam engine is, it is still a loss-making business...

However, if the price of the steam engine is reduced and the cost of adoption is also reduced, then for more stable and higher production efficiency, the textile industry can also use it.

In three to five years, the industrial production of the Great Chu Empire will enter a brand new stage: the production stage powered by steam engines.

This will play a major role in promoting the industrial and commercial development of the Great Chu Empire.

Because this means that many places without hydropower resources are not suitable for building hydropower factories, and the transportation costs are high, but there is market demand, and cheap steam engine factories can also be established to produce various industrial products.

And this will further drive the industrial and commercial development of the Great Chu Empire.

After the development of industry and commerce, the empire can increase and collect more taxes, and can also export a large number of industrial products in exchange for a large number of industrial raw materials or agricultural products overseas.

Then these large quantities of imported agricultural products, such as economic crops cotton, grain, etc., can alleviate the domestic food supply situation, so that the people can have an extra share of food.

But what needs to be worthwhile is that in this era, pure industry itself cannot actually make the people more full, and the increase in agricultural output is limited.

In addition to allowing farmers to use better agricultural tools in the early stage of industrial development, which can improve agricultural production efficiency and total grain output, if you want to rely on industry to further increase grain output, then you have to go to the chemical fertilizer industry and mechanized farming

The industrial development of the Great Chu Empire was limited to the improvement of agricultural tools and water conservancy facilities, but it was not able to greatly increase the total grain output like the modern industry of later generations.

After the development of industry in this era, if you only rely on the local, it will not be of much help to solve the food problem...

However, if there are a large number of overseas markets, then it will be different.

Relying on its own strong industry, it exports a large amount of cheap industrial products, and then exchanges them for overseas food, cash crops, industrial raw materials, etc.

In this way, the total food supply in the country can be increased.

Not to mention the direct import of food, let’s talk about the import of economic crops. These economic crops need land and agricultural population to grow. If they can be imported in large quantities from overseas, then domestic land and agricultural population can be used more for food. production, thereby increasing the total domestic grain output.

Of course, based on the current technical conditions of the Great Chu Empire, mainly in terms of material transportation conditions, the scale of such imports will not be too large.

After all, it takes a very long time for sea transportation, and the cost of sea transportation is very high now, and food itself is a kind of cheap bulk material, and the shelf life is not long, so the limitation of transporting imported food from overseas to local consumption is still very large .

At present, the Great Chu Empire can only import food from the Nanyang Peninsula, mainly the Kingdom of Siam. As for other places, such as Annan and Cambodia, their own food production is not good.

Although many Southeast Asian countries belong to tropical coastal areas, there are also some coastal plains. At first glance, they seem to be food producing areas, but in fact, food production in many places is very limited, and they can’t eat enough for themselves...

Because the tropical coastal climate has a lot of rain, if some coastal plain areas do not have a superior natural environment, or have artificial water conservancy facilities in the later stage, in fact, these places can only be seen... because every rainy season, these places are will flood.

In later generations, these places produced a lot of grain. It was because after the industrial society, a large number of water conservancy facilities were built, which turned many places in Nanyang into the main grain producing areas.

In ancient times, most of these places were actually poor.

The only exception is Siam. The natural conditions in their southern coastal areas are very good, with plenty of water and not too much flooding. Rice can be grown twice or even three times a year.

This is also the reason why the Great Chu Empire imported a large amount of grain from the Kingdom of Siam.

In addition, meat that also belongs to food should not be imported, let alone imported, even if it is domestic long-distance transportation, such as transporting meat from Monan to the southern region, it is extremely difficult.

The shelf life of fresh meat is too short to be transported long distances in this day and age.

On the whole, the large-scale long-distance transportation of meat, especially the long-distance transportation by sea, basically has to wait until the frozen transport ships come out to become a feasible solution.

Before this, it was impossible to engage in large-scale fresh meat transportation!
Unless you make bacon, bacon, etc., but the cost is relatively high. In fact, except for the military who will produce these meat products on a large scale, and then store and transport them for a long time, civilians rarely do this.

Even the military, in fact, does not produce bacon or bacon now, but canned food.

In the early days, the military of the Great Chu Empire made all kinds of clay pots, and then used tinplate to produce iron cans. There are various types of cans, from fruits to various meats.

In the later stage, in order to reduce costs, some manufacturers also used synthetic meat, that is, processed with various leftover materials, bleached and colored with various chemicals, added flavor, and added some starch... Then the manufacturers who produced this synthetic meat The family was ransacked!

One bite of this shit, half of the mouthful is full of various additives, it can eat dead people...

Then the military went crazy...

This case, coupled with frequent food safety accidents in many small workshops, also prompted the Great Chu Empire to promulgate the first food safety law, strictly prohibiting the use of various hazardous foods in the process of food production and processing. Additives, some of which are needed, should also be strictly controlled in dosage.

Frequent occurrence of food safety issues is also a negative impact of industrial development.

In the past, there were not so many messy chemical additives, and the food was basically original.

But after the industrial age, chemicals for various purposes have been developed and used in the food industry for preservation, preservation, coloring, deodorization, flavor enhancement, etc.

But many of these things are inedible and have great harm to the human body.

Under such a background, the Great Chu Empire had to issue a special food safety law to regulate the food processing industry and the food additive industry.

serious harm to the health of the public.

Frequent food problems are just a small problem brought about by the opening of the industrialization era. In fact, more problems have emerged one after another, many of which are still serious.

From a macro perspective, after the opening of the industrialization era, production efficiency can be greatly improved and the quality of human life can be improved.

But if you look at it from a microscopic perspective, in fact, the opening of industrialization will also bring about some ugliness that did not exist in the past, or further magnify the original ugliness.

Luo Zhixue is well aware of this, and what he can do is to pass various rules and regulations as much as possible to avoid the negative impact of industrialization, just like promoting food safety legislation.

The advantages of industrialization are good, but the disadvantages should be avoided as much as possible.

But none of this can stop the wave of industrialization of the Great Chu Empire rolling forward, and it is still moving forward at a very exaggerated speed.

Chengshun just passed the first half of 20, and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce obtained the sales reports of the three major steam engine manufacturers and more than a dozen other manufacturers that have successively entered the steam engine industry, and then found Luo Zhixue to report, or to ask for credit.

I saw Wen Yuan, the left servant of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce who was specifically in charge of the development of steam engines, said with a happy face:

"In the past six months, the development of my country's steam engine industry has once again exceeded our expectations!"

"Originally, we estimated that the sales volume of steam engines in the first half of this year was around [-] horses, and the annual sales volume should be around [-] horses."

"This estimated data has increased by more than 30.00% compared to last year!"

"But now we have the data that the steam engine sales of various domestic manufacturers in the first half of the year, the total horsepower has reached [-] horsepower, and according to the orders and production capacity estimated by each manufacturer, the annual output is expected to reach Thirty-five thousand horses."

"The development of the steam engine industry is really getting better every year, and almost every year has exceeded our estimates!"

While listening, Luo Zhixue took the report and flipped through it.

It can be seen from this simple report that with the steady improvement of steam engine technology, the price continues to drop, and the price of coal also continues to drop, resulting in lower usage costs.

The industrial circles of the Great Chu Empire have already begun to accept and use steam engines on a large scale. Mining companies in particular have one steam engine per person. In addition, some high value-added industries that have a strong demand for power stability and high horsepower are also The steam engine began to be used on a large scale.

All of these have led to a substantial increase in the demand for steam engines on the market.

The huge steam engine orders in the market have prompted domestic capital, whether it is official capital or private capital, to enter the steam engine industry in large quantities, whether it is directly producing steam engines or indirectly participating in it.

The three major steam engine manufacturers have started a full-scale competition. What is more noteworthy is that in addition to these three steam engine manufacturers, there are more than ten small and medium-sized steam engine manufacturers in China.

For example, Lee's Iron and Steel Company also entered the steam engine industry strongly, organizing the Lee's Steam Engine Company, and Liaodong Hekou Machinery Company also set up a subsidiary company to engage in the steam engine industry.

Hantian Machinery Company, a top domestic machinery company that sells kitchen knives and machine tools by the way, is also entering the steam engine industry with great fanfare.

Even Suqin Textile Company, the leader of the textile industry that seems to be out of reach, has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangzhou Machinery Company quietly, and the two parties will jointly invest in research and development for lower cost of use. , A steam engine that can also be used in the textile industry is required.

The Navy of the Great Chu Empire did not fall behind either. The Naval Administration Department issued a number of research and development contracts, mainly to the Steam Engine Research Institute of the Royal Institute of Technology, to support them to continue the research and development of steam engines, in order to be able to develop them and use them on warships. on the steam engine.

In addition, the Ministry of Communications in the civil service system also got involved after hearing about it, and allocated a certain amount of funds to the Steam Engine Research Institute of the Royal Institute of Technology to support their research.

The Ministry of Communications also wants to produce a large number of steam-propelled ships, steam rail carriages and the like, especially steam rail vehicles, which the Ministry of Communications attaches great importance to.

Rail transportation is nothing new in the Great Chu Empire. There will be horse-drawn rail vehicles in major mines and docks for material transportation, from wooden cabinets to the current pig rails. As the price of wrought iron continues to fall, Many newly built mine tracks simply use wrought iron with better performance.

Up to now, all kinds of messy and scattered tracks across the country have a total length of hundreds of kilometers.

Most of them are located in various mines, and some are located in docks and industrial areas.

In addition, there are very few commercial centers located in densely populated areas, that is, horse-drawn rail passenger vehicles.

These tracks are mainly made of cast iron. At the same time, some newly built tracks have begun to use wrought iron. As for the wooden tracks, there are only a few left, and it is estimated that they will be completely eliminated in a few years.

These tracks with a total length of hundreds of kilometers are currently using horse-drawn railcars to transport various goods, making a considerable contribution to the mining and industrial development of the Great Chu Empire.

Especially the railway in the mining area is very important. Many mines are far away from the river, but for now, river transportation is the only way. , especially the downstream river transport is the cheapest and most mainstream mode of transport.

Therefore, after many mines dig out ores, whether it is iron ore or coal, they will first concentrate on the river terminal near the transshipment channel, and then transport them to downstream customers by inland river boats.

Some of this distance may be only a few hundred meters, but some need several kilometers or even tens of kilometers.

Regardless of the length, using rails for transportation is the most time-saving and labor-saving, and the cost is the lowest, which is why major mines like to build rails.

On Qiongzhou Island, the iron ore developed by Qiongzhou Mining Company, a subsidiary of Guangzhou Iron and Steel Company, is still tens of kilometers away from the sea. In order to transport the iron ore out, they directly built a pig iron track, and then used horse-drawn Railcars are used to transport special ores to coastal steel plants for smelting.

So, don’t think that there are no railways in the Great Chu Empire because you can’t see them in ordinary places... In fact, there are many, but most of these railways are located in remote mining areas, and ordinary people can’t see them.

As for the Ministry of Communications, they have always wanted to spread the construction of railways and make railways a real long-distance transportation method.

(End of this chapter)