I want to be emperor

Chapter 937 Air Conditioning
With the official promulgation of the grain production support plan in the autumn of the 40th year of Chengshun, a wave of development once again set off within the Dachu Empire.

The most direct thing is to further develop the land and obtain more farmland!

Plans to increase cultivated land are mainly concentrated in the northern and western regions, because currently only these places have vast areas, sparsely populated areas, and are easy to develop.

Like some Nanyang region. Those places seem to be very good, with fertile land and abundant rain. However, it is precisely because of too much rain that floods are extremely prone to occur. If you want to carry out large-scale agricultural development, you must first There must be enough water conservancy facilities.

Otherwise, if you sow seeds on the front foot, there will be a flood on the back foot... Then what else is there to develop?

The most specific ones are the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta. Logically speaking, the geographical environment of these two places is very good, but the floods are too common. The Chu Empire controlled and immigrated these places for nearly 20 years and invested a huge amount of money. The construction of various water conservancy facilities eventually turned these two places into grain-producing areas.

The investment is too big, even if the empire is so powerful, it cannot sustain it... After all, the empire has many areas that need to be developed, and there are many places where money needs to be spent. It is impossible to invest a lot of money in these two places alone.

In addition, there are many island areas such as the Luzon Islands, Borneo, and the East Indies... These places are subject to continuous typhoons and rains in summer and autumn. The climate conditions can be said to be quite harsh, which also makes many places look good. But in fact, it is difficult to develop and grow food on a large scale.

On the contrary, some places in the north and west seem barren and have little connection with the land of plenty. However, they are easier to develop and carry out large-scale planting to become important food-producing areas.

The Northeastern region and the Monan region are very typical examples... The Northeastern region, especially the northern Liaoning and Heishui provinces, when people hear this name, they subconsciously think that these places are bitter cold places, well, in the country This was indeed the case in previous periods.

However, after the imperial dynasty took control of these places, they carried out large-scale agricultural development, and introduced horse farming and even mechanized farming. Many places in these two provinces, especially several plain areas, became grain-producing areas. The grain output The scale is huge and the per capita grain output is extremely high.

In the contemporary Chu Empire, the Northeast region, relying on these great plains, has become the largest and most important grain-producing area in the Chu Empire.

Its total grain output has even exceeded that of Jiangnan Province, which is a fact that surprises many people.

In addition to the Northeastern region, the Monan region, which has been developed on a large scale by the empire in the past ten years, has also seen its grain output increase rapidly and has become the empire's main grain-producing area...

This is also nonsense in the eyes of ordinary people. Isn’t this Monan a grassland? You want to say that it is normal to engage in animal husbandry, but how come it has become a grain-producing area?
But this is the fact. In the eastern part of Monan Province, places such as Tongliao and Chifeng are also very good grain-producing areas... In fact, strictly speaking, this place actually belongs to the traditional meaning in terms of geographical location. Northeastern region.

Today, 40 years after Chengshun, the black soil in the entire pan-northeast region has become the most important grain-producing area in the Chu Empire, second only to the Central Plains region.

At the same time, this place was also the most important grain exporting place in the Chu Empire. Because the area was generally sparsely populated, and horse farming and mechanization were adopted on a large scale, the per capita grain output was extremely high.

The empire's grain production support plan is to continue to focus on supporting the Central Plains and Northeast China, the two main traditional grain producing areas.

At the same time, efforts will be made to develop food in southern Siberia and Central Asia, such as the Yining region, and later Novosibirsk Oblast...

However, the development time of grain in these places is relatively short, and due to factors such as relatively high land transportation costs, the grain in these places mainly supplies the western region's own needs, instead of the previous need, which also needs to be transported from the Central Plains and other regions through the East-West Railway. Transport food there.

In addition to the continued large-scale development in the above-mentioned areas, development activities have not stopped in other places, such as the Huguang area.

In the Great Chu Empire, the Huguang area has evolved into two provinces and one prefecture, Northern Chu, Southern Chu and Han Tianfu. However, as a geographical concept, the Huguang area still applies.

In the pre-Ming Dynasty, the Huguang area had become a relatively important grain producing area, but due to factors such as population and development intensity, the impact was not significant.

However, after entering the era of the Great Chu Empire, the Huguang area was the first area to be developed on a large scale in the Great Chu Empire. Large-scale water conservancy facility construction and development and immigration were carried out very early on.

Nowadays, the food supply in Huguang area has also been rising steadily, and it has become a food exporting place. However, the local population is also growing rapidly, so the food exported to the outside world is not much.

In addition to the Huguang area, grain development in Sichuan, Shandong, and even some mountainous provinces in the south, such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, Yunnan and Guizhou, is also continuing.

Today, when agricultural technology is limited, especially when industrial mass production of chemical fertilizers is still not possible, if the Chu Empire wants to increase food production, it can only rely on the amount of cultivated land.

The above mentioned are all native areas, including Siberia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and other regions. These places are all native areas in the traditional sense.

In overseas areas, food development is mainly concentrated in the Americas, especially North America.

With the gradual eastward expansion of the East-West Railway in the Americas, the opening of immigration routes that bypassed the Cape of Good Hope in Africa and went directly north along the Atlantic Ocean to eastern America, immigrants from the Chu Empire began to pour into central and eastern North America in large numbers.

In a series of European wars in recent years, they have successively obtained their American colonies from European countries such as Portugal, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom.

In other words, by the autumn of the 40th year of Chengshun, the entire American region has become the overseas territory of the Chu Empire, and it is not a colonial model, but a directly subordinate territory model.

The Da Chu Empire will continue to immigrate to the Americas, and the scale of immigration is very large. In the 39 years of Chengshun alone, there have been more than 200 million new immigrants, seeking to seek opportunities in North and South America through official immigration, self-funded immigration, etc. own new life.

However, these 200 million immigrants may seem like a lot, but in fact there are not many in the flat and vast North and South America...

Until now, the number of people in the Chu Empire in the Americas is only over 1000 million, and most of them are concentrated in the central and western regions of North America. The population in the most fertile eastern North America is still relatively small.

This also means that the development potential of the Americas is huge. North America alone can accommodate at least hundreds of millions of immigrants, and after large-scale development of local farmland resources, massive amounts of food can be produced and imported into the local area.

The American region is the solid foundation for the Chu Empire to take off again, and it is also the retreat for many people at the bottom of the Chu Empire.

Every year, 200 million poor people run to the Americas to live a better life after failing to survive in their homeland.

And as long as you overcome the psychological barrier of living thousands of miles away from home in the Americas, and don't mess around when you get there, you can still live a good life, at least better than being an ordinary farmer or worker back home.

In many places in the mainland, because land resources are limited and land sales are restricted, your family only has so much farmland, regardless of whether you have money or not. It is not a big problem if you want to support your family on the land, but if you want to To make a fortune by focusing on land is purely delusional.

However, it is different in overseas places like the Americas. In these places, because there is not much land... well, although most of the time you need to join the militia to snatch the land from the hands of the local indigenous tribes.

Therefore, although land in overseas areas cannot be bought and sold privately, there are no big restrictions on buying or renting land from the government.

An ordinary family of several people can easily obtain hundreds of acres of land for free. This is the basic treatment for new immigrants in many overseas territories. The land is all free and free of charge. There is only one condition, that is, it cannot be abandoned within a few years. If it is abandoned, will be taken back.

If you have money left over, for example, if you have a large family and can afford to buy more plow horses or even tractors to carry out large-scale horse plowing or even mechanized planting, you can also apply to buy or rent more land... The price is also very cheap.

In a word, as long as you can cultivate so much land, then the government will dare to open up supply to you!
Except that land cannot be traded privately and can only be purchased or sold to the government to prevent disorderly and malicious annexation of land by capital, there are basically no other restrictions... Of course, in addition to the agricultural tax exemption for the first one or two years, subsequent agricultural taxes still have to be paid. Not even a copper penny is missing.

This is a tax principle!

The land and output obtained by farmers in overseas areas are much better than those in the mainland... Many places in the mainland have more people and less land, especially in some mountainous provinces, such as Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangxi. The average per capita is more than ten acres, but the difference is Some places only have a few acres of land per person.

In overseas directly-administered territories, the average per capita area basically starts from dozens of acres or even hundreds of acres.

The above only refers to private land, which farmers have ownership of and can pass on to future generations... although these lands cannot be freely traded privately and can only be sold to or purchased from the government.

In the agricultural field of the Da Chu Empire, in addition to the farmer groups as a family unit, there was also an agricultural company.These agricultural companies rent large amounts of land from the government, and then carry out mechanized farming to produce food or cash crops, or add some livestock farming to obtain profit income.

This kind of agricultural company first appeared on a large scale in the Northeast region, then began to appear in the Western region, and finally appeared widely in overseas regions.

There are many agricultural companies in the Americas that directly lease tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of acres of land from the government for farming and development.

These are still relatively normal operations in overseas directly administered territories, including colonies.

There are also some agricultural companies active in indigenous-controlled areas that are not very formal... Many of the plantations they run are illegal in imperial-controlled areas... such as the use of indentured labor, free labor, and violent suppression Wait, basically the same virtues as the European colonists of the same period.

However, the Chu Empire has always paid no attention to these agricultural companies or other institutions or even individuals in the indigenous controlled areas. If you mess around in the indigenous controlled areas, you may even violate the imperial laws (the dual principle of imperial laws regarding persons and territories, Chu State Even in aboriginal-controlled areas, people theoretically cannot violate imperial laws, but theories are just theories. In fact, the empire's judicial institutions don't know what the Chu people did in aboriginal-controlled areas, and they don't bother to know...)
Regarding these Chu people who are fooling around in the indigenous-controlled areas, the official attitude of the empire has always been that as long as you do not violate the interests of the empire, such as secretly smuggling some sensitive materials, especially advanced weapons and sensitive equipment, to the indigenous people, or assisting If the natives resist the empire, then the empire won't bother to care about you... and it won't provide you with any protection.

After all, there are too many Chu people hanging out, and many of them are not law-abiding people. These scum go to the indigenous-controlled areas to mess around. If something happens, they will need official protection from the empire, then The empire doesn’t need to do anything else, it just wipes their butts every day.

Therefore, the empire's attitude towards these people has always been clear: they belong to heaven, and they are not supported or encouraged.

Of course, this is all limited to small fights. If you are capable and kill the king of a small indigenous country, the official will follow suit and set up a colonial government there and recognize you to a certain extent. Interests.

Another example is that your strength is too bad and you are beaten by the indigenous people in the area controlled by the indigenous people... and there are too many casualties. If hundreds or thousands of people die, then the imperial officials will not pretend that they did not see it, but will simply send troops to take revenge... Of course, don't expect the government to give you a good look as a loser, let alone benefits. It's good that you are not asked to bear military expenses.

There are actually quite a few agricultural development companies in the empire, including directly administered territories, colonies, and indigenous-controlled areas. A few of them are very powerful. They have very large farms or plantations in many areas. In colonies and indigenous-controlled areas, Agricultural development companies in the plantations in the area generally have armed security personnel, who can wipe out some small-scale indigenous nations at first glance.

These agricultural development companies were also an important part of the empire's food supply.

The food supply of the Dachu Empire was composed of both farmers and agricultural companies, which together provided the empire with massive amounts of food.

And the massive amounts of food are not just grown, they also need to be transported to places where food is needed. In particular, the transportation of overseas food back to the mainland is a top priority.

Overseas areas basically have fewer people and more land. Although the total grain output cannot be compared with that of the mainland, it cannot be compared to the fact that overseas territories have more food output and less consumption, so they can import a large amount of food to the mainland.

These imported grains from overseas have become an important food supplement for local areas.

In order to transport these overseas grains back to the mainland at a low cost, the grain production support plan also includes redirected grain transportation subsidies. This kind of subsidy does not mean direct cash payments, but is mainly subsidized by reducing relevant taxes and fees and tax refunds.

In order to reduce food transportation costs!

At the same time, the scope of subsidies is not limited to ordinary grains such as rice, wheat, and corn, but also includes meat transportation subsidies.

Meat transportation subsidies are specially implemented based on the development of refrigerated transport ships developed by the Chu Empire in recent years to transport frozen meat from overseas to the mainland.

The shipping industry of the Dachu Empire developed refrigerated transport ships based on the navy's refrigerated supply ships. Several early trial transportations were relatively successful, but there was still the problem of relatively high refrigerated transportation costs.

After all, the refrigerated transport ships required for refrigerated transportation are much more expensive than conventional transport ships. At the same time, in addition to the conventional shipping costs, there are also refrigeration costs during the transportation process...

After all, meat must be kept at a low temperature for a long time to prevent it from spoiling, and maintaining a low temperature also costs money.

Even if the frozen transport ship transports tens of thousands of tons, it can spread the cost evenly, but it is still relatively expensive. This also makes the import of frozen meat have begun, but it is limited by many factors such as refrigerated transportation costs and storage costs. Overall, The scale is relatively small, and we can only use some relatively expensive meat for transportation.

To this end, the empire subsidized the transportation of frozen meat through a grain production support program.

First, subsidies will be provided for the construction of refrigerated transport ships, then subsidies will be provided for the transportation of frozen meat, and subsidies will be provided for the construction of infrastructure such as refrigerated warehouses.

Strive to reduce the cost of refrigerated transportation to a certain level in a short period of time, so that a large amount of overseas meat can be imported into the country to enrich people's dining tables.

At the same time, through this large-scale transportation, the cost is further spread...

The unit price of building one refrigerated transport ship is very different from the average unit price of building ten or one hundred ships... The same goes for infrastructure such as refrigerated warehouses.

At the same time, the scale increases and the costs are shared equally. It can also stimulate the market to promote the development of better and cheaper related equipment and reduce transportation costs through technological improvements.

And this series of support programs directly benefited the Dachu Empire Animal Husbandry Corporation and several cooperative shipping companies... In the early stage, in order to carry out frozen meat transportation, explore experience, and set a model for the market, that was What a loss... Not even one-tenth of the basic investment in huge refrigerated transport ships and refrigerated warehouses has been recovered.

However, Songjiang Naval Shipyard and Songjiang Bell Refrigeration Company have gained huge profits from it... Although refrigerated transportation is not profitable these days, the shipyard that builds refrigerated transport ships and the Bell Company that builds refrigeration machines are not at all. Earn less.

With the introduction of such supportive policies, orders for refrigerated transport ships will definitely surge in the future, and these two companies will inevitably receive more orders.

Especially Songjiang Bell Company. Until now, they are still the only manufacturer that can provide mature and reliable ultra-large ship refrigeration equipment. At the same time, some other ordinary small and medium-sized refrigeration equipment technologies are also quite good.

Its products are widely supplied to professional refrigerated transport ships, ordinary ships, refrigerated warehouses, factories with low temperature requirements and many other industries, with a market share of more than 90.00% and a profit share of [-]%.

Because several other latecomers can only drink tasteless soup, and they are all in a state of loss...

Songjiang Bell Refrigeration Company has made a lot of money in recent years, making a lot of money.

After making money, it continued to invest in research and development, and has now launched a newer generation of products. This makes several other companies that subsequently enter the refrigeration field see no hope of catching up... Bell's refrigeration technology is too strong, and it controls many The basic patent of refrigeration equipment further increases the difficulty for latecomers to enter this market.

If you want to enter the refrigeration market, let alone other things, you must first bypass Songjiang Bell Refrigeration Company's many basic patents in the refrigeration field.

And basic patents are not so easy to get around.

However, the explosion of the refrigeration market, broad market prospects, and huge profits have also prompted many domestic companies to focus on the refrigeration market. Even if they continue to lose money and research and development is a bottomless pit, they must bite the bullet and continue, otherwise, the future The investment will be in vain, and the market will be completely lost.

At the same time, the influx of these latecomers has also brought more funds to the industry, making the refrigeration industry no longer a super unpopular industry with only one manufacturer, but has evolved into four or five manufacturers with mass-produced products. In addition There is also a small-scale industry with more than a dozen manufacturers under development.

Although the overall industry market is still relatively small, the prospects are very promising, especially when Songjiang Bell Company was officially listed on the Songjiang Stock Exchange in June 40. The prospectus revealed that their company was already developing research and development to improve efficiency. It is higher, more reliable and stable, and uses a new generation of steam-powered compression refrigeration equipment with lower cost. Based on the new generation of compression refrigeration equipment, we develop air temperature conditioning equipment specifically for office buildings, professional factories and other refrigeration scenarios, referred to as air conditioners. .

This plan has made people more aware of the huge potential market for refrigeration equipment... There are so many office buildings and professional manufacturers that require air conditioning...

For example, those high-rise buildings that keep popping up in Songjiang City... such expensive buildings have been repaired, and expensive hydraulic elevators have been used, and they are not short of money for a set of central air conditioners.

What makes those investors even more imaginative is that the refrigeration equipment required for these shipboard, industrial and even office scenes is just a niche. In the future, there will be even larger-scale home scene refrigeration that can cultivate a giant industry. Equipment requirements.

There are hundreds of millions of people in this empire. If every family uses a compression refrigeration air conditioner, there will be a demand for hundreds of millions of units... That is a huge market of billions or even tens of billions. !
Although compression refrigeration equipment currently powered by steam engines is too difficult to be miniaturized and low-cost, and it is almost impossible to directly apply it to home scenarios, but what about the future?
Just because it doesn’t work now doesn’t mean it won’t work in the future!
In this industry with broad market prospects, if you don’t carry out technology research and development in advance, it will be too late for you to get into it when others come up with practical household refrigeration equipment... because at that time, the first echelon in front will Your refrigeration manufacturer will probably have to apply for a lot of patents in the refrigeration field, creating countless patent obstacles that no latecomers will be able to get around!
Otherwise, how could they continue to throw money at it when they continue to lose money and research and development is like a bottomless pit?

A vast blue ocean market that has not been developed before, this is what they want!
(End of this chapter)