…… Jiro, the family has received the money from you. You're out now, and everybody's happy. The family wants to give you a kiss......

Seeing this, Cheng Jun, who was originally sitting on the quilt, couldn't help but let out a long sigh, slipped off the quilt and lay on the bed, closed his eyes, and put the letter paper on his face.

At first glance, this letter was dictated by Cheng Jun's mother, and was written with the help of the person who wrote the letter from the Navigation Guild. Others have followed Zhao Jiaren for ten years, and they have learned quite well. Cheng Jun couldn't understand that his mother had followed Zhao Jiaren for ten years and had gone to a lot of night classes, although she could read other people's letters, she couldn't write them herself.

Of course, that's not the point. The point is that Cheng Jun cares a lot about Liu Hongxia, a classmate of the cadre school in his heart. Among the people who were elected, Cheng Jun and Liu Hongxia were listed. After the wireless telegraph was completed, Liu Hongxia went to the Communications Research Institute. Cheng Jun, who majored in metallurgy, was assigned to the Metallurgical Research Institute and specialized in blast furnaces. Now that the blast furnace that can be continuously produced has finally been put into production, nineteen-year-old Cheng Jun and his technical companions have received a large amount of bonuses. The workshop director gets five silver dollars a month, and now Cheng Jun is the night class teacher, plus a night shift subsidy of one silver dollar.

The advantage of working under Zhao Zhizhou is that it is easy to provide food and lodging treatment. Workers in the ironworks had dormitories, canteens, and work clothes. Cheng Jun didn't have much money to spend, so he sent this large sum of money home, his mother worked in a textile factory, but Cheng Jun had four younger siblings in school. This money allows his family to get a separate small building. Before, their family lived in a small building with another family, and Cheng Jun's mother wanted to marry Cheng Jun's daughter from that family. So Cheng Jun made a report and sent money back, the purpose was to move his family as soon as possible, so as to break his mother's thoughts.

I opened my eyes and looked out of the window, and the sun was setting as I watched it. Cheng Jun put away the letter and sat up from the bed. Now in October, the southbound fleet is ready to set sail. The demand for iron pots as ballast is rising. The blast furnace of the iron factory had to be produced continuously, and as soon as the furnace stopped, it was almost like restarting it. As soon as the refractory lining of the blast furnace fails, the furnace must be stopped for repairs. Naturally, the ironworks could not stop work until the lining was damaged.

After the night shift, the work at the ironworks was actually similar to that of the day, and most of them seemed to be boring and dangerous. The hottest part of the blast furnace can reach 1,800 degrees, and people who fall into it will immediately burn to ashes. However, there is no chance for a person to fall into it, because the stove is closed. The carbon monoxide-rich blast furnace gas is recycled, and the air that enters the blast furnace is heated by heat conduction between the different tubes, and finally becomes the fuel for the regenerator.

When he first came into contact with this exquisite design, Cheng Jun was just as amazed as the other students who were assigned. However, when they began to try to achieve it, they realized how difficult it was to control it precisely in such high temperatures. All sorts of designs that have proven unworkable have to be thrown into big bills of money, and one after the other, as if there is no end in sight. At the beginning, everyone was afraid that Zhao Zhizhou would blame him, and the amount of money was so large that they couldn't afford to pay it back if they sold their family. Later, Cheng Jun and the others only had one idea left, even if they died, they had to get this out. In the end, everyone finally succeeded.

There was time for the iron furnace to be produced, and at two o'clock in the evening there was a furnace of iron. The current blast furnace has a capacity of about one cubic meter, and the hot molten iron is poured into the ladle on the rails, and then the lid is quickly closed and sent along the rails to the foundry next to the ironworks.

Cheng Jun visited the foundry, where there were many molds and huge iron equipment. You don't even have to go inside the factory, you can hear a loud bang in the iron factory, which is very close to the iron foundry. The red-hot molten iron is poured into the mold, some of which need to be cooled naturally, and some of which need to be stamped under the softening state of the molten iron to shape it.

Listening to the sound of the foundry next door, the young night head teacher, who had finished his rounds, thought about the problems related to marriage again. In terms of the number of years he has followed Zhao Jiaren, his family is not much later than Liu Hongxia's family. Compared with Cheng Jun and Liu Hongxia, it is difficult to distinguish between the top and the bottom. However, now the actual gap between the two has become so big that Cheng Jun feels very uncomfortable.

Liu Hongxia's uncle Liu Meng is a class cadre and a sports commissioner, and has always been active in the front line of work. Cheng Jun's mother started by cooking for the school and later moved to a higher-paying textile factory. Cheng Jun's father was originally fighting at the dock, and when he was young, he was famous on the dock with his strength. As a result, once I fought more with others, and as a result, I injured my waist, and since then the whole person has been depressed.

Because Zhao Jiaren's subordinates could get benefits through bills, Cheng Jun's father replaced everything with spirits. When he was drunk, he began to brag about his previous ability to carry multiple and heavy loads on one shoulder. He started crying as he spoke, and after crying, he often lost his temper with Cheng Jun's mother and scolded her. often made my mother cry, and scared my younger siblings to hide in bed and cry.

The reason why Cheng Jun chose to join the army without hesitation at that time was because the cadre school was a closed school with full boarding. The walls of the school block all the people outside that he doesn't want to see, and the new knowledge he learns every day allows him to squeeze out all the things he doesn't want to remember.

Before the separation, Cheng Jun learned that his father had died. It must be said that this news did not make Cheng Jun feel much pain. Compared to the pain, he felt finally liberated.

The cadres are half employed, and Cheng Jun's family has one and a half jobs, so they live in a small building with another family with two jobs. The workshop director is counted as two jobs, and Cheng Jun's family is now three jobs, which belongs to the category of applying for a family to live in a small building alone. Cheng Jun decided to use his annual family leave to go home, and he had to do it completely no matter what.

The family that lived with the Cheng family was by no means a bad person, the husband and wife worked in a brick factory, and the woman worked in a textile factory. But that's how the second daughter of that family studied, Cheng Jun can have various discussions with Liu Hongxia about the knowledge she has learned, but she has nothing to talk about with the second daughter of that family. Every time the second daughter of that family listens to Cheng Jun talk about learning, she shows an expression of admiration, which is the most difficult thing for Cheng Jun, who firmly believes that 'knowledge is power'. He felt that he needed a partner with whom he could run forward, not a weakling person who was somewhat like his mother.

The young workshop director listened to the sound of the foundry and thought about his own business. The workers of the foundry did not have so many ideas, and they used gray molten iron to cast all kinds of iron guys according to various designed specifications. These people have to be extra careful, looking at the iron guy who is no longer red-hot, the temperature may still be hundreds of degrees, and a casual touch will leave a scar that can never be erased. There was even a worker who had accidentally burned his hand and had to have his leg amputated.

Every week, the foundry conducts special safety training one afternoon, and in the event of a major accident, it will be temporarily added. Workers may not be interested in meetings, but they are very concerned about their bodies, so they take meetings very seriously.

A large number of iron castings are annealed or quenched to make the whole iron in the state of gray iron, or the state of gray iron inside and white iron outside. After trimming the shape, it will be sent out for acceptance by the inspector. Qualified products will be shipped, and unqualified products will be sent to the iron factory for re-tempering. These products have a factory price before they reach the consumer, and the pricing power of the factory price is in the hands of the seafaring guilds, which has nothing to do with the workers in the factory.

Since Zhao Zhizhou has changed from Fuzhou Zhizhou to Guangzhou Zhizhou, the board of directors of the Navigation Guild has also been opened in Guangzhou. Zhao Jiaren is undoubtedly the supreme guide of pricing power, but with such a large number of products, Zhao Jiaren can only be a guide himself. really let him set the price one by one, probably only one way to exhaustion.

"Why did the iron pot sold to the Great Song Dynasty cost two copper coins lower than the market price?" The directors asked such a question. In fact, the iron pot is just a representative, including the iron round lid on the stove of the fire (called the baked cake in the Ming and Qing dynasties), Zhao Jiaren produced a large number of iron products at a price much lower than the current general price.

In response to such a question, Zhao Jiaren asked Yuan Hongjie, the secretary general of the Navigation Guild, who was the teacher, to give a lesson to the group.

In the face of a group of shareholders, Yuan Hongjie talked eloquently. "What is cost? What is the cost of factory production? It's not a simple piece of data. This time I ask you to take good notes and take exams. If you fail the exam, you may not be able to secure your position as a director. ”

The directors of the Nautical Guild all knew that Zhao Jiaren had said that one of the basic principles of the Nautical Guild was that 'all are equal before copper coins', but there were implicit conditions in this statement. There are still many people who believe in the peace of the earth, and there are not necessarily no rich among them, and the Navigation Guild will not accept them as core board members anyway. Because the members of the board of directors are convinced that the earth is round. If a director believes that the earth is flat, everyone must first fight to the death on this basic issue.

If he can't be consistent with the Zhao family in terms of basic concepts, Zhao Jiaren will never be soft. So everyone took out their notebooks and began to learn the secrets of pricing from Mr. Yuan Hongjie.

The course content is simple, the equipment of the factory has a depreciation period. The blast furnace that produces red-hot molten iron every once in a while looks very powerful, but the furnace needs to be repaired every once in a while. If all the materials and labor input from the end of the maintenance to the second maintenance is 100,000 taels of silver, if only one iron pot is produced in the process, the cost of the iron pot is 100,000 taels. If you can produce ten iron pots, the cost of each iron pot is 10,000 taels, and if you can produce 100,000 iron pots, then the cost of each iron pot becomes one tael.

Shareholders initially did not understand the theory, but after some discussion, they finally understood that the cost of large-scale industrialization turned out to be a dynamic, rather than a static one. And so they suddenly became enlightened. Selling the goods is a 'thrilling leap', and if you can sell it, you will complete the process. If you can't jump, just hold on to those costs and wait to die.

Up to now, the seafaring guild had relied on absolutely scarce goods between two distant production areas, and it was a unique business, and even the Mongols had to find a way to maintain their trade with Zhao Jiaren. However, iron ware is not without competitors in the Great Song Dynasty, and the reason why the iron pot market is not saturated now is because the current iron pot is too expensive, and the people of the Great Song Dynasty cannot afford it.

Once these basic concepts are understood, shareholders no longer have any objections. They used to think why they had to cut the price too low, but now they understand that it's for small profits and quick turnover. The iron pot of the Great Song Dynasty is made of pig iron, and the wrought iron pot needs to be beaten manually for several days. The fluidity of gray iron is much better than that of ordinary pig iron, the success rate of pouring is greatly improved, and the stamping equipment can complete the final shaping of an iron pot within one minute. What may seem like a huge investment is actually causing costs to fall in turn. Not to mention that the iron pot is lower than the current iron pot, no matter how low it is, there is no room for price reduction.

In the exam after the course, most of the shareholders received a perfect score of 100 points. Then Qi Rong made a suggestion, "Zhao Zhizhou opened this road for us, I think we can continue to make a lot of money in the future, and we should invest in this business." ”

Up to now, the coal transportation line, the iron factory and the foundry have been Zhao Jiaren's personal investment, and the shareholders probably know the amount of investment, and this amount will knock out the arrogance in the hearts of these people. They knew that they couldn't compare with Zhao Jiaren, and now they finally saw how deep Zhao Jiaren's family background was. Zhao Jiaren may only have some copper coins left in his pocket now, but he has carried the huge expenses and dug up a new source of money before he collapsed due to lack of money.

All shareholders unanimously agreed with Qi Rong's proposal, and they decided to take a stake in the iron smelting industry. and the coal supply system completed by Zhao Jiaren alone.

Zhao Jiaren agreed to the request of these shareholders, which is also a helpless thing. Although the Zhao family has a large population, there are not many capable people. Zhao Jiaren's family is already very good, and Zhao Jiaxin, the eldest brother of the three brothers, can fully rely on it. If Zhao Jiaren has seven or eight eldest brothers, Zhao Jiaxin, who can be relied on, he can completely hand over the business to his relatives. Since he didn't, he had to cooperate and compromise with other powerful people. It is easy to be hostile to eat alone alone.

As a result of the compromise, Zhao Jiaren's steel plant had the money to expand its production capacity tenfold with a split of 20 percent of its shares.

In the fifth year of Xianchun, a large number of iron pots of various calibers began to enter the market of the Great Song Dynasty. An immediate success in the restaurant industry, these iron pots are not only cheap, but also thin, because they were designed with the advice of many nautical guild canteen masters, and the pots are reasonably weighted and very easy to use. The super huge iron pot can steam dozens of steamed buns in one basket, which is not only of good quality, but also very fuel-efficient.

The explosive profits made Zhao Jiaren breathe a sigh of relief. For him, a man who is accustomed to doing his own business, this change also gave him a very thrilling feeling. But in a sense, it's also a unique business.