"Boring!Boring!Boring!..."

The heavy steam hammer pounded the steel plate below hard, and the loud noise burst out instantly like thunder. If it is close, the eardrum will be shaken down on the spot and the mind will be dizzy. ○

This is the steel factory of Krupp, which is responsible for supplying cannons and armor to the German Navy. From its establishment to the present, it has provided countless excellent products to the world for decades. Lord Li Hongzhang of the Qing Dynasty alone bought thousands of heavy artillery from them, and the order price was calculated at tens of millions of taels.

Making money is very profitable! Krupp, which is almost equivalent to the lifeblood of German equipment, is undoubtedly one of the most profitable companies in the world.

What they are most proud of is that they always master world-class metallurgical construction technology. Even the products of the British Armstrong Company are still not as good as those of Krupp's cannons.

Then, as the ruler of the Krupp Empire, the third generation Frederick had enough capital to face the vast majority of wealthy families and great figures in the world calmly. Even the German Emperor William II had to smile like his friends in front of him.

However, today, Fredrich seems very unconfident. Familiar people can even see a little panic and nervousness from his expression, especially when they see with their own eyes that the terrible qualities displayed by the samples and an invisible sense of crisis are overwhelming in their hearts.

Finally, the steel plate that had been hit hard thousands of times burst into pieces, and the irritating noise echoed and decayed in the empty factory building and gradually disappeared. A group of engineers with ear protection immediately rushed out of the sound insulation operation room next to them, shouting loudly as the dirty workers all over changed the next piece of material.

Frederi covered his mouth and nose with a flawless handkerchief. He frowned slightly and walked into the workshop. His leather shoes that could reflect like a mirror fell on the ground with a large amount of iron slag and dust. It looked particularly inconsistent and made him feel even more unhappy.

However, at the moment of more important things, some personal cleanliness can only give in temporarily.

The engineer obviously noticed the displeasure of Krupp's third generation. He rubbed his rough hands nervously and controlled his tone and said, "Sir, we have cleaned the factory as much as possible. But you know, we work overtime here every day..."

Frederi gently waved his handkerchief to stop this useless explanation, and he felt uncomfortable. He then said something from others that "the oil is difficult to clean up", "our exhaust fan is not working smoothly, resulting in too high dust content in the air", etc., which will make him feel disgusted and want to vomit.

Well, the third generation of the Krupp family not only has a clean eroticism, but also a homosexual. Of course, this matter cannot be mentioned. People in this era are not as enlightened as hundreds of years ago. As a public figure, if such a scandal is exposed, his best solution is to commit suicide.

The work of replacing a new piece of experimental material was terminated, and Fredrich said frustly: "No need to test it anymore, just report the data and judgment results you have obtained."

The old engineer with gray hair felt a little regretful. He could not continue to conduct destructive experiments to figure out the performance of his opponent's products, but the boss's orders were even more inconsistent. He had to sigh and said, "As of now, we have tested 115 unused metal materials from China, 383 hard damage experiments, and 1,044 sets of chemical experiments. There are about 30 types that can infer the proportion of components. Others need further testing."

Fredrich didn't want to hear that detail, so he raised his index finger and interrupted him: "Say the point."

The old engineer licked his tongue, turned the thick report back, and said, "Well, what is certain now is that their metal products have unparalleled excellent performance, exceeding any of our best products. Whether it is the steel used to make guns, steel plates of ships, or even armored steel, there are at least 30% more performance. We cannot understand how they did it."

Speaking of this, the old engineer shook his head incredible. In the minds of him and most Germans, China's image is probably similar to that of Africans. Even though there have been so many years of trade between China and Germany, the general sense of white superiority and too distant barriers have made them generally lose the ability to understand.

Of course, there are books that introduce Chinese in society, and newspapers often publish Eastern news, but most of them are negative content. Only a few people read and draw nourishment from translated Chinese classics. Most of the stereotyped Germans do not care.

In the wild land they remember, a large number of products with unexpected performance would be produced, which made it unacceptable for the Germans who felt extremely superior.

Fredrich was not so ignorant. He went to China in person to visit Yang Hao and had the opportunity to visit the factories under construction in Tianjin, including arsenals, shipyards, steel plants and vehicle factories. The deep impression on him led to frequent midnight dreams and sweating all over his body. Because he often dreamed that the huge Krupp industrial empire collapsed overnight!

Therefore, he had no agreement with the old engineer's doubts and said lightly: "They have ten thousand tons of hydraulic presses, and it is very likely that there will be more than one. Thousands and hundreds of tons of water presses and hydraulic presses are almost universally present in their machinery factories. In addition, they have established large steel mills with annual output of millions of tons of high-quality steel, more than one. What is most surprising is that they have a thick plate rolling mill with a wide width and huge width!"

The old engineer opened his mouth in surprise, as if the sea fish was short of water after getting ashore, and the horror in his eyes made people mistakenly think that he saw Satan's incarnation appear in front of him.

After staying for a while, he groaned long: "God! This is simply incredible. The Chinese actually have advanced metallurgical machinery!"

For the first time, Fredrich felt that it was a great mistake to not let the company's engineers go to China in batches in advance to open their horizons. They were used to watching the sky in Europe and lived in the good feeling of being the best in the world all day long. They completely forgot that the world is actually very big, and it is definitely not only Europeans who can create the peak of industrial civilization.

As early as 1893, Bethlehem Steel in the United States was the first to successfully build the first 10,000-ton hydraulic press. The three-roll Rotter steel rolling mill was used in the United States for many years. Krupp has extremely advanced metallurgical technology. This does not mean that they are the world's number one. This kind of arrogance is very bad.

But to be honest, it is still very surprising to find so many advanced and strange things in China. Frederick really couldn't imagine which country in the world would be so stupid that it would sell the most advanced industrial equipment, especially to the potential huge rival of the Chinese.

In addition, even if this transaction is done, it must be promoted by the whole world, because the share is too large!

"Forget it, don't think about those bad things."

Fredrich shook his head and signaled the old engineer to continue to give back.

"We have tested the steel plates of warships from China. They should be made by using a thick plate rolling mill to cut and punch holes according to our requirements. Their strength is far greater than our existing ship plates. In addition, we found that it seems that this is just the plates they use on ordinary civilian ships, and we did not get samples."

Fredrich was helpless again. This was not just a terrible thing, it was a show-off! The steel plates used to build civilian ships were actually better than the best warship steel plates in the West. This means that their metallurgical technology and production capacity were beyond imagination.

"In addition, the armored steel composition they provide should be chromium manganese steel and nickel chromium steel, but the surface hardening process is very good, and some indicators exceed our KC steel. However, we suspect that their production costs will be much lower than ours."

"That's exactly what I'm most worried about."

Fredrich was very calm and keenly judged the most threatening point from the perspective of a qualified businessman.

If we look at it from the standpoint of a hostile country, China should never sell raw materials and equipment for building warships to the outside world, which is equivalent to causing trouble for the enemy.

But they did that and there was an almost unlimited supply. Even if the top powers in the world placed orders, the total number may not be able to be supplied by Britain and Germany. However, they still ate them all indifferently. And at the first moment, all countries got the samples they needed. What does this mean? Being confident!

Fredrich admired Yang Hao's business methods very much. Through one-sided victory in the war, he proved the unquestionable superiority of the weapons and equipment he possessed. Then he took the opportunity to make a big fuss and said that he could sell it, and that countries who were eager to figure out where their own failures were to buy it. Compared to Fessbala's intelligence, it is obvious that paying for it is more direct and cost-effective, and they have a more comprehensive understanding.

There is no doubt that all countries have to get what they want. But because they have obtained all their ideal products, they have made all countries particularly confused. Because the ship equipment materials provided by China are more superior in performance and more timely supply than the ones produced by their own countries, and the price is at least one-fifth cheaper!

An advanced battleship, with an average of 2 million pounds of fakes, except for the weapon system, the rest is at least one fifth of 1400,000, which is the price difference of nearly 300,000 pounds!

For major naval powers, it is expected to build dozens of battleships, so adding up may save tens of millions of pounds of funds... This number is really tempting! No political party or head of state cannot refuse a proposal to save so much money, otherwise he will be ruthlessly criticized.

But for arms suppliers from various countries, this is simply a disaster! They cannot surpass each other technically in the short term, so they can only find the gap in price. But the problem is that people are one-fifth cheaper, so how can you win orders if you don’t have more cheapness? Once the price is reduced, how can everyone’s profits be generated? Without profits, the company will go bankrupt!

This kind of thing cannot be solved by a political influence. Faced with wealth of tens of millions of pounds, it is difficult for anyone to maintain a calm heart.

Companies such as Krupp and Armstrong have various products. Although the cannons that are mainly used by Fist do not compete, they do not mean there is no pressure. For example, now, King William II of Germany even ignored his good relationship with Frederi, and seriously ordered that the main guns of warships with superior performance must be developed as soon as possible. German warships cannot be worse than anyone's artillery!

Krupp was confident that he would make his fist product, the 280mm cannon, and it was even less powerful than the 305mm cannon commonly advocated by all countries, but that was not safe enough. The navy has always had a lot of complaints about the caliber of being smaller than others. What's worse is that he has very little time left.

Fredrich must think carefully about how to solve the problem of Chinese products as soon as possible. Before the second batch of warships starts construction, he will try to level the gap in technology and price. Otherwise, the Krupp Empire will inevitably miss the golden development period for more than ten years. By then, Krupp, who only manufactures cannons and guns, will become a second-rate in the industry.

This is something he absolutely cannot tolerate.

"It seems that I have to go to China."

Frederi secretly made up his mind that for the rise and fall of the family, he had to try to do some adventures.

The same troubles are spreading and exploding between the British and French warship design and construction suppliers. Especially the British, who are proud of being the world's number one, are most difficult to accept. Major private shipbuilding companies even joined forces to boycott the empire's surrender to the Chinese and prevent the UK from purchasing Chinese products on a large scale.

The British government is actually not happy to do such serious face loss. As long as they think about spending money to buy things from China, they feel extremely wronged. The British Empire has always robbed things they value from weak countries. When will it take a fair deal? Especially for this kind of order that is being extorted by someone, every pound of funds is spent. There is a sense of humiliation that the kneecap is broken.

The parliament was quarreling about this, and the nobles who stood and spoke without ache were clamoring to make the Chinese pay the price and ask for punishment and blows in their eyes. But they couldn't even come up with another useful idea if they did it.

The cunning naval minister came up with a question they could not answer: "If Britain did not buy those things, the Germans would definitely buy them. We must doubt that China and them have more private deals, and once the Germans mastered the terrible warship technology and built it in a short time, you should know what the consequences would be."

The threat is right in front of you.

Yang Hao is playing a conspiracy, with Britain, France, Germany and Russia competing with each other, and no one can be defeated by an overwhelming advantage. The threat from Germany is especially close, and no British can sit still.

The quarrels continue, but the business has quietly begun. Comprador is not only available in China. As long as there is huge profit, some people are selling out national interests without caring about it.

Compared with Europe, which was instigated, the United States, which is far away from the center of the world, seems to be indifferent. Americans who are dedicated to economics are particularly sensitive to making money, but they are not very interested in the complex military struggles in the Far East.

This time, the United States suffered very little losses. The reason why it joined the team to purchase Chinese shipbuilding equipment and materials was that it did not want to be excluded. In addition, it was also a keen discovery of the US diplomatic family that if it could not establish good relations with China as soon as possible, it is likely that the United States will be the first to face threats from China in the near future.

In 1896, the United States was still prevalent in its conservatism, but the industrial accumulation that had exceeded the completion led to an economic crisis, which made their senior leaders realize that they had to open up new colonial markets. The temptation of China was smashed back by Yang Hao, and they had to settle for the second best to seek equal trade relations. However, they had no intention of giving up on the struggle for the declining Spanish colony.

After the end of the two naval wars, the Western world generally sees clearly that China's strong rise is almost unstoppable, and Japan and Southeast Asian colonies, which bear the brunt of the brunt, will face great challenges. Once China rushes out of the encirclement and directly threatens Hawaii to the east, it will become a springboard for directly threatening the west coast of the United States.

Over the years, Americans have committed countless sins against the Chinese. Can they not worry about retaliation? The answer is yes. In order to prevent such terrible consequences, President Grove Cleveland personally inquired, and the Navy Shipbuilding Committee negotiated and began to join the craze for the construction of new battleships.

However, compared with the president who is extremely conscious of crisis and the navy who is keen on expanding its strength, most U.S. lawmakers are more sensitive to spending money. They are picky about the various warship designs proposed by the Navy, especially emphasizing that the tonnage of warships cannot exceed 16,000 tons of water displacement.

Major General Washington Caps, a US naval shipbuilder expert, was extremely angry about this. If the advanced battleships he knew were to achieve the predetermined performance, they would have to install multiple full main guns, which would have to exceed 16,000 tons, and more likely to reach 20,000 tons.

The United States' industrial standard allows them to build ship-building steel, but lacks supporting equipment. In addition, the technology of the main gun construction is quite poor, and large-caliber artillery can basically not be produced. So far, the only one that has achieved some success is their eight-inch 203mm gun, which can be used to build battleships, which is obviously too small.

Under various constraints, the design of American warships was also full of twists and turns. The final solution was a middle design with two four-door 12-inch main guns and eight-door 8-inch secondary guns. Its standard displacement was 15,000 tons, and it finally passed the threshold of parliament passing.

In this way, none of the great powers has reached the immediate start of construction of all main gun warships. The mixed design scheme that takes a step back, without exception, has fallen into a big pit where the main gun and secondary gun cannot guarantee the effectiveness of the volley.

However, the warships with all main guns are in full design, and various equipment equipped for future steel monsters are reflected on new ships. Advanced power systems, higher fire rate fully enclosed main turrets, towering armored bridges, main masts with optical aiming and ranging, construction of in-ship communication and radio communication systems, and a series of naval equipment are unfolding like a rush.

Yang Hao, who is far away in China, was so happy that he grinned his mouth to the back of his teeth in the face of the rolling gold and silver that were flocking to various countries. (To be continued, please search for astronomy, the novel is better and faster!
Chapter completed!