I want to be emperor

Chapter 891 Frozen Transport Ship

In November of the 37th year of Chengshun, in the Songjiang Naval Shipyard in Songjiang Prefecture, this large shipyard has the most advanced technology and the largest scale in the Great Chu Empire. , ushered in a group of unusual people.

It wasn't the warship-related officers of the Navy's Military and Political Department, nor the high-level executives of those domestic shipping companies, but the Great Chu Empire Animal Husbandry Corporation, which seemed to have nothing to do with the shipping industry and was not even very familiar to the outside world.

Just by looking at the name, you can tell that it is a policy enterprise directly under the imperial cabinet, because only large enterprises directly under the cabinet can use the country name prefix of the Great Chu Empire, and only policy enterprises can directly use a certain industry in the name of the enterprise. as the company name.

Such as Railway Corporation, Grain Corporation, Salt Corporation.

Ordinary enterprises, even super-large government-run enterprises, cannot use these specific terms in most cases, such as the largest government-run bank in the Great Chu Empire, the financial bank directly managed by the Ministry of Finance, and the domestic savings bank. Handle, in any county-level area with an imperial administrative agency, there will be a financial bank.

Even for them, it is impossible to use the prefix of Great Chu Empire in the company name, and it is even more impossible to directly use the corporate name of the bank and directly make it into a company name such as "Great Chu Empire Bank Headquarters".

There are also many other super-large enterprises directly under the Ministry of Industry. Although they are large in scale and have great influence, none of them adopt the prefix of the Great Chu Empire, nor do they directly use the industry as their company name.

However, the Great Chu Empire Animal Husbandry Corporation was able to use these terms because the company was highly similar in function and nature to the Great Chu Empire Grain Corporation.

Founded in Chengshun 12 years ago, the company mainly operates large government-run horse farms, cattle farms and other types of pastures, livestock transportation and sales.

Guarantee the supply of horses, cattle, and meat needed by the military and civilians, stabilize the price of animal husbandry, develop the animal husbandry industry, and breed better horses for military and civilian use.

Just by looking at this series of tasks, one can know the importance of this head office to the Great Chu Empire.

It can even be said that this head office is an important guarantee for the military horse administration, civilian horse farming, cattle farming, meat supply, and wool supply of the Great Chu Empire.

And after the Great Chu Empire took control of Liaohetao, Monan, Mobei, Moxi and other areas successively, the Animal Husbandry Corporation also set up many super large pastures above.

The famous Liaoxi horse, Hexi horse, and Fengzhou horse are the three major breeds of horses, all of which are bred and bred by the pasture branches of the Animal Husbandry Corporation.

It's just that the company's reputation in the outside world is not obvious, and many people in China don't even know that there is such a huge animal husbandry company. The public is more familiar with a series of ranch subsidiaries under this head office.

For example, the Liaohe Racecourse Company that operates the official racecourse in Liaohe, and the Jeju Racecourse Company that operates the official racecourse in Jeju Island...

But this company is a serious enterprise directly under the cabinet at the third-rank level, and its rank is even comparable to that of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The reason why this company appeared in the Naval Shipyard of Songjiang Prefecture was naturally not to play around... but to inspect the strength of the Naval Shipyard of Songjiang Prefecture, focusing on the refrigerated transport ships built by the shipyard for the navy.

After the group was taken to a dry dock, the supervisor of the Naval Shipyard personally explained to them:
"The No. 246 supply ship in front of us is a special refrigerated supply ship designed and built by us for the navy to transport fresh meat, fruits, vegetables and other food."

"The whole ship is made of steel, with high-power steam engines and sails. It can carry [-] tons of fresh food at one time for ultra-long-distance ocean voyages!"

"In order to ensure that the food does not spoil during transportation, we installed Bell's freezers and used compressed air refrigeration for refrigeration."

"By the way, in addition to this special frozen supply ship, we have also introduced this kind of freezer on the new generation of warships to provide better preservation conditions for the fresh food on board!"

"This Bell freezer can be said to have solved a lot of our troubles."

In addition, a middle-aged man in business attire among the crowd continued the conversation with a smile on his face: "Refrigerators are the inspiration we were inspired when we were researching air compressors. In fact, our company mainly made air compressors in the past. , but after discovering that the process of compressing air can be refrigerated, we turned to research on refrigerators, and officially launched the first generation of refrigerators three years ago.”

"After three years of continuous efforts, our refrigerators have developed a variety of models. Marine refrigerators have begun to be used in batches on naval warships and new ocean liners. At the same time, the vehicle-mounted refrigerators specially developed for train transportation The machine has also been successful, the Jiangnan Railway Company has ordered the first batch of vehicle-mounted refrigerators from us, and we are also actively developing and promoting household refrigerators.”

"In the emerging field of refrigerators, we have sufficient confidence to provide customers with the best products!"

The representatives of the Animal Husbandry Headquarters on the side nodded slightly after hearing this. In fact, they had already visited the Bell Refrigeration Company located in the North District of Songjiang before they visited the shipyard.

I have to say that this kind of new gadget that has just appeared for less than three years is really shocking, although it can also be seen that there are still many problems in the refrigerator, such as the problem of energy consumption is very serious, it needs a strong and Continuous power to power the compressor.

To be honest, this is very demanding on the steam unit that provides power, which means that a more excellent and more expensive steam engine is needed to provide power... It is impossible for the steam engine to fail after a few days of operation and cannot provide power Continue to cool down.

The technology of the compressor itself is more complicated and has higher requirements for the process.

The air compressor is not a new gadget. The Great Chu Empire had already applied this gadget in the industrial field more than ten years ago, and later introduced the air compressor into the train field, and then came up with a new unified compressed air system for trains. moving system.

But these air compressors are not required to run continuously for a long time, and the performance requirements are not too high.

But the compressor needed for refrigeration is different, and the process requirements are very strict. In terms of the current industrial technology of the Great Chu Empire, this thing can be made...but expensive!
This has led to the fact that the application of new technology products such as refrigerators is actually very limited. So far, it has only been applied in the field of ships, and the number of applications is actually very small.

Because this thing is too expensive, the purchase cost is expensive, and the use cost is also expensive... At the same time, it is not so stable and efficient. In order to ensure the cooling effect, two sets of refrigerators must be prepared to be used interchangeably for maintenance. Avoid glitches.

So so far, only battleships and luxury liners with huge tonnage, expensive prices, not short of money, and don't care about the extra cost use such a novelty.

The effect of using it is good. In addition, the navy does have a very urgent need for fresh food supply from the ocean. In addition, the navy is not short of hundreds of thousands no matter how poor it is, so it has specially built such a frozen supply ship. An ocean-going fleet used to give missions to transport fresh food.

But in the civilian field, only luxury ocean liners that pursue extreme luxury and don't consider cost at all use this thing.

Today, the people from Bell Refrigeration actually pay more attention to the inspection by the representatives of the Animal Husbandry Corporation than the people from Songjiang Naval Shipyard.

As long as they can convince the representatives of the Animal Husbandry Corporation and win the freezer order from the Animal Husbandry Corporation, then their Bell Refrigeration Company can truly go out of the niche and become popular.

Because the people from the People’s Animal Husbandry Corporation had already expressed their intentions before they came: the Animal Husbandry Corporation needs a large number of refrigerated transport ships to transport meat back to China from overseas.

This requires not one or two refrigerated transport ships, but at least ten to start!

Bell Refrigeration Company has only sold a dozen sets of ship-borne refrigerators in the past three years since it came out with this refrigerator!

People from the Animal Husbandry Headquarters can order at least ten sets at a time, and the people from Bell Refrigeration Company can't sit still.

Not only did they receive a high-level delegation from the Animal Husbandry Corporation to inspect their company, but they also accompanied them to the Songjiang Naval Shipyard to inspect the frozen supply ship ordered by the Navy.

Although this thing is a frozen supply ship dedicated to the navy, it is different from ordinary civilian transport ships... At least it is impossible for civilian ships to install a total of four 55mm rapid-fire naval guns on the front, rear, left, and right decks.

At the same time, there are very few civilian transport ships that will have a large hanging tower.

Very few civilian transport ships will increase their speed to twelve knots... In order to keep up with the speed of the main battleship, the naval supply ship must be fast enough, otherwise it will not be able to keep up... When ordinary naval transport ships use steam engines to sail daily, Cruising speed is actually about eight knots.

Although the navy's refrigerated supply ship has many special features, the core point remains unchanged, that is, it is still just a refrigerated transport ship for transporting fresh food, especially fresh meat.

And this is what the Animal Husbandry Corporation is pursuing.

Since His Majesty personally mentioned the refrigerated transportation used by the navy in the enlarged meeting of the imperial staff in October, soon some senior staff members arranged tasks.

"Build this frozen transport ship, and transport the meat from the vast overseas regions back to the mainland!"

In the end, the specific task fell to the Headquarters of the Animal Husbandry Corporation... After all, the refrigerated transport ship is a new thing at first glance, and new things basically have one characteristic, that is, they are expensive.

Secondly, there may be immature technology, various problems may arise, and so on.

Under such circumstances, it would be more troublesome to directly let private enterprises do it. It is better for government-run enterprises to take the lead and set a model.

Among the many government-run enterprises, several large government-run ocean shipping companies are actually more suitable, such as Pacific Shipping Company, Jiangnan Shipping Company, Indo-Pacific Shipping Company, and Yangtze River Shipping Company.

However, these government-run shipping companies are said to be government-run enterprises, but in fact they are all local government-run shipping companies. The company is not even a provincial enterprise, but a subsidiary enterprise of Songjiang Prefecture...just a government-run enterprise.

The Indo-Pacific Shipping Company seems to have some relationship with India, but in fact this company is under the control of the governor of Guangdong.

The Yangtze River Shipping Company is more complicated. It has changed hands several times, and now the ownership is actually under the hands of the Ying Tianfu Finance Department.

In the shipping industry, the Ministry of Industry was lazy in the early years because it was relatively active in the early years. As a result, the current situation has emerged. The Ministry of Industry does not have a shipping company directly under the Ministry of Industry. Other large government-run shipping companies, All are local enterprises...

Because the shipping industry is relatively open and there are no official restrictions, local government-run shipping companies not only face fierce competition from private companies, but also the competition between each other is very cruel and fierce...

Under such circumstances, it’s no problem if you ask them to spend tens of thousands of dollars to invest in a refrigerated transport ship to complete the tasks assigned by the superiors, but if you ask them to spend tens of thousands of dollars to invest in a refrigerated transport ship, the technical risk is very high, and the shipping The market is also unstable for new types of ships, and one is not enough. What people want is at least ten or more ships to form a preliminary frozen import sea transportation system.

To be honest, they are not very happy... Of course, the most important thing is that they can't afford it.

This means spending at least one million, or even two million Chu Yuan in a short period of time. Although these shipping companies are quite large, they will not be able to spend so much cash for a while.

If you spend 200 million yuan to enter the refrigerated transportation industry, those competitors will be able to snatch up the conventional freight market and the passenger transportation market.

So those large shipping companies in the local area are not very willing to pay for this... Even if His Majesty personally said that they want to engage in refrigerated transportation, but they are already walking on thin ice in the shipping market, and life is very sad... With this heart Not so strong.

The higher-ups also tried to coordinate with the banking industry, trying to get the banks to provide loans...the financial banks of the policy banks were found.

But a big boss from the financial bank said yes...but it took a few days to turn his face, saying that the risk control personnel under his hand said that the refrigerated transportation technology was too risky, and the refrigerated transportation market was not clear.

The most important thing is that the main applicants for the loan, that is, the local shipping companies, have already owed a lot of debt, and basically all the mortgages have been mortgaged... Now that the loan of 200 million is given out, None of them can give any collateral.

Lending money to them now is equivalent to an unsecured or low-interest loan... Once these shipping companies have a few twists and turns in the next few years, they will directly bring you a bankruptcy... Then someone from the financial bank will have to jump off the building , the character level of the person who jumped off the building can't be too low, or else the big hole of 200 million Chu Yuan won't be settled...

When the bigwigs from the financial bank learned of this situation, they immediately turned their faces!

Loans are available, but not to those leaky shipping companies... You have to let other companies come, and you have to have sufficient collateral.

Otherwise, something went wrong, what about the 200 million big hole?Let me jump off the building?
The top executives of other people's financial banks are not so stupid to use their own political future or even their lives to earn high-ranking political capital for others.

It’s okay to ask for money, but you have to use another way, at least someone who can afford to pay back the money to apply for a loan... Otherwise, the 200 million is not even a thought.

This has become hello, hello, hello everyone, you can have a refrigerated transport ship, you can earn political capital under the big topic of food supply, and our financial bank can also get some credit: actively provide loans for food supply , strongly support the domestic food supply.

If it doesn’t work out in the end, it’s overwhelmed... You have to pay back the money, and the interest must not be less. Our finance bank treats it as an ordinary mortgage low-interest loan business, which can be regarded as earning some hard money.

In the end, the matter was gradually reported upwards. In the end, it was Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Xie Zhengde, the co-organizer in charge of agriculture and animal husbandry, who personally made the decision: no more loans, and directly let the animal husbandry head office pay to book ships, and then lease them to those shipping companies. Operation, and let the shipping company undertake the transportation order of the animal husbandry head office!

Anyway, there is actually only one major customer for refrigerated transport in the short term, and that is the Great Chu Empire Animal Husbandry Corporation... No one has ever done the business of refrigerated transporting meat. The supply does not mean that there will be a lot. If you want a large amount of overseas meat supply, you have to carry out large-scale farming in overseas regions.

The Animal Husbandry Corporation is the most professional breeding enterprise in the Great Chu Empire. Not long after the Yuqian Grain Expansion Conference ended, they had already finalized plans to build multiple large-scale pastures in the two main regions of North America and Australia. , to produce meat for local supply.

Now that there is production, it also needs transportation...the animal husbandry head office needs refrigerated ships to transport overseas meat.

It's just that the family is engaged in breeding, and they don't know how to sail... Even if they have money to order a boat, they won't operate it.

Be it passenger ships or cargo ships, the operation of ocean-going vessels is a very professional and complicated matter.

It's not like finding a captain and a few sailors to sail out to sea.

The shipping companies want to do this business, and they are also professional in ship operations, but they have no money, and they don't even have mortgage qualifications... Everyone looks at the big business, but in fact, they all have empty pockets and owe a lot of money. The role of ass debt.

In the end, there was such a twists and turns: the animal husbandry head office paid for the ship, and then leased the ship to several shipping companies, and then the shipping company took over the animal husbandry head office’s frozen meat transportation order.

It was a twist and turn, but it was finally resolved.

Only in this way did the delegation of the Animal Husbandry Corporation come to Songjiang Naval Shipyard for inspection.

The inspection this time was also very smooth. With the navy's refrigerated supply ship in front of the prototype, Bell Refrigeration also proposed a complete refrigeration equipment solution. Songjiang Naval Shipyard even stated that this kind of refrigerated transport ship is nothing For technical problems, we can directly modify the frozen supply ship of the navy, reduce the speed, reduce the construction process to civilian standards, and remove the naval guns...then the cost will come down.

Subsequently, the delegations of the initially proposed cooperative shipping companies, Pacific Shipping Company and Jiangnan Shipping Company also participated and put forward many suggestions.

After all, although the animal husbandry head office paid for this ship, the actual operation and use of the ship still depend on these two shipping companies.

Therefore, many design and performance indicators also need to refer to their opinions.

In the end, after many rounds of talks, the parties finally finalized the cooperation plan this time, and decided to order a total of twelve ships, with a full load displacement of [-] tons, and a refrigerated transport ship that can transport [-] tons of refrigerated goods at a time.

The first two ships are expected to be delivered in December next year, and will be delivered to Pacific Shipping Company and Jiangnan Shipping Company for operation.

By that time, after a year of preparation, the Animal Husbandry Corporation will also prepare relevant meat supplies in North America.

The most optimistic estimate is that in the early spring of the next year, the first batch of frozen meat for commercial operation will set sail from Jinshan Port and finally arrive at Songjiang Port.

During this period, the navy will use their only frozen supply ship that has been in service to carry out multi-faceted, multi-level large-scale frozen transportation missions, and conduct various experiments along the way...

If all goes well, then from the next year, the empire will officially import frozen meat and even fresh fruits from overseas on a large scale, which is not easy to transport and preserve, so as to increase the supply of meat and fruits for the empire.

Moreover, the scale of transportation will gradually increase. After five years, the top management of the empire hopes to establish a complete set of frozen transportation systems covering the Americas, Europe, Africa, India, Australia and many other regions, so as to import a large amount of frozen meat and fresh fruits to the empire. food.

Make due contributions to the empire's food supply, and help the empire reach its five-year strategic goal of [-] kilograms of grain per capita!

However, although the supply of meat is also very important, importing overseas meat by refrigerated transport ships... To some extent, it is just icing on the cake.

After all, it is estimated that [-] million people in the mainland will go there in five years... and after five years, dozens of refrigerated transport ships will be killed, and they will not be able to feed [-] million people!
To solve the food problem, we must mainly rely on the expansion of domestic grain production and large-scale imports of wheat, rice and other grains from overseas.

There is no need to talk about expanding domestic food production.

And if you import food from overseas, its scale can easily increase, and transportation is more convenient and much cheaper than meat!

Because goods such as wheat and rice are transported by sea, there is no need for any special refrigerated transport ships, ordinary freighters will do.

Not to mention special cargo ships, many ocean-going passenger ships going overseas nowadays do not have many customers when they return, so they often act as cargo ships temporarily when they return...the warehouses at the bottom are filled with various agricultural products And industrial raw materials back home.

Foods such as wheat and rice are also one of them.

What the empire needs to do in the future is to further expand the overseas food supply... At the same time, it must also find ways to reduce the transportation cost of food.

(End of this chapter)