Reborn Industrial Tycoon

At that time, only two countries produced cotton harvesters, one was the United States and the other was Russia. Among them, Russian cotton harvesters were still derived from Soviet-era technology.

This is not because Germany or Japan do not have the technology to produce cotton harvesters, but because neither Europe nor Japan is the origin of cotton. Naturally, European and Japanese agricultural machinery companies will not develop cotton harvesters.

Based on the world's industrial structure at that time, except for the United States, Europe and Japan, it was difficult for other regions to develop products such as cotton harvesters.

In the agricultural field, there are two bulk products that have relatively recently entered the era of mechanized farming and harvesting. One is rapeseed and the other is cotton.

Cotton was the most important crop in the early days of the United States. The history of the first hundred years of the United States was basically a history of blood and tears in growing cotton. So as early as 1850, when the Industrial Revolution had just begun, Americans began to try to use mechanical harvesting.

cotton.

However, the characteristics of cotton also make mechanical harvesting more difficult. Americans have been researching for more than seventy years, and it was not until the 1920s that they invented a commercial cotton-picking machine, but the efficiency was really not impressive.

People compliment.

The early cotton picking machines were not as efficient as manual cotton picking. The only advantage was probably that they could save manpower.

After another fifty years of research, the Americans finally made a highly efficient mechanical cotton picker. By 1975, the Americans finally realized the mechanization of cotton harvesting.

It was during the Cold War, and the United States and the Soviet Union were competing in various fields. Since the Americans began to use cotton harvesters, the Soviets could not lag behind, so the Soviet Union also accelerated the development of cotton harvesters, and in 1980

, also began to promote and use cotton harvesters on a large scale.

However, the cotton harvesters of that era had two shortcomings. One was that the cotton yield was low, only about 70%; the other was that the impurity content was high, which would reduce the quality of the cotton.

Large-scale mechanized agriculture has always had a shortcoming, which is relatively high post-production losses.

After all, machines are not human hands. When using a large harvester, some losses will inevitably occur. The losses of food crops will be less, and the losses of fruits and vegetables will be greater.

The cotton harvesters of later generations can achieve a cotton yield of more than 90%, which means that the loss can be controlled within 10%. However, when cotton harvesters first appeared in the 1980s and 1990s, the loss was still around 30%.

The cultivated land area in the United States and the Soviet Union is relatively large. It is no exaggeration to say that people have so much land that they simply cannot plant it. It does not matter if they lose a little agricultural product.

However, for China, this kind of loss of more than 10% is definitely something that farmers cannot afford.

In addition, mechanical harvesting of cotton will result in a large amount of bell shells, broken branches and broken leaves. Therefore, mechanized harvesting of cotton at that time required a large investment in cotton cleaning plants to remove various impurities in the cotton.

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Americans are rich enough to do this, but the Chinese can't even afford a cotton harvester, let alone build another cotton cleaning plant.

Therefore, in the 1980s and 1990s, cotton harvesters were not widely used in China.

Of course, the most important reason is China’s low labor costs.

Since you can spend money to hire people to pick, and the cotton yield is high and there are no impurities, why buy an expensive cotton harvester?

During the cotton harvest season in September, trains in Xinjiang across the country will be crowded with troops of colored cotton. A month of hard work on colored cotton can earn less than half a year's income.

In the future, with the advancement of science and technology, cotton harvesters will become more and more advanced. Not only will the color cotton rate increase, but the impurity rate will also be greatly reduced. China has also begun to use cotton harvesters.

In some places, there are even unmanned cotton harvesters. Once the Beidou satellite is positioned, cotton farmers can complete the harvest with just a few clicks of their fingers on their mobile phones.

There are differences between China-made cotton harvesters and American cotton harvesters.

The types of cotton cultivated around the world are actually different. Pima cotton is grown in the United States, African cotton is grown in Africa, and Brazilian cotton is grown in South America. Different types of cotton have different picking characteristics.

Even the same variety of cotton will grow differently due to different soil, light, and rain levels.

Therefore, the large-scale cotton harvesters in the United States may not be suitable for picking Chinese cotton, and Chinese cotton harvesters are also developed specifically for the Chinese market.

The adjusting mechanical blade used by domestic cotton harvesters can completely separate the seed cotton from various cotton bolls. Even if the cotton bolls are not fully mature or the bolls have different moisture content, there is no problem.

Moreover, the separated seed cotton will not be scattered and can basically remain in its original state.

In the process of separating cotton husks, domestic cotton harvesters do not use the traditional separation transmission structure of the United States, so the structure should be simpler.

Among mechanical equipment, the fewer complex structures used, the higher the stability of the machinery and the less likely it is to malfunction. Therefore, the stability of domestic cotton harvesters should also be higher.

Domestic cotton harvesters have become national-level invention patents in later generations, and the patent rights are naturally owned by the National Agricultural Machinery Research Institute. What Li Weidong is interested in is also this set of patented technologies.

In China in the 1990s, cotton harvesters were still an unpopular agricultural machinery. There were no agricultural machinery companies producing them, and no agricultural machinery companies were researching and developing them. Only public scientific research institutions like the Agricultural Machinery Research Bureau would pay attention to this product.

This also means that if Li Weidong wants to make a cotton harvester, no one will compete with Li Weidong.

While other agricultural machinery companies were unaware of the market prospects of cotton harvesters, Li Weidong took over the project first. When other companies discovered that cotton harvesters could make money in the future, Fukang Agricultural Machinery had already mastered the core technology.

At that time, if you apply for a few patents casually, you will be able to form a patent barrier and choke others.

Moreover, Li Weidong is not worried that other agricultural machinery companies will copy it, because this is a project obtained from the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute. If domestic agricultural machinery companies dare to copy the scientific research results of the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute, they may not even be able to market their products.

…

When Li Weidong mentioned the cotton harvester, Uncle He across from him frowned slightly.

"Weidong, this cotton harvester you are talking about is probably a niche agricultural machinery, right?" Uncle He asked.

"More than just a niche, no one in China is using this thing at all! Currently, cotton harvesters are mainly used in the United States. Several other major cotton-growing countries still basically rely on manual labor to pick cotton." Li Weidong replied with a smile.

"Is it because the cost of machine picking is relatively high?" Uncle He asked.

"Foreign machinery and equipment must be extremely expensive to sell, but this is only one aspect. Another point is that the cotton yield and quality rate of machine picking are not as good as manual picking." Li Weidong replied.

Uncle He didn't know much about this aspect, but Aunt He next to him said: "When I was young, I went to the countryside to join the queue. I used to work on Chinese cotton. The picking of this cotton is indeed very particular..."

After Aunt He's introduction, Uncle He finally understood the difficulties of mechanically picking cotton.

"According to this, mechanical picking of cotton wastes a lot of money and reduces the quality. This kind of agricultural machinery product does not seem to be suitable for our country's national conditions, right?" Uncle He asked.

"If it's not suitable now, it doesn't mean it won't be suitable in the future. Moreover, cotton picking only lasts for a month. If there is not so much manpower, we will eventually have to rely on machines!" Li Weidong replied.

Uncle He responded: "Well, after dinner, I will ask you first to see if there is any related research on cotton harvesters in the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute."

China once had a Ministry of Agricultural Machinery Industry, which was specifically responsible for the development of domestic agricultural machinery. This is enough to prove that the country attaches great importance to the agricultural machinery industry.

Later, the Ministry of Agricultural Machinery Industry was renamed the Eighth Ministry of Machinery Industry, and was later merged into the First Ministry of Machinery Industry, which was the General Administration of Agricultural Machinery at that time.

Later, the country established a new Eighth Ministry of Machinery Industry, responsible for missile engineering. The General Administration of Agricultural Machinery also became independent from the First Ministry of Machinery Industry and restored the organizational structure of the Ministry of Agricultural Machinery.

It was not until the 1980s that the Ministry of Agricultural Machinery merged with the First Ministry of Machinery Industry again to form the Ministry of Machinery Industry.

As the leader of the Ministry of Machinery Industry, Uncle He asked about the research status of cotton harvesters with just one phone call.

"Okay, I understand." Uncle He put down the phone and said, "There is actually a project team at the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute that is working on the research and development of cotton harvesters. It is said that the person in charge of this project is still a young postdoctoral fellow."

"So how's the research and development process going?" Li Weidong asked.

"I'm not sure about this. After all, I don't know much about cotton harvesters." Uncle He paused and then said, "But I think the development progress will not be too smooth.

As I said just now, the person in charge of this project is a young postdoctoral fellow. When applying for scientific research funds at the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute, people are ranked based on their seniority. Young people should not receive too much funding.

In addition, the waste produced by cotton harvesters is relatively large, which is not suitable for our current national conditions. I estimate that the research and development of this project will not receive much support."

Li Weidong nodded: "This is understandable. After all, the country has limited resources, and good steel must be used wisely!"

"So Weidong, if you want to do this cotton harvester project, you have to think twice before you do it! Although no one is competing with you for this project, there is no profit from this project." Uncle He said, picking up a piece of fruit.

, stuffed it into his mouth and tasted it.

"I think the prospect of cotton harvesters is very broad. As long as the cotton yield can be improved and the problem of excessive impurities can be solved, it can replace manual harvesting." Li Weidong replied.

"This requires a lot of follow-up research and development and investment." Uncle He continued with a serious face; "You have also produced a lot of new products in recent years. You know that research and development is very precise, and you are likely to invest a lot of money."

Time and money are spent on getting no results."

"I understand that if I do this project, I will have to contribute a lot of money myself." Li Weidong replied.

"Then you are still willing to take on this project? Don't forget, you are here to share the pie this time. To put it bluntly, you are here to get benefits. After a long time of trouble, you still have to pay for it, and the result may not be successful.

This is a loss-making business. When did you capitalists switch to a loss-making business?" Uncle He said with a hint of ridicule.

Li Weidong replied with a serious face: "Our country cannot remain poor, nor can we always use manpower to pick cotton. Large-scale mechanical picking of cotton is the future development trend.

If we don’t do it ourselves, we will be overtaken by foreigners in the future, and then this market will belong to foreigners again! It is about the clothing of more than one billion people in our country, and we cannot rely on foreigners!”

…

The China Agricultural Machinery Research Institute was established in 1956, and at that time, there was also the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Later, the two academies merged to form the China Academy of Agricultural Mechanization Sciences.

In the late 1980s, the national team's scientific research system was reformed, and the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute was the pilot unit, which began to transform from a pure scientific research institute to a scientific research and operation-oriented institute.

Given the national conditions at that time, it was impossible to make any money doing scientific research. A scientific research institute could not survive without financial allocations.

Fortunately, the state has placed the Quality Inspection Center of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau in the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute. This means that if agricultural machinery from various manufacturers wants to be put into production, it must pass the inspection of the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute. This also gives the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute a source of funding.

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It's just that scientific research has never been too expensive. The funds obtained through agricultural machinery quality inspection obviously cannot meet the needs of various scientific research projects, so the shortage of scientific research funds has become the norm.

The country will also carry out a series of reforms in the future. The Agricultural Machinery Research Institute will have 7 wholly-owned subsidiaries, 12 holding subsidiaries and 5 directly affiliated units, plus 12 bases and an agricultural machinery logistics park, with annual revenue of

Nearly 10 billion.

This has also made the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute's scientific research funds richer, and the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute has become an enterprise integrating scientific research and development and equipment manufacturing.

In the 1990s, the Agricultural Machinery Research Institute was obviously not so wealthy. After several rounds of funding reductions, various projects were short of money.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Agricultural Machinery, Ni Guilin was standing anxiously in front of the door of the dean's office.

At this time, Ni Guilin already had a feeling that something bad was going on. He could guess that the project he was responsible for was about to be axed.

Ni Guilin is responsible for the research and development of cotton picking equipment.

When this project was first proposed, it did not gain widespread recognition because, in the opinion of the leaders, cotton harvesters were not suitable for China’s national conditions. There are so many people in China that there is no need to use machines to harvest cotton.

cotton.

With the technology at that time, although the cotton harvest rate of American cotton harvesters could reach about 90%, the impurity rate was still high and could not be solved. Even if Ni Guilin developed a cotton harvester similar to the American one, it still had to be built again.

A cotton cleaning factory will do.

It is precisely because this project is not optimistic that the funds received by the project are very limited. If the money is less, the research and development progress will be slower. If the research and development progress is slow, the money will be less, thus forming a vicious circle.

Recently, the institute has begun to reduce funds again. Ni Guilin feels that his project is doomed!

Not long ago, Ni Guilin received a call from the dean, asking him to go to the dean's office.

Ni Guilin instantly realized that the death sentence had finally come!