Qingying returned to the Berlin Palace Tower, and it was already sunset. A glorious sunset hung high in the sky far away in the west, exuding a brilliant halo as if it were yellow financialization. In the spacious and bright inner study, William was resting on a chaise longue; Hearing the familiar footsteps, his eyes were still closed, and he said lightly: "How is it?" ”

Although William's question was a bit clueless, Qingying still guessed the meaning of his cheap dad through the faint arrogance revealed in his words. He smiled slightly, and said to William, whose eyelids drooped: "Great shipyard, there are no defects in either equipment or personnel. In particular, the battleship design team was specially designed for this shipyard, and I am so grateful to you for their help! With that, Qingying bowed deeply to William.

William slowly opened his eyes, trying to make a look like he didn't care about himself; But the smug look in his eyes clearly showed his satisfaction with Qingying's words just now. He rolled his eyes and said, "You have discovered the tonnage swelling problem of the Imperial Navy's warships, which has greatly boosted the development of the Empire, and I, as the Emperor of the Empire, naturally want to give you a corresponding reward." Despite its small size, the shipyard has almost all the facilities; And in order to meet your needs for building a 4,000-ton warship, I spent a lot of effort to dig up that empire's first-class small ship design team from the Royal Shipyard! So many things, it should be enough to satisfy you as a guy, right? ”

Hearing the little displeasure in William's words, Qingying's eyes rolled slightly, and when she was on the stage, she smiled and nodded, expressing her unparalleled reverence and gratitude for William's generosity and dedication.

Seeing this, William's heart felt a little relieved, he beckoned slightly, Qingying understood, walked to the chair next to him and sat down. Looking at this second son, who was already a head taller than two years ago, the expression on William's face gradually softened, and he said: "Although I still don't agree with you starting to get into business so early, I have to admit that your current shipyard can already bring you amazing benefits." With the development of maritime shipping, the profits of shipbuilding have surpassed those of traditional coal and railways; Except for the work done by the British drug dealers, there is no industry that can make such huge profits. Old Bremmer, who is in charge of the shipyard's operations, should have told you all the inside story, right? ”

Qingying nodded slowly, her face changed slightly, and she didn't know whether she was happy or shocked. After discussing the design details of the submarine with Khedira, he went to the office of the real treasurer, Bremer, and listened to the old man recount all the profits and losses of the cashier for more than a month. As for the worst result, as William said, even if a sow is appointed as the general manager of the shipyard, it is difficult for the company to lose money.

Due to the huge market demand for overseas trade, the windfall profits of shipping will follow. In general, for every approximately 2,000 nautical miles sailed by a merchant ship, the cargo it carries increases its profit by almost 100%; And a merchant ship has to be used for at least 25 years from completion to dismantling. Therefore, every time a shipping company buys a merchant ship, it means buying a cash cow that can continue to make money. Although governments around the world have imposed heavy taxes on shipping companies; However, the huge profits of engaging in overseas trade still drove them to constantly expand their fleets. In the context of this market demand, shipyards are naturally united to raise the price of merchant ships, and the degree of exaggeration is that even the housing prices of the first-tier cities of the Celestial Empire in the future are far from being able to compete with it! If you have to describe it in one word, then it can't be described as "crazy"!

In the last life, when Qing Ying was studying the history before World War I, he discovered a strange phenomenon: all shipyards would always ask the buyer to pay 25% of the total amount as a deposit in the form of a contract before signing a contract with the orderer; Only after the buyer has paid this deposit will the shipyard begin construction. Due to the lack of first-hand details, Qingying has always been puzzled; Why are these shipyards so tacitly agreed, choosing high or low, but choosing 25% of the amount? It wasn't until this trip to the shipyard that Qingying finally understood that 25% of the deposit was the sum of all the costs of a ship!

Even Qingying, as a traverser, has seen a lot of urban profiteering in later generations; However, after learning about the shady scenes of shipbuilding, I still couldn't help but feel a sense of awe-inspiring from the bottom of my heart. It is normal for an ordinary merchant ship to be sold at nearly four times its cost; And some excellent designs with large cargo loading capacity, the most cowardly transaction price will get a big leap!

For example, the merchant ships in the Qingying shipyard that are laying keels are the best examples. The total cost of three standard merchant ships weighing 1,050 tons is only a little more than 300,000 marks, but because they can carry 1,350 tons of cargo, the purchase price written in the contract is 1.2 million marks. And the price of the large merchant ship, which is fully loaded and displacement of 4,500 tons, soared to more than 2.4 million marks!

And on warships, the market is almost exactly the same as that of merchant ships. At the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan ordered two Fuji-class battleships from the British Armstrong shipyard; And the Jinke payment method between them is to let the Japanese side pay a quarter of the total price as a deposit, and then start construction. Since then, the dreadnoughts built by the great powers for second- and third-rate countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Spain, and Turkey have all been traded in this way. The most direct evidence of the cost of ships reaching four times the cost is the famous Liberty ship produced by the United States in World War II; The cost of a single ship is only 100,000 pounds, and after it is sold to the military, it is 400,000 pounds and 1 ship will never be counteroffered, and the gross profit has reached an astonishing 300%!

William said lightly: "Now the development speed of the empire's maritime industry is at its peak like never before; Coupled with the fact that the shipyard was built in your name, it is unlikely that all of your slipways will be free in the next 10 years. Since merchant ships do not need to be as elaborate as warships, the construction period of a merchant ship of three or four thousand tons is only half of that of a warship; It takes only about 10 months from the laying of the keel to the final completion. If the second phase of the project is successfully completed and all eight slipways are put into operation, the annual production volume will reach almost 12 million marks. ”

"If shipbuilding has such a huge profit, why don't we build a few more shipyards? As far as I know, the number of Imperial shipyards has not increased by a few in recent years; The number of merchant ships built by it is almost all a contribution to the expansion of the original shipyard. In this kind of profiteering industry, there should be a large group of people flocking in. Qingying asked with some confusion.

William snorted when he heard this, and said, "When you think the shipyard is a thatched house in a country village, 1 mark buys 1 square meter, right?" Land acquisition, recruitment, buying machinery, building factories...... These are all the big money money, without a capital of tens of millions of marks, you can't build this enterprise! This time, in order to build your shipbuilding base, you will need to invest more than 30 million marks in it. And this project is built for you personally, out of the annual state budget; In other words, I paid all the money alone! If you didn't pay this money, of course you don't know how much it hurts! ”

"Hey, when you inherited the throne, you seem to have inherited the huge assets of the Hohenzollern family passed down from your grandfather for two generations, right? If you want to make a list of the richest people in Germany, you are definitely the biggest tyrant in the entire empire; Now it's only 30 million marks, and you're crying that you have no money? Qingying was very angry in her heart, but she could only make a look of guilt and embarrassment on her face, and she was ashamed.

William paused, and then said: "In addition, the number of various technical personnel is also a very important limit for the development of the shipbuilding industry. Shipbuilding is not like sailing, where you can buy merchant ships and hire sailors if you have the money, but you need an excellent design team and a large number of high-level skilled workers to ensure the quality of the ships built. With a limited total number of workers and designers, it was impossible to arbitrarily expand shipbuilding. The current supply and demand relationship is just right to achieve the maximum profit of the shipyard; In order to monopolize profits, those large shipyards will also adhere to the threshold of this field, and will never allow a large amount of capital to rush in and cause competition to them. ”

With that, William sat up from his recliner and walked straight to the boy. With a serious and dignified look in his eyes, he said to Qingying in an extremely solemn tone: "Although I, Hohenzollern, am a century-old royal family and have a rich industry; However, in the field of shipping, it was only during the period of the Holy Emperor that it began to get involved. A shipbuilding base like the one in Ninghagen is the only shipbuilding industry in which the entire family has a full controlling stake; I've given it to you now, and you must cherish it and never allow it to be reckless! If I find out that you are acting obediently or arrogantly, I will immediately take back ownership of it from you, understand? ”

Since the crossing, William had never spoken so loudly and deafly to him. Seeing that he said so solemnly, Qingying's face was also solemn, and he said solemnly: "Father's teachings, Etel keeps them in mind. Whenever I have any ideas, I will certainly consult Mr. Bremer carefully, and I will never bypass him as a maverick. ”

PS: The author has always been skeptical about the gross profit of ship construction of up to 300%, until he looked through some materials and exchanged and discussed with some great gods, and finally discovered this shocking fact. The conscience of the capitalists is really very non-existent