The changes that the country's development has brought to all people are both subtle and immediate.
The kind of self-confidence that comes from their hearts can sometimes be established just because of one thing.
Ordinary people like Xiangzi completely changed their self-image just because they had enough to eat and a stable job.
Xiangzi now feels that he is also an official. Although he only earns five Chinese yuan a month, it makes him feel proud.
When Dong Shuheng asked the local government to find ways to build so many government-owned factories, it may not only be out of economic considerations.
At the same time, these lower-level workers are firmly tied to the government.
Nowadays, every prefecture and county across the country basically has its own factories and enterprises. Even some towns and villages are building factories.
It has indeed played an important role in the rapid economic development of West China, and it is also changing the small farmer economic model in rural China.
These small factories and the basic projects built by the Fuxing Army have given people in rural areas more opportunities to make money.
Coupled with the immigration system of the Baath Army, the traditional attachment relationship between farmers and the land is gradually loosening.
Farmers discovered that they could survive without farming, and even get better.
In this way, Dong Shuheng also sprinkled a lot of money into the hands of the people.
Whether it is Chinese yuan, copper yuan or various military tickets and vouchers, they are actually currencies.
Only when ordinary people have currency in their hands can they participate in commodity transactions.
Through trading, people found that they could live better.
Don’t worry about people saving their money and not spending it. In fact, the people who save the most money are the landlords.
The common people lack almost everything. As long as the goods they need are available in the world and they have purchasing power, these people will spend their money.
Where did the currency controlled by Dong Shuheng come from? Part of it was obtained from foreign trade, which was the wool collected from foreigners.
Some of it was taken from the overthrow of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and confiscated from the Manchu princes and nobles as well as the landowners and gentry who used the Manchu Qing rule.
Others are obtained through financial means such as establishing banks and issuing currency.
Of course, there is also part of the money that the original enlightened gentry and landlords took the initiative to release into the market after they transitioned from agriculture to industry and commerce.
Dong Shuheng is now establishing an economic model. Government-run enterprises control key industries related to people's livelihood. At the same time, other industry areas are completely open to the government and private development.
Of course, this does not mean that this model is very good. Compared with privately managed factories, these government-run factories now have government support and actually have a great competitive advantage.
In addition, China is in a state of shortage of materials, and factories are basically in a state of shortage of supply.
This allows these government-run enterprises and private factories to coexist peacefully.
But as time goes by in the future, problems will definitely become apparent.
Now tricycle drivers like Xiangzi feel that they are eating royal food and feel that their status has been improved.
How can these factories and enterprises compete with China's emerging private factory owners in the future?
Dong Shuheng felt that some of the management systems, supervision systems and incentive mechanisms he transplanted from later generations could avoid such problems.
But is it really that simple?
During the economic upswing, all problems are covered up by the good momentum of development.
But bottlenecks will eventually appear.
However, Dong Shuheng is not paying attention to this kind of thing that has no obvious characteristics in the short term.
He has a lot of things on his hands. The war between the Holy Kingdom and Burma in South Asia and the British, the immigration and administrative establishment of the Luzon region, the development of small Chinese countries in Southeast Asia, the competition between North America and the British for the western region of Canada, and Kansas in the United States.
civil war, the dynamics of the Chinese in South America, and the development of the Prussian-Danish War in Europe.
All of this requires his attention. But human energy is limited after all.
As the saying goes, if you pay attention to too many things, you will inevitably have some oversights.
"Director Xu, you said that electromagnetic waves can propagate in the form of energy in the air. Can we design a sensitive receiving device to receive the electromagnetic waves propagating in the air? Then we can achieve the same effect as a wired telegraph machine.
." Today, Dong Shuheng spent time in Xu Shou's Electric Power Research Institute again, and the two talked about the electromagnetic waves that Xu Shou had recently studied.
Originally, he had heard about new developments in light bulbs and planned to come over to take a look.
Unexpectedly, I was brought together by Xu Shou to discuss electromagnetic waves.
"Yes, President, I have considered the idea you proposed. It is indeed feasible. I have been working on this receiving device recently."
"And I found that the speed at which electromagnetic waves propagate in the air is basically the same as the speed at which electricity propagates in wires."
Dong Shuheng took Xu Shou's words and said: "This means that we can directly use this wireless telegraph to replace wired telegraph."
"Yes, yes, President, you know that the British laid an Atlantic submarine cable last year, but it burned out soon after. The current cable cannot withstand such high voltage, and it must be able to transmit under the sea.
For long-distance transmission, the voltage must be increased," Xu Shou said.
"If this wireless telegraph machine is built, we will no longer need to be restricted by cables, and the cost of communication will also be reduced."
Dong Shuheng naturally knew the prospect envisioned by Xu Shou.
But he knew this was difficult to do.
Historically, in 1895, Italian Marconi successfully conducted a radio wave transmission experiment in his garden and obtained a patent the following year.
In 1898, a cross-sea wireless telegraph test was successfully conducted on both sides of the English Channel, with a communication distance of 45 km.
In 1899, a communication link with a distance of 106 km was established.
In October 1900, a powerful transmitting station was built in the UK, using a 10kW acoustic spark telegraph transmitter. In December 1901, Marconi used a kite to pull an antenna in Canada and successfully received wireless telegraphs from across the Atlantic.
The news of the successful test shocked the world. Starting in 1903, news was transmitted by radio from the United States to the British "Times" and was published in the newspaper on the same day.
By 1909, wireless telegraphy had already demonstrated its effectiveness in communications. After that, most military fortresses and harbor ships in many countries were equipped with wireless equipment, and wireless telegraphy became a global undertaking.
Wireless telegraphy made global communications more affordable and practical.
If a wired telegraph line was to be laid across the Pacific, Dong Shuheng felt that it would be better to directly develop wireless telegraph technology.
In fact, these technologies are like piercing a layer of window paper.
Once it is broken, it will achieve explosive development.
The development of science and technology in the late nineteenth century was like this, and it was no longer as slow as in the past.
It took hundreds of years for the steam engine to mature from invention. However, it only took less than a few decades for the internal combustion engine to become practical.
After electricity became practical, all kinds of electrical equipment seemed to appear all at once.
People discovered that their ideas would soon become reality. Even the ideas in science fiction novels at that time could not be realized within a few years.
What does this mean?
This shows that in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, human science and technology had accumulated to a certain extent, enough to support the explosive development of science and technology.
Materials limit the development of science and technology. Many of the things Dong Shuheng knows now can actually be developed by his research institute.
However, they don't have the right materials.
The rapid development of modern science and technology is inseparable from the development of materials science.
This period was also a period of great development in materials science. The periodic table of elements was gradually completed during this period.
The application of electricity allows people to extract many elements that were previously difficult to extract.
"Let's go, slowly build this wireless telegraph machine. Even if it is done, wired telegraph machines will still have to be built. These lines will not be wasted in the future. They can be transformed into telephone lines." Dong Shuheng said, he did not want Xu
Shou fell into a state of impatience.
With the advent of wireless telegraph machines, radios will not be far away. The speed of information dissemination will be more convenient, and that will be the time when the people's wisdom will be fully opened up.
Just like practicing martial arts, if you are impatient when doing scientific research, you will easily go crazy.
Dong Shuheng had high expectations for Xu Shou. Dong Shuheng had nothing but local scientists.
This is related to China’s long-standing education model.
Most of the scientific research backbones Dong Shuheng currently has are naturalized foreigners. The talents cultivated by the academy are still seedlings.
Dong Shuheng usually had to be wary of these naturalized foreigners. But to Xu Shou, he could tell him anything. He could even tell him things he knew that would appear a hundred years later.
"Let's go see how the electric light is running first," Dong Shuheng said.
Only then did everyone arrive at the electric lighting laboratory.
"President, extracting the air from the light bulb and creating vacuum conditions is indeed a correct research route. Recently, we have been mainly experimenting with filaments of various materials, hoping to find the most durable material, and this material is also
There must be a certain resistance." Xu Shou introduced.
"Among the many metals, we have only found that tungsten metal is the most suitable, but the drawing process of tungsten metal is not yet mature. Moreover, tungsten metal is currently only available in a small amount in the steel laboratory. We have also experimented with various carbonized fibers. You can
In this experiment, we found that the lifespan of the light bulb made of bamboo carbon fiber has exceeded one thousand hours, and it can be even longer."
"So, we decided to temporarily use bamboo carbon fiber as filament to produce light bulbs." Xu Shou said simply.
At this time, everyone walked into a room. There was a circle of wires on the wall. There was a light bulb every half meter on the wire.
The whole room was as bright as day, even a little dazzling.
Dong Shuheng saw that each light bulb had a number and a recording card underneath it.
On the card, a staff member records the operating status of the light bulb every half hour.
The light bulbs Dong Shuheng saw were similar to those he saw when he was a child.
Of course, after incandescent lamps and LED lamps became popular, few people used this kind of light bulbs.
But in this era, this kind of light bulb is already the earliest light bulb in the world.
"Now that it has been determined, let's build the factory and produce it as soon as possible. We should follow the old rules. The government builds the factory, the laboratory provides technicians, you design the production equipment, and I let the machinery factory cooperate with the production."
The light bulb factory is not complicated. The workers who blow the light bulbs can be transferred from the glass factory.
The base can be transferred from the foundry.
Making filaments is a delicate job, requiring technicians from the laboratory to be sent to the factory to train workers.
Fortunately, he only needs to be an ordinary researcher in the laboratory.
Core members like Xu Shou don't need to worry about these trivial matters.
They just need to devote all their energy to new research projects.
Each project is followed by a large number of ordinary researchers. These people will master the technology during research and prepare for future production.
Dong Shuheng knows very well that a country's scientific research capabilities are not just judged by how many things they can invent.
It also depends on whether they can turn these things into commodities.
Marconi was an Italian, but the wireless telegraph he invented was produced in England.
Why? It’s not because the UK has the ability to quickly produce its patents and turn them into commodities.
Manufacturing is the foundation of a country. Skilled workers are sometimes more important than soldiers who are good at fighting.
"Well, President, I know this. I have already made arrangements and will wait until the factory at the Ministry of Industry is ready." Xu Shou said.
"About tungsten metal, I will be able to give you an answer soon. Our prospecting team has discovered a large number of tungsten deposits in the southwest. The Institute of Metal Research has sent people to select a site to build a factory." Dong Shuheng told Xu again.
Good news for you.
"That's great. With enough tungsten metal, we can do many things. I'm still waiting for the tungsten steel from the Institute of Metal Research to be produced." Xu Shou was also very excited.
Tungsten steel is a kind of high-hardness alloy steel. It can be used as armor and bullets in the military. In industry, it can be used as drill bits and filaments.
"Director Xu, if you have time during this period, go to Luanzhou. The tractor factory and shipyard there still have some problems. Go and see if you can help them solve them. You can't just manage this power laboratory.
"Dong Shuheng said.
Xu Shou is an all-rounder, and his specialty lies in his whimsical ideas and hands-on ability.
Compared to him, his old partner Hua Hengfang is more talented in theoretical research.
Hua Hengfang now has certain attainments in the research of basic subjects such as mathematics and physics.
In the past two years, Hua Hengfang has presided over the compilation of a number of Chinese basic subject books.
He spends most of his time working in the academy.
Xu Shou was more pragmatic.
"Okay!" Xu Shou said helplessly. This president really treated him like an ox and a horse.
In order for him to work for others, he was given the title of deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry. However, Xu Shouke had never been to the Ministry of Industry for a day.