In any era, there will be no shortage of forward-looking businessmen like the Chen family and the Xu family, some of these people died on the beach, while some of them broke out of a bloody road and made a lot of money.

The Chen family, who is engaged in the grain business, is a successful example, and the Xu family is also trying to become one of them.

In the past two years, because the Tang Dynasty continued to support the development of industry and commerce, the industrial and commercial development under the rule of the Tang Dynasty was extremely fast, which also led to the development of the inland shipping industry and the offshore shipping industry.

At the same time, it is also because the Tang Dynasty opened the port to trade, which also greatly stimulated the development of ocean trade!

Whether it is the development of inland waterway, offshore or far-sea shipping, the biggest beneficiary is naturally the shipbuilding industry.

Whether it is a large or small shipyard, the dock is full of ships under construction, and there are still a lot of ship orders waiting to be completed.

This also allows many shipyard owners to complete more orders, earn more profits, began to expand shipyards on a large scale, but limited by the need for risk control, at the same time, a large number of civilian ships are the traditional Guangzhou ship, Fu ship and other ship types have a soft spot, at the same time, because of economic factors, so they are more inclined to buy those 100 tons or 200 tons of these small and medium-sized ships, but also have to be Guangzhou, sand boats, that can be navigated in inland waterways, and at the same time have a certain offshore navigation capacity of the ship.

And for those large ocean-going merchant ships that are more than five or six hundred tons, or even thousands of tons, unless they are powerful and specially used for ocean-going trade, ordinary shipowners will not spend a lot of money to buy them.

You must know that a large ship that can really sail on the open sea and has a tonnage of more than 500 tons will cost 10,000 taels of silver, and this is only a civilian ship with relatively economical materials.

But if you want to carry out real transoceanic trade, the more natural the tonnage, the better, not only because it is safe, but also because it carries more goods and is more profitable.

The previous expansion of the Xu family's Shamian shipyard was mainly focused on increasing the construction of small and medium-sized ships of one or two hundred tons, but now, Xu Bingfu is ambitious to enter the field of large ships to avoid the most competitive market of two hundred tons.

In the past, many workshops that could only hide underground and secretly build ships have also been transformed into shipyards after registration, and these shipyards are often not low in technical ability, and they are able to build ocean-going merchant ships of one or two hundred tons.

During the reign of the Ming Dynasty, because of the policy of banning the sea, they could only build ships secretly, and the only things that allowed them to build secretly were large-tonnage offshore ships.

Now that Datang has opened its port to trade, all kinds of sneaky shipyards in the past have suddenly sprung up to grab business, and the traditional Chinese hard-sailing ships between 100 tons and 200 tons with the largest number of orders, such as Guangzhou ships, sand ships and even Fu ships, have fierce price competition.

In previous years, the Xu family built a 200-ton sand ship, and the gross profit could be as high as about three or four percent, but now, it has dropped to less than two percent of the gross profit, and just like that, there are still many people grabbing orders.

That is, now the shipping industry has entered a boom stage, and there are many orders for ships, relying on a huge number, the major shipyards can still grow savagely.

However, Xu Bingfu firmly believes that this situation is unlikely to last too long, and in the next few years, ships under 300 tons, although the number of orders will not be less, but the profits will be lower and lower, and when that time comes, if you want to turn to building large ships, it will be even more difficult.

Taking advantage of the fact that we are now profitable and can still rely on the support of small and medium-sized ship orders, we will transform in advance and occupy the market of large ships of more than 300 tons!

At that time, when everyone else is fiercely competing for the small and medium-sized ship market below 300 tons, their Xu family's Shamian Shipyard can monopolize the large ship market of more than 300 tons.

He even had an idea in his heart that if his Shamian shipyard could have a 500-ton or even 1,000-ton dock and had the ability to build large-tonnage ships, then it might not be impossible to build naval ships in the future.

The ships of the Navy, because of the materials and workmanship, are required to be super-first-class, so the cost of the warships of the Datang Navy of the same tonnage is often several times more than that of civilian ships.

And the price is expensive, and the profit will naturally be more!

At the same time of civilian vessels

The profit from building one warship is more than building ten civilian ships!

As far as he knows, although there are currently three government-run shipyards, namely Zhaoqing Shipyard, Guangzhou Shipyard, and Lianzhou Shipyard, Zhaoqing Shipyard could only undertake the construction of small and medium-tonnage inland river vessels.

The Lianzhou shipyard also has the capacity to build warships of less than 500 tons.

The only one capable of building warships of more than five hundred tons is the Guangzhou Shipyard!

If I can lay out the layout in advance, so that the Shamian Shipyard has the ability to build ships of more than 500 tons, I am afraid that I don't have to compete for orders by myself, I am afraid that the military will take the initiative to come to the door.

As soon as he thought that he might become the overlord of merchant ships in the field of large ships in the future, or even become a supplier of the navy's capital ships, the heat in his heart could not be stopped.

After several days of discussion, Xu Bingfu persuaded the rest of the family to raise heavy funds to build three new 500-ton docks and a new 1,000-ton dock.

Then prepare to spend at least 50,000 taels of silver to buy all kinds of shipbuilding equipment!

In order to build a new dock and shipyard, they even spent a lot of money to buy a large area of open space along the river on the right.

And these are just their first phase of investment, if they want to build a shipyard that can build a thousand-ton giant ship, and it is also ambitious to build warships, the amount of money spent is huge!

However, the Xu family is also strong, relying on the profits of their own fleet and the profits of the three shipyards, they can barely support it, but inevitably, they are also forced to stop expanding the scale of building ships below 300 tons.

This made many competitors overjoyed, thinking that the Xu family was seeking their own death, and they had to open up a large ship market that no one had done before, and even set their sights on building warships, which was not looking for death!

But these competitors of the Xu family were soon dumbfounded, because when the Datang Navy heard that the Xu family, the first private shipyard, was going to invest heavily in the construction of 500-ton and 1,000-ton docks, and introduced a large number of advanced equipment.

Without the Xu family knowing it, the navy had already conducted a thorough assessment of the Xu family's shipyard!

At the beginning of June, when the construction of the first 500-ton dock of the Xu family officially started, and at the same time, a batch of shipbuilding equipment orders of up to 50,000 taels of silver were placed with the Zhaoqing Machinery Branch, a major of the navy found the Xu family and gave the Xu family a bidding document, informing the Xu family that the Shamian shipyard had passed the internal preliminary selection of the navy and was allowed to participate in the navy's warship bidding conference held in mid-June!

Xu Bingfu was overjoyed by this, and immediately took many craftsmen in the shipyard and the core people in the family to discuss how to participate in this bidding meeting, and then unanimously decided that even if it was not profitable, it would be necessary to grab the order for a warship.

However, they were also very cautious, they did not look at the tender documents for cruisers of the third class or even cruisers of the second class, they looked at the order for frigates of the third class.

The third-class frigate with a standard displacement of 350 tons has become the standard main warship of the Tang Dynasty Navy, because the technology is mature and the cost is relatively cheap, so the navy is building a large number of them.

And the entire construction plan, the navy is preparing to build at least 20 ships, and only then will it consider upgrading!

Twenty third-class frigates, even if the construction technology requirements are lower, not as harsh as cruisers, but now there are few shipyards in the Tang Dynasty that have the strength to undertake construction.

In early June, Xu Bingfu and more than a dozen people set off from Guangzhou to Zhaoqing, and after arriving in Zhaoqing by boat, they first rested and recuperated, and then carefully examined a plan they had made themselves.

This is the first time to participate in the bidding, although there is a model sent by the navy, but how to make a plan, they still need to think hard.

After waiting for three days in Zhaoqing, they finally went to the Navy Command to formally participate in the bidding, and after arriving at the bidding venue, Xu Bingfu found that in addition to the three government-run shipyards, there was actually a private shipyard like himself, which was their Xu family's old rival, the same Guanghe Shipyard in Guangzhou, and another was the Dingsheng Shipyard that I had not heard much about. It is rumored to have been an underground shipyard

All the people attending the meeting today are competitors to each other, so they all look silent, even if they are two people from Guangzhou Shipyard and Lianzhou Shipyard, which are both government-run shipyards, they are not quite right for each other.

Looking at this posture, Xu Bingfu knew that there would be a vicious battle today!

Today's bidding meeting is not a hidden bid, but an open bid, and at the same time, shipyards are not allowed to change the bidding conditions halfway.

The first thing to start was the tender for a second-class cruiser, which was undisputed by the Guangzhou Shipyard, and the order for two third-class cruisers was won by the Guangzhou Shipyard, and the other was taken down by the little-known Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard, which surprised Xu Bingfu!

This prosperous shipyard in Hong Kong seems not simple!