Compared with the militaristic style of the War Department headed by Katsura Taro, the conversation of the naval faction is much more elegant. After all, they are quite Westernized in Japan, and they can drink milk and eat bread. Takahashi was Qing who had studied abroad, so he was naturally quite Westernized. He knew that his coming here today was tantamount to making a "debriefing report" to these bigwigs who supported the Takahashi cabinet, and although Japan's economic situation has been good recently, the more careful he must be at this time. If the economic situation is not good, many people are afraid to take over the post of prime minister. Once the economic situation improves, the people who are interested in this position are by no means limited to the Army. There are not only one or two people who have the intention to stab them in the back.

In the face of the naval faction, which is more sensitive to the current trend of technological development, Saionji Konobo pointed out that the People's Party is definitely not particularly friendly to the issue of Japan's hot ball machine trade. Of course, this is also an opportunity for Takahashi to be clear, and if he can show Takahashi's economic acumen, it will be easier to establish his prestige in times of crisis.

The issue of hot ball machines is just a microcosm of the current Sino-Japanese trade, and for the Japanese authorities, it is not only the purchase of hot ball machines from the People's Party, heavy chemical products including three acids and two alkalis, but even hemp ropes and cables must be imported from the People's Party. Officially, the smuggling trade of Japanese "profiteers" includes all kinds of textiles, and even daily necessities such as needles, threads, and brains will be imported from China by all means. After all, Japan is a small country and lacks resources. The BJP base areas have vast land yields of all kinds of crops. As far as buttons made of coconut shells and brushes made of coconut palm are concerned, the People's Party is able to produce seven or eight billion buttons of various types a year, and tens of millions of brushes of various types, which are outrageously cheap. If they are willing to pay a 70% deposit, the BJP's factories even accept product customization business. No matter how hard Japan squeezes labor, it is impossible to reduce prices to such a level.

In the face of the cheap hot ball machine business of the People's Party, Japan is not without trying to imitate. It is no different for any industrial country to be a counterfeit country, and it is no different for a first-mover industrial country in this respect. If you can't study with an open mind, but think that "Lao Tzu is the best in the world", the end of destruction is inevitable. It was not that Japan in 1915 could not imitate the hot ball machine mass-produced by the People's Party, but like other products, Japan could not bring the price down to the level of the People's Party. In fact, as early as 1913, Japan began to import hot ball machines made by the People's Party on a relatively large scale.

In this era of high shipping costs, it is extremely uneconomical to import hot ball machines from the United States or the United Kingdom. In fact, Japan does not need to be ashamed at all, because the hot ball machines in the entire western Pacific are basically provided by the People's Party. Not only the Japanese bought, but also the British and American colonies in the Western Pacific, and the British and Americans bought more than the Japanese.

Takahashi is an expert on Japanese economics, and he has a small team of his own to study economic phenomena. The sudden rise of the People's Party could not help but concern Takahashi Isaki. The sudden rise of such a force, which has a population of hundreds of millions and several times the size of Japan, would be extremely beneficial to a country like Japan, which is in dire need of rapid expansion, if we can find the experience of the People's Party.

After listening to the speech of the Saionji Gongwang, Takahashi replied slowly: "I have sent someone to collect the way the People's Party's industrial development is carried out, and this way is really difficult to explain. Although the BJP is also very concerned about foreign trade, it seems that its attention is all about the country. As you know, the People's Party (PPP) has implemented a quota trade agreement, which openly does not pursue a trade surplus but goes all out to expand production, which is very different from Japan's. ”

At first glance, these words may sound a bit off-topic, but the people attending the meeting are all people with status, so they naturally will not simply interject, but quietly wait for Takahashi Shiqing to finish speaking.

According to the information gathered by Japan, the People's Party's exports to foreign countries are entirely aimed at boosting the scale of industry, and because of the large scale of the products exported, the People's Party's related industries have developed well. Of course, if the People's Party wants to export its own currency, other countries will not accept the BJP's currency without gold as collateral. As a result, the number of factories in the BJP-controlled areas has increased dramatically, and production capacity has continued to increase.

After listening to Takahashi Shiqing's words, Saionji Gongwang asked, "What did Takahashi-kun see from this?" ”

"The BJP can be seen as a big conglomerate. This consortium has a different division of labor and is completely controlled by the BJP and supported by the BJP central bank. Although other individual businesses also exist, they are completely negligible. Takahashi replied.

"So does Takahashi-kun mean that the People's Party is learning the Japanese way?" Xiyuan Temple Gongwang is still a little puzzled.

In the beginning, Japan also engaged in state-owned enterprises, and after the state-owned enterprises had an initial scale, the Japanese government bought the enterprises at a low price from various consortia and divided up the Japanese state-owned enterprises. Saionji Gongwang thinks that Takahashi is Kiyoshi probably thought of this.

"Not really." Takahashi replied refreshingly, "Recently, the hot ball machine has had a big repercussion in China, and I have also analyzed it. ”

The hot ball machine technology is not complicated, Japan wants to use its own hot ball machine products to replace the imported People's Party hot ball machine, but Japan's steel production is insufficient, and the output of the hot ball machine will not go up. Moreover, the production and sales also involve the profitability of a manufacturer, and the price cannot be compared with that of the People's Party in any case. The war in Europe caused Japan to get a lot of orders, and Japan, which mainly produces small family factories, is in great need of a power source such as a hot ball machine, which is easy to operate and maintain, and does not pick and choose fuel. For Japan's situation, the People's Party also has a range of accessories, from gas generators that provide fuel to small generators that can be towed by hot ball machines, all of which are inexpensive and durable. Japanese goods are originally an example of inferior quality and low price, and when the quality of the People's Party's hot ball machine exceeds that of similar Japanese bulldozers, the price is only 80% of that of Japan's local hot ball machine, and it will not lose money even if it is sold as scrap metal.

At first, the Japanese authorities vigorously cracked down on this, so there were first Japanese black-hearted businessmen who smuggled in small boats regardless of life and death, and later even some shipping companies carried out large-scale smuggling and trafficking at intervals. Faced with the need to vigorously expand production capacity, the Japanese government had no choice but to include the hot ball machine in the trade list. You know, Japan, like the United States, is a big counterfeiter of mechanical goods. The Japanese market has not yet been opened to such a degree of openness to a particular industrial product.

From an economic point of view, Saionji knew that importing a large number of hot ball machines from the People's Party would have an immediate effect on the Japanese economy, and that orders from Europe would make it easy for these factories to recoup their capital. However, making Chinese industrial products so arrogant in Japan, Xiyuan Temple Gongwang felt as uncomfortable in his heart as eating a few catties of green-headed flies.

Takahashi personally approved the import of the BJP's hot ball machine, and he could not help but explain his actions. Seeing that all the big guys were silent, Takahashi felt a lot more relaxed in his heart. "Ladies and gentlemen, the People's Party has given us a good idea, the scale of the enterprise must be large enough. This is also the reason for the success of the BJP. ”

People who tend to the Admiralty are very sensitive to the machinery industry, and industrial capacity means national strength. Takahashi is Qing mentioned the idea of industrial construction, and everyone is willing to let this Japanese economic expert analyze it.

Takahashi was given time to continue to implement his ideas, and since the People's Party's base was so close to Japan, Takahashi wanted to find out what methods the People's Party had used to reduce costs. He was surprised by the results of his inquiry, and the BJP did not squeeze the workers to death, nor did it come up with any shocking technology. The only reason to reduce costs was that the BJP industrial sector implemented generic parts, with a range of standard screw types for different equipment. The characteristic of general-purpose parts is to further reduce costs, making it possible to produce large-scale socialized production.

This simple truth is impossible for Japan to imitate, and the People's Party can supply all kinds of screws to the entire industrial sector of the People's Party with seven or eight large screw factories. Each screw factory has thousands of workers who work eight hours a day, six days a week. All kinds of screws, screws, washers, rivets, tens of millions of pieces are produced a year. Although Japan considers itself to have a larger industrial scale than China, their small family-sized factories dictate that these small enterprises want to follow the path of "small and complete", and like farmers, they try not to buy what they can build themselves. If you can simply repair it, try not to spend huge financial resources to improve the accuracy of that little bit. However, in the case of a hot ball machine, which is already considered a "stupid and stupid" mechanical equipment, the accumulation of several small errors may cause terrible consequences. A 1% increase in accuracy could increase the company's acceptable profit price by 20% or even 40%, and Japanese companies would never do such a thing.

Japanese companies are not willing to do this, but the People's Party is willing to do this. This is one of the important reasons why people of insight in Japan are afraid of the People's Party. As far as Japan knows, the proportion of universal parts on the hot ball machine produced by the People's Party is more than 30%, and there are about a dozen factories whose parts are used in a hot ball machine, and similar products in Japan are at most two or three enterprises cooperating in production. Such a comparison alone makes it impossible for Japanese products to compete.

The fact that Japanese products could not compete with the People's Party after waiting for so long was a great surprise to the participants. Without waiting for anyone to speak, Takahashi Kiyoshi gave the final conclusion. "The People's Party has the ability to order companies to adopt what kind of generic parts, and we can't match that alone."

"Is Takahashi-kun ready to study the People's Party?" Saionji Gongwang finally understood what Takahashi was going to say. It's just that not long ago, Xionji Gongwang said that the People's Party wanted to learn from Japan's move of selling state-owned enterprises to private individuals, and now it is possible to encounter the opposite conclusion, and Xionji Gongwang is a little disappointed.

"Whether or not to study the People's Party can be discussed later, but the People's Party is destined to be the enemy of our Great Japanese Empire, and we cannot take it lightly. From this point of view, we should support the Beiyang government. Takahashi Kiyoshi gave his own conclusion.