In the few years since Guan Ruzhong was elected as Prime Minister, what he has done most is to try every means to support domestic small and medium-sized enterprises and promote the large-scale expansion of domestic industry, and thus introduced or adjusted a series of policies or bills.
The most important of them are the Domestic Industrial Scale Promotion Act and the Overseas Industrial Investment Act amendments. The former was officially passed by Congress after the spring of 1646. The latter was implemented the year Guan Ruzhong first came to power, further standardizing the order of overseas investment.
"Model of Civilization" is a foreign strategic investment plan supporting the above-mentioned two domestic economic bills, and is not tailor-made for Portugal alone. The core content is to export appropriate modern industrial equipment and technology to the outside world in a step-by-step and selective manner to provide the external cheap primary industrial labor demand that Huamei needs.
The strategic guiding ideology of "Civilization Model" first sprouted when selling mining steam pumps to Portugal and Spain in 1630, and then continued to ferment during the theft of the Qingcheng Navigation Bell in early 1642.
Although the culprit of the theft of the sophisticated marine clock was fixed on France, no more surprising and bad things happened later, and it was eventually left unsolved. However, after more than 20 years of development, Huamei has gradually transformed from an advanced country that "stands out" into a "lonely" hungry nanny in this era.
History always punishes any civilization that attempts to remain self-contained for a long time. Does a lone navigator make sense?
Su Zining's earliest argument that "a backward external world is not in line with Huamei's fundamental interests" later triggered an extensive discussion that was no less than that of the Far East issue. Among them, the group with the most experience and the most say They are undoubtedly the centrists who monopolize Huamei's industrial production.
Today¡¯s Huamei is not only lacking in the input and supply of important industrial and agricultural raw materials. The bottleneck of primary industrial processing and manufacturing capabilities and high capital and labor costs have become the second main reason affecting the expansion of domestic industrial scale.
While Huamei sells modern commodities to the world and accelerates the process of world civilization, it has fallen into a situation where it assumes its own "obligation" for industrial development.
As various industrial technology recovery projects gradually enter a bottleneck period, the pure pursuit of technological leadership has given way to the more important issue of how to achieve industrial scale.
The vast number of industrial categories has overwhelmed Huamei¡¯s existing industrial production scale. After the question of "to have or not to have" is resolved. Large-scale production and use has become a problem. A large number of new technologies and projects that emerged in the mid-to-late period cannot be used for large-scale production and utilization. Huamei, a country with a population of only one million, is beginning to find it difficult to meet even some of its own needs.
The most typical example is the production of steam tractors by state-owned heavy machinery companies. From heavy-duty trailers to medium-light agricultural all-in-one combine harvesters, even after years of capacity expansion, the company's number of employees exceeded 5,000. Adding up all models of the company's steam locomotives, the total annual output by 1645 was only about 700 in theory. . Once the product model is upgraded, it will cause trouble to readjust the production line, and its production capacity is very unstable.
Maximum annual production capacity of 700 units. Divided evenly among various local towns or overseas territories, each place can only buy a pitiful 10 or so units per year. In the Chinese and American agricultural town of Porter City and Nanshan Overseas Territory alone, the annual demand for agricultural steam locomotives in the two places combined is at least 200 units, and the number that can be purchased in other towns is even less.
Huamei has only a few oligarchs in the field of industrial manufacturing, and has been in a global monopoly of production for a long time. As small as a screw, bearing or flange, as large as a steam engine cylinder and ship steel keel components, a whole set of industrial production chain, if it is just to solve problems, theoretically there is no need for outsiders to intervene.
In China and the United States. Even with repeated emphasis on industrial standardization, the national labels of upstream industrial spare parts are increasing every year. As of 1645, Huamei had 36 standard specifications of domestic screws, 20 types of flanges, 38 types of bearings, and more than 60 types of gears
It may be possible to produce 10 different products with ease. Produces 20 varieties. Funds and talent reserves will feel insufficient. With 30 types of products produced, basically every production chain cannot achieve scale and efficiency. This is especially true for some special industrial categories that have to be produced because of small market demand. As of now, the total industrial labor force in Huamei is just over 100,000. But the stall to be supported is extremely large.
In the past, the plates were small, the foundation was thin, and there were few industrial categories. With the original scale of industrial manufacturing, it can be done. But as time goes by, every time there is a demand for a new industrial product, the complexity of the industrial production chain will increase significantly.
In order to maintain an industrial product production line, it is often necessary to invest huge amounts of capital and arrange a large number of skilled workers. Even so, it often only solves the problem of production availability.In order to reduce costs and put them into large-scale applications, we must expand production lines and increase production scale, and the financial and human burdens will increase geometrically.
Like state-owned heavy machinery companies, all large enterprises that have encountered this situation have also been trying to reform the industrial production model for many years, breaking the closed global monopoly of production, and outsourcing the production technology or production lines of many spare parts.
This has three benefits: first, to expand the initial processing of raw materials and the production and supply of basic spare parts for upstream industries; second, to promote the quality standards of Huamei Industrial Production to the outside world; third, to expand the basic size of the social industrial labor force, which also gave birth to companies like Robert A primary industrial processing town like the city.
But even so, it is only a limited deployment of internal industrial labor. Huamei¡¯s precious and difficult-to-train industrial labor force is ultimately limited. Many industrial parts production lines with low technical content, high demand, but long labor time are still wasting a large number of precious local skilled workers in China and the United States. Even if the industrial assembly line production concept has been put into action long ago, the final cost of industrial products It still remains high for many years.
This is also the reason why the Chinese and American monopolies have always been strongly resistant to raising workers' wages: it is no problem to raise wages if they can reduce costs. But now that costs are so high, raising wages is pure nonsense.
¡°In the final analysis, it is okay to play house style development, but it will never adapt to large-scale industrial expansion. Although any cost can theoretically be passed on, it will significantly increase Huamei Industrial's overall operating costs, which in turn hinders its own development. and affects all aspects of society.
In addition to these, the mining and supply of basic industrial raw materials in external countries have also entered a bottleneck period.
As the demand for more and more types of Chinese and American industrial and agricultural raw materials expands, the lack of knowledge about the natural resources of the relevant origins has become the most troubling thing. Without the relevant technology output of these resources, normal production and supply in countries other than China and the United States would be as difficult as an ideological enlightenment movement.
For example, both Spain and England have abundant surface fluorite resources, but this extremely important additive for modern industry is only regarded as a low-quality gemstone for curiosity in the eyes of these Europeans.
¡°Either they are suspicious and refuse to sell or ask for exorbitant prices, or they ask for money with inexplicable gravels. It is extremely difficult to convince them that fluorite is nothing more than nature's cheap ore, and it is undoubtedly a fantasy to allow them to realize large-scale mining in primitive ways.
Many important and special industrial raw material inputs have fallen into this ridiculous predicament. The North American continent is vast enough and rich in resources, but if all these industrial raw materials are to be self-sufficiently supplied by China and the United States in this era, it will be so exhausting that even a dog can't do it.
Huamei¡¯s industrial development has almost reached an embarrassing stage and stagnated at a certain point. Until the day comes when all the people who travel through time regard "time is everything" as their highest belief in survival.
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The industrial take-off and great economic development of modern Europe were based on effective social and economic production organization. Any new industrial technology and new resource utilization can establish a complete chain from resource exploration, raw material production, basic processing to finished product manufacturing, and then find opportunities for further improvement and innovation in this link.
The "Civilized Model" plan is to cooperate with the amendments to the "Overseas Industrial Investment Act" and through the safety control classification of commodity exports, targeted export of primary industrial manufacturing equipment and related intellectual property rights, allowing external countries to develop more types of resources. and primary processing, providing Huamei with cheaper raw materials, labor and primary industrial products. Let the outside world also integrate into the blood vessel of Huamei Industrial Development.
The publicity of the "Civilization Model" plan in public places has a strong sense of global responsibility and mission, rebuilding post-war civilization, developing the economy and improving people's livelihood, increasing the value of civilization in various places, and so on.
In Huamei. The safety control levels for commodity exports are divided into five levels: i, ii, iii, iv, and v, which correspond to high risk, potential high risk, low risk, potential low risk, and no risk respectively. Each level is subdivided into several small grades based on specific differences.
Each level, and even the gap between the small gears within each level. It all means that in this era without solid basic education and talent and technology reserves, almost all obstacles are difficult to overcome.
An example-level single-expansion low-pressure 60-horsepower industrial power steam unit is compared with a iii-level compound-expansion high-pressure 220-horsepower marine power steam unit. Strictly speaking, it is not a technical level thing. The technical improvement of its material processing and manufacturing technology took Huamei Chuangzhong's technological restoration project three years, which involved so many disciplines. Historically, it took a person to achieve this leap in Europe. century.
If you want a group of 17th-century European or Ming Dynasty old craftsmen to reverse engineer a gorgeous IIID steam engine, not to mention the cost of money and time, just start from scratch to create a usable medium and high-precision cylinder boring machine. It is no less difficult than a group of middle school students building an airplane in the 20th century.
So even if you can buy a top-grade compound-expansion high-pressure steam engine from Huamei, you can only use it tentatively. Whether it can be maintained normally is another question. If you want to reverse-engineer and copy it, you'd better just go to sleep.
The implementation of the "Civilized Model" will not only bring a large number of external orders to Huamei's manufacturing industry, but also greatly optimize the domestic industrial labor production layout. At that time, a large amount of cheap industrial raw materials and preliminary processed products will be able to meet the needs of Huamei's industrial scale expansion, greatly increasing the output of final industrial finished products in Huamei.
In the first phase of the "Civilization Model" plan, Portugal will be the only European country eligible to unlimitedly purchase or authorize the assembly of steam machinery below level III. A large amount of Chinese and American primary industrial technologies, especially modern industrial equipment with much lower export control thresholds than other European countries, will flood into little Portugal.
In addition to continuing to invest heavily in the agricultural and forestry industries in Portugal and the Brazilian colonies, a large number of mining and iron smelting equipment exports and technical guidance and training will help Portugal establish the leading mining and smelting industry in Europe in its mainland and Brazilian colonies within twenty years. The iron industry enabled Portugal to export concentrated ore powder and pig iron ingots to China and the United States at least three times more than in 1645.
In addition, through joint ventures with Portuguese nobles, Huamei established a series of primary machining enterprises in the Barreiro New Industrial Zone, allowing Huamei to purchase a large number of cheap primary industrial semi-finished products or spare parts from Portugal.
As long as the manufacturing technology of mid-to-high-end terminal industrial parts and finished products is still monopolized by Huamei. Even if Portugal has the full localization capabilities of the 34a rear-loading flintlock gun and the 42a front-loading rotating field gun more than ten years later, the threat to the strategic security of China and the United States will basically be negligible.
In this regard, the neutralists in China and the United States who control industrial capital are vigorously promoting the plan.
With such operating methods, it is foreseeable that Portugal, which is obviously supported by China and the United States, will definitely be shrouded in the glory of the "Civilization Model" for the first time, and the so-called reform price paid by Portugal is nothing more than the additional cost and handling fee charged by China and the United States. .
"The subsequent cooperation partners of "Civilization Model" are scheduled to be launched one after another after 1648, and will gradually cover six countries including France, the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Emden and Luzon in the Far East. Among them, the Netherlands is the top priority.
Industrial exports to the Netherlands will focus on the shipbuilding industry. The Netherlands has the most developed shipbuilding capabilities in the world besides Huamei. It has a large number of mature shipbuilding craftsmen and excellent designers. Its comprehensive shipbuilding cost is only one-third to one-half of Huamei.
Huamei will follow the assistance model to the Royal Ordnance Factory of Barreiro in Portugal and sell to the Netherlands design drawings of a variety of civilian steam merchant ships, supporting steam units and other core spare parts, as well as dock hoisting equipment, so that it will have the ability to assemble and build steam merchant ships on its own. , continue to expand its maritime freight trade capabilities.
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A rough estimate is that once the Netherlands is able to complete the imitation of the Huamei steam merchant ship, its price may be at least 30% cheaper than the same model of Huamei or even lower. Same as Portugal, of course. Initially, Huamei will only sell three obsolete offshore ship models and low-end steam power units to the Netherlands. Otherwise, domestic shipbuilding companies and ocean shipping companies will definitely rebel.
In order for the Netherlands to successfully become a new generation of European public enemies after the Habsburg family, Huamei is actively preparing an arms sales project to the Netherlands in addition to the "Civilization Model": starting in 1648, eight Huamei Navy's Flower-class frigates will be retired one after another. And refurbished and refitted for sale to the Netherlands.
These are the first-generation all-steam frigates that have reached or are about to reach 20 years of age. The combat readiness rate is constantly decreasing. Even if they stay in the port, the maintenance cost of each ship is as high as tens of thousands of dollars every year.
Because the latest Alfalfa-class improved frigates are being continuously built and put into service. Therefore, the Chinese and American Navy has long given up its plan to overhaul and extend the service life of the Flower-class frigates in order to free up the officer and manpower establishment to accept new ships.
Although it is a retired second-hand warship, the price is not cheap because it needs to be converted into three terrace gunhouses with twin Type 42b 12-pound (75mm) front-mounted Wisworth naval guns. The unit price of each military ship is will reach $200,000. For the Netherlands, which is not short of money, this is an excellent opportunity to significantly improve its maritime combat power.
The Flower-class frigate equipped with new armament will be the first time that the European Navy has a fully steam-powered military ship. Its ship type 42bThe theoretical effective range of the front-barreled Wisworth rotary cannon can reach more than 1,000 yards, which is almost three to four times the naval battle range of traditional European sail warships.
However, in order to limit the combat effectiveness of these obsolete warships sold externally, their power will be reduced, and their maximum speed will be less than 13 knots. They will not be able to catch up with most of the current ocean-going merchant ships of China and the United States. The range-finding equipment used for long-range artillery fire has also been dismantled. Therefore, in actual combat, the effective range of the flower-class frigates sold to the Dutch Navy will still be less than 1,000 yards. Any further away can only be used by aircraft. To ensure the naval warfare superiority of the Chinese and American navies.
Huamei even plans to go further and completely liberalize the export of the 42b long-barreled front-loaded naval gun to the Netherlands, and help the Netherlands realize the military armament of civilian steam merchant ships. Anyway, given the Dutch nature, if not equipped with gorgeous naval guns, they will also be equipped with other cannons. It has always been its maritime tradition to combine merchant ships with military armaments, making it a thorn in the flesh of surrounding European coastal countries and setting off Europe's maritime armament in the next thirty years. competition.
By then, it will inevitably trigger a craze among European countries to order gorgeous export-oriented military ships, or introduce high-cost industrial capabilities similar to those of the Netherlands and Portugal. The future Franco-Dutch War and the Anglo-Dutch War will definitely be a good thing, which is a very good thing for China and the United States, which is desperate to expand its industrial manufacturing and military export capabilities.
As for the maritime threat to China and the United States, it is ignored. According to the exercises of the China and the United States Navy, the combat effectiveness of just one Princess-class or Peace-class light cruiser equipped with steel rifled guns is almost equivalent to the eight Flower-class frigates currently in service in the China-US Navy. The total combat effectiveness.
There are 9 Princess-class and Peace-class light cruisers currently in service in the Chinese and American Navy. This does not include the 8 Nuwa-class quasi-armored cruisers and 2 new Enterprise-class armored cruisers that are being built and put into service. Their combat effectiveness has been completely exhausted. The sum of the navies of the world.
The Netherlands¡¯ national basic potential is only so great, and no matter how much money you have, you can¡¯t buy real modernization. Even if it continues to be the dominant force in Europe forever, it will take half a century at the earliest for its maritime armed forces to reach Huamei's current level, and what the Huamei Navy will look like half a century from now has basically been decided.
In addition to its great economic and strategic significance for China and the United States, "Model of Civilization" has another "gift" that follows the historical context and catalyzed a number of mainland public enemies in Europe that can seriously threaten the interests of neighboring countries, so as to achieve China and the United States' checks and balances on Europe. strategic purposes, such as France, Spain, Emden, the Netherlands, Sweden and other countries.
¡°A few decades from now, the war that France will lead will lead half of Europe to beat up the economic hegemon Netherlands and the northern hegemon Sweden, and it will become the first stage for verification of the results of the "Civilization Model". Therefore, Huamei will tilt towards these countries in local details and let them grow to the extent that Huamei wants. (To be continued.)