Volume 1: Laying the Foundation Chapter 34: Cultural Education

  You can't escape this circle, you can only try to get used to and adapt. In this era, people like Li Junfeng who want to be morally upright are not in the minority, and most of these people are educated, with a higher level of knowledge, and are disgusted by those dirty power struggles. To move these people, relying on so-called idealism is simply useless.

  Chen Xiaoqi's winning formula is not worth mentioning, he just put out the grassroots welfare system that will be prevalent in Western countries in the future, and let Li Junfeng judge for himself which result is more worthy of praise. Is it true that all people are rich together? To what extent can we reduce the economic burden on the lower classes? Protecting the private property and personal safety of the masses, giving people the freedom to express their own opinions, treating rights and obligations equally for each individual, and upholding justice in the law... At first glance, it seems like there's not much difference, but upon careful consideration, one can understand the pros and cons. Because Chen Xiaoqi brought up something that no one has ever thought of or done in this era - universal literacy.

  Why inequality arises is because everyone occupies different advantages, why the difference between high and low advantages is so big? Because everyone has access to different resources and information. When all people have the same starting line under the same rules to strive for their own interests, although there are still differences in height, but the individual differences shown under fair rules are due to their own ability deficiencies or congenital deficiencies, willing to lose or still having a chance to turn over.

  This unified starting line, the foundation is text. Whether or not one has culture, high and low are clearly distinguished, social status is absolutely different. Text as a kind of capital, since ancient times it has been the winning formula for those in superior positions. Even later when lower-class people had the opportunity to grasp text and change their own fate, what they wanted was not to change the fate of more people around them, but to rely on this resource they already grasped to desperately squeeze into that circle of superior people. There is no difference between ancient and modern times.

  Chen Xiaoqi, however, proposed to rely on his own efforts to make everyone grasp this most fundamental treasure, which is to break the last rule in the world. It can be said that it is against all vested interests, but this is the greatest conscience in the world. Giving every person the opportunity to control their own destiny is the greatest good deed.

  Has anyone thought about this era? Maybe there are, but those who occupy the discourse power are all elitists. They would rather regard the common people as a group of lost lambs, and then stand at a high place with a condescending gaze to look at them, arbitrarily bestowing some favors to guide them to live on a little bit of survival resources, or leading these bewildered sheep like wolves, recklessly destroying the remaining good and kindness in this world, finally turning into a world full of vicious wolves.

  That's enough, sometimes it's just a little bit of seemingly absurd reason that can change a person's mind, rather than relying on coercion, threats, intimidation, or trying to "unify others' thoughts" with one's own, or imposing one's values on others. People only need an opportunity to choose, why must it be either-or?

  Chen Xiaoqi unexpectedly gained Li Junfeng's recognition, and it was easier to gain the approval of others. In this world, being kind to people, considering others, and sacrificing for others are all common things. Those who can bring happiness to others are worth following.

  Huang Zhen Shan just wanted to find a less stifling place to serve as a soldier and eat, Chen Xiao Qi this boss seems to be not bad, at least has a conscience, knows how to care about the lives of ordinary people, although now still hasn't done much practical work, at least there is an opportunity to observe from close by, staying and watching is fine, won't do anything to harm others.

  Li Junfeng really wants to see if the ideal world Chen Xiaoqi talked about can be achieved, and whether it can be achieved through their efforts. So he no longer stands by and instead tries to participate personally and push forward.

  He Bao Wen just wanted to find an opportunity to restore his father's honor, avenge the shame of his ancestors and follow someone with ambition to do great things, which was exactly what he had in mind.

  Zhu Dacheng didn't care, as long as he followed Chen Xiaoqi, he had food to eat, no one bullied him, and everyone looked at him with respect. This kind of life was simple and comfortable.

  Hu Qian still eats whose rice, does whose work, Jianghu people can't eat inside and outside, talk about righteousness and morality, lose life but not face, don't fall off the donkey, don't fall off the frame, the great righteousness of spring and autumn is not necessarily clear, as long as this boss Chen Xiaoqi doesn't sell him out.

  Zhou Yunpeng doesn't worry about anything, nor does he consider anything, all of this is just a very interesting game to him. In the years of growth, in this foreign land, the only reliable person for him is Chen Xiaoqi, why would he lean towards others?

  Wu Sheng? This is almost not even a question, his own feeling, it's like entering the lair of a big king, he can't control himself, just accept his fate. From childhood, his family elders taught him that when eating someone else's food, he should do good work for them. Originally, it was to choose one household to serve as an accountant for life, and this boss has even bigger business.

  This is now the only team that Chen Xiaoqi can trust.

  In June 1921, the "sulfonamide" class of drugs was officially approved for production and licensed to a joint venture between Merck & Co. and DuPont, but in reality, large quantities of sample drugs and experimental drugs had already flooded the market before this official product was truly introduced to the world's major powers, cultivating a large number of users and salespeople. What Chen Xiaoqi did not expect was that his move would advance the research on completely chemically synthesized drugs by more than a decade, making it a global trend.

  In mid-June, Chen Xiaoqi received a telegram from Lu Jiaju in the country, with a few lines written on it: "One hundred and twenty new sponsors are going to the United States, please prepare in advance. Also, Da Geng is dead, the Green Gang has come to visit, be careful and respond carefully, thousands of times."

  This time, 120 people came all at once, and it seems to have expanded a lot. It looks like he needs to think of ways to expand the factory again, otherwise where can so many people be placed? Originally, with just seven people, they could be directly embedded among American Chinese without being conspicuous, and there was no fear of being investigated. But all at once, 120 people, even if one-third of them are black households that need to be settled, is a troublesome thing! It seems like we need to recruit more people again, or open two more companies?

  Chen Xiaoqi has so far arranged for the number of Chinese to be only one-third of that of local Americans, not daring to exceed this ratio. If there are too many Chinese, it will inevitably attract the attention and resistance of local people. He has no choice but to prioritize the employment issues of local people over those of Chinese workers. This is an unavoidable reality.

  Luckily, Chen Xiaoqi had prepared almost everything in advance. This time, he registered three more companies. One was a factory that produced dry batteries and accumulators, one was a factory that produced chemical machinery processing, and the other was a machine tool factory. At the same time, he expanded the scale of the garment factory again, adding a "thermal underwear" product production plant, and an athletic wear and sports shoes production plant. The "thermal underwear" adopted the so-called "three-layer thermal insulation" of later generations, but the middle layer was not ammonia fiber, but wool blended yarn, however, the structure was not much different; the brand name was called "Antarctic People". Athletic wear and sports shoes targeted the basketball movement that was popular at this time, and the brand directly plagiarized NIKE. Moreover, even the advertising slogan was stolen together, Just do it!

  In this era, advertising and planning are no problem, Chen Xiaoqi only needs to plagiarize the infinite ultra-high creativity of later generations, and then hand it over to the people in the advertising department to operate. Now this industry can't make too much money, he is mainly for arranging personnel and increasing employment positions.

  Dry batteries and accumulators were what he had long wanted to produce. After investigation, he found that at this time alkaline batteries had already been invented, but the effect was not very good, mainly because the battery head was too large, and there was no later No. 7 or No. 5 alkaline battery, which he happened to have a ready-made sample in his hand, directly dissected to get the structure and composition, and imitated it.

  Batteries are a must-study because all vehicles, ships, aircraft and other power facilities need electricity, and they can't do without them. Just like cars now, there isn't a suitable battery yet, and in the future, submarines will also require large battery packs.

  Chemical machinery manufacturing is a given, this is Chen Xiaoqi's core business and an important part of his future plans to capture large sums of money. Now that he finally has more substantial cash flow, he can purchase even more and larger processing machine tools, especially for his metallurgical laboratory. After proposing the high-strength low-alloy steel project half a year ago, there is finally progress, and this progress received an active response from the Chicago American Steel Company. It will soon enter the substantive research and development stage. Optimistically, in the near future, even higher ductility low-alloy steel will be produced at lower costs, which is also what Chen Xiaoqi needs because in chemical equipment, there are many pressure vessels such as high-pressure containers, tower devices, boilers, and spherical tanks. The requirements for these are getting higher and higher, and the existing steel materials cannot meet the requirements. Chen Xiaoqi also does not have the ability to establish a complete steelmaking system in a short period, especially under the eyes of these massive objects.

  Other types of steel, such as carbon structural steel, stainless steel, spring steel, corrosion-resistant alloys, and high-temperature alloys, all have different performance indicators. If he were to try to develop them on his own, that would be simply impossible, not because it can't be done, but because time wouldn't allow it. And yet, with American steel readily available, not taking advantage of that convenience would be foolish. The main work of his metallurgical laboratory is to propose steel indicators according to the requirements of the equipment products he will produce, and then search for them in existing products. If they don't exist, follow Chen Xiaoqi's prompts to enter research and development, obtain preliminary verification results, and take them to cooperate with steel companies for verification. In any case, the final result is that the steel company gets new technology and products, and Chen Xiaoqi gets suitable materials. This is currently the most suitable way of cooperation, and in the future, Chen Xiaoqi will get even more.

  The production of machine tools is a project that Chen Xiaoqi has been thinking about for a long time, but he only had the conditions and capabilities to do so now. He bought hundreds of large and small CNC machine tools from Germany, processing warship boilers to producing auto parts, from machines that can process things as long as tens of meters to those that can only process fist-sized objects, a batch of these machines were searched from Europe and transported back and forth, these things almost spent the new batch of millions of US dollars that Chen Xiaoqi had just received, it is expected that the first batch of machine tools will arrive in the United States in a month, at which time some of his new products will be realized by these precise and durable German-made machine tools.

  Chen Xiaoqi's ultimate goal is to use this approach to obtain increasingly larger machine tools, cultivate his own technical strength, and ultimately replicate high-precision super-large machine tools that determine a country's technical level, widely applying them in fields such as aviation, shipbuilding, locomotives, automobiles, and more. In the future electronics industry, initial manufacturing will be inseparable from high-precision CNC machine tools; it can be said that the level of machine tool technology almost determines a country's entire industrial technical level. This is particularly evident in China, which suffered greatly in later generations.

  So, in Chen Xiaoxi's view, this batch of machine tools is just the beginning. After Germany lost the war, most of its military and armament production facilities were forced to disband, and many important equipment was forcibly dismantled and auctioned off. For example, BMW, which later became famous for its cars, actually produced aircraft engines because it was not allowed to produce cars within five years after the war. As a result, in 1923, it began manufacturing motorcycles, as well as Rheinmetall and Krupp, among others.

  The sharp devaluation of the German mark made the wealth of ordinary Germans evaporate overnight, and the lives of middle- and lower-class workers were not good. With the impact of international reparations and French troops occupying the Ruhr region, some workers lost their jobs, and most soldiers could not make a living. This was the most difficult period in Germany before World War II. However, under the German government's procrastination and with massive loan assistance from the United States, Germany was able to rise again in the shortest possible time. Among them, Germany's industrial foundation and large number of industrial workers across the country were important pillars for economic recovery, highlighting the importance of education popularization.

  When producing giant warship cannons, the equipment Chen Xiaoqi needed couldn't be bought. With these machine tools still in DuPont Company, Laojia Miao found his own British classmates and added Dennis, who was gradually gaining fame, to jointly promote it, which wasn't something you could buy with money.