Wild North America 1846

It is precisely because of so many unique skills and strong irreplaceability that the export products of the Tang Kingdom can smoothly enter the European and American markets and enjoy lower tariffs and interest rates.

Take kerosene, for example, which has gone through a lot of twists and turns in the European market.

After years of development, the high-quality kerosene produced in the Tang Kingdom has occupied more than 90% of the world's market. The four major giants, led by Texaco Petroleum Company, Chevron Petroleum Company, Royal Bright Petroleum Company, Chang'an Petroleum Company and a series of medium-sized oil companies, have

Small oil companies basically monopolized the world market. In 1857, their trade volume reached 165 million yuan, making them the largest chemical industry pillar in the Tang Kingdom.

Compared with the traditional lighting rapeseed oil, olive oil and candles in Europe and the United States, kerosene has many advantages such as high lighting brightness, less smoke, less odor, and reasonable price.

During the initial promotion in Europe, the oil company adopted a preferential promotion strategy of giving away kerosene lamps, towels and leather bags when buying kerosene. The vast majority of users chose kerosene lamps. Because of the superiority of kerosene products, the market promotion was very smooth.

Nowadays, in urban and rural households in France, there are an average of 3.7 kerosene lamps per household. Just lighting one kerosene lamp at night can light up the entire room.

For the same effect, at least 3 to 4 vegetable oil lamps need to be lit.

When it entered the French market in the early days, the average monthly sales of kerosene were about 6,500 barrels, sold at a price of 0.36 yuan per pound. During the same period, the price of rapeseed oil in the French market was about 0.52 to 0.55 yuan per pound, which was significantly higher than the price of kerosene.

The local church in France was the first to accept kerosene, and its good reputation quickly spread in urban and rural areas. Just six months later, the average monthly sales of kerosene in the French market reached 32,000 barrels, an increase of five times.

The booming sales of kerosene attracted great attention from the French government. After some conspiracy, the customs tax on kerosene imports was suddenly increased from 35% to 76% in an attempt to curb imported kerosene from invading the domestic market, crack down on the rapeseed oil market, and obtain a sum of money.

Generous customs revenue.

The Tang Kingdom was not used to the French. The four major oil giants immediately took action and jointly promoted price increases. As a result, the retail price of kerosene in France doubled, reaching a high price of 0.78 yuan per pound, which exceeded the unit price of rapeseed oil.

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even so

The sales volume of kerosene has not been reduced. This is because middle-class families in France have generally accepted kerosene lamps. The romantic French people can no longer tolerate the dimness and strong smell of rapeseed oil lamps, and the luxurious nightlife of the upper class.

Kerosene lamps are indispensable.

The same is true for the kerosene street lamps put into use by the Paris Municipality in France. Due to various reasons of lighting brightness and cost, they cannot be replaced with rapeseed oil, which has caused the municipal departments to resent the high bills.

After a brief decline, kerosene sales in the French market began to rise steadily, exceeding the previous monthly average peak of 32,000 barrels just one and a half months later.

By the end of the year and Christmas in December, 48,500 barrels of high-priced kerosene had been sold in the French market, which made the four major oil giants of the Tang Dynasty who monopolized the market a lot of money and a lot of joy.

France's high import tariffs have caused the price of kerosene to remain high. Compared with neighboring Prussia, the kingdoms of South Germany, various regions of the Italian peninsula, and the United Kingdom, the price of kerosene has more than doubled.

This led to widespread kerosene smuggling, with neighboring regions smuggling kerosene into France. German farmers carried oil burdens across the border between the two countries and sold smuggled kerosene to the French at low prices.

A load of kerosene weighs 80 pounds after removing the two wooden barrels. The profit per pound of kerosene is one mark, which is 80 marks, which is about 20 Tangyuan. A trip of two or three days is more than what you can earn in a month.

The message spread from one to ten, and this attracted more Germans to join the smuggling business.

Of course, such good things are indispensable to the British. The mere English Channel cannot stop the enthusiasm of the British for smuggling. At its craziest time, there was even a grand scene of smuggling by 137 smuggling ships in one night. This made the French customs department miserable and could not stop it at all.

until the end of 1857

The French government, which was troubled by smuggling, quietly adjusted the customs import tariff on kerosene, from the original 76% plus additional punitive tariffs, to the European average of 27%.

Because the British Empire in the English Channel levies a tariff of 27% on kerosene. In recent years, due to the sharp increase in the import volume of kerosene, lubricating oil, diesel and heavy oil, the British Customs tax rates on the above products have been correspondingly reduced.

The French gave in, which directly led to the explosion of the kerosene market in France. Starting from January 1858, the sales volume of kerosene in the French market started at 43,000 barrels, and soared at the rate of lava eruptions every month. In February, the sales volume was 71,000 barrels.

, the sales volume in March was 104,400 barrels, the sales volume in April was 183,000 barrels, the sales volume in May was 235,000 barrels, the sales volume in June was 294,000 barrels, the sales volume in July directly exceeded 330,000 barrels, and reached a peak of 347,000 barrels in August, and the growth trend was only

Gradually eased down.

The French market fully accepted kerosene with great enthusiasm and exploded with long-standing strong purchasing power. Baron Rivière, mayor of Paris, France, talked about the wide application of kerosene and responded enthusiastically with a smile on his face;

"It lights up the dreamy city of Paris. Whenever you stand on the heights of the City Hall and look down at night, you will realize that this is the romantic city that never sleeps in Europe. With kerosene, everything is great."

The great price is that the city of Paris alone burns more than 4,500 barrels of kerosene every night.

But then again, life is short, enjoy it in time, what's the point of colonizing the world and making so much money?

The administrative order of the French government cannot stop the French people's hard-core demand for kerosene. As a traditional wealthy country, France has the ability, market, and demand to consume large amounts of kerosene. How can a piece of administrative order stop it?

Kerosene has been making rapid progress in the markets of various European countries. Europeans can't come up with similar products that can resist it. After trying hard, they can only settle down. Who can make everyone like it?

Based on the above factors

Throughout 1858, the export of petrochemical products with kerosene as the core still had a high growth rate of at least 30%. It is a high probability that the total export value of petrochemical products for the whole year will exceed 200 million yuan.

At least for the next twenty or thirty years, the Tang Kingdom will be able to exclusively enjoy the huge profits in the petrochemical industry, and quietly use the large profits earned by European and American countries from their colonies to feed themselves back and further strengthen their own industry.

foundation and economic strength.

To do this, it is necessary to control Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, because these are also places rich in oil resources.

It is not easy to do this. Texas is a core member of the United States of the South. Any covetousness of its territorial sovereignty will arouse strong resentment and vigilance in the South, and even lead to the current friendly relations between the two sides (temporarily).

It has not yet reached the alliance level) and is broken.

The most destructive trick that Richard could think of was to use money to buy the areas in Texas that had been found to contain large amounts of oil and gas through economic means, then leave them there without exploration and let them grow barren.

The Royal Holding Fund under the Ministry of Internal Affairs controls a huge amount of equity ranging from 77% to 38.5% in the four major oil giants. It is also the behind-the-scenes controller of the entire world oil market and has unquestionable pricing power.

The cost of each pound of kerosene is 0.13 yuan, including processing costs, transportation costs, distribution costs and tax costs. The average export price is 0.35 yuan, which is almost twice the huge profit.

These equity interests alone brought a huge dividend profit of more than 31.7 million yuan to the royal family in 1857, accounting for about 60% of the total income of the royal family funds under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, making it the number one profit maker.

Thinking about how the wealthy desert dog owners with a scarf on their heads became wealthy in later generations, you will know how prosperous the life of the Tang Kingdom is now?

The booming petrochemical industry brought 24.8 million in tax revenue to the kingdom's finances in 1857. There is still room for substantial growth in the future, which has greatly strengthened the kingdom's financial strength.

Precisely because he has such strong strength, Richard's future strategy is to use banknotes to buy and buy, become the largest landowner in Texas, and use all the land rich in oil and gas resources for grazing, but not to develop it.

Well, if I have money, I would be happy to buy these places rich in oil and gas resources to graze cattle and sheep.

The four major oil giants in the Kingdom, who have deep pockets, have jointly established the Canadian Institute of Geology and invested heavily in the research and development of a new generation of petrochemical complete refining equipment. They have also set up their own laboratories and recruited well-known experts from all over the world with preferential treatment to further develop the petrochemical industry.

system.

In September 1856, Jason Heinz, a professor in the laboratory of Chang'an Petroleum Company, discovered that after knocking over collodion, it would turn into a tough and elastic material when it froze, thus inventing the plastic "celluloid".

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After in-depth research

Chang'an Petroleum Company discovered that plastic materials have extremely strong plasticity and can be made into cheap water cups, bowls, raincoats and other items, which have broad market prospects.

Richard liked to browse the cutting-edge information about science and technology in the Tang Dynasty and around the world. When he saw this technological invention, he could only touch his nose and be speechless.

Perhaps it is because the four major oil companies focus on the development of petroleum products, and have built various laboratories for this purpose, constantly producing new technological products. The plastic "celluloid" is one of them, which was invented in advance.

The invention of this material was 10 years earlier than in the original history, Richard firmly believed;

Businessmen are all profit-seeking and do not need to intervene on their own. With the vigorous promotion of wealthy oil companies, this new material will be widely used in all aspects of society earlier than in the original time and space.

coincidentally;

The Tang Kingdom happened to monopolize the cutting-edge technology of the petrochemical industry and also monopolized the world market. It would be able to exclusively enjoy the huge profits of this market for a long time to come.

Selling cabbage for the price of ginseng is Changan Oil Company's current plan.

Anyway, there are no competitors at the same level. As for the four major oil giants in the Tang Dynasty, it is easy to coordinate among them. They can just proactively request the royal holding fund to come forward.

Originally, Changan Petroleum Company was the weakest multinational company with the smallest market share among the four giants.

Now that it holds the patent for plastic "celluloid", it is estimated that it will stand out from this wave of development in the next ten years or so and grow into a petrochemical giant that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Texaco Oil Company.

Overall

Relying on the rich natural resources of North America, the mining industry of the Datang Kingdom is still a pillar industry. The export volume of the three major minerals of oil, copper and silver ranks first in the world.

The copper and silver product processing industry has therefore developed prosperously, with more than 1,790 factories and more handicraft workshops in various provinces of the kingdom. In addition to copper coins and silver coins, there are also a wide variety of copper and silver daily necessities and

Industrial products.

As far as industrial products are concerned, new 7.62 mm fully charged bullet shells, various caliber artillery shells, ship copper propellers, copper wear-resistant pin sleeves, copper pipes, various copper parts of steam engines, trombone saxophone among musical instruments,

Copper nails and copper handles on wooden doors, there are thousands of subdivided products, creating a lot of employment opportunities.

Richard was not satisfied with the advantageous industries developed based on resources. In the field of heavy industry, the Tang Kingdom had accumulated enough strength and prioritized the steel industry as the main target for the outbreak.

Because the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of California, Datang Kingdom, the new generation of open-hearth steelmaking method has matured after a long period of research and development, and is entering the development stage of steelmaking equipment, which has the foundation for an explosion in production capacity.

Since the beginning of the 19th century

Steelmaking plants, mainly in the UK, mainly use the stirring method to make steel. As the name suggests, it stirs the molten iron through simple equipment and adds carbon or other alloys based on experience to make various alloy steels with different properties.

This relatively primitive stirring method is an improvement on the steel-frying method that has been around for thousands of years, and is nothing new.

Blast furnace steelmaking had already appeared in Belgium in 1325, and then quickly spread to the Low Countries. Therefore, the blast furnace stirring method used by British steel plants was not an advanced process, and the output was not high.

Several major steel plants that introduced British technology to the Tang Dynasty produced about 630,000 tons of steel annually and employed about 39,200 employees. This shows that the efficiency is quite low.

If the new open-hearth steelmaking method is adopted, the steelmaking efficiency will be increased by 4 to 5 times. With the same manpower, more steel output can be easily produced, which has a strong price advantage.

Both steel and iron have broad application prospects in the Tang Kingdom and are worthy of vigorous development.

In the past few years, the reason why we did not blindly expand steel production capacity was mainly due to market factors.

Most of the steel produced in the Tang Dynasty was used for its own use, and exports accounted for less than 10%, about 45,000 to 50,000 tons per year. The main export destinations were the Qing Dynasty and Southeast Asia, the northern United States, Central and South America, and most of them were high-quality agricultural tools.

, mainly cutting tools and daily necessities, the market size is relatively limited.

This limited the development of the iron and steel industry in the Tang Dynasty. If there was no market, what would be developed?

British steel production reached its peak of 6.2 million tons in 1842. This was because Britain was at the peak of its steam industry development and was building railways, docks and bridges both domestically and overseas, so the amount of steel was naturally very large.

In the Indian subcontinent alone, the British built more than 28,000 kilometers of railway lines. As a bulk construction material, steel is naturally in demand.

After the Crimean War

In order to cope with the huge expenditures during the war, the British finance implemented austerity fiscal policies for many years. Infrastructure projects in these overseas colonies were the first to suffer severe cuts, which in turn affected the demand for steel.

In 1857, Britain's total steel output was only 4.37 million tons, which had shrunk by 30% compared to its peak. This was mainly due to insufficient international market demand rather than production capacity.

Due to the economic development of the Tang Kingdom, urban and rural construction flourished. The annual infrastructure needs of the two million-dollar cities of Chang'an and Los Angeles consumed hundreds of thousands of tons of steel production capacity.

The whimsical engineers of the Tang Dynasty planned to build the Golden Gate Bridge in the Bay Area. Just one tower on this bridge would consume 22,000 tons of steel, span more than 1,600 meters of water, and use about 28,000 tons of independent steel cables, about

600,000 steel rivets…

Of course

This bridge of unprecedented scale is currently only in the technical demonstration stage. In the foreseeable twenty to thirty years, the Tang Kingdom may not have the engineering capabilities to build it, but this does not prevent engineers from proposing this grand idea.

Just like the cross-sea bridge in Sydney, Australia, engineers also proposed practical implementation plans, but in the face of sky-high construction costs, the design drawings had to be shelved.

The Tang Kingdom will set off a new round of construction climax in 1859, mainly the kingdom's local railways, overseas provinces and paradise island railways, docks, bridges and other infrastructure construction, as well as urban construction.

This provides a solid foundation for the great development of the steel industry. According to production capacity planning;

In 1859, the total steel production capacity of the Tang Kingdom will exceed the one million tons mark for the first time in history, reaching more than 1.1 million tons.

Among them, iron production is about 780,000 tons and steel production is 350,000 tons.

The planned production capacity was 1.5 million tons in 1860, 1.85 million tons in 1861, and exceeded the 2 million tons mark in 1862.

The great development of the steel industry means the great development of transportation, urban infrastructure, shipbuilding manufacturing and mechanization and chemical industries, as well as the great development of the shipping industry and military industry.

As of the end of 1857

The Tang Kingdom has more than 1,730 ships with a displacement of more than 300 tons, and 457 ocean-going cargo ships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons. Dozens of shipping companies of different sizes have emerged.

Different from the European countries with long history, as a newly rising power in North America, the Tang Kingdom's ships are all iron steam-powered ships, and it has the largest iron freighter merchant fleet in the world.

In order to further enhance ocean transportation capabilities and reduce costs, ocean-going ships are developing in the direction of large-scale. Many local shipyards in the Datang Kingdom have begun construction of 10,000-ton iron steam engine-powered freighters.

Each of these ships requires three to four thousand tons of high-quality steel to build, which is a huge market.

The Navy's Zhenhai plan has been launched again, and 12 3,600-class main iron-armored warships with a displacement of 3,600 will be built within five years, and new orders for 12 "Hanfeng" class warships have been added.

besides

The newly launched 20-horsepower diesel engine unit has attracted enthusiastic response from the market. The ship power composed of it has many characteristics such as light weight, good reliability, and cheap use, which is very conducive to the development of offshore ships and inland waterway shipping.

Such a diesel engine coupled with a simple propeller can drive a ship of about 100 tons to sail at a speed of eight to nine knots.

If it is a 500-ton offshore ship, five 20-horsepower diesel engines can be installed at the stern of the ship, and an 800-ton ship can be equipped with eight units. This saves the purchase of heavy and expensive steam engines and has a strong cost advantage.

Once launched, shipyards across the Kingdom received hundreds of new orders for small and medium-sized ships.

Whether engaged in cargo transportation, passenger transportation, or offshore fishing, using low-priced diesel engines has a strong cost advantage.

The 20-horsepower diesel engine can also be used in many fields such as retracting and retracting anchor chains on large ships, retracting and retracting trawls on fishing boats, towing ore trucks in mines, and as power equipment in factories. It can also be used to enhance the power of walking tractors, which has many benefits.

In line with the kingdom's major decision to further increase the scale of railway construction, the domestic market demand of the Datang Kingdom will surely expand rapidly, which has laid a solid foundation for the steel industry to explode in production capacity.

Newly industrialized countries have the advantages of newly industrialized countries, and old-line colonists have the same difficulties as old-line colonists. Britain's development of iron steamships has been full of twists and turns and many obstacles.

to this day

The UK also maintains thousands of sailing cargo ships. Its Royal Navy budget from 1857 to 1858 was 8.44 million pounds. The total size of the ships reached 633,000 tons. There were about a thousand sailing warships of various tonnages and 37 iron steam warships.

(Including 6 ships under construction on the slipway).

This year, the Royal Navy's budget exceeded £9 million.

Next year, that is, 1859-1860, according to the appropriation bill currently being discussed in the British Parliament, the amount will exceed 10 million pounds.

The value of 10 million pounds is equivalent to 50 million Tang Yuan, which is more than twice the current military budget expenditure of the Tang Kingdom, which shows the wealth of the British Empire.

This was despite the Civil War between the North and the South of the United States. Richard secretly used a large amount of money from the palace's internal treasury to train and equip more than 200,000 mainland recruits and to re-equip weapons for the entire army. The total military allocations skyrocketed, which was an unsustainable state.

normal year

The total military expenditure budget of the Tang Dynasty is about 8.2 million to 8.5 million yuan, worth about 1.6 million to 1.7 million pounds. It is used to maintain an army of less than 90,000 people, a royal guard of less than 15,000 people and about 20 main ships.

Limited size navy of battleships.

some of

The military expenditures of the Royal Guards and the Royal Navy are all paid out of the royal family's internal treasury, and the kingdom's finances do not bear this part of the allocation, because they are all private armies of the royal family and cannot be lumped together.

Compare the two

The annual military expenditure of the Royal Navy of the British Empire will exceed 10 million pounds. This figure is almost the total fiscal revenue and expenditure of the Tang Dynasty (note; it does not include the income of various enterprises, mines and royal farms controlled by funds under the Royal Household Office).

), it can be seen that the Royal Navy is very wealthy and powerful.

However, the British Royal Navy also has its difficulties. The total number of sailing warships of various types is close to a thousand, which has become a heavy burden and huge burden for the Royal Navy to move towards modernization. It is a pity to abandon and tasteless.

On the road of transformation, the British Royal Navy is going very hard. The steam iron-clad battleships that represent the world's advanced level make them salivate.

However, the high annual maintenance costs of the existing large sailing fleet have left the Royal Navy with insufficient funds to build more of its desired ironclad warships.

Just in February 1858

The Royal Navy has come up with an ambitious plan to eliminate sailing warships. It plans to eliminate a total of 472 sailing warships in the next three years, mostly small and medium-sized sailing warships of hundreds to thousands of tons, while retaining the medium and large sailing warships.

Main force.

This plan was jointly rejected by the British House of Commons and the House of Lords. Are you kidding me?

The Royal Navy of the British Empire has accumulated more than 150 years of assets, and it is decommissioned as soon as it is said to be retired. Should so many warships be chopped up and burned as firewood?

What a prodigal!

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