I want to be emperor

Chapter 711 The Beginning of Mechanized Agriculture

Traditional agricultural production is a labor-intensive industry. Whether it is the staple food of rice or wheat, or the economic crops of cotton, mulberry, and sugar cane, it requires a lot of labor.

At the same time, the production tools of traditional agriculture are not very good. In rural areas, there are not enough cattle and draft horses. Many peasant families can only rely on manual farming, and few use cattle and horses to plant.

Rao is the continuous development of the machinery industry of the Great Chu Empire. Production tools such as hoes and sickles have been greatly improved, but the essence has not changed much.

Rely on a large amount of agricultural labor for production.

This kind of problem is actually not a big problem in the provinces in the Guan, because many places have more people and less land. Even places with fewer people and more land, such as the northern provinces, are only relative. Word.

The agricultural production in these places has basically not received too much labor shortage.

But in several provinces in the Northeast, this situation is different. The local population is small and the land is large, especially in the two provinces of Liaobei and Heishui Province, which have a large area of ​​land to be developed, but the total population is not large .

Even if horse farming is used for farming, the per capita grain production level has been greatly improved compared with that in the pass, but the problem of labor shortage is still conservative.

Ordinary peasant households have no intuitive experience, because although they own a lot of land, this amount is only compared with the customs. Generally speaking, a single family planting a few hundred mu of land is about the same. The extensive management method of horse plowing can be adopted.

But for a super-large agricultural planting company like Liaohua Agricultural Company, the problem of labor shortage is very serious.

The endless rice fields in front of him are the problems that plague Hua Tianzhong!

It is very time-consuming and labor-intensive to rely on manual harvesting. A person can only harvest a few acres of land every day... But the area of ​​rice planted by Liaohua Agricultural Company this year exceeded [-] acres.

Moreover, there is a time limit for grain harvesting. If the rice is harvested too early, the rice will not be fully mature, and if it is harvested too late, the grain will be overripe and fall.

It is not easy to harvest and thresh these grains in a limited time.

The labor force required in a short period of time is very large!

Even the Liaohua Agricultural Company is not enough to deploy people everywhere, they can only hire people temporarily at high prices.

If there can be a mechanical harvester, then the situation will be different.

Hua Tianzhong didn't think much about it at all, and immediately said: "I found the people from the Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company, I want to see them, by the way, if they brought the prototype, let them bring the prototype, empty talk, can you Use it, you will know if you try it!"

Anyway, it won't take long to meet people and see the equipment, but in case the combine harvester produced by the Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company is really usable, it will solve a big problem for their company!
People from Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company are waiting for the reply from Liaohua Agricultural Company. The person who came to sell them didn't do anything at all, and lived in the next town.

Because Liaohua Agricultural Company owns the largest single farm in northern Liaoning and even in the entire Northeast region, which is larger than many purely government-run farms.

Winning the order from Liaohua Agricultural Company is very important for an enterprise specializing in the research, development and production of agricultural machinery.

This is also why they have just successfully developed the harvester, and they can't wait to come to the door to actively sell it.

Soon, Hua Tianzhong, co-organizer of Liaohua Agricultural Company, met people from Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company.

The purpose of the two parties' meeting was very simple and pure. One came to sell, and the other hoped to get a kind of agricultural machinery and equipment. Therefore, after a simple greeting, they went straight to the open space outside.

There are already several sets of equipment brought over by the Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company.

The representative of Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. stepped forward and introduced: "There are two types of harvesters we brought here today. One is a power-storage rocker harvester. It only needs two horses to drag it forward when it is operated, and it uses the ground wheel as power. Provide power for the harvester, and then harvest, the harvested rice will be sent down through the conveyor belt, and placed in bundles on the ground!"

"In the future, we only need to arrange for people to take the rice into the thresher for threshing!"

"In terms of efficiency, with such a two-horse harvester, two people can operate it, and it only takes four hours to harvest ten acres of land!"

"After our research and development this year, we have conducted experiments in many small farms, and the experimental data is only a lot!"

"The big guy next to it is a combination harvester that we have carried out in-depth research and development based on the rocker harvester. After integrating the thresher, the harvester is separated from the one. It uses [-] horses for hauling, which is more efficient! "

Hua Tianzhong looked at the harvester in front of him, listened while watching, and said after hearing the data: "So, on the surface, it is at least many times better than manual harvesting!"

"However, if the labor force of the horses is included, I am afraid that the efficiency is not so high!"

Hua Tianzhong directly pointed out the problem. This kind of harvester, whether it is a simple rocker harvester or a combine harvester, looks good. It seems that the harvesting efficiency is much higher than that of pure manual labor, but this kind of equipment still needs horses to pull it.

And horses are actually labor, and the cost of raising a horse is much more expensive than raising a person.

However, the representative of the Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company said: "Although horses are costly, but in our place, especially your company, there is no shortage of horses, what is lacking is people!"

Hua Tianzhong didn't speak after listening, because what the other party said was the truth!
To be honest, their company has no shortage of horses, not to mention the usual work horses, there are still a large number of work horses in the own horse farm next door that can be called at any time.

What their company lacks is people!

To be precise, there is a shortage of people during the busy farming season, but in normal times, so many people are actually not needed.

During the busy farming period, it is a feasible way to use energy storage instead of manpower for efficient farming.

But in the end, whether this kind of thing is good or not, we still need to try it.

Immediately, the small rocker harvester was put on two batches of working horses, and began to experiment in a small wheat field that was ripe for harvesting. Their harvester can be used to harvest wheat and rice.

Although the wheat planting area of ​​Liaohua Agricultural Company is not very large, the scale is not small, and it is currently being harvested.

Now it's just a good time to test how well this harvester is doing.

At the beginning of the experiment, it attracted the attention of everyone including Hua Tianzhong.

This is too fast.

I saw two horses dragging the rocker harvester, and the harvester kept moving forward, constantly cutting off large pieces of wheat, and then transporting them to the rear and placing them in bundles.

In this way, it is only necessary to bring another carriage later, load the wheat harvested along the way onto the cart, and then transport it to the thresher for separation.

The overall harvesting efficiency has been greatly improved.

With the same manpower, it can be increased several times.

Just such a harvester can completely solve the labor shortage problem that Liaohua Agricultural Company is currently facing.

And the combine harvester that followed was even more eye-opening for them.

The harvesting efficiency of this thing is faster, and it can also directly complete the threshing and packaging. After more than ten horses drive the combine harvester, the directly threshed wheat is sent up, and the workers directly pack it tightly, and then it can be directly delivered to the side. transport wagon.

As for the cost of the many extra horses, this is nothing to Liaohua Agricultural Company, they have no shortage of horses!

After seeing the test, Hua Tianzhong asked about the price again, and finally placed an order on the spot.

They didn't take a fancy to those rocker harvesters, they only ordered a small number of them, and more of them were those large combine harvesters.

A small rocker harvester, it can be seen at a glance that it is used on smaller farms or even family farms.

But the scale of their Liaohua Agricultural Company's farm is too large, with a planting area of ​​tens of thousands of mu or more, and it can be used in one step, using a large combine harvester pulled by dozens of horses.

Although the cost investment is relatively large, the efficiency is higher and more planting areas can be harvested.

That's right, Hua Tianzhong is already preparing to further increase the planting area of ​​wheat and rice next year.

After placing the order for the harvester, Hua Tianzhong asked the people from Hekou Agricultural Company to deliver the goods as soon as possible. This year's harvest season is coming soon, and they are still waiting to use it!

The people from Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. directly smiled and patted their chests to confirm that their company's production line has been established, and a batch of inventory has also been produced, and this batch of goods can be delivered as soon as possible.

Then I tried to ask Liaohua Agricultural Company if they are interested in various agricultural machinery such as steam-powered harvesters. Their company is researching various agricultural machinery powered by steam engines, and whether they want to place a pre-order or something.

Hua Tianzhong naturally said that if you have researched it, you will take a look at it, and you will definitely want something good!

This is actually just a polite remark, Hua Tianzhong would not hesitate to buy something good, he would definitely buy it.

Don't expect him to place any pre-orders if things don't look good, God knows what you'll be able to make by then.

Their company's money is all hard work in the fields, and they will not be wasted casually.

Besides, the main customers of Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company are these large-scale planting enterprises or growers.

And Liaohua Agricultural Company is their biggest customer, so there is no need to worry about the good things they make and keep them for sale.

In this kind of cooperative transaction, Liaohua Agricultural Company, as the purchaser, still has a very advantage.

Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. also wanted to maintain a good cooperative relationship with this large customer, and even left the large and small harvesters as samples before leaving.

Now Liaohua Agricultural Company's wheat is being harvested intensively, and the demand for harvesting equipment is very high. It is a little faster to have the help of harvesting equipment. When the wheat harvesting is finished, they will start harvesting rice.

Of course, these two harvesters were not given away for free, but were directly bought by Liaohua Agricultural Company, and they were included in the first batch of orders.

Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. moved very quickly. In order to pry open the pocket of a major customer, Liaohua Agricultural Company, and at the same time want to use the order of Liaohua Agricultural Company as a breakthrough, and then open up a larger market, they are promoting this contract. Time is very hard.

While working overtime for production, the equipment in stock will be delivered first, so as not to delay the harvesting season of Liaohua Agricultural Company.

These equipment will be dismantled into the state of the main parts, and then packed up to the upstream of the Liaohe River on a steam ship, and then transported by horse-drawn carriage after the Liaohe River channel can no longer go.

In order to speed up the transportation, they also paid a large amount of expedited transportation fees, so that this batch of harvesters was sent to the farm of Liaohua Agricultural Company in time, and then assembled by technicians.

They didn't actually make much money from this order, but Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company didn't value this order itself, but valued more subsequent orders.

Not only the follow-up orders of Liaohua Agricultural Company, but also the orders of other planting companies and even those big planters.

This order is for advertising, trying to make their harvester a hit!

And it is true!

When this batch of harvesters arrived at the farm of Liaohua Agricultural Company, it caused a sensation instantly!

Liaohua Agricultural Company is the largest planting enterprise in Northeast China, and has the largest farm. Many of their actions are naturally followed by various colleagues.

In the past, many colleagues heard that Liaohua Agricultural Company had expanded the grain planting area, and they all laughed and waited to see the joke.

In the Northeast, if you want to expand the planting area of ​​food, as long as you are not afraid of losing money, it is easy... The land is basically free of money, and the government has a lot of land that can be developed. As long as you dare to invest in the development and planting, the government will dare to free it Give you the right to use it for 30 years.

But land is easy to get, labor is hard to find!
Whether it is sowing or harvesting, food planting requires a lot of manpower, and in this poor place in northern Liaoning, how can there be any idle labor for you to hire!
Besides, when the farming season is busy, the local farmers are basically busy with their own land, but have no time to do odd jobs on those big farms. As for the urban residents, there are not many of them, and some are employees of those factories and enterprises.

Therefore, for many large farms, they basically maintain a group of employees for a long time. These employees are also professional farmers.

And when the farming season is busy, it is necessary to hire a group of odd workers from other places.

This pattern has been going on for many years, and it has even spawned a group of people who specialize in helping the big farms work during the busy season. The wages of these people are very high.

But this year, Liaohua Agricultural Company did not hire a large number of temporary workers after increasing the sowing area, which puzzled many people.

After some people inquired carefully, they discovered that these Liaohua agricultural companies actually used a new type of mechanical equipment, directly using machinery for harvesting.

After adopting mechanical harvesting, their own long-term employees can complete all harvesting operations, and there is no need to hire a large number of temporary workers from outside.

And I also heard that even if they use their own employees, they finish the work ahead of time during the busy farming season, freeing up more people for other tasks.

This surprised other colleagues.

What kind of harvester has such a big effect?

At this time, without further inquiring about the news, the sales staff of the Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company had already started looking for many planting companies and those ordinary large growers!
Why are you looking for it, what else can you do, sell their power harvester!
This advertisement is loud, if you don't take advantage of this opportunity to make a big profit, how can you raise money to develop a steam combine harvester?

When it comes to this steam harvester, the people of Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. feel a pain in the ass. After the high-pressure steam engine appeared a few years ago, the senior management of their company thought that the steam engine could be used on agricultural machinery, so they plunged into the steam joint Harvester research.

But I didn't expect that the technical difficulty of this thing is so high!

It has been working for several years, and the research and development funds have been poured down one after another, almost draining the company's flesh and blood, but it has not been done yet... At least it has a structure of a harvester.

In order to restore blood, they thought about it, and simply removed the harvesting equipment that was originally used on the steam engine, and then used the power storage to make a power storage harvester and sell it first...

Fortunately, the market acceptance is quite high, and a lot of them were sold by taking advantage of this opportunity.

Relying on the power harvester to recover some blood, the people from Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company looked at the semi-finished steam combine harvester, gritted their teeth, and poured the money in again...

In their words, it means success or failure!

In fact, in the past few years, so much money has been spent on research and development of steam combine harvesters, and the huge sunk costs have made it impossible for them to withdraw.

In order to engage in these two things, they not only invested all the profits of the past few years, but also invested their old capital in the past, and owed several bank loans for this.

If they stop at this time, they will not go bankrupt completely. After they sell some assets, especially some patent assets, they can still pay off their debts and go back to battle lightly.

But the problem is, they are not reconciled!
After doing it for so many years, so much money has been invested in it, and now you say you don’t want to do it?What a joke.

The people from Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd., after fishing hard, turned around and continued to toss their steam combine harvester.

Coincidentally, Hekou Agricultural Machinery Company is not the only manufacturer that values ​​steam agricultural machinery these days, there are other manufacturers as well.

In fact, there are quite a few domestic manufacturers of agricultural machinery and equipment, even for harvesters, there are actually many, but everyone's technical routes are different, and the efficiency is also different.

Hekou Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. only does well in the field of agricultural machinery in the Northeast, but as the empire grows, there are companies in other places that manufacture various agricultural machinery and equipment.

Tangshan Machinery Company is such a company that specializes in the production of agricultural machinery and equipment. In fact, they are also developing agricultural machinery and equipment powered by steam engines.

The focus of their research and development is not the harvester, but the steam plow machine, and their research and development progress is also very bumpy. After a few years, they spent a lot of money, but they didn't come up with a practical steam plow machine. , either there is a problem here or there is a problem.

It was very uncomfortable to toss.

Both agricultural machinery companies are caught in the dilemma of steam engine agricultural machinery research and development. This is not an isolated situation, or even a unique situation in the agricultural machinery industry, but a common problem faced by many contemporary machinery industries.

That is, as technology becomes more and more developed, the threshold for new technologies becomes higher, and the corresponding R&D investment becomes higher and higher.

This is actually very unfriendly to some companies, especially those companies that lack their own research and development capabilities, and at the same time do not have enough capital to acquire new technologies through acquisitions.

When technology continues to advance and innovate, it is often difficult for them to keep up with the pace of the times, and finally gradually decline.

But on the other hand, continuous technological progress and continuous innovation will allow some enterprises to obtain huge opportunities, and then become bigger and stronger.

Benefiting from the perfect patent law of the Great Chu Empire, when some companies develop some new technologies, they can actually survive very well by relying on the patent of such a new technology. If they come up with a few patented technologies with huge profit margins Come, then it will become bigger and stronger in minutes.

The most typical one is Guangzhou Machinery Company.

Although Guangzhou Machinery Company used to be considered a large enterprise with a lot of employees, it actually had a good name and its products were not very good.

Their various machine tools and equipment are only second-rate. Although there are orders, they are basically just earning some hard money.

More still rely on all kinds of cheap and cheap farm tools to live.

To put it bluntly, before the steam engine was developed, the Guangzhou Machinery Company sold hoes.

But later, with the support of the local government, they obtained the patented technology of low-pressure steam engines and became the first domestic manufacturers of low-pressure steam engines.

It's just that life is a little easier, but it's just a little bit easier.

Because the low-pressure steam engine is not theirs, but the Steam Engine Research Institute of the Royal Institute of Technology, in order to promote the rapid and large-scale application of the steam engine, the full set of basic patents for the low-pressure steam engine are open for authorization.

Up to now, it is estimated that hundreds of manufacturers across the country have obtained the patent authorization of low-pressure steam engines... In the future, it is estimated that they will be directly authorized for free.

Guangzhou Machinery Company only took advantage of the relatively early time of obtaining the patent, and then became one of the three major steam engine manufacturers in China, but even so, their technology was the most backward, otherwise they would not have produced small steam engines in the early days. Famous... because their technology can only do these small low-pressure steam engines.

In the era of low-pressure steam engines, Guangzhou Machinery Company had the name of the top three steam engine manufacturers in name, but in fact, the money it earned was not as good as one-tenth of that of Tianjin Machinery Company, which was engaged in large-scale steam engines.

Some competitors sometimes scornfully say that they are just selling hoes...

Very aggrieved!

In order to change this situation, Guangzhou Machinery Company made up its mind to engage in technology research and development.

Almost all the money earned from the production of low-pressure steam engines and hoes was invested in the research and development of high-pressure steam engines. At the same time, it also won the support of friends, especially the shipbuilding industry and even the navy.

In the end, they succeeded in creating a high-pressure steam engine, and they still have a full set of patented high-pressure steam engines!

Relying on the high-pressure steam engine, it has become the largest steam engine supplier in China and the most profitable machinery company in one fell swoop.

This is a typical case of the weak defeating the strong and finally turning to the top.

(End of this chapter)