Shanghai Longfeng Manufacturing Company, the company's predecessor was founded in 1854 Longfeng Machinery Factory, at the beginning was just a family workshop with only a few people, mainly engaged in the repair of all kinds of machinery and equipment, their repair business with the industrialization of Shanghai area is getting bigger and bigger, the technology is exquisite, and the repair price is much cheaper than the original repair of foreign factories.

In 1860, the factory began to develop its own machine tools, no longer satisfied with the repair business, but wanted to produce all kinds of machine tools directly.

To this end, the factory carried out an additional share capital issuance, financing more than 2 million yuan, and reorganized into Shanghai Longfeng Manufacturing Company, because the factory has a large number of skilled and experienced technical personnel, so it was soon produced ordinary lathes, drilling machines and other ordinary machine tools.

Of course, although the company claims to be independent research and development, and has perfect technology patents, none of these lathes are actually independent research and development, they just imitate similar foreign products, and preemptively registered relevant patents in the domestic patent office.

In the words of the scientific research community of later generations: it has filled the domestic gap!

Although these are imitations, the technical content is not high, but these low-tech ordinary machine tools are indeed in urgent need of a large number of key equipment in the development of domestic industry.

At present, the empire uses tens of millions of dollars to import all kinds of machinery and equipment every year, and if Longfeng Manufacturing Company can snatch many import orders, then what awaits them is a huge industry with an annual revenue of up to 10 million.

And this is also the reason why they can smoothly get a lot of financing when they carry out additional equity issuance to raise funds, because they are all businessmen, and they see a huge market and benefits.

After securing a large amount of funding, they embarked on a large-scale acquisition operation. The acquisition of a number of repair shops and parts manufacturing enterprises has brought the total number of employees to more than 1,000.

And this Longfeng manufacturing company has become the first large-scale heavy industry enterprise in China that has no royal industrial background and is purely private.

The company's shareholders mainly come from the capital of wealthy families in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and these wealthy families are also involved in light industries such as raw silk, textiles, and daily chemicals. They are more aware of the prospects of the machine tool manufacturing industry than those landlords and old money.

The first batch of ordinary lathes launched by Longfeng Manufacturing Company competed for orders for imported goods with good quality and reputation, opened the market, and sacrificed the price war.

The price of the ordinary lathes it sells is only two-thirds of the same type of lathes abroad, and it also gives a very preferential warranty service, you must know that Longfeng manufacturing company started by repairing lathes, and machinery and equipment, it is impossible to run well all the time without accidents, and it is enough for those manufacturers to have a headache if it is broken a few times a year, so the warranty terms of Longfeng manufacturing company are for many manufacturers. In particular, it is very attractive for small and medium-sized manufacturers.

The purchase of machine tools in Longfeng Machinery Factory represents a reduction of at least 50 percent in the initial expenditure of the purchase of machine tools and the subsequent cost of equipment maintenance, which is an irresistible temptation for any capitalist.

Relying on the price war, Longfeng Manufacturing Company has opened the door to the market and has become the only supplier in China that can supply lathe products.

It's just that the low-price strategy has also caused them to encounter a big financial crisis, and their gross profit margin is only 8%, not to mention the gross profit margin that allows shareholders to get dividends from net profits, even if it is difficult to maintain the company's operation.

But this still can't stop the capital market from pursuing the company. In order to scale up, increase technical capabilities. Longfeng Company made a second financing in December 1861.

They want to raise another 3 million yuan, shouting the slogan of completely occupying the domestic low-end market next year, and competing for at least 30 percent of the mid-end market.

This time, more people participated, and the scale of the financing was even larger than they expected, raising as much as 5 million.

With a lot of money in hand, in addition to hiring high-tech personnel, they built new factories. In addition to the research and development of new products, large-scale acquisitions have been carried out.

This time, the target of their acquisitions is no longer those small and medium-sized private enterprises, but the machine tool manufacturing division of the Royal Arms Corporation.

The predecessor of the Royal Arms Company was the Linde Machinery Factory, the Jinling Arsenal, etc., among which the Linde Machinery Factory, although it is said to be an arsenal, actually has many complete departments. In those years, the large-scale integrated arsenal was able to contain almost all heavy industries, including steel, chemicals, machinery manufacturing, etc.

At present, many well-known royal industrial companies in China are spun off from Linde Machinery Factory, such as Jiangnan Mining Company, whose predecessor was the steel department of Linde Machinery Factory, and Jiangnan Chemical Company, whose predecessor was also the paint, gunpowder and other departments of Linde Machinery Factory.

So it's not a surprise that the Royal Arms Corporation has a machine tool manufacturing department, but it's a normal thing.

The main business of this machine tool manufacturing department is not to manufacture some ordinary machine tools, but to manufacture some special machine tools, or machine tools that are very expensive to import.

The department started out as a service for Linde Machinery Factory itself, but in recent years, it has also been gradually marketized, and has begun to manufacture some high-end, special machine tools for other domestic enterprises.

However, due to the relatively conservative business model of this department, and there is no market pressure, although the technical level is good, the turnover is very small, not to mention profitable, the Royal Arms Company has to subsidize this machine tool manufacturing department by more than 100,000 yuan every year.

Now, in order to increase its own technical capabilities and obtain the entry of the high-end machine tool market, Longfeng Manufacturing Company intends to directly spend a huge amount of money to acquire the machine tool manufacturing department of the Royal Arms Company.

For this matter, the Royal Arms Company is also hesitant, the machine tool manufacturing department is a burden for them, the reason why the annual loss of more than 100,000 yuan still retains this department, is because sometimes it is necessary to make some special types of equipment and machine tools, otherwise it is too expensive to rely on imports, and what is even more depressing is that there is no time to set up a certain production line, there is no corresponding machinery and equipment for sale abroad. You can only build your own equipment.

Now that Longfeng Manufacturing Company wants to acquire this division, they have to think carefully.

At the same time, this is also the first time that private capital has acquired the assets belonging to the royal industry, which in the words of some people is related to the face of the royal industry, and must be cautious and cautious.

In the end, the acquisition amount of only more than 800,000 yuan was handed over along the way. It was sent to the headquarters of the Royal Arms Company, then to the Finance Office of the Palace Affairs Department, and then to Lin Zhe's desk.

"Longfeng Manufacturing Company? They've got a good appetite! Lin Zhe looked at the acquisition plan that had been handed over all the way and felt a little surprised.

When has there been a heavy industry enterprise with assets of up to 10 million yuan in the empire, and it is also a machinery and equipment manufacturing enterprise that looks very tall.

Looking at the detailed introduction of Longfeng Manufacturing Company in this plan, Lin Zhe couldn't help but smile, it seems that the development of private capital in the field of heavy industry is more shrewd than he expected, he originally thought that in recent years, private capital should not be involved in heavy industry on a large scale. Even if it is involved, it should also be involved in the coal industry with high profits and good profit prospects, but I did not expect a Longfeng manufacturing company to emerge.

According to the introduction, the Longfeng manufacturing company has firmly occupied 45 percent of the domestic low-end machine tool market in the past three months, and next year it is expected to increase this proportion to more than 80 percent.

This ratio was of great strategic value to the Empire, as it represented international trade between the Empire and foreign countries. It can save tens of millions of gold and silver every year and further increase the trade surplus.

Since they have this ambition. And the Royal Arms Company did not do the machine tool business, so it is not impossible to sell the machine tool manufacturing business directly.

Lin Zhe personally approved the acquisition, which became the first example in the history of the empire in which private capital acquired the assets of the royal family.

After taking over the machine tool manufacturing department of the Royal Arms Company, the Longfeng Manufacturing Company did not have the slightest politeness and fired all the main administrative heads of the department. Only the technicians remained.

Why?

Because they fancy those technical personnel, as for those administrative management, can play such a machine tool manufacturing department with the most advanced technology in China into such a visible ability difference, so these people still roll as far as they can!

The rise of the Longfeng Manufacturing Company is a direct result of the Empire's vigorous support for industrial development in recent years.

A large amount of policy support led to a significant increase in the rate of industrial development of the empire. Whether it is light industry or heavy industry, it is developing rapidly, especially the machine-made cotton industry in the textile industry is advancing rapidly, and the development of light industry can also drive the development of heavy industry.

These light industry factories also need a large number of machinery and equipment, and the price of imported goods is expensive, which brings sufficient impetus to the development of domestic machinery manufacturing industry.

At the same time, the empire has great policy preferences for domestic heavy industry, its tax ratio is quite low, and when new heavy industry factories are built, there are often several years of tax exemption policies, which have brought great benefits to the development of heavy industry.

So much so that now, the heavy industry enterprises with private capital have the strength and confidence to acquire part of the assets of the royal industry, which was unimaginable in previous years.

"So far, the number of heavy industrial enterprises invested by private capital in the empire has increased to eighty-seven, of which 23 are mining enterprises, mainly focusing on the mining of coal and iron ore.

The others are basically focused on the manufacture of parts and components for mechanical products.

Among them, Longfeng Manufacturing Co., Ltd., a large enterprise, is the only large-scale industrial machine tool supplier in China! ”

In his report on the industrial development of 1861, Minister of Economic Affairs Guo Longyun focused on the development of private capital in the field of heavy industry.

"In the future, private capital investment in heavy industry will still be concentrated in coal, steel and other industries with greater profit prospects, in addition, after guidance, there are also a lot of private capital began to gradually enter the railway industry, and the funds required for the construction of the Nanjing-Shanghai railway are provided by private capital by 20 percent!"

"In addition, in the shipping industry, the development of private capital is also relatively fast, at present, there are as many as 26 large and small shipping enterprises in China, most of which are small and medium-sized inland shipping companies, mainly concentrated in the Pearl River, the Yangtze River these two inland waterway routes, but there are two large-scale shipping companies involved in shipping.

Among them, the Nanyang Shipping Company has 16 ships of more than 1,000 tons, most of which are steam sail hybrid ships, and have opened sea routes from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Singapore and so on.

The East China Sea Shipping Company has also opened routes to domestic coastal ports and some ports in the South Seas.

These two private capital shipping companies have formed a major challenge to Jiangnan Shipping Company, which belongs to the royal family! ”

Jiangnan Shipping Company, its predecessor is not a commercial company, but a maritime transportation agency affiliated to the military, but with the end of the large-scale domestic war, the military logistics department has a large number of transport ships idle, in order to avoid waste of resources, the royal industry specially established the Jiangnan Shipping Company, and took over these ships from the military, and then carried out commercial operations.

The main business is cargo transportation, and part of the passenger business, is currently the largest shipping company in China.

However, the later Nanyang Shipping and East China Sea Shipping developed rapidly, and its Nanyang Shipping surpassed Jiangnan Shipping in the field of passenger transportation.

Listening to Guo Longyun's reports, Lin Zhe also had an intuitive understanding of the industrial development of the empire in the past two years for the first time. (To be continued.) )