A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 543 The boss arrives

Xiamen Island was not developed much in the early years of the Republic of China. The urban area was only three or four square kilometers, almost as big as two Gulangyu Islands.

After Li Yu landed on Xiamen Island, he quickly found Tan Kah Kee.

He has just established Jimei Primary School, the first school in the Jimei education system.

In order to start school as soon as possible, Tan Kah Kee first used local ancestral halls and old buildings, and more than 130 students were enrolled.

Standing outside the school building, Tan Kah Kee said to Li Yu: "I used the new textbook compiled by the Commercial Press with reference to your lecture notes. I really like these books with punctuation marks. The earlier students are exposed to it, the easier it will be for them to accept it."

"Education must start from childhood," Li Yu said, and then asked curiously, "Is Mr. Chen planning to run a boys' primary school? Why are there no female students?"

"I also want to recruit female students," Tan Kah Kee said helplessly, "but everyone still has the old idea that 'it is virtue for a woman to have no talent' in their minds, and they are not willing to let girls go to school at all."

Li Yu said: "Then tell them that there is already a girls' school on the island next to it."

"It's useless to say it," said Tan Kah Kee. "Even if the girl's parents agree, the grandparents may not agree. If the grandparents agree, the groom's family may not be willing to marry the baby."

"So much involved?" Li Yu said.

Tan Kah Kee said: "It may be that the groom's family is afraid that the girl will be educated and difficult to discipline."

Lu Bicheng couldn't bear to hear this argument the most: "Isn't this a clear statement that girls are being restrained by not allowing them to receive an education?"

"No!" said Tan Kah Kee's wife Wang Bilian, "So these people actually understand a little bit of truth."

"It's a pity that I don't understand much, only a little." Li Yu sighed.

Tan Kah Kee said: "It will be impossible to build a girls' school for a while. I can only ask my wife to go door-to-door to persuade. When more people are willing to send girls to school, we will build a girls' school."

Li Yu said: "Elementary schools are divided into boys' and girls' schools, and they are compulsory schools, so the investment will be doubled."

"Primary schools don't cost much, and there are several schools," Tan Kah Kee said. "What I'm worried about is the university. I inspected it in Shanghai. The Shucai brothers spent millions on building a university in a few years."

Li Yu said: "That's true."

"We'll see then," Tan Kah Kee chose to put aside these issues for the time being. "It will take a few years to build the middle school. Maybe we can raise funds from Nanyang by then."

Li Yu said: "If necessary, Mr. Chen can contact me at any time."

"Money is not an issue," Tan Kah Kee said with confidence, "but it is still possible to ask you to help with teaching staff."

Li Yu immediately agreed: "Just speak up."

In fact, historically, when Tan Kah Kee built Xiamen University, his fundraising efforts in Nanyang did not go smoothly. A wealthy overseas Chinese businessman even said bluntly: "I would rather have an inheritance tax of 4000 million levied by the British authorities after my death than spend a penny."

Tan Kah Kee took Li Yu to see his newly built canning factory. Although Li Yu was not optimistic about the canning industry, Tan Kah Kee had been immersed in the food industry for many years, so at least he would not lose money.

Before leaving, Li Yu donated a wireless telegraph machine to Tan Kah Kee so that he could obtain the latest information before returning to Shanghai.

Lu Bicheng was still thinking about her little girl on Gulangyu Island on the ship, "I hope the southern climate will allow her to slowly recover."

"There are relatively advanced hospitals on the island, and physical examinations every six months can reduce major problems." Li Yu comforted.

Lu Bicheng looked at the south and said, "I just hope everything goes well."

In order to entertain himself on the ship, Li Yu bought some books and newspapers, and read an article by Yan Fu about the Republic System in the newspaper.

He believes in the article that among the countries that currently adopt republican systems in the world, the small countries in South America are rising and falling, and are insignificant. Only the United States and France are two big countries that stand firm and have enough power to influence the world.

China's future after adopting a republican system is uncertain. Perhaps God will bless China and it will become the third successful republic after the United States and France, shocking the world; perhaps it will plummet even to the point where it will be worse than India, which became a British colony.

Li Yu couldn't help laughing after reading it - as early as the first year of the founding of the Republic of China, the domestic elite had never taken India seriously.

It's a pity that Ah San, the future generation, has always compared us to our standards, but he has never been looked at in the eyes at all.

Mumbai thinks about having trouble with Shanghai every day. In fact, the Xiamen Island that Li Yu just left is enough for it to drink from.

Well, by the way, Xiamen Island is indeed quite strong. Its area is twice that of Hong Kong Island, its population is larger, and its economy is not much worse.

As for Mumbai... let’s wait and see when the Dharavi slums can be solved.

Lu Bicheng also saw this article and said, "I met Master Yan once before leaving Beijing."

"How is he doing recently?" Li Yu asked.

"You don't look too good," Lu Bicheng said. "Master Yan really likes his job as the president of Peking University and has devoted a lot for it. Unexpectedly, he ended up resigning sadly."

Li Yu said: "It is indeed a pity. Without Master Yan, Peking University might have been disbanded long ago and would not have been able to operate at all."

At that time, the Ministry of Education, led by Cai Yuanpei, had a serious dispute with Yan Fu about Peking University. The Ministry of Education even wanted to cancel Peking University and proposed a motion to suspend it at the Ministry of Education conference.

Li Yu can understand the reasons of the Ministry of Education: they believe that from the opening of Peking University to the end of the Qing Dynasty for more than ten years, although the number of student classes increased, there were no achievements at all; after the change of the state system, all walks of life expressed dissatisfaction with the school. It will also cost about 200,000 yuan.

In the early years of the Republic of China, Li Yu, a student at Peking University, had seen things like never attending classes, eating, drinking, gambling, smoking opium, and having concubines. In short, the atmosphere was chaotic and the social impact was really not good.

Yan Fu was naturally aware of the bad habits of the students, but he believed that this was not a reason to close the school because the students were all former students and not newly recruited after the change of the state system. As for the 200,000 yuan, it is only a drop in the bucket for the country, and it cannot be used as a reason for disbandment.

After strong protests from him and his teachers and students, Cai Yuanpei finally gave up the motion to close Peking University.

It is said that Cai Yuanpei wanted to close Peking University at this time, but later became the biggest contributor to the rise of Peking University, which is quite interesting.

Yan Fu's resignation was part of the struggle between the old and the new at Peking University and the power struggle between Cai Yuanpei's group of revolutionaries and Yuan Shikai Beiyang.

Lu Bicheng said: "I occasionally heard Master Yan complaining to himself, 'My hometown in Fujian is no longer accessible, Shanghai can't get involved, Tianjin is too disturbing, and Beijing is so dangerous. I really don't know what to do. It seems that I can only go to Qinhuangdao in the future. I can't bear to be alone'."

Li Yu asked: "Even Master Yan thinks Beijing is dangerous?"

Lu Bicheng said: "I haven't been out much in the past six months, and I can still feel the tension."

Li Yu said: "If I really go to Qinhuangdao, I will be really free and happy. When I return to Beijing, I will ask Master Yan what he means."

After that, Yan Fu became one of the "Six Gentlemen" who was most critical to Yuan Shikai's restoration, and he was almost in danger of death.

The article Li Yu read in the newspaper just now seemed to be pretentious in this regard.

-

After arriving in Shanghai, Li Yu and Lu Bicheng stayed in Yuyuan for a few days, and the ship returning from the United States arrived in Hong Kong. Li Yu personally went to the dock to greet Feng Ru, Bell, Tesla, and George Eastman.

Bell took his wife off the ship first. He pointed at the Bund and said: "This place feels a lot like London or Paris to me."

Eastman had already taken out his camera and started taking photos and records. Bell immediately pulled his wife over, stood up and said, "Take a picture of me, make sure you look handsome and younger!"

Tesla was more particular and arranged for his valet to carefully count the suitcases.

Li Yu smiled and said: "With so many things, Mr. Tesla wants to live in China for a long time?"

Tesla said: "We've come here, wouldn't it be satisfying if we didn't just have a good look at it?"

Feng Ru was most concerned about his precious aircraft. After getting off the ship, he immediately asked Li Yu: "Mr. Academician, is the aircraft factory you mentioned built in Shanghai?"

Li Yu said: "It's in Tianjin. But there will definitely be an airport for takeoff and landing in Shanghai in the future."

Feng Ru said: "It turns out he's not in Beijing either."

"Tianjin is not bad either." Li Yu.

In order to get rid of the interference of the Beiyang government to a certain extent, Li Yucai chose Tianjin. At the same time, it could promote the establishment of an airport in Tianjin as soon as possible and strengthen the transportation between Beijing and Tianjin.

Half a year later, Yuan Shikai will build Nanyuan Airport and Aviation School in Nanyuan, Beijing - this place has been prepared to be used as an airport as early as the late Qing Dynasty.

If Li Yuxuan was in Beijing, he would definitely be merged into one place. Because even a hundred years later, only a handful of cities will have two airports, not to mention that in the early years of the Republic of China, the city size of Beijing was limited to the second ring road.

Li Yuxian took a group of them to Huizhong Hotel for dinner.

As soon as he entered the hotel, Bell saw several telephones on the front desk and said to Li Yu: "Such an advanced model is already in use in Shanghai."

Li Yu said: "As early as the second year after you invented the telephone, Mr. Bell, there was a telephone in Shanghai."

Eastman was surprised: "It's so much faster than Tokyo and Mumbai!"

During the Republic of China, Shanghai had always been the leading city in Asia, very advanced and fashionable.

Li Yu smiled and said: "Not only the phone, but also the radio is the latest model."

Bell asked again: "Li, is there a phone at your residence?"

"Of course." Li Yu said.

"How much does a year's phone bill cost?" Bell asked.

"Forty yuan, almost seventy or eighty US dollars." Li Yu said.

Bell said: "The price is not as expensive as imagined."

Telephone charges in Shanghai were relatively low in the Republic of China, mainly due to promotion by telephone companies. Even for merchants, they were only ten yuan more expensive than ordinary households.

Other cities are much more expensive. For example, in Guangzhou, private installation of a telephone requires an initial installation fee of 350 yuan from the "Guangzhou Automatic Telephone Management Office", and a monthly rental fee of 6 yuan per month. At that time, the monthly salary of the mayor of Guangzhou was less than 300 yuan, and one month's salary was not enough to install a phone.

Therefore, except for government agencies and some enterprises, only very wealthy families are likely to install telephones.

As for public telephones, the charging standard is every 5 minutes. Calls of less than 5 minutes are also calculated as 5 minutes, and each charge is 0.6 yuan. For long-distance calls, the charge can be up to 5.5 yuan each time.

During the Republic of China, if you wanted to have a long-distance relationship and talk on the phone, you had to be from a top-notch family. A one-hour phone call from Shanghai to Beijing would cost tens of yuan more.

George Eastman's attention was on newspapers and the posters and photo studios he saw along the street. He said to Li Yu: "Since Shanghai is so advanced, I think I should open a Kodak camera sales company here and be responsible for the entire China." As well as business in Japan and Southeast Asia.”

"We are very welcome," Li Yu said. "You can open a flagship store on Nanjing Road."

"Flagship store?" This is the first time Eastman heard this term.

Li Yu explained: "This is the main store. You may want to open branches in other cities in the future."

"That's right!" Eastman said, "I'm optimistic about Shanghai. The radiation capability here is much stronger than Tokyo, Mumbai, and Singapore."

Li Yu said: "Bombay would be very happy to know that you compare it with the other three cities."

Eastman said: "Actually, I have never been to India, but I have met some British people who came back from India, and they said that Mumbai is very good."

Li Yu said: "In short, you must open the store as soon as possible."

"As soon as possible? Why?" Eastman asked.

"Because there may be competition." Li Yu said.

Eastman was very confident in his Kodak cameras: "I shipped several large boxes of portable cameras, enough to prepare the first batch. But I firmly believe that no one can compete with my Kodak company."

Li Yu said: "To be honest, I have contacted Leica in Germany before. They not only want to open a store, but they are even interested in building a factory in China."

Li Yu, the German wool farmer, was ready to gather as much as he could.

"Leica?!" Eastman had to pay attention after hearing the name, and immediately said, "I admit that they are very powerful, but their products do not pose a threat to me."

Li Yu said with a smile: "Germany has always had a tradition in optics. Even Professor Planck regularly teaches optics courses at the University of Berlin. Once they exert their efforts, it is really hard to say."

"I agree with what Academician Li Yu said," Bell said. "I have been obsessed with aircraft research over the years. From the news in the newspaper, it can be seen that although we Americans invented the aircraft, we are technically unable to compare with those veneers. The Germans and the arrogant French. Oh, not even the British!"

Eastman did become a little worried after hearing this: "I will start studying the plan to build a sales company in Shanghai tomorrow."

Tesla said calmly: "I knew that my husband would definitely discuss business when he came to Shanghai."

Eastman said: "Shanghai is not New York. All products can be sold here. There is no protective policy. I can only push things forward as soon as possible."

In fact, within a year, the famous Leica prototype would be born in the hands of legendary designer Oscar Barnack, completely subverting the camera industry.

He used 24×36mm photosensitive film, which gradually became the international standard and was used for a hundred years, that is, the full-frame size in cameras.

Barnack's "Iron Mine Square in Wetzlar" is one of the most classic photos in the history of film.

Unfortunately, due to the sudden arrival of World War I, the Leica prototype remained unknown in the past few years, and it was not until the end of the war that it became famous.

(End of this chapter)