Winter, some people like, some people hate, for anyone engaged in field work, this winter is definitely not a good weather, especially after a snowfall, the mountain road is even more disgusting, if you can, anyone engaged in field work, will try to avoid winter, but sometimes, things are not always as people wish.

The snow and mist shrouded everything in the forest in a haze, and in the woods where the snow and mist blurred the clearing of the mountains, scattered among the tents, on which several young men and a dozen hired men were setting up chests on the mules, most of which contained some equipment.

Chen Yuan in the tent was moving a lot of his own things, and while carrying things, he cursed his luck in his heart, seeing that the New Year was approaching, but he was sent to this mountain forest by the company. Not to mention Chen Yuan, it is the students of the "geology class" of the Huangpu Sports School, but when those people are carrying equipment, they are smoking cigarettes in the snow and cursing in their mouths from time to time.

"It's still a week away, it's the New Year, I really don't know when we can go back!"

"Wait until the mission is completed!"

"It's not ......"

Chinese have never seen the taste of the New Year, although these young people are all young and vigorous, received the task, and carried it out without a word, but after drilling around in this ravine for a month, they still did not find what they needed to find. They didn't know what they were looking for, and in addition to continuing to calibrate the map, they were helping the prospectors to find the ones that were "crystalline or plate-like, brownish-black to black in color, semi-metallic or resinous."

"If you find the rock, you can go home!"

This is Chen Yuan's promise to the big guy, and it is also the promise he got from the company, the company gave him the task of finding tungsten ore, although he was unwilling, but Chen Yuan also knew that in fact, this was a test for him by the company, and the saltpeter mine he found would never be mined at least in the next few years.

Who can bear the responsibility of losing Xinjiang in a mine, he Chen Yuan can't afford it, and the same company can't afford it. Although it was like this, Chen Yuan became the first field exploration team sent by the company's mineral laboratory, but it was tungsten ore that was to be found.

When he set off a month ago, he was told to concentrate on exploration somewhere around Dayu. There are continuous high hills and undulating round hills, mountains as high as one or two thousand meters, running endlessly, and on the map, it seems that there are only a dozen kilometers, but here you have to walk dozens of kilometers, or even more.

The winter weather was not suitable for exploration, but the company was in urgent need of tungsten, the company did not even consider that after the snow on the mountain, the exposed ore seedlings were naturally buried by the snow, although he was excited to forget about it, but the company finally sent him over, with six students from Anqing and Nanchang Huangpu School, with a batch of simple equipment, and 5,000 silver dollars here.

Since he came here, he took this "geological exploration team" around the rolling mountains, encountered a lot of risks along the way, wolves, tigers are not terrible, but the terrible is bandits, along the way before and after two bandits, but the group of bandits was frightened by this group of "foreigners" wearing "foreign clothes", now everyone knows that this foreigner can not be touched than the official master.

A few days ago, when there was no snow, in addition to collecting all kinds of suspected stones, Chen Yuan often asked recruited local workers to use the drill bits he carried with him to drill hole after hole in the mountain for further exploration.

Tungsten was not found, but found two small tin ore seedlings, this discovery made Chen Yuan really happy, happy, but did not find the tungsten that the company needed, this task is equivalent to not being completed.

After extinguishing the bonfire, after the people who led the mules left the camp, Chen Yuan and his entourage left the woodland one after another and continued to walk along the dangerous mountain road.

"Engineer Chen, you said it's snowing heavily, how can we find those stones?"

Listening to the person sent by the Whampoa Academy who called Yu Mingjiu's student an engineer, Chen Yuan was a little proud in his heart, he didn't have a degree in mining or engineering, but he called himself a mining engineer. In fact, he has studied both of these disciplines, although he is not proficient, but he is also a person who has "discovered" a big mine, not to mention that now he is making up for mining and engineering, and he believes that one day, he will become a real mining engineer.

Looking around, almost everything in the mountains is covered with a thick layer of snow and ice, and in this case the prospecting for minerals is almost zero.

"Or ......"

Chen Yuan began to hesitate in his heart whether to withdraw for the time being, and then come to this place when the spring snow melts next year.

"Sir, I'm going to Xihua Mountain in front, you see that the mountain is the Zhuangyun Temple that I used to say!"

The man who was holding the mule said to Chen Yuan, who was walking beside him.

"If you don't worship the temple, it's disrespectful, let's go to this Qingyun Temple to worship the Bodhisattva!"

said so, but in his heart, Chen Yuan wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to let the big guy repair in the temple, after all, this month, everyone has been sleeping in the mountains, and they also need to be repaired.

The group walked along the winding and winding rugged path to Xihua Mountain, but the people who drove the mules talked about it.

"Sir, on the Xihua Mountain built by this Qingyun Temple, also known as the Black Stone Mountain, now let the snow cover, if you wait for the spring to come again, then you can see that this mountain is full of black and shiny stones."

"Black stone?"

Chen Yuan noticed the words of the people, the stones found along the way were all ordinary stones, and black stones were rare here, could it be ......, "Where is the black stone?" ”

"That'...... Sir, you see right there, this mountain is full of black stones, as long as the snow is cleared, you can look at this stone! ”

His hand pointed to the hillside in front of him, but as if it didn't feel right, he pointed to a few more places.

"Anyway, there are black stones everywhere on this mountain, and the stones are harder than the gray stones, but the stones are a little smaller, or it must be suitable to make a monument or something."

Almost as soon as the man's voice fell, Chen Yuan ran towards the hillside of his finger, and as soon as he rushed to the hillside, he bent down and first swept the snow from the mountain with his hands, and then dug the stones on both sides.

After sweeping away the snow one meter square, I really saw a piece of black and shiny stones, picked a piece, and felt very heavy, looking at the light, the stones were glowing with semi-metallic light, and occasionally there was some resinous light.

This is tungsten ore!

"Quick! Sweep away all the snow here! ”

Pressing the excitement in his heart, Chen Yuan pointed to the surrounding hillside and shouted, the snow was quickly swept away by those people with branches, and the surface of the ground was exposed.

This discovery made Chen Yuan, who was originally resigned, begin to command those people and those students with full energy, collected those black ore samples on the hillside, and even chiseled a few feet down the mountain.

When the sky darkened, Chen Yuan, who had not found tungsten ore for a month, collected at least three thousand catties of ore, and it was not until the sky was completely dark that the group stopped the work at hand.

"Alright, now let's go home for the New Year!"

The snow is falling in the mountains of southern Gansu, Shanghai is also snowing at the mouth of the Yangtze River, on the Huangpu River in the snowy night, an old iron-hulled cargo ship full of rust spots docked on the wharf of Pudong Speed Tire and Rubber Products Company, the George cargo ship lifted the canvas on the cargo hold, several crane towers on the steel and wood structure of the wharf and the workers on the wharf began to be busy, against the wind and snow, the workers unloaded a piece of gray and white things half a meter square from the cargo ship with the help of slings, this is a rubber sheet, the old George has a total of 3,500 tons, This is the second shipment of rubber from Shanghai in two months, the last shipment of rubber from Malaya, and this shipment of rubber from the rainforests of Brazil.

Although it was only a month, in the customs building in the concession, any customs official knew that in the 29th year of Guangxu, the largest import commodity of the Qing Dynasty was probably the rubber condensed from the milk of the Brazilian clover rubber tree, and almost since the invention of the technology of vulcanization of rubber by human beings, the "tears of the tree" produced in the tropical rainforests of South America have been pervasively integrated into all aspects of human social life.

Almost in the Father of Rubber, Charles? A few years after Goodyle's invention of hardened rubber, a British blacksmith obtained the patent for the first rubber pneumatic tire, and three years earlier, the solid rubber tire used in horse-drawn carriages was widespread throughout Europe and the United States. Eight years ago, Michelin, a Frenchman, modified the pneumatic tires of bicycles and installed them on cars, and cars began to use inflatable wheels, although the technology was not perfect, but it improved the shock absorption of the car.

The reason why Mustang won the rally from Yanjing to Paris and won the popularity and praise of people in Europe and the United States was described by those imaginative journalists as "brave and fearless even in a harsh environment." It's so superior, so famous, that it sometimes feels like it has a faint hostility towards humans, as if this excellent thing has a life of its own. ”

In addition to some epoch-making designs used by the Mustang car itself, the most important factor is probably the four tires that do not look very in front of the eyes, the tires used by the Mustang car, the biggest difference from the full shift used in various countries, in addition to the pattern of the outer tube, I am afraid that the use of complete sets of inner and outer tubes, that is, the outer tire is woven with rubber and fabric, and the rubber inner tube is installed inside. It was only after the advent of the "speedy" tires that pneumatic tires were a complete success, and the car really put on modern "shoes".

Compared with the Mustang Automobile Manufacturing Company, whose output has been limited by the size of the factory and the number of workers, the tires of Speeda Tire and Rubber Products Company, which is also one of the subsidiaries of the industrial company, have also received a large number of foreign orders, but the production has made it possible to keep up with the orders, and rubber products are far easier to produce than automobiles.

South America, South Seas rubber in the speed of the plant in proportion to the sulfur in Java, and then with the "Hutchison weaving factory" with the Indian Egyptian long-staple cotton cotton yarn production of diagonal striped cloth, through steam extrusion, it becomes a "speed tire", this in Europe and the United States by a subsidiary of an industrial company to apply for a patent pneumatic tires, due to the patent restrictions, although it has been launched for several months, but speed is the only production enterprises.

In the rubbery workshop, you can watch the workers take tires out of the molds, which are soon packed into boxes and sent to the docks, and then shipped to Europe and the United States, where tires are the second largest export product of industrial companies.

The bias tires, which brought millions of profits to the company, were made with reference to motorcycle tires found in truck lockers, and in order to perfect the tire technology, the Mustang car failed to catch up with the test run, until the Yanjing to Paris rally, this bias tire finally caught up with the race.

Unlike Liang Jishuang, who was next to Chen Moran, and Chen Moran frowned when he smelled the smell in the air, the smell of rubber in the nose of others was like ambergris in his nose, and he naturally enjoyed this smell.

"Chairman, among the tires exported now, only six out of every 100 tires are automobile tires, and most of the others are carriage tires, with as many as 15 specifications of products."

"Will the production of so many specifications affect the production of car tires?"

Chen Moran asked casually, after all, the car is now the most important product of the industrial company, the important surname is even more than steel, 02 December, Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant and the Russians who came to inspect, signed a supply cooperation of 235,000 rails, this is the first export of the steel plant, at that time even the newspaper said that this is "the evidence of the rise of the Qing Dynasty".

The supply of 235,000 tons of steel rails in three years, the profit is only more than 7 million, but the production of 10,000 Mustang cars a year can obtain more than 5 million yuan of net profit for the company, and the profit of the former can not be compared with the latter.

"Chairman, the inner and outer tube processing and molding equipment is just different from the mold, if necessary, the workshop can be replaced with Mustang automobile tire molds at any time to produce automobile tires!"

Liang Jishuang's words made Chen Moran nod, he was a layman in tire manufacturing and production, and even when he produced this tire, thanks to Liang Jishuang, who produced raincoats and rain boots, if he hadn't solved the problem of equipment transformation with those French engineers, I am afraid that this "speedy tire" is at most the "cannon wheel" wrapped in rubber.

And unlike the common sulfur treatment hardened rubber in various countries, Suda tires also use carbon black reinforcing rubber in addition to sulfur, because after the tire uses cord, the canvas is damaged faster than the tread in the use of tires, so it is necessary to apply carbon black reinforcing tread rubber on a large scale, and this is the only memory about tire technology that Chen Moran vaguely remembers. Now the amount of carbon black in the rubber compound of Suda tires is growing rapidly, last year every 100 parts of raw rubber used in carbon black is only about 20 parts, and now it has reached more than 20 parts, and even now has begun to try to use carbon black on the tread.

"The test of reinforcing rubber with carbon black on this tread must be accelerated, carbon black is cheap, and the reinforcing rubber is durable!"

When walking towards another workshop, looking at the workers who were adding carbon black to the tank, Chen Moran commanded, he did not come to this tire factory many times, almost now in terms of technology, almost all of them are eating that little "old foundation", and they can bring some technology, but the foundation of China in this era is too weak, there are not many researchers at all, the so-called research experiments, nothing more than some industrial school students, there are the most primitive experiments, the kind of experiments that do not understand why.

"Yes, Chairman!"

Following the chairman's side, Liang Jishuang seemed a little Vino, but he responded lightly to questions and answers.

Walking to another workshop and looking at the tires packed in the crate, Chen Moran smiled slightly, as soon as these tires were shipped out, they were silver!

This year, the tire company will make a profit of at least more than two million yuan, the automobile factory, the steel plant, these three major factories will be able to achieve real profits this year, the industrial company for the first time to end the situation of making ends meet, the industrial company under these factories, by the end of the year can make a profit of at least 10 million yuan.

"Chairman, also ...... And also...... One thing......"

Staring at the tires in the crate, Liang Jishuang was hesitant at first, hesitated for a while, and the chairman seemed to be in a good mood today, so he put forward his own suggestion.

"I ...... I wonder if the tire company will be able to invest its profits in rubber plantations this year! ”

The reason for such hesitation is all because I have been in the industrial company for more than a year, and I naturally know that the chairman is now doing big things, and all parties need silver, compared to steel factories, automobile factories, and Pudong, tires are insignificant, and naturally when I say this, I have some concerns.

"Rubber plantation?"

"Yes, chairman, we seem to be afraid that rubber can't be bought, we bought two boats of rubber in a row, the price of this rubber has been raised by us more than 10%, years ago, the chairman let buy more rubber, because he was worried that someone would speculate at that time, and the company would suffer a loss, but I thought, instead of doing this, it is better for us to pay for some rubber plantations in Nanyang, I inquired, the British in Borneo are encouraging us to open plantations in the past!"

Thinking that it would take ten years for rubber trees to tap rubber, Liang Jishuang's expression suddenly became a little embarrassed.

"Chairman, although it is time-consuming to open a rubber plantation, but if the rubber plantation is opened, it will definitely make a lot of money, and then, as it is now, the amount of rubber will only increase, even if we have rubber, I am afraid that there will be no way to meet the needs of the future, so I think that the company's profits this year may not be handed over to the head office, should go to Nanyang to open a rubber plantation, now the British have opened a lot of rubber plantations in Nanyang, naturally will not ......"

"Just do as you wish!"

Although Liang Jishuang didn't make it clear, Chen Moran still nodded and agreed with his opinion, with the increase in demand, the price of rubber will definitely rise in the future, and opening a rubber plantation is the solution to the problem, thinking about it and pausing again.

"I see that when the rubber plantation goes to Nanyang to open, you can also go directly to Hainan Island to open, that place, you must be able to grow rubber, sometimes things are still planted in your own garden, rest assured!"

(To be continued)