Originally located on a vacant lot by the river, dense factories have risen from the ground, and countless workers are also running inside.

"Let them find a way to go faster, and there will be a little bit of work left, which must be completed today." Standing next to a factory that was about to be completed, looking up at the sky that was about to get dark, Zong Wu said to the assistant beside him.

"It's good." Hearing Zong Wu's words, the young assistant next to him, who looked handsome and wore gold-wire glasses, hurriedly ran up, and conveyed Zong Wu's words to the foreman who was directing the work on the side—————— Also, don't think crooked, although the appearance is delicate, but this is a real man."

The foreman also had the intention of finishing the work today, so after hearing what the assistant conveyed, he didn't say much, but just ordered his men to speed faster.

When the assistant ran up to convey the words, Zong Wu stood in place and looked around at the brand-new factories around him.

"My original choice was really correct..."Thinking of Yan Shao's appointment to himself more than a month ago, Zong Wu said secretly in his heart.

Since you have decided to build a car company, you must always pick a person in charge.

At this time, Yan Shao's right and left hands, Huang Hao had already gone to the iron factory, and Li Liang was the deputy general manager of the group. Li Da is now the minister of the Propaganda Department, Fu Xiuming went to France for further study, and he is in the military—————— by the way, because there is no shareholder relationship in the group, so there is no chairman, so the boss and general manager are concurrently served by Yan Shao himself.

As for Caterina and Elano, the former is busy with special affairs. The latter is busy with the affairs of the garment factory.

After thinking about it, Yan Shao transferred Zongwu from the flour mill and took charge of the work of the automobile factory. At the same time, Duan Min, who was originally Zongwu's deputy, was promoted to the manager of the flour mill.

The automobile factory, at least for the time being, is as important as the cotton textile mill and the iron factory, and for Zong Wu it is undoubtedly important. And after seeing the changes in Wuhu and other places over the years, Zong Wu did not have any doubts about his original choice.

In other words, he was glad that he had made the right choice.

The workers in the distance didn't feel as much emotion as him, and when they saw that it was getting dark, they were actually a little anxious in their hearts.

Compared with the installation of the machine and a series of commissioning in the later stage. It is undoubtedly much simpler to build a factory, not to mention that the factory building in this era is actually a larger house, unlike those factories in later generations that have various requirements. So after Yan Shao increased his investment, it only took more than a month for the plant of the automobile factory to be almost completed, just waiting for the equipment from Germany to arrive, it can be directly installed, commissioned, and then produced.

Seeing it was almost over. Naturally, the workers did not want to come again tomorrow.

"Yes. It's that piece of glass, hang it up, be more stable! ”

I was a little anxious, and the foreman personally went up to command.

Under the command of the foreman, the workers moved the glass little by little, and then slowly installed it on a window more than ten meters above the ground.

In addition to them, other workers are also carrying out other work, such as installing door frames, painting walls, etc.

When it finally gets dark. The foreman and the workers were also relieved that they had finally done everything within today's day. All that remains to do is wait for the equipment and ......... to be sent from Germany The assembly line that is being studied at the research institute...

————————————————————

in the institute. Yan Shao was watching an assembly line that Li Yin had just built.

About the first week after the establishment of the research team, Li Yin and his team developed an extremely primitive assembly line. The reason why it is primitive is because this assembly line is actually a conveyor belt, as long as it is used to test whether the theory of 'assembly line' is correct.

The result is very gratifying, although it is only an extremely primitive 'assembly line', but Li Yin's work efficiency has been improved dozens of times. Because from the time the assembly line is in operation, it is no longer humans who move, but parts...

This test proved that the assembly line can indeed bring great improvement to production efficiency, and also made Li Yin's motivation for research more sufficient.

After the first assembly line was sealed, Li Yin and the others began to study the current assembly line. A really practical assembly line, of course, next to the assembly line, Li Yin and they assembled not a car, but an engine.

The engine, which was originally just a part, took shape little by little in Li Yin's hands, and Yan Shao couldn't help but nod when he saw this scene.

"I didn't expect you guys to do it so quickly..."

"Scientific invention, this thing sounds very profound, but sometimes what is actually needed is a little inspiration that can pierce the window paper..."Hearing Yan Shao's praise, Kuang Ying replied with a soft laugh. The principle of the assembly line is actually very simple, so as long as you have the most critical inspiration, it becomes very easy to figure it out. ”

"That's right." Li Yin bowed slightly. "However, strictly speaking, the assembly line in front of us cannot be regarded as a finished product, and it can only be said that it has a certain practical value..."

After speaking, Li Yin went to the side and handed over a document to Yan Shao, and stood next to Yan Shao to explain while Yan Shao was looking through it. "During this time, in addition to studying the assembly line, we also took the free time to study the Model T produced by Ford, and found that there were more than 7,000 assembly steps for the whole car, and you asked us to produce cars because of the tight time, how can it be reduced to less than 7,000, so I'm afraid it will take 5 or 600 people..."

"5, 600 people..."Yan Shao, who was still satisfied with the success of their work, frowned, in his opinion, the T-type car can be said to be quite simple, and it is enough to stand next to an assembly line with dozens of people, but he didn't expect that the number he got after the most was so much. Is there any good news about that? ”

"The good news is that the worker's operation will be reduced to the simplest of actions, and the quality and efficiency of the work will be greatly reduced from the dependence on the worker's skill and foreman supervision. Even after an ordinary farmer walks into a factory. It is also possible to work with high quality and high efficiency with simple training, rather than accumulating skills by word of mouth like car workers in Europe or the United States, so we don't need to spend too much time on the training of workers. ”

"Also, although the cars we currently design are much more complex than the Model T. But given the time, we can continue to simplify it to the point where it is the same as the Model T, or even more streamlined, and even if it is more complex than the Model T, we can easily overwhelm Ford in terms of price due to labor costs and production efficiency..."

For Yan Shao, this is indeed good news.

And the United States. It's not that high-quality workers Yan Shao can't be found, but if there are eight or nine thousand people, it will be a little difficult. In fact, this is the most difficult part of opening a car factory in China, but you don't have to worry about it if you have an assembly line.

Ford's assembly line. The worker's operation was radically reduced to 7,882 of the most monotonous standard movements, in Ford's words: "The person who puts the bolt does not have to tighten the nut, and the person who puts the nut on does not have to tighten the nut." ”

It is for this reason that even ordinary farmers can become workers after entering the factory. And to produce products that are not inferior to those of automobile workers with more than ten years of experience to produce automobiles.

"That. How long will it take you to come up with a really practical assembly line..."

"Within two months, because of the Model T as a reference, the research team was almost done, and it could be taken out after testing. And with the entity, we can analyze and study the structure of the car itself..."

"That's it..."Yan Shao groaned. When the physical car comes out, you give me a detailed list of the parts you need, and then I place an order with the U.S. side, so that I don't have to wait for the factory equipment to be built. Car factories can use these parts to produce cars first. ”

Unlike the U.S., Ford doesn't need to produce its own parts. You just need to order it from another company and assemble it yourself.

But Yan Shao can't, the situation in China is very special, even if he wants to order the parts needed for the car, he doesn't know where to order. If you have been importing from the United States or other countries, the cost will inevitably be a little high, and Yan Shao will not always import from outside, so it has become inevitable to build your own factory for production.

"Fortunately, I already have more than 100 rubber plantations under my hands at this time, and the annual output of crude steel at the iron factory has reached more than 80,000 tons, so I don't need to worry about raw materials..."

Li Yin didn't think as much as him, nodded after listening to Yan Shao's words, and then spoke. "In addition to the production line of low-cost cars, I think there should be 4 more production lines, such as 'Liulan', trucks, tractors and engines, especially engines, which can be said to be the most complex structure in the car, so it is necessary to have a special production line to be responsible for production..."

"No problem, but I think the engine can be handed over to another factory to be responsible for the production, for example, to build a special engine factory..."Of course, it doesn't have to be like this, after all, many groups in later generations are also producing engines at the same time as producing cars, but it is more inappropriate to arrange engines and cars in the same factory area.

Shrugging his shoulders, Li Yin said indifferently. "It's up to you, we're just in charge of the design and research..."

——————————————————

Li Yin said that he could come up with the assembly line within 2 months, but the actual situation was a little longer than he said.

With the Model T as a reference, it took less than one month for the institute to come up with a low-cost car that was the same as the Model T. It's just because of the time, so the structure of this car is less simplified than the Model T, and the required work steps have reached more than 9,000, nearly 2,000 more than the Model T.

However, the group also said that they would spend the rest of their time trying to find ways to simplify the design of the car so that it could reach the same level as the Model T.

With the finalized product, the research institute can also make a detailed list of the parts required for the car and hand it over to Yan Shao.

Looking at the dense parts on the list, Yan Shao also had a little headache.

Fortunately, the parts and the work steps are different. For example, Ford's "Whoever puts the bolt in doesn't have to tighten the nut, and the person who puts the nut in doesn't have to tighten the nut." In this case, just one bolt includes 3 working steps. So the number of parts on the list will not be as large as the steps, more than 9000.

However, it is precisely because of the excessive number of steps that the research of the assembly line is more difficult than expected.

First of all, it took a long time to arrange the more than 9,000 steps, so the time given by Li Yin in the end was March and April 1911.

In the event of an accident, there may be an extension.

For Yan Shao, as long as this time can be earlier than Ford, it is fine, so after giving Li Yin and them a sufficient amount of funds. Yan Shao went to the United States again with the order.

In fact, if he could, Yan Shao would prefer to import parts from Germany. First, he has a certain good impression of Germany itself, and second, the two cooperated happily some time ago. Third, unlike the United States, Germany does not pose much threat to China, and Yan Shao is unwilling to enhance the strength of the other side against the United States. Even if it's just a little bit...

But it can't be helped. To get from China to Germany, you need to cross not only the vast Indian Ocean, but also the Mediterranean and Atlantic Oceans, and half of Europe to reach the North Sea and Jutland, where Germany is located.

This distance is really too far, and it is much more efficient to travel from the United States to China in comparison, so Yan Shao can only negotiate this business with the Americans, rather than Jardine Matheson or Lihe in the same period.

After having the Communications Office send a telegram to several American foreign firms in China at the same time, Yan Shao invited them to Wuhu to talk about the dense parts on the list.

So many parts. If it is handed over to a foreign company, the cost will inevitably be larger. Therefore, Yan Shao intends to conduct the bidding in the same way as in the past.

"No way. I can't just go to the U.S. and see which one is better for me, and then look for another one, right? That would be too much time..."

Yan Shao planned to put the automobile factory into operation before the Xinhai Revolution, not more than 12 years at the latest, so efficiency became what he was pursuing.

Because of the lack of cooperation with Yan Shao, the Americans are relatively unfamiliar with Yan Shao, but this does not prevent them from understanding Yan Shao. Therefore, after learning that Yan Shao had a big business to talk to them, several American foreign firms that were invited quickly sent people, and two of them even came in person.

After arriving in Wuhu, they were deeply impressed by the new atmosphere of the city and the luxury of the manor. However, the main purpose of their visit to Wuhu this time was to talk about business, so they didn't pay too much attention to superfluous things, but focused on business.

"Car parts..."

Having fetched the relevant information from a servant, Cornell said softly.

Strictly speaking, the profit of this thing is actually not small, but Cornell doesn't know how much Yan Shao wants. If the number is small, the profit may not be very objective.

As for Yan Shaowei, why do you want auto parts? The fact that he was going to build a car factory was known to all the foreign companies in Shanghai, so there was no surprise to them at Cornell. The only surprise to them was that Yan Shao didn't buy parts from the Germans, but given the distance between Germany and China, this accident seemed to be expected.

"I wonder how much you're going to need?"

After thinking about it carefully, Corne was the first to ask.

After all, this is related to the profitability of foreign banks, and he has to care about it.

"Fifty thousand copies..."After thinking about it, Yan Shao raised his voice. 50,000 copies of each of the parts listed in the information..."

A total of 12,000 Ford's Model T cars were produced from 1908 to 1910, because the Model T came out in the second half of the year, which means that about 10,000 units per year. But by the time the assembly line was put into operation, Ford produced more than 260,000 cars in its first year...

Although Yan Shao's foundation is not as good as that of Ford and other companies in the United States, the advanced nature of assembly production is far greater than that of manual work. So it's no joke to consume 50,000 parts in the first year ...

Of course, other people didn't know anything about this, so when they were shocked by the huge amount of this number, they also doubted whether Yan Shao would be able to consume so many parts.

"Forget it, it doesn't matter to us anyway, as long as we can make money..."Thinking to himself, Cornell had already begun to think about business. He had also heard of Yan Shao's net worth, so he was not worried about the funds at all.

And after some simple calculations, Cornell and they also got a very large number, fifteen million dollars...

Not to mention these foreign firms here, even if there are foreign firms in Shanghai, I am afraid that none of them have ever done such a big business. So after coming up with this figure, Cornell and they quickly became excited, fifteen million dollars, and the profit can be at least 2 or 3 million US dollars, if they can get it, such a single business is even comparable to the income of their foreign bank for two or three years...

And while Cornell was thinking about how to get the business, Yan Shao was thinking about recruiting workers.

5, 600 people, this is not a very large number, but if two shifts are adopted, it will need to be turned to more than 1,000 people, and the entire automobile factory cannot have only one production line, so Yan Shao must recruit at least 2,000 people first, and the number of people in the entire automobile factory will probably reach tens of thousands later... (To be continued......)