Lord of the Desert

Chapter 409 Junchi
Two days later, it was August 8th.

Fengjiazhuang is five miles southwest of Xijing City.

This village is the largest gathering place for carriage workshops within hundreds of miles, with more than a dozen large and small craftsmen and merchants.

Starting from the end of July, Hong Fan sent people to acquire four adjacent companies one by one, and after the merger, they changed the name to Junchixing.

"You used to mainly make ordinary two-wheeled carriages, but Junchixing doesn't make those ordinary products."

Hong Fan said with his hands behind his back, pointing to the huge four-wheeled carriage that stretched across the warehouse.

There is a leaping horse logo on the front and rear steel frames of the carriage - from its size and demeanor, it can be seen that it is designed based on the charred-tailed tiger-eating beast.

"This is the first major product we will make in the future. You can take a look at it for yourself first."

Hong Fan said as he moved aside.

Qian Hong, four master coaches from the carriage shop, and Master Lu Yun, Yan Yulin, and Yuan Xuesong gathered around.

Over the past few years, the businesses under Hong Fan's name have expanded more and more widely. Among them, Tianhe Bank uses the He family's team, Kaiming Bank uses the Qizuojian team, and he plans to use the Hong family's team for the largest and most important Tiannan Bank that is under preparation.

But the problem caused by expanding too quickly and in too many directions is that there are not enough people - even if Hong Fan is full of energy, most of his time must be spent on martial arts, and he cannot do many things at the same time.

Fortunately, the newly established Junchihang was small in scale in the short term and had no key business, so he found three brothers who had some family background in Tiqi to form a partnership.

Of course, in the early stage of starting a business, everything has to start from scratch, so Qian Hongxian still needs to focus on the management.

A quarter of an hour later, when everyone had a general idea, Hong Fan began to explain it himself.

Compared with Dahua's traditional wooden two-wheeled carriage, the new product he designed uses many breakthrough technologies.

For example, the four-wheel structure brings huge cabin space and stability.

For example, axles and wheels made of all steel can increase the load-bearing capacity several times and greatly increase durability and safety.

For example, the high-elasticity steel leaf spring shock absorber obtained by a special quenching and tempering method, although heavier, stiffer and less comfortable than the more advanced alloy steel springs, is more than ten times better than the traditional carriage with rigid connections.
In addition, Hong Fan also re-derived the Ackerman steering geometry (in order to solve the geometry of the different centers of the inner and outer steering wheel paths when the vehicle turns), and designed a quadrilateral steering linkage based on it...

Even though we tried to keep it as concise as possible, the new technology of this carriage had already been discussed for half an hour.

During this time, Qian Hong nodded repeatedly, fascinated by the speech.

Although several master chefs could not fully understand the theory, they were able to realize its epoch-making performance.

As for Master Lu Yun and the others, they just let it go in one ear and out the other, and at best they only recognized the appearance.

"The team at Kaiminghang has calculated the current design, and the cost of a basic model is no less than 100 taels."

After talking about technology, Hong Fan started talking about cost.

"But I just opened a metallurgical business. By using our own steel, we can reduce the cost to at least eighty taels."

"I plan to set the price of the basic model at three hundred taels. If there is market demand, we can also launch some high-end versions with more materials - such as high-grit polishing, soft-covering of the cabin, lengthening the body, and even adding some gold, silver and gemstones - the price of these high-end versions cannot be less than five hundred taels."

The most important thing for a brand is positioning, which is to integrate resources to occupy the minds of consumers.

Hong Fan intends to move Junchi towards the luxury direction, so the price is used to set the tone for the brand.

Several Tiqi riders didn't understand the technology, but at least they understood the price.

“An ordinary carriage on the market only costs fifty taels. Our carriage is magnificent, but isn’t it too expensive to sell it for three hundred taels?

Master Lu Yun hesitated.

“That’s how business works.”

Hong Fan laughed.

"I have what others don't, so I can sell it at a high price. Haven't you seen that those martial arts pills are much easier to make than these stupid things?"

"That's why I'm looking for you guys to partner with me."

As he spoke, he patted Master Lu Yun on the shoulder.

"My business is a bit too big now, and I don't have many people to use. Your family has some useful descendants who can support Junchixing."

"In addition, the three of you have inherited titles in your families. You are familiar with the rich young ladies in the upper class circles of Xijing. You are knowledgeable and have tastes. It would be much easier to promote these precious items."

Although what he said was true, Master Lu Yun was still a little hesitant, as if he was worried that he might not do it well, while Yuan Xuesong on the side nodded vigorously, obviously enjoying it very much.

After showing the basic version of the carriage inside and out, Hong Fan added a promotional plan.

"According to my idea, the first batch of six high-end products will be made, and then they will be given to Lord Wu Zheng, Shura Sect's Chief Yuan, Lord Zhuang of the Weaponry Department, Admiral Xu of the Martial Academy, and the eldest and second masters of the He family."

After hearing these words, Master Lu Yun suddenly felt a toothache.

"Doesn't that mean we have to give away three thousand taels at once?" He said with a bitter face, and Yan Yulin and Yuan Xuesong beside him kept nodding.

Hong Fan knew the situation of these three friends very well - they were from declining noble families, and even though each of them believed in Hong Fan, they each scraped together all their savings to come up with a total of 3,000 taels of silver, which barely accounted for 30% of the capital.

"Don't worry, I mean to give those six people a free ride, but Junchi Bank doesn't have to pay for the ride."

Hong Fan waved his hand and looked at Qian Hong.

"Old Qian, when the time comes to hand over the car, you can go to Wenzhong Temple. The money will be settled through Tiannanxing."

"As for the reason, it's called shareholder benefits - anyway, there's a lot of cash in the account, and it can't be spent all at once."

Qian Hong nodded and took note of Junchixing's first big business, while the three Tiqi were stunned.

"Ah, isn't this a bad idea?"

Master Lu Yun is a student of Ai Dao.

He has always been indebted to Hong Fan and feels embarrassed to take advantage of him.

But the latter didn't care.

"It's okay. This is called the majority shareholder damaging the interests of the minority shareholders. It's inevitable for any business. Who told me that I have fewer shares over there and more shares over here?"

Hong Fan made a joke.

After explaining the main matters, he had just sent Lu Yanyuan and the others out when he remembered some details and turned back to look for Qian Hong.

"This carriage requires a lot of screws and nuts, and it is too inefficient to make them manually using the wooden lathes that Dahua has."

Hong Fan gave detailed instructions.

"Within three days, I will try my best to give you the blueprints. Go back and arrange for the people at Jincimen to make a lathe made entirely of steel. This will greatly improve efficiency..."

As he said this, he thought about the upcoming "Burning Codex", the research and development of field shotguns at Kaimingxing, the preparation of facilities and production lines at Tiannanxing, and other matters, and couldn't help feeling overwhelmed and overwhelmed.

After traveling through time for about three years, Hong Fan had never experienced such a busyness that even squeezed out his sleep time.

At this time, he felt more and more that the people of Jincimen were a treasure given by God.

Just three days ago, Hong Fan took the blueprint and directed several Jinci disciples to hand-make the sample car used today. Not only were the dimensions exact, but the different parts were seamlessly integrated without even nails and screws, saving several times or even dozens of times the effort required by traditional blacksmiths.

Warriors have great abilities.

But Hong Fan did not want the system he would establish in the future to rely entirely on martial arts.

Warriors are naturally rare.

His goal was to build a system that could be independently operated by mortals, and embed warriors into it as technical plug-ins.

Of course, this is still a distant possibility at the moment.

"How many gold-magnetic warriors have we recruited now?"

Hong Fan asked.

"There are twelve of us."

Qian Honghui.

This progress was slower than Hong Fan had expected.

The martial arts inherited by the Jinci Sect are not very profound and are a typical style of martial arts that is easy to enter and easy to exit.

Normally, those with a clean background only need to pay two hundred taels of tuition to become an outer disciple, and the better the qualifications, the cheaper it is.

Unless someone like Cao Hanhai is accepted as a disciple by the headmaster or elders, ordinary disciples will automatically leave the mountain if they fail to reach the state of utmost perfection after seven years of study - this means that Kaimingxing should be able to recruit people easily as long as it offers suitable conditions.

"In the past few months, the Jinci Gate has been short of staff and even wants to recall a few people from the Kaiming Bank."

Qian Hong saw Hong Fan's expression and explained himself.

"From what I know, they have been quite unlucky this year, and recently they have had conflicts with the Jiang family."

Two men walked out of the gate of Junchixing, one returned to the city, and the other rode a horse to Kaimingxing.

"I'll take care of this matter."

Hong Fan nodded, stood up and flew away on Sand Wings.

(End of this chapter)