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A group of Chinese came out of the arrival gate and stood outside reluctantly saying goodbye:

"Director Xiao Feng, goodbye, let's see you back home!"

"Chief Engineer Xu, goodbye, take care of your body!"

Xu Wenliang and Feng Xiaochen shook hands, exchanged a smile with each other, and then went with their own teams.

According to the agreement signed with Sanli Steel, Qinzhou Heavy Machinery Factory sent a technical team led by Xu Wenliang to Sanli Steel to participate in the rolling mill design work, and experienced the rolling mill design process of Sanli Steel from scratch and learned from their design experience.

Feng Xiaochen was followed by another team, which was a large chemical fertilizer equipment inspection group, and its composition was very complex, including the State Planning Commission, the Economic Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Machinery, the Ministry of Chemical Industry, and so on, while the local government officials from several provinces, and the enterprises included cadres and technicians from five or six large fertilizer factories and four or five chemical equipment manufacturing plants. If you want to divide it professionally, there are roughly two camps, one is the use of chemical fertilizers and the manufacture of chemical fertilizers, and the other is the manufacture of fertilizer equipment.

The mission of this expedition was fraught with contradictions from the very beginning. The proposal of local officials and fertilizer factories is to inspect the manufacturing of fertilizer equipment in Japan, and then directly introduce large fertilizer equipment to form fertilizer production capacity as soon as possible. The Ministry of Machinery and several chemical machinery factories believe that the manufacturing capacity of fertilizer equipment should be introduced in order to realize the localization of large fertilizer equipment, and as many fertilizer plants can be built in the future.

The Planning Commission, the Economic Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Chemical Industry are ambiguous in their attitudes, with both those who support the purchase of equipment and those who support the introduction of equipment manufacturing capacity, and those who are even more clever in the middle, saying that they can buy a few sets and build a few sets themselves, so that the ideas of both sides can be taken into account.

China is a big agricultural country, and the demand for chemical fertilizers has always been very large. Since the 50s, China has introduced Soviet technology and gradually formed a production capacity of small and medium-sized nitrogen fertilizer equipment with an annual output of 10,000 tons to 50,000 tons, and on this basis, a small fertilizer system in the "five small industries" has been established.

At this time, foreign fertilizer production technology has moved towards large-scale, and an annual output of 300,000 tons of synthetic ammonia plant has become a popular trend. It is estimated that the power consumption of a large plant with an annual output of 300,000 tons of synthetic ammonia is 38 kWh, while the power consumption of a small plant with an annual output of 5,000 tons is 1,363 kWh. Different levels of consumption bring huge differences in costs and profits, in the early 80s, the profit of synthetic ammonia produced by large plants was 130 yuan per ton, while that of small plants was only 27 yuan per ton.

In addition, domestic nitrogen fertilizer is mainly ammonium bicarbonate with low nitrogen content, which is commonly known as ammonium carbonate by farmers, with a nitrogen content of only 17%, while urea, which is commonly used abroad, has a nitrogen content of 48%, and the difference in fertilizer efficiency is also extremely obvious.

In the early 70s, in order to increase grain production, China began to import urea from abroad in large quantities, spending a lot of foreign exchange. In order to get rid of this predicament, in the mid-70s, the state introduced 13 sets of large fertilizer equipment with an annual output of 300,000 tons of synthetic ammonia and 520,000 tons of urea from the United States, the Netherlands, France, Japan and other countries;

However, relying only on these 17 sets of imported equipment cannot fully meet the demand for chemical fertilizers in domestic agricultural production. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Chemical Industry estimate that by the end of this century, the domestic agricultural production needs of chemical fertilizer will reach more than 40 million tons in terms of net amount, taking into account the structure of large, medium and small nitrogen fertilizer and phosphate fertilizer, at least 30 sets of more than 300,000 tons of synthetic ammonia plants need to be built in China.

In this way, two factions have been formed to buy equipment and build equipment, and they are evenly matched and cannot hold each other.

Manufacturing equipment is the general direction set by the country, and Feng Xiaochen's Heavy Equipment Office undertakes such a mission. Among the 11 major technical equipment for which the Heavy Equipment Office is responsible, large chemical fertilizers are included. The state clearly stated that large fertilizer equipment is the key equipment to ensure national agricultural safety, and we must master this technology ourselves. In this sense, the side that advocates making its own equipment has the sword of "political correctness" and has the confidence to speak.

However, there are good reasons for the proponents of buying equipment. Buy a set of equipment to come in, and it will be able to be put into production in 3 years to provide urgently needed urea for agricultural production. If you choose to build your own equipment, from digestion and absorption to technology maturity, it will not be possible in ten or eight years. During this time, the peasants need fertilizer, and if the state cannot provide it, then it means that the food production cannot be increased, and 1 billion people are hungry, who is responsible? If the state provides it, then it will only be dependent on imports, and it will also cost precious foreign exchange.

The import price of one ton of urea is calculated at US$100, and the plant with an annual output of 520,000 tons of urea can save US$50 million in foreign exchange expenditure if it is put into operation a year earlier. If you wait for domestic equipment, even if it is only a five-year delay, the loss of foreign exchange will be as high as 200 million to 300 million US dollars, and this money is enough to introduce five sets of equipment.

There is a historical data, from 1971 to 1985, the state imported 17 sets of large fertilizer equipment and some other related equipment, spending 1.06 billion US dollars in foreign exchange, and in 1988 the annual import of chemical fertilizer has reached 2 billion US dollars. Whether to seize the time to introduce equipment to replace fertilizer imports, or prefer to import fertilizers rather than imported equipment, to make way for domestic equipment, this multiple-choice question is probably not difficult to do, right?

The phrase "it's better to buy than to make" does make sense in some cases if it is not mixed with ideological labels.

In addition to these big truths that can be brought to the table, there are also some small truths that cannot be said, but everyone knows them, which are also very important, and can even be said to be more critical than the previous big truths.

Unlike rolling mills, the introduction price of large fertilizer equipment is not particularly high. In the mid-70s, China introduced a 1,700 mm hot rolling and cold rolling production line, with a total investment of 3.89 billion yuan, while the introduction of a set of 300,000 tons of synthetic ammonia and 520,000 tons of urea production equipment in the same period was only 300 million yuan. In the former, because the amount of investment is huge, the local government cannot afford it, and the state must pay for it, so the Economic Commission can make it mandatory to "joint manufacturing" and gradually increase the level of localization. And the investment required by the latter is what the provincial government can raise, and people pay for their own equipment, so what reason does the state have to make irresponsible comments?

Large-scale chemical equipment enterprises are directly under the state, and the province cannot afford to support such a large enterprise. However, the fertilizer factory belongs to the province, and the fertilizer produced and the profits obtained are all benefits of the province. Which province is willing to give up the fat on its lips and use it to practice technology for the chemical equipment factory directly under the state?

As for the benefits that the introduction of equipment can bring to the individual parties, it is even more difficult to put on the table, but who can say that this factor is not important?

What Feng Xiaochen is jumping into now is such a whirlpool. The delegation was led by the Economic Commission, and from the very beginning when it was agreed on the participants, there were already many contradictions and tensions, which caused headaches for the leaders of the Economic Commission. Because it involves the introduction of large-scale equipment, the Economic Commission asked the Heavy Equipment Office to send people to participate in the camera coordination. Luo Xiangfei also knew the trouble of this matter, and with the mentality of a dead horse being a live horse doctor, he sent his own magic weapon Feng Xiaochen, hoping that with Feng Xiaochen's wit, he could sort out a clue in this mess.

The large fertilizer equipment delegation and Qin Chong's rolling mill design delegation went to Japan on the same machine. Feng Xiaochen originally planned to have a more chat with the personnel of the inspection group on the plane, but who expected that as soon as he got on the plane, he was pulled over by Xu Wenliang and Cui Yongfeng and talked about the rolling mill along the way. This will finally send Xu Wenliang and them away, and Feng Xiaochen returned to his team.

"Xiao Feng, let me introduce to you, this is Mr. Qiangui Takeshi, vice chairman of the Japan Chemical Equipment Association. ”

Wang Shicheng, the head of the inspection group, saw Feng Xiaochen coming over, and smiled and introduced him to the personnel who came to greet him from the Japanese side. Wang Shicheng is a deputy director of the Economic Commission, and the Heavy Equipment Office is an organization located under the Economic Commission, so Wang Shicheng is Feng Xiaochen's indirect superior. However, Wang Shicheng is a very smart person, he has long heard that the director Zhang Kejian admires Feng Xiaochen a lot, and because Feng Xiaochen came up with an idea to set up a Jingwei consulting company, which solved the employment problem of many unemployed children of the Economic Commission, many cadres of the Economic Commission are grateful to him, so it is inconvenient for Wang Shicheng to put his superiors on the shelf in front of Feng Xiaochen, and he is very polite to him in and out of his words.

"Mr. Qiangui, it's a pleasure to meet you. ”

Feng Xiaochen stepped forward, bowed to Qiangui Wuzhi, and greeted the other party in Japanese.

"I didn't expect Xiao Feng, your Japanese to be so good!" Wang Shicheng let out a half-truthful exclamation, "No wonder Director Luo values you so much." By the way, Mr. Qiangui, I forgot to introduce to you that this is Mr. Feng Xiaochen, deputy director of the Major Equipment Office of our Economic Commission, and the issue of the introduction of major equipment is directly handled by the department where Director Feng belongs. ”

The latter sentence is what he said to Qiangui Wuzhi. The translator translated his words to Qiangui Wuzhi, and Qiangui Wuzhi's face showed a little surprise, and then he bowed to Feng Xiaochen again and said, "In this way, this time the cooperation between you and me will depend more on Director Feng." ”

Feng Xiaochen smiled: "Haha, Mr. Qiangui made a mistake, Director Wang was joking with you just now." Director Wang is my leader, and all the people in our delegation are my leaders, and I am just a handyman who works as a translator and runs errands for them. Still, I hope we have a good time working together. ”

Qiangui Wuzhi couldn't tell who was more reliable, Wang Shicheng's words and Feng Xiaochen's words, but in line with the idea that he would rather kill by mistake and never get by, he still said politely to Feng Xiaochen: "Yes, yes, happy cooperation." Come, everyone, please go to the hotel and then soak in the hot springs at one of the most prestigious health resorts on the outskirts of Tokyo. ”