Crisis after crisis, there are so many crises! I'm waiting for recovery, and everything is going to happen.

After the reunification of China, the first real development was to take advantage of the economic crisis in Europe and the United States, and purchased a large number of machinery to consolidate the foundation of China's basic manufacturing industry in one fell swoop. Now the economic crisis has returned, at a time when the Anglo-French-German-Austrian antagonism is becoming more and more acute, making the colonies more important and visible. The unsalable of basic metals such as steel, copper and lead in all aspects is definitely an important factor in the decision of Britain and Germany to build ships on a large scale at this time. Looking at the problem systematically and comprehensively, why did Asquith pass the bill to increase the Navy budget? He is the prime minister, and the economic problems are the top priority of a country, and Asquith will definitely have to think of ways to solve them. The manufacture of warships requires a large amount of steel, copper and lead and a series of basic materials, which will ease the pressure on the market. This decision is by no means just unilateral from a military point of view!

So there is no doubt that Europe will start a war or not. If a war is not provoked in a few years, they themselves will not be able to bear it. But a few years later the war between Britain and Germany was infighting? Or do you raise your troops and go east together? Liu Xian has no score in his heart. The world has become too much, and the 'past' in memory has long been irreferential. The possibility of this happening is there!

Therefore, the sixteenth economic crisis that broke out in Europe and the United States this year has a very sharp impact! The Americans themselves failed to stabilize their plates, and dragged the whole of Europe to the war.

In 1903, the United States completed the reconstruction of its own industrial system, as if it had escaped the crisis of national destruction. Economic development has returned to a high swing. This upsurge is not only long-lasting, but also intense. So there is a high degree of speculation in European capital. And during this period, the United States' abundant technological accumulation burst out with strength. Some new industries have risen, such as electricity, automobiles, chemicals, etc.

From 1902 to 1907, electricity generation in the United States increased nearly fivefold from 800 million kWh to 4.6 billion kWh. Between 1900 and 1907, domestic automobile production increased from 7,000 to 184,000. In Germany, meanwhile, the number of people employed in the chemical industry increased from 153,000 in 1900 to 208,000. France's automobile industry is just as impressive, with 155,000 cars already produced in France in 1907. The main factors driving this round of economic upsurge are still the railroad and heavy industry construction that began in the United States. Between 1905 and 1907, 12,000 kilometers of railroads were built in the United States. The fact that the Great Lakes Northeast Region and Florida are the most densely rail and accessible regions in the world can certainly be observed from a military point of view. These railways also consumed 6.2 million tons of steel rails, and the United Kingdom and the United States produced 15,000 steam locomotives and 490,000 carriages, most of which were shipped to the United States.

With so many new industries and the revival of old projects, you can imagine how violent this round of upsurge is. The rapid development of the US economy has directly led to the recovery of the European economy. And once again, the nature of capital is overflowing uncontrollably, and entrepreneurial speculation is rampant. After all, the current United States is still a 'big guy' with a land area of nearly 700,000 km2, a population of more than 35 million and the accumulation of precious metals in almost the entire United States.

It can even be said that the United States is not inferior to Germany in manufacturing and technology, except that it does not have as strong a force as the Germans. The world's first industrial power more than a decade ago. There is also a very strong capital.

The war and unfavorable dynamics have led many American elites to return to Europe or go directly to South America, but many more have remained in the United States. The influence of such a country's economic take-off. Getting Europe out of the economic crisis is no small case.

In the United States, a large number of individual businesses have been converted into joint-stock companies in order to obtain European capital. Among them, there are indispensable those who engage in speculation and issue adulterated stocks. Profiteering. A large amount of European capital reaped huge profits by providing short-term credit to finance entrepreneurial speculation. 1906 year. The total amount of capital attracted to the United States by financial speculation amounted to $300 million, and the amount of money invested by United States credit institutions was about $200 million. During this period, 22,400 new companies were established in the United Kingdom and 1,554 million marks in Germany. The United States and Germany, two countries with strong emerging technologies, have become the places where economic activity has been most intense, and large sums of money from Britain and France have been swept up. In the UK and France, 70%-75% of marketable securities are foreign bonds. As a result, production capacity in the United States and Germany expanded rapidly. Most of this surge in new production capacity was built and put into operation between 1906 and 1907, which led to a sharp rise in raw material prices. The lowest price of iron in 1907 was 39.2 percent higher than the lowest price between 1901 and 1905, the price of copper doubled, and the price of lead rose 92 percent.

Such a large increase in the price of basic materials has led to the further development of China's steel and mining development companies. Both Luzon and Zhao had an influx of billions of Chinese dollars. China's steel exports also reached a record 23-month sustained growth rate of more than 2%. At its peak, the monthly export volume of MTR reached 155,000 tons.

But such high prices are difficult to accept with limited demand, and when the boom subsides, when the 'urgent need' perceived manipulation returns to calm, and when the large financial giants are slowly withdrawn from the market after being fed, the time is ripe for the economic bubble to burst. Between 1908 and 1909, more than 200 credit institutions in the United States went bankrupt with debts of $160 million, and most banks stopped paying cash. More than 10 railroad companies collapsed, and they owned $210 million in stocks and bonds, and the length of the railway was 4,500 kilometers. A further 13,400 industrial and commercial enterprises registered bankruptcy, with a total debt of $220 million.

Since the beginning of the new century, the United States' soaring economic and development speed has been directly removed from the ladder and forced to play a free fall.

Pittsburgh, the largest and most important steel industrial base in the United States, saw steel production fall by 60 percent, pig iron by 45 percent, locomotives by 70 percent, and freight cars by 70 percent. Fifty percent of the nation's new railroads are at a standstill. Contracts for new construction have been reduced by 35%, and the social unemployment rate is close to 6%!

The United Kingdom, which has close economic ties with the United States, is the first to bear the brunt of the crisis, second only to the United States in depth of crisis. In the second half of 1908, the consumption of ferrous metals had already fallen by 20 percent, and by 1909 pig iron production had fallen by 24 percent, steel production by 25 percent, the tonnage of new civil ships by 30 percent, and the consumption of textiles by 15 percent. Pig iron prices fell 25%.

Then there is Germany, where the development of new industry and steel industry has been booming in recent years, and the crisis is also very serious. In the second half of 1908, the consumption of ferrous metals fell by more than 20 percent, steel production fell by 13 percent, the tonnage of completed merchant ships fell by one-third, and the construction industry suffered heavy losses, with business volumes reduced by 25 percent. After entering the new year, the economic recovery expected by Germans did not come, on the contrary, the output of building materials such as reinforced concrete fell by nearly half. The losses of the light industry were not small, with exports of cotton yarn and cotton cloth falling by 18 per cent and cotton cloth prices falling by 23 per cent. However, it is worth noting that despite the contraction in the consumption of ferrous metals, the price of ferrous metals has increased by 14% due to the high degree of monopoly and deep background of the industry.

The economic deterioration in the second half of 1908 also caused French industrial production to fall by 0.5%. Don't underestimate this very small number, this is a negative number, the growth rate of France's industrial output last year was close to 10%, so what a big piece of small it is, right?! Among them, the crisis of the silk spinning industry was the most serious, and the export of silk fabrics decreased by 24%. The crisis has not only worsened the lives of workers, but also teachers and State officials, and trade union activities have been reactivated. By April 1909, the Paris Postal and Telecommunications Workers' Congress went on strike, and the national telecommunications were temporarily cut off.

With such a catastrophic economic downturn, Britain, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, and Italy all involuntarily chose the military industry as the focus of economic reactivation. Therefore, war is bound to break out in Europe in a few years.

Liu Xian also officially threw out another trump card in his hand - free wheel!

The free wheel in the original time and space is not the name 'free wheel' itself, but its manufacturing method - the pinnacle of human assembly line industry, Liu Xian did not hesitate to copy the original name.

- Revolutionizing welding technology and mass-producing ships with prefabricated components and assembly methods.

It took more than 200 days to build a 10,000-ton cargo ship from the installation of the keel to the delivery. Henry, an American businessman during World War II. Kaiser, with this assembly-line approach, reduced the production time to about 40 days from the beginning, and the boats were of high quality. Half a year later, the 10,000-ton free ship "John. The Fitch set a world record of 24 days under the water.

——China's free wheel is not the original primitive free wheel, but a new free wheel that has undergone many transformations and innovations in appearance and quality. It's already very close to the victory round. It's just that the limitations of the current space-time technology make the performance of the improved free wheel not comparable to that of the victory wheel. The shipbuilding industry is also not a true sectional shipbuilding method.

Liu Xian's only contribution to the shipbuilding process was the 'idea' of the free wheel. The construction was carried out in secret by various shipyards in China, and as a result, due to technical problems, these ships built quickly using the 'freewheel' concept had many flaws.

First of all, it is embarrassing to look at, even ugly; secondly, the rigidity of the hull is insufficient, and the life is greatly affected; Thirdly, the speed was slow, only 12 knots. As for the freewheels, which have undergone many modifications, they can reach a speed of 15-17 knots, which is faster than the 12 knots of the original freewheel, and has a longer range. Because the original three-expansion steam engine was replaced with a steam turbine, all the boilers were further changed to oil-fired ones. This further enhances the range of the vessel and facilitates refueling. Due to the fact that the previously built original free wheel had the problem of hull fracture after a period of sea trials, the improved free wheel also strengthened the hull on the basis of the original free wheel. In order to improve the elasticity of the hull, but also to reduce the amount of steel used, and further reduce the cost, the skeleton was reduced from 36 inches to 30 inches. At the same time, in order to maintain high speed, the improved freewheel adopts a forward-leaning bow and cruiser-style stern, which gives the improved freewheel a much more beautiful appearance. (To be continued.) )