Insufficient balance
Busy times always pass quickly, with an increasingly large base and more personnel, the construction progress is getting faster and faster, but at the cost of a huge amount of money flowing in like water and wholehearted investment. Liu Wei didn't have much pressure on funding, his own "Golden Elephant Pharmacy" and David's "Sandel Pharmaceutical Company" sold "anti-inflammatory tablets" in Asia, Europe, and America for a higher price than gold, with large amounts of silver, pounds, francs, marks, and dollars constantly flowing into his pocket. However, Liu Wei was under tremendous pressure in terms of management, various daily chores and accounts took up almost all of his time, he couldn't even eat without being disturbed, and had to listen to all sorts of processing plans.
Finally, Liu Bei could no longer hold on and gave up the idea of slowly cultivating his own talent. He sent a telegram to David, asking him to immediately find a team that could manage these factories and mines, preferably one that could speak English, with no limit on personnel, as long as it was enough for the current scale of Keelung's industry.
It seems that David is doing well in the US. Less than 2 months after sending a telegram, a management team of over 20 people set sail from the US. According to David's telegram, they were poached from several major US companies at high prices, including senior and mid-level managers, as well as experts in finance and law.
In October 1888, the management team finally arrived in Hong Kong. Liu Wei sent someone to rent a boat to pick up the saviors at Keelung. When Liu Wei stood on the dock and saw the boat approaching, he felt like he was about to collapse. However, Liu Wei's joy was short-lived. What followed were days of meetings, discussions about various rights and benefits, and the signing of a large number of legal documents. Fortunately, David had also hired a separate team of lawyers to come over and represent Liu Wei in negotiations with the other party. After more than a week of wrangling, they finally nailed down the contract details. Simply put, three companies were established: Keelung Mining, Keelung Heavy Industry, and Keelung Chemicals. According to the company model, these professional personnel would serve as company managers and some middle-level cadres, responsible for managing most of the company's daily affairs and reporting directly to Liu Wei. In addition, David's lawyer team, as a shareholder, helped Liu Wei with financial supervision and advice.
Liu Mou had never encountered such a professional manager before, only hearing about it in the past. This time, he finally met one and saw all sorts of legal documents and contracts that were even more detailed than those used in lawsuits. His initial anxiety was slightly alleviated. Through this experience, Liu Mou came to realize that many Western technologies and business models far surpassed those of the Qing Dynasty era. However, he couldn't manage so much at once, so he prioritized securing his own survival space before pursuing higher-level goals.
Originally, there was a management team to take over, and he could have withdrawn himself. Unexpectedly, these American elites were even more troublesome to manage in reality. All sorts of absurd suggestions kept coming up, and there was even an application to establish a union. Liu Ye had no choice but to call these elites together and gave them a lesson on national conditions, describing the Qing dynasty of this era as he knew it. He then asked them to consider the country's national conditions when making suggestions in the future. Finally, he solemnly reminded them that he paid for their trip not to lead the Qing dynasty in all-around reform but to help him manage the industries under his name and create more value.
However, Liu Ye also adopted some more reasonable suggestions, such as establishing a staff training mechanism and improving the workflow. He also publicly awarded bonuses to management personnel who made reasonable suggestions.
As these managers gradually became familiar with the various situations in Taiwan, they quickly made their own adjustments and those obviously inappropriate suggestions disappeared. Liu Ye completely shed his heavy management burden and only held a small meeting with the high-level management company every 3 days to communicate each other's ideas and the company's situation.
Although Liu Mou handed over the company's management to a professional team, he still paid close attention to the company's operations and strictly controlled the allocation of funds and financial situation through his own legal team, in order to restrain the high-level management personnel from easily changing their will and harming the company's interests.
After leaving the Wenshan Conference, Liu Ye put his main experience into the institute. After several months of grinding and preparation, some simple imitation and analysis have seen initial results. First, in terms of explosives, several chemical experts isolated a very powerful explosive component from the propellant of later generations of bullets, estimated to be ten or more times the power of modern explosives. However, due to the fact that the chemical plant had not yet been put into production, the specific batch production process had not been completed. Secondly, the imitation of engines also had some effect. A replica motorcycle engine made through simple equipment could already run normally, but its output power, noise, heat generation and lifespan were still not up to the parameters of the original product. However, there was still room for improvement in these aspects, and adjustments in manufacturing processes and materials could lead to further improvements.
Liu Mo was very pleased with the research results, the explosives were basically no problem, and the engine could reach half of the original parameters, which was already enough, and any further improvement would be an over-fulfillment of the task. Liu Mo deeply understood the limitations of the era, some things, such as processing precision and the application of new materials, were not something that could be solved by human brain power alone.
There was another surprise, the mechanical research group took the motorcycles and trucks from the fishing boat and assembled them according to the drawings. The craftsmanship was actually not bad, and even if you looked closely, you couldn't tell that it was assembled by a group of 19th-century people who had never seen cars or motorcycles before. What surprised Liu Fei was not the success of the assembly, but a suggestion made by Karl Schneider, a German engineer in the mechanical group. He said to Liu Fei, "Why don't we mass-produce such good machines? This is the best gift God has given humanity."
Is it God's gift? Liu Fei was clear in his mind, but producing cars and motorcycles would definitely be a good idea. Liu Fei remembered that the world's first car also appeared at the end of the 19th century, and on TV, Empress Dowager Cixi even had a foreign-made car given by foreigners. If he could make cars himself, those Mercedes-Benz and Ford would probably go bankrupt. Their cars compared to his own were simply junk.
Liu Ye initially planned to build a factory in Taiwan, producing cars for sale all over the world, which would just make up for his own embarrassing situation of having only one source of income from pills. After several days of planning and preparation, Liu Ye gradually woke up from his car empire dream and was frightened by this idea of his own.
Let's not talk about the raw materials and transportation issues, nor the assembly line and worker skills. Just the fact that this car is made in Taiwan would make it impossible to swallow. Would those European and American capitalists tolerate a Chinese person creating such a revolutionary machine? As soon as their own cars are born, what follows is not pounds and dollars, but business spies from various developed countries; if they agree to sell the cars at a low price, that's fine, but if there's even half a word of disagreement, warships and cannons will follow. Those capitalists would think of all sorts of ways to capture them in their factories, making them produce cars and motorcycles for them, or make them disappear, so no one else can produce. At that time, not even the British Queen could save them, let alone David Wenberg, this small aristocrat. This is called "a weak person has no guilt, but a precious jade will be punished". Without such great ability, don't attempt to do such great things.
Not only can't build a factory in Taiwan, but also can't build a factory anywhere else in the world. This kind of car and motorcycle cannot be sold, it can only be secretly controlled by oneself, as for when to produce, that depends on when one has the ability to protect oneself.
