The first federal agricultural and forestry machinery (design) competition initiated by the people of Lorraine attracted wide attention from all walks of life in the federation with high prize money, novel competition system and fierce competition, and the mainstream newspaper with the largest circulation, "Liberty Daily", published its latest progress three times in a week, and the latest issue of "Liberty Weekly" also made a special report on the competition. After continuous warm-up and publicity, people realized that this was not just a fun competition, but a high-level demonstration of the federal vehicle manufacturing industry, a bold exploration and deep innovation of special vehicle technology. In this era of booming industry, opportunities are everywhere, and fame and wealth are not a pipe dream, and various inspirational stories continue to appear in people's lives...... Lorraine has suddenly become a beacon for young engineers and mechanical enthusiasts, some of whom have followed the trajectory of their dreams, and some who have already made some achievements in related fields, and who have come here to explore business opportunities. Therefore, in the semi-final stage, the participating teams and participants are only one-tenth of the preliminary round, and the competition site is still crowded, and the onlookers are even multiple to the preliminary stage, which can also be glimpsed from the hot booking situation of various hotels and guesthouses in Lorraine. In a remote federal state capital like Mason, far from the metropolis, there are few events like this, except for local celebrations with Lorrainian characteristics and a rare national fair.

When people gather in Lorraine from hundreds of thousands of miles away, they see not only the high-profile events held by the people of Lorraine, but also the new look of Lorraine. Of the more than 300 participating teams in the preliminary round, Lorraine's native ones accounted for a quarter, and the "Thirty-two Lang" who entered the semi-finals, there are still six local teams, and they are not only Lorraine's participating teams, but also basically Lorraine's locally-made vehicle machinery, "New Lawrence" and "Lorraine Agriculture and Forestry Machinery" each contributed half. In the impression of many people, Lorraine is rich in mineral deposits in addition to the mountains, forests and snowfields, and only Mason has a decent modern industry, but it is only a rising industrial town, not to mention Liberty City, even the second-tier industrial city has thrown it a few streets. Today, the city of Mason is still largely the same as before, and has not undergone earth-shaking changes, but Lorraine is no longer the Lorraine of yesterday, the unemployment rate of working-age men is close to zero, the scale of traditional industries such as mining, metallurgy, agriculture, and forestry has been greatly improved compared with before the war, the overall scale of manufacturing has increased several times, and basic social industries such as education, medical care, and transportation have also shown a rapid growth trend. However, the shortcomings of the weak industrial base cannot be changed overnight. Don't look at the free Lorraine Canal Industrial Zone has dozens of factories, known as the "full range of manufacturing clusters", in fact, the factories here produce a variety of materials are not enough to form a complete vehicle industry chain, such as tires, not only here, the whole Lorraine has no real tire manufacturers, must be purchased from the eastern production area of the Federation, and then such as the indispensable bearing components for flying ships and ground vehicles, mainly by the Grumman Group in the central part of the Federation bearing factory, The Rummel Group's bearing manufacturing plant in the eastern part of the federation is supplied, in addition to the dashboard, spark plugs and other small objects that usually look inconspicuous, but are missing and cannot be used normally, and are also monopolized in the hands of a small number of factories - from the law of the market, it can be seen that the monopoly leads to prices far exceeding costs, which is a very profitable industry. These monopolies hold patents, and if they want to make breakthroughs in these areas, they must develop their own technology patents, and once a patent suitable for commercial production appears, vested interests generally buy these patents at a lower price, hide them or use them for their own use.

The Chelberg-Haysen plant and other industries of the Chelberg-Haysen family involve parts that cannot be produced in-house, such as tires, bearings, instruments, and spark plugs, which are basically from the industries of the Grumman Group and the Star Group. Because of the good cooperative relationship established with these giants, the price of these industrial components is not lower than that of the market, at least there will be no price increase, and the quality and quantity are guaranteed. However, in the long run, in order to further reduce the cost of products and be more competitive in the market of similar products, it is still necessary to find a way to establish a long-term and stable strategic partnership in the supply of these parts, or further stabilize the supply through equity relations. Although Weiss is not particularly good at these routine business operations, there are many capable people in the Lorraine Industrialists Alliance, and he often gives him various analysis, suggestions, and reminders on weekdays. After just over a year of development, the Lorraine Industrialists Union has become a highly influential business cooperation organization in Lorraine and even in the western part of the Federation. After Weiss became governor and vigorously promoted the development of Lorraine's industry, commerce and education, everyone followed this banner closely and grasped the rhythm of Lorraine's development......

After going to the team residence of the Dosson Machinery Group, Weiss invited Nikolai to tea. Tea is indeed good tea, and the environment for drinking tea is also the best in Mason, but in addition to drinking tea, there are some official things waiting for you. The first was a meeting with an engineer named Doom. This is a round, middle-aged man who looks like a chef rather than a mechanical inventor, but he tells Weiss and Nikolai that he personally has 22 patented technologies, the latest of which is the one he is most proud of, the "inert gas atmosphere molding method", which is more advanced than all current bearing production technologies, and claims to be able to greatly improve the quality of products. Of course, from the design to the implementation of this technology, not only a complete metallurgical manufacturing system, but also in the final bearing manufacturing process, it needs to be equipped with high-end metallurgical reprocessing equipment and inert gas production equipment, which requires a high investment of at least 2000 gold crowns. He was willing to share his invention with the people of Lorraine, but demanded that the technology patent be used as evidence of investment in the production cooperation at least 30% of the shares, and that he be given an executive position such as technical director or chairman of the technical committee at the production company.

These conditions are reasonable and reasonable, and unreasonable and unreasonable. Doom had been in Lorraine for more than half a month, and had come into contact with many contestants and spectators, and two or three factories within the Lorraine Industrialists Union had made initial contact with him, something Weiss had heard from his companions. They said that the patented technology brought by Doom was genuine, which they had already tested theorizing, and the problem was that the amount of money required to translate the patented technology into real productivity was very large. Once the investment is made according to the current requirements, not only will the patent fee be paid, but also 20 or 30 percent of Mr. Du's equity will be given for nothing, and the price will actually be very considerable. As for his position as a technical director or senior executive, it is fundamentally beneficial, because it is the production patent he designed, and if there are any problems or areas that need to be improved in the process of production and development, he can also play a great role.

In addition, investors are also worried about a very real problem: the production of precision bearings can be different from the carriage ride, it requires a large number of production facilities and professional workers, a lot of money is smashed, if the bearing can not compete with the old industrial products after the production, the risk of investment failure is very high. In Lorraine and even in the western part of the Federation, the leader of the bearing manufacturing industry is the Grumman Group, whose bearing production has been accumulated for decades, and their sales account for about 1/3 of the federal market. With the backing of the Grumman Group, both in terms of quality competition and price competition, they have innate advantages, while Lorraine's industrialists have a thin foundation and shallow accumulation, and if they are dragged into a war of attrition, they will be crushed by competitors nine times out of ten.

Weiss had already thought this through before meeting with this Mr. Doom. Rejection means that you may miss a huge opportunity; Acceptance, it means a big adventure. Prior to this, he organized a series of large-scale investment projects, including the first privately-invested canal and canal industrial zone in Lorraine, the unprecedented scale of the university town of Mason, as well as the new canal and the second canal industrial zone jointly built by the official and private economies, all of which have achieved unimaginable results and injected vigorous impetus into the development of Lorraine, but this does not mean that the project can be successful when it is seen. It also requires careful analysis, trade-offs, and calculations. From a steady standpoint, Weiss was inclined to give up this opportunity, after all, the absence of bearings does not mean that the industrial system cannot operate, but only increases the corresponding cost, and having bearings does not mean that the product can immediately be overwhelmingly competitive, but after the interview, he felt that Doom was an unusual inventor, maybe it would be a down-and-out Tesla. So he asked the Monsieur Doom to introduce him and Nikolai to the rest of his patents, including those that had already been sold. Although it will take a lot of time and even affect the future itinerary, he feels that it is very necessary and meaningful. As for Nikolai, this strange woman, who always showed herself in men's clothes, was dragged by him to be a special judge, and she had been spending two months at Mason, and she didn't care about these few hours, so she patiently listened with him.

This Mr. Doom is certainly not less popular in ordinary times, and the combined age of the two young people in front of him may not be as old as him, but their status and prestige are not comparable to ordinary people. It was both surprising and surprising that they listened patiently to his introduction to the technology patents, and he spat on his inventions, as well as the inspiration for the inventions and the process of research. It may sound drowsy, but Weiss found it so interesting that he had the idea of hiring him as a technical adviser to the Canton of Lorraine. However, some people are good at speaking, some people are good at doing, and what they are good at is not necessarily good at speaking, and what they are good at saying is not necessarily good at doing. After more than two hours of communication, he told Doom that he was interested in in-depth cooperation with him, but because of the busy business in the past two days, he hoped to have more formal and systematic negotiations after the competition to determine the form and scope of cooperation between the two parties. As a sign of good faith, Weiss asked Doom to leave his hotel room number so that he could be contacted at any time, and that all expenses incurred during his stay in Mason would be borne by the Clumber-Haysen family.

Other verbal promises may have become commonplace for Doom to sell himself so often, but full reimbursement of expenses would make him feel genuine, and he knew that such a large investment would have to go through a relatively long tug-of-war negotiation before it could be implemented, so he gladly accepted Weiss's arrangement.

Because they had been talking to Mr. Doom for too long, Weiss and Nikolai had a brief lunch in this fancy teahouse. The other two inventors of the technology patents, who were scheduled to be interviewed together in the morning, had to be scheduled for the afternoon. Although these two also have genuine things, when they come to Weiss, because they have never looked at history, they know that although these two things have played a certain role in a specific historical period, they will eventually be replaced by newer technology. From an economic point of view, this kind of excessively patented technology lacks long-term investment value. Although he did not fancy their technology patents, he felt that the two inventors were still very worthy of recognition in terms of their own abilities, so he strongly invited them to Lorraine to find a well-paid and stable position, which was much more stable than they were constantly relying on their own research and invention to obtain income. It's a pity that cattle people are always arrogant and unwilling to be limited to a certain pattern. Both of them thanked Weiss for his kindness and resolutely continued to look for their next opportunity in the market, intending to become wealthy entrepreneurs through their technology patents, rather than supposedly well-paid engineers or consultants.

The Tao is not the same, and Weiss can only send them his best wishes.