Chapter 22: Boss Fan Of The Yongli Alkali Plant
Facing the technology blockade from foreigners and the Japanese homeland,
especially the core technology blockade regarding gunpowder, chemicals, industrial manufacturing, and so on,
which has left the entire domestic situation almost at a state of zero industrial foundation.
The domestic lack of advanced science and technology means that whether in manufacturing, industry, or various other sectors, especially military manufacturing industry, it is impossible to compare with foreign countries or match them.
Even the wealthy Zhang Dashuai at his Northeastern Army’s arsenal, whether manufacturing airplanes, tanks, or ships, the entire manufacturing process completely relies on military technology support provided by the Japanese Army.
Whether military designers, engineers, or technical masters, they are all exclusively Japanese Army personnel, and even more tragically, the production raw materials for manufacturing also need to be purchased from the Japanese Army, while the core technology is either held by the Japanese Army or by other foreign countries,
his arsenal is only responsible for simple assembly.
After Zhou Wenhua thoroughly understood the newly purchased diesel injection pumps in the automotive factory’s warehouse, he also disassembled and deeply studied the diesel engines that his father had bought very early on, which had been phased out by foreigners.
After he fully understood these old diesel engines, he also began to walk out of the warehouse.
Because to research and develop his own car, he still needed to solve how to establish a car production line similar to the automotive production line invented by Ford and him, in order to achieve industrialized production of cars,
rather than just imitating a small number of cars,
One must know that even in the technologically advanced era 100 years later, car assembly still uses the assembly line invented by Ford, except that later generations adopted intelligentization and robots to replace manual labor.
The Ford Model T car’s automotive manufacturing assembly line was the first true assembly line in the automotive manufacturing industry.
And American Norton in 1900 made grinding wheels with large diameter and width using corundum and jadeite, as well as heavy grinding machines that were rigid and sturdy. With the emergence and development of this heavy grinding machine, human mechanical manufacturing technology also entered a new stage of precision.
Although not as good as later numerical control machine tools,
it was still a significant improvement,
Operators manually operated motorized machine tools to produce machined parts according to the requirements of design drawings. Facing this new type of industrial production method, it was absolutely higher in production efficiency and quality than the steam era,
In the later era of national wealth and strength, the domestic machine tool manufacturing technology lagged behind Germany and Japan by 15 to 20 years.
Foreign machine tools can operate 24 hours nonstop, domestic equipment cannot; foreign machine tools process parts faster than domestic equipment.
Not to mention this Republic of China era where industry is almost at zero foundation,
and moreover in an era deeply blockaded by the most ruthless foreign science and technology and industrial technology, so wanting to research and develop one’s own automotive production line and manufacture cars,
motorized machine tools were something Zhou Wenhua absolutely had to obtain.
As for spending a large sum of money to purchase from foreigners,
that was fundamentally impossible,
For foreigners, these are technology and science products that they won’t sell even for money.
Otherwise, why call it a technology blockade.
They simply do not want the domestic country where Zhou Wenhua is to achieve industrial reform and rise.
Machine tools are divided into 11 major categories: lathe, drilling machine, gear processing machine tool, thread processing machine tool, milling machine, planing and slotting machine, boring machine, grinding machine, pull bed, sawing machine, and other machine tools.
In the early stage of the industrial revolution, most common machine tools were made of wood, with internal parts including gears, connecting rods, shafts, etc., all made of wood.
But with the development of industrialization, metal machine tools replaced wooden parts with forged and cast metal parts.
However, even so, precision was still a problem that needed to be solved.
Precision generally has two concepts: one is machining accuracy, the other is measurement accuracy.
And Germany’s industrial technology and machine tool manufacturing technology, whether in the Republic of China period or later, have always been renowned globally for their exquisite and rigorous quality,
Although Zhou Wenhua could use the knowledge of many later science and technologies he mastered to exchange with Germany’s machine tool brands and military industry tycoons for a few precision motorized machine tools for production and car research and development.
Of course, he could also exchange with Ford Motor Company for an automotive production line,
but for the current him, he really wanted to try using his own knowledge to independently research and produce without cooperating with foreigners.
The German Chiron founded in 1921, Siemens headquartered in Berlin and Munich, and Schuler which has been producing metal processing machine tools since 1852, are all representatives of machine tools and electrification in this era.
As for Deckel Maho Gildemeister machine tool company, it was only established in 2002.
But these German machine tool companies absolutely would not export core technology to the outside.
So while Zhou Wenhua was thinking about the history of machine tool development from later generations to the current Republic of China period,
he couldn’t help but sigh that in this era of national weakness and backwardness, developing automotive industry technology was so fraught with difficulties, let alone other science and technologies.
Although he could find a few usable steel frames to build a simple manual lathe to manufacture things, but to produce cars, industrial machine tools were a must.
Various countries’ airplanes, tanks, and other military industries without exception used assembly line mass production,
Just as he was thinking of these, Zhou Wenhua suddenly remembered in his mind that his father had stored a scrapped planing machine guide rail and milling machine frame in the utility room at home.
He felt he could perhaps use them for research and use.
Before the Ford automotive assembly line, the automotive industry was all workshop-style, buying an engine and transmission, adding wheels, brakes, seats, and a car was quickly assembled,
but such simple and slow assembly was unable to carry out commercialized automotive production process, to produce various models of cars at the fastest speed for batch production.
However, as the perennial leader in the automotive industry, Ford Company, by 1931, their company’s automotive market share had fallen to 28%, just a little over half of what it was 17 years ago.
So Zhou Wenhua felt that if he really couldn’t make industrial machine tools himself, then he might consider technical exchange with this Ford Motor Company whose business quota was increasingly declining,
Anyway, Ford had a diligent and hardworking good son named Edsel,
Perhaps he could conduct technical exchange through this Edsel and obtain Ford Motor Company’s automotive production line.
Ford Motor Company’s industrialized automotive production assembly line developed in 1927 could already assemble a car every 24 seconds.
Steel is the cornerstone material of the automotive industry.
So Zhou Wenhua still needed to solve machine tools, industrialized automotive production line, and steel research and production; many science and technologies needed him to handle.
But for Zhou Wenhua who had visited the mechanized and intelligent production process of Mercedes-Benz S-Class from a sheet of iron to a complete car in later generations, he felt he still had the ability to solve this era’s Ford automotive production line.
Of course, he had also visited and studied the on-site manufacturing of Tesla and the flow-line production lines of many other brand automotive factories, so he really had the confidence and assurance.
Just as Zhou Wenhua was preparing to leave the automotive factory,
Butler Liu Xing’s call suddenly came to the automotive factory,
and asked the car masters here to call Zhou Wenhua to answer it.
“Hello! Is that the butler? What’s the matter?”
After Zhou Wenhua learned of Butler Liu Xing’s urgent call, he quickly went to the office to answer the phone.
“It’s like this, Fourth Young Master! The navy side has already dispatched two officers to report, saying they are here to assist you in training the newly recruited security team personnel!”
“Additionally, Boss Fan of the Yongli Alkali Plant, which has a cooperative relationship with the master, after negotiations broke down with British and German companies, plans to consider starting his own Yongli ammonium sulfate plant, but he now urgently needs funds support, so he called to inquire if our company has any intention to invest and cooperate!”
After Zhou Wenhua answered the phone,
Butler Liu Xing immediately reported frankly.
“Boss Fan? Boss Fan of the Yongli Alkali Plant?”
“Yes! It’s him!”
“Alright! I’ll come back right away, you call Boss Fan, I am willing to invest in him to cooperate in establishing our country’s first ammonium sulfate plant, and the name will still use his Yongli brand name!”
“As for the two officers dispatched by the navy, entertain them well and arrange their accommodation, I’m heading back now!”
Hearing this, Zhou Wenhua was first puzzled for a moment,
then he widened his eyes, full of surprise on his face,
afterward, he also showed a brilliant smile and readily agreed to the investment reply.
