I want to be emperor

Chapter 1167 The future is promising

He had the ambition and the funds to open a branch. He had even chosen a location and had trained apprentices. He felt it was time to start planning, gradually negotiating on the store and purchasing equipment.

Especially the purchase of equipment for car repairs, this needs to be prepared in advance.

There is naturally no problem with some common car repair tools. Wrenches and the like are not rare items, you can just go to any hardware store and buy them. Some other common mechanical processing equipment are also relatively easy to get, such as welding machines, cutting machines, etc. After all, in addition to the car repair industry, other mechanical industries also use them, and there are many kinds of equipment, so you can pick and buy them at will.

But some special car repair equipment is difficult to get.

For example, there are lifting platforms that can support cars, special tire inflators, and even some equipment for changing tires... These devices were not available on the market in previous years. They were customized equipment developed by some machinery manufacturers specifically for some automobile manufacturers or logistics maintenance points of automobile channel manufacturers.

After the emergence of the third-party auto repair industry, those machinery manufacturers began to mass-produce these equipment and bring them to the market.

However, even so, the number is very small... After all, the auto repair equipment industry was still a relatively niche industry in the early years. There were relatively few machinery manufacturers involved, and the scale was often relatively average, with limited production capacity.

At the same time, the number of newly opened auto repair shops has increased rapidly in the past two years, and the demand for these professional auto repair equipment is relatively large.

This will lead to a temporary tension in supply and demand. Even if some upstream machinery manufacturers see the huge market demand and start to increase production, it will still take time.

It takes time for the market to adjust, and in this environment, it is a bit troublesome to purchase special equipment for car repair. It is not that you cannot buy it. As long as you have money to place an order, the equipment manufacturers will not refuse the order.

The problem is... you have to queue, and it can be several months long, and then it takes some time to transport and install the equipment.

If Jiao Tiancheng wants to open a branch, he needs to prepare an equipment purchase list in advance and then find a supplier to place an order in advance.

Only in this way can we open the store smoothly around the fall of this year.

Jiao Tiancheng is looking forward to opening a new branch, and A Bing, who is busy repairing cars outside, is also looking forward to the future with hope!

He is only eighteen years old this year, but he has already earned a salary that most ordinary low-level workers cannot even get.

If nothing unexpected happens, by the end of this year, his income will further increase or even double to more than 30 years or even more, directly compared to those elite white-collar workers working in large companies...

Well, this has little to do with whether the boss Jiao Tiancheng opens a new auto repair shop. If the boss Jiao Tiancheng does not open a new shop, he cannot be given the treatment he deserves in the old shop.

Naturally, there will be bosses from outside who will poach people to be master mechanics. They don't even have to pay for the contract penalty themselves, but the boss who poached them will pay for it. Nowadays, car mechanics from outside are still very popular... If they are not popular, he would not have to come here to be an apprentice for commissioned training. He is very active in working and learning... It's very tiring!

Other apprentices all follow the routine, doing what they are supposed to do, leaving get off work on time and going out to play, but he... takes the initiative to do the work every day and won't leave until the boss leaves.

Even after work, he would study various thick mechanical books in his small rental house.

  It’s been very hard to persevere over the past few years!

Why can I persist? Isn’t it because there is a bright future after I graduate from apprenticeship?

In this situation, if an outside boss wants to poach people, helping to pay the penalty is the most basic requirement. If you don’t even pay the penalty, how can you poach people... you have no sense at all.

Do you really think that car mechanics are so cheap that you can just hire them casually?

Although A Bing is young, he is very familiar with this industry, so he is not worried about his future... In fact, even though he has not yet graduated, he has gained some fame in the small car repair circles in the nearby blocks, and people know that he is almost ready to graduate.

Several car repair shop owners have contacted him secretly... They basically all say the same thing, that as long as A Bing is willing to go, he will definitely get a monthly salary plus a bonus of 30 yuan, and the boss will pay the penalty for breach of contract, and then give him a signing fee for the contract, a settling-in fee, and so on.

But in A Bing's mind, the best case scenario is that the boss Jiao Tiancheng can open the new store smoothly, and then he can become a master chef in the new store. After all, he has learned under Jiao Tiancheng for several years, and he is still very grateful for Jiao Tiancheng's training of him, and does not want to change jobs easily with the stigma of a traitor.

As long as the salary is not too bad and is similar to the market price, even if it is slightly less, A Bing is still willing to continue working under Jiao Tiancheng for another three to five years and complete the contract smoothly. In this way, he can save some money and then open his own shop and become a boss.

But if the treatment is too outrageous, and he is exploited as cheap labor, making him do the work of a master chef but being paid an apprentice's wages, then naturally he will do what the contract says. It's just a penalty of more than 100 Chu Yuan, and there are a lot of bosses out there who are willing to help pay it.

Even if his boss didn't help pay for him, he had earned more than a hundred Chu Yuan in the past few years, so a penalty would be enough. Then he could find a job as a car mechanic as a freelancer, with a monthly salary starting from thirty Yuan!

Can you be bound by a mere commission contract? Impossible!

No matter which one it was, A Bing knew that his future was bright.

For a young man like him who came from a poor family and had only graduated from junior high school a few years ago, he never dared to think about this kind of future...

But now, he has done it.

  When he thought about returning to his hometown during the Chinese New Year wearing a decent professional suit, and being envied by his peers, praised by his parents, and jealous of his relatives and friends, he couldn't help but smile!

The future is expected!

----

At the same time, at the testing ground of the Zhenjiang Gunpowder Company, a group of officers, accompanied by the company's management and technical staff, were watching the testing of new military explosives.

As the tester pressed the firing mechanism, the explosive pack prepared in front of him exploded quickly, raising smoke and dust.

Afterwards, another military tester loaded a specially made new shell into a Type 51 mountain cannon and fired it.

Multiple shells were fired continuously and landed on the target about several hundred meters ahead.

Several military officers nodded as they watched. One of them said, "It looks like the explosion is even more powerful than picric acid!"

"It's not exactly powerful, but it's extremely safe. It's more suitable for use as a shell charge than picric acid!" Another person said, "That's right. Safety is crucial. We have used picric acid before, but it's too dangerous. It corrodes metals. Even if we use various methods, it's still difficult to avoid risks. The previous explosion of the Osaka destroyer is a typical example!"

The Great Chu Empire has been researching various types of explosives and propellants for decades. In fact, many different kinds of explosives have been developed, but there are not many that are truly suitable for large-scale military use.

For example, propellant. After decades of trial and error, they finally developed a smokeless gunpowder. After various tests, they found that this thing was safe, and its burning rate was neither too fast nor too slow, just suitable for use as a propellant. Eventually, this smokeless gunpowder became popular and was identified by the Chu army as a new generation of standard propellant for use in various types of firearms and artillery.

The research on artillery shell charging also took a long time, but it was also very difficult to produce results. Many kinds of explosives were produced, but only a few were suitable for use as military explosives.

About ten years ago, picric acid was invented, which was considered a major breakthrough at the time... because picric acid is much more powerful than black powder. However, how to solve the problem of picric acid corroding metals troubled the Chu army for many years, and it was finally solved by using paraffin coating.

However, it is only a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution. Since the navy began testing picric acid explosives, there have been many explosions. The most serious one was the explosion of the Osaka destroyer in 1948.

When the ship was conducting live-fire training at sea, an ammunition explosion occurred, causing a violent ammunition explosion... The destroyer was paralyzed on one side of its body by the violent ammunition explosion.

After being towed back to the port with difficulty, a detailed investigation was carried out, and it was finally concluded that the explosion was caused by picric acid corroding the metal shell!

Finally, the Navy completely gave up on using picric acid propellants, and the picric acid shells that had been used for testing for several years were destroyed on the spot... No one can guarantee that they will suddenly explode at any time.

Therefore, the Navy tested the picric acid charge for only three years before completely removing it from service, and continued to use the outdated black powder charge while continuing to develop new charges.

Of course, the reason why the navy was so happy to withdraw its equipment was also closely related to the fact that the threat faced by the navy of the Great Chu Empire was not great... As for the natives' sampans, there is actually not much difference between using black powder shells and picric acid shells... One shot can kill the opponent.

  Under such circumstances, the Navy naturally would not want to keep such dangerous picric acid... During the three years of testing the picric acid shells, the Navy and the limited combat power of the indigenous people did not suffer any casualties... However, dozens of them were killed by the explosions of their own picric acid shells!

If this continues, picric acid will become the biggest enemy of the Great Chu Empire Navy...

Therefore, the Navy would rather continue to use the black powder that causes tooth loss than use the picric acid which seems to be more powerful...

After all, there is no pressure, so the equipment and use of many weapons are relatively conservative. Compared with extreme power, more emphasis is placed on cost, adaptability and safety.

For example, the divisional artillery used by the army, couldn't the Great Chu Empire produce a 75mm field gun with a caliber of more than 30 times and a firing rate of more than ten rounds? What a joke, 75mm naval guns with a caliber of 40 to 50 times can be produced, and a field gun with a caliber of more than 30 times is not difficult... But this thing is expensive and heavy.

Therefore, the army did not want it and instead adopted the more conservative spring hydraulic return technology, with a barrel caliber only 27 times that of the 75mm field gun...for no other reason than to make it cheap and light.

Of course, you get what you pay for. The range and rate of fire of the Type 51 75mm field gun, which was produced with the barrel retraction and reset technology and the double-caliber, are rather average.

The same is true of the Type 51 75mm mountain gun.

They are all weapons that focus more on lightness and cost control, and less on range and rapid fire.

The army is like this, and the navy is not much better. Although the navy has all kinds of seemingly high-end technical equipment, it is actually very conservative at heart, otherwise it would not have abandoned picric acid and continued to use outdated black gunpowder.

The situation was similar with naval guns. The navy made a relatively big leap forward in the field of naval guns in the 1940s, but after entering the 1950s, it was no longer very interested in long-barreled or even large-caliber naval guns.

The Navy has officially rejected the proposal to equip the new battleships with 350mm naval guns, and plans to continue using 300mm naval guns. And not 300mm 50x naval guns, but 300mm 45x naval guns...

As for why, it is naturally because the research and development of new artillery is too expensive, and the equipment is also expensive to use.

Anyway, a 300mm 45x naval gun is enough. There is actually not much point in making a bigger naval gun... unless you are preparing to fight a civil war or aliens.

Therefore, although the Great Chu Empire has already implemented the research and development and production of larger-caliber, longer-barreled large-caliber naval guns, it is only for technical pre-research, and actual equipment is estimated to not be available for many years.

The same is true for other naval guns. Basically, they no longer use naval guns with too long barrels. Blindly pursuing penetration or range... there is no need for that.

Therefore, after the emergence of smokeless powder and the maturity of rapid-fire gun technology, the navy carried out a wave of innovations in naval gun technology. After installing a large number of rapid-fire guns, they had no interest in developing more advanced and expensive naval guns.

However, although naval guns are no longer being developed, improvements to shells are still being made... After all, the navy has seen and tried the enormous power of picric acid shells. Although they have been abandoned due to safety reasons, it does not mean that the navy does not want similar high-powered shell charges.

Just now, the Zhenjiang Gunpowder Company made a technological breakthrough and developed a kind of powerful and extremely safe explosive. The Navy became interested, and of course, the Army and the Guards were no exception!

It is worth mentioning that the Guards have not given up the picric acid shells yet, but are still using them... The Navy's intended combat target is the natives, but the Guards' intended combat target is not just the natives.

Therefore, they kept using picric acid explosives, waiting for the day when the navy would rebel, and then use picric acid shells to attack the navy's warships...

Otherwise, why is it said that the Guards is the military branch that is most interested in equipment innovation and various new technical equipment?

Now that the new type of explosives has appeared, the Guards have immediately sent people to inspect and watch the tests.

The test results also made the Guards very satisfied. Before the other branches of the military could react, the Guards had already contacted several weapons companies and prepared to order a batch of artillery shells loaded with this new type of explosive.

Seeing this, the other military branches were not willing to lag behind and also approached various weapons companies to place orders.

This new type of explosive quickly became the new generation of explosive material used by the Chu army due to its powerful power and high safety. Because of its yellow color, it is different from the ancient black gunpowder, so it is simply called yellow explosive.

When smokeless gunpowder, rapid-fire recoil technology and yellow explosive were combined, the artillery technology of the Great Chu Empire reached a new peak.