Chapter 17: Prepare to take over the car factory (Thank you very much to all my book friends)
At 9 o'clock in the morning the next day, Songhu was already busy with traffic. The various markets and various shops on the street were all lively and bustling, with people coming and going, traffic, and a lively atmosphere.
Against the background of the peaceful atmosphere, a prosperous atmosphere began to permeate the entire city.
Of course, this picture has two scenes,
In Songhu, an international and prosperous metropolis,
One is a rich man's paradise with bustling traffic, popular food and drink, and extreme prosperity.
The other one is living on the lawn or sleeping on the street without enough food to make a living. It is the poorest and darkest life at the bottom.
There are even many old women who make a living by picking up garbage, and you can often see them.
Skinny people can be seen sleeping on the streets everywhere.
After having breakfast, Zhou Wenhua also read a Republic of China version of "Automobile Repair" written by Bai Baitian.
He is understanding whether the automobile technology of this era, especially the domestic automobile technology, is any different from what he knew in his previous life.
In his previous life, in addition to his passion for aviation development and aircraft development, he was also interested in automobile engines and automobile development.
Especially the research on Henry Ford is a relatively in-depth study.
In the previous life, China was the country with the largest number of automobiles in the world, but it was not a big country in terms of automobile brands.
Since the Frenchman Truffin applied the first real shock absorber to motorcycles in 1898, by the 1980s, the world's shock absorbers had gone through five generations of development.
First, Ford Company applied spring-type shock absorbers to automobiles in 1906. The first hydraulic shock absorber was successfully developed in 1908. In the following 40 years, rocker-type hydraulic shock absorbers were widely used. After World War II, barrel-type hydraulic shock absorbers were
After the shock absorbers were used, inflatable shock absorbers, monotube shock absorbers, and metal rubber shock absorbers appeared one after another...
The world's first automobile was successfully developed by the German Carl Benz in October 1885. On November 2 of the same year, the patent office officially approved and issued it. Benz's patent certificate also became the world's first automobile patent.
Certificate.
Then, it was carried forward by the United States, which had escaped World War I.
Songhu was the first place in China to introduce foreign cars. They were brought over by the Hungarians in 1902. At the beginning, there were only two cars. But after ten years, by 1912, there were almost 20,000 cars in Shanghai.
, at this time, cars gradually became popular across the country. They gradually became a means of transportation for people in the upper class to go out and show off.
As for the middle class, famous university professors, scholars, wealthy businessmen, military officers, etc., are gradually beginning to be able to buy cars for travel.
However, all cars at that time had to be imported. Even an ordinary Ford car cost almost 3,000 yuan in Songhu, which is hundreds of thousands of yuan in today's price.
In the 1930s, the price of a liter of gasoline was as high as 40 to 50 cents, which is equivalent to more than 50 yuan today.
But the very ironic thing is that at that time, cars like Ford were only very common daily necessities in overseas European powers and the developed United States, and many working-class people could afford them.
The main reason is that Ford Motor Company has transformed the automobile industry into a mass production of assembly line industries, such as the very cheap Ford Model T car.
The lightweight family car that Ford Motor Co. in the United States began mass-producing in 1908 was also the first car in the world to be produced using an assembly line. Because new technologies have significantly reduced production costs, the price and the cost of building a car are extremely low.
The initial price of the Model T, which was first produced in 1913, was more than 800 US dollars, which was much cheaper than the 2,000 to 3,000 US dollars of competing models at the same time.
By 1925, Ford lowered the price of the Model T to just over $200, a price at which ordinary working-class American families at that time could almost afford a car.
Completely kill all car prices,
Especially the best-selling affordable family car in the UK, which cost almost 200 pounds at the time.
So Ford also made a lot of money because it was cheap.
It was also because of this that Ford quickly became the most popular, most popular, easiest to buy, and most recognized cheap brand. In 1920, Ford became the first company in the world with annual sales of more than 100,000 vehicles.
Thousands of cars, brand companies.
In 1929, the United States produced almost 6 million cars, and most families had at least one car. The popularity of cars was initially completed.
Cars are very cheap in the United States. A Ford Model T only costs more than 200 US dollars. But after it is shipped to Songhu, in addition to the increase in transportation costs and the increase in overseas office prices, the price also skyrockets many times.
Even the cheapest Ford Model T in the United States is sold in Songhu for NT$2,000, making it a luxury item that can only be owned by the rich and powerful.
During the Republic of China, rich people and dignitaries competed with each other to buy a large number of cars. At that time, there were more than 10,000 cars in the Songhu Concession alone.
In the 1930s, the performance and styling of automobiles began to move closer to mid- to high-end cars. The strange shapes and expensive special configurations of mid- to high-end cars were more popular.
However, as vehicle design began to pay attention to aerodynamic effects, Pierce-Arrow launched the Silver Arrow prototype in 1933. In 1934, Chrysler's Airflow and Disordo's Airflow were also launched.
In 1934, Mercedes-Benz produced the first diesel-powered car; in 1936, the mid-size car Graham achieved commendable excellence in both vehicle power and fuel economy. In 1937, the American Hudson Company created a clutch-free electric gear shift.
.
In 1938, the world's first concept car, Buick Y Job, had a boat-shaped body and a streamlined body constructed with complex curved surfaces. These were the objects of imitation by manufacturers in the following decades. Y Job also introduced clay model technology for the first time to make the car's shape more flexible.
This technology is still used today.
Advances in automobile technology are mainly in engines, fuels, and lubricants, and have also promoted the development of synthetic rubber; Germany refines synthetic fuel from coal, many regions in Europe and Asia use producer gas, and some areas use alcohol instead of gasoline.
And Zhou Wenhua has just traveled through time in October 1931.
He felt that he still had the opportunity to make a contribution to the domestic automobile manufacturing industry during this period.
After reading "Auto Repair", he also planned to bring Ford's streamlined production line technology into China.
The prerequisite for the development of industry is the establishment and growth of factories. During the Republic of China, various factories appeared.
However, many industries collapsed before they developed, because at this time, the domestic national industries were still under the double blow of the foreign capital system and the country's backward system, which caused many emerging factories and enterprises to close down.
On September 13, the 20th year of the Republic of China (1931), the "Republic of China Daily" also published a report about the first factory to develop domestically produced automobiles, which was the people's livelihood factory of the Liaoning Mortar Factory, which was converted from military to civilian use.
Officially began to transform into a factory that develops domestically produced automobiles.
In order to develop automobiles, the local government gave great financial support. All the remaining national currency of the mortar factory, which was almost 50,000 yuan, was used to purchase raw materials for automobile research and development, and to provide subsidies to automobile technicians in the factory.
R&D funding.
But it is not an easy task to study automobile manufacturing from scratch, so the man behind the first automobile factory, a certain young marshal, purchased a "Ruixue" from the United States.
The complete vehicle is used as a prototype, and technicians and masters from the factory come to the factory for disassembly and research.
On the basis of dismantling foreign cars and then assembling them, they learned about the design and development methods of foreign auto parts and laid the foundation for my country's independent manufacturing of cars.
It is a pity that this first automobile factory in China could only survive and develop trucks.
And the good times did not last long. In the second half of 1931, after the September 18th Incident broke out, the Minsheng Factory also suffered bankruptcy after losing the support of its big sponsors for research and development. As a result, there was no more research and development or manufacturing in the country.
The emergence of domestically produced cars,
All are imported from abroad.
So after Zhou Wenhua saw his father working in a car factory last night,
His face was immediately filled with surprise,
Then, he also began to think and study how to run this automobile factory.
His father's factory is actually mostly a transportation factory that assembles cars for foreigners, and also includes some car repair projects.
So it is not a domestic automobile factory with its own independent research and development capabilities.
And Zhou Wenhua wants to change it into an assembly line production like Ford.
He wants to advance the domestic automobile manufacturing industry in this era, so that even in future war-torn times, some technical foundations can be retained.
So after eating breakfast,
He was going to his father's car factory,
At this time, the housekeeper Liu Xing came to report to him that he had found a foreign seller of weapons and equipment, and that he had recruited 12 strong, clean-blooded young people as ordered to come back and prepare to be members of Zhou Wenhua's security team.
.
These young men are all practitioners, so with bare hands, they can still defeat two or several enemies with one person.
After listening,
Zhou Wenhua also immediately asked the housekeeper Liu Xing to arrange the accommodation and the canteen for eating.
However, he was still escorted by his father's bodyguards, got into the car, and continued to his father's car factory to visit and receive it in preparation for transformation.
The first domestic automobile company that is developed and produced domestically will also appear in advance through its transformation.