Volume 1: Laying the Foundation Chapter 72: The Faces of the Powerful Ones
PS: Have a great weekend! Today is Qingming, I would like to pay my sincere respects to the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for China. Three bows!
Yes, according to an important plan made earlier, he is going back to his home country to develop new businesses. The resources and strength he has now are ten times more than what was expected, and he has successfully caught the attention of several of the world's largest financial groups. If he doesn't leave now, he won't be able to leave anymore. This enormous plan that was just proposed has already had such a huge impact in such a short time, if he invests more into it, those tasks will probably drag him down for his whole life and he won't be able to extricate himself, so forget about doing anything else.
So he took advantage of the time when his physical and mental strength were exhausted, and the entire project team had started to operate independently from him. He proposed a major retreat to return home for development, but unexpectedly, these people collectively let out a sigh of relief, thinking in their hearts: "This guy is finally leaving!"
Chen Xiaoqi doesn't know how much shock his rapid rise in recent years has brought to others, this is basically something that no one in the world can achieve even if they work hard for their whole life, he himself achieved it in just over four years, and even adding the half year he spent in China, it's only five years, how did he manage to do all of this?
At this time, several major financial groups have exhausted their efforts to investigate his background, and the results left them stunned and unable to make a judgment. Chen Xiaoqi's publicly stated claim of "growing up in America" was found to be ambiguous upon investigation, as there were countless cases of Chinese people growing up in the United States, but they couldn't find any laboratory that could have led to his invention of the dye. Firstly, no organization or institution could provide Chen Xiaoqi with the education and inspiration he needed to come up with so many unrelated inventions; secondly, while he showed talent in chemistry, it was unsettling that he could also propose unprecedented high-level theories on complex chemical equipment and steel technology enterprise management. What kind of organization could cultivate such an unnatural person? It couldn't be found anywhere in the world! Thirdly, there were no eyewitnesses who saw how he traveled from America to China; at this time, people who had the opportunity and conditions to travel between China and the US were countable, but they just couldn't confirm Chen Xiaoqi's existence with certainty.
There is a false impression here, ordered by Chen Xiaoqi and created by Dai Chunfeng. From his knowledge of another time and space, he knew that the easiest way to confuse people was uncertainty, evidence that could not be verified but might exist, which became a huge mystery, an eternal unsolvable mystery.
With this mysterious feeling, Chen Xiaoqi established this huge foundation in just a few years. People with discerning eyes can easily judge that this large laboratory institution, which has already laid the foundation, will have unlimited development prospects in the future. Even if Chen doesn't open factories or engage in industry, he can become one of the most influential organizations in the world just by relying on his endless inventions. This is unstoppable, because now even the US government and their several major financial groups have joined in. With countless experiences, they will not be foolish enough to try to monopolize this gold mine, because they don't know how to sustainably develop this new thing, nor can they ignore the power of other financial groups and countries. The final result can only be that this laboratory with unlimited future prospects will be dismembered, resulting in a scattered and fragmented outcome.
So, retreating to the second best option is to maximize control and utilization of the inventions born in this laboratory for their own benefit. This requires them to make an effort to seize it themselves. DuPont Company made its move earliest but with the smallest strength, Morgan Consortium made its move latest but with the deepest cooperation, Rockefeller Consortium also made its move late, but won by occupying the largest scale and field of cooperation, which looks like the best development prospect so far. In three aspects, each has its own gains, and they share the spoils equally.
While Chen Xiaoqi's "Global Logistics System" and a series of mega-plans connected the three aspects together, it must be said that this is a miracle. As the initiator, he was able to occupy such a large share, which is already something to be proud of. This is an era where big sharks are rampant, and this small fish can survive in the middle without being trampled to death, which is already a miracle. If he doesn't know when to advance or retreat, he will be doomed.
And he suggested leaving, no one disagreed. The shock he gave to people was too great and too many, developing faster and faster without a good way to control it, staying in the United States would ultimately result in becoming a new financial group against these people, and he was still so young, only 24 or 25 years old, what if he lived for nearly a hundred years like Old Rockefeller? Good grief, who knows what this monster will do! So he had to leave, welcome or not! Without the environment of the United States, relying on China's already rotten environment, he wanted to create another miracle, unless a miracle occurred.
So Chen Xiaoqi's decision received huge support from several major financial groups, and even when he explicitly stated his intention to return home to establish a heavy industry base, he unexpectedly gained approval. He proposed cooperation with DuPont on fertilizer plants, pesticide plants, chemical plants, and pharmaceutical plants, and cooperation with the Rockefeller group to establish oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and mining plants, and with Morgan's US Steel to establish steel smelting, copper smelting, and aluminum electrolysis industries, all of which were approved at once.
The three major financial groups are delighted that their industries can achieve significant development in China and eagerly look forward to rapidly occupying the entire Far Eastern market under cooperation with Chen, creating new glory. They even plan to gradually invest heavily in establishing new offices in China, transferring control and development of the Far Eastern market to mainland China. In short - investment!
Chen Xiaoqi felt a bit puzzled, these guys who used to be ruthless and merciless suddenly became so easy-going? As a result, the financial pressure on his return to China to start a business was greatly reduced. At least for these heavy industries that were originally expected to require an investment of over $20 million in the first year, with total investments exceeding $100 million over the next five years, now most of it has been reduced. This unexpected surplus can support him in advancing another more important plan ahead of schedule, which is a better outcome.
Unlike the joint venture model of later generations, in today's major cooperative fields, Chen Xiaoqi has mastered advanced technology and has the ability to produce equipment independently. Even without the intervention of several major financial groups, he can develop from scratch on his own, it will just take more effort in terms of personnel, management, equipment, and raw materials. If he were to do it himself, it might take three to five years to achieve results. Now, as long as he brings back the necessary equipment and raw materials, sets them up, and debugs them, he can start working immediately. With quick hands and feet, he can enter a virtuous cycle within a year, and the scale will be at least three times larger, what a huge boost!
At the time when he was explaining his new plan development institution composed of himself and three major financial groups, the staff were calmly preparing the necessary equipment and personnel according to the previously formulated plan. Chen Xiaoqi wanted to establish a complete set of heavy industry, involving nearly two hundred core factories, but he obviously didn't have the ability to establish them all at once, however, at least dozens of them were indispensable. In addition to the aforementioned core cooperative industries, there were automobiles, engines, aviation, ships, construction machinery, weapons, glass, electronics, rubber, power generation, various mining, ceramics, machine tools, papermaking, cement, textiles, printing and dyeing, boilers, tools, instruments, steam turbines, etc., which was a long list. Chen's enterprise had been producing core production equipment independently for half a year, with the quantity doubled, and purchasing related supporting facilities, edge industries, spare parts, manufacturing equipment that could be manufactured, and so on, which was too much to cover in one book!
The first batch of equipment manufactured was enough to fill two 5,000-ton transport ships, which was still the result of using container loading technology. As a result, the company had to purchase two second-hand riveted transport ships in advance and convert them. The new 10,000-ton transport ship is being produced on the dock with overtime work! When the next batch of equipment is produced, it will be directly loaded with goods and transported to China, which will also be one of the large orders after the establishment of "Federal Express Corporation".
Among so many equipment and materials, if someone who knows the details makes a careful count, they will find something very strange - in every factory's required equipment, the number of machine tools far exceeds demand, especially those used to produce machine tools. Originally, these were only used within machine tool factories, but they inexplicably appear in various boilers, engines, construction machinery, and other intermediate products, as if the people loading the goods made a mistake or were careless, causing chaos.
Apart from this, among the large quantities of raw materials purchased, steel naturally occupies a very large part. This procurement will last for three years or even longer, and the US Steel Corporation has received orders worth tens of millions of dollars. However, in this process, the proportion of various special steels is also extremely high, including those specifically used for manufacturing machine tools. It's worth noting that before this, although "Meihua Company" itself manufactured a large number of machine tools to produce various chemical machinery, boilers, and engines, the materials for these machine tools almost all came from "US Steel". However, in recent years, they have purchased an even larger quantity, enough for their use. The problem is that there are too many types of steel in this massive procurement order, making it difficult to pinpoint anything specific without deliberate targeting. After all, not everyone can break through the resistance of so many financial groups and sift out these items from tens of thousands of tons of goods, especially when "Federal Express" itself is responsible for transportation.
As for the detailed production technical requirements listed below, it involves more than a thousand people in the end, and more than 500 scientific researchers in the laboratory were pulled out to serve as experts on the front line. However, only a few dozen of these people can make it through, and the vast majority are still Chinese or ethnic Chinese, or researchers identified by the US government as "not mastering core technologies".
At this time, Chen Xiaoqi finally realized how naive he was! He had fully estimated the shamelessness of the US government, but did not expect that in this era, there would be talk of technological blockade. As a leader among the powers, how could the United States possibly allow such a world-class research institution to run to China? These people have proven their ability to change the world and guide global technological development over four years, and such a force is impossible to abandon no matter which country it is in! Even Hitler couldn't do that!
Fortunately, the self-righteous Americans never believed that Qiaoqi Chen played a crucial role in so many subsequent inventions and creations. Although the University of Illinois and Professor Adams insisted that he was a great chemist, Qiaoqi Chen himself refused to admit it, claiming that it was the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the laboratory workers, despite taking most of the patent usage fees.
