When Li Lin asked for a loan, Feng Kai looked at him with wide eyes. What was he talking about?
"Borrow money?"
Emperor Zhu Da smiled.
"Tell me why you want to borrow money?"
As a university teaching assistant and a researcher in the Dynamics Research Laboratory, he is definitely not short of money. But why would he borrow money?
"Your Majesty, I, I want to make an airplane out of aluminum."
"What!"
Emperor Zhu Da looked at him in surprise. What was he talking about? Building an airplane out of aluminum was simply... too advanced.
"Your Majesty, what I mean is to use aluminum to make the engine. In the past two years, I have been studying airplanes, real airplanes, flying machines. They are powered by engines, but the current engines made of iron and copper are not practical.
It’s too heavy, so I want to build an engine out of aluminum, but aluminum is too expensive!”
Aluminum is expensive!
It’s really not cheap!
As the world's largest "aluminum exporter", Daming earns about... 50 million Ming Yuan by exporting 50 tons of aluminum every year!
This is because Daming produced a little too much aluminum, which caused the price of aluminum to drop in the international market.
Of course, this is also the limit of price reduction. After all, according to the current production methods in Europe and the United States, this price is already close to the cost price, and the profit is extremely limited. However, Daming uses...electrolytic aluminum!
This kind of "precious metal" whose price in the market is almost equivalent to one-fifth of gold is not worth much at all in Daming's secret factory. Even because the production efficiency of electrolytic aluminum is too high, in order to prevent aluminum from being put on the market in large quantities,
This affected the Ming Dynasty's gold-making plan, and thousands of tons of aluminum were stored in secret factories.
The current Ming Dynasty is like the diamond merchants of later generations. In order to prevent diamonds from devaluing overnight, monopolies deliberately hoard diamonds and are reluctant to sell them. They create artificial scarcity to ensure that the price of diamonds does not fall.
Daming also ensured the sky-high price of aluminum through hoarding and reluctance to sell, as well as strictly keeping the electrolytic aluminum method secret. For the market, aluminum is still expensive.
"Li Lin, building an airplane with aluminum is no different from building an airplane with gold, right?"
Feng Kai on the side said directly.
"An engine uses dozens of kilograms of aluminum, which costs tens of thousands of dollars. Even if it is built, what use will it have? Is it necessary to make an airplane made of gold?"
"This is an attempt to make an engine out of aluminum, reduce the weight of the engine, and then install it on an airplane. As long as it can fly, it can at least prove that our idea is right. All we lack now is an engine.
!”
When Li Lin finished speaking, Emperor Zhu thought for a while and then said.
“It’s not impossible to build airplanes out of gold!”
What!
Li Lin and Feng Kai both looked at His Majesty in surprise. What is Your Majesty talking about?
Use, use gold to build airplanes!
"Doing scientific research means having the courage to try. Even if you spend a little more money, it doesn't matter. Besides, it's only a few hundred kilograms of aluminum. I can still afford this amount of money, so..."
After thinking about it, Emperor Zhu Da, who originally wanted to give the aluminum to them directly, said.
"I will give instructions to the Special Metallurgical Company later. How much aluminum you need can be collected directly there. As for the money, I will settle the bill with them later."
It's just aluminum. It seems very valuable on the surface, but in fact it's just a commodity. If it weren't for the fear of impacting the market, Emperor Zhu Da would have launched at least several hundred tons of aluminum every year. Unfortunately, he can only think about it. If he really did that,
Aluminum is as cheap as cabbage.
This is also the reason why Emperor Zhu Da asked them to buy it from the Special Metallurgical Company, at least on the surface, it created an illusion - the emperor paid for it, but the aluminum was still extremely expensive.
However, the trouble Li Lin and the others encountered made Emperor Zhu Da interested.
Without aluminum, there is no light engine, and without light engine, there is no airplane!
How many countries can afford aluminum aircraft now?
Even if each aircraft engine uses 100 kilograms of aluminum, 100,000 grams of aluminum is almost 100,000 yuan!
The engine alone for a small plane costs 100,000 Ming Yuan!
This is enough to put anyone off. After all, the cost of even a "Nanhua Class" is only 1.8 million yuan.
A Nanhua class can only purchase 18 toy-like aircraft. If nothing else, even this sky-high price is enough to scare the world away!
"This seems to be a good idea too!"
On the way out of the power test laboratory, Emperor Zhu Da thought a lot, and it seems that there is no need to keep the aircraft too secretive - aluminum, just relying on aluminum, can almost monopolize the production of aircraft.
There are several countries in the world that are willing to spend such high prices to manufacture those toy-like aircraft.
This is definitely a crushing of wealth. Even if those European and American countries know the existence of airplanes, what can they do? They cannot use "gold" to manufacture airplanes like the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, they can also use brigades to manufacture engines like the Ming Dynasty, but the question is, can they afford it?
But the Ming Dynasty was different. The Ming Dynasty had cheap aluminum. Even though it seemed to have spent a lot of money to build a bunch of aircraft that were as good as gold, in fact, the money was just transferred from left hand to right hand.
In fact, to a certain extent, if those European and American countries can be involved in this arms race, it will not be without benefits for Ming Dynasty.
After all, every time they build an airplane, they not only waste a lot of money. They also need to buy aluminum from Daming!
Use their real money to buy that aluminum!
In this way, do they still have sufficient financial resources to use in the navy?
In this way, the airplane will become a bloodletting tool, where their blood will be kept bleeding. And Ming Dynasty can obtain extremely generous returns from it. After all, the aluminum market has further expanded.
Isn't this just bleeding them and using their blood to transfuse myself at the same time?
This business seems to be taking off a bit.
"Fortunately, the technology is kept confidential now!"
Emperor Zhu Da thought a little smugly that until now, his electrolytic aluminum laboratory is still on the island where the naval school is located. Who could have imagined that on that naval island, there would be a "gold factory" with an annual output value of more than 50 million?
What about "mine"?
In fact, in the past few years, it was that "gold mine" that added extra fuel to the development of the Ming Dynasty. It can even be said that it contributed at least half of the credit for the early industrialization of the Ming Dynasty.
If airplanes can drive a wave of market, the benefits of this "gold mine" will be even greater by then!
"Science and technology... are such a good thing!"
This is the power of science. With a monopoly on technology, sellers can sell worthless things at sky-high prices, such as mirrors from Venice and aluminum from Ming Dynasty.
Thinking of the story about the stolen mirror-making technology in Venice, Emperor Zhu pondered for a while, and then secretly decided to strengthen the structure of the Imperial Security Bureau, after all, to fundamentally prevent the possibility of technology leakage.
Aluminum in Ming Dynasty is extremely expensive.
In fact, there are many high value-added products in Daming, such as chemical dyes, drugs, various tool steels, and alloy steels. These are high value-added products. Such products are lacking in European and American countries.
Even for the most common steel, Ming Dynasty is unique in the world. Until now, when European and American countries face the "high-speed steel cutting tools" produced by Ming Dynasty, they are not only envious, but also curious - Ming Dynasty did not pass
The patent monopolizes the supply of various alloy steels, including high-speed steel, through secrecy. Although the British Macht invented self-hardening steel as early as 1868, and chromium steel was invented in the United States in 1870.
However, Da Ming's alloy steel technology is more advanced and has already begun to produce hundreds of brands of alloy steel. The reason why Dahua Steel's profits far exceed those of its European and American counterparts is because of technology! It relies on high value-added
alloy steel,
Thinking of those high value-added industries, Emperor Zhu couldn't help but nodded heavily.
"This confidentiality work cannot be relaxed!"
This must not be relaxed. After all, confidentiality is not only related to unimaginable huge wealth, but also related to whether Ming can become the final winner in this competition!
After all, in competition between countries, there are never just winners and losers.
And no matter in any era, the loser in the competition between countries has nothing.