Note: Brother Happydai, who is now studying in the United States, wrote the draft of the Imperial Constitution of 1896 for this book, and wrote several short fanshi based on the setting of this book, interested readers can read it, and I would like to express my deep gratitude to Brother Happydai for his help.

Original title: Iron-blooded Empire Supplement Four Chapters: Niu Jin's speech at the inaugural meeting of Hanyeping Group Company

Speech time: April of the 18th year of Guangxu

Venue: Lecture hall of Hanyeping Corporation

Speaker: Imperial Minister of Commerce and Industry Niu Jin

Audience: In March of the 18th year of Guangxu, under the impetus of Niu Jin, (16 years in advance) broke down the barriers of standardism during the Westernization period, and merged the employees of the Hanyeping Group Company established by merging Hanyang Iron Works, Daye Iron Mine and Pingxiang Coal Mine. Among them, the front row is for managers and workshop directors at all levels, and the back row is for worker representatives.

Gentlemen and workers,

Since the implementation of the New Deal, I have been observing and thinking deeply in various places. While factories are arming our country, building our cities, and transforming our countryside. But at the same time, it is generating an even more sinister struggle within us. It is clear that anyone who pays attention will see that the developing factories are indebted to society and are growing at a terrible rate, and that the day of reckoning cannot be postponed forever. (At this time, the noisy voice of the workers in the back row suddenly subsided)

Indeed, the conditions of factory work are so terrible that I and the gentlemen (fingers in front row) are furry to say. He was called Rob, and many people called him Little Rob. He was one of 80 child laborers sent to a factory in Hanyang. They were 10-year-old boys and girls who were tortured day and night, not only for minor negligence, but also to stimulate their depressed mood at work. Later he was transferred to another factory in the north. In contrast, the treatment in Hanyang is relatively benevolent. There, the children, male and female, mingled with the pigs, fought for their feet in the feed trough, were often punched and kicked, the girls were often humiliated, and their employer, who had a strange paralysis that made people shiver, had to pinch the child's ears with his fingernails until the flesh was wringed. The foreman in the factory was even more vicious, he tied his wrists, hung him from the machine, bent his knees, and pressed something heavy on his shoulders. When I first saw him, the working kid and his colleagues were almost naked in the winter, and their faces were purple from the cold! (Rob can't stop crying and is taken down by two staff members)

I've come to think that such cruelty is the exception, not the rule; Far from it, in fact. I have seen the appalling things again and again, and what shocked me even more was the atmosphere of the entire management class: in this atmosphere, the insensitivity of human feelings has become the norm, and more importantly, it is considered to be something that has nothing to do with them. In the vast majority of factories, workers do not have the opportunity to take a bath, and their bodies smell unpleasant. It is not surprising that they work from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., and some even work until 10 p.m., so it is not surprising that they work 16 hours a day. As far as the eye can see, they have only a little skin and bone; And out of 50 people, there is not a single healthy person. In the silk reeling workshop of the Shanghai Silk Factory, the steam pipes that supply boiling water maintain high temperatures all year round, and the heat waves are even more scorching in July and August. I have seen with my own eyes that women and child laborers are very skilled at not submerging their hands in the water, yet their hands are still peeling and burned, because their fingers must be constantly soaked in hot water. Their faces were pale from the heat and mist, and they were often drenched in sweat even in winter. There was an epidemic of disease in the workshop - it was a veritable hell on earth.

The misery of the working conditions has given rise to spontaneous hatred of the factories in many places, and some people—workers, local peasants and craftsmen—regard the factories as the source of evil, and there is already a thick stack of reports of smashing machines and destroying factories.

The most terrible of all disasters, including natural disasters, is the most terrible of all disasters, including natural disasters, and it is simply unthinkable how long even the sharpest army can be protected at this time. Although (finger workers, staring at the embarrassed people in the front row) they may be able to endure for a while, maybe. But tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, when the fire of anger that has built up burns everything to the ground, and with the collapse of the whole empire, and all of us are all destroyed, my dear gentlemen, will we still have the leisure to engage in rational thinking as we do now? All of this should have changed! (The workers applauded enthusiastically, and the people in the front row also puffed weakly)

I stand here today to tell all those present that the filth and corruption of industry are not inevitable phenomena in society. I would like to tell you gentlemen (finger row) what we should do right; At the same time, I would like to present to the workers (back row of fingers) a prospect, a new life with hope, brightness and a future that is no less than your usual dreams, but which you can realistically obtain.

Our factories will no longer allow children to be enslaved by machines - they are the future of the country, and they should be nurtured in books. We will allow workers to design and build their own homes, and further enable you to read and write in your spare time, so that you can understand how to be a human being. We will abolish the overseers and the military police, who often inflict corporal punishment and beatings on the workers, and let the workers themselves maintain production. Together, we will discuss how to improve the production environment, how to design safer machines, and how to create a more comfortable environment to make work more enjoyable. All this will be achieved over time, perhaps slowly, but unswervingly, gradually, and continuously. (At this time, the front row is talking to each other, and the buzzing sound in the back row is also louder)

There is a saying that "no traitor is no business". I'm a businessman, and now I'm in business, so I'm afraid everyone here is thinking, "How can there be such a good thing, isn't there some conspiracy?" "I can tell you, gentlemen, don't worry, and workers don't have to worry.

Yes, pie can't fall from the sky, and it's hard to find a free lunch in the world. I myself am not a visionary, nor am I a philanthropist, and if I do so, it will be completely in line with my duty and in the interests of the country. But I don't have any conspiracy, what I have is a "conspiracy". I will tell you the reasons for the whole, and these reasons are not only not afraid of you knowing the Tao, but I also hope that you will spread the Tao of ten or ten to hundreds, so that the whole world will know the Tao. Here, I will not talk about the great principles of the country and the nation, that is, talk about the things that you can come into contact with, and talk about the relationship between your life and your production.

My measures serve no more than two purposes. First of all, it is to enable factories to directly create more wealth for the country in the long run.

It would seem that having a worker work sixteen hours rather than eight hours would create twice as much value. But that's the way of thinking of a small-scale factory owner. The increase in working hours is accompanied by a significant reduction in the concentration of workers. Workers who do not get enough rest do not have a normal recovery of their body and energy, and their ability to work will decline more significantly with the decline in health. It is well known that there is a big difference between an energetic skilled worker and an energetic newman in the amount of production that creates wealth for the country. Instead of constantly training new workers, why not try to extend the working life of skilled workers? (Front row applause)

Second, we need workers to be able to participate in the progress of the country. The new machine has a greater production capacity than the old machine, and the same people can create more wealth in the same time to operate the new machine than the old machine. I clearly know in Beijing that new machines are constantly emerging, which not only include new equipment from foreigners, but also include more and more products of our people's ingenuity. The more complex the equipment, the more experience and learning time are required to operate. Only by mastering the culture can you learn new knowledge to be handy. Therefore, you must not only arm yourself with knowledge, but also educate your next generation, because they will operate more advanced machines, and those who are gifted and brilliant among them may not be able to become one of the gentlemen sitting here today. I believe and sincerely wish that one day in the future, the children of a worker will be able to achieve my position through his intelligence and diligence, participate in the governance of the country, and make greater contributions to the rise of China. (Applause from the back row)

Although the future of the workers will gradually be realized with the development of the country and the progress of production, we must start from the unsatisfactory status quo. Workers, as the representatives of the workers, you will work with the state and the factory to make suggestions for our common cause after the meeting. As long as the development of production can be really promoted, all reasonable requirements will be satisfied. (Applause)

For the sake of the rise of the country and the great harmony of the world, let us abandon the old dross and jointly build a new world world! (All stand and applaud)

Postscript:

The workers' representatives who attended the congress then formed the Han Yeping Trade Union (under the leadership of the Imperial Federation of Trade Unions under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in the 21st year of Guangxu). After Niu Jin returned to Beijing, the preparatory working group of Han Yeping of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce presided over the negotiations between the factory and the workers, and as a result, the child laborers were allowed to leave their jobs to receive long-term vocational and technical training until they reached adulthood, the wages of the employed workers increased by 14%, the construction of workers' dormitories "to meet the minimum living standards of factory personnel" began, and it was decided to set up trade union organs in Hanyang, and began to build schools for workers' children and night schools for workers and trade union institutions in each factory. The factory and the parents divide the education expenses of their children equally. Subsequently, the "Scientific Management Manual" was published and distributed. The trade union, the Steering Group of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the working group of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the factory form the "Industrial Science and Production Steering Committee" or "Industrial Science and Technology Committee" to conduct an inspection on the optimization of workers' production.

Through research, I soon learned that "there is a difference between acid method and alkali method in steelmaking, and the acid method cannot remove the phosphorus in iron, but the alkali method can." The iron smelted by Daye ore contained too much phosphorus, so that the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway Company refused to accept the rail samples after testing the track samples. It is said to have more phosphorus and less carbon (carbon). Steelmaking, reducing the carbon (carbon) fraction and making it soft so that it does not break. However, the soft is not rubbed, and the soft is easy to get out of shape,...... so it was decided to abandon Bessemer and use the martinine base method instead. In the 19th year of Guangxu, the quality of steel at the Hanyang Iron Works, which had undergone reconstruction, expansion and technical transformation, increased significantly, and the output also increased significantly under the impetus of the workers' enthusiasm for production. The bonus system proposed by the trade union has led to a climax of labor competition between the various work groups. The factory has formulated a scientific training plan to standardize every basic action of workers, and the labor intensity of workers has decreased while the production efficiency has increased a lot. After participating in the study, the workers not only put forward many suggestions for technical improvement, but also took the initiative to formulate clear specifications and strict inspection systems for product quality after the implementation of the ergonomic linkage system. For example, for rails, in terms of chemical composition, the carbon content > 0.40%, the phosphorus content < 0.04%, the sulfur content < 0.06%, the silicon content < 0.10%, and the manganese content < 0.90%. In terms of mechanical properties, a 6-foot-long sample is taken for every 50 tons of rail, erected on a fulcrum with a spacing of 3.6 feet, the distance between the two ends is equal, a 28-ton hammer is suspended in the middle, and after 1.5 hours, its bending shall not be greater than 5/16 inches; In addition, there are also clear requirements for the overall size and cross-sectional organization of the rail. Due to the strict requirements, specific regulations, and reliable guarantee of product quality, steel not only directly meets the needs of railways, machine manufacturing, and military industries in China, but also begins to be sold to European and American countries.

After the First Sino-Japanese War, with the joint efforts of the workers and the Iron and Steel Research Institute of the Imperial Academy of Engineering, Hanyeping Group built a new 250-ton (477 cubic meters) iron-making blast furnace, dismantled the original two Bessemer acid converters and 10-ton small Martin furnaces, and rebuilt them into 4 30-ton Martin furnaces, built a 150-ton iron-mixing furnace, a primary rolling mill with a roll diameter of 1016 mm, a steel plate rolling mill with a roll diameter of 760 mm, and other auxiliary facilities, of which the main equipment was localized. Some of the equipment was imported from the United States and Germany using Japanese war reparations. The above was completed in the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1898).

At that time, the renovated Hanyang Iron Works was the largest steel plant in Asia, and its output and quality were among the best. The plant's iron output was 11,700 tons in 1891, increased to 19,530 tons in 1893, soared to 66,410 tons in 1894 after the first phase of transformation, and reached 159396 tons in 1898 after the completion of the second phase of transformation. The mill was re-commissioned in 1894 and produced 13,825 tons of steel that year, 22,626 tons in 1895, and 50,113 tons in 1898. In 1898, the phosphorus content of steel was reduced to 0.012%. The iron-making coke ratio is 1.05 tons of coke per ton of iron, making it the best quality and least energy-consuming iron and steel enterprise in the world. Iron and steel companies from Australia, Hong Kong, Nanyang Islands, and even Germany and the United States have come to China to place orders. In 1898, 65,362 tons of pig iron were sold to the United States. At that time, Western countries were worried about losing the market, and issued a message that "the China Iron Market will go to all seas, and it will be better than the shopping malls in the world with Britain and the United States,...... Alack! China is waking up".