A lively afternoon tea party, I was known by the big guys in the Shanghai concession, not only pre-booked out the total output of the standard factory for more than a year, opened the Russian, German, Spanish, Italian and other European markets, but also by the United States and Japan commercial firms, these two also opened a large amount of orders, it seems that the products of the standard factory in the last year do not have to worry. Obviously, Mr. Montagu, who had just landed on the liner, did not expect that the foreigners in Shanghai had been hungry for the products of the standard factory to such an extent, and even willing to wait for half a year with a deposit of sixty percent, but there was never a shortage of standard products in his own firm. And today, when he came to the Far East, he received a telegram from Alfred's nephew, who was very handsome, and he wanted to talk to this mysterious young man from the East in depth, and perhaps the future wealth of the Montague family depended on this guy who was good at creating miracles.

However, I am not the Great Qing Dynasty that can be slaughtered, so today I have also discussed with several major foreign companies on the cost-effective issue of imported parts, and put the supply prices of parts that Alfred and Zhu Zhiyao helped to find on the table, and soon be able to squeeze out the water from these foreigners. In addition, the purchase of complete sets of electric machinery, chemical equipment and special machine tools is also considered to be a release of news, after which Alfred and Zhu Zhiyao and Miao Boss will stay in Shanghai, and organize a bidding conference three months later, I want to purchase the node equipment of the roadmap designed by the system for me, as long as there is these equipment, I can skip the steam era and the era of internal combustion engines and enter the electric age directly under the condition of full manpower. Although for a period of time, high-tech components and high-quality metal materials have to rely on imports, but after I have completed the supporting construction, I believe that under the guidance of the advanced technology roadmap, my industrial modernization process will be greatly accelerated, and the old empire will go through the course of free competition for 100 years in a few steps. As for steelmaking, metallurgy, gun manufacturing and other equipment, not to mention that Europe and the United States may not be willing to sell it, even if they want to sell it, I can't afford it, let alone use it, and I can't afford to have it at this stage. Not to mention anything else, if little Japan, which had just finished the First Sino-Japanese War, turned red, with their temperament and cheekiness, they would definitely not mind coming to the hinterland of Shandong to fight the grass valley again.

It's damn afternoon tea again, as if the British don't talk about business except afternoon tea, and by the time I woke up from yesterday's ball-cum-cocktail party, I was ready for lunch. Du Niang has come to my side, and the Seven Musketeers and several other trainee special forces have become my bodyguards, patrolling the hotel where I live, anyway, the three directors of the Ministry of Industry and Bureau are all there that day, and the gun permit can be done in minutes, and now the bodyguard's shoulder bag has a 20-shot barge box gun with a large open nose of the Spanish-made replaceable magazine, and the quick-draw holster under the arm is the prototype of the Colt python, 11.43 large-caliber left * wheel, and now there is no one in the concession who can threaten me except for the British soldiers in the brigade. The Green Gang hasn't farted until now, and Deng Rihong, the chief Chinese detective and self-proclaimed big-character Shanghai underground king, is also happy to pretend to be confused, it seems that Lao Yao's blood is in vain, and obviously no one in the Green Gang plans to overturn the case for him.

Still in the public concession of Shanghai, the Montague family secretly runs a western restaurant, and when I entered, it was ten minutes and two o'clock in the afternoon, and I was carrying a small gift box, and it was obvious that Alfred had already guessed that I was going to give it to his uncle Winston. What is the matter with Montagu, he raised his wrist very vaguely, and motioned for me to see that the Rolex I gave him last year was very old, and there was no good way to take this foreign kraft candy, so he had to nod and signal that I agreed to his blackmail, Alfred was overjoyed, but when he saw his uncle staring at his movements with a serious face, he swished back to his usual arrogant square face. As Alfred expected, I gave Mr. Winston a pair of Tissot white gold and diamond watches, which came from the precision knife work of the later generation of CNC laser cutting machines, so that the eight-point diamond on the strap shimmered with forty-two faces, Winston first squinted for a while, and then quietly closed the lid of the box, "Mr. Sean, thank you for taking care of my nephew, if there is anything we can do for you, our Montague family is happy to do our best." ”

"You are so gracious, Lord Winston. I think you can take the time to come to the Far East, thousands of miles away, and you will definitely be able to bring more constructive ideas to the cooperation between our standard enterprises and the Montagu family, right? ”

"Well, I have to admit that you are a mature collaborator. Well, as you say. My family feels that the current simple dropshipping model is lacking in vitality, in fact, if you are willing to accept our financial help and channel advantages, I think we can work together to create a business miracle in the new century. Of course, we are happy to respect your opinion, and in any case, you are the most reliable partner of the Montague family in the Far East. ”

"As you wish, I have always regarded the Montagu family as a fully trusted companion. In fact, it is now almost the only way we can connect with the European continent. I understand your sense of responsibility and mission to the Montague family as the head of the family, and for the sake of our common bright future, I wonder if you would like to listen to some of my less mature suggestions. ”

"Absolutely, Mr. Sean. I guess you can occupy my whole afternoon, and in fact I am more than willing to communicate freely with a genius industrialist like you. ”

"In our world today, except for the unique way in which the financial world operates, other modern industries make money in a similar way, making and selling their finished products or raw materials, which means that making more money requires more products, more markets, higher profit margins, and of course, lower costs. It's hard to meet all of these things at the same time, right? While the market and profit margins of standard companies are satisfactory, higher yields are almost impossible to achieve in a short period of time. I interrupted Winston's attempt to interject with a wave of my hand, "Of course, you might suggest that I move some of my production to Europe, expand my production capacity and be close to the market and raw material suppliers, and reduce transportation costs, I know it's a good idea, and I plan to do it, and I actually have in my purse a plan for us to build a standard company in the UK." But you must be able to imagine that with the emergence of imitations and the construction of branches, the saturation of the market is almost an inevitable result, and we have almost nothing to compete with the advantages of Germany, France and even the British local old mechanical processing enterprises, except for the first brand advantage, isn't it? ”

Winston pondered for a moment, "I have to admit that there is a good chance that the gloomy prospect you have described will arise, and since you have considered this dilemma, your suggestion must be the key to this dilemma, well, I confess that I am very eagerly awaiting your suggestion." ”

"My suggestion is to change the way we operate now, in addition to the necessary products, we also want to add a category of goods with a natural monopoly, in fact, your country has already had a bill on this, but unfortunately no one realizes what a good commodity it is." I continued.

"With all due respect, can you describe your proposal to us in a way that we can all understand?" Alfred interjected, in fact his uncle was waiting for my explanation. "What is my business called? My dear Alfred. ”

"standard," Winston and his nephew replied at the same time.

"Bingo, got it right, but there was no reward. Well, gentlemen, I'm talking about the magic product by our name, "Standard", and by the way, we don't just sell products but also standards. ”

"Standards? Do you want to sell design drawings? Alfred apparently could not understand such a novel formulation.

"Look at my mouth shape, no, we don't sell design drawings, of course we can share it with our partners, other than that we don't sell drawings. We sell standard, well, for example, why do I have to indicate the inner and outer diameters, the number of balls, and the size of the threads that I ordered from Hamburg, Germany? Yes, otherwise there is no way for German manufacturers to know what we need. But what if we have a very complete and extensive system of industry standards? All I need to do is indicate on the order that I need a No. 12 A-bearing, or even a combination of numbers and letters to fully express our order requirements without any other instructions. Think about it, the manufacturing of most industrial products is unified into your standard system, people don't need to rely on drawings to accurately express their intentions, designers don't have to design their own threads for every screw, our industrial products will become "standard Montague system 10023A 2000" and the like, every manufacturer who uses our standard needs to pay us a standard fee according to the output or time, even if each standard only charges 1p per month, but I'm sure to build a locomotive, They have to pay a standard royalty of one-tenth of the total price. God, let us pray together for the British Empire's Patent Act, whose ninety-nine years of patent protection is simply the work of angels. ”

Speaking of which, I saw that the two English gentlemen, Winston and Alfred, had a tendency to transform into human wolves, and apart from their sharp canine teeth and long claws, they were almost already human wolves, and their four red eyes gleamed with gold pounds, and I bet that if God dared to jump out to stop them, they would also be overturned with wine bottles.