Chapter 21: Prepare a Large Pouch
The outbreak of contradictions often stems from an accidental event, and war as the main manifestation form of contradictions is no exception. On June 28, 1914, at 9:00 am, a young man from Bosnia assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who advocated for the annexation of Serbia, in Sarajevo. Princip's passionate nationalist action was seen as a great performance, but this time his dashing and domineering performance opened up the first human-made catastrophe in human history, a catastrophic disaster led by humans themselves.
The Sarajevo incident quickly became the pretext for Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, and on July 23, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, demanding that it arrest those responsible, suppress anti-Austrian activities, and dismiss officials hostile to Austria. However, Serbia did not satisfy Austria's first two demands, and soon escalated the incident into concrete action, namely mobilization for war.
The long-standing conflicts between various countries were triggered by this event, and people who were not willing to be bullied quickly made all sorts of reactions. On July 28, Austria-Hungary formally declared war on Serbia. On July 30, Russia mobilized troops to assist Serbia. On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, followed by a declaration of war on France on August 3. On August 4, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, and Belgium declared war on Germany; on the same day, Britain considered the importance of Belgium's neutrality to its own national security and the Treaty of London signed in 1839 to ensure Belgium's neutrality, so it declared war on Germany. On August 6, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, Serbia declared war on Germany, and Italy declared neutrality. On August 12, Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary.
The First World War, caused by the uneven development of capitalist political economy, officially broke out on August 12.
For Guangxi, a southwestern border province of China, these months are enough to develop many industries. Before the outbreak of World War I, all the highway networks that were previously proposed had been completed, and the railway from Guilin to Qinzhou, which runs straight through Guangxi, was also officially completed. The railway from Hechi to the east via Liuzhou to Hezhou has also completed all construction work, and the remaining auxiliary facilities will be completed within two months. The most important section of the railway line from Hezhou to Yulin and Zhanjiang via Wuzhou has also been completed, and the railway bridge spanning the Qianjiang River in Wuzhou has once again become a focus of engineering construction. The four-lane highway around Hainan Island has also been completed, and the completion of this road has played a very significant role in stimulating the agricultural economy and mineral development on Hainan Island.
The continued success of infrastructure can only be said to lay the foundation for the explosive prosperity of future economy and industry, but what really works is still relying on many factories and enterprises.
From May to August, the People's Autonomous Government, with the support of the Zhongzhong Group and the Overseas Asian Group as its backing, launched a wave of industrial construction in Guangxi. The first project to be constructed was the Yantan Hydroelectric Power Station on the Hongshui River, followed by the commencement of construction of thermal power stations in several major cities. Before the completion of many hydroelectric power stations, these power stations will undertake the task of providing electricity for industry and residential lighting. Of course, among the many constructions, the development of Hainan Island has not been forgotten. On July 20, the first fruit canning factory on the island was put into production, followed by more agricultural product processing enterprises, including sugar, salt, rubber, cement, and mineral products, which emerged like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. The most eye-catching are the pineapple cans, coconut milk, and coconut juice that have opened up overseas markets as soon as they appeared.
In the heavy industry, only a few factories such as Pingguo's aluminum smelting plant, Wuzhou's inland river transportation ship manufacturing plant, and Beihai City's Zhongzhong First Shipbuilding Plant are worth noting for their commencement of construction. However, the completion of Fangchenggang Port's seventh 10,000-ton berth is also a significant piece of good news. According to previous plans, Amer Shipping Group reduced the number of roll-on/roll-off ships used for transporting cars and trucks in China, while adding two container transport ships. The original six 10,000-ton berths were definitely not enough to meet demand, but the completion of the seventh berth has greatly alleviated the pressure on port material transportation. At the same time, Amer Shipping Group's 20 10,000-ton transport ships have significantly accelerated their cargo handling speed, allowing various products from the autonomous region to be transported quickly to large warehouses in European countries.
Of course, Guangxi Province was busy preparing for the construction of various infrastructure and large factories. At this time, a telegram was sent back from Europe, which immediately stopped Zhang Yu-sheng's busy footsteps and rushed to Fangcheng Port to receive the ship. The content of the telegram was very simple, and the translation of "students returning home" in five words was enough for Zhang Yu-sheng to rush to the port.
The returned overseas students were the 42 people that Wen Zongyao had searched for everywhere. Among these 42 people, there were rare talents who studied chemistry, geology and mining, electrical engineering, etc. With their return, Zhang Yuansheng was overjoyed. On August 22nd, Zhang Yuansheng, who didn't have the heart to care about the progress of the war in Europe, finally welcomed the returned overseas students he had been expecting at Fangchenggang.
"This is Lu Wenhua, who studied at the University of Cologne at his own expense. This is Gao Zhihang, who studied at the University of Munich. These three are Dai Rui, Cao Zhenglin and Du Hongwei, all graduated from Berlin Institute of Technology. And these two are Deng Xiang and Guo Yueran, the most talented among us, graduated from Clausthal University of Technology, their graduation thesis received the highest score from the school's review committee..."
In the autonomous government hall, Zhang Yusheng brought these people together with the leaders of various departments of the autonomous region government. Especially those who have established the same goals should meet and exchange ideas, so the meeting had just begun, Zhang Yusheng found Li Yao, the leader of the small group of students returning to China, to introduce this batch of precious talents who need thousands of dollars in aid from Asia Group every year. Before receiving large funding, many of them lived a life of diligence and thrift, studying and living with worries. However, after receiving full scholarships and living expenses support, everyone put their minds on their studies, and the achievements they made were also exciting.
The arrival of these people can be said to have alleviated the shortage of high-level intellectual talent in the autonomous region to a large extent, especially in fields such as metallurgy, chemistry, and electricity, which were heavily dependent on foreign talent. The autonomous region was finally able to extricate itself from its predicament, and some foreign workers could formally embark on their journey back home. After all, their homeland was already calling for talents scattered around the world, and war had broken out. As subjects of a country at war, they were unable to return home due to contractual issues. However, after the autonomous region's own talent returned, they would quickly replace some of these foreign workers, allowing those who were willing to return home to do so as soon as possible and serve their country. This was especially true for the Belgians, whose country had already been destroyed, and who were therefore even more eager to leave. As a result, they were among the first to receive payment and set off on transports carrying goods to Europe.
"This is the latest dictionary issued by the Autonomous Region's Education Department. In order to simplify characters and facilitate Chinese language learning, the Education Department specially revised and published this dictionary. You are already used to German, but after returning home, you still need to use your native language as the main one...". After the meeting was over, Zhang Yu-sheng specially met with these talents alone in a small conference room, but in front of him, there was also a large pile of dictionaries. In his early days at the Asia-America Group, he invented a simplified Chinese character dictionary and established the Xinhua Dictionary.
"Ah, this is the Commander-in-Chief of the People's Army of the Autonomous Region, Minister of Industry and Technology, and Vice Minister of Education, Zhang Yu. I co-founded the Asia-America Group with him, including the government of the Autonomous Region that led the people to stand up!" Zhang Yusheng said, deliberately letting everyone take a look at Zhang Yu sitting upright in his chair. "Our group's automobiles, engineering machinery, steel metallurgy, petrochemicals and so on, he personally participated in all of them. Although there are also many foreign engineering and technical personnel participating in each project, he is the absolute main force among them. You should learn from Commander Zhang when you have the opportunity!"
As soon as the words came out, Zhang Yu, who was sitting next to him with a serious face just now, couldn't sit still. He hurriedly waved his hand in disapproval and said: "I'm not as capable as he says, if I really had some abilities, why did we recruit a bunch of foreigners to help us at the beginning? Everyone is also very clear about the current situation of domestic poverty and weakness. To develop modern industry in this poor mountainous area, everyone knows the difficulties involved. The little achievements we have made so far are already too much, now that all major capitalist countries are basically embroiled in the war, according to their roughly equal abilities, I estimate that the war will last for a long time. Therefore, we must seize this opportunity to shorten the gap with imperialist countries during these few years, and all of this requires everyone's joint efforts!
Zhang Yu did not boast about himself, he was very clear about how all this came about, and what contributions he had made. He knew better than anyone else in his heart. Plagiarizing others' technology and patents, etc., is a great insult to technical personnel, but Zhang Yu was forced by the situation to do so, but he would not easily reveal the facts.
"We currently have three metallurgical projects under construction, with the smelting plants for aluminum, tungsten and tin being built at a rapid pace. Hydropower has the advantage of being clean and pollution-free, so we are also actively developing and utilizing it. The rock-filled dam of our hydropower station is now in the process of concrete pouring, but the production progress of the generator factory located within Hechi's borders is still somewhat slow. In terms of mining, the coal mine at Heshan has seen a significant increase in daily output after the large-scale use of engineering machinery, however, as an important city for mechanical industry construction, Guilin's production pace remains slow and cannot meet the urgent needs for various machinery from all over."
After the formalities, Zhang Yu-sheng directly introduced the current situation of the autonomous region to everyone. After clarifying the current construction projects, he finally mentioned a few key points. "Actually, our biggest dilemma is that the refining output of crude oil cannot keep up with actual demand. The production capacity of steel and cement is also insufficient, but with the completion of the second phase of Hainan Island and Liuzhou Cement's project, the cement problem can be solved. However, the production capacity of steel is a big issue. The steel mill built in Qinzhou uses the Shilu Iron Mine on Hainan Island, producing high-quality steel but with low output, just enough for our shipbuilding enterprises to use. With more construction projects starting, we will need more steel and cement... In short, the current realistic difficulties we face are the insufficient construction materials, and the main reason is that the autonomous region's higher education industry is blank."
Zhang Yu looked at Zhang Yu and continued to supplement: "Education is the foundation of a country, and you are also living in Germany, a rapidly rising industrial power for several years. As for an industrial power, what is most important, I'm afraid you know better than us. The developed education system and their strength in Germany are inseparable, but the current situation we face in our autonomous region is that very few people can recognize characters, let alone high-tech talents and senior intellectuals."
"So, our plan is to vigorously develop the education industry when we have a certain industrial foundation. Therefore, we hope that everyone can put forward valuable opinions and suggestions. The complete education system covering basic education, secondary education, higher education, and vocational education requires more valuable opinions to be gathered in order to develop on a solid foundation and embark on a correct development path. Only in this way can we faster complete the construction of the education system and cultivate the urgently needed talents."
Forty-four people discussed in the conference room for nearly four hours, everyone expressed their opinions, especially the international students who had just completed their studies. They were more familiar with the pros and cons of the education system of major powers. Of course, Zhang Yu and others also understood the current situation at home. After discussion and exchange, a suitable path for educational development was established. Many years later, this hastily developed education system clearly did not conform to reality, and it took many revisions to finally meet the actual needs of the Republic. However, no one could deny the significant role that this set of education systems played in the rapid rise of the Republic on August 22nd. This famous midnight meeting also became a recognized starting point for China's national education in the history of the Republic's education, and its significance cannot be described by any words.
After meeting those valuable talents, Zhang Yu-sheng got a relatively important document that came with the ship, which is the original contract of the transportation truck order signed by the British Empire and French government and Asia Mei Group. The signing of this document can make Asia Mei Group not worry about car manufacturing production for three years. However, in order to better and faster complete the order, and also to quickly earn enough funds to free up production capacity to complete other production tasks, Asia Mei Group's 3000 double-bridge four-ton load truck orders, 1200 triple-bridge twenty-ton load transport trucks, and 300 military jeep orders were divided into a large part for domestic production.
A large-scale order for a heavy-duty truck costs around $1,200, a three-bridge transport truck costs around $1,400, and the price of a jeep is around $600. Therefore, the first large-scale war material procurement order worth 5.46 million US dollars was generated from this. Of course, as the newly born southwestern industry in China, it was just what they needed at that time to welcome this sumptuous first meal. The automobile procurement order of 2.5 million US dollars made Zhang Yu-sheng very satisfied. At least after completing this order, a considerable profit can be obtained. Calculated at a profit of 25%, the automotive manufacturing industry in Guangxi can directly obtain an income of $625,000. However, such stimulation is not only given to the automotive manufacturing industry.
The production of automobiles is a very complex system engineering, which is an intuitive and concrete manifestation of a country's comprehensive strength, advanced industrial production capacity and technical level. Although different from the automotive manufacturing in later generations that requires more than 4,200 materials, current cars also require a large amount of materials to be manufactured, its progress can drive steel, metallurgy, machinery, petrochemicals, rubber industry and many other industries, having a radiation effect of 1:2.9 on a country's national economy and a driving benefit of 1:7 on labor employment.
For the mechanical manufacturing industry, which has just risen, the forging industry is the largest user of the automotive industry. 60% to 70% of forged parts are occupied and consumed by the automotive industry. There are many parts on the car that need to be forged, such as crankshafts, front axles, steering knuckles, and connecting rods. These forgings require high precision and good performance. Due to the influence of supply and demand, the large-scale development of the automotive industry has also promoted the progress of forging technology. The important role of stamping and metal cutting in the automotive industry is also not to be ignored. Metal cutting is a major project in automobile production, including engine, transmission, chassis, parts manufacturing, and mold manufacturing, all of which require metal cutting technology. Even the car knives used are an extremely high-end discipline. With the increasing technical requirements for engine cylinder blocks, cylinder heads, etc., high-speed machining is widely used, and the main shaft rotation speed is getting faster and faster. Quick tool changes also have very high requirements for tools. If a country can't even make tools, let alone metal cutting, it's impossible to build cars.
So when an order for a car comes in, it's not just stimulating the automotive industry, but also the entire industrial system. The sale of so many cars overseas can bring in huge profits from the sale of subsequent parts and products such as engine oil. To put it more concretely, $6.25 million in revenue from the automotive manufacturing industry can have a ripple effect of $18.125 million on the national economy, and also drive $43.75 million in labor income, which in turn can create more job opportunities for many people.
Of course, all this is impossible if calculated according to theoretical formulas. The war has just begun, and as the fighting continues and the intensity escalates, it will bring more military expenditures to the belligerent countries, and also bring more complex production tasks to their domestic industries. When production capacity is saturated and still cannot meet the needs of the front line, even the British Empire, which has plundered the world's wealth for hundreds of years, will have a day when it needs to seek help from outside. So what Zhang Yu is waiting for is not such an opportunity. He needs more, he needs a much larger order. Otherwise, what's the point of building so many food and clothing processing plants, expanding military factory production capacity, and building shipyards?
So Zhang Yu-sheng naturally hopes that this great war between imperialist countries will be fought as fiercely and destructively as possible, consuming more resources and weakening the power of imperialist nations to promote the development and progress of neutral countries. Of course, the belligerent countries with big temperaments and strength will not disappoint people, perhaps Zhang Yu-sheng's carefully crafted wallet will not have enough space to hold everything. That would be the best outcome.
P.S: Today is 9/18, I truly hope all Chinese people can remember this day!
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