Chapter 17: Preparing To Take Over The Automotive Factory
The next morning at 9 o’clock in Shanghai
it was already bustling with traffic, various markets and street-side shops were all lively and prosperous, with people coming and going, cars and horses flowing like water, and a lively atmosphere hitting one in the face,
under the backdrop of an atmosphere of peace, a vibrant and thriving atmosphere also began to permeate the entire city.
Of course, this scene had two contrasting sights,
in Shanghai, this international prosperous metropolis,
one was the flow of cars and horses, eating and drinking lavishly, an extremely prosperous paradise for the rich,
the other was barely having enough to eat, living on lawns or sleeping on the streets, a destitute life where people had nothing to live on, the poorest and darkest bottom life.
There were even quite a few old women who made a living by picking up garbage, and they could often be seen.
Thin and emaciated people could also be seen everywhere sleeping on the streets.
After eating breakfast, Zhou Wenhua also finished reading a Republic of China edition of Bai Tianhu’s Automotive Repair Techniques《》.
He was learning about the automotive technology of this era, especially domestic car technology, and whether it differed from what he knew in his previous life.
In his previous life, besides his passion for aviation development and airplane development, he was also into car engines and car development.
Especially his research on Henry Ford, which was even more in-depth.
In his previous life’s domestic scene, the country was the world’s number one in car production volume, but not a major car brand power.
Since 1898 when Frenchman Trouffant used the first truly meaningful shock absorber on a motorcycle, by the 1980s, the world’s shock absorbers had gone through five generations of development.
First, Ford Company applied spring shock absorbers to cars in 1906, the first hydraulic shock absorber was developed successfully in 1908, and in the next 40 years rocker-arm hydraulic shock absorbers became widely used, after World War II cylindrical hydraulic shock absorbers came into use, followed by the successive appearance of inflatable shock absorbers, single-tube shock absorbers, and metal rubber shock absorbers.
The world’s first car was developed by German Carl Benz in October 1885, and on November 2 of the same year, the patent office formally approved and issued it, making Benz’s patent certificate the world’s first car patent.
Then, the United States, which avoided the homeland impact of the First World War, carried it forward.
Shanghai was the earliest place domestically to introduce foreigners’ cars, brought over by a Hungarian in 1902, starting with just two, but after ten years,
by 1912, Shanghai already had nearly 20,000 cars, at which point cars also gradually became popular nationwide, gradually becoming the transportation tool for going out and showing off for upper-class people.
As for the middle class, university professors, famous scholars, wealthy merchants, officers and such classes, they also gradually had the money to purchase cars for travel.
However, cars at that time all had to rely on imports, even an ordinary Ford car cost nearly 3,000 silver dollars in Shanghai, equivalent to hundreds of thousands in today’s prices.
By the 1930s, the price of one liter of gasoline was as high as four or five mao, equal to more than 50 yuan today.
But the very ironic thing was that cars like Ford were, on the other side in European foreign powers and developed United States, just very common daily goods that many working-class people could afford,
the main reason being that Ford Motor Company transformed the automotive industry into assembly line industrial mass production, such as the very cheap Ford Model T.
The American Ford Motor Company’s 1908 mass-produced lightweight family car was also the world’s first car produced using assembly line production, and due to the new technology greatly reducing production costs, both the price and car-making costs were extremely low,
The initial price of the Model T when production started in 1913 was over 800 US dollars, much cheaper than competing models at 2,000 to 3,000 US dollars at the time.
By 1925, Ford Company dropped the Model T price to over 200 US dollars, a price that ordinary United States working-class families could pretty much afford for a car.
Completely crushing all car prices,
especially Britain’s best-selling affordable family car, which cost nearly 200 pounds at the time,
so Ford made a fortune because of the low price.
Because of this, Ford cars quickly became the best-selling, most purchased by people, most common, and most popularly recognized cheap brand of the time, and in 1920, Ford with nearly 200,000 annual sales volume became the world’s first car brand company with annual sales exceeding 100,000.
In 1929, the United States produced nearly 6 million cars, most families had at least one car, initially completing the popularization of cars,
Cars were very cheap in the United States, the Ford Model T only over 200 US dollars, but after shipping to Shanghai domestically, besides increased transportation costs, plus price hikes by foreign buying offices, the price skyrocketed several times,
Even the cheapest Ford Model T in the United States sold for at least 2,000 silver dollars in Shanghai, instantly becoming a luxury item only the rich and powerful could own.
Republic of China tycoons and dignitaries competed to buy cars, and at that time, the Foreign Concessions of Shanghai alone had over 10,000 cars,
In the 1930s, car performance and styling began to lean toward mid-to-high-end cars, and the exotic styling and expensive special configurations of mid-to-high-end cars were quite popular,
However, as car design began to emphasize aerodynamics, in 1933 Pierce-Arrow launched the Silver Arrow prototype, and in 1934 Chrysler’s Airflow and Duesenberg’s Airflow models were also launched.
In 1934 Mercedes-Benz Company manufactured the first diesel-powered sedan; in 1936 the mid-range Graham achieved notable dual excellence in car power and fuel economy, and in 1937 American Hudson Company created clutchless electric shifting.
In 1938 the world’s first concept car Buick Y-Job with boat-shaped body, complex curved streamlined body, became the imitation object for manufacturers in the following decades, Y-Job also first introduced clay model technology, making car exteriors more flexible, a technology still used today.
Automotive technology progress was mainly in engines, fuel, lubricants, which also promoted synthetic rubber development; Germany refined synthetic fuel from coal, many regions in Europe and Asia used producer gas, and some regions used alcohol instead of gasoline.
And Zhou Wenhua had only transmigrated to October 1931,
He felt he still had a chance to make a contribution to the domestic automotive manufacturing industry of this period.
After finishing Automotive Repair Techniques《》, he planned to first bring in Ford Company’s assembly line production technology domestically.
The premise for industrial development is the establishment and expansion of factories, and in the Republic of China period, various factories had already appeared.
But many industries went bankrupt without developing, because at this time domestic national industry was still under the dual blows of foreigners’ capital system and the backward domestic system, causing many emerging factories and enterprises to go bankrupt.
Republic of China year 20（1931） September 13, the Republic of China Daily《》 also published news about the pioneering factory in researching and developing domestic cars, which was the Liaoning Mortar Factory’s Minsheng Factory, converting from military to civilian use.
Formally starting transformation into a factory researching and developing domestic cars.
To research and develop cars, the local government provided great financial support, using nearly 50,000 national currency left over from the mortar factory entirely to purchase raw materials for car research and development, and to provide research funding for automotive technicians in the factory.
But researching car manufacturing from zero was not easy, so the behind-the-scenes decision-maker of this first car factory, a certain young marshal, purchased a whole “Rui Xue” car from the United States as a sample for the technicians and masters in the factory to disassemble and study,
On the basis of disassembling foreign cars and then assembling them, fumbling across the river by feeling the stones, thereby understanding foreign car parts design and research and development methods, laying the foundation for China’s independent car manufacturing.
Unfortunately, this first domestic car factory could only survive by researching and producing trucks.
And good times didn’t last, in the second half of 1931, after the September 18 Incident broke out, the Minsheng Factory, losing support from its major financier for research, also went bankrupt, leading to no more domestic cars being researched or manufactured domestically afterward,
all relying on foreign imports.
So when Zhou Wenhua saw his father surprisingly had a car factory last night,
he was immediately full of surprise,
Then, he began thinking and researching how to operate this car factory.
His father’s factory was actually mostly an OEM factory assembling cars for foreigners, also including some car repair projects.
So it was not a domestic car factory with its own independent R&D capabilities.
And Zhou Wenhua wanted to change it into assembly line production like Ford’s,
He wanted to advance the domestic automotive manufacturing industry in this era a bit, so that even in the future war-torn era, some technical foundation could be retained.
So after finishing breakfast,
he prepared to go to his father’s automotive factory,
And at this time, butler Liu Xing came to report to him that he had found a foreigners’ weaponry seller, and he had recruited 12 strong, clean-background youths as instructed, preparing to be Zhou Wenhua’s security team members.
These youths were all martial arts practitioners, so even bare-handed, they could take on two or several enemies one-on-one.
After hearing this,
Zhou Wenhua immediately instructed butler Liu Xing to arrange accommodation and a dining hall for these people.
And he, still under the protection of his father’s several bodyguards, got into the car and continued to his father’s automotive factory to inspect and take over, preparing for modification.
The first domestic enterprise researching and producing domestic cars would also emerge ahead of time through his modification.
Recommend books by friend authors《Great Ming: This Wu Zong I Am Determined to Be》, 《His Demon Fairy》, 《Starting from Jingkang》
