I want to be emperor

Chapter 1189 Bus

The movie City Journey pioneered a precedent for commercial films, and its popularity exceeded many people's expectations. Even Shi Tiancheng, who filmed the movie, and Jinling Film Company, which distributed the movie, did not expect the movie to be so popular.

Even though information transmission was very limited and slow in that era, the information of this movie was mainly spread through newspapers and word of mouth.

But there are still countless people who want to watch this movie.

Even Jiao Tiancheng's family made time to watch it.

Others are no exception. At this moment in time, the hottest entertainment activity is the city tour.

As the movie continues to be popular, coupled with insufficient film copies and projectors, Jinling Film Company will still have a very impressive attendance rate even after showing it for a month.

The final box office will definitely exceed 20 million Chu Yuan.

This is a very astonishing number!

This figure is even higher than the market value of many companies. Many large enterprises have an annual revenue of less than 20 million Chu Yuan.

  This movie also gave birth to the first entertainment tycoon in human history: Shi Tiancheng!

Shi Tiancheng, who owns the copyright of this movie, can earn at least 4 to 5 million Chu Yuan from the box office share alone.

Shi Tiancheng, who became rich overnight, did not lie down and wait for death, but quickly started planning to shoot his second movie.

This time the film shooting plan is even larger. There will be more than a hundred staff members of various types. The shooting period is expected to take about a month, and the investment has reached tens of thousands of Chu Yuan. Because more scenes need to be arranged, and in order to obtain better film quality, the shooting was repeated many times in pursuit of better film effects, resulting in serious waste of film.

However, an investment of tens of thousands of Chu Yuan is still a very small number compared to the huge contemporary film market.

Even if this movie is unlikely to earn tens of millions at the box office in the future, it will definitely make a lot of money.

The huge box office of City Journey can even be said to be unrepeatable, because it is a pioneering commercial film, and it was fully promoted and distributed by Jinling Film Company.

When people first heard about commercial films, if they wanted to see one, then this was the only movie they could watch.

  The audience has no choice!

However, after watching this city tour and satisfying their curiosity, the audience will be much more rational in watching movies, and the current movie-watching craze will be impossible.

In addition, many short films have appeared in contemporary times, and some people have begun to shoot commercial films that are thirty or even forty minutes long.

After the commercial film became a hit, a large group of people saw its commercial potential. It didn’t take long before a large number of film production companies emerged and began to shoot all kinds of films, including some good feature films.

When these movies are released together, they will inevitably share the market.

Therefore, in the next few months, the film market will not only not continue to explode, but may even shrink significantly.

But even after the shrinkage, the film market is still large enough to support a large number of practitioners.

It is worth mentioning that the first batch of directors, photographers, editors and other professionals who shot these commercial films were basically members of the photography crews in local newspapers.

Some of them work part-time, while others simply take unpaid leave and go straight into commercial films.

It has to be said that the documentary project that the Ministry of Rites began to promote a few years ago has laid a solid foundation for the commercialization of films in the Great Chu Empire.

It was precisely because of the documentary project of the Ministry of Ethics that the Anzhou Optical Instrument Company was stimulated to carry out technological research and development, and successively launched better cameras, projectors and movie-specific films.

At the same time, under the promotion of the Ministry of Rites and Education, local newspapers set up a large number of directors, photographers, film editors and copy professionals from scratch in order to shoot documentaries.

Even the movie screening channels have been prepared in advance in the Chaobao theaters across the country because of the documentary public welfare screening plan.

Only after the authorities laid all these foundations was Shi Tiancheng able to become an overnight sensation with his city tour.

Otherwise, even if Shi Tiancheng wanted to do it, he wouldn't be able to do it... there's no camera, no editing technology, and no projector.

Even if they could make a movie, they didn't have the film distribution and broadcasting channels of Jinling Film Company that had tentacles all over the country. They could only buy projectors and rent theaters to broadcast the movies and make money.

Not to mention tens of millions of box office, even hundreds of thousands of box office is impossible.

Therefore, the emergence of commercial films and Shi Tiancheng's success were based on the development of the overall industrial technology and the rapid economic development of the Great Chu Empire.

It doesn't mean that Shi Tiancheng can become famous just by having an idea and shooting a movie.

There are many similar industries. Among them, the development of the aircraft industry is also a typical example that it has emerged based on the existing industrial system.

Behind the rapid development of the aircraft industry is the automobile industry, which involves huge investments and fierce competition!

Fifty-four years into Chengshun, the automobile industry of the Great Chu Empire reached a new high!

  According to various forecasts, the production of various types of motor vehicles this year is expected to exceed four million!

This is an extremely large production figure... Remember, these motor vehicles are not cheap!

Among passenger cars, the most popular ones are mid-range cars, which cost around four or five hundred Chu Yuan.

In the field of three-wheeled vehicles, the best-selling ones are the medium and large three-wheeled vehicles used for hauling goods and passengers. Such three-wheeled vehicles usually cost around one hundred Chu Yuan.

In the field of medium and large trucks, taking the typical 15 series trucks as an example, the models with better sales are priced at around 1,000 Chu Yuan.

By the way, trucks are much more expensive than cars these days.

The price of a 15-ton truck far exceeds that of various so-called mid- to high-end cars, and often only luxury cars can compete with it in price.

This is mainly because the cost of modern cars is mainly concentrated on two major parts: the engine and the gearbox, among which the cost of the engine can account for 30% or even more than 50%.

Truck engines are often the most advanced and even the most expensive of the time...

You have to know that the engines used in these trucks have 30 horsepower, which is the power configuration of low-end trucks, while some mid-to-high-end trucks often have 50 or even 60 horsepower.

Not only does it need to be powerful, but it also needs to be fuel-efficient, highly reliable, and able to adapt to a variety of complex terrains!

You have to know that the current road conditions are not very good. There are only many paved roads in cities, while a large number of official roads are still coal slag and gravel roads.

For trucks to transport goods on these roads, the off-road capabilities required are actually very high.

Therefore, the overall technical level of trucks in the contemporary Great Chu Empire is one level higher than that of cars... The same is true for the price. Trucks that cost more than a thousand are very common, but cars that cost more than a thousand are all luxury cars.

The price of most cars is basically around four or five hundred Chu Yuan, and the price of some mid- and low-end cars can even reach two or three hundred Chu Yuan.

  But then again, it is precisely because trucks are expensive that tricycles have a huge space for survival!

These tricycles do not require any high-tech content, off-road capability, or stability. They mainly target the low-end freight market and rural passenger transport market, so they often use two-cylinder engines or even single-cylinder engines, and the power is generally not very good.

The configuration in other aspects is not very good either.

But do you think it can transport goods and people?

Of course you can!

Although not much pulling.

The Type 15 truck can carry three or four tons of cargo and run very fast on official gravel roads and cinder roads. It has a large cargo capacity, strong power, and excellent climbing ability. It can even go off the formed roads in the wild... The military directly uses this thing as a military vehicle and sends it to the battlefield. Many times there are no formed roads for you to use on the battlefield, but the Type 15 truck can still go there.

But the 15 truck is good in every way, but it is expensive!

The cheapest ones cost more than one thousand, and the most expensive ones even cost more than two thousand... Generally, only some professional transportation companies will buy them, while self-employed transporters rarely buy them and cannot afford them.

But tricycles are much cheaper, the most expensive ones are only over a hundred yuan, while some cheap miscellaneous brands can even be bought for dozens of Chu Yuan.

Among them, the good large tricycles can easily pull four or five hundred kilograms. Even some small tricycles with single-cylinder engines can pull two or three hundred kilograms of cargo.

This load capacity is actually more than enough for the current demand of cargo transportation. If one truck cannot carry all the cargo, the worst that can happen is to use two trucks or simply make two trips.

This car is cheap anyway.

  This is also the case in the rural areas of the contemporary Chu Empire. Various types of tricycles are rapidly replacing horse-drawn carriages and becoming the main vehicles for passenger and freight transportation in rural areas!

Even in cities, various tricycles quickly replaced horse-drawn carriages and became the main force for urban cargo and even personnel transportation.

Songjiang Public Carriage Company, after introducing sedan-style taxis, purchased a batch of passenger-carrying tricycles to serve as tricycle taxis three years later to replace the existing large number of two-wheeled horse-drawn taxis.

This is still in the taxi industry, but it started even earlier in the bus industry.

Songjiang Public Carriage Company was the first to introduce a batch of large buses to operate in the urban area. After finding that the effect was good, the company introduced a batch of medium and large trucks for public transportation between the urban area and the towns in the suburbs.

At the same time, some large passenger tricycles have been introduced as buses on some routes with fewer people.

Songjiang Public Carriage is also the most owned vehicle in the Great Chu Empire, with more than 2,000 buses of various types and more than 5,000 taxis of various types.

And this number is still increasing rapidly. According to their company's plan, the number of buses of all types will reach more than 5,000 in the next five years to ensure that people from all parts of Songjiang city can take the bus when going out.

  Are five thousand vehicles too many?

It seems like a lot at first glance, but it’s actually not that much... because Songjiang City has a population of 10 million.

Any huge number is insignificant compared to this huge population base.

These 5,000 vehicles do not include the company's inter-city highway passenger vehicles.

Songjiang Public Carriage Company also has long-distance highway passenger transport business between urban and rural areas and between cities. In the past, it used large four-wheeled carriages to carry out business, and at most there were hundreds of such long-distance four-wheeled carriages running.

These more than 500 long-distance horse-drawn carriages will also be replaced by large buses one after another.

Songjiang Public Carriage Company is itself a very large land passenger transport enterprise in the Great Chu Empire, so it is normal for it to have so many vehicles.

Even so, its transport capacity is very tight.

During rush hour, many office workers can't even get on the buses or trams.

In recent years, Songjiang Public Carriage Company has been promoting the use of cars to replace horse-drawn carriages at a very fast pace, which is also due to the rapid development of the automobile industry of the Great Chu Empire.

Not only do vehicle prices continue to drop, but more importantly, the quality and stability of vehicles have improved.

Early cars actually had very poor performance and were prone to various problems. In that era, only wealthy people could buy and use cars.

Because after buying a car, you will need a professional driver who understands maintenance techniques so that he can repair the car at any time when there are minor problems.

In the early days, it was common to see cars breaking down while on the road, and then the drivers would turn themselves into mechanics to repair the vehicles.

This is also the reason why many middle- and high-income groups did not buy cars back then. It was not because they could not afford it, but because they did not know how to repair it. Even if they could, it was not decent.

A decent person with a middle to upper income repairing cars on the street, covered in oil and sweat, is not decent at all.

In contrast, they preferred to drive a small private carriage or take a taxi.

It was not until automobile manufacturers gradually solved a large number of technical problems, greatly improved the stability of automobiles and ensured that problems would not easily occur under normal use, that the number of private purchases of passenger cars increased significantly.

Nowadays, passenger cars will basically not have any problems if they are used normally and maintained on time. There is no need to worry about the car breaking down in the middle of the road. As a result, a large number of middle- and high-income groups have included car purchases in their family's major consumption plans.

Especially the large number of middle- and high-income families living in cities. They also wanted private carriages before, but parking private carriages was too troublesome. It was okay at home in the suburbs, but it was very difficult to park when driving out to the city... It’s not that the carriage is difficult to park, but the horse pulling it should not be parked.

When cars become mature and available, these groups will have a more convenient and quicker option, which is to buy a car... After driving to the destination, they can park the car on the side of the road or in a parking lot, and then they can just leave.

It’s not like a horse-drawn carriage where you can’t leave… If you want to leave, you have to hire someone to look after the horses to prevent anything from happening.

The laws of the Great Chu Empire stipulate that when a carriage is stopped, there must be a driver to supervise the horses, otherwise a heavy fine will be imposed!

Horses are animals, and if they are not looked after, accidents are very likely to happen.

Cars don't have to be that troublesome.

This situation led to high-income families in cities buying cars, solving their travel problems and growing smoothly.

(End of this chapter)